Sobbing, she fell to the floor and lay curled up on her side, her fingers working in the deep shag of the carpet. Her long blonde hair spread like a golden fan on the carpet and cushioned her cheek as she cried on and on, berating him and herself for what there were doing.
What were they doing?
She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms wide. Dad uncovered his face and stared at her, looking deeply wounded.
“You’re right, Christopher! You are always right! There’s only been one time when I was right, but that single time might have saved Cory’s life.” Sobbing, she jerked her head away from Dad, who knelt beside her and tried to pull her into his embrace. She hit at him, making me gasp.
“You were right again when you told me not to marry Julian! I’ll bet you gloated when our marriage turned out to be a miserable failure. I’ll bet you were delighted when Julian sat back and allowed Yolanda Lange to destroy everything we owned. Everything happened just the way you predicted, making you so happy. Then Bart suffocated in the fire that burned Foxworth Hall to the ground. Were you laughing inside then too?—glad to be rid of him? Did you think I’d run straight into your arms and forget about all I owed Paul? Did you doubt I loved Paul?” Her voice rose to a shrill shriek. “When Paul and I were lovers I never thought of him as too old, until you kept harping on his age. Perhaps I wouldn’t have paid any attention to Amanda and what she said if you hadn’t bugged me so much about marrying a man twenty-five years older.”
I shrank into a tighter ball. Ashamed to stay and listen; afraid to get up and go now that I’d overheard so much. Mom was wound up, as if she’d saved this for a long time, ready to throw it into his face at the right opportunity—and here it was. He recoiled from the viciousness of her attack.
“Remember the afternoon I married Paul?” she yelled. “Remember? Think of the moment when you handed me the ring he put on my finger. You hesitated so long the minister had to urge you with a whisper. And all the time you were pleading with your eyes. I resisted you then, as I should have resisted you after he died. Did you wish for him to die soon so that you’d have YOUR chance? A self-fulfilling wish, Christopher Doll! YOU WIN! YOU ALWAYS WIN! YOU SIT BACK AND WAIT WHILE YOU DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MESS UP MY LIFE! WELL, HERE I AM! RIGHT WHERE YOU WANTED ME!—in your bed, acting as your wife. Are you enjoying yourself? ARE YOU?” She sobbed, then slapped his face hard.
He reeled backward but didn’t say a word. She hadn’t finished with him even then. “Don’t you realize I would never have gone to Bart in the first place if you hadn’t always been hanging around, coming between Paul and me; making me ashamed of what Momma had done to you, to me? I had to take Bart away from her then—it was the only way I could punish her for what she did to us. And now, after all Paul did for us, you won’t even have the decent generosity to take in a poor little girl who will soon be an orphan. Even when I have paved the way legally so there won’t be any investigation by the authorities. Still you want me for yourself, thinking two sons are enough to get in the way of our privacy, and another child might bring down our house of cheating cards.”
“Cathy, please . . . ,” he moaned.
She hit at him with small, balled fists, then yelled again, “Perhaps you even told me it was all right for Paul to have sex just so he would have another heart attack!”
The she sank back, panting, tears streaking her face while her watery blue eyes stared up at Dad, but he only stayed still, hunkered down on his heels as if frozen by all she’d said.
I wanted to cry, for him, for her, for Bart and for me. Though I didn’t understand nearly enough.
My dad began to shiver uncontrollably, as if winter had come unexpectedly into our living room. Had Mom told the truth? Was he the one who was behind all the deaths in our lives? I was scared too, for I loved him.
“Great God, Catherine,” he said at last, rising to his feet and heading toward their bedroom. “I’ll pack my bags and move out before the hour is over, if that’s what you want. And I hope you’re satisfied. This time, you win!”
