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! (106 page)

Deep in her throat she made a strangling sound, and how I wished she could speak!

“Grandmother darling,” I taunted, hands on my hips as I leaned to look down on her, “why don’t you tell me where to
get the tar? I haven’t been able to find any. No road construction going on anywhere near—so I guess I’ll have to use hot wax.
You
could have used melted wax, for it would have done the job just as well. Didn’t you think of melting a few of your candles?” I smiled, menacingly, I hoped. “Oh, dear Grandmother, what
fun
you and I are going to have! And nobody will know, for
you can’t talk
and
you can’t write,
all you can do is he there and suffer.”

I didn’t like myself or what I was saying or what I was feeling. My conscience hovered near the ceiling, looking down with shame at this released fury that was me in white tights. Aghast, I was up there feeling pity for this old woman who’d suffered through two strokes—but on the bed was another kind of me. A vicious, mean, vindictive Foxworth, with blue eyes as cold as hers used to be as I stared her down, and then suddenly, cruelly I bent; I yanked down the sheet and blanket that covered her and she was exposed. Her garment was like a hospital jacket that was slit and tied down the back, for there was no front opening. Just a plain yellow cotton thing with that incongruous diamond brooch at the throat. No doubt they would attach that brooch to her funeral garments.

Naked. She had to be stripped, as Momma was, as Chris had been, as I had been too. She had to suffer through the humiliation of being without clothes while contemptuous eyes made her shrivel even smaller. Relentlessly I seized hold of the hem of her stingy, cheap cotton garment and without compunction I yanked it upward to her armpits. In rumpled, unironed folds it half-hid her face, and carefully I pulled back the cloth that could hide from me any expression she might manage to reveal. Then I stared down at her body, expressing scorn and revulsion as she had expressed it with her hard eyes and knife-slashed lips when I was a child of fourteen and she had caught me looking at myself in the mirror, admiring the beauty of a figure I’d never seen before nude.

The body in its youth is a beautiful thing . . . a joy to
behold, the sweet young curves, the smooth unblemished skin, firm and taut flesh, but oh, to grow old! Those twin hills of concrete were flabby loose udders that sagged to her waist, and the nipples were at the very bottom, large brown, mottled and bumpy. The blue veins of her breasts stood up like thin ropes covered by a translucent sheath. The pasty whiteness of her skin was dimpled, furrowed, creased by stretch marks from childbirth, and a long scar from navel to her almost hairless mound of Venus showed she’d either had a hysterectomy or a caesarean section. It was an old scar, pale and shinier than the doughy, white, wrinkled skin around it. Her thin, long legs were gnarled old branches of a tired tree. I sighed—would
I
someday look like this?

Without pity or an attempt to be gentle I rolled her over and yanked her back into the center of the bed. And all the while I was babbling on of how Chris and I had joked she either nailed on her clothes or glued them in and never, of course, did she take off her underclothes unless she was in a closet with the light out. Her back showed fewer ravages than her front, though her buttocks were flat, flabby and too white.

“I’m going to whip you now. Grandmother,” I said tonelessly, my heart gone out of this now. “I promised a long time ago I was going to do this if ever I had the chance and so I will do it!” And closing my eyes and, asking God to forgive me for what I was about to do, I lifted my arm high and then brought down that willow switch as hard as I could, and flat on her bare buttocks!

She shuddered. Some noise came from her throat. Then she seemed to sink into unconsciousness. She relaxed so much she released her bladder. I began to cry. Terrible sobs from
me
as I ran to the adjoining bath to find a washcloth and soap, and back I hurried with toilet tissue to clean her. Then I washed her and put salve on the awful welt I’d made.

I turned her over on the bed, straightened out her gown so she was covered modestly, neatly, and only then did I check to
see if she was alive or dead. Her gray eyes were open and staring at me without expression as tears streaked
my
face. Next, slowly, as I sobbed on, her eyes began to gleam in unspoken triumph!

Mutely she called me
coward! I knew you couldn’t be anything but a soft weakling! No spine, no starch! Kill me. Go on, kill me! I dare you, do it, do it, go on!

