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! (192 page)

He riveted his cold blue eyes on me, and then on Cindy. “Those who sin, and sin again, always pay dearly, as some here should already know.” Next he was staring at Jory meaningfully.

“The old son of a bitch,” murmured Cindy, watching him slip out of the room with the same stealth as he had entered.

“Cindy, don’t you ever let me hear you say anything like that again!” fired Bart. “Nobody uses obscenities under
my
roof.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” flared Cindy. “Just the other day I
overheard you calling Joel the same thing. And what’s more, Bart Foxworth, I’ll call a spade a spade—even under your roof!”

“Go to your room and stay there!” bellowed Bart.

“Everybody continue having fun,” said Jory, guiding his chair toward the elevator. “As for me, damned if I don’t want to turn in my Christian membership.”

“You’ve never been a Christian to begin with,” called Bart. “Nobody here goes to church. But there will come a day in the near future when
everyone
here will attend church.”

Chris stood up and precisely put down his napkin, fixing Bart and Cindy with commanding eyes. “I’ve had enough of this childish quibbling. I’m surprised that all of you who think you are adults can revert to children in a wink of the eye.”

But Jory was not to be stopped this time. He wheeled his chair about abruptly, rage flaming his usually controlled face, flaring wide his nostrils. “Dad, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to have my say.” He turned toward Bart, who had risen to his feet. “Now, you listen to me,
little
brother.” His strong hands released the joystick to clench into fists. “I believe in God . . . but I don’t believe in religion. Religion is used to manipulate and punish. Used in a thousand ways for profit, for even in the church, money is still the
real
God.”

“Bart,” I implored, so afraid he’d harm Jory again, “it’s time we all headed upstairs.”

Bart had paled. “No wonder you sit there in that chair if you believe what you just said. You are being punished by God, just as Joel says.”

“Joel,” sneered Jory. “Who the hell cares what an old fool like Joel says? I’m punished because some stupid idiot wet the sand! God didn’t pour down rain to do that. A garden hose took God’s place, and that’s why I’m in this chair and not where I belong. As soon as possible, I’m leaving here, Bart! I’m forgetting you’re my brother, whom I’ve always tried to love and help. I’m not going to try again.”

“Hooray for you, Jory!” cried Cindy, jumping to her feet and applauding.

“STOP!” I yelled, seizing Cindy by the arm while Chris grabbed her other arm and we dragged her away from Bart. Still she twisted and fought to free herself. “You damned freaky hypocrite!” she yelled back at Bart. “I heard at your birthday party that you do your share of using the local brothel . . .”

Thank God the elevator door closed behind us and we were on our way up before Bart could reach Cindy.

“Learn to keep your mouth shut,” said Jory. “You only make him worse, Cindy—and I regret what I just said. Did you see his face? I don’t think he’s pretending about religion. He’s deadly serious. He seems to truly believe. If Joel is a hypocrite, Bart is not.”

Chris fixed his strong regard on both before he stepped out of the elevator. “Jory, Cindy, you listen to me carefully. I want you both to do your best tonight to see that Bart’s party is successful. Forget your enmity, at least for one night. He was a troubled little boy, and he has grown into a more troubled man. He needs help, and badly. Not from more sessions with psychiatrists, but help from those who love him most—and despite everything, I know you both love him. Just as his mother and I love him and care what happens to him. As for Melodie, I visited her before dinner, and she’s not feeling well enough to attend the party. She wouldn’t let me examine her, though I tried to insist, and she says she feels too big, too clumsy and won’t be coming out where guests can stare at her enormous size. I think that might be the best solution for her. But if you would, look in on her and say a few kind words of encouragement, for that poor girl is coming apart from worry . . .”

Jory steered his chair down the hall, turning directly into his room, ignoring Melodie’s closed door. I sighed, as did Chris.

Dutifully Cindy tried to say a few consoling words to Melodie outside of her locked door before she came prancing
back to join Chris and I. “I’m not going to let Melodie spoil my fun. I think she’s acting like a damned selfish fool. As for me, I intend to have the time of my life tonight,” said Cindy in parting. “I don’t give a damn about Bart and his party except what pleasure it gives me.”

