Betty

by Tiffany McDaniel

  “You want to be blonde, Little Indian?” His fingers were stained purple.

  “Maybe then folks won’t ask me if I grease my skin. Maybe then they won’t call me a—”

  “Don’t say it, Betty.”

  With a plum still in his hand, he reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders. He gripped me so tight, the cooked fruit was squeezed between his palm and me. I watched its mushy insides spread out while the juice trickled, seeping into my sleeve as he shook me and demanded I never call myself what they did.

  “Do you understand me?” He seemed out of breath as if there was a million miles he was trying to close between us.

  “You don’t have to break my bones over it,” I said, shrugging out of his hands. I added a “Jesus Crimson” the way my mother would have.

  “I want you to say you’ll never call yourself what they call us.” Dad once more grabbed me hard by the shoulders. The plum in his hand was no longer whole, but now a squashed thing he held between us.

  “Okay. I won’t. You’re hurtin’ me, Dad.”

  “Sorry.” He released me. “I’m just—” He threw his arms up in the air. “Who would you be without that hair of yours? Your eyes, your skin. You wouldn’t be my Little Indian.”

  “Holey moley, it’s not a big deal. All right? I’ll wash the dandelion lotion out.”

  I forced my tears to stay behind my eyelids.

  “Besides,” I added, “it’s Fraya who should be angry. Not you.”

  “Why would she be angry?” he asked.

  “Because all of her dandelion lotion is in my hair,” I said with my guilt hovering in the back of my throat like a trapped fly. “She’ll have to wait until next spring when there’s enough blossoms to make more.”

  “Betty, why’d you go and use all her lotion like that?”

  “Everyone does things to Fraya.” I wiped my eyes with my fists. “Why the hell can’t I?”

  I grabbed an empty jar and ran out the back door to A Faraway Place. I crawled on my stomach and went under the stage. I got a pen and blank pieces of paper out of my pocket. A twig jabbed me in my chest as I wrote about Leland and what he’d done to Fraya in the barn. The bumpy ground beneath the paper caused my writing to waver and slant, but I thought it was only matching the way I was starting to see the world around me.

  Putting a period at the last sentence, I dug a hole and placed the story into the jar. Speaking the Cherokee word for plum over the jar, I screwed the lid on tight before the word had a chance to escape. Then I buried Fraya’s story beside our mother’s.

  When I climbed back out from under the stage, I stared at the barn. All the memories came flooding back. The way the hairs at Fraya’s crown had stretched so taut. The way Leland grunted more at the end. I covered my ears, but the sounds were still there. I had to start moving out of fear if I stood still any longer, I’d shatter. I started running. Thin switches cut my legs as I ran through thorny thickets and briars of the woods. A bird screeched overhead. I ran faster and thought about the eagle. I knew then what Fraya’s prayer had meant. The realization felt like an entity, panting and breathing down the back of my neck. How many prayers had she written, begging to be free from him?

  Up ahead was a cliff. There, the light and branches began to shape themselves until, as if suspended from the sky, there was Fraya. She was ethereal and light, floating in a long dress that hid her feet. I ran faster to her as she reached out to me, a halo of light around her shoulders.

  “Fraya.”

  I leapt off the cliff edge with my arms out, trying to grab my sister. She disappeared before I could. I was left to fall through the air, my body fusing to a splash before I sank beneath the water of the river just below the cliff.

  The lotion washed away as I closed my eyes against the brown water, allowing it to carry me deeper and deeper. Only when my lungs felt like they were going to burst did I kick off the bottom to shoot back to the surface.

  “Betty? That you?”

  I turned around and found Leland fishing from the riverbank.

  “Don’t swim into my hook,” he said.

  He wasn’t holding his fishing pole. It was next to him, propped against a rock as he lay back beside it. He didn’t have a shirt on. He had the lean strong body that came with being twenty-four.

  “I thought you were leavin’?” I asked him.

  “What’s with the tone, Betty baby? You know I’m here for a few days.”

  He looked out at the water, then up at the hot sun.

  “I might get in for a dip myself,” he said. “Ain’t no fish today anyways.”