Down from the bed I jumped, and I ran fast into the library and on into the parlor I’d seen. In a frenzy of anger I grabbed up the first candelabra I saw and dashed back to her—but I didn’t have matches! Back again to the library where I rummaged through the desk Bart used. He smoked; he’d have matches or a cigarette lighter. I found a book of matches from a local disco.

The candles were ivory colored, dignified, like this house. Terror was in her iron eyes now. She
wanted
that bit of tufted hair tied with a pink ribbon. I lit a candle and watched it flame, then I held it angled over her head so the melting wax dribbled down drop by drop onto her hair and her scalp. Maybe six or seven drops fell before I could stand no more. She was right. I was a coward, I couldn’t do to her what she’d done to us. I was a Foxworth twice over, and yet God had changed the mold so I didn’t fit.

I blew out the ivory candle, replaced it in the candelabra, then left.

No sooner was I in the ballroom than I remembered I’d forgotten the precious length of Carrie’s hair. I raced back to get it. I found the grandmother lying as I’d left her, only her head was turned and two huge glistening tears were in her eyes that stared at the switch of Carrie’s beautiful hair. Ahh! Now I had my pound of flesh!

*  *  *

Bart spent more time at my small home than at his huge one. He plied me with gifts, as he did my son. He ate his breakfast, lunch and dinner with us on the days he didn’t spend in
his office, which I privately believed was more a facade for appearing useful than a functioning law office. My dancing school suffered from his attention, but it didn’t matter. I was now a kept woman.

Paid to be his mistress.

Jory was delighted with the little leather boots Bart gave him. “Are
you
my daddy?” asked my son who would be four in February. “No. but I sure wish I was and I could be.”

As soon as Jory was out in the yard, tromping around and staring down at his feet that fascinated him now that they sported cowboy boots, Bart turned to me and flung himself wearily down in a chair. “You’d never guess what happened over at our place. Some sadistic idiot put wax in my mother-in-law’s hair. And there’s a long welt on her buttocks that won’t heal. The nurse can’t explain it. I’ve questioned Olivia, and asked if it was anyone she knew, one of the servants, and she blinked her eyes twice, meaning no. Once is for yes. I’m mad as hell about it! It must have been one of the servants, yet I can’t understand why one would be so cruel as to torment a helpless old woman who can’t move to defend herself. She refuses to identify anyone I name. I promised Corrine I’d take good care of her, and now her bottom is such a raw mess she has to lie on her stomach two to four hours each day, and she is turned during the night.”

“Oh,” I breathed, feeling a bit sick. “How awful—why won’t it heal?”

“Her circulation is bad. It would have to be, wouldn’t it, since she can’t move about normally?” He smiled then, brilliantly, like the sun coming out after a storm. “Don’t concern yourself, darling. It’s my problem, not yours—and, of course, hers.” He held out his arms and I went quickly into them to snuggle in his lap, and he kissed fervently before he carried me into my bedroom. He laid me down and began to undress. “I could wring the neck of the fiend who did that to her!”

*  *  *

We lay entwined after our lovemaking, listening to the wind blending with Jory’s shrill laughter, racing after the toy poodle Bart had given him. A few snow flurries were beginning to fall. I knew I had to get up soon so Jory wouldn’t run in and catch us, just to tell us it was snowing. He couldn’t remember other snows, and barely would the ground be sugar-coated than he’d want to make a snowman. Sighing first, I kissed Bart, then reluctantly pulled from his embrace. I turned my back to pull on bikini panties as he propped up on an elbow and watched. “You’ve got a lovely behind,” he said. I said thanks. “What about my front?” He said it wasn’t bad. I threw a shoe at him.

“Cathy, why don’t you say you love me?”

I whirled about, startled. “Have you ever said it to me and meant it?” I snapped on a tiny bra.

“How do you know I don’t mean it?” he asked with anger.

“Let me tell you how I know. When you love, you want that person with you all of the time. When you avoid the subject of divorce, that alone is an indication of how much you care for me and just where I belong in your life.”

“Cathy, you’ve been hurt, haven’t you? I don’t want to hurt you more. You play games with me. I’ve always known that. What does it matter if it is only sex and not love? And tell me how to know where one ends and the other begins?”

His teasing words were a knife in my heart, for somehow, without meaning to let it happen, I’d fallen madly, idiotically in love with him.

