Mamma whispered to Mrs. Draper, and Aunt Bella whispered to Mamma:
"Fourteen." They always made a mystery about being fourteen. They ought
to have told her.
Her thoughts about her mother went up and down. Mamma was not helpless.
She was not gentle. She was not really like a wounded bird. She was
powerful and rather cruel. You could only appease her with piles of
hemmed sheets and darned stockings. If you didn't take care she would get
hold of you and never rest till she had broken you, or turned and twisted
you to her own will. She would say it was God's will. She would think it
was God's will.
They might at least have told you about the pain. The knives of pain. You
had to clench your fists till the fingernails bit into the palms. Over
the ear of the sofa cushions she could feel her hot eyes looking at her
mother with resentment.
She thought: "You had no business to have me. You had no business to have
me."
Somebody else's eyes. Somebody else's thoughts. Not yours. Not yours.
Mamma got up and leaned over you and covered you with the rug. Her white
face quivered above you in the dusk. Her mouth pushed out to yours,
making a small sound like a moan. You heard yourself cry: "Mamma, Mamma,
you are adorable!"
That was you.