He seized my arm and ruthlessly twisted it behind my back until I cried out from the pain. I thought he meant to break it. But he released it just when I was about to scream.
“Look, Cathy. I’m half in love with you already. But no girl strings me along like I’m some country bumpkin. There are plenty of girls willing to give out—so I don’t need you as much as I thought—not for anything!”
Of course he didn’t need me. Nobody really needed me but Chris and Carrie, though Chris needed me in the wrong way. Momma had twisted and warped him, and turned him toward me, and now he couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t forgive her for that. She had to pay for everything wrong she’d caused. If he and I had sinned, she had made us.
* * *
I thought and thought that night of how I could make Momma pay, and I came up with the exact price that would hurt most. It wouldn’t be money, she had too much of that. It would have to be something she prized more than money. Two things—her honorable reputation which was a bit tarnished from marrying her half-uncle, and her young husband. Both would be gone when I was through with her.
Then I was crying. Crying for Chris, for Carrie who didn’t grow and for Cory who was by now, probably, only bones in his grave.
I turned over to grope for Carrie, reaching to draw her into my arms. But Carrie was in a private school for girls, ten miles outside the city limits. Chris was thirty miles away.
It began to rain hard. The staccato beats on the roof overhead were military drums to take me into dreams and back to exactly where I didn’t want to go. I was dumped down in a locked room cluttered with toys and games and massive, dark furniture, and pictures of hell on the walls. I sat in an old wooden rocker, half coming apart, and on my lap I held a ghostly, small brother who called me Momma, and on and on we rocked, and the floorboards creaked, and the wind blew, and the rain pelted down, and below us, around us, above us, the enormous house of countless rooms was waiting to eat us up.
I hated the rain so close above my head, like it used to be when we were upstairs. How much worse our lives had been when it rained, and the room was damp and chill, and in the attic there was nothing but miserable gloom and dead faces that lined the wall. Bands like the grandmother’s gray iron came to tighten about my head, smothering my thoughts, making me confused and terrified.
Unable to sleep, I left the bed and slipped on a filmy negligee. For some curious reason I stole to Paul’s bedroom and cautiously eased open his closed door. The alarm clock on his nightstand read two o’clock—and still he wasn’t home! Nobody in the house but Henny who was so far, far away—way at the other end of the house in her room adjacent to the kitchen.
I shook my head and stared again at Paul’s smoothly made bed. Oh, Chris was crazy to want to be a doctor! He’d never have a full night’s rest. And it was raining. Accidents happened so often on rainy nights. What if Paul should be killed? What would we do then! Paul, Paul, I screamed to myself as I raced toward the stairs and flew down them, then sped on to where I could peer out the French windows in the living room. I hoped to see a white car parked in the drive, or turning into the drive. God, I prayed, don’t let him have an accident! Please, please—don’t take him like you took Daddy!
“Cathy, why aren’t you in bed?”
I whirled about. There was Paul sitting comfortably in his favorite chair, puffing on a cigarette in the dark. There was just enough light to see he wore the red robe we’d given him for Christmas. I was so overwhelmed with relief to see him safe and not spread out dead on a morgue slab. Morbid thoughts. Daddy, I can barely remember how you looked, or how your voice sounded, and the special smell of you has faded away.
“Is something wrong, Catherine?”
Wrong? Why did he call me Catherine at night when we were alone, and only Cathy during the day? Everything was wrong! The Greenglenna newspapers and the Virginia one I’d subscribed to and had delivered to my ballet school both told stories of how Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow would make her second “winter” home in Greenglenna. Extensive renovation was being done so her husband’s home would be as it was when it was new. Only the best for my mother! For some reason I couldn’t fathom I lit into Paul like a shrew. “How long have you been home?” I demanded sharply. “I’ve been upstairs worrying about you so much I can’t sleep! And here you were, all the time! You missed your dinner; you missed last night’s dinner; you were supposed to take me out to a movie last night and you forgot all about it! I finished my homework early, dressed in my best clothes and sat around waiting for you to show up, and you forgot it! Why do you let your patients make so many demands on your time so you don’t have a life of your own?”
