Dollenganger 02 Petals On the Wind (16 page)

After Thanksgiving Chris still had a few days of vacation, and while we were at the dinner table with Henny hovering nearby, Paul asked all of us what we wanted for Christmas. This would be our third Christmas with Paul. In late January I'd be graduating from high school. I didn't have much time to go, for my next step, I hoped, would be New York.

I spoke up and told Paul what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted to go to Foxworth Hall. Chris's eyes widened and Carrie began to cry. "No!" said Chris firmly. "We will not open healed wounds!"

"My wounds are not healed!"
I stated just as firmly.
"They will never be healed until justice is done!"

The minute the words left my mouth he shouted,
"No!
Why can't you let bygones be bygones?"

"Because I am not like you, Christopher!
You like to pretend that Cory didn't die of arsenic poisoning, but of pneumonia, because you feel more comfortable with that! Yet you were the one who convinced me
she
was the one who did it! So why can't we go up there and see for ourselves if any hospital has a record of Cory's death?"

"Cory could have died of pneumonia. He had all the symptoms." How lamely he said that, knowing full well he was protecting her.

"Now wait a minute," said Paul who had kept quiet, and spoke only when he saw the fire blazing from my eyes. "If Cathy feels she must do this thing, why not, Chris? Though if your mother admitted Cory to a hospital under a false name it won't be easy to check up
_:

"She had a fake name put on his tombstone too," said Chris, giving me a long, hateful look. Paul gave that some thought, wondering aloud how we could find a grave when we didn't know the name. I believed I had all the answers. If she registered Cory in a hospital for treatment under a certain name, then naturally she'd use the same name when he was buried. "And Paul, since you're a doctor you can gain entry to all the hospital records, right?"

"You really want to do this?" he asked "It's sure to bring back a lot of unhappy memories and, like Chris just said, open up healed wounds."

"My wounds are
not
healed, and will never be healed! I want to put flowers on Cory's grave I think it will comfort Carrie to know where he's buried, then we can visit him from time to time. Chris,
you don't have to go
if you are so dead set against it!"

What I wanted Paul tried to deliver, despite Chris's opposition. Chris did travel with us to Charlottesville, riding in the back seat with Carrie. Paul went inside several hospitals and charmed the nurses into giving him the records he wanted. He looked and I looked while Carrie and Chris stayed outside. Not one eight-year-old boy had died of pneumonia two years ago in late October! Not only that, the cemeteries didn't have a record of a child his age being buried! Still stubbornly determined, I had to trek through all the cemeteries, feeling Momma might have lied and put Dollanganger on his headstone after all. Carrie cried, for Cory was supposed to be in heaven, not in the ground lightly frosted with a recent snowfall.

Fruitless, time-consuming, unrewarding waste! As far as the world was concerned, no male child of eight years had died in the months of October and November 1960! Chris insisted we go back to Paul's. He tried to persuade me that I didn't really want to see Foxworth Hall.

I whirled to glare at Chris.
"I do want to go there! We do have time!
Why come this far and turn back without seeing that house? At least once in the daylight, on the outside--why not?"

It was Paul who reasoned with Chris by telling him I needed to see the house. "And to be honest, Chris, I'd like to see it myself."

Brooding sullenly in the back seat beside Carrie, Chris relented. Carrie cried as Paul headed his car toward the climbing mountain roads that Momma and her husband must have traversed thousands of times. Paul stopped at a gas station to ask directions to Foxworth Hall. Easily we could have guided Paul to Foxworth Hall, if we knew where the train tracks were and could find the mail depot that was a stop-off point.

"Beautiful country," said Paul as he drove. Eventually we did come upon that grand house that sat all alone on a mountainside. "That's the one!" I cried, terribly excited. It was huge as a hotel, with double wings that jutted out front and back from the long main stem constructed of pink brick with black shutters at all the windows. The black slate roof was so sharply pitched it looked scary--how had we ever dared to walk up there? I counted the eight chimneys, the four sets of dormer windows in the attic.

