She served the quiche and poured us each a glass of grape juice. Then she lit a candle she had placed on the table.
"We had a French maid and she spent a lot of time teaching me. It annoyed Emma because she thought I wasn't learning it properly. I should learn it in school only. It bothered her that I could speak French and she couldn't. I remember." she said smiling. "when this boyfriend of hers came to the house and I started to speak French to him. Suddenly, he was more interested in me. and Emma was fit to be tied. He even called me for a date once. but I said no. I didn't want Emma to hate me more than she did."
"She hated you?"
"She couldn't help it." Great-aunt Frances said.
"But why?"
"Let's not talk about it. I'll teach you French, too, and someday, you'll impress everyone. You hear that song?" she asked. "That's a famous French singer. Edith Piaf. My father loved her and he loved when I could sing, too. Emma couldn't carry a tune in a suitcase." She laughed. "That's what my father told me once and right in front of her."
Haw cruel, I thought, and like a fog starting to thin out and disappear. I began to see through the clouded past and understand why my grandmother might have resented her sister, who'd been prettier, softer, more like the little girl her father had wanted. In fact. I suddenly thought Grandmother Emma was like the little 1 outside the storefront window looking in at the rich little girl inside surrounded by the things she would never have.
But why, then, had she sent me here? Had she known I would be more trouble?
Was I really what Great-aunt Frances suspected. Grandmother Emma's revenge lobbed like a ball of fire and pain from her bed of misery where she lay condemned by her own bitter heart?
Or was I somehow her plea for forgiveness?
I believed the answer waited impatiently to be heard somewhere within the shadows in this old house,
10 My First Brassiere
. After dinner, as usual. Great-aunt Frances went to watch television. She wanted to leave the dishes for the morning, but as soon as she left the kitchen. I cleaned up. Then I hurried back to my room to complete my homework so I could dig into Ian's letters again. Finally, I was able to pull out the bag of them from the closet and begin.
Dear Jordan,
Today, when they brought me to see Dr. Walker, he -wasn't in his office yet, so I had the chance to look at some of the paperwork on his desk, and I made a terribly sad discovery. Our own father is spineless. He gave them terrible lies about me and then he signed the bottom of the paper. I studied his signature carefully and made another discovery. Our father is a cockroach.
I should have known. He always ran or hid from any threat, any criticism. He looks for a safe hole and crawls in it.
I confirmed this after Dr. Walker came in, sat behind his desk and started to question me. I told him I was very saddened to realize that my father was a cowardice insect. I explained it all carefully so he would see there was no sense in trying to get me to change my mind.
"It's grandmother's fault," I told him.
"Why?" he wanted to know.
"My grandmother is a spider," I said. "She wove a web and trapped us all in it. She caught our father in the web shortly after he was born and she kept him under her control. Now that he is injured and can't even crawl away he can do nothing but what she tells them to do.
Dr. Walker looked very impressed. He nodded and took his notes and then he asked me what I thought that made me.
"You are, after all, his son, are you not?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "I'm not finished with my research about that."
"What about your sister?"
"The same, " I told him. "Let's just say the jury is still out. We are still weighing all the evidence before we decide. "
He smiled.
We then got into a long conversation about good and evil and I told him neither existed. Things are simply what they are. Is it bad that we eat cows, lamb and chicken? It's not too good for them, I said and he laughed.
"Everything that lives," I said, "lives off something else that lives, especially you,'
"Me?" He lost his smile. "In especially me?"
"You live off of me and the others here," I said. "If we didn't exist, neither could you."