For a long time he didn’t answer. Then when my lips parted to speak again, he said in a mild tone, “You really do sound upset. I guess the only excuse I can offer is to say I’m a doctor, and a doctor’s time is never his own. I’m sorry I forgot about the movie. I apologize for not calling and telling you there was an emergency and I couldn’t leave.”
“Forget—how could you forget? Yesterday you forgot to bring the things I had on my list, so after I waited for hours on end for you to come home I sat around thinking you might come home and bring me the shampoo I wanted, but you didn’t!”
“I’m sorry again. Sometimes I have things on my mind other than movies and the cosmetics you need.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“I am trying to control my temper. It would be nice if you could control yours.”
“I’m not mad!” I shouted. He was so like Momma, so much in control, so poised, when I never was! He didn’t care. That’s why he could sit there and look at me like that! He didn’t really care if he made promises and broke them—like her! I ran forward as if to strike him, but he caught my fists and stared up at me in utter surprise. “Would you hit me, Catherine? Does missing a movie mean so much to you that you can’t understand how I could forget? Now say you’re sorry for screaming at me, as I said I was sorry for disappointing you.”
What tortured me was more than mere disappointment! Nowhere was there anyone I could depend on—only Chris who was forbidden to me. Only Chris who would never forget anything I needed or wanted.
I shuddered. Oh, what kind of person was I? Was I so like Momma I had to have what I wanted, when I wanted, no matter what the cost to others? Was I going to make Paul pay for what she’d done? None of it was his fault. “Paul, I am sorry I yelled at you. I do understand.”
“You must be very tired. Perhaps you take your ballet classes too seriously. Maybe you should let up a little.”
How could I tell him I couldn’t let up? I had to be the best, and to be the best at anything meant hours and hours of work. I fully intended to give up all the pastimes other girls my age enjoyed. I didn’t want a boyfriend who wasn’t a dancer. I didn’t want any girlfriends who didn’t dance. I didn’t want anything to come between me and my goal, and yet, and yet . . . sitting there, looking up at me, was a man who said he needed me, and who was hurt by the hateful way I’d acted.
“I read about my mother today,” I said lamely, “and a house she’s having remodeled and redecorated. She always gets what she wants. I never get anything. So I act ugly to you and forget all that you’ve done.” I backed off a few feet, aching with the shame I felt. “How long have you been home?”
“Since eleven-thirty,” he answered. “I ate the salad and the steak Henny left for me in the warming oven. But I don’t sleep well when I’m exceptionally tired. And I don’t like the sound of the rain on the roof.”
“Because the rain shuts you off and makes you feel lonely?”
He half-smiled. “Yeah, something like that. How did you know?”
How he felt was all over his face as dim as it was in that big room. He was thinking of her, his Julia, his dead wife. Always he looked sad when Julia was on his mind. I approached his chair and impulsively reached out to touch his cheek. “Why do you have to smoke? How can you tell your patients to quit the habit and
keep on smoking yourself?”
“How do you know what I tell my patients?” he asked in that soft voice, in a way that tingled my spine. Nervously I laughed, telling him he didn’t always close his office door tight, and if I happened to be in the back hall, sometimes, despite my will, I couldn’t help overhearing a few things. He told me to go to bed and stop hanging around in the back hall where I didn’t belong—and he’d smoke if he wanted to smoke.
“Sometimes you act like a wife, asking such questions, getting angry at me for forgetting to stop at the drugstore for you. Are you sure you didn’t desperately need that shampoo?”
Now he had me feeling a fool, and again I was angry. “I only asked you to get those things because you pass by a discount store where everything is cheaper! I was just trying to save money! From now on I’ll never ask you to pick up anything I need! When you invite me to dinner in a restaurant, or to a movie, I’ll be prepared to be disappointed, and that way I won’t be disappointed. I might as well get used to expecting the worst from everyone.”
