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! (201 page)

The next Monday Chris drove off again, heading back to the job he now loved just as much as he’d loved being a practicing physician. I stood staring after his car, feeling my rival was his blossoming love affair with biochemistry.

The dinner table seemed lonely without Chris or Cindy there, and Toni was upstairs putting the twins to bed, a fact that annoyed Bart greatly. He said several things to Jory about Toni, meant to imply she was already madly in love with him. This information didn’t affect Jory one way or another; he was too deep in his own thoughts. He didn’t say two words during the entire meal, even when eventually Toni did join us.

*  *  *

Another Friday evening came, and with it Chris returned, as once Daddy had come home every Friday. Somehow or other I was disturbed by the similarities of our lives compared to our parents’ lives. Saturday we spent most of the day in the pool with Jory and the twins, with Toni and I supporting the babies as Chris helped Jory, who really didn’t need much help. He took off across the water, expertly swimming, his strong arms more than making up for his legs that trailed limply behind. In the pool, with his legs under the water, he appeared so much himself that it showed on his happy face.

“Hey, this is great! Let’s not move away from here yet. There aren’t many houses in Charlottesville with pools like this. And I need the wide hallways and the elevator. And I’ve grown accustomed to Bart, and even to Joel.”

“I might not be coming next weekend.” Chris didn’t meet
my eyes as he gave out this startling information at our Sunday breakfast table. He went on, steadfastly refusing to look my way or meet anyone’s eyes. “There’s a convention of biochemists in Chicago and I’d like to fly there. I’ll be gone two weeks. If you want to join me, Cathy, I’d be grateful.”

Bart keened his ears my way, digging his spoon into his ripe melon. His dark eyes held a quiet, waiting look, as if his entire life depended upon my answer. I wanted to go with Chris. In the worst way I wanted to escape this house, its problems, and to be alone with the man I loved. I wanted to be near him, but I had to deny him and make this last-ditch effort to save Bart. “I’d like very much to go with you, Chris. But Jory is embarrassed to ask Toni to do some intimate things for him. He needs me here.”

“For Christ’s sake! That’s why we hired her! She’s a nurse!”

“Chris, not under my roof do you take the Lord’s name in vain.”

Glaring at Bart for saying this, Chris rose to his feet. “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I’ll eat breakfast in town, if I can regain an appetite for anything again.”

He glared at me accusingly, flashed angry eyes at Bart, put his hand briefly on Jory’s shoulder, and then he was off.

It was a good thing I’d asked him to find a nurse before this happened. Now he’d more than likely close his ears to what I wanted to do for my two sons who were, in one way or another, driving a wedge between us. Yet I couldn’t leave Jory when I wasn’t really sure Toni would take good care of him, not yet.

Toni joined us at our luncheon table wearing a fresh white uniform. The three of us at the table talked of the weather and of other mundane things while she sat with her eyes fixed on Bart. Beautiful soft, luminous, gray eyes filled with awe—and infatuation. It was so obvious I wanted to warn her to look at Jory, to see him and not the man who was most likely to destroy her.

Sensing her admiration, Bart turned on his charm, laughing and telling her some silly stories that mocked the little boy he’d been. Each word he said entranced her more, as Jory sat unnoticed in his detested chair, pretending to read the morning newspaper.

Day by day I could see Toni’s infatuation with Bart growing, even as she kindly tended to the twins and patiently did what she could for Jory. My firstborn son stayed in a sullen mood, waiting constantly for telephone calls from Melodie, waiting for letters that didn’t come, waiting for someone to help with things he used to do for himself and no longer could. I sensed his impatience when it took the servants so long to make up his bed, to tidy his rooms, to get out of his way and leave him alone.

He drove himself relentlessly, hired an art instructor to come three times a week and teach him different techniques. Work, work, work . . . he was driving himself to become the best artist possible, as once he’d dedicated himself to practicing his ballet exercises morning, night and noon.

The four
D
s of the ballet world never died in some of us. Drive, Dedication, Desire, Determination.

“Do you think Toni is an adequate nursemaid for the twins?” I asked one evening as she took off down the road, pushing the twins in a double stroller. They loved being outdoors. Just to see the stroller brought squeals of pleasure and excitement. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than both Jory and I saw Bart racing to catch up with the nurse. Then the two of them were pushing Jory’s children.

Uneasily I waited for Jory to speak. He said nothing. I glanced to see his bitter expression as he stared after Bart, now taking charge of his children, and the nurse I’d hired for him. It was as if I could read his thoughts. He didn’t stand a chance with any woman now that he was in that chair. Now that his legs didn’t dance, or even walk. Yet his doctors had told Chris and me that many handicapped men married and
lived more or less normal lives. The percentages for marriage were much higher for disabled men than for handicapped women. “Women have more compassion than men. Most normal men think more of their own needs. It takes an exceptionally compassionate and understanding man to marry a woman who isn’t physically normal.”

“Jory, do you still miss Melodie?”

He stared gloomily before him, deliberately turning his eyes away from Toni and Bart, who’d paused to sit on a tree stump, apparently talking.

“I try not to do much thinking at all. It’s a good way to keep from worrying about the years ahead, and how I’m going to manage. Eventually I will be alone, and I fear that day, fearing it’s more than I can handle.”

“Chris and I will always be with you, as long as you need us, and as long as we live; but long before either of us die, you will have found someone else. I know that will happen.”

“How do you know that? I’m not sure I even want anyone. I’d be embarrassed now to have a wife. I’m trying to find something to do to fill the empty place that dancing left, and so far I haven’t. The best thing in my life now are my twins and my parents.”

