Oh, I admit I was touched, and wanted so much to step away from disbelief. I hovered near, trusting her again, and quivered with the suspicious fear that she was lying. Hadn’t she told us from the very beginning that our grandfather was taking his last breath . . . years and years of his breathing his last breath? Should I yell out, Momma, we just don’t believe you anymore? I wanted to wound her, make her bleed as we had bled with our tears, isolation, and loneliness—to say nothing of the punishments.
But Chris looked at me forbiddingly, making me ashamed. Could I be as chivalrous as he was? Would that I could open my mouth, ignore him, and shout all the grandmother had done to punish us for nothing. For some strange reason I stayed quiet. Maybe I was protecting the twins from knowing too much. Maybe I was waiting for Chris to tell her first.
He stood and gazed at her with soft compassion, forgetting the tar in my hair, and the weeks without food, and the dead mice he would make tasty with salt and pepper—and then the whippings. He was beside me, his arm brushing mine. He trembled with indecision, and in his eyes were tormented visions of hopes and despair as he watched our mother begin to cry.
The twins crept closer to cling to my skirt as Momma crumpled down on the nearest bed to sob and beat her fists into the pillow, just like a child.
“Oh, but you are heartless and ungrateful children,” she wailed pitifully, “that you should do this to me, your own mother, the only person in this world who loves you! The only one who cares about you! I came so joyfully to you, so happy to be with you again, wanting to tell you my good news so you could rejoice with me. And what do you do? You attack me viciously, unjustly! Making me feel so guilty, and so ashamed, when all along I have done the best I could, and yet you won’t believe!”
She was on our level now, crying, face down on the bed in the same way I would have done years ago, and Carrie would do this day.
Immediately, spontaneously, Chris and I were stricken contrite and sorry. Everything she said was only too true. She was the only person who loved us, who cared, and in her only lay our salvation, our lives, our futures, and our dreams. We ran to her, Chris and I, and threw our arms around her as best we could, pleading for forgiveness. The twins said nothing, only watched.
“Momma, please stop crying! We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We’re sorry, we really are. We’ll stay. We believe you. The grandfather is almost dead—he has to die sometime, doesn’t he?”
On and on she wept, inconsolable.
“Talk to us, Momma, please! Tell us your good news. We want to know, we want to be glad and rejoice with you. We said those things only because we were hurt when you left us and didn’t tell us why. Momma, please, please, Momma.”
Our pleas, our tears, our anguish finally reached her. She somehow managed to sit up, and she dabbed at her eyes with a white linen handkerchief with five inches of fine lace all around, and monogrammed with a big white C.
She shoved Chris and me aside, then brushed off our hands as if they burned, and she got to her feet. Now she refused to meet our eyes which begged, pleaded, cajoled.
“Open your gifts that I selected with such care,” she said in a cold voice filled with choked sobs, “and then tell me whether or not you are thought about and loved. Tell me then that I didn’t think of your needs, and think of your best interests, and try to cater to your every whim. Tell me then I am selfish and that I don’t care.”
Dark mascara streaked her cheeks. Her bright red lipstick was smeared. Her hair, customarily worn on her head like a perfect hat, was mussed and displaced. She had strolled into our room a vision of perfection and now she appeared a broken mannequin.
And why did I have to go and think she was like an actress, playing her part for all she was worth?
She looked at Chris, and ignored me. And the twins—they could have been in Timbuktu for all the concern she showed for their welfare, and their sensitivities.
“I have ordered a new set of encyclopedias for your upcoming birthday, Christopher,” she choked out, still dabbing at her face and trying to take off the mascara smudges. “The very set you always wanted—the best that is published, bound in genuine red leather, tooled in twenty-four-karat gold around all four sides, and hubbed-spined a full half-inch outward. I went directly to the publishing house, to order them for you especially. They’ll bear your name, and the date, but they won’t be mailed directly here, lest someone should see them.” She swallowed heavily and put away her fancy handkerchief. “I thought and thought about a gift to please you the most, just like I have always given you the very best to educate yourself.”
Chris appeared dumbfounded. The play of mixed emotions upon his face made his eyes look confused, bewildered, dazed, and sort of helpless. God, how he must have loved her, even after all she’d done.
My emotions were straightforward, with no indecision. I smoldered with rage. Now she was bringing up genuine, leather-bound, hubbed-spined, twenty-four-karat gold-tooled encyclopedias! Books like that must cost more than a thousand dollars—maybe two or three thousand! Why wasn’t she putting that money into our escape fund? I wanted to yell out like Carrie and protest, but something broken in Chris’s blue eyes kept my mouth shut. He’d always wanted a set of genuine red-leather-bound encyclopedias, and she’d already ordered them, and money was nothing to her now, and maybe, just maybe, the grandfather really would die today or tomorrow, and she wouldn’t need to rent an apartment, or buy a house.
She sensed my doubts.
Momma raised her head regally high and turned toward the door. We had not opened our gifts, and she wasn’t staying to watch our reactions. Why was I crying inside when I hated her? I didn’t love her now . . . . I didn’t.
