Reading Momma's book was very interesting. "The Road to Riches," read the title of one of her chapters. Was that girl really my own mother? Were she and her two brothers and one sister really going to be locked up in one bedroom?
Read on until the day grew old and the fog came in and smothered me.
Got up and went inside the house, thinking about another title in her book. "The Attic." What a wonderful place to hide things. I stared at Momma, who was kissing Daddy's lips, teasing him, asking him about his pretty nurses, and had he found someone to replace her yet. "A beautiful young blonde of twenty or so?"
He appeared hurt. "I wish you wouldn't make a joke out of my devotion. Cathy, don't provoke me with silly remarks like that. I give all I can to you because I love you with a passion I recognize as idiotic."
"Idiotic?" she asked.
"Yes, it is, when you don't respond as
passionately as I do! I need you, Cathy. Don't let this writing come between us."
"I don't understand."
"You do understand! Our past is coming alive. You're living it again as you write. I peek in and see your face, watch the tears streak your face and fall on the paper. I hear you laugh and say aloud the words that Cory said, or Carrie. You're not just writing, Cathy . . . you are reliving."
Her head bowed down and her loose hair fell and covered her face. "Yes, what you say is true. I sit at the desk and relive it all again. I see again the attic gloom, the dusty, immense space; I hear the silence more terrifying than thunder. Loneliness that knew me well then comes and burdens my shoulders, so I look up startled to see where I am, wondering why the windows aren't heavily covered over and when the grandmother will come in and catch us with windows not covered. Sometimes I'm startled to look up and catch Bart standing in the doorway staring at me. First I think he's Cory, then I can't account for his dark hair and his brown eyes. I look at Cindy and think she should be larger, as old as Cory with the dark hair, and I'm confused, not knowing the past from the present."
"Cathy." His voice was worried. "You've got to give this up."
Yes, yes, Daddy. . . make her give it up!
She sobbed as she fell into his arms, and tightly he cradled her to his heart, murmuring sweet love words in her ear that I couldn't hear. Rocking back and forth, like true wicked lovers. They looked like the couples I spied on sometimes, the ones who "made out" on lover's lane, which wasn't so far from my grandmother's mansion.
"Will you put the book away, wait until the children are grown and safely married . . . ?"
"I can't!" Even I could hear the agony in her voice, as if she'd like to if she could. "That story is in my brain screaming to get out, to let others know how some mothers can be. Something intuitive and wise tells me that when I have it down, and it's sold to a publisher, and made into a book for everyone to read--only then will I be set free from all the hate I feel for Momma!"
Daddy couldn't speak. Just went on holding her, rocking, and his blue eyes, staring into space above the head that was pressed against his chest, seemed tormented.
Stole away to play alone in the garden. Jory's old witch grandmother was coming. Didn't want to ever see her again. Momma didn't like her either; I could tell from the way she grew tense and careful around her, as if afraid her quick tongue would betray her.
"Bart, my darling," called my own grandmother softly from her side of the thick white wall, "I've been waiting for you to come over all day. When you don't come I get worried, and then I'm unhappy. Darling, don't sit alone and pout. Remember I'm over here, willing to do anything I can to make you happy."
I ran. Fast as my legs could take me. I climbed the tree, and she had a stepladder waiting there for me so I could get to the ground safely. It was the same ladder she used to peer over at us.
"I'm going to leave the ladder there for you to use," she whispered, hugging me, covering my face with her kisses. Lucky for me she took off that dry veil first. "I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. I love you so much, Bart. I look at you and think of how proud your father would be. Oh, if only he could see his son. His handsome, brilliant son!"
Handsome? Brilliant? Gee . . . didn't know I was either one. It felt good to be told I was wonderful. She made me believe I was every bit as good looking as Jory, and every bit as talented too. This was a grandmother. The kind I'd always wanted. One who loved me and no one else. Maybe John Amos was wrong about her after all.
