Echoes of Dollanganger (27 page)

“I appreciate that you trust me enough to tell me that, Kane,” I said.

“You trusted me with this,” he said, lifting the diary. “Revealing what we consider secret about ourselves draws us closer. My parents keep secrets from each other. Most of the time, they lie to each other.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“I'm used to it by now. And you know something? So are they. They're comfortable with it. Reality and truth are painful. So when I told you that Christopher might be lying to himself or refusing to believe his mother was lying, I was talking about myself, you see. My mother makes a great show of caring for me in front of friends, and I soak it up.”

“Surely she still cares about you now,” I offered.

“Yes, but not to the extent she pretends to care. You know yourself; you can sense that. I let her toss her loving smiles at me, kiss me supposedly affectionately, ask me the questions parents are supposed to ask their children about school or their after-school activities, friends, girls, any of it, and I give her satisfactory answers most of the time so that we both pass the test,
especially in front of other people, but . . . my mother never came to comfort me when I had a bad dream. I had a nanny or Darlena for that, and once, when I had a cold close to pneumonia, she simply hired a private nurse.”

I waited silently to hear whatever else he had to reveal, but he suddenly put up his hands.

“Hey,” he said. “Don't feel sorry for me now. I'm over it. I have come to a comfortable acceptance, a truce with my own feelings. I'm fine. Really. I'm fine.”

I could see his eyes were brimming with tears. I rose, walked over to him, knelt down, and kissed him softly. “Of course you are,” I said, and he smiled.

“Okay. Now I am,” he said. He looked at the diary. “A little more?”

“Just a little,” I told him, and returned to the sofa bed.

The afternoon sun was struggling to keep twilight at bay. Back at Foxworth, my father was probably about to organize the cleanup, putting away tools, evaluating what was done and what would be done next, and thinking about coming home. A quick thought about my homework passed by me. I knew what I had to do and how long it would take.

When I looked at Kane, now preparing to continue, I realized how much more he had to share with the Dollanganger kids than I did, despite their being distant cousins of mine. Just like Cathy had faced and was forcing Christopher to face the reality about his mother, Kane's sister had brought the reality about
their mother home to him. Neither he nor Christopher wanted to believe or accept any of it. What could be stronger than a mother's love for her child and the child's love for her? Shatter that, and what was left? So wounded in your heart, how could you find the power of love for someone else there later on? Would you doubt anyone who expressed it for you? Would you be afraid to believe?

Whom could you trust?

It suddenly occurred to me, came to me like an electric shock—that quick, that stinging, that true.

There was only one person whose love Christopher could ever trust.

Cathy.

She was the only one left.

Momma had left us many gifts, gifts to buy us off, to make us forget how she had deserted us. What surprised me most about the gifts for Cathy and me were how they revealed what she saw in and thought of us. It was as if in her mind, we were exactly as young as we had been the day we were brought to Foxworth Hall. Maybe that was her way of forgetting all that had happened to us since. With a pile of gifts, she could swipe away the torture, the starvation, the punishments, and the lack of sun and exercise we had endured. She could make herself feel better about what she had done if we would indulge in these gifts of candy and games and new clothing. Oh, we would forgive her.

Cathy refused to accept it. She looked as defiant as ever. She didn't understand that if I joined her and kept up our defiance and anger, the twins would suffer the worst. I bawled her out for her self-pity, and she ran up to the attic. I thought I would let her stew in her own juices for a while, and I didn't go after her. I played with the twins. I could hear the music upstairs and her dancing. Good, I thought. At least she was getting it out of her system. I thought she would come down for dinner finally, but she didn't. I put aside food for her. Still, she didn't return. Finally, I went up to see what she was doing. I found her lying out on the roof. She was in her ballerina costume, so I knew she had to be cold. I brought her a woolen jacket, spread it over her, and lay down beside her. I knew she had to wind down from her fury herself. No words I could say now would matter.

“I almost jumped,” she said.

“What?”

“I was going to jump off this roof. I would have, too, but I realized Momma probably wouldn't care, and they'd probably say some crazy girl came here, climbed up, and jumped.”

“Of course she'd care,” I said. “No matter what, you're still her daughter.”

“Right, sure. Then I thought, what if I was just injured but so badly that I couldn't dance?”

“Very likely,” I told her.

“Then I thought I would live to someday trap
and torture our grandmother and mother just like they've done to us.”

“Oh, Cathy, it doesn't do any good to think these terrible thoughts. You'll end up with a sour-looking face forever, and the acid of hate will eat you up inside.”

She looked at me and snuggled closer. I put my arm around her, and we both gazed up at the stars. I told her I had saved her some dinner and some candy, which I knew she wanted, even though she pretended not to.

“Don't ever wish yourself dead,” I told her. “No matter what, we must think about surviving.”

I told her we'd get out someday soon, and the twins would need her to be their mother. She laughed about our mother, but bitterly, and I told her the truth. I told her I knew our mother would always think of herself first and us second, but that was all right, because I would always look after her. She started to cry and told me she was sorry she had all those bad thoughts and she wouldn't think about death anymore. She pleaded with me to do something.

“Remember what Daddy told us often,” she said. “God helps those who help themselves.”

“I'll think about it,” I said. “But she might be telling us the truth this time. We might be close, and any day now, we could all come into that fortune.”

She turned away. I kissed her cheek. She closed her eyes.

She's right, a voice inside me said, but another said, What if you ruined everything after all this time and suffering? How would you feel then?

Somehow, some way, I had to find enough strength to go on, strength for all of us.

“No one really knows what these kids suffered up there,” Kane said with disgust when he stopped reading. “I mean, all I've ever heard or read was that they were locked away for some time, but how they were treated by their own damn family, the crap they went through, these details . . . it makes me want to throw up.”