  He had his pants unbuckled before he stood.

  “Don’t get in,” I told him. “I saw an old woman bathin’ her black cat in the water up the bank there. The water is witchy today, Leland.”

  “Why the hell you swimmin’ in it then?”

  “I’m already a witch. Didn’t Flossie tell ya? My name don’t burn in a hot skillet.”

  I hoped that might make him too frightened to get into the water with me, but he still stripped down to his underwear and jumped into the water, causing a large splash. When he came up, he was right beside me. Ever since his trucking job, he’d started to smell like hot leather and siphoned metal. It was this odor I smelled even then in the river.

  I started to swim away, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Why you frownin’ like that, Betty girl?” he asked. “Look just like a damn cabbage leaf.”

  He tossed me into the air.

  “Stop, Leland.” I kicked my legs out, hoping to hit him. “Don’t touch me.”

  His grip was strong as he dunked me. I started to choke on the water.

  “I’m sorry, Betty.” He slapped me on the back. “Breathe. Just breathe.” He whacked my back harder.

  “I said don’t touch me, Leland.”

  I wouldn’t let myself cry in front of him, even though I could feel the tears wanting to come. I pushed him when he tried to get closer. He looked at me like he could steal all my teeth.

  “Come on, Betty girl.” He forcibly grabbed my hand underneath the water, jerking me toward the bank. “We don’t spend enough time together.”

  He yanked me out of the water, throwing me onto the sandbank. When I tried to get away, he forced me to sit by his side.

  “Now, we’re gonna sit here, Betty. I said we’re just gonna sit here together.”

  He wrapped his arms around my stomach, holding me against his wet chest. I managed to wiggle free, but he pulled me down by my ankles and was on top of me before I knew it, pinning my arms up over my head. His hot breath slipped into my mouth along with drops of water falling off his chin.

  “What is the matter with you, Betty?”

  He squeezed my wrists. His body was so heavy on me, I thought I was going to suffocate under the weight.

  “Don’t hurt me, Leland.”

  His eyes surprised me as they went soft on the edges.

  “I only wanted you to sit with me for a bit,” he said. “We don’t know each other is all.”

  He sat back with his arms across his knees. His hands dangled softly. It was as if he was no meaner than a cold morning without socks. He spiraled no worse than the swirl of cinnamon he once gave me in my oatmeal. He did not coach the flies to damn the honey, he did not cripple ceilings over cradles, his soul was not a plunge into the deep barking dark. And yet, just the day before, I had watched him break my sister open.

  I sat up beside him. The gritty sand of the bank had embedded in my wet clothes that clung to me until I felt naked. I noticed how Leland seemed to look at every inch of my body. I folded my arms across my chest. I could hear my heartbeat. I wondered if he could, too.

  He turned to watch a bee fly from butterweed to butterweed.

  “Fray’s allergic to bees,” he said. “I once sav
ed her from one that came landin’ on the back of her neck. She thought it was somethin’ to smack. Like a fly or a mosquito. I stopped her just in time. If she would have struck the bee, its stinger would’ve pushed into her palm. You remember this now, Betty girl. I’ve saved the life of the girl allergic to bees.”

  He had said it almost boyishly as he stared into my eyes and I into his. I knew my memories of Leland would always be of the evil things he had done. But seeing him sitting there, I thought I should try to save a small sliver of goodness for my own sake. Like the way the sun shone on the wet strands of his blonde hair. Or the way his eyelid folded over his left eye as he squinted. What else could I save of a brother I had come to hate?

  “Promise me something, Leland,” I said. “Promise you’ll never save me.”

  I got up and ran as fast as I could. I thought for a moment I heard his footsteps behind me, but I didn’t dare look back.

  I had every intention of screaming what Leland had done as soon as I threw open the screen door, but I found Fraya sitting at the table with Dad. They were jarring the rest of the plums.

  “There you are, Betty girl,” Fraya said. “You’re all wet.” She watched the water drip from me onto the floor.

  “Fraya? You cut your hair?” I slowly stepped toward her.

  “Do I look terrible?” She touched her hair. It was no more than a thumb’s length all over.

