“It needed to be big,” I told her, as I rummaged through my desk to find the viewcubes of Bryan. “We had three children, and Grandpa Doc was always bringing home stray cats.”
“I don’t remember lots of cats,” said Gloriana doubtfully.
“It’s just a way of speaking, Glory. I mean stray people. People in need of a bed or a bath or a meal.”
“So he was nice to people.”
I found the viewstage and set it on the window seat while considering this. Yes, on the whole, he had been nice to people, sometimes even those he was furiously angry with. Glory came to stand beside me as I flicked through the views. Bryan, a sandy-haired young man smiling, his arm around a young, pregnant Margaret, who had drawn cheeks and dark circles around her eyes; Dr. Mackey, a man thinner and older, still smiling, with a strained-looking Margaret at his side and teenaged Maybelle and Mayleen at his feet. That was taken just a few weeks before Mayleen got married. Then Grandpa Doc, a gray-haired old man seated beside light-haired Grandma, smiling, always smiling.
“He doesn’t look angry,” Glory said. “You tell it like he was always angry.” She sat in the old rocking chair and touched her toe to the brick floor to make it sway. “I don’t remember Grandpa ever acting angry.”
“He almost never let it show,” I admitted. “When we lived in the big house in Crossroads, he used to go out back and chop wood until he calmed down. One of the Walled-Offs here on Tercis is called Hostility, you know? Grandpa claimed to be afraid he’d be sent there, and he said there was nothing better for getting rid of hostility than an hour with an axe and some very resistant wood.” I put my handkerchief to my face, stood up, and walked to the window, where I stared out, my back to Gloriana.
Gloriana knew I was crying. She changed the subject. “Grandma, whose fault is it that Lou Ellen’s family’s so poor?”
I cleared my throat and dabbed at my eyes. Whose fault indeed? “Start with the fact Billy Ray never really worked his land. He was too busy chasing your Aunt Mayleen, who was sixteen at the time! They got married because she was pregnant. Your mother met your father at Mayleen’s wedding, so some good came of it, even though that’s where being poor started. Since we couldn’t have stopped it without chaining Mayleen to the wall, it’s nobody’s fault.”
“Aunt Mayleen and Mama are different.”
“They have different lives. There’s a difference between having a very large family starting when you are sixteen, or having a small family after you have both an education and a livelihood.”
“Billy Ray always talks about being a farmer,” said Gloriana. “But he doesn’t even know what kind of a farmer he is. It’s always something different that doesn’t work out. But Mama and Dad are farmers, too. Sort of.”
“Your mother and dad aim lower. A few chickens for eggs, a little garden for summer vegetables, a few fruit trees for preserves and jelly. And even if they had none of that, their jobs over in Remorseful would support you and Til and Jeff.”
“So, if it weren’t for the money you give Mayleen, they’d go hungry?”
“Even with it, they go hungry,” I said angrily. “I give it for food, but they don’t spend it on food! Did you see Emmaline’s face this morning? That poor baby! I’m going to stop giving money and concentrate on cookies! Oatmeal cookies keep really well!”
“Couldn’t Uncle Billy Ray get a job that would support the family?”
“He doesn’t want a job; he wants to farm. He says he can support the family farming if things would just go right. If the universe would just cooperate, he’d make a living. Since it’s the universe at fault, nobody should blame him.”
Glory chewed on that for a while. “Anybody could say that about anything.”
I murmured, “I give thanks every day that I ended up in such a cozy little house as this one in such a lovely place as The Valley, even if Ruers are mostly a little sad and not all that interesting.”
“We’ve got some interesting people. Bamber Joy’s stepfather is sort of interesting.”
“Abe Johnson? Well, advertising for a wife isn’t all that interesting, but getting one with a half-grown boy-child, a wife who pretty soon runs off, leaving the boy-child behind, that’s rather interesting. And where in heaven’s name did she go? Rueful isn’t that big! She should have turned up somewhere.”
“Bamber Joy says he’s going to find her someday.”
I shook my head at her, warningly. “Bamber Joy. The name alone is enough to guarantee he walks a hard road, Gloriana.”
“He didn’t pick his name. I like him.”
“Your mother and I don’t mind your liking him. We just object to your getting into fistfights on his behalf.”
“He never starts them! Somebody needs to fight for him.”
“Well, you’re two of a kind.”
“Objects of derision, you mean,” Glory snapped.
“That wasn’t what I had in mind, no. You’re simply taller and a lot smarter than most of the local residents.”
Gloriana flushed. She always flushed when someone said something complimentary about her. “I have to go,” she said, getting to her feet and giving me a peck on the cheek. “I promised Lou Ellen a picnic down at the ferry pool.”
“Oh, Glory…” I said.
“Well, I promised, and she’s probably waiting for me.”
She turned and fled, out the door and away down the hill before another word could be said. I went to the door, still blotting my
