Echoes of Dollanganger (28 page)

“I can pick her up,” I said. “She flies in about a half hour after school ends.”

“Yes, that might work,” he said. “I have a few tricky things to do here before we think about breaking for Thanksgiving. I'll be home soon. I've got those pork chops calling for hungry mouths.”

“Yes, I hear them screaming in the refrigerator,” I told him, and he laughed.

It was so good to laugh, to feel hopeful and happy. We were getting the Dollanganger children's tragedy almost blow-by-blow from Christopher in his diary, but I still couldn't imagine being shut up without the love of family for so long.

Even a day was too long for me.

*  *  *

Just as it was before most holidays, the excitement was explosive at school. Voices were louder, everyone walked faster, teachers could feel their students chafing at the bit, every bell that rang was drawing us all closer and closer to the one that would open the doors and let us all out, teachers, students, administrators, and janitors, all rushing toward good food and good company. I felt sorry for the building left so deserted and dark behind us. It looked like an orphan.

Just as they were yesterday, my friends and Kane's
were still curious about the way he was behaving. He was so much quieter. His smiles were rarer than his laughter, and even when he was with just me, he seemed somewhere else, his eyes vacant. He didn't want to walk with anyone else or sit at a particular table with his buddies. When I was in the girls' bathroom, Missy Meyer, who was in Kane's English class, made a point of telling me how annoyed Mr. Feldman became when Kane's response to a question was a sharp “I don't know.”

“ ‘You should know,' Mr. Feldman told him. He acts like he's angry at everyone for something. What happened to him? Did he have some big fight with his parents or something? Are you two going to break up?”

“No,” I said with surgical finality, and washed my hands quickly.

She hovered, persistent. “So what's the matter with him? You must notice it, too.”

“Whatever it is, it's personal,” I said. “Get on with your life.”

I wasn't usually as curt or nasty with the girls in my class, even Tina Kennedy, but I didn't know what else to say or how else to get them off the topic. I was certainly not going to tell them he was disturbed about things he had read in Christopher Dollanganger's diary. However, that thought gave me an idea.

The next time Kane and I were alone and far enough away for anyone else to hear me speak, I told him his behavior was attracting unwanted attention to
us both. He seemed genuinely surprised, like someone who was told he was sleepwalking.

“What behavior?”

“I see how you are, Kane, and I know why. Try to do what I do. Now, especially because of the details we've learned, I basically put the diary out of my mind until we go up to my attic. You can't keep thinking about it, ignoring your classwork, ignoring your friends, even ignoring me most of the time.”

“I didn't realize . . .”

“You're making me regret reading the diary with you,” I said tersely. “Everyone thinks you're sulking about something, and that perks up their curiosity about us.”

He nodded. “You're right.”

“Pretend if you have to, but don't attract any attention we don't want. It could get back to your parents and then maybe my father.”

“Understood.” He looked around and then straightened his posture and smiled. “Back to Kane Hill.”

“Good.”

He did make an effort during the day, and between the last two classes of the day, he spent some time joking with his buddies. At the end of the day, we made plans for when we would see each other over the long holiday weekend. We decided to plan on something for Sunday. Our teachers were merciful this time and didn't assign a great deal to be done before we returned.

I went off to the airport to greet my aunt Barbara. I spotted her instantly as she came through the entrance to the gate. She was an inch or so shorter than my father and had hair just a shade darker than mine. She kept it cropped short around the edges of her ears but held on to her bangs. At forty-one, she still had what my father called “her girlish figure,” because she was “Lauren Bacall slim.” She had dainty, diminutive features, highlighted by exquisite hazel eyes. Maybe she knew that because most people don't look so directly at you when they speak to you or when you speak to them. My father said she always had that New York arrogance, that look that said, “I can survive well in the city that never sleeps. I can hold my own on subways and on crowded streets. I can deal with the traffic and the noise, so just don't mess with me.”

When my father told her all that to her face, she simply replied, “So? Don't mess with me.”

There was a part of me that envied her and wanted to be more like her, but there was a stronger part that demanded that I be softer, more demure, closer to how I remember my mother. Aunt Barbara always looked like she had something to prove. I knew about her failed love affairs and thought that a woman like her had to find a man who was so self-confident that he was never threatened by her or one who was so weak he'd permit himself to be broken and trained like some wild horse. Somehow, I thought, Aunt Barbara would not want either kind, and therein lay her doom when it came to romance.

“Look at you!” she screamed, rushing toward me to kiss and embrace me. “You look like you've grown years since I last saw you, Kristin.” She held me out at arm's length and loaded her face with suspicion. “Have we—what did you once tell me you called it?—crossed the Rio Grande?”

My face grew so flushed that I thought even the most anxious-to-be-home passengers would pause and look. It was just like my New York aunt to get right to the bottom line. It was why my father had thought of her immediately when he concluded that I had to learn the facts of life quickly. My father said everyone in New York City lived at twice the normal speed. They didn't stroll in New York, he said. “They walk those sidewalks as if they believe the city might roll them up at any moment.”

“I'm sorry,” Aunt Barbara said immediately. “It's none of my business. You're entitled to your secrets, as entitled as I am to mine.” She scrunched up her nose. “When your father's not looking, we'll get drunk, and you'll tell me anyway,” she said.

I laughed, but I wondered if I would.

“Speaking of him, how is my Captain Queeg of a brother?” she asked. I picked up her carryon, and we started out of the terminal. I had seen
The Caine Mutiny
and knew that Queeg was the no-nonsense captain who went off the deep end, chasing down missing strawberries and clicking steel balls in his hand.

“He's a pussycat, Aunt Barbara.”

“We know that,” she said, hugging me, “but never let him know we know.”