She said when she reached the door and had it open, “When you have thought about the pain you have given me today, and when you can treat me with love and respect again, then I will come back. Not before.”
So she came.
So she went.
So she had come and gone and left Carrie and Cory untouched, unkissed, unspoken to, and hardly glanced at. And I knew why. She couldn’t bear to look and see what gaining a fortune was costing the twins.
They jumped up from the table and came running to me, to cling to my skirts, and stare up into my face. Their small faces were fraught with anxieties, with fears, studying my expression to see if I were happy, so they, too, could feel happy. I knelt to lavish them with all the kisses and caresses she had overlooked—or just couldn’t give to those she’d harmed so.
“Do we look funny?” asked Carrie worriedly, her small hands plucking at mine.
“No, of course not. You and Cory just look pale, because you stay inside too much.”
“Did we grow much?”
“Yes, yes, of course you have.” And I smiled, even as I lied. And with a pretense of joy, and keeping that false smile like a mask to wear, I sat down on the floor with the twins and Chris, and we all four began to open our gifts like it was Christmas Day. They were all beautifully wrapped in expensive paper, or gold or silver foil, and sporting huge satin bows of assorted colors.
Tear off the paper, toss away the ribbons, the bows, rip off the lids of boxes, pull out the inside tissue . . . see all the pretty clothes for each of us. Glance at the new books, hooray! See the new toys, the games, the puzzles, hurrah! My, oh, my, what a big, big box of maple sugar candy shaped like identical leaves!
Here before us was the display of her concern. She knew us well, I admit, our tastes, our hobbies—all but our sizes. With gifts she paid us for all those long empty months when we were left in the care of the witch grandmother who would quite willingly see us dead and buried.
And she knew what kind of mother she had—she knew!
With games and toys and puzzles, she sought to buy us off, and beg our forgiveness for doing what she knew in her heart was wrong.
With sweet maple sugar candy she hoped to take the sour gall of loneliness from our mouths, hearts, and minds. To her way of thinking,
it was very obvious, we WERE still only children, though Chris needed to shave, and I needed to wear a bra . . . still children . . . and children she would keep us forever as the titles of the books she brought plainly indicated. Little Men. I’d read that years ago. Fairy tales by the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen—we knew them by heart. And Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre again? Didn’t she keep a list of what we’d already read? What we had?
I managed to smile though as I pulled over Carrie’s head a new red dress, and in her hair I tied a purple ribbon. Now she was dressed as she’d always wanted to be, in her favorite colors. I put purple socks on her feet and new white sneakers. “You look beautiful, Carrie.” And in a way she did, she was so happy to own bright, grown-up, royally colored clothes.
Next I helped Cory on with his bright red short pants, and a white shirt monogrammed on the pocket in red, and his tie had to be knotted by Chris, the way Daddy had shown him how a long time ago.
“Shall I dress you now, Christopher?” I asked sarcastically.
“If that is your heart’s desire,” he said wickedly, “you can dress me from skin out.”
“Don’t be vulgar!”
Cory had another new instrument to play—a shining banjo! Oh, golly day, he’d always wanted a banjo! She’d remembered. His eyes lit up. Oh, Susannah, don’t you cry for me, for I’m going to Louisiana with a banjo on my knee . . . .
He played the tune, and Carrie sang the lyrics. It was one of his favorite happy songs, and one he could play on the guitar, though it never sounded right. On the banjo it sounded right, as it should. God blessed Cory with magic fingers.
God blessed me with mean thoughts to take the joy from everything. What good were pretty clothes when no one ever saw them? I wanted things that didn’t come wrapped in fancy paper, and tied around with satin ribbons, and put in a box from an expensive store. I wanted all the things money couldn’t buy. Had she noticed my hair cut so short on top? Had she seen how thin we were? Did she think we looked healthy with our pale, thin skins?
Bitter, ugly thoughts as I pushed a maple sugar leaf into Carrie’s eager mouth, and then a leaf into Cory’s, and next one into my own mouth. I glared at the beautiful clothes meant for me. A blue velvet dress, such as should be worn to a party. A pink and blue nightgown and peignoir set, with slippers to match. I sat there with the candy melting on my tongue, and it had the acrid taste of the iron lump in my throat. Encyclopedias! Were we going to be here forever?
Yet candy made from maple sugar was my topmost favorite, always had been. She brought this box of candy for me, for me, and I could only swallow one piece, and that with great difficulty.
They sat on the floor with the candy box centered between them, Cory, Carrie, and Chris. They stuffed the candy in, piece after piece, laughing and pleased. “You should make that candy last,” I told them with sour hatefulness. “That may well be the last box of candy you see for a long, long time.”
Chris threw me a look, his blue eyes happy and shining. Easy enough to see all his faith and trust was restored by just one short visit from Momma. Why couldn’t he see that gifts were just a way of hiding the fact that she no longer cared about us? Why didn’t he know, as I did, that we weren’t as real to her now as once we’d been? We were another of those unpleasant subjects that people don’t like to talk about, like mice in the attic.