“I’m concerned about Cindy,” said Chris when we were lying on our wide bed, trying to catch a short nap. “I have the feeling Cindy is not stingy with her favors.”

“Chris, don’t you dare say that! Just because we caught her with that boy Lance doesn’t mean she is loose. She’s looking, looking all the time at each young man she meets, hoping he’s the one. If one says he loves her, she believes because she needs to believe. Don’t you realize Bart has stolen her confidence? She’s afraid she is exactly what Bart thinks she is. She’s torn between being as wicked as he thinks and being as nice as we want her to be. Cindy’s a beautiful young woman . . . and Bart treats her like filth.”

It had been a long day for Chris. He closed his eyes and turned on his side to embrace me. “Eventually Bart will straighten out,” he murmured. “For the first time I’m seeing in his eyes the need to find a compromise. He has the desperate desire to find someone or something to believe in. Someday he will find what he needs, and when he does, he’ll be set free to be the fine man he is under that hateful exterior.”

Sleep and dream of impossible things, like harmony in the family, like brothers and a sister who found love for each other. Dream on, dreamer . . .

I heard the grandfather clock down the hall chiming the hour of seven when we were supposed to rise from our naps to bathe and dress. I shook Chris awake and told him to hurry and dress. He stretched, yawned, lazily got up to shower while I took a quick tub bath; then he was shaving before donning his custom-tailored tux. Chris stared at himself in a pier glass. “Cathy, am I gaining weight?” he asked with concern.

“No, darling. You look terrif—as Cindy would say.”

“What do
you
say?”

“You grow more handsome with each passing year.” I stepped closer to encircle his waist with my arms as my cheek rested against his back. “I love you more each year . . . and even when you are as old as Joel, I will see you as you are now . . . standing twelve feet tall, in your shining suit of armor, soon to ride your white unicorn. In your hand you’ll carry a twelve-foot spear with a green dragon’s head perched upon its point.”

In the mirror I saw his reflection; tears had come to glisten in his eyes. “After all this time, you remember,” he whispered hoarsely. “After all these many years . . .”

“As if I could forget . . .”

“But it’s been so long ago.”

“And today the moon shone at noon,” I murmured, moving to face him and slide my arms up around his neck, “and a blizzard blew in your unicorn . . . and I saw to my own delight that you’ve always had my respect. You didn’t need to earn it.”

Those two tears trickled slowly down his cheeks. I kissed them away. “So you forgive me, Catherine? Say now, while we have the chance, that you forgive me for putting you through so much hell. For Bart would have turned out differently if I had stayed only his uncle and found another wife.”

I was careful not to smudge his jacket with my makeup as I rested my cheek over his heart, which I heard thumpity-thump-thumping. Just as I’d heard it the first time our love changed and became more than it should have been. “If I blink my eyes just once, I’m twelve years old again, and you’re fourteen. I can see you as you were then . . . but I can’t see me. Chris, why can’t I see me?”

His crooked smile was bittersweet. “Because I’ve stolen all the memories of what you were and stored them in my heart. But you haven’t said you forgive me.”

“Would I be here, where I am, if I didn’t want to be?”

“I hope and pray not,” and I was held, held so tightly in his arms my ribs ached.

Outside the snow began to fall again. Inside my Christopher Doll had turned back the clock, and if there was no magic for Melodie in this house, and Lance’s departure had stolen romance from Cindy, there was more than enough magic for me when Chris was there to cast his spell.

*  *  *

At nine-thirty we sat, all ready to stand when Trevor hurried to open the door. He stood anxiously looking at his watch, glancing at us with great pride. Bart, Chris, Jory, and myself in our elegant expensive formal clothes faced the front windows with their splendid draperies. The towering Christmas tree in the foyer sparkled with a thousand tiny white lights. It had taken five people hours to decorate that tree.

As I sat there like some middle-aged Cinderella who had already found her prince and married him and was caught in the spell of the happy-ever-after, which wasn’t all that perfect, something pulled my eyes upward. In the shadows of the rotunda where two knights in full armor stood on pedestals opposite each other, I saw a dark shadow move. Even in the shade of that smaller closer knight, I thought I knew who it was. Joel, who was supposed to be in bed asleep, or on his knees praying for all our sinning un-Christian souls.