After we got into my car and started for home, she became more serious, wanting to know how my father really was.

“I've known widowers and widows,” she said, “but I've rarely seen any who took the loss as hard. He buried a large part of himself with your mother. If it wasn't for you . . .”

“He's okay. He's strong. Really,” I said. “We both are. We know it would wrong her to be anything else.”

“That's very wise, Kristin. I'm so proud of you. And you're going to be valedictorian!”

“That's not for sure yet, Aunt Barbara. I'm neck and neck with someone.”

“I'm betting on you, but you're already valedictorian in our family,” she said. She asked who was coming to Thanksgiving dinner, and I told her about Mrs. Osterhouse.

“I'd like to get to know the woman who thinks she could live with my brother,” she joked. “Last time I was here, I put a fork in the wrong slot in the drawer, and he was ready to ship me out.”

We both laughed. This was going to happen, I told myself. I was going to be able to step outside the attic for days.

My father arrived a little less than an hour after I had helped Aunt Barbara settle into the guest room, so I knew he was anxious to greet her. The three of us sat in the living room, and I listened to them catch up on their lives and their contact with Uncle Tommy, whom I could see they both really wished was with us. My father decided to take us out for dinner.
His favorite restaurant besides Charley's Diner was a Mediterranean-themed restaurant that emphasized Italian and Spanish cuisine. It had four or five stars on all the Internet sites, and I knew from the start that my father wanted to prove to Aunt Barbara that there were restaurants just as sophisticated in Charlottesville as any in her precious New York. Before the night was over, she had to admit he was right.

He gloated, and she and I covered our smiles and winked to each other when we thought he wasn't looking, but my father was always tuned in to what was going on around him.

“All right,” he said. “All right. I know when I'm outnumbered and outgunned.”

It was a wonderful first night of my Thanksgiving holiday.

“I'm so glad I could do this,” Aunt Barbara told me before we went to sleep.

“So am I,” I said, “and so is Dad. Very much.”

We hugged, and I went to bed, for the first time in a long time not hearing Christopher Dollanganger whispering beneath my pillow.

The following day was taken up with last-minute shopping for our dinner and Aunt Barbara and me getting the centerpiece and the decorations done. While we were away, Mrs. Osterhouse brought Dad the turkey he had ordered. He liked to brine it for at least one full day. He said it was the secret to perfect juicy turkey. Aunt Barbara confessed that she wasn't much of a cook. She knew how good my father was and told me one of the main reasons she had come
was for his dinner. While I drove about, she told me more stories about their youth.

Despite how I wanted to avoid it, it seemed impossible for me now to ever hear stories about brothers and sisters without thinking about Christopher and Cathy. She told me about how protective my father was of her, and I really could appreciate how much she admired him. Perhaps just as much as Cathy admired Christopher.

Years later, could they ever talk about what their lives were like at Foxworth? Did they have horrible flashbacks, wake up at night from images of their living nightmare? Could they comfort each other?

As if she knew what I was thinking, on the way home, Aunt Barbara suddenly said, “So tell me about this diary that was found at Foxworth.”

For a moment, I was too stunned to speak. Even though Aunt Barbara was my father's sister, I never suspected that he had revealed it and discussed it with her. First, I was upset that he had done so without telling me, mainly because I believed it was something only he and I shared. I realized immediately how hypocritical being upset because of that was. After all, I had revealed it and was reading it with Kane. Second, I didn't know what he had told her. Could it be that he knew I was reading it with Kane, and this was his way of telling me? Or he suspected it, and this was his way of finding out?

“I didn't know Dad had told you about it,” I began. I glanced at her and turned back to watch where I was driving. We were almost home.

“He's worried about your reading it,” she said.

“I know.”

“Have you finished reading it?”

“Not yet. I've been busy, and it's not easy to take,” I said.

“Exactly why he's worried about it,” she said.

“I can handle it.”

“Oh, I don't doubt you can, but why bother now? You can't do anything to change what happened. I remember how much it all disturbed your mother. Did you know that at one point, your parents were considering moving from Charlottesville?”

“No. I knew she didn't want to talk about it or hear about it, but I didn't know it had ever been that bad.”

“It was. A reporter from the
New York Times
once came to visit your mother. Of course, they were doing a Halloween special, and the story attracted an editor's interest. When your mother refused to talk to him, he went around trying to dig up stuff and implied that your mother knew way more than she had ever revealed, even though she had little or nothing to do with the Foxworth family. That set off people she knew who were after her to confide in them. She lost friends over it.”

“Dad never told me about that.”

“I'm sure he didn't tell you about the fight he got into, either,” she added, and I slowed down.

“What fight?”

“It didn't last long. It was one of those one-punch deals. I forget exactly where they were, an
event of some sort, and some woman made a nasty remark about your mother's relationship to the mad Foxworth family. Your father said something to her, and then her husband came at him, and your father floored him. I just happened to talk to them that night. You weren't even born yet,” she said. “It was around then that they toyed with moving away. The only reason I'm telling you about it is so you'll understand why your father isn't happy about your having that diary. You haven't told anyone about it, have you?”

I felt my throat tighten up. It was as if my whole body was revolting against even the possibility of my lying, and yet I didn't want to confess to my aunt Barbara and not to my father. That would add pain.

I shook my head.

“How much more do you have to read?”

“Not much.”

She was silent.

“Did my father ask you to tell me all this?”

“Sorta,” she said.

I pulled into the driveway and pressed the garage door opener.

“Let's just forget about it,” she said. “I can see you're old enough to deal with anything like that anyway, and I'll tell him not to worry about you. Okay?”

I nodded.

“I mean it, Kristin. We don't want to insert any darkness into this holiday and our time together.” She reached over to squeeze my hand gently.