My first cry of life would have brought smiles instead of tears and worry.
Most of all, I would have known who I was right from the beginning instead of having to spend most of my life tracing the clues backward, through the darkness, behind the locked doors, into the vault that held my name under lock and key.
4 The Prisoner
Geraldine didn't stop by in the morning to see how I was. I heard her pass by my door on her way downstairs without even hesitating to see if I was up. I was very hungry, but very determined not to be treated like a child and a prisoner in my own home, shut off from friends. I rose and drank some water. Then I lay there waiting. Soon, I thought, soon she'll realize I'm serious about not eating unless she lets me have my friends and she'll come upstairs.
Instead of her footsteps on the stairway and in the hall, however, I heard her vacuuming below. I knew it could go on for hours and hours. Every day she went over the house from top to bottom. It was her whole life and I realized if I did what she wanted, lived the way she wanted me to live, it wouldn't be long before it would be my life, too.
Pouting, I folded my arms and hunkered down, glaring at the door. There was a continuous dull ache traveling up my leg. That, combined with the gurgling in my stomach, made me feel very uncomfortable. How did people like Ghandi do this? I wondered. How do you stop your body from screaming for food? Try as I would, I couldn't prevent myself from thinking about cereal and fruit, eggs, toast and jam, juice, cookies, all sorts of sandwiches. All of it paraded before my eyes. Things in my room even started to resemble foods. A ribbon on the dresser turned into a banana. Beside it, a sheet of paper became a slice of turkey.
Reluctantly, I got up and went to my door, opening it slightly. The vacuum cleaner was off. I heard a window being opened. She was airing out a room now. Soon, she could be washing the kitchen floor and it would be off limits for an hour or so until she was convinced it was dry. Then, I heard the phone ringing. I hobbled to the top of the stairway to listen.
"Hello," she said. She was quiet and then she said, "No, she can't talk on the phone," and cradled the receiver hard. It had to have been one of the girls, I thought.
"Mother?"
There was silence.
"Mother?"
The silence was louder. Then I heard the
garbage can in the kitchen being moved. It was funny how I could identify every sound in this house. I had grown up with them as my listening vocabulary. I could be blind and I'd know exactly what she was doing her every waking moment.
I returned to my room, put on my robe, got the crutches, and made my way downstairs. She had just started to dip the mop into a pail with water and floor detergent when I appeared in the hallway.
She turned and straightened up when she saw me.
"Well, well. Has the princess finally put an end to her temper tantrum and decided to come down to apologize?" she asked.
"I don't think I have done anything I have to apologize for," I said.
She nodded.
"I'm not surprised."
"Was that phone call for me?" I asked.
"If you want something to eat, you better get it now. I'm about to do the floor," she replied instead.
"Someone called me, right?"
"No,' she lied. "Are you getting yourself some breakfast or not? I don't have all day. I have to complete the pantry inventory that you failed to do, remember?"
"You can't stop me from having friends:' I muttered, and made my way past her into the kitchen. I was only punishing myself by fasting, I thought. She wouldn't change her mind and nothing would be accomplished by my fasting except my selfdestruction.
I fixed myself some breakfast and Geraldine went off to dust and polish furniture while I ate. Not more than twenty minutes or so later, the phone rang again. I tried to get myself up and to it before she reached it, but suddenly she was a sprinter and got there just as I put the crutches under my arm.
"Yes?" she said with annoyance. She looked at me. "Who is it?" I demanded.
"She's fine," she said. "She had a little accident and has her ankle in a cast so she won't be able to go anywhere for some time. No, I'd rather not have anyone visiting her for a while," she added. "Thanks for calling."
"Is that Doctor Marlowe? Is it?" I cried, but she hung up. "Why didn't you let me talk to her?"
"There's no reason to talk to her anymore. She's got nothing to offer you. Just be obedient, get better, and fulfill your responsibilities," she added. "Don't dillydally over your breakfast either. I want to wash that floor. You dragged down a lot of dust from the crawl space," she concluded and walked off.
I stared at the phone. Later, I thought, first chance I get, I'll call Jade. I returned to my breakfast and finished. Then I went to the living room. She practically flew back to her pail of water and mop and began to wash the kitchen floor. I sat there thinking I had to have the rest of those letters. How was I going to get back up and into that crawl space now? I'd have to get someone to do it for me, I thought. Fat chance of that. She'd never let anyone in this house.
The pain was still fresh in my ankle, thumping harder and longer, forcing me to take another one of those pills. Before I knew it, I was drifting off, sitting in the big cushioned easy chair. When I opened my eyes, I could feel that hours had gone by. The sun was covered by a sheet of gray clouds. It made the house seem so dark and cold.
I didn't hear Geraldine come into the room. For a few moments, I didn't realize she was sitting there, too. Her back was to me and she was just looking out the window. She was so still.
"What time is it?" I asked.
Slowly, so slowly, it was almost like a dream, she turned.
"Why?" she replied. "Do you have an appointment?" "No, I just wondered how long I've been asleep:' I said. "It's nearly twelve-thirty. I'll make some lunch," she added, and started to get up. It seemed to take more effort.
