Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [591]

KEITH CAME HOME YESTERDAY, bigger than ever, as tall and lean as Dad is tall and broad. He’s not quite 14, but he already looks like the man he wants so much to be. We’re like that, we Olaminas—tall, sturdy, fast growing people. Except for Gregory who is only nine, we all tower over Cory. I’m still the tallest, but my height seems to annoy her these days. She loves Keith’s size, though—her big son. She just hates the fact that he doesn’t live with us anymore. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 591

Note

The narrator reads bodies as evidence and as reproach: Keith’s borrowed manhood, Dad’s breadth, her own inconvenient height, all measured against Cory’s reactions. ‘She loves Keith’s size… she just hates the fact that he doesn’t live with us anymore’ does the chapter’s emotional work in one clause-pair — pride and grief sharing the same object.