Momma—how could you? You should be ashamed! This man is younger than you—years younger! She hadn’t told us that.
A secret. How well she could keep such an important secret! And no wonder she adored him, worshipped him—he was the kind of man any woman would want. Just to look at him so casually, elegantly sprawled, I guessed he was both tender and passionate when he made love to her.
I wanted to hate that man dozing in the chair, but somehow I just couldn’t. Even asleep, he appealed to me, and made my heart beat faster.
Bartholomew Winslow, smiling in his sleep, innocently, unknowingly responding to my admiration. A lawyer, one of those men who knew everything—like doctors—like Chris. Certainly he must be seeing and experiencing something exceptionally pleasing. What was going on behind his eyeballs? I wondered, too, if his eyes were blue or brown. His head was long and lean, his body slim, and hard and muscular. A deep cleft was near his lips, looking like a stretched vertical dimple to play games of hide and seek as it came and went with his vague sleepy smiles.
He wore a wide sculptured gold wedding band, and of course I recognized it as the twin to the slimmer one my mother wore. On the index finger of his right hand he wore a large square-cut diamond ring that sparkled even without much light. On a small finger he wore a fraternity ring. His long fingers had square nails buffed so they shone as much as mine. I remembered when Momma used to buff Daddy’s nails, while they played teasing games with their eyes.
He was tall . . . . I already knew that. And of everything he had that pleased me well, it was his full and sensual lips beneath the moustache that intrigued me most. Such a beautifully shaped mouth—sensual lips that must kiss my mother . . . everywhere. That book of sexual pleasures had educated me well along that line of how adults gave and took when they were bare.
It came over me all of a sudden—the impulse to kiss him—just to see if the dark moustache tickled. Just to know also, what a kiss was like from a stranger who was no blood relation at all.
Not forbidden, this one. Not sinful to tentatively reach out and very lightly stroke his closely shaven cheek, so softly challenging him to wake up.
But he slept on.
I leaned above him and pressed my lips down on his ever so lightly, then drew away fast, my heart pounding in a paralyzing kind of fear. I was almost wishing that he would waken, but I was still fearful and afraid. I was too young and unsure of what I had to believe he would come rushing to my defense, when he had a woman like my mother madly in love with him. Would he, if I took his arm and shook him awake, sit and listen calmly to my story about four children sequestered in a lonely, isolated room year after year, waiting impatiently for their grandfather to die? Would he understand and sympathize with us, and would he force Momma to set us free, and give up hopes of inheriting that immense fortune?
My hands fluttered nervously to my throat, the way Momma’s did when she was caught in a dilemma, not knowing which way to turn. My instinct was shouting loud: Wake him up! My suspicions whispered slyly, keep quiet, don’t let him know; he won’t want you, not four children he didn’t father. He’ll hate you for preventing his wife from inheriting all the riches and pleasures that money can buy. Look at him, so young, so handsome. And though our mother was exceptionally beautiful, and on the way to being one of the wealthiest women in the world, he could have had somebody younger. A fresh virgin who’d never loved anyone else, nor slept with another man.
And then my indecision was over. The answer was so simple. What were four unwanted children when compared to unbelievable riches?
They were nothing. Already Momma had taught me that. And a virgin would bore him.
Oh, it was unfair! Foul! Our mother had everything! Freedom to come and go as she wished; freedom to spend lavishly and buy out the world’s best stores, if she chose. She even had the money to buy a much younger man to love, and sleep with—and what did Chris and I have but broken dreams, shattered promises, and unending frustrations?
And what did the twins have, but a dollhouse and a mouse and ever-declining health?
* * *
Back to that forlorn, locked room I went with tears in my eyes and a helpless, hopeless feeling heavy as stone in my chest. I found Chris sleeping with Gray’s Anatomy lying face down and open on his chest. Carefully I marked his place, closed the book, and put it aside.
Then I lay beside him, and clung to him, and silent tears came to streak my cheeks and wet his pajama jacket.
