Oh, I hadn't known before my mother had such a terrible temper. She was just like me. I felt shocked, scared as I watched my mother tackle my old grandmother so her chair tipped over and both of them fell to the floor, rolling over and over as John Amos groaned, maybe never to recover. In a few moments Momma was sitting on top of my grandmother, ripping off all those glittering, expensive rings. Weakly my grandmother tried to defend herself and her jewelry.
"Please, Cathy, don't do this to me," she pleaded.
"You!
How I've longed to see you on the floor, pleading with me as you are. I was wrong a moment ago--this is my lucky day. My chance to have my revenge again for all you've done. You watch and see what I do to your precious rings." She raised her arm, and with one wild gesture she hurled all those rings into the roaring fire. "There, there! It's done!" cried my momma. "What should have been done long ago on the night Bart died."
With a gloating expression she ran to pick up Cindy; ran to the foyer closet to yank on Cindy's coat, and then reached for her own coat and boots she'd pulled off.
John Amos had picked himself off the floor, muttering to himself about Devil's issue that should have died when she was caged and helpless. "Damned hellcat should have been slaughtered before she could create more Devil's issue!"
I heard.
Maybe Momma didn't.
I moved out of the dumbwaiter unseen by my grandmother, who was crying as she sat on the floor in a broken heap.
Momma had on her boots now, her white coat, though she was shivering as she came to the door and looked in on the woman still on the floor. "What did you say, John Amos Jackson? Did I hear you call me a hellcat, Devil's issue? Say that again to my face! Go on, say it to me now! Now that I'm an adult and not a frightened child anymore. Now that my legs and arms are strong and yours are weak. Don't think you can do away with me so easily now--for I'm not old, and I'm not weak, and I'm not scared anymore."
He headed her way, holding in his hand a poker he must have taken from the fireplace. She laughed, seeming to think he was a fool and an easy enemy. Quickly she dodged, then shot out her good leg and kicked his bottom hard so he fell prone upon his face, screaming out his rage as he fell.
I was screaming too. This was wrong! This was not the way John Amos and I had planned for God to have his revenge. He wasn't supposed to hurt her.
Momma saw me then. Her blue eyes widened, her face paled and she seemed to crumple. "Bart."
I whispered, "John Amos told me all the things I had to do."
She whirled on my grandmother. "Look what you have done. You have turned my own son against me. And all the time you get by with everything, even murder. You poisoned Cory, poisoned Carrie's mind so she had to kill herself, killed Bart Winslow when you sent him back into the fire to save the life of a wretched old woman who didn't deserve to live--and now you poison the mind of my son against me. And you escaped justice by pleading insanity. You weren't insane when you set fire to Foxworth Hall. That was the first clever stunt you pulled in your life but this is my time for revenge." And with those words she raced to the fireplace, picked up the small shovel for ashes, pushed aside the firescreen, and began to pull red hot coals from the fire onto the Oriental rug.
As the rug began to smoke, she called to me, "Bart, put on your coat, we're going home, and we'll move so far away she'll never find us, never!"
I screamed. My grandmother screamed. But my mother was so busy buttoning up Cindy's coat she didn't see that John Amos had the poker in his hand again. As I froze, my lips parted to scream a warning again--the poker came down on her head. She slumped quietly to the floor like a rag doll.
"You fool!" cried my grandmother. "You may have killed her!"
Things were happening too fast. Everything was going wrong. Momma wasn't supposed to be hurt. I wanted to say this, but the face of John Amos was twisted, his lips snarled as he advanced on my grandmother.
"Cathy, Cathy," she pleaded, down on her knees and cradling my mother's head, "please don't die. I love you. I've always loved you. I never meant for any of you to die. I nev--"
The whack was so hard she slumped over the body of my mother.
Rage was in my head. Cindy was screaming. "John Amos!" I yelled. "That wasn't in God's plan!"
He turned, smiling and confident. "Yes, it was, Bart. God spoke to me last night and told me what to do. Didn't you hear your mother say she was going far-far away? She wouldn't take a bothersome boy like you with her, would she? Wouldn't she put you away first in some institution? Then she'd go, and never would you see her again, Bart. Just like your greatgrandfather, you'd be abandoned forever. Just like your grandmother you'd be locked up, and you'd never see her again either! That's the cruel way life treats those who try to do their best. And it's me, only me who is trying to take care of you and see you escape confinement worse than prison."