“Sit there and act dumb,” said Chris, sparkling his happiness on me. “Deny yourself the candy, while we three satisfy our sweet tooth all at once before the mice come down and eat it for us. Cory, Carrie, and I will scrub our teeth clean, while you sit and cry, and feel sorry for yourself, and pretend by self-sacrifice you can change our circumstances. Go on, Cathy! Cry! Play the martyr. Suffer! Pound your head on the wall! Scream! And we’ll still be here until the grandfather dies, and all the candy will be gone, gone, gone.”
I hated him for making fun of me! I jumped to my feet, ran to the far side of the room, turned my back, and tried on my new clothes. Three beautiful dresses I yanked down over my head one by one. Easily they zipped up to the waist, and fitted there loosely. But try as I would, the zipper wouldn’t close in back when it reached my bust. I tore off the last dress, looking for the darts in the bodice. None there! She was buying me little-girl dresses—silly, sweet little-girl garments that screamed out she didn’t see! I threw those three dresses down on the floor and stomped on them, crushing the blue velvet so it could never be returned to the store.
And there sat Chris on the floor with the twins, looking devilish, and laughing with a raffishly wicked and boyish charm that would win me over to laughter, too—if I would let it. “Make out a shopping list,” he joked. “It’s time you started wearing bras and stopped bobbing up and down. And while you’re at it, write down a girdle, too.”
I could have slapped his grinning face! My abdomen was a hollowed out cave. And if my buttocks were rounded and firm, it was from exercise—not from fat! “Shut up!” I yelled. “Why should I have to write out a list and tell Momma anything? She’d know what clothes I have, and what I should be wearing, if she really looked at me! How do I know what size bra to order? And I don’t need a girdle! What you need is a jock strap—and some sense in your head that doesn’t come from a book!” I glared at him, happy to see his stunned expression.
“Christopher,” I screamed, unable to control myself. “Sometimes I hate Momma! And not only that, sometimes I hate you, too! Sometimes I hate everybody—most of all myself! Sometimes I wish I were dead, because I think we would all be better off dead than buried alive up here! Just like rotting, walking, talking vegetables!”
My secret thoughts had been thrown out, spewed forth like garbage to make both my brothers wince and go paler. And my small sister shrank even smaller as she began to tremble. Immediately after the cruel words were out of my mouth, I wanted them back in. I was drowning in shame, but unable to apologize and take it all back. I whirled about and ran for the closet, running for the tall, slender door that would take me up the stairs and into the attic. When I hurt, and I hurt often, I raced for the music, the costumes, the ballet shoes on which I could spin and twirl and dance away my troubles. And somewhere in that crimson-colored never-never land where I pirouetted madly, in a wild and crazy effort to exhaust myself into insensibility, I saw that man, shadowy and distant, half-hidden behind towering white columns that rose clear up to a purple sky. In a passionate pas de deux he danced with me, forever apart, no matter how hard I sought to draw nearer and leap into his arms, where I could feel them protective about me, supporting me . . . and with him I’d find, at last, a safe place to live and love.
Then, suddenly, the music was over. I was back in the dry and dusty attic, on the floor, with my right leg twisted beneath me. I had fallen! When I struggled to my feet, I could barely walk. My knee hurt so much, tears of another kind came to my eyes. I limped through the attic and on into the schoolroom, not caring if I ruined my knee forever. I opened up a window wider and stepped out onto the black roof. Painfully I eased my way down the steep incline, stopping only when I was at the very edge with the leaf-clogged gutters. Far below was the ground. With tears of self-pity and pain streaking my face and blurring my vision, I closed my eyes and let myself sway off balance. In a minute it would all be over. I’d be sprawled down there on top of the thorny rose bushes.
The grandmother and Momma could claim it was some idiot strange girl who climbed up on their roof and fell off accidentally, and Momma would cry when she saw me dead and broken and lying in a coffin, dressed in blue leotards and tulle tutu. Then she’d realize what she’d done, she’d want me back, she’d unlock the door to free Chris and the twins, and let them live real lives again.
And that was the golden side of my suicide coin.
But I had to turn it over, and see the tarnish. What if I didn’t die? Suppose I just fell, and the rose bushes cushioned my fall, and I only ended up crippled and scarred for the rest of my life?
Then, again, suppose
I really did die, and Momma didn’t cry, or feel sorry, or any regret, and was only glad to be rid of a pest like me? Just how would Chris and the twins survive without me to take care of them? Who would mother the twins, and lavish them with the affection that was sometimes embarrassing for Chris to give as easily as I did? As for Chris—maybe he thought he didn’t really need me, that books and red-leather, gold-tooled, hubbed-spined new encyclopedias were enough to take my place. When he got that M.D. behind his name, that would be enough to satisfy him all his life through. But when he was a doctor, I knew it still wouldn’t be enough, never enough, if I wasn’t there, too. And I was saved from death by my own ability to see both sides of the coin.
I stumbled away from the edge of the roof, feeling silly, childish, but still crying. My knee hurt so badly I ascended the roof by crawling to the special place near the back chimney, where two roofs met and made a safe corner. I lay on my back and stared up at that unseeing, uncaring sky. I doubted God lived up there; I doubted heaven was up there, too.
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 29