“Catherine! You can hate me if that’s what you want make me pay for everything you have suffered, and then, perhaps, you can go to sleep at night and not toss and turn and cry out in your sleep, and call for your mother like a child of three.”
Stunned, I stared at him. “I call out for her?”
“Yes,” he said, “many, many times I’ve heard you call for your mother.” I saw the pity in his eyes. “Don’t be ashamed of being human, Catherine. We all expect only the best from our mothers.”
I didn’t want to talk about her, so I stepped nearer. “Julian is back in town. I went out with him tonight since you stood me up last night. Julian thinks I’m ready for New York. He thinks his dance instructor, Madame Zolta, would develop me quicker than his mother. He thinks together we’d make a brilliant team.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think I’m not ready for New York yet,” I whispered, “but he comes on so strong, sometimes he makes me believe, because he seems so convinced.”
“Go slowly, Catherine. Julian is a handsome young man, with arrogance enough for ten men. Use your own good common sense and don’t be influenced by someone who might only want to use you.”
“I dream every night of being in New York, on stage. I see my mother in the audience staring up at me with disbelieving eyes. She wanted to kill me. I want her to see me dance and realize I have more to give the world than she does.”
He winced. “Why do you need revenge so much? I thought if I took you three in and did the best I could for you, you’d find peace and forgiveness. Can’t you forgive and forget? If there’s one chance we poor humans have of reaching godliness, it’s in learning to forgive and forget.”
“You and Chris,” I said bitterly. “It’s easy for you to talk about forgiving and forgetting—because you haven’t been a victim, and I have. I’ve lost my younger brother who was like my own son. I loved Cory, and she stole away his life. I hate her for that! I hate her for ten million reasons—so don’t talk to me about forgiving and forgetting—when she’s got to pay for what she did! She lied to us, betrayed us in the worse possible way! She said nothing to let us know our grandfather had died, and kept right on letting us stay locked up—for nine long, long months—and in those long months we were eating poisoned doughnuts! So don’t you dare talk to me of forgiving and forgetting! I don’t know how to forgive and forget! All I know how to do is hate! And you don’t know what it’s like to hate as I do!”
“Don’t I?” he asked in a flat voice.
“No, you don’t know!”
He drew me down on his lap when I sobbed and tears streamed down my face. He comforted me as a father would, with little kisses and kind, stroking hands. “Catherine, I’ve got a story of my own to tell. Maybe in some ways it equals the horror of yours. Maybe if I tell you you’ll be able to use some of what I’ve learned.”
I stared up into his face. His arms held me lightly as I leaned back. “Are you going to tell me about Julia and Scotty?”
“Yes.” A hard edge toned his voice. His eyes fixed on the rain-washed windows, and his hand that found mine squeezed tight. “You think only your mother commits crimes against those she loves—well, you’re wrong. It’s done every day. Sometimes it’s done to gain money, but there are other reasons.” He paused, sighed, then went on. “I hope when you’ve heard my story, you can go to bed tonight and forget about vengeance. If you don’t you’ll hurt yourself more than anyone else.”
I didn’t believe that because I didn’t want to believe that. But I was eager enough to hear the tale of how Julia and Scotty both died on the same day.
When Paul began to speak of Julia, I feared the ending. I squeezed my eyelids closed, wishing now my ears didn’t have to hear, for I didn’t need more to add to the anguish I already felt for one little dead boy. But he did it for my sake, to save me, as if anything could.
“Julia and I were childhood sweethearts. She never had another boyfriend; I never had another girlfriend. Julia belonged to me, and I let every other boy know it. I never gave myself, or her, the chance to experience what others were like—and that was a terrible mistake. We were foolish enough to believe our love would last forever.
“We went steady, we wrote love letters to each other though she lived only a few blocks away. The older Julia grew, the more beautiful she became. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world, and she thought I was perfect. We both had each other up on pedestals. She was going to be the perfect doctor’s wife, and I was going to be the perfect husband, and we’d have three children. Julia was an only child, and her parents doted on her. She adored her father; she used to say I was like him.” His voice deepened here, as if what he had to say was very painful.