In one single graceful bound, she was on her feet and running after him. She caught hold of his arm and spun him around before she flung her arms about his waist and clung. “Chris!” she cried out, “I’m sorry! So sorry. I didn’t mean a word I said. It was cruel, and I know it. I love you; I’ve always loved you; I lie, I cheat, I say anything I want to get my way. I’ll put the blame on anyone. I can’t bear it as my own. Don’t look so hurt, so betrayed. You’re right to deny me Nicole’s daughter, for I do end up hurting everyone I love. I do destroy what I care about most. If I’d been the right kind of person I would have found the right words to say to Carrie, but I didn’t say anything right to her then, and nothing right to Julian either.”
She still clung to him while he stood like a tall stick of wood in her embrace, doing nothing to return all the passion she lavished with her words, her kisses, her embraces. She took one of his limp hands and tried to slap her face with it, and failing, she slapped her own face with her free hand.
“Why don’t you hit me, Chris? God knows I’ve given you reason enough tonight. And I don’t have to have Cindy, not when I have you, and my sons . . .”
I could tell my stepdad felt impotent against all the anguish she displayed. Her histrionics had driven him into a corner and he wanted to stay there long enough to reason out his position. But she was at him, demanding of him, until she was yelling out again: “What’s the matter now, Christopher Doll? There you stand, wooden, saying nothing, trying to judge me by your own ethics. Recognize the truth—that I don’t have any ethics! You want to believe I am only an actress playing a role, like our mother played hers. Even now, after all these years, you can’t tell when I’m acting and when I’m not. Do you know why?” Now her voice became nasty, cynical. “Since you have never bothered to analyze my pathetic case, I’ll do it for you. Christopher, you are afraid to look at me honestly. You don’t want to know what I am really like. If I’m not acting, and this side I’m showing you now is the real me—then you can’t face up to being a fool. You would discover then you have based your great unselfish love on a woman who is ruthless, demanding, and utterly selfish. Go on, see the truth! I’m not a divine goddess and never was, never will be! Chris, you’ve been a fool all your adult life, trying to make me into something I’m not—so that makes you a liar too. Doesn’t it?” She laughed as he paled.
“Look at me, Christopher. Who do I remind you of?” She pulled back and looked at him in silence for a long time as she waited. When he refused to answer she said, “Come on, say it—I’m like her, right? This is the way she was that last night in Foxworth Hall when the guests were there swarming about the Christmas tree in the ballroom, and in the library she was screaming as I’m screaming now!—yelling out how her father beat her and made her do what she did. What a pity you weren’t there. So yell at me, Chris! Strike out and hit me! Scream as I’m screaming and show you’re human!”
Slowly, slowly he was losing his temper. I was so afraid of what might happen next. I wanted to rush in and stop what was going on, for if he did raise his hand to strike her, I’d run to her defense. I’d never let him hit my mother.
Did she hear my silent pleas? She let go of him and slid down to the floor again. I was so confused to see them fighting, really going at it. And why was the name Foxworth Hall stirring up hidden fears I didn’t want to come out into the light? And who was this her Mom kept screaming about? And where had Daddy Paul been at this time?—at this too distant time when Mom had not yet met his younger brother?—or so they’d told me. Did parents tell lies?
Foxworth Hall, why did that have such a familiar ring?
Once more he went down on his knees beside her, and this time with great tenderness he took her in his arms and she didn’t fight him off. His quick kisses rained on her pale face, his lips trying to smother her words which kept coming anyway. “Chris, how can you keep on loving me when I’m such a bitch? How can you keep on understa
nding why I’m ugly so often? I know I’m as much a bitch as she is, only I would give my life to undo the harm she’s done us.”
Without a word he locked eyes with her until their breathing began to come in short pants. Between them that passion that was always just below the surface ignited, caught fire, and something electric tingled my skin too.
Lest I see too much, I silently crawled back to my room with the embarrassing vision of them rolling about on the floor still on my mind. Over and over again, turning, clutching at each other, both wild—and the last thing I heard was a zipper being pulled. His or hers, I didn’t know. Though I wondered about it. Did a woman ever pull down a man’s fly zipper of her own free will—even a wife?
