Dollenganger 02 Petals On the Wind (10 page)

"The guests began to arrive around two. And still Julia and Scotty didn't return. I began to worry so I got in my car and drove to the drugstore, expecting to see them on the sidewalk leading home. I didn't see them. I asked the druggist if they'd been there; none of the clerks had seen them. That's when I began to feel really frightened. I cruised the streets looking for them, and stopped to ask passers-by if they'd seen a lady dressed in blue with a little boy in a sailor suit. I guess I'd questioned four or five before a boy on a bicycle told me yes, he'd seen such a lady in blue, with a little boy carrying a sailboat, and he pointed out the direction they'd taken.
"They were headed for the river! I drove as far as I could then jumped out of the car and ran down the dirt path, fearing every moment I'd get there too late. I couldn't bring myself to believe she'd really do it. I kept calming myself by thinking Scotty only wanted to float his boat on the water, like I used to do. I ran so fast my heart hurt, and then I reached the grassy river bank. And there they were, the two of them, both in the water floating face upward. Julia had her arms locked around Scotty who'd clearly tried to free himself from her hold, and his little boat was sailing with the tide. The blue ribbon had come unbound from her hair, and it floated too, and all about her hair streamed like dark ribbons to twine in the weeds. The water was only knee-high."
I made some small sound that choked my throat, feeling his terrible anguish, but he didn't hear. He went on, "In no time at all I had them both in my arms and I carried them to shore. Julia was barely alive, but Scotty seemed dead, so it was him I worked over first in a futile effort to bring him around. I did everything possible to pump the water from his lungs, but he was dead. I then turned to Julia and did the same for her. She coughed and choked out the water. She didn't open her eyes but at least she was breathing. I put both of them in my car and drove them to the nearest hospital where they slaved to bring Julia back, but they couldn't. No more than I could bring Scotty back to life."
Paul paused and stared deep into my eyes. "That is my story for a girl who thinks she's the only one who has suffered, and the only one who has lost, and the only one who grieves. Oh, I grieve just as much as you do but I also bear the guilt. I should have known how unstable Julia was. We had watched
Medea
on TV only a few nights before Scotty's birthday and she showed unusual interest in it, and she didn't care for television. I was stupid not to know what she was thinking and planning. Yet, even now, I cannot understand how she could kill our son when she loved him so much. She could have divorced me and kept him. I wouldn't have taken him from her. But that wasn't enough revenge for Julia. She had to kill the thing I loved best, my son."
I couldn't speak. What kind of woman had Julia been? Like my own mother? My mother killed to gain a fortune. Julia killed for revenge. Was I going to do the same thing? No, no, of course not. My way would be better, much better, for she'd live to suffer on, and on, and on.
"I'm sorry," I said brokenly, so sorry I had to kiss his cheek. "But you can have other children. You can marry again." I put my arms about him when he shook his head.
"Forget Julia!" I cried, throwing my arms about his neck and snuggling closer in his arms. "Don't you tell me all the time to forgive and forget? Forgive yourself, and forget what happened to Julia. I remember my mother and father; they were always loving and kissing. I've know since I was a little girl that men need to be loved and touched. I used to watch my mother to see how she tamed Daddy down when he was angry. She did it with kisses, with soft looks and small touches." I tilted my head back and smiled at him as I'd seen my mother smile at my father. "Tell me how a wife should be on her wedding night. I wouldn't want to disappoint my bridegroom."
"I will tell you no such thing!"
"Then I'll just pretend you're my bridegroom, and I have just come from the bathroom after getting undressed. Or maybe I should undress in front of you. What do you think?"
He cleared his throat and tried to shove me away, but I clung like a burr. "I think you ought to go to bed and forget games of pretending."
I stayed where I was. Over and over again I kissed him and soon he was responding. I felt his flesh grow warmer but then his lips beneath mine tightened into a firm line as his hands went under my knees and shoulders. He stood with me in his arms and headed toward the stairs. I thought he was going to take me to his room and make love to me and I was frightened, ashamed--and excited and eager too. But he headed straight for my room and there by my narrow bed he hesitated. He held me close against his heart for an excruciatingly long time as the rain pelted down and beat on the window glass. Paul seemed to forget who I was as his raspy cheek rubbed against mine, caressing with his cheek, not his hands this time. And again, as always, I had to speak and spoil it all.