Prison, prison, so much like poison.
"Bart, are you listening? Have you heard? Do you understand I'm doing what I can to save both of them for you?"
I stared at him; didn't really understand anything. "Yes, Bart, instead of one, you will have two souvenirs."
Didn't know what or who to believe. I stared down at the two women on the floor, my momma, my grandmother who had fallen crosswise over the slight body of my momma. It came over me in an
overwhelming flood--I loved those two women. I loved them more than I'd known I had. Wouldn't want to stay alive if I lost one, much less two. Were they as evil as John Amos had said? Would God punish me if I kept them from being "redeemed" by fire?
And there he was in front of me, John Amos, the only one who had been fully honest with me from the beginning, telling me from the start who my real daddy was, who my real grandmother was, who Malcolm the wise and clever was.
I looked into his small narrow eyes for instructions. God was behind John Amos or else he wouldn't have lived to be so old.
He smiled and chucked me under the chin, and I shivered. Didn't like people to touch me when I couldn't even feel the touch.
"Now listen to me carefully, Bart. First you are to take Cindy home. Then you make her swear not to tell anything or you will cut out her little pink tongue. Can you make her promise?"
Numbly I nodded. Had to make Cindy promise. "You won't hurt my momma and my grandmomma?"
"Of course not, Bart. I'll just put them away where they'll be safe. You can see them whenever you want. But not one word to that man who calls himself your father.
Not one word.
Remember he, too, will take you away from your home and have you locked up. He thinks you're crazy too. Don't you know that's why they keep taking you to shrinks?"
I swallowed; my throat hurt. Didn't know what to do.
John Amos knew. "Now you go home with Cindy, keep the brat quiet, lock yourself in your room, play dumb, know nothing. And remember . . . you threaten that kid sister so horribly she'll be scared to let out a squeak."
"She's not my kid sister," I whispered weakly.
"What's the difference?" he snarled irritably. "You just do as I say. Follow instructions, as God wants men to believe in him unquestioningly--and never let out to your brother or your father that you know his secret, or that you have any idea where your mother went. Play dumb. You should be good at that."
What did he mean? Was he making fun of me?
I knitted my brows and turned on my best glower, and imitated Malcolm. "You hear this, John Amos.
The day you can out-smart me will be the day the earth sits on the head of a pin, and I swallow it. So don't you mock me, and think I'm dumb . . . for in the end, I'll win. I'll always win, dead or alive."
Power swelled up huge within me. Never felt so stuffed full of brains. I looked down at the two women I loved. Yes, God had planned for it to happen this way, give me two mothers to keep forever as my own . . . and I'd never be lonely again.
"Now you keep your mouth shut, and don't tell Daddy or Jory one word or I'll cut out your tongue," I said to Cindy when we were home and in our kitchen together. "Do you want your tongue cut out?"
Her small face was wet with rain and tears, streaked with dirt too. Her lips gaped and her eyes bulged, and whimpering like a baby, she allowed me to put on her pajamas and put her in bed. I kept my eyes closed all the time so none of her girl's body would shame me into hating her more.
There was somebody I had to tell off. Somebody who seemed to have started a tornado that was going on forever and ruining our lives. Dad and I had talked about it a lot, but things were still very tense and I was so confused. Why did she have to come and start all this? Finally I could hold in my anger no longer, and as soon as ballet class was over, I raced to Madame's office.
"I hate you, Madame, for all the mean things you said to my mom. Everything's been terrible ever since that day. You leave her alone from now on, or I'll go and never come back to see you. Did you fly all the way here just to make her sick? She can't dance now, and that's bad enough. If you don't stop causing so much trouble, I'll quit dancing too. I'll run away and you'll never see me again. For in ruining my parents' lives, you have managed to ruin not only theirs, but mine and Bart's too."
She paled and looked very old. "You sound so very much like your father. Julian used to blaze his dark eyes at me in the same way."
"Yes, used to. When I thought you cared about me, about my parents, then I believed that dancing was the most wonderful thing in the world. Now I don't believe."