I ran into the garden. In the dark, near the great white wall, near a pale, nude statue of marble, I fell down on the ground and cried. Rodin’s statue “The Kiss” was the first thing I saw when I looked up. Just a copy, but it told me a whole lot about adults and their feelings.
I’d been a child believing my parents’ integrity was flawless, their love a brilliant, smooth ribbon of unbroken satin. Now it was tattered, stained, and no longer shining. Had they argued many times and I just hadn’t heard? I tried to remember. It seemed to me that they’d never had such a terrible argument before, only brief conflicts that had been resolved.
Too old to cry, I told myself. Though fourteen was almost a man’s age. Already I was sprouting a few hairs above my lips and other places. Sniffling, choking my sobs back, I ran to the white wall and climbed the oak tree. Once there on the wall I sat in my favorite place and stared off at the huge white mansion, which looked ghostly in the moonlight. I thought and I thought about Bart and who was his father. Why hadn’t he been named after Daddy Paul? Surely a son should have his father’s name. Why Bart instead of Paul?
As I watched, as I wondered, fog from the sea began to roll in, curling back upon itself, enfolding the mansion until I couldn’t see it. All about me spread the thick gray mist. Eerie, frightening, mysterious.
From the grounds next door came strange muffled noises. Was that someone crying over there? Great wracking sobs that were punctuated by moans and short prayers that asked for forgiveness.
Oh, God! Was that pitiful old woman crying just like my mother had cried? What had she done? Did everyone have some shameful past to conceal? Would I be like them when I grew up?
“Christopher,” I heard her sob. Startled, I jerked and tried to find where she was. How did she know my dad’s name? Or did she have a Christopher of her own?
I knew one thing. Something dark and threatening had come into our lives. Bart was acting stranger than usual. Something or someone had to be influencing him in subtle ways I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Whatever was changing Bart didn’t have anything to do with Mom and Dad. If I couldn’t understand them, Bart wouldn’t have a chance. But whatever it was between my parents, and whatever was going on with Bart, I felt I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, and they weren’t that strong yet.
* * *
One afternoon I deliberately hurried home from ballet class early. I wanted to find out what Bart did with himself when I was away. He wasn’t in his room, he wasn’t in the garden, so that left only one place he could possibly be. Next door.
I found him easily. Much to my surprise, he was inside the house and sitting on the lap of the old woman who never wore any clothes that weren’t black.
I sucked in my breath. The little rascal cuddled up cozily on her black lap. I stole closer to the window of the parlor she seemed to favor above the others. She was singing softly to him as he gazed up into her veil-shrouded face. His huge dark eyes were full of innocence before his expression suddenly changed to that of someone sly and old. “You don’t really love me, do you?” he asked in the strangest voice.
“Oh, yes I do,” she said softly. “I love you more than I have ever loved anyone before.”
“More than you could love Jory?”
Why the Devil should she love me?
She hesitated, glanced away, answered, “Yes . . . you are very, very special to me.”
“You will always love me best of all?”
“Always, always . . . ”
“You will give me everything I want, no matter what?”
“Always, always . . . Bart, my dear love, the next time you come over you will find waiting for you—your heart’s desire.”
“You’d better have it here!” said Bart in a hard way that surprised me. All of a sudden he sounded years older. But he was always changing his way of talking, walking. Playacting, always pretending.
I’d go home and tell Mom and Dad. Bart really needed friends his own age, not an old lady. It wasn’t healthy for a boy not to have peers to play with. Then again, I wondered why my parents never asked any of their friends to our home the way other parents had their friends over occasionally. We lived all to ourselves, isolated from neighbors—until this Moslem woman, or whatever she was, came to win my brother’s affections. I should be glad for him; instead, I was uneasy.
Finally Bart got up and said, “Good-bye, Grandmother.” Just his ordinary little boy voice—but what the heck did he mean by grandmother?
I waited patiently until I was sure Bart was in our yard before I circled the huge old house and banged hard on her front door. I expected to see that old butler come shambling down the long hall to the foyer, but it was the old lady herself who put an eye to the peekhole and asked who it was.