"Paul." My timid voice drew him out of some deep reverie that might, if I'd stayed silent, have led me sooner toward that forever-withheld ecstasy my body yearned for. "When we were locked away upstairs our grandmother always called us Devil's spawn. She told us we were evil seed planted in the wrong soil, that nothing good would ever come of us. She made us all unsure of what we were, or whether we had the right to be alive. Was it so terrible what our mother did, to marry her half-uncle when he was only three years older than she? No woman with a heart could have resisted him. I know I couldn't have. He was like you. Our grandparents believed our parents had committed an unholy sin so they despised us, even the twins who were so little and adorable. They called us unwholesome. Were they right? Were they right to try to kill us?"
I'd said exactly the right words to snap him back into focus. Quickly he dropped me. He turned his head sideways so I couldn't read his eyes. I hated for people to hide their eyes from me so I couldn't see the truth.
"I think your parents were very much in love and very young," he said in a strange, tight voice, "so much in love they didn't pause to consider the future and the consequences."
"Oh!" I cried, outraged. "You think the grandparents were right--and we are evil!"
He spun about to face me, his full, sensual lips open, his expression furious. "Don't take what I say and twist it about to suit your need for revenge. There's no reason, ever, to justify murder, unless it's a case of self-defense. You're not evil. Your
grandparents were bigoted fools who should have learned to accept what was and make the best of it. And they had much to be proud of in the four grandchildren your parents gave them. And if your parents took a calculated gamble when they decided to have children, I say they won. God and the odds were on your side and gave you too much beauty and appreciation of it, and perhaps too many talents. Most certainly there is one very young girl who smolders with adult emotions too large for her size and age."
"Paul . . . ?"
"Don't look at me like that, Catherine."
"I don't know how I'm looking."
"Go to sleep, Catherine Sheffield, this instant!"
"What did you call me?" I asked as he backed off toward the door.
He smiled at me. "It wasn't a Freudian slip, if that's what you're thinking. Dollanganger is too long a name. Sheffield would be a much better choice. Legally we can arrange to have your surname changed."
"Oh." He made me feel sick with
disappointment.
"Look here, Catherine," he said from the doorway. He was so large he blocked out the light from the hall. "You're playing a dangerous game. You're trying to seduce me and you're very lovely and very hard to resist. But your place in my life is as my daughter-- nothing else."
"Was it raining that day in June when you put Julia and Scotty in the ground?"
"What difference does that make?
Any day
you put someone you love underground it's raining!" And he was gone from my door, striding quickly down the hall to his room where he slammed the door hard.
So, I'd tried twice and he'd rejected me twice. Now I was free to go on my merry, destructive way to dance and dance until I reached the top. And that would show Momma, who could do nothing but embroider and knit, just who had the most talent and brains. She would see who could make a fortune on her own without selling her body, and without stooping to murder to inherit it!
The whole world was going to know about me! They'd compare me to Anna Pavlova and say I was better. She'd come to a party they threw in my honor, and with her would be her husband. She'd look old, jaded, tired, while I'd be fresh and young, and her darling Bart would come straight to me, his eyes dazzled as he kissed my hand. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," he'd say, "and the most talented." And with his eyes alone I'd know he loved me, loved me ten times more than he had ever loved her. And then when I had him and she was alone, I'd tell him who I was, and he'd not believe at first. Then he would. And he'd hate her! He'd take all her money from her. Where would it go? I paused, stumped. Where would the money go if it were taken from Momma? Would it go back to the grandmother? It wouldn't come to us, not Chris, Carrie or me, for we just didn't exist as Foxworths. Then I smiled to myself, thinking of the four birth certificates I'd found sewn under the lining of one of our old suitcases. I began to laugh. Oh, Momma, what stupid things you do! Imagine, hiding the birth certificates. With those I could prove Cory existed, and without them it would be her word against mine, unless the police went back to Gladstone and found the doctor who had delivered the twins. And then there was our old babysitter, Mrs. Simpson--and Jim Johnston. Oh, I hoped none had moved away and that they could still remember the four Dresden dolls.
I knew I was evil, just like the grandmother said from the beginning, born to be bad. I'd been punished before I'd even done anything evil, so why not let the punishment fit the crime that was to be? There was no reason why I should be haunted and ruined just because once upon a miserable time, I had turned for refuge into the arms of my brother. I'd go to the man who needed me most. If that was evil, to give what his words denied and his eyes pleaded for, then let me be evil!
I began, as I grew sleepy, to plan how it would be. He wouldn't turn away and put me off, for I'd make it impossible. He wouldn't want to hurt me. He'd take me and then he'd think to himself he had to, and then he wouldn't feel guilty, not guilty at all.
The guilt would all be mine And Chris would hate me and turn, as he had to, to someone else.

