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and I must have been gibbering. Stephen
    jumped onto the bed with me, and I clutched him. Even Edith looked
    frightened. I was all pulled into a ball, hugging my brother; I remem-
    ber being afraid to touch the walls or floor.
    “Hannah, what is it? What happened?”
    I said, “Something was in here.” I could hardly make my throat
    work to speak.
    “What was?”
    I said, “Rustling. Like rats.” I didn’t know how to say what I
    had seen. “A woman, crawling across the floor.”
    “Crawling?” was all Edith said. Her face had begun to change
    from alarm to something else.
    “Yes . . .” With her staring at me like that, it was hard to make
    clear what had happened. “Something got into my room. It was in the
    hall first, and Whitey growled.”
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    B E T H
    G U T C H E O N
    Stephen was pale; he knew it was true, the dog had given warn-
    ing, and he knew about the bookmark and the broken glass.
    Edith was briefly stymied. “And then what happened?”
    I told her. She looked at the rocking chair. Naturally, it was now
    utterly still.
    “A woman was crawling?” she asked again.
    “Crawling! Do you want me to show you?”
    We stared at each other. Why couldn’t she just believe me? Why
    couldn’t she for once in her life put her arms around me and say, “It’s
    all right. It’ll be all right”?
    “Do you want me to telephone someone to come search the
    house? Your grandfather?” She asked it as if we were playing a chess
    game and she had figured out her next move.
    I certainly did want him, him or someone, but I didn’t want her
    to be the one to call him. She’d make it sound as if I was crazy. I
    said, “No.”
    “Why not, if you’re frightened?”
    “He won’t find anything.”
    Edith stared at me, and I stared back, wondering what she would
    say or do. Finally she said, “Oh for the love of Pete, Hannah. I know
    you don’t like the house. I get the message. But I really have enough
    to deal with without you trying to thwart me every step of the way.”
    I was dumbfounded. What was this? A hateful thing that could
    move through closed doors had rocked in that chair right there and
    frightened me just about into the nuthatch, and suddenly we were
    talking about whether I like her house? I did like the house. It was
    the thing we were sharing it with I had problems with.
    Edith was wearing a long quilted wrapper that made her look
    upholstered. Her graying hair was down, a somewhat alarming sight
    in itself. Her brown eyes looked tired, and the fingers of her right hand
    were stained blue; her fountain pen leaked. The thing was, Edith was
    3 4
    M O R E
    T H A N
    Y O U
    K N O W
    not a woman who liked ambiguities. She didn’t see what would be so
    bad about having your own mother die when you were too young even
    to remember her. If you didn’t remember your own mother, and you
    had another mother, and enough food and a roof over your head, why
    couldn’t you be happy with what you’d got? Why couldn’t I be, that
    is. That was the Edith position on Hannah, and I didn’t know the
    answer any more than anyone else did.
    Edith said, “Stephen, honey, go to your room.”
    Stephen looked up.
    “There’s been enough excitement for one night. Go back to bed.
    It’s late and you should be asleep.” Stephen looked at me briefly as
    if to say, Sorry; he knew she was never as hard on me when he was
    in the room as when she had me cornered. Then he climbed down and
    went out without looking back at me. I was alone with the only mother
    I had, with my heart pounding as if it would knock itself apart.
    “Hannah,” Edith said. “You used to be such an attractive little
    girl.”
    I knew it was a preamble, not a compliment. Emphasis on the
    “used to be.” She had liked me better when I was small and blond
    and cute, and people said to her, “What a lovely child.” She never
    said, “Yes, we’re proud of her,” as if she knew the compliment was
    to me; instead she made the same reply she