Again I sat on her lap and let her spoon ice cream into my mouth. She fed me a cookie, a slice of chocolate cake, then held the glass of milk for me to drink. With a full stomach I snuggled more
comfortably on her lap and rested my head on the softness of her full breasts that smelled of lavender. "Corrine used to use lavender," I mumbled sleepily with my thumb in my mouth. "Sing me a lullaby . . nobody ever sang me to sleep like Momma sings to Cindy . . ."
"Lullaby and good night . . ."
Funny. As she sang softly, seemed I was only two years old, and a long, long time ago I'd sat just like this, on my mother's lap, and heard her sing that very song.
"Wake up, darling," she said, tickling my face with the edge of her sleeve. "Time for you to go home now. Your parents will be worried--and they have suffered enough without having more anxiety about your whereabouts."
Oh! Over in the corner John Amos had overheard her speak. It was in his watery pale blue eyes that gleamed dangerously. He didn't like my grandmother or my parents or Jory or Cindy. He didn't like anyone but me and Malcolm Foxworth.
"Grandmother," I whispered, hiding my face so he couldn't see my lips move, "don't let John Amos hear you say you feel sorry for my parents. I heard him say yesterday they didn't deserve sympathy." I felt her shiver and try not to let him know she was aware he was there.
"What's sympathy mean exactly?"
Sighing, she held me tighter. "It's an emotion you feel when you understand the troubles of others. When you want to help, but there's nothing you can do."
"Then what good is sympathy?"
"Not much good in any meaningful way," she said with her eyes looking sad. "It's only good is letting you know you are still human enough to have compassion. The best kind of sympathy moves one into action to solve problems."
John Amos whispered as I sneaked out into the evening shadows: "The Lord helps those who help themselves. Remember that, Bart." Gravely he returned the pages of my mother's manuscript I'd given him to read. "Put these back exactly as you found them. Don't get them soiled. And when she's written more, bring those--and you will be able then to solve all your own problems. Her book is telling you how. Don't you understand, that's why she's writing it."
Ever Since Eve
. She was coming now, coming from
Greenglenna, South Carolina, where the graves grew like weeds. Any day I could expect to look up and see her ugly mean face.
My own grandmother was a thousand times better. Sometimes lately she left her face unveiled. She'd wear a little makeup to please me--and it did. Sometimes she even put on a pretty dress--but nevernever did she let John Amos see her in anything but that black robe and the veil over her face. Only for me was she pretty.
"Bart, please don't spend too much time with John."
He'd warned me many times she wouldn't approve. "No, ma'am. John Amos and me don't get along."
"I'm glad. He's an evil man, Bart--cold, cruel and heartless."
"Yes, ma'am. He don't like women much." "He told you that?"
"Yep. Tells me he gets lonely. Tells me you treat him like dirt and refuse to speak to him for days on end."
"Leave John alone. Avoid him all you can--but keep on coming to see me. You're all I have now." She patted the soft sofa cushion, inviting me to sit beside her. I knew by now that she sat in comfortable chairs whenever John Amos had gone into the city.
"What does he do in San Francisco?" I asked. He went there often.
Frowning, she pulled me into her arms and held me close against the soft silk of her r
ose-colored dress. "John is an old man, but still he has many appetites that must be satisfied."
"What does he like to eat?" I asked, curious about an old man who had false teeth and great difficulty chewing even chicken, much less steak. Mush, jello, bread sopped in milk--that's what John Amos usually ate.
She chuckled and kissed the top of my hair.
"How's your mother? Is she walking well now?"
Changing the subject. Didn't want to tell me what he ate. I shifted away. "Bit by bit she's getting well, so she tells my daddy, but she's not so hot. When he's not home sometimes she gets a cane and uses that, but she doesn't want Daddy to know."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. All she wants to do now is play with Cindy, or write. That's all she does, honest Injun! Writing books is just as exciting to her as dancin . . . sometimes she gets all hot and bothered lookin."
"Oh," she murmured weakly, "I was hoping she'd give it up."