She looked stricken, as if I'd stabbed her in her heart. She reeled back against the wall and would have fallen if I hadn't stepped forward to support her. "Jory, please," she gasped, "don't ever run away. Don't stop dancing. If you do, then my life has been meaningless, and Georges will have lived for nothing, and Julian too. Don't take everything from those I have loved and lost."
I couldn't speak, I was so confused. So I ran, ran like Bart always ran when things got too heavy.
Behind me Melodie called out: "Jory, where are you going in such a hurry? We were going to have a soda together."
I ran on. I didn't care anymore about anyone or anything. My life was all screwed up. My parents weren't married. How could they be? What minister or judge would marry a brother and his sister?
Once I hit the sidewalk I slowed down, then went on to a public park where I sat down on a green bench. On and on I sat, staring down at my feet. A dancer's feet. Strong, tough with calluses, ready for the professional stage. What would I do now when I grew up? I didn't really want to be a doctor, though I'd said that a few times just to please the man I loved as a father. What a joke. Why should I try and lie to myself--there was no life for me without dancing. When I punished Madame, my mother, my stepdad who was really only my uncle, I punished myself even worse.
I stood up and looked around at all the old people sitting lonely in the park, wondering if one day I'd be like them, and I thought, No. I'll know when to say I made a mistake. When to say I'm sorry.
Madame M. was in her office, her head bowed down into her thin hands when I opened the door quietly and stepped inside her office. I must have made some noise, for she looked up and I saw tears in her eyes. Joy flooded them when she saw me, but she didn't mention all that had happened half an hour ago.
"I have a gift for your mother," she said in her naturally shrill voice. She slid open a desk drawer and withdrew a gold box bound with red satin ribbon. "For Catherine," she said stiffly, not meeting my eyes. "You are right about everything. I was ready to take you from your mother and father because I felt I was doing the right thing for you. I see now I was doing what I wanted for myself, not for you. Sons belong with their mothers, not their grandmothers." She smiled bitterly as she looked at the pretty gold box. "Lady Godiva candy. The kind your mother was nuts about when she lived in New York and was with Madame Zolta's company. Then she couldn't eat chocolates for fear of adding weight--though she was the kind of dancer who burned off more calories than most when she danced-- still I allowed her only one piece of candy a week. Now that she won't dance again, she can indulge to her heart's desire."
That was Bart's phrase.
"Mom has an awful cold," I explained just as stiffly as she had. "Thank you for the candy and what you just said. I know Mom will feel better knowing you won't try and take me away from her." I grinned then and kissed her dry cheek. "Besides, don't you realize there is enough of me to share? If you aren't stingy, she won't be. Mom is wonderful. Not once has she ever told me you and she had any difficulties." I settled down in her single office chair and crossed my legs. "Madame, I'm scared. Things are going crazy in our house. Bart acts weirder each day. Mom is sick with that cold; Dad seems so unhappy. Clover is dead. Emma doesn't smile anymore. Christmas is coming and nothing is being done about it. If this keeps up, I think I'll crack up myself."
"Hah!" she snorted, back to her old self. "Life is always like that--twenty minutes of misery for every two seconds of joy. So, be everlastingly grateful for those rare two seconds and appreciate; appreciate what good you can find, no matter what the cost."
My smiles were false. Underneath I was truly depressed. Her cynical words didn't really help. "Does it have to be that way?" I asked.
"Jory," she said, thrusting her old pastry-dough face closer to mine, "think about this. If there were no shadows, how could we see the sunlight?"
I sat there in her gloomy office and allowed this kind of sour philosophy to give me some peace. "Okay, I get your meaning, Madame. And if you can't say you are sorry, then I can."
She whispered as if it hurt, "I'm sorry too."
I hugged her close, and we had come to some sort of compromise.
All the way home I held the gold box of chocolates on my lap, dying to open it. "Dad," I began falteringly, "Madame is sending Mom this candy as a reconciliation gift, I guess."
He threw me a glance and a smile. "That's nice."
"I think it's terribly strange Mom is staying sick with that cold for so long. She's never been sick more than a day or two. Don't you think she looks very tired?"
