Read Her Mother's Daughter for Free Online Page B

the center of the couch, his legs dangling, swinging back and forth. Bella doesn’t notice him, doesn’t notice any of this. She has finished her bread and butter and is watching Momma scramble Poppa’s eggs. She wishes they were for her. Momma puts Poppa’s plate on the table just as Poppa comes into the dining room. He is wearing his shirt and tie, but not his vest. He sits down at the head of the table, removes his heavy linen napkin from its ring, and tucks it into his belt. He does not begin to eat until Momma comes in with the coffeepot and pours a steaming cup of rich-smelling dark brew for him. Her shoulders are a little hunched in his presence, but she is smiling at him. Momma is small and nimble and amiable. She always laughs or smiles or nods when Poppa says something. Poppa begins to eat his eggs and his three slices of bread and butter. Momma has eaten her bread standing up in the kitchen.
    Momma leaves first in the morning, running the three blocks to the tailor shop, which she opens up, so that when Poppa arrives, everything is in order. She gets her coat and tells the children to be good. She runs out the door. When Poppa is finished eating, he goes back to the bedroom. Then the servant girl clears the table and slams down the children’s bowls of oatmeal. Bella slides down from the couch and darts into the hall. She flattens herself against the wall and watches Poppa, who is standing before the mahogany-framed cheval glass adjusting his gold watch and chain across the front of his beautiful striped-satin white vest. He brushes the shoulders of his dark jacket with a fine soft brush with a tortoiseshell handle. Bella does not know the words for these objects, but she perceives their quality. Then Poppa pulls out each side of his mustache, sets his hat just so over his brow. He straightens up in the mirror. He is very fine. As he starts to turn to leave the room, Bella scurries back to the dining room and climbs up on a chair at the table.
    Her oatmeal is lumpy now. She eats around the lumps, pouring heavy cream over them until she has a kind of soup—cream with lumps—and the servant girl comes in and sees her and slaps her hand and scolds her. “Stupid Bella!” She slides down from the chair and runs away. She goes to the front room, which is rarely used and is off-limits to the children. She knows this, but she also knows that if she slips behind the lace curtain and stands very still, the servant girl will not look for her until nearly midday, when Momma will come running back home to make lunch for Poppa. Bella can see Momma running when she is a block away, and she can slip out and go to the children’s bedroom and put on her dress and shoes. The servant girl has to button them, and will slap her for dressing so late, but she is used to these slaps now.
    Momma was fat and stayed home and one night she screamed and then she got thin but she still stayed home. Bella wanted to sit on her lap, but the ladies shooed her away. They had a funeral. They were crying. A funeral was a party where ladies cried. Then Momma went away again, back to the tailor shop.
    Bella is only vaguely aware of her brothers. She does not know what Wally is doing. There are no toys in this house, no books, no paper or pencil or crayon or paints. The children’s room holds the one big bed they all sleep in and a trunk for their clothes. Sometimes when she goes in to get dressed, Wally is lying on the floor with his thumb in his mouth. He is a baby. Eddie has gone out. He goes out every day to play ball with his friends. They throw a ball at the brick side of the stationery store on the corner until the owner chases them away. Every day he chases them away, and the boys call him names as they run. Then he goes inside and gets a broom which he brandishes like a bat as he chases them. But they are small and quick and dart behind wagons and into doorways. The boys cry out, “Old man Meinie has