“Cathy,” he said, waking up, and coming sleepily into focus. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying? Did someone see you?”
I couldn’t meet his concerned look squarely, and for some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t tell him what happened. I couldn’t speak the words to say I’d found mother’s new husband dozing in her room. Much less could I tell him I’d been so childishly romantic as to kiss him while he slept.
“And you didn’t even find a single penny?” he asked with so much disbelief.
“Not even a penny,” I whispered in return, and I tried to hide my face from his. But he cupped my chin and forced me to turn my head so he could delve deep into my eyes. Oh, why did we have to know each other so well? He stared at me, while I tried to keep my eyes blank, but it was no use. All I could do was close my eyes and snuggle closer in his arms. He bowed his face into my hair while his hands soothingly stroked my back. “It’s all right. Don’t cry. You don’t know where to look like I do.”
I had to get away, run away, and when I ran away, I would take all of this with me, no matter where I went, or who I ended up with.
“You can get in your own bed now,” said Chris in his hoarse voice. “The grandmother could open the door and catch us, you know.”
“Chris, you didn’t throw up again after I left, did you?”
“No. I’m better. Just go away, Cathy. Go away.”
“You really feel better now? You’re not just saying that?”
“Didn’t I just say I was better?”
“Goodnight, Christopher Doll,” I said, then put a kiss on his cheek before I left his bed and climbed into my own bed to snuggle up with Carrie.
“Good night, Catherine. You make a pretty good sister, and mother to the twins . . . but you’re one helluva liar, and one damned no-good thief!”
* * *
Each of Chris’s forays into Momma’s room enriched our hidden cache. It was taking so long to reach our goal of five hundred dollars. And now summer was upon us again. Now I was fifteen, the twins recently turned eight. Soon August would mark the third year of our imprisonment. Before another winter set in, we had to escape. I looked at Cory, who was listlessly picking at black-eyed peas because they were “good luck” peas. First time on New Year’s Day, he wouldn’t eat them: didn’t want any little brown eyes looking at his insides. Now he’d eat them because each pea gave one full day of happiness—so we’d told him. Chris and I had to make up tales like this or else he’d eat nothing but the doughnuts. As soon as that meal was over, he crouched down on the floor, picked up his banjo, and fixed his eyes on a silly cartoon. Carrie glued in beside him, as close as possible, watching her twin’s face and not the TV. “Cathy,” she said to me in her bird twitter. “Cory, he don’t feel so good.”
“How do you know?”
“Jus’ know.”
“Has he told you he feels sick?”
“He don’t have to.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Like always.”
“And how is that?”
“Don’t know.”
Oh yes! We had to get out, and fast!
Later on I tucked the twins in one bed. When they were both asleep, I’d lift out Carrie, and put her in our bed, but for now, it was comforting for Cory to go to sleep with his sister by his side. “Don’t like this pink sheet,” complained Carrie, scowling at me. “We all like white sheets. Where are our white sheets?”
Oh, rue the day when Chris and I had made white the safest color of all!
White chalk daisies drawn on the attic floor kept away evil demons, and monsters, and all the other things the twins feared would get them if white wasn’t somewhere near to hide inside, or under, or behind. Lavender, blue or pink, or flower-strewn sheets and pillowcases were not to be tolerated . . . little colored places gave small imps a hole through which to drive a forked tail, or glare a mean eye, or stab with a wicked, tiny spear! Rituals, fetishes, habits, rules—Lord—we had them by the millions! Just to keep us safe.
“Cathy, why does Momma like black dresses so much?” asked Carrie, waiting as I took off the pink sheets and replaced them with plain white ones.
“Momma is blonde and very fair, and black makes her look even more fair, and exceptionally beautiful.”
“She’s not scared of black?”
“No.”
“How old do you get before black doesn’t bite you with long teeth?”
“Old enough to know such a question as that is absolutely silly.”
“But all the black shadows in the attic have shiny, sharp teeth,” said Cory, scooting backward so the pink sheets wouldn’t touch his skin.