She looked tired and weak, more fragile than I could remember. When she stood, she had to catch her breath and steady herself for a moment.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "I have all the work to do by myself now, that's all."
"I can help with some things:' I offered.
She stood there gazing at me. Her face was caught in shadows so I couldn't see her expression, but just by the way she held her shoulders, I knew she wasn't pleased.
"I didn't want to fall, you know. But I wasn't going to stay up there all night."
"I don't know what's gotten into you," she said. "Nothing's gotten into me but a desire to know more about myself. Why are you so against that?"
"I've told you. It's not the sort of stuff you want to know."
"I should be the one to decide that. It's my past mainly."
"Your past," she said with a thin, brittle laugh. She stepped forward and I now could see the cold, steely glint in her eyes. "Let me tell you some of it so you'll understand whose past it really was. She used me. You can't imagine a mother using a daughter like that."
"Used you? How?"
"In the beginning she would take me along. She knew that way my father would never have any suspicions if she did that."
"Take you where?" I asked, trying not to seem too excited or interested, for fear she would stop.
"To her assignations. Oh, she didn't have just one lover, you know, no matter what she wrote in those ridiculous letters, those fantasies she wanted you to believe about the great love of her life. It all started when I was young. She would take me along supposedly to see a decorator or an architect," she said with that brittle laugh tinkling again. "What sort of decorator or architect worked out of his bedroom, huh? We'd go to a toy store and she would buy me something to occupy me while she did her dirties. I would be told to wait in the living room while Mommy dearest went to consult about redoing our house. Don't you think I could hear them sometimes, could hear their disgusting noises?"
"Didn't you say anything to her?" I asked, practically in
a whisper.
"I didn't know what to say. I was too young to really understand, and besides, I was brought up to be obedient, to speak only when spoken to."
"Your father never found out?"
"Not until much, much later, not until you," she said with such disgust it made me feel more like a big germ than a person. Even when she was in her forties, she was still misbehaving, only now I knew exactly what she was doing and exactly whom she was doing it with," she added, and started out of the room.
"But..."
"Stop," she commanded, spinning around on me. "Don't you see why I don't want to talk about it? It's better you never knew her as your mother. Who wants a mother like that? A slut, a tramp, a whore!" she screamed.
She stared at me a moment and then took a few steps back toward me.
"Why did I hide those things up in the crawl space? I'll tell you why. They're all spoiled,
contaminated by her filthy hands, her pathetic attempts to make herself seem like the victim. Poor Lea," she said, wagging her head and twisting her lips, "poor, poor dear Lea forced into a horrible marriage with a handsome, wealthy, and respected man who only gave her the best things and tried to make her happy. Poor Lea with her servants and big house and cars and jewels and furs. Poor, poor Lea was denied...what?"
"Love?" I suggested, thinking about the letter I had read.
"Oh, love." Her sardonic smile wilted to be replaced by her dark look. "You don't go looking for love in the back of automobiles or in the bedrooms of strange men. Love is something that is nurtured, something that grows with time."
"Maybe she couldn't do that with a forced marriage." "Nonsense. Any woman who is decent at heart and has respect for the right things can do that:'
"You didn't want to get married, did you?" I pointed out. "That was forced on you."
"I did what had to be done," she said, straightening her shoulders firmly. "Thanks to her, I had to make great sacrifices, but I didn't do it for her. I did it for my father who didn't deserve being embarrassed and disgraced."
She paused to take a breath. It looked like she was in pain doing it.
"All right? Are you satisfied now? Can you appreciate me now? Will you be obedient?" she asked.
"I just want to have friends," I moaned.
"You will, but proper and noinial ones. We don't need to bring any more turmoil into our lives, Cathy," she said with such a reasonable soft tone of voice that I had to look up. "It's just the two of us, now. Leave the ugly world out there and leave the ugly past where it belongs, buried," she pleaded.
I looked down. Maybe she was right, I thought wearily. Maybe my mother was loose and reckless and maybe I would become like her if I didn't listen. I had to agree that it certainly wasn't right to take your own daughter along when you met secretly with some lover.
"Won't you tell me where I was born," I begged.
"She went to our winter house in Palm Springs and stayed secluded there until you were born. Then you were left with a nurse for almost six months before Howard and I legally adopted you. My father fixed it all. It broke his heart, but he did what had to be done because he was a man of strength."
"So you know who my father was," I said.
"No," she said quickly, too quickly, I thought.
"But you said you knew what she was doing and with whom."
"Your father could be any one of a number of womanizers, I'm sure," she said, but I didn't think she was telling the truth. "Now let me go make us some lunch," she said. "It makes me feel disgusting even talking about this," she added and left the room. It was as if she had drawn out all the air with her.
I sat back, pondering it all. Should I believe everything she had told me? I still wanted, needed, to read those letters, I thought. The woman who wrote the first one couldn't be all that bad, could she?
Geraldine called me to lunch and I sat and ate a ham and cheese sandwich. I knew it had too much mayonnaise on it, but I was afraid to criticize her. All I had to do was complain about eating too much fat and calories and she would accuse me of obsessing about my figure and being attractive.