  “Naw,” Dad was quick to say. “Just used to seein’ ya with long hair. It’s a shock is all. It looks real nice.”

  “Why’d you cut it, Fraya?” I asked.

  “I wanted a change.” Her eyes darted from Dad to me. “I thought it might be cooler for summer, too.”

  “I hate it.” I picked up a jar of plums and threw it against the wall. Shards of glass settled into the floorboards.

  “Betty,” Dad said, “stop.”

  I threw jar after jar, the plums and their sweet liquid, spilling across the floor.

  “Please, Betty.” Fraya cried out, staring at the plums. “Stop.”

  Hearing her say “stop” reminded me of the way she had said it to Leland. I didn’t want to keep going the way he had. I set the last jar down. With tears on my cheeks, I pushed past Fraya. I darted up the steps and into the upstairs bathroom.

  I emptied out the wastebasket, but found only used tissue and cotton swabs. Hurrying down the hall to Fraya’s bedroom, I quickly dumped her wastebasket out on the floor. Amidst the wadded-up tissue, I found her long beautiful hair. I got on my knees and gathered the light brown locks to my chest.

  “Betty?” Fraya appeared in the doorway. “Are you okay?” She sat on her knees beside me. “It’s not like I cut yours.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “Why you care so much about mine?”

  “Because your hair is you.” I wiped my eyes. “And you just cut it off and threw it away.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I shouldn’t have thrown it away. We can put it outside in the woods so birds can collect it to build their nests with. C’mon, now. Isn’t that a nice idea? Don’t cry.”

  She pulled me against her. Before, I would have felt her long hair against my cheek. Now, it was only the cold cotton of her dress. I started to sing one of the songs we sang to the garden.

  “La, la, la, la, peas of mine, la, la, won’t you grow so fine. La, la, la, la.”

  “What you doin’, Betty?” she asked.

  “Singin’ like we do to the plants,” I said, “so your hair will grow long again.”

  “I don’t want it to.” She stiffened. “It kept gettin’ wrapped around things.”

  The image of her hair tied around the truck’s window crank flashed into my mind. I immediately dropped the clumps of hair and grabbed onto her.

  “Thatta girl,” she said. “I’m still me. I haven’t thrown myself away. I’m right here.”

  “I’m sorry, Fraya.”

  “For what? My hair? Don’t be.” She looked at the puddle made from my dripping hair. “Were you swimmin’ in the river, Betty?”

  I nodded and sniffled against her chest.

  “It’s nice to swim in the river when it’s so hot, ain’t it?” She laid her hand on top of my head.

  I nodded some more as I played with the buttons on her dress.

  “I keep thinkin’ you’re still as small as a baby,” she said as she tried to move me up on her lap, but I couldn’t fit. “I have to remind myself you’re growin’ up.”

  “I don’t mean to,” I said before deciding to tell her I had seen Leland at the river. “He said he saved you.” I looked up into her face. “From a bee.”

  She squinted as if trying to adjust to something far away.

  “That’s just a story he likes to tell,” she said. “Boys are like that. Always tryin’ to pretend they’re savin’ girls from somethin’. They never seem to realize, we can save ourselves.”

  22

  Both low and high, rich and poor, together.

  —PSALMS 49:2

  For a lost voice, gather small acorns, the bark of a dogwood, and some bitter apples. Don’t forget the cherry bark, Betty. Boil this and drink it. Rub some on the throat, like Dad did mine. His hand pressing against my neck, saying, “We’ll find your voice again, Betty.”

  But my voice wasn’t lost. It was in my mind, circling the fire, preparing me to cut Leland’s soul out of him.

  “Feel better?” Dad asked, rubbing his hands up my throat. I only nodded. It was the end of that August. Leland was all the way in California. He’d left the day he walked back from the river.

  I timed the weeks following the rape by watching Fraya’s hair start to regrow. It would never be longer than her little finger. This was the way she tested it to make sure it would never be long enough to hold her down. By the time school started, I had gotten used to seeing her with short hair until the long-haired Fraya seemed like someone who’d walked out the front door, never to come back.