"Look over there, Paul," I directed, pointing out the two windows on the northern wing where we had been held prisoners for so long, waiting endlessly for our grandfather to die.

While Paul stared at those two windows, I looked up at the dormer windows of the attic and saw that the fallen slat from one of the black shutters had been replaced. There wasn't a scorch mark anywhere or signs of a fire. The house hadn't burned! God hadn't sent an errant breeze to blow the candle flame until it caught a dangling paper flower on fire. God wasn't going to punish our mother or the grandmother, not for anything!

All of a sudden Carrie let out a loud howl. "I want Momma!" she screamed. "Cathy, Chris, that's where we used to live with Cory! Let's go inside! I want Momma, please let me see my real momma!"

It was frightful the way she cried and pleaded. How could she remember the house? It had been dark the night we arrived, with the twins so sleepy they couldn't have seen anything. The morning we stole away it was before dawn and we'd left by the back door. What was it that told Carrie this was our prison of yesteryears? Then I knew. It was the houses lower down the street. We were at the end of the cul-de-sac and up much higher. We'd often peeked out the windows of our locked room and gazed down on all the fine houses. Forbidden to look out of the windows--and yet we dared, on occasion.

What had been accomplished by our long journey? Nothing, nothing at all except more proof that our mother was a liar beyond belief. I mulled it over, day after day, even when I was perched on one of the built-in shower seats as Paul lathered my hair and carefully began to wash it. The long length couldn't be piled on top and screwed around or I'd never get out the tangles. He did it the way I'd taught him, working the soapy lather from scalp to ends, and when it was over, he'd dry it, brush it free of tangles and all around me it would fall like a silken shawl to cover my nakedness, like Eve must have covered hers.

"Paul," I asked, my eyes downcast, "it's not sinful what we're doing, is it? I keep thinking of the grandmother and all her talk of evil. Tell me that love makes this all right."

"Open your eyes, Cathy," he said softly, using a washcloth to wipe away the suds before I did. "Look at what you see--a naked man, the way God planned him to be." When I'd looked, he tilted my face upwards and then lifted me so he could hold me close. Holding me in his tight embrace, he began to talk, and every word he said told me our love was beautiful and right.

I couldn't speak. Silently I cried inside, for so easily I could have ended up the prude the
grandmother wanted to make of me.

Like a young child I allowed him to dry me off and brush my hair, and do what he would with his kisses and caresses, until the embers always ready between us caught fire and he picked me up and carried me to his bed.

When our passion was sated, I lay in the circle of his arms and thought of all I could do. Things that would have shocked me as a child. Things that once I would have considered terribly gross, ugly, for I had thought then only of the acts and not of the feelings of giving. How strange that people were born so sensual and had to be stifled for so many years. I recalled the first time his tongue had touched me
there
and the electrifying jolt I'd felt.

Oh, I could kiss Paul everywhere and feel no shame, for loving him was better than smelling roses on a sunny summer day, better than dancing to beautiful music with the best of all partners.

That was what loving Paul was like for me when I was seventeen and he was forty-two.
He had restored me and made me whole, and deeper down I shoved the remorse I felt for Cory.
There was hope for Chris, he was alive.
There was hope for Carrie, that she could grow and find love too.
And maybe, if things turned out right--there was hope for me too.

Julian didn't fly down as often as he used to, and his mother and father complained about this. When he did come, he danced better than ever, but not once did I see him glance my way. I had the suspicion though, he did plenty of looking when he knew I couldn't see him I was getting better, more disciplined, more controlled . . . and I worked. Oh, how I worked!

From the very first I'd been included in the professional group of the Rosencoff Ballet Company, but only as a member of the
corps de ballet.
This Christmas we were to alternate performances of
The Nutcracker
and
Cinderella.

Long after the others had gone home I had the dance studio all to myself on a Friday afternoon, and I was lost in the world of the Sugarplum Fairy, intent upon giving this role something different, when suddenly Julian was dancing with me. He was like my shadow, doing what I did, even pirouetting, making a mockery of what I did.

