The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (120 page)

Her school was located on the top floor of a two-story building in San Rafael, not far from where Dad had his medical office. Often they ate lunch together or spent the night in San Francisco so they could see a ballet or go to movies and not have to drive back and forth. Emma was with us, so we didn’t really mind too much, except sometimes I felt left out to see them come home so happy and glowing. It made me think we weren’t as important to them as we liked to believe.

One night when I was restless and couldn’t sleep, I silently stole out of my bedroom with the idea of a midnight snack on my mind, nothing else. The second my feet hit the hall near the living room I could hear the sound of my parents’ voices.
Loud. They were arguing, and they seldom even spoke crossly to one another.

I didn’t know what to do, to stay or to return to my room. Then I remembered that scene in the attic, and for my protection and Bart’s, too, I felt I had to know what this was all about.

Mom still wore the pretty blue dress she’d worn out to dinner with Dad. “I don’t know why you keep objecting!” she stormed, as she paced back and forth, throwing Dad furious looks. “You know as well as I do that Nicole isn’t going to get well. And if we wait until she’s buried, then the state will have custody of Cindy, and we’ll have a devil of a time getting her away from them! Let’s move now. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that landlady doesn’t want to be bothered any longer. Chris,
please make up your mind!”

“No,” he said coldly. “We have two children and that’s enough. There are other young couples who will be delighted to adopt Cindy. Couples who don’t have as much to lose as we do when the adoption agency starts to investigate . . .”

Mom threw her hands wide. “That’s what I’m saying! If we have Cindy before Nicole dies, the agency won’t have any reason to investigate. I’ll go tonight and tell Nicole what I plan. I’m sure she’ll agree and sign whatever legal papers are needed.”

“Catherine,” said my stepfather in a firm voice, “you can’t have everything the way you want it. Nicole may very well recover in a few weeks, and even if she is permanently crippled, she’ll still want her child.”

“But what kind of mother will she make?”

“That’s not for us to decide.”

“She can’t recover! You know it, and I know it—and what’s more, Christopher Doll, I have already gone to the hospital and talked to Nicole, and she
wants
me to have her daughter. She signed the papers I took, and I had Simon Daughtry with me. He’s an attorney, and had his secretary along—so what can you do now to stop me?”

Appearing shocked, my stepdad put his hands to his face, while my mother railed on and on:

“Christopher, stop cringing behind your hands. Show your face, and recognize what you made me do. You were there the night Bart was born—there with your pleading eyes telling me Paul wouldn’t be enough, and it would be you in the end who won. If you hadn’t been there, pleading with those damned blue eyes, I wouldn’t have let the doctors talk me into signing those papers and allowing the sterilization! I would have borne another child even if it did kill me. But you were there, and I gave in—for your sake, damn it!
For your sake!”

Sobbing, she fell to the floor and lay curled up on her side, her fingers working in the deep shag of the carpet. Her long blonde hair spread like a golden fan on the carpet and cushioned her cheek as she cried on and on, berating him and herself for what there were doing.

What were they doing?

She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms wide. Dad uncovered his face and stared at her, looking deeply wounded.

“You’re right, Christopher! You are always right! There’s only been one time when I was right, but that single time might have saved Cory’s life.” Sobbing, she jerked her head away from Dad, who knelt beside her and tried to pull her into his embrace. She hit at him, making me gasp.

“You were right again when you told me not to marry Julian! I’ll bet you gloated when our marriage turned out to be a miserable failure. I’ll bet you were delighted when Julian sat back and allowed Yolanda Lange to destroy everything we owned. Everything happened just the way you predicted, making you so happy. Then Bart suffocated in the fire that burned Foxworth Hall to the ground. Were you laughing inside then too?—glad to be rid of him? Did you think I’d run straight into your arms and forget about all I owed Paul? Did you doubt I loved Paul?” Her voice rose to a shrill shriek. “When Paul and I were lovers I never thought of him as too old, until
you kept harping on his age. Perhaps I wouldn’t have paid any attention to Amanda and what she said if you hadn’t bugged me so much about marrying a man twenty-five years older.”

I shrank into a tighter ball. Ashamed to stay and listen; afraid to get up and go now that I’d overheard so much. Mom was wound up, as if she’d saved this for a long time, ready to throw it into his face at the right opportunity—and here it was. He recoiled from the viciousness of her attack.

“Remember the afternoon I married Paul?” she yelled. “Remember? Think of the moment when you handed me the ring he put on my finger. You hesitated so long the minister had to urge you with a whisper. And all the time you were pleading with your eyes. I resisted you then, as I should have resisted you after he died. Did you wish for him to die soon so that you’d have YOUR chance? A self-fulfilling wish, Christopher Doll! YOU WIN! YOU ALWAYS WIN! YOU SIT BACK AND WAIT WHILE YOU DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MESS UP MY LIFE! WELL, HERE I AM! RIGHT WHERE YOU WANTED ME!—in your bed, acting as your wife. Are you enjoying yourself? ARE YOU?” She sobbed, then slapped his face hard.

He reeled backward but didn’t say a word. She hadn’t finished with him even then. “Don’t you realize I would never have gone to Bart in the first place if you hadn’t always been hanging around, coming between Paul and me; making me ashamed of what Momma had done to you, to me? I had to take Bart away from her then—it was the only way I could punish her for what she did to us. And now, after all Paul did for us, you won’t even have the decent generosity to take in a poor little girl who will soon be an orphan. Even when I have paved the way legally so there won’t be any investigation by the authorities. Still you want me for yourself, thinking two sons are enough to get in the way of our privacy, and another child might bring down our house of cheating cards.”

“Cathy, please . . . ,” he moaned.

She hit at him with small, balled fists, then yelled again, “Perhaps you even told me it was all right for Paul to have sex just so he would have another heart attack!”

The she sank back, panting, tears streaking her face while her watery blue eyes stared up at Dad, but he only stayed still, hunkered down on his heels as if frozen by all she’d said.

I wanted to cry, for him, for her, for Bart and for me. Though I didn’t understand nearly enough.

My dad began to shiver uncontrollably, as if winter had come unexpectedly into our living room. Had Mom told the truth? Was he the one who was behind all the deaths in our lives? I was scared too, for I loved him.

“Great God, Catherine,” he said at last, rising to his feet and heading toward their bedroom. “I’ll pack my bags and move out before the hour is over, if that’s what you want. And I hope you’re satisfied. This time, you win!”

In one single graceful bound, she was on her feet and running after him. She caught hold of his arm and spun him around before she flung her arms about his waist and clung. “Chris!” she cried out, “I’m sorry! So sorry. I didn’t mean a word I said. It was cruel, and I know it. I love you; I’ve always loved you; I lie, I cheat, I say anything I want to get my way. I’ll put the blame on anyone. I can’t bear it as my own. Don’t look so hurt, so betrayed. You’re right to deny me Nicole’s daughter, for I do end up hurting everyone I love. I do destroy what I care about most. If I’d been the right kind of person I would have found the right words to say to Carrie, but I didn’t say anything right to her then, and nothing right to Julian either.”

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 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.