So was I. But it didn't seem likely. "Jory's grandmother is comfit' soon, real soon. Think I might run away if she decides to stay in our house."
Again she said "oh" as if surprises were stealing her tongue. "It's all right, Granny," I said, "don't like her like I like you."
Went home around lunchtime, chuck full of ice cream and cake. (Really was beginning to hate sweets.) Momma was at the barre, doing exercises before the long mirror, and I had to be careful she didn't spot me when I ducked behind a chair. I guess we had the only family room in the world with a barre at one end and a ten foot long mirror in back of it.
"Bart, is that you hiding behind the chair?" "No, ma'am, it's Henry Lee Jones . . ."
"Really? I've been looking for Henry Lee for some time. I'm glad you've finally been found around the corner, around the bush . . . always looking for Henry Lee."
Made me giggle. It was the game we used to play when I was little, real little. "Momma, can you take me fishin today?"
"I'm sorry. I've got a full day planned. Perhaps tomorrow."
Tomorrow. It was always tomorrow.
In a dark corner I hid myself, crouched down so small I felt nobody could see me. Sometimes when I was following Momma in her chair, I tiptoed with my back hunched, making myself into the way John Amos said Malcolm looked when he was old and at his peak of power. I stared and stared at her, morning, afternoons, nights, trying always to decide if she was as bad as John Amos said she was.
"Bart." Jory could always find me no matter how I hid. "Whatyah doing now?" he asked. "We used to have fun together. You used to talk to me. Now you don't talk to anyone."
Did so. Talked to my grandmother, to John Amos. I smiled crookedly, sneering my lips in the way John Amos curled his lips as I turned to watch Momma, who was walking just as clumsy as me now.
Jory went away and left me to amuse myself, when I didn't know how to anymore except by playing Malcolm. Was Momma really so sinful? How could I talk to Jory like I used to, when he wouldn't believe Momma told lies about who was my real father? Jory still thought it was Dr. Paul, and it wasn't, wasn't.
Later on at dinner, while Momma and Daddy were exchanging glances, and saying silly things that made them laugh, and Jory too, I sat and glared at the yellow tablecloth. Why did Daddy want Momma to use a yellow tablecloth at least once a week? Why did he keep saying she had to learn to forgive and forget? Then Jory spoke up.
"Mom, Jory said, Melodie and I have a date tonight. I'm taking her to a movie and then to a supperclub that doesn't serve hard liquor. Will it be all right if I kiss her good night?"
"Such a momentous question," she said with a laugh, while I sat in my corner. "Yes, kiss her good night, and tell her how much you enjoyed the evening . . . and that's all."
"Yes, Mother," he said mockingly, grinning. "I know your lesson by heart. Melodie is a sweet, nice, innocent girl who would be insulted if I took advantage of her, so I'll insult her by not taking advantage."
She made a face at him--he just smiled back. "How's the writing going?" Jory sang out before he returned to his room to moon over the picture of Melodic that he kept on his nightstand.
Stupid question. Already she'd told him writing absorbed her every wakeful moment, and new ideas woke her up at night, and Daddy was complaining she kept him awake with her light on. As for me, I couldn't wait to read what was going to happen next. Sometimes I thought she was making it all up, and it hadn't happened to her, it hadn't. She was pretending, the way I did.
"Jory," she asked, "have you been bothering my script? I can't find some of my chapters."
"Gosh, Mom, you know I wouldn't read what you write without your permission--do I have your permission?"
She laughed. "Some day when you are a man, I'm going to insist you read my book, or books. It keeps growing and growing, so it may end up two books."
"Where are you getting your ideas?"
Stooping, she picked up an old spiral-bound book. "From this book, and from my memory." She quickly flipped through the pages. "See how large I wrote when I was twelve? As I grew older my writing became more precise and much smaller."
Suddenly Jory snatched the spiral-bound book from her hands, then ran to a window where he could read a few lines before she had it back in her hands. "You misspelled a few words, Mom," he teased.