Could I be attractive? I had seen many pictures of the woman I had believed was my grandmother when she was younger. She was a very pretty young woman. Did I resemble her in any way? Couldn't I be pretty, too?
"Our mother was very attractive though, wasn't she?" I asked. It was the first time I called her "Our mother." "Especially when she was younger."
"No. She distorted her good looks with all that makeup she wore."
"But she was pretty underneath."
Reluctantly, she agreed. To get her to say anything nice about our mother was like pulling teeth.
"Wasn't there ever a time that you liked her, loved her?" I asked.
"You won't stop talking about all this, will you?" she fired back at me.
"It's just natural for me to want to know," I said.
She thought a moment and sat back, nodding slightly. "Of course I loved her when I was a little girl. What did I know? I was never once disrespectful to her, even afterward, even when I had..."
"What?"
"Had to pretend you were some strange baby. She would come to the house and stand beside me and gaze at you in your crib and talk about you as if you were someone else's child. I was supposed to pretend and go along with the whole effort to keep her reputation lily white, and I never once spit the truth back at her. It was on the tip of my tongue to do so, but I didn't. I swallowed all that bitterness and anger.
"Once, I saw my father sitting in his office, looking weak and crumbled. He didn't know I was looking in on him, and I thought: she's done this to him She's taken a strong tower in the community and turned him into this shadow of himself. That was your real mother, a Delilah, a betrayer. You want to claim her? Go ahead, claim her and be damned with her," she said.
"I just want to know about it all," I moaned.
"Eat the apple, eat the fruit? The Lord said not to, but no, weak and foolish, we eat the fruit. We have to know the evil and then we suffer," she declared, and rose to take the dishes to the sink. It seemed to be more of an effort for her than ever.
"I can do that," I said.
"On crutches? You're sure to break something, but don't worry. As soon as you're able, I'll give you things to do. You'll make up for this," she threatened.
I sat there and watched her work. Did the bitterness she felt ever stop? Did she ever have a soft moment when she regretted the shape her life had taken? Was she ever sorry for all the hate and anger she threw back at our mother?
Not once, I realized, did she ever want to visit the grave site, not even to pay respects to her father. Surely, there were early memories she cherished. She couldn't want to bury everything.
My musings were interrupted by the sound of our doorbell. We both froze for a moment. Despite the legal agreement, we both lived with the fear of my father returning, defying the judge's decree. She wiped her hands on a dish towel.
"Probably one of those door-to-door solicitors trying to sell people something worthless," she decided. "I'll make short shrift of them."
Suddenly with real vigor and enthusiasm, she charged out to fulfill her mission. She actually liked being nasty to people, I thought. It reinforced her philosophy, her way of life, her conviction that most everyone and everything out there was horrid and deserved to be treated this way.
"We'd like to see Cathy," I heard Misty say, and I nearly forgot I had a cast on my leg.
I rose to my feet as quickly as I could and scooped the crutches under my arm.
"She can't see anyone," Mother told her.
"No," I screamed.
I had just stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway as she was closing the door on Misty and Star. I was sure they had heard me and caught a glimpse of me because both their faces looked shocked for that instant.
She locked the door.
"Let them come in," I cried. "Mother, please. You'll see how nice they are."
"The nerve of them coming here unannounced like that. It proves what I've been saying. What sort of decent young lady would just barge in on someone, huh? No sort," she replied.
"Stop it. Let them in," I demanded, and made my way toward the door.
She stepped between me and the door, her eyes narrowed, her shoulders hoisted like some bird of prey about to pounce.
"Don't you dare open this door and call to them. Don't you dare disobey me. In fact, you get yourself upstairs and into your room for being insolent. Go on," she said, pointing her honey finger at the staircase. "Go."
"No," I said, and she stepped forward and slapped me sharply across the face.
It took all my strength to keep from falling to the side, but I managed.
"Don't you dare say no to me. Don't you dare. Go on!" she screamed. "Get upstairs."
I glared at her a moment. How ugly and twisted she looked to me now. How could I ever have called her Mother? Maybe, I thought, if I get upstairs and into my room quickly enough, I could open the window and call to them. I went up as fast as I could, but by the time I got to the window, there was no sign of either of them. It brought tears of frustration to my eyes. I lay my forehead against the glass and sobbed. Then I heard my door click shut. I spun around just as Geraldine turned the key in the lock.
"You can't keep me a prisoner. I will have friends!" I shouted. "I will. I will," I sobbed.
Weak and tired, I sank slowly to the floor and leaned against the wall. I shut my eyes and in moments, I was asleep.
I woke in pitch darkness. The clouds had thickened all afternoon and now it was raining steadily, the drops pinging against the window, sounding like someone tapping her fingernails against the glass. A streak of lightning lit the room for an instant and I remembered where I was and what had happened. Struggling to my feet, I leaned on my crutches and made my way to the night table to turn on my lamp. Then I sat on the bed and gazed at the clock. It was nearly nine. She hadn't bothered calling me to dinner. It was probably her way of punishing me further for daring to defy her.
Wildflowers 05 Into the Garden Page 7