“Jory Marquet Sheffield,” I said proudly, just as my dad would.
“Jory,” she whispered. In another moment she had flung open the door. “Come in,” she invited happily, stepping aside to admit me. Way back in the shadows I thought I glimpsed someone who quickly dodged out of sight. “I’m so happy to have you visit. Your brother was here and had depleted our supply of ice cream, but I can offer you a cola drink and cake or cookies.”
No wonder Bart wasn’t eating Emma’s good cooking. This woman was feeding him junk food. “Who are you?” I asked angrily. “You have no right to feed my brother anything.”
She stepped back, appearing hurt and humble. “I try to tell him he should wait until after his meals, but he insists. And please don’t judge me harshly without giving me a chance to explain.” Her gesture invited me to take a chair in one of her fancy parlors. Though I wanted to decline, my curiosity was aroused. I followed her into what must have been the grandest room outside of a French palace! There was a concert grand piano, love seats, brocade chairs, a desk, and a long marble fireplace. Then I turned to look her over good. “Do you have a name?”
Floundering, she managed a small voice. “Bart calls me . . . Grandmother.”
“You’re not his grandmother,” I said. “When you tell him you are, you confuse him, and Lord knows, lady, if there is one thing my brother doesn’t need, it is more confusion.”
A slow redness colored her forehead. “I have no grandchildren of my own. I’m lonely, I need someone . . . and Bart seems to like me . . .”
Pity for her overwhelmed me, so I could hardly say what I’d planned beforehand, but I managed nevertheless. “I don’t think coming over here is good for Bart, ma’am. If I were you I would try to discourage him. He needs friends his own age . . .” and here my voice dwindled away, for how could I tell her she was too old? And two grandmothers, one in a nut house, and the other a ballet nut, were more than enough.
* * *
The very next day Bart and I were told that Nicole had died in the night, and from now on her daughter, Cindy, would be our sister. My eyes met Bart’s. Dad had his eyes on his plate, but he wasn’t eating. I looked around, startled, when I heard a young child crying. “That’s Cindy,” said Dad. “Your mother and I were at Nicole’s side when she died. Her last words were a request for us to take care of her child. When I thought about you two boys being left alone like Cindy, I knew I could die feeling more at peace knowing my children had a good home . . . so I let your mother say what she’
s been wanting to say ever since Nicole’s accident.”
Mom came into the kitchen. In her arms she carried a small girl with blonde ringlets and large blue eyes almost the same color as hers. “Isn’t she adorable, Jory, Bart?” She kissed a round rosy cheek while the big blue eyes looked from one to the other of us. “Cindy is exactly two years and two months and five days old. Nicole’s landlady was delighted to be rid of what she thought a heavy burden.” She gave us a happy smile. “Remember when you asked for a sister, Jory? I told you then I couldn’t have more children. Well, as you can see, sometimes God works in mysterious ways. I’m crying inside for Nicole, who should have lived to be eighty. But her spine was broken and she had multiple internal injuries—”
She left the rest unsaid. I knew it was terribly sad for someone as young and pretty as nineteen-year-old Nicole Nickols to die just so we could have the sister I’d only mentioned casually a long time ago.
“Was Nicole your patient?” I asked Dad.
“No, son, she wasn’t. But since she was a friend, and your mother’s student, we were notified of her failure to respond to medical treatment. We rushed to the hospital to be with her. I suppose neither of you heard the phone ring about four this morning.”
I stared at my new sister. She was very pretty in her pink pajamas with feet. Her soft curls fluffed out around her face. She clung to my mother and stared at strangers before she ducked her head and hid from our eyes. “Bart,” said Mom with a sweet smile, “you used to do that. If you hid your face, you thought we couldn’t see you just because you couldn’t see us.”
“Get her out of here!” he yelled, his face a red mask of anger. “Take her away! Put her in the grave with her mother! Don’t want no sister! I hate her, hate her!”
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 90