I hated their relationship; they were more like friends than mother and son. Hated the way she kept scribbling on lined paper before she typed those words up. Hated all her junk, her pencils, pens, erasers, and the new books she'd bought for her new project. Didn't have a mother anymore; didn't have a father. Never had a real father. Had nobody, not even a pet.
Summer was getting old now, like me. My bones felt old and brittle, my brain wise and cynical. And I thought, as Malcolm wrote in his journal, that nothing was as good as it used to be, and no toy gave me the pleasure I thought it would before I had it. Even my grandmother's mansion didn't look as huge as it had.
In Apple's stall, which was my special place for reading Malcolm's journal, I fell on the hay and tried to read the ten pages a day John Amos had assigned me. Sometimes I hid the book under the hay, sometimes I wore it next to my skin. As I began to read I chewed on a piece of the hay, finding my place marked with one of Momma's little leather
bookmarks:
I remember so well the day when I was twentyeight and came home to find my widowered father had finally remarried. I stared at his bride, whom I later found out was only sixteen. I 246 knew immediately a girl so young and beautiful had married him only for his money.
My own wife, Olivia, had never been what anyone would call a beauty, but she'd had some appealing aspects when I married her, and her father was very wealthy. Suddenly I found out after she'd borne me two sons, she had no appeal for me whatsoever. She seemed so grim compared to Alicia, my stepmother of sixteen .
I'd read this mushy love-junk before. I'd lost my place, gosh darn it. But I had a way of flipping through the book and reading here and there, especially when boring stuff like kissing came into Malcolm's story. It seemed so odd, as much as he hated women, that he'd want to kiss them.
Now, here it was, where I'd left off.
Alicia was giving birth to her first child, whom I hoped desperately would be a girl. But no, it had to be another son to compete with me for my father's fortune. I remember standing and looking at her, and the baby she snuggled at her side in the big swan bed, and I hated them both.
I said to her when she smiled up at me innocently, and so proud of her son, as if I'd welcome him as much as my father did, "My dear stepmother, your son will never live long enough to inherit your husband's fortune, for I am alive to prevent that."
She annoyed me then so much I could have slapped her beautiful, cunning face. "I don't want your father's money, Malcolm. My son won't want it either. My son will earn his way, not inherit what money other men have made. I'll teach my son the true values in life--the values you know nothing about."
Wonder what she'd been talking about? What were values anyway?--sa
le prices? I turned my attention to Malcolm's journal again. He had skipped fifteen years before he wrote again.
My daughter, Corrine, grew more and more like the mother who had abandoned me when I was only five.
I saw her changing, beginning to develop into a woman, and I'd find myself staring at her young budding breasts that would soon entice some man. Once she saw me staring there and blushed. I liked that--at least she was modest. "Corrine, promise that you will never marry and leave your father when he's old and sick. Swear to me you won't leave me ever."
Her face grew very pale, as if she feared I might send her back into the attic if she refused my simple request. "All my fortune, Corrine, if you promise--every cent I will leave to you if you never leave me."
"But, Father," she said, inclining her head and looking miserable, "I want to get married and have babies."
She swore she loved me, but in her eyes I could see she'd leave me at the first opportunity.
I'd see to it she had no boys or men in her life. She'd attend a school for girls only, a strict religious school that would allow no dating.
I closed the book and headed home. To my way of thinking Malcolm should never have married Olivia and had any children--but then, as I thought about it more, I would never have known my grandmother.
And even though she was a liar and had betrayed me, still I wanted to love and trust her again.
Another day I was in the barn reading about Malcolm when he was fifty. He wasn't so regular now about writing in his journal.
There's something sinful going on between that younger half brother of mine and my daughter. I've done what I can to catch them touching, or looking at each other in a suggestive way, but they are both very clever. Olivia tells me my fears are groundless, that Corrine could never feel anything for her half uncle, but then, Olivia is just another woman, true to her devious sex. Damn the day she talked me into taking that boy into our home. It was a mistake, perhaps the most grave mistake of my life.
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