He frowned, then grabbed up a towel to dry his face and hair. I wiggled my toes and started toward the dressing room. I was going out to dinner with Paul that evening.

"Cathy, hold up!" he called. "I know you don't like me--"
"I don't."
He grinned wickedly, leaning forward to stare into my eyes. His lips brushed my cheek as I cringed away, then he had me pinioned in his arms, with his palms flat against the wall to prevent my running away. "You know what, I think you should be the one to dance Clara, or Cinderella." He tickled under my chin, then kissed near my ear. "If you're nice to me I could see to it that you dance both lead roles."
I ducked and ran. "Come off it, Julian!" I flared. "Your favors would demand a price. . . and you don't interest me."
Ten minutes later I had showered and dressed and was ready to leave the building when Julian showed up in his street clothes. "Cathy, seriously, I think you're ready for New York now. Marisha thinks so too. ' His smile was wry, as if his mother's opinion wasn't as worthy as his own. "No strings attached. Not unless someday you decide you want strings"
Now I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. I did get chosen for both the roles for the Rosencoff performances. I thought the other girls would be jealous and resentful, but instead they applauded when it was announced. We all worked well together, making it one merry, hectic time. Then came my debut as Cinderella!
Julian didn't even knock before he entered the girl's dressing room to survey me in my costume of rags and tatters. "Stop being so damned nervous. They're only people out there. You don't think I'd come back here to dance with a girl who wasn't sensational, do you?"
As we stood in the wings his arm stayed about my shoulders, lending me confidence as we both counted toward my cue to go on. His part didn't come until much later. I couldn't see Paul, Chris, Carrie or Henny out in the darkened audience. I trembled more as the footlights dimmed and the overture was played, and then the curtain rose. My mounting anxiety disappeared and took all my insecurity along with it, as some astonishing kinesthetic memory took over and I allowed the music to control and direct me. I wasn't Cathy, or Catherine, or anybody but Cinderella! I swept ashes from the hearth and enviously watched two hateful stepsisters prepare for the ball, feeling love and romance would never come into my life.
If I made mistakes, if my technique wasn't perfect, I didn't know it. I was in love with the dance, with performing before a large audience, with being young and pretty, and most of all I was in love with life and all it had to offer outside of Foxworth Hall.
Red, yellow and pink roses came to fill my arms. I thrilled when the audience rose to give us a standing ovation. Three times I handed Julian a rose of a different color; each time our eyes met and clung. See, his were saying to me mutely, we
do
create magic together! We
are
the perfect dancing partners!
He cornered me again during the buffet party. "Now you've had a taste of what it's like," he said softly and persuasively, his dark eyes pleading. "Can you give up the applause? Can you keep on staying here, in a hick town, when New York is waiting for you? Cathy, as a team we'll be sensational! We look so right together. I dance with you better than I dance with any other ballerina. Oh, Cathy, you and I could reach the top so much sooner together. I swear to take good care of you. I'll look out for you and never let you feel lonely."
"I don't know," I said miserably, though I was lit up inside. "I have to finish high school first--but do you really think I'm good enough? Up there they expect the best.
^,
"You
are
the best! Trust me, believe in me. Madame Zolta's company isn't the largest, or top rank, but she's got what it takes to make our company rate as high as the larger and older ones--once she has a couple of fantastic dancers like us!"
I asked what Madame Zolta was like. Somehow that made him confident I'd already agreed and, laughing first, he managed to plant a kiss on my lips. "You're going to adore Madame Zolta! She's Russian and the sweetest, kindest, most gentle little old lady you ever met. She'll be like your mother. [Good God!] She knows everything there is about dance. She's our doctor sometimes, our psychologist; whatever we need, she's it. Life in New York is like living on Mars compared to here, another world, a better world. In no time at all you'll love it. I'll take you to famous restaurants where you'll eat food such as you've never tasted before. I'll introduce you to movie stars, TV celebrities, actors, actresses, authors."