“Now look,” I said, seeing Chris’s laughing eyes watching as he anticipated some gem I would certainly deliver. “Black shadows don’t have shiny sharp teeth unless your skin is emerald green, and your eyes are purple, and your hair is red, and you have three ears instead of two. Only then is black a threat.”
Comforted, the twins scurried under the white sheet and white blankets, and were soon fast asleep. Then I had time to bathe, and shampoo my hair, and put on wispy baby-doll pajamas. I ran up into the attic to open a window wide, hopeful of catching a cool breeze to freshen the attic so I’d feel like dancing and not wilting. Why was it the wind could find its way inside only during a wintery blast? Why not now, when we needed it most?
* * *
Chris and I shared all our thoughts, our aspirations, our doubts, and our fears. If I had small problems, he was my doctor. Fortunately, my problems were never of much consequence, only those monthly cramps, and that womanly time never showed up on schedule, which he, my amateur doctor, said was only to be expected. Since I was of a quixotic nature, all my internal machinery would follow suit.
So I can write now of Chris and what happened one September night when I was in the attic, and he had gone stealing, just as if I were there, for later, when the shock of something totally unexpected had died down a bit, he told me in great detail of this particular trip to Momma’s grand suite of luxurious rooms.
He told me it was that book in the nightstand drawer that drew him always; it lured him, beckoned to him, was to shipwreck him later, and me too. As soon as he found his quota of money—enough, but not too much—he drifted over to the bed and that table as if magnetized.
And I thought to myself, even as he told me: Why did he have to keep on looking, when each of those photographs was forever engraved on my brain?
“And there I was, reading the text, a few pages at a time,” he said, “and thinking about right and wrong, and wondering about nature and all its strange exhilarating calls, and thinking about the circumstances of our lives. I thought about you and me, that these should be blossoming years for us, and I had to feel guilty and ashamed to be growing up, and wanting what other boys my age could take from girls who were willing.
“And, as I stood there, leafing through those pages, burning inside with so many frustrations, and wishing in a way you hadn’t ever found that damned book that never drew my attention with its dull title, I heard voices approaching in the hall. You know who it was—it was our mother, and her husband, returning. Quickly I shoved the book back into the drawer and tossed in the two paperbacks which no one was ever going to finish reading, for the bookmarks were always in the same place. Next I dashed into Momma’s closet—that big one, you know, the one nearest her bed—and way back near the shoe shelves I crouched down on the floor beneath her long formal gowns. I thought if she came in, she wouldn’t see me and I doubt she would have. But no sooner did I feel this security, then I realized I’d forgotten to close the door.
“That’s when I heard our mother’s voice. ‘Really, Bart,’ she said as she came into the room and switched on a lamp, ‘it’s just plain carelessness for you to forget your wallet so often.’
“He answered, ‘I can’t help but forget it when it’s never in the same place I put it down.’ I heard him moving things about, opening and closing drawers and so forth. Then he explained, ‘I’m certain I left it in this pair of trousers. . . . and damned if I’m going anywhere without my driver’s license.’
“ ‘The way you drive, I can’t say I blame you,’ said our mother, ‘but this is going to make us late again. No matter how fast you drive, we’ll still miss the first act.’
“ ‘Hey!’ exclaimed her husband, and I heard surprise in his voice, and inwardly I groaned, remembering what I’d done. ‘Here’s my wallet, on the dresser. Darned if I recall leaving it there. I could swear I put it in these trousers.’
“He really had hidden it in his chest of drawers,” Chris explained, “under his shirts, and when I found it, I took out a few small bills, I just laid it down and went on to look at that book. And Momma, she said, ‘Really, Bart!’ as if she was out of patience with him.
“And then he said, ‘Corrine, let’s move out of this place. I believe those maids are stealing from us. You keep missing money, and so do I. For instance, I know I had four fives, and now I have only three.’
“I groaned again. I thought he had so much he never counted. And the fact that Momma knew what cash she carried in her purse really came as a shock.