“Horrible,” I said. He looked lost in thought. I glanced at my watch. “We'd better go down. It's getting late, and I have some things I have to do before my father gets home.”

He really looked upset enough not to argue about reading a little longer. He nodded, and we organized the attic again. It didn't take long. We hadn't moved much this time. We didn't even open the windows for a little fresh air, because Kane had been so eager to start. He followed me down to my room, and I slipped the diary under my pillow.

“Don't you have a better place to hide it?” he asked. “I mean, if we should lose it now, I think I'd go bonkers not having reached the end.”

“It's as safe as anywhere there. We don't have a maid,” I said. “I make my own bed, clean my own room.”

“I wasn't thinking of that,” he said, lowering his gaze to avoid mine.

“Despite how he feels about it, my father would never take it away,” I told him. In the beginning, I wasn't so confident, but I was now, now that my father had seen how important it was to me. I wasn't surprised that Kane was skeptical about it, though. His parents would probably break promises as easily as bending straws. “Trust me, Kane.”

“Okay.”

We went downstairs. He paused at the door, and I could see something else was bothering him. Even though he was looking right at me, he wasn't seeing me. He was too deep in thought. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I was wondering . . .”

“What?” I followed quickly when he looked like he was about to change his mind about telling me.

“I hope you don't think less of me because of what I told you up there about my mother, the reason she became pregnant, all of that.”

“Why would I think less of you? You didn't do anything wrong. If anything, you're the victim. I think less of your mother and father. I'll say that. I'd even tell them.”

He smiled. “I bet you would.” He kissed me. It was a thank-you kiss, quick, but a little static electricity snapped, and we both laughed. “I'm a shocking guy,” he said.

Just as I opened the door, the house phone rang. “Maybe it's my father,” I said.

Kane waited while I went to the phone. It wasn't my father. It was my aunt Barbara.

“Everything's changed. I feel very good,” she said. “I'm coming for Thanksgiving. I'll stay until Saturday.”

“That's wonderful, Aunt Barbara.”

I copied down her flight number and arrival time and told Kane.

He could see how excited and happy I was, but he didn't smile or look happy for me. “She's flying in tomorrow?”

“That's the flight she could get.”

“We probably won't get together on Sunday,” he said mournfully.

“Oh, you can come over when she's here.”

“I don't mean that,” he said.

I realized what he meant. I just didn't want to acknowledge it, to confirm that reading the diary was more important than anything else to him now, even just seeing me. For a moment, I had the crazy idea that once we had finished it, he would break up with me.

As weird as it might seem, that idea reminded me of the
Arabian Nights
. A Persian king, shocked to discover that his new bride was unfaithful, had her executed and then began to marry virgins, only to execute each the following day. It went on until he married Scheherazade, who began telling him a story without giving him the end. It went on and on for a thousand and one nights, because as long as she kept from revealing the ending, he didn't execute her. Would Kane and I go on and on for our thousand and one nights and then stop when we reached the ending?

Maybe there was no ending.

“We're not going anywhere, Kane, and neither is that diary. There's no rush. Stop worrying.”

“Right. I just hope it doesn't take us as long to finish it as it took them to get out,” he said. Then he realized he was being too intense and laughed. “Poor joke. Sorry. Do I pick you up in the morning?”

“No, leave it like it is for now,” I told him, which was another thing he didn't want to hear. “Especially with my aunt arriving,” I added, to make him feel better about it. “I'm thinking I might need my car after school if I have to pick her up.”

“I'd be glad to do that with you.”

“I know. I just . . . just want some time alone with her. We don't see each other that often.”

“Okay,” he said, and started for his car. He looked so tentative, so unsure of himself suddenly. At this moment, at least, he wasn't the Kane Hill everyone was used to seeing. I knew he was still regretting telling me about his parents and him.
It's the magic of the diary
, I thought.
It makes us tell each other secrets we otherwise wouldn't.

I smiled and waved, and he smiled back. He drove off slowly, looking like he was still in deep thought. I hoped it wasn't so deep that he would drive carelessly.

I felt like my emotions were stuck on a yo-yo. Upstairs in the attic, we were awash in dark, sad, and troubling events, and then, as fast as a yo-yo could come up, my aunt Barbara's phone call raised me to ecstatic happiness. This would be a real Thanksgiving
for us after all, with her and my father telling family stories.

I should do something to dress up the house, I thought, make it more festive. We had some Thanksgiving decorations from years past buried in a laundry-room closet. My father wouldn't think of it, but I would create a centerpiece for our table. Perhaps Aunt Barbara would want to help me do that. I knew just where we could get some rustic elements like beeswax candles and gourds and then do a flower arrangement of roses, hydrangeas, some dahlias, and a few sprigs of fall greenery. We hadn't put a pumpkin out this Halloween, but I thought I'd get one now.

I hurried to call my father. I knew how pleased he would be and how, for a while, at least, the holidays would ring true for us again. Even though Todd and his family and Mrs. Osterhouse were here, there were still those moments when everyone else talked about their families and he and I listened with frozen smiles on our faces, afraid to remember too much. I was really excited about this Thanksgiving now.

I knew Kane didn't like it, but the Dollanganger children would have to wait.

They had waited so long. Another pause for another holiday wouldn't matter now.

My father's voice reflected the same joy I felt. He had tried not to show it, but I saw how disappointed he was when Aunt Barbara had told him she wasn't coming. Now I wished that somehow Uncle Tommy could be with us, too. The last time I remembered the four of us together was at my mother's funeral.
“Weddings and funerals,” my father told me, “famous for bringing in the strays.”

“We have enough food for five more guests, probably,” my father said, “but I know she loves that marshmallow sweet potato dish. I wasn't planning on doing it, so we'll have to get the marshmallows later.”