I was sixteen in April of 1961. There I was, at the blossoming, ripe age when all men, young and old, and most of all those past forty, turned to stare at me on the streets. When I waited on the corner for a bus, cars slowed because male drivers couldn't keep from gaping at me.

And if they were enraptured, I was even more so. I preened before the many mirrors in Paul's home and saw, sometimes by surprise, a lovely, even breathtakingly beautiful girl--and then that glorious revelation--that was
me!
I was dazzling and I knew it. Julian flew down often to turn his desiring eyes upon me, telling me he knew what
he
wanted even if I didn't. I saw Chris only on the weekends and I knew he still wanted me, still loved me more than he'd ever love anyone again.

Chris and Carrie came home for my birthday weekend and we laughed and hugged and talked so fast, as if we'd never have the time to say enough, especially Chris and I. I wanted to tell Chris that Momma would be living in Greenglenna soon but I was afraid he'd try to stop me from doing what I had planned so I never mentioned it. After a while Carrie drew away to sit with big, sad eyes and stare at our kind benefactor. That big, handsome man who ordered me to dress up in my very best. "Why not wear that dress you've been saving for a special occasion? For your birthday I'm treating all of you to a gourmet feast at my favorite restaurant The Plantation House."

Right away I had to rush upstairs and begin dressing. I was going to make the most of my birthday. My face didn't really need makeup, yet I put it on, the whole works, including mascara black as ink, and then I used tongs to curl my lashes. My nails gleamed like lustrous pearls and the gown I wore was Paris pink. Oh, did I feel pretty as I preened and primped before a cheval glass bought for my vanity.

"My lady Catherine," said Chris from the open doorway. "You do look gorgeous but it is in
appallingly bad taste to admire yourself so much you have to kiss your own reflection. Really, Cathy, wait for compliments from others--don't give them to yourself."

"I'm afraid no one will tell me," I said
defensively, "so I tell it to myself to give myself more confidence. Do I look beautiful and not just pretty?"

I'll ever see another girl as beautiful as you look right now." "Would you say I'm improving with age?" "I'm not going to compliment you anymore! It's

I frowned, not liking to be reminded of that old woman.
"You
look fantastic, Chris," I said, giving him a big, warm smile. "I'm not ashamed or embarrassed to hand out compliments when they're deserved. You're as handsome as Daddy."

Every time he came home from his school he looked more mature and more handsome. Though, when I peered closer, wisdom was putting something strange in his eyes, something that made him seem much, much older than I was. He also appeared sadder than me, more vulnerable, and the combination was extremely appealing. "Why aren't you happy, Chris?" I asked. "Is life disappointing you? Is it less than you thought it would be when we were locked away and we had so many dreams for the future? Are you sorry now that you decided on being a doctor? Are you wishing instead to be a dancer like me?"

I had neared to watch his oh, so revealing eyes, but he lowered them to hide away and his hands tried to span my waist, but my waist wasn't that small or his hands weren't that large. Or was he just doing something to touch me? Making a game out of what was serious. Was that it? I ducked to peer into his face and I saw the love I was looking for and then wished I didn't know.