I tried to resist him by fastening my eyes on Chris, Carrie and Paul, but Julian moved so he blocked out my view. All I could see was him. "It's the kind of life you were born for, Cathy," and this time he sounded sincere and deeply earnest. "Why have you studied and put yourself through so much torture, if not for success? Can you achieve the kind of fame you want here?"
No. I couldn't.
But Paul was here. Chris and Carrie were here. How could I leave them?
"Cathy, come with me to where you belong, behind the footlights, on stage, with roses in your arms. Come with me, Cathy, and make my dreams come true too."
Oh, he was winning that night, and I was heady with my first success, and even when I wanted to say no, I nodded and said, "Yes . . . I'll go, but only if you come down here and fly with me. I've never been on a plane, and I wouldn't know where to go once I landed."
He took me in his arms then, tenderly, and held me as his lips brushed my hair. Over his shoulder, I could see both Chris and Paul staring our way, both of them looking astonished and more than a little hurt.
In January of 1963 I graduated from high school. I wasn't particularly brilliant, like Chris, but I'd made it through.
Chris was so smart it was more than likely he'd finish college in three years rather than four. Already he'd won several scholarships to help take the financial burden of his education from Paul's shoulders, though he never mentioned a word about any of us paying him back--for anything. It was understood, though, that Chris would become an associate with Paul when he had his M.D. I marveled that Paul could keep spending on us and never complain, and when I asked, he explained. "I enjoy knowing I'm helping to contribute to the world the wonderful doctor Chris will make-- and the super ballerina you will be one day." He looked so sad when he said that, so terribly sad. "As for Carrie, I hope she decides to stay home with me and marry a local boy, so I can see her often."
"When I'm gone it will be Thelma Murkel for you again, won't it?" I asked with some bitterness, for I wanted him to stay faithful, no matter how many miles I put between us.
"Maybe," he said.
"You won't love anyone else as much as you love me, say you won't."
He smiled. "No. How could I love anyone as much as I love you? No other could dance into my heart the way you did, could she?"
"Paul, don't mock me. Say the word and I won't go. I'll stay."
"How can I say the words to make you stay when you have to fulfill your destiny? You were born to dance, not to be the wife of a stodgy, small-town doctor."
Marriage! He'd said wife! He'd never mentioned marriage before.
It was more than awful to tell Carrie I was leaving. Her screams were deafening and pitiful.
"You cannot go!"
she bellowed, tears streaming.
"You promised we would all stay together, and now you and Chris both go away and leave me! Take me too! Take me!"
She beat at me with small fists, kicked at my legs, determined to inflict some pain for what Chris and I were giving her--and already I felt pain enough for the world in leaving her. "Please try and
understand, Carrie, I will be coming back, and Chris will too--you won't be forgotten.
"I hate you!" she screamed. "I hate both you and Chris! I hope you die in New York! I hope you both fall down and die!" It was Paul who came to save me.
"You've still got me every day, and Henny," he said, hefting Carrie's slight weight up in his arms. "We're not going anywhere. And you'll be the only daughter we have when Cathy is gone. Come, dry your tears, put a smile on your face and be happy for your sister. Remember this is what she'd been striving for all those long years when you were locked up."
I ached inside as I wondered if I really wanted a dance career as much as I had always thought. Chris threw me a long, sad look then bent to pick up my new blue suitcases. He hurried out the front door trying not to let me see the tears in his eyes. When we all went out, he stood near Paul's white car, his shoulders squared off, his face set, determined not to show any emotion.
Henny had to pile in with the rest of us; she didn't want to be left home to cry alone. Her so eloquent brown eyes spoke to me, wishing me good luck as her hands were kept busy wiping the tears from Carrie's face.
At the airport Julian paced back and forth, constantly glancing at his watch. He was afraid I'd back out and wouldn't show up. He looked very handsome in his new suit as his eyes lit up when he saw me approach. "Thank God, I was thinking I flew down here for nothing--and I wouldn't do this twice."