“I put an engagement ring on Julia’s finger the day she was eighteen. I was nineteen at the time. When I was in college, I’d think of her back here and wonder what man had his eye on her. I was afraid I’d lose her to someone else if we didn’t marry. So at age nineteen she married me. I was twenty.”
His voice turned bitter while his eyes went blank, and his arms tightened about me. “Julia and I had kissed many times, and we always held hands, but she would never let me do anything truly intimate—that had to wait until she had a wedding band on her finger. I’d had a few sexual encounters, not many. She was a virgin and thought I was. I didn’t take my marriage vows lightly, and I meant to be exactly the kind of husband who’d make her happy. I loved her very much. So, on our wedding night, she took two hours to undress in the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom wearing a long white gown, and her face was as white as that gown. I could tell she was terrified. I convinced myself I would be so tender, so loving, she would enjoy being my wife.
“She didn’t enjoy sex, Cathy. I did the best I could to arouse her, while she cringed back with her eyes wide and full of shock, and then she screamed when I tried to take off her nightgown. I stopped and thought I’d try again the next night, after she pleaded for me to give her more time. The next night it was the same thing all over again, only worse. ‘Why, why can’t you just lie here and hold me?’ she asked tearfully. ‘Why does it have to be so ugly?’
“I was just a kid myself, and didn’t know how to handle a situation like that. I loved her, and I wanted her, and in the end I raped her—or so she said time and again. Still I loved her. I’d loved her most of my life and couldn’t believe I’d made the wrong choice. So I began to read every book on lovemaking I could find, and I tried all the techniques to arouse her and make her want me—and she was only repulsed. I took to drinking after I graduated from medical school, and when I felt like it I found some other woman who was glad to have me in her bed. The years passed while she held herself aloof, cleaned my house, washed my clothes, ironed my shirts and sewed on my missing buttons. She was so lovely, so desirable and so near that sometimes I’d force her, even if she cried afterward. Then, she found out she was pregnant. I was delighted, and I think
she was too. Never was a child more loved and pampered than my son, and, fortunately, he was the kind of child who couldn’t be spoiled by too much love.”
His voice took on an even deeper register while I huddled closer in his arms, fearing what was to come, for I knew it would be terrible.
“After Scotty’s birth Julia told me flatly she’d done her duty and given me a son, and that from now on I was to leave her alone. Gladly I left her alone, but I was deeply wounded. I talked to her mother about our problem, and her mother hinted at some dark secret in Julia’s past, a cousin of hers who’d done something to Julia when she was only four. I never learned just what he’d done, but whatever it was, it spoiled sex forever for my wife. I suggested to Julia we should both visit a marriage counselor or a psychologist but she’d have none of that—it would be too embarrassing—why couldn’t I leave her alone?
“I did leave her alone after that,” he went on. “There are always women around willing to accommodate a man, and in my office I had a lovely receptionist who let me know she was more than available, anytime anyplace. We had an affair that lasted several years. I thought we were both very discreet, and no one knew. Then one day she came and told me she was pregnant with my child. I couldn’t believe her, for she’d told me she was on the pill. I couldn’t even believe the child was mine since I knew she had other lovers. So I said no, I couldn’t divorce my wife and risk losing Scotty to father a child who might not be mine. She blew up.
“I went home that evening to confront a wife I’d never known before. Julia lashed out at me for being unfaithful, when she’d done the best she could and given me the son I wanted. And now I’d betrayed her, broken my vow and made her the laughing stock of the town! She threatened to kill herself. I pitied her as she screamed out she’d make me hurt! She’d threatened suicide before but she’d never done anything.
“I thought this blow-up would clear the air between us. Julia never spoke to me again about my affair. In fact she stopped speaking to me at all except when Scotty was around, for she wanted him to have a normal home with ostensibly happy parents. I had given her a son she loved beyond reason.
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 49