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Her father taught her how to stand up straight, even if the damn wind is trying to blow you down. And her father also taught her the importance of a hand-shake – too lily-livered and people think they can walk all over you; too strong and people will think you are a brute.
Her mother didn't like these rules of the world being passed down to the only other female under the roof. But Betty of the skinned knees and of the torn seams didn't mind; it was the knowledge of her brothers – as stupid and as bumbling as they were – and to say that she idolized them would be an understatement.
It's not like she wished to be anything other than what she was.
She just wished that everyone else wasn't so concerned with what she was.
Betty would look into a cracked mirror (rough-housing that went awry one long winter) and she would see her hands upon the wheel of some biplane. Or pulling rope as fast as she could on some water-logged deck, sails slapping the air. Or even just tilling the ground until sunset, with the crisp smell of cut wheat hanging in her wavy blonde hair.
Everyone else looked at her and saw a girl.
Nothing else. Nothing more than that.
Just a girl with socks sagging down to the ankles and a bottom lip a little worn from nerves, just the McRae girl – cute as a button but apt to mouthing off in the wrong moments.
Just Betty McRae, trying to stand tall in a world full of echoing timbers…
…and she feared the falling anyway.
That's why she had to cut and run, get away as fast as she could; that's why she had to save up every dollar (no nickel shows, no dime candy) and that's why she had to ride the rails without food all the way to Victory Munitions. That's why she left at the break of dawn, before her father's first mug of coffee and before her mother's soft foot-falls would creak along the hallway.
Betty had to go before she hit the ground, before she broke apart and revealed things better left unsaid.
Her father didn't teach her to be fearful, though.
She learned that lesson all on her own.
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