The evening before, I'd already said a private good-bye to Paul. His words rang in my ears to haunt me even as I boarded the plane. "We both knew it couldn't last, Catherine. From the beginning I warned you, April just can't marry with September. '
Chris and Paul followed us up the ramp to help with the many pieces of hand luggage I wouldn't trust to the baggage compartment, and once more I had to hug Paul close. "Thank you, Catherine," he whispered so neither Chris nor Julian could overhear, "for everything. Don't look back with any regrets. Forget about me. Forget all the past. Concentrate on your dancing and wait before you fall in love with anyone--and let it be someone near your own age."
Choking, I asked, "And what about you?"
He forced a smile and then a chuckle. "Don't worry about me. I've got my memories of a beautiful ballerina and that's enough."
I burst into tears! Memories! What were they? Just something to torture yourself with, that's all! Blindly I turned to find myself locked in Chris's arms. My Christopher Doll who was six feet tall now, my knight so gallant, chivalrous and sensitive. Finally I could pull away and then he took my hands, both of them, as our gazes met and locked. We too had shared a great deal, even more than Paul and I.
Good-bye my walking, talking, cheerful, chiding, and living set of encyclopedias, my fellow prisoner of hope. . . . You don't need to cry for me. . . . Cry for yourself . . . or don't cry at all. It's over. Accept it, Chris, like I have, like you have to. You're only my brother. I'm only a sister, and the world is full of beautiful women who'd love you better than I can, or could.
Every word I didn't speak I knew he heard, and still he kept on looking at me with his heart in his eyes, making me hurt all over.
"Cathy," he said hoarsely, loud enough for Julian to hear, "it's not that I'm afraid you won't make it, I'm sure you will if you don't get so damned impulsive! Please don't do anything reckless that you'll regret later on. Promise to think of all the
ramifications first before you jump in with both feet. Go easy on sex and love. Wait until you're old enough to know what you want in a man before you choose one."
I'm sure my smile was crooked, for already I'd chosen Paul. I flicked my eyes from Paul who looked serious, to Julian who was frowning and glaring at Chris, then at Paul. "You go easy on sex and love too," I said jokingly to Chris, making sure my tone was light.
I hugged him tight once more, hurting to let him go. "And write to me often, and come to New York with Paul, Carrie and Henny whenever you can--or come alone, but come--promise?"
Solemnly he promised. Our lips met briefly, and then I turned to take my seat near the window. Since this was my first plane trip, Julian graciously gave up that privilege. I waved like mad to my family who I couldn't even see from the plane window.
Julian, so adroit and adept on stage, was at a loss when it came to handling a girl who sobbed on his shoulder, trembling, already homesick, wishing she wasn't going even before the plane was five thousand feet up. "You've got me," he said smoothly. "Didn't I swear to take care of you? And I will, honest to God. I'll do everything possible to make you happy." He grinned at me and kissed me lightly. "And, my love, I'm afraid I exaggerated the charms of Madame Zolta just a wee, wee bit, as you'll soon find out."
I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
He cleared his throat and without the slightest embarrassment he told me about his first meeting with the once-famous Russian dancer. "I don't want to spoil the surprise in store when you meet up with this great beauty, so I'll save that and let you see for yourself. But I'll warn you about this, Madame Z. is a toucher. She likes to feel you, your muscles, how hard and firm they are. Would you believe she put her hand directly on my fly to find out the size of what was
underneath?"
"No! I don't believe that!"
He laughed merrily and threw his arm about me. "Oh, Cathy, what a life we're going to live, you and I! What heaven will be ours when you find out you've got sole property rights to the handsomest and most gifted and graceful
danseur
ever born." He drew me even closer and whispered in my ear, "And I haven't said a word about the talented lover I am."
I laughed too--and shoved him away. "If you aren't the most conceited, arrogant person I've ever met. And I suspect you can be quite ruthless too when it comes to getting what you want."
"Right on!" he said with a following laugh. "I'm all of that and more too, as you'll soon find out. After all, wasn't I ruthlessly determined to get you where I want you?"