A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
A novel by Betty Smith written in 1943. I decided to read it because it took place during a time when my ancestors would have been immigrants in New York.
Francie is smart she thought. She must go to high school and maybe beyond that. She’s a learner and she’ll be somebody someday. But when she gets educated, she will grow away from me. Why she’s growing away from me now. She does not love me the way the boy loves me. I feel her turn away from me. She does not understand me. All she understands is that I don’t understand her. Maybe when she gets educated she’ll be ashamed of me – the way I talk. But she will have too much character to show it. Instead she will try to make me different. She will come to see me and try to make me live in a better way and I will be mean to her because I’ll know she’s above me. She will figure out too much about things as she grows older; she’ll get to know too much for her own happiness. She’ll find out one day that I don’t love her as much as I love the boy. I cannot help it that this is so. But she won’t understand that. Sometimes I think she knows that now. Already she is growing away from me; she will fight to get away soon. Changing over to that far-away school was the first step in her getting away from me. But Neeley will never leave me, that is why I love him best. He will cling to me and understand me. I want him to be a doctor. He must be a doctor. Maybe he will play the fiddle, too. There is music in him. He got that from his father. He has gone farther on the piano than Francie or me. Yes, his father has the music in him but it does him no good. It is ruining him. If he couldn’t sing, those men who treat him to drinks wouldn’t want him around. What good is the fine way he can sing when it doesn’t make him or us any better? With the boy, it will be different. He’ll be educated. I must think out ways. We’ll not have Johnny with us long. Dear God, I loved him so much once - and sometimes I still do. But he’s worthless…worthless. And God forgive me for ever finding it out.
Thus Katie figured everything out in the moments it took them to climb the stairs. People looking up at her – at her smooth pretty vivacious face – had no way of knowing abut the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.