Read Online The Angry Woman Suite by Lee Fullbright - Free Book Online Page B

covered with the intricately patterned rugs Grandmother said had been in her family for eons. Grandmother loved putting my mother and aunts in their places, saying everything in Grayson House had once belonged to her mother. Everything, that is, but Lothian’s massive RCA and Mother’s portrait, which Mother had hung directly over Lothian’s RCA, if only to have something of hers topping something of Lothian’s was my best guess.
    The night of my first disastrous day of school, in the biggest of our two parlors, I stretched out on one of Grandmother’s rugs while the women cleared the dishes, tracing a loop-de-loop design in the pattern, thankful that neither Earl nor Stella had told of my humiliation at school. “Off the floor, Francis,” Grandmother ordered, entering the room. The other women trailed after her, Lothian and Stella seating themselves at opposite ends of the largest mohair chesterfield, loath to sit close enough to even accidentally touch, and Mother went to the other chesterfield. Grandmother took her place in her chair, in a far corner, and then the women raised the lids of the boxes at their sides and took up their needlework.
    “Gentlemen,” Grandmother said, as I knew she would, “do not lollygag on floors.”
    Earl, sitting in a chair in his corner of the room, smirked.
    “That's right,” Lothian chimed in. “Gentlemen do not lounge, Francis. They sit in chairs. Look at Earl.”
    I didn’t want to look at Earl. I wanted to smack him. Instead I got up and sauntered over to Lothian’s RCA, knowing full well I was pushing my luck, purposely adopting an “I don’t care” stance, staring blankly at the RCA’s mesh-covered grill.
    “Don’t wander, Francis,” Grandmother reproved.
    I glanced over my shoulder and noted that the sharp planes of my mother's face had gone soft. “It’s a Waterston,” Mother murmured. I faced the RCA again, hot on the scent of this thing that had gotten Mother to notice me. But it wasn’t Lothian’s stupid RCA. I looked up.
    Mother’s portrait.
    “It’s a Waterston,” Mother repeated. I stared at this painting as if I’d never seen it before, like I suddenly, passionately cared. Waterston sounded familiar.
    “What’s that mean, being a Waterston?”
    “It means a man named Matthew Waterston painted my portrait. He was very famous. Still is, I should say. This whole area is filled with famous artists, Francis. Has been as far back as I can remember: Howard Pyle in Wilmington, N.C. Wyeth and his brood in Chadds Ford, and then Matt—”
    “That’s enough, sister,” Grandmother interrupted. Grandmother never called my mother by her given name—Magdalene. It was always “sister,” and said like she had something sour in her mouth. Her knitting needles flashed in and out of the piece she worked on, fast, like thin silver daggers, and I wondered why she didn’t stab herself with those daggers, and then I hoped she would; and then I wondered why Grandmother had said that was enough and why she wanted to switch the subject. I opened my mouth to ask Mother who Matthew Waterston was exactly, and why in the world he’d have wanted to paint a picture of her.
    Lothian cut me off. “He’s gone,” she said, not looking up from her needlework. “Matthew Waterston is gone because of your mother.”
    Interesting—mere mention of Matthew Waterston made both Lothian and Grandmother edgy.
    “Not true,” Mother said.
    “Is true. And children are to be seen, not heard,” Lothian added.
    I stared at Lothian rather pathetically, manipulating for more of Mother’s attention. Small and delicate like a doll, with skin nearly translucent, my younger aunt looked liked she might break. Her teeth were almost clear too, like old porcelain, but whiter, and I often wished she’d bite down hard on something and all those teeth would crack right off, sparing me. She had a job at the Western Union, which made her the only woman to go into East Chester on a regular