  I hated that I had to start school after such a summer. Hated that I would have to face Ruthis and all her friends. I was entering the third grade. A new school year also meant a new teacher. Mrs. Hook. Before lunch, she called me up to her desk to drop my shame in my hand. Two green tokens. One for a carton of milk. The other for a tray of food. The tokens were part of the school program servicing the low-income families and fulfilling the school’s obligation to provide a free lunch.

  I quickly dropped the tokens into my pocket as Mrs. Hook wrote my name on the list. I walked back to my seat with my head down, passing Ruthis, who laughed and called me pathetic. I looked at the shiny quarters on her desk. There would never be tokens for Ruthis Ryewood. I wondered what it was like to be her.

  When we lined up in the cafeteria, I waited for everyone to go ahead of me so I could be last. I took the tokens out of my pocket, smelling the mashed potatoes and gravy, which was one of my favorites.

  “How come your dad don’t work, Betty?” the boy in front of me turned around to ask. “If he worked, you wouldn’t have to have those tokens. He must be really lazy.”

  “Her dad’s a medicine man.” Ruthis had overheard and didn’t pass up the opportunity to say, “He only gets paid in beads. Maybe if lunch cost a bead, you’d be able to afford it, Betty.”

  I closed my hand around the tokens and hid them back in my pocket.

  “What’s the matter, Betty?” Ruthis smacked her lips. “Forget how to talk?”

  “Maybe she just makes noises now,” the girl next to her chimed in. “Ooo, ooo, ah, ah.” She grunted as she scratched under her arms like a monkey.

  The lunch teacher stood nearby. He looked me up and down before turning his back. Together he and another teacher spoke in whispers.

  I slipped out of line and went into the bathroom, where I stayed in the stall, smelling the mashed potatoes I had wanted.

  “Extra
scoop of gravy please.” I pretended to hold out a tray. “A roll, a chocolate milk, and a chocolate chip cookie. Might as well give me some of that ambrosia salad.” I started requesting things not on the menu.

  I sat the imaginary tray on my lap and began to go through the motions of eating. After the bell rang, I dropped my hands and returned to class. When the school day finally ended, I took the long way home.

  Dad was sitting on the front porch, carving a turtle. Give my father a knife and a block of wood and he’d transform it into something beautiful. His work was throughout our house, from the bullfrogs resting on shelves to the bookends that were two sides of a covered bridge. He made magical creations from mermaids to little cubes, which he said held the fury of dragons. Many of his carvings were of the creatures we shared our world with, like the sparrows he made to hang in each window of the house.

  “Sparrows are the eyes of a mother,” he said when he hung them. “They’ll keep watch over our home and beat their wings at the first sign of danger, and the first sign of frost.”

  There were grander carvings like the handkerchief tree, which was nearly as tall as Lint and was a tree that had the tattered shreads of an old paisley handkerchief hanging from its twisted and bent branches. Then there was his interpretation of the vessel Noah steered across the flood. Inside the ark were pairs of every animal Dad could think of.

  Out of all of his creations, my favorites were the relief carvings he’d hang on our walls. He would slice a thick layer of wood from a stump. In the slice, he etched images. There was one of Shady Lane and another of the hills from a distance. They were so real-looking, you could hear crickets in the tall grass and the sound of a crow cawing overhead.

  The relief carving hanging on my bedroom wall was of three girls going down Breathed River in a canoe. Each girl had a basket on her lap.

  “They’re the Three Sisters,” Dad had said. “In different native tribes, the Three Sisters represent the three most important crops. Maize, beans, and squash. The crops grow together as sisters. The oldest is maize. She grows the tallest, supportin’ the vines of her younger sisters. The middle sister is beans. She gives nitrogen and nutrition to the soil, which allows her sisters to grow resilient and strong. The youngest is squash. She is the protector of her sisters. She stretches her leaves to shade the ground and fight off weeds. It is squash’s vines which tie the Three Sisters together in a bond that is the strongest of all. This was how I knew I’d have three daughters, even after Waconda died. Fraya’s the corn. Flossie is the beans. And you, Betty, are squash. You must protect your sisters as squash protects the corn and beans.”