“ ‘Just what difference does a five make?’ questioned our mother, and that sounded like her, to be indifferent about money, just as she had been with Daddy. And then she went on to say the servants were underpaid, and she didn’t blame them for taking what they could when it was left so opportunely before them, ‘actually inviting them to steal.’
“And he answered, ‘My dear wife, money may come easily to you, but I’ve always had to work hard to earn a buck, and don’t want ten cents stolen from me. Besides, I can’t say my day starts out right when I have your mother’s grim face across the table from me every morning.’ You know, I’d never given that any thought, how he felt about that old witch ironface.
“Apparently he feels just as we do, and Momma, she grew kind of irritated, and said, ‘Let’s not go through all that again.’ And her voice had a hard edge to it; she didn’t even sound like herself, Cathy. It never occurred to me before that she talked one way to us, and another way to other people. And then she said, ‘You know I can’t leave this house, not yet, so if we’re going, come on, let’s go—we’re late already.’
“And that’s when our stepfather said he didn’t want to go if they’d already missed the first act, for that spoiled the whole show for him, and besides, he thought they could find something more entertaining to do than sit in an audience. And, of course, I guessed he meant they could go to bed and do a little lovemaking, and if you don’t think that didn’t make me feel sick, then you don’t know me very well—darned if I wanted to be there when that was going on.
“However, our mother can be very strong-willed, and that surprised me. She’s changed, Cathy, from the way she was with Daddy. It’s like she is the boss now, and no man is going to tell her what to do. And she said to him then, ‘Like last time? Now, that was really embarrassing, Bart! You came back to get your wallet, swearing to me you’d only be gone a few minutes and what did you do but fall asleep—and there I was at that party without an escort!’
“Now our stepfather sounded somewhat irritated, both by her words, and her tone, if I judged him correctly, and there’s a lot you can read into voices even when you don’t see facial expressions. ‘Oh, how you must have suffered!’ he replied, sounding sarcastic. But that didn’t last long, for he must be basically a jovial fellow. ‘As for me, I had the sweetest dream, and I’d come back every time
if I knew that for certain, a lovely young girl with the long, golden hair would steal into the room and kiss me while I dozed. Oh, she was pretty, and she looked at me so longingly, yet, when I opened my eyes she was gone, and I thought she must have been a dream.’
“What he said made me gasp, Cathy—it was you, wasn’t it? How could you be so bold, so indiscreet? I got so damned mad with you I felt ready to explode if just one more little thing happened to set me off. You think you’re the only one wound up, right? You think you’re the only one with frustrations, with doubts, suspicions, and fears. Well, take comfort from knowing I have them too—you’ve seen to that. And, boy, was I mad at you, madder than I’ve ever been before.
“And then Momma said sharply to her husband, ‘God, I am sick of hearing about the girl and her kiss—why, to hear you tell it, you’ve never been kissed before!’ And I thought that then and there they might have an argument. But Momma changed her voice, and sounded sweet and loving, like she used to sound with Daddy. But it proved she was more determined to leave this house than a would-be lover who would use the swan bed then and there, for Momma said, ‘Come along, Bart, we’ll stay overnight in a hotel, and then you won’t have to see my mother’s face in the morning.’ And that solved my concern about how I was going to escape that room before they used that swan bed—for damned if I would stay and listen, or spy.”
This was all happening while I was up in the attic, sitting on a windowsill, waiting for Chris to reappear. I was thinking of the silver music box Daddy had given me, and wishing I had it back. I didn’t know then that the episode in Momma’s room was to have its repercussions.
Something creaked behind me! A soft step on rotting wood! I jumped, startled, scared, and turned, expecting to see—God knows what! Then I sighed, for it was only Chris standing in the gloom, silently staring at me. Why? Did I look prettier than usual? Was it the moonlight, shining through my airy clothes?
All random doubts were cleared when he said in a voice gritty and low, “You look beautiful sitting there like that.” He cleared the frog in his throat. “The moonlight is etching you with silver-blue, and I can see the shape of your body through your clothes.”
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 34