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 understanding 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 soon 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, Ihe 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 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, "Goodbye, 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 has 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-yearold 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!"
Silence. No one could speak after this outburst.
Then, while Mom stood on looking too shocked even to breathe, Dad reached to control Bart, who jumped up to hit Cindy! Then Cindy was crying, and Emma was glaring at my brother.
"Bart, I have never heard anything so ugly and cruel," said Dad as he lifted Bart up and sat him on his knee. Bart wiggled and squirmed and tried to get away, but he couldn't escape. "Go to your room and stay there until you can learn to have some
compassion for others. You would feel very lucky in Cindy's place."
Grumbling under his breath, Bart stomped to his room and slammed his door.
Turning, Dad picked up his black bag and prepared to leave. He gave my mother a chastising look. "Now do you see why I objected to adopting Cindy? You know as well as I that Bart has always had a very jealous streak. A child as lovely and young as Cindy wouldn't have been two days in an orphanage before some lucky couple seized her up."
"Yes, Chris, you are right, as always. If Cindy had been taken into legal custody she would have been adopted by others--and you and I would have gone daughterless all our lives. As it is I have a little girl who seems so much like Carrie to me."
My father grimaced as if from sharp pain. Mom was left sitting at the table with Cindy on her lap, and for the first time since I could remember, he didn't kiss her goodbye. And she didn't call out, "Be careful."
In no time at all Cindy had me enchanted. She toddled from here to there, wanting to touch everything and then have a taste. A nice warm feeling rushed over me to see the little girl so well cared for, so loved and pampered. The two of them together looked like mother and daughter. Both dressed in pink, with pink ribbons in their hair, only Cindy had on white socks with lace.
"Jory will teach you to dance when you're old enough." I smiled at Mom as I passed her on my way to ballet class. Quickly Mom got up to hand Cindy over to Emma, then she joined me in her car that was still parked in our wide garage. "Jory, I think Bart will soon learn to like Cindy a little more, don't you?"
I wanted to say, no he wouldn't, but I nodded, not letting her know how worried I was about my brother. Trouble, trouble, boil and double . . .
"Jory, what was that you just mumbled?"
Gee, I didn't know I said it aloud. "Nothing, Mom. Just repeating something I overheard Bart saying to himself last night. He cries in his sleep, Mom. He calls for you, screaming because you've run away with your lover." I grinned and tried to look lighthearted. "And I didn't even know you play around."
She ignored my facetious remark. "Jory, why didn't you tell me before that Bart has nightmares?"
How could I tell her the truth?--that she was much too taken up with Cindy to pay attention to anyone else. And never, never should she give anyone more attention than Bart. Even me.
"Momma, Momma!" I heard Bart cry out in his sleep that night. "Where are you? Don't leave me alone! Momma, please don't leave me. Don't love him more than me. I'm not bad, really not bad . . . just can't help what I do sometimes. Momma
Momma .
Only crazy people couldn't help what they did. One crazy person in our family was enough. We didn't need another living under our roof.
So . . . it was up to me to save Bart from himself. Up to me to straighten out something crooked that had begun a long time ago. And way back in the shadowed recesses of my brain, there
were vague, unsettlingmemories of something that had troubled me years ago when I was too young to understand. Too young to put the jigsaw pieces together.
Trouble was, I'd been doing so much thinking about the past, that now it was waking up, and I could remember a man with dark hair, a man different from Daddy Paul. A man Mom used to call Bart
Winslow-- and those were my half brother's first and second names.
My Heart's Desire
. Wicked little girl, that Cindy. Didn't care who saw her naked. Didn't care who saw her sit on the potty. Didn't care about being decent or clean. Took my toy cars and chewed on them.
Summer wasn't so good no more. Nothin t'do. No where t'go but next door. Ole lady kept promising that pony and never did it show up. Leading me on, teasing me. I'd show her. Make her sit over there all alone, wouldn't visit. Punish her. Last night I heard Momma telling Daddy how she saw that ole lady in black standing on a ladder propped against the wall. "And she was staring at me, Chris. Really staring!"
Daddy laughed. "Really, Cathy. What harm can her stares do? She's a stranger in a strange land. Wouldn't it have been friendly of you to wave and say hello-- perhaps introduce yourself?" I snickered to myself. Grandmother wouldn't have answered. She was shy around all strangers but me. I was the only one she trusted.
Another day of being mean to Cindy had caused everywhere to be named off-limits to me. But I was clever and stole outside and snuck quickly away, to next door, to where people liked me.
"Where's my pony?" I screeched when I saw the barn still empty. "You promised me a pony--so if you don't give me one I'll tell Momma and Daddy you are trying to steal me away!"
If There Be Thorns Page 6