"It's that writing, that damned writing," he grouched, watching the heavy traffic, turning on the windshield wipers, leaning forward to peer more closely at the traffic signal to the right. "I wish it would stop raining. Rain always bothers her. Then she's up 'til four in the morning, next day up at dawn to scribble on legal pads, afraid to use the typewriter for fear of waking me. When the candle is burned at both ends something has to give--and that's her health. First that fall, now this cold." He gave me another sideways glance. "Then there's Bart and his problems, and you and yours. Jory, you know our secret now. Your mother and I have talked it over, and you and I have talked about it for hours and hours. Can you forgive us? Haven't I managed to help you understand?"
I bowed my head and felt ashamed. "I'm trying to understand."
"Trying? Is it that difficult? Haven't I told you how it was with us, up there, all four of us in one room, growing up, finding out in our adolescence that we had only each other. . ."
"But, Dad. When you ran away and found a new home with Dr. Paul, couldn't you have found someone else? Why did it have to be her?"
Sighing, he set his lips. "I thought I explained to you how I felt then about women. Your mother was there when I needed her. Our own mother had betrayed us. When you're young you fix very strong ideas in your mind I'm sorry if you've been hurt by my inability to love anyone but her."
What was there for me to say? I couldn't understand. The world was full of beautiful young women, thousands, millions. Then I thought of Melodie. If she were to die could I go out and find another? I thought and thought about that as Dad turned silent and his lips stayed in that grim line, and the rain came down, down, driving hard. It was as if he could read my mind For yes, if ever I was so unfortunate to lose Melodie, if she moved away and I never saw her again, I'd go on living, and eventually I'd find another to take her place. Anything was better than
"Jory, I know what you're thinking I've had years and years to think about why it had to be my sister and no one else. Perhaps it was because I'd lost faith in all women because of what our mother was doing to us, and only my sister could give me comfort. She was the one who kept me from falling apart during those long years of deprivations. She was the one who made of that one room a whole house. She was a mother to Cory and Carrie. She made that room seem a home, making the table pretty, making the beds, scrubbing clothes in the bathroom tub, hanging them in the attic to dry, but more than anything, it was the way she danced in the attic that made me love her, and put her in my heart forever. For it seemed as I stood in the shadows and watched her, she was dancing only for me. I thought she was making me the prince of her dreams, as I made her the princess of mine. I was romantic then, even more so than she. Your mother is made of different stuff than most women, Jory. She could live on hate and still flourish, I couldn't. I had to have love or die. When we escaped Foxworth Hail, she flirted with Paul, wanting him to take her from me. She married your father when Paul's sister, Amanda, told her a lie. She was a good wife to your father, but after he was killed she ran to the mountains of Virginia to complete her plans for revenge, which included stealing her mother's second husband. As you have found out, Bart is the son of my mother's husband, and not the son of Paul as we told you and told him. We had to tell lies then, to protect you. Then, after your mother married Paul, and he died, she came to me. During all those years I waited, I somehow knew eventually she'd be mine as long as I held fast to my faith, and kept the flame of my first love burning. It was so easy for her to love other men. It was impossible for me to find any woman who could compare. She took me for her own when I was about your age, Jory. Be careful whom you love first, for that is the girl you will never forget."
I let out a long withheld breath, thinking that life was not at all like fairy tale ballets, or TV soap operas. Love did not come and go with the seasons as I'd kinda hoped it would.
The drive home seemed to take forever. Dad was forced to drive very slowly and carefully. From time to time he flicked his eyes to the dashboard clock. I stared out of the windows. Everywhere there were Christmas decorations. Through picture windows I saw gaily lit Christmas trees. Longingly I stared at the windows we passed, seeing everything in that smeary way that made scenes ten times more romantic in the rain. I wished it was last year. I wished we had the happiness that had seemed so permanent then. I wished that old woman next door had never come into our lives and messed up what I thought was perfect. I wished too that Madame M. had never flown here to snoop in their lives, and reveal all their secrets better left hidden. Worst of all, those two women had destroyed the pride I had for my parents. Try as I might, I still resented what they were doing, what they had done, risking scandal, risking ruining my life and Bart's, Cindy's too, and all because one man couldn't find another woman to love. And that one woman must have done something to keep him faithful and hoping.
"Jory," began Dad as he turned into our driveway, "from time to time I hear your mother complain about chapters she's misplaced. Your mother isn't the kind of woman to be careless in any important work project. I'm presuming you've been slipping her completed chapters out of her desk drawer and reading them . . ."
Should I tell him the truth?