I glanced again at the pair on the tree stump, just in time to see Bart jump up to lift the twins out of their double stroller, and then he was playing with them on the roadside grass. They liked everyone and even tried to charm Joel, who never touched them, never spoke to them as we did. Faintly we could hear the laughter of the little boy and girl who grew prettier and prettier each day. Bart looked and acted happy. I told myself that Bart needed someone too, just as desperately as Jory did. In a way, he needed someone even more than Jory. Inevitably Jory would find his way, with or without a wife.

We sat on and on, watching the pair who played with the twins. A full moon rose, appearing exceedingly large and golden in the twilight. A bird over the lake not so far
away made its lonely cry. “What’s that?” I asked, sitting up straighter. “I never heard a bird like that before down here.”

“It’s a loon,” said Jory, looking in the direction of the lake. “Sometimes a storm blows them down this way. Mel and I used to rent a cottage on Mount Desert Isle, and we’d hear the cries of the loons and think them romantic. I wonder why we thought that. Now that cry just sounds forlorn, even eerie.”

Out of the dark near the shrubbery, Joel spoke up. “There are some who say that lost souls inhabit the bodies of loons.”

His benign voice said softly, “Those who can’t find peace in their graves, Catherine. Those who hesitate between Heaven and Hell, looking back to their time on earth to see what they left unfinished. By looking back, they are trapped forever, or at least until their life’s work is done.”

I shivered as if a cold wind blew from the cemetery.

“Don’t try to digest that, Mom,” said Jory impatiently. “I wish I could use some of the descriptive adjectives that Cindy’s age group can throw out with so much ease and not feel crass. Funny,” he added more thoughtfully as Joel disappeared again in the darkness, “when I was in New York and I was disgusted, impatient, or angry, I used gutter language, too. Now, even when I think about saying those words, something keeps me from doing it.”

He didn’t have to explain. I knew exactly what he meant. It was all around us, in the atmosphere, the clarity of the mountain air, the closeness of the stars . . . the presence of a strict and demanding God. Everywhere.

T
hey met in the shadows. They kissed in the halls. They haunted the sunny, spacious gardens, roamed there in the moonlight, too. They swam together, played tennis together, strolled hand in hand by the lakeshores; they walked and jogged in the woods, had picnics by the pool, by the lake, in the woods; went dancing, to restaurants, then the theater, the movies.

They lived in their own world while we were apparently invisible, not seen or heard by them, not when they could look at each other across the dining table with dazzled eyes, as if they had the world by its tail and would never let it go. I was caught up in their romance, despite myself, thrilled to be around such glowing, beautiful young lovers, a matched pair with their dark hair almost the same color. I was happy and I was unhappy, delighted, yet so sad that it was not Jory who had found another woman to love. I wanted to warn Toni she was on treacherous ground, that Bart was not to be trusted, but then I’d look at Bart’s radiant face, free of guilt or shame. This time he wasn’t stealing anything that belonged to his
brother. My critical words would fade away unspoken. Who was I to tell him whom he could love? I, of all people, had to stay quiet and let him have his chance. This was different than it had been with Melodie; Toni didn’t belong to Jory.

Bart showed his happiness by becoming more confident, and with the security in his newfound love he forgot all his peculiar habits and his obsessive concern for neatness and allowed himself to relax in sports clothes. In the past, a thousand-dollar suit worn with expensive silk shirts and ties had given him his status symbols; now he didn’t care, for Toni had given him his sense of worth. I could tell that for the first time in his life he seemed to have found stable ground to stand on.

He smiled and kissed me several times on the cheek. “I know what you wanted to happen, I do! I do! But it’s me she loves, Mother!
Me!
Toni sees something wonderful and noble in
me!
Do you realize how that makes me feel? Melodie used to say she saw these qualities in me too, but I didn’t feel noble or wonderful when I knew what harm I was doing to Jory. Now it’s different. Toni’s never been married, never had a lover before, although she’s had lots of boyfriends. Mother, think of that! I am her first lover! It makes me feel so special to be the one she waited for. Mother, we have something wonderfully special. In me she sees the same things that
you see
in Jory.”

“I think that’s wonderful, Bart. I am happy for you both.”

“Are you really?” His dark eyes turned serious as they sought to delve the truth of my statement. Before I could reply, Joel spoke from the open doorway of Bart’s study.

“You stupid fool! You think that nurse really wants
you?
That woman sees the nobility of your money! It’s your bank accounts she’s after, Bart Foxworth! Have you observed the way she strolls through this house, her eyes half closed, obviously pretending that she’s the mistress here! She doesn’t love you. She is using you to get what every woman wants—money, control, power, and then more money—and once you marry
her, she’ll be set for life, even if you divorce her later on.”

“Shut up!” barked Bart, turning to glare furiously at the old man. “You’re jealous because I have no time left to spend with you. This is the cleanest, purest love of my life—and I’m not going to allow you to spoil it!”

Joel bowed his head meekly, appearing crestfallen as he templed his palms together under his chin before he slipped down the hall, obviously headed for that special small room that Bart had converted into a family chapel, although only Joel and Bart ever prayed there. I’d never even bothered to look inside.

I stood on my toes to kiss Bart’s cheek, to hug him and wish him good luck. “I’m happy for you, Bart. Sincerely happy. I truthfully admit I had hopes that Toni might fall in love with Jory and make up for his loss of Melodie. I wanted the twins to have a mother while they are still babies. She would have the chance to learn to love them like her own, and they wouldn’t remember any mother but her. But since it hasn’t happened that way, seeing your happiness and hers makes me feel warm and good inside.”

Delving, delving, those dark eyes that tried to read my soul. I had to ask: “Will you marry her?”

His hands rested lightly on my shoulders. “Yes, I’ll ask her soon, after I make sure she isn’t deceiving me. I have a method all planned to test her.”