“Bart,” I whispered to my second son, who moved to stand beside my chair, “wasn’t this supposed to be the special party to reintroduce Joel to all his old friends?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, putting his arm over my shoulders. “But that was just my excuse. I knew he wouldn’t want to come. The truth of the matter is, few of his old friends are still alive, although many of my grandmother’s school chums are still around.” His strong fingers bit down into my shoulder’s tender flesh. “You look lovely—like an angel.”

Was that a compliment, or a suggestion?

He smiled at me cynically, then snatched his arm away as if it had betrayed him.

I laughed nervously. “Oh, someday when I’m as old as Joel I suppose I’ll take on a dowager’s hump and shuffle my feet along, and when my sinning is over, I’ll put on the halo I lost way back when I was in puberty . . .”

Both Bart and Chris scowled to hear me talk that way, but I felt good when I saw the shadow of Joel slink away.

Liveried servants readied the buffet tables as Bart got up to pace the floor, looking exceptionally handsome in his black tux with the pleated formal shirt.

I reached for Jory’s hand, squeezed it. “You’re looking just as handsome as Bart,” I whispered.

“Mom, have you given him a compliment? He looks great, really great, the very man his father must have been.”

Blushing, I felt ashamed. “No, I haven’t said a word because he seems so devilishly pleased with himself that I think he’d burst with any praise he might hear from me.”

“Mom, you’re wrong. Go on, say to him what you say to me. You may think I need it more, but I think he does.”

Standing, I strode over to where Bart was peering out onto the drive, which curved gradually downward. “Can’t see a single headlight,” he gruffly complained. “It’s not snowing now. The roads have been cleared. Ours is sprinkled over with gravel; where the hell are they?”

“I’ve never seen you look more handsome than you do tonight, Bart.”

He turned to stare into my eyes, then he glanced at Jory. “More handsome than Jory?”

“Equally as handsome.”

Scowling, he turned back to the window. Out there he saw something to take his mind off of himself.

“Hey—look, here they come!”

I watched the string of headlights in the distance, heading up the hill. “Get ready, everybody,” called Bart, giving Trevor an excited gesture to be ready to swing wide the doors.

Chris strolled beside Jory’s chair, which he guided
expertly, as I caught hold of Bart’s arm and went to form a receiving line. Trevor hurried up to give us all a bright smile.

“I just love parties, I always have, I always will. Makes the heart beat faster. Makes old bones feel young again. I can tell it’s going to be a jolly smashing one tonight.”

Two or three times Trevor said that—with less conviction each time, as still not one pair of those headlights climbed high enough to reach our drive. No one rang our bell, banged our door knocker.

The musicians were in position under the rotunda, on a dais that had been constructed especially for them, centered directly between the curving dual stairways. They tuned their instruments over and over again as my feet in their high-heeled fancy slippers began to ache. I sat again on an elegant chair and wiggled my shoes off under the folds of my gown, which was growing heavier and more uncomfortable by the minute. Eventually Chris sat beside me, and Bart took the righthand chair, all of us very silent, almost holding our breaths. Jory had his own special chair that could buzz him around tirelessly. From window to window he drove, looking out and reporting.

I knew that Cindy was upstairs, all dressed and ready, waiting to be “fashionably” late and impress everyone when finally she drifted down the stairs. She had to be growing very impatient.

“They must be coming soon—” Jory said when the hour reached ten-thirty. “There’s lots of banked snow on the side roads to confuse them . . .”

Bart’s lips were tight and grim, his eyes stony cold.

No one said anything. I was afraid to even speculate on why no one had arrived. Trevor looked very anxious when he thought we weren’t noticing.

To give myself something pleasant to think about, I fixed my eyes on the buffet tables, which reminded me so much of that first ball I’d seen in the original Foxworth Hall.

Very much like what I was staring at.

Red linen tablecloths, silver dishes and bowls. A fountain spraying champagne. Huge, gleaming, chafing dishes emitting delicious odors. Heaps and heaps of food on fancy tiered plates of crystal, porcelain, gold, and silver. At last I could resist no longer and got up to taste of this and that while Bart frowned and complained I was ruining the beautiful designs. I wrinkled my nose his way and handed Chris a plate full of everything I knew he’d like best. Soon Jory was helping himself.