Bart was the one who first stole pages from her script. And yet my sense of morality hadn't kept me from reading them too. Though as yet I hadn't read to the end. For some reason I couldn't force myself to read beyond the time when first a brother betrayed his sister by forcing himself upon her. That this man beside me could rape his own sister when she was only fifteen was beyond my comprehension, beyond my ability to sympathize no matter how desperate his need had been, or what the circumstances had been to drive him to commit such an unholy act. And certainly she shouldn't tell the whole world.
"Jory, have I lost you?"
I slowly turned ray eyes his way, feeling sick and weak inside, wanting to hide from the torment I plainly saw on his face. Yet I couldn't say yes--or no.
"I guess you don't need to answer," said Dad in a tight way. "Your silence gives your answer, and I'm sorry. I love you as my own son, and I hoped you loved me enough to understand. We were going to tell you when we thought you were old enough to empathize with us. Cathy should have locked her first drafts in a drawer and not trusted two sons to remain uninterested."
"It's fiction, isn't it?" I asked hopefully. "Sure, I know it is. No mother could do that to her own children . ." and I threw open the passenger door and was racing to the house before he could answer.
My lips parted to call out to Mom. Then I shut my mouth and said nothing. It was easier for me to avoid her.
Usually when I came home I dashed out into the garden and ran around, doing practice leaps and positions, and on rainy days like this, I spent more time at the barre. Today I threw myself in front of the television set in the family room, pushed the remote control button, and lost myself in a silly but entertaining soap opera.
"Cathy!" called Dad as he came in, "where are you?"
Why hadn't he sung out, "Come greet me with kisses if you love me?" Did he feel silly, guilty saying that now that he knew we knew where that line came from?
"Have you said hello to your mother?" he asked as he came in.
"Haven't seen her."
"Where's Bart?"
"Haven't looked for him."
He threw me a pleading look, then went on into the bedroom he shared with his "wife."
"Cathy, Cathy," I could hear him calling, "where are you?"
A few seconds later he was in the kitchen behind me, checking there--and not finding her. He began to race around from room to room, and finally banged on Bart's locked door. "Bart, are you in there?"
First a long silence, then came a reluctant, surly reply, "Yeah, I'm in here. Where else would I be with the door locked?"
"Then unlock it and come out."
"Momma locked me in from the outside so I
can't
come out."
I sat on, immersing myself in the show, keeping myself detached, wondering how I was going to survive and grow up normally when I felt so unhappy.
Dad was the type to have duplicate keys to everything, and soon Bart was out and undergoing a third degree. "What did you do to cause your mother to lock you up and then go away?"
"Didn't do nothin!"
"You must have done something that made her furious."
Bart grinned at him slyly, saying nothing. I looked their way feeling anxious and scared.
"Bart, if you have done anything to harm your mother, you won't get out of this lightly. I mean that."
"Wouldn't do nothin to hurt her," said Bart irritably. "She's the one always hurtin me. She don't love me, only Cindy."
"Cindy," said Dad, suddenly remembering the little girl, and away he strode to her pretty room. He showed up minutes later with her.
"Where is your mother, Bart?"
"How do I know? She locked me up."
Despite myself, I was losing my ability to stay uninvolved. "Dad, Mom left her car in the garage a few days ago, and Madame drove us home the rest of the way, so she couldn't have gone far."
"I know. She told me--something wrong with her brakes." He threw Bart a long scrutinizing look. "Bart, are you sure you don't know where your mother is?"
"Can't look through solid doors."
"Did she tell you where she was going?"
"Nobody ever tells me nothin."
Suddenly Cindy piped up: "Mommy went out in rain . . . rain got us all wet . . ."
Bart whirled around to stab her with his glare. She froze and began to tremble.
Smiling, Dad picked up Cindy again and sat down to hold her on his lap. "Cindy, you're a lifesaver. Now, think back carefully and tell me where Mommy went."
Trembling more, she sat staring at Bart and unable to speak.
"Please, Cindy, look at me, not Bart. I'm here, I'll take care of you. Bart can't hurt you when I'm here. Bart, stop scowling at your sister."
"Cindy ran out in the rain, Daddy, and Momma had to chase outside and catch her, and then she came in dripping water, and coughing, and I said something, and she got mad at me and shoved me in my room and slammed the door."