*  *  *

According to Bart’s enthusiastic report, his long gone wife came home from her rejuvenation trip looking smashingly young and beautiful. “She’s lost twenty pounds. I swear, that face lift has done wonders! She looks sensational, and damn it, so unbelievably like you!”

It was easy to see how impressed he was with his new, younger-looking wife, and if he was only trying to take the
wind from my too confident sails, I didn’t let it show. Then he was telling me I was just as necessary to him as before in a tone that said I was not. “Cathy, while she was in Texas she changed. She’s like she used to be, the sweet, loving woman I married.”

Men! How gullible they were! Of course my mother was sweeter and nicer to him now—now that she knew he had a mistress who was very accessible, and that the other woman was her own daughter. She’d have to know, for it was whispered all about now—everyone knew.

“So, why are you here with me when your wife is back and so like me? Why don’t you put your clothes on and say goodbye and never come back? Say it was sweet while it lasted, but it’s all over now, and I’ll say thank you for a wonderful time before I kiss you farewell”

“Well-ll,” he drawled, pulling me hard against his naked body. “I didn’t say she, was
that
sensational looking. And then again, there is something special about you. I can’t name it. I can’t understand it. But I don’t know if I can live without you now.” He said it seriously, truth in his dark eyes.

I’d won, won!

*  *  *

Quite by accident my mother and I met in the post office one day. She saw me and shivered. Her lovely head lifted higher as she turned it slightly away, pretending she didn’t know me. She would deny me as she’d denied Carrie, even though it was so obvious that we were mother and daughter and not strangers. I wasn’t Carrie. So I treated her as she treated me, indifferently, as if she were nobody special and never would be again. Yet, as I waited impatiently for my roll of stamps, I saw my mother dart her eyes to follow the restless prowl of my young son who had to stare at everything and everyone. He was handsome, graceful, a charming boy who drew the eyes of everyone who had to stop and admire him and pat his head. Jory moved with innate style, unstudied
and relaxed, at ease wherever he was, because he thought the whole world was his, and he was loved by everyone. He turned to catch my mother’s long stare and he smiled. “Hello,” he greeted. “You’re pretty—like my mommy.”

Oh, the things children say! What innocent knowledge they had, to see so readily what others instinctively refused to acknowledge. He stepped closer to reach out and tentatively touch her fur coat. “My mommy’s got a fur coat. My mommy is a dancer. Do you dance?”

She sighed, I held my breath.
See, Momma, there is the grandson your arms will never hold. You’ll never hear him say your name . . . never!

“No,” she whispered, “I’m not a dancer.” Tears filmed her eyes.

“My mommy can teach you how.”

“I’m too old to learn,” she whispered, backing off.

“No, you’re not,” said Jory, reaching for her hand as if he’d show her the way, but she pulled back, glanced at me, reddened, then fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief. “Do you have a little boy I can play with?” questioned my son, concerned to see her tears, as if having a son would make up for not knowing how to dance.

“No,” she said in a quivering weak whisper, “I don’t have any children.”

That’s when I moved in to say in a cold, harsh voice, “Some women don’t deserve to have children.” I paid for my roll of stamps and dropped them in my purse. “Some women like you, Mrs. Winslow, would rather have money than the bother of children who might get in the way of good times. Time itself will sooner or later let you know if you made the right decision.”

She turned her back and shivered again as if all her furs couldn’t keep her warm enough. Then she strode from the post office and headed toward a chauffeur-driven, black limousine. Like a queen she rode off, head
held high, leaving Jory to ask, “Mommy, why don’t you like that pretty lady? I like her a lot. She’s like you, only not so pretty.” I didn’t comment, though it was on the tip of my tongue to say something so ugly he would never forget it.

*  *  *

In the twilight of that evening I sat near the windows, staring toward Foxworth Hall and wondering what Bart and my mother were doing. My hands were on my abdomen which was still flat, but soon it would be swelling with the child that might be started. One missed period didn’t prove anything—except I wanted Bart’s baby, and little things made me feel sure there was a baby. I let depression come and take me. He wouldn’t leave her and her money to marry me and I’d have another fatherless child. What a fool to start all of this—but I’d always been a fool.