in quiet convulsion, quivering, jerking, hugging
himself with skinny arms.
Quietly I waited until his hysteria was over, and only then did he see the long shadow I cast. Gasping, his mouth sunken because his teeth were in a cup by the bed, he stared up at me. "Why are you here, niece?" he asked in that whiny but raspy voice, his thin hair rumpled into devil horns that stood straight
up.
"Downstairs, a while ago, I looked up and saw
you in the rotunda shadows, laughing. Why were you
laughing, Joel? You must have seen that Bart was
suffering."
"I don't know," he mumbled, half turning to
replace the teeth in his mouth. When he had them in,
he ran a hand over his spikey hair, smoothing it down.
Only his cowlick refused to behave. Now he could
meet my eyes. "Your daughter made so much racket
down there I couldn't sleep. I guess the sight of all of
you in your fancy clothes waiting for guests that didn't
come tickled my sense of humor. "
"You have a very cruel sense of humor, Joel. I
thought you cared for Bart."
"I do love that boy."
"Do you?" I asked sharply. "I don't think so, or
else you would have sympathized." I glanced around
his sparsely furnished room, thinking back. "Weren't
you the one who mailed off the party invitations?" "I don't remember," he said calmly.- "Time
doesn't mean much to an old man like me when it's
growing so short. What happened years ago seems
clearer than what happened a month ago."
"My memory is much better than yours, Joel." I sat down in the one chair he had in his room.
"Bart had an important appointment, and, as I recall,
he turned over that stack of invitations to you. Did
you mail them, Joel?"
"Of course I mailed them!" he snapped angrily.
"But you just said you couldn't remember.
"I remember that day. It took so long, dropping
them in the slot one by one. "
All the time I'd closely watched his eyes.
"You're lying, Joel," said, taking a wild shot in the
dark. "You didn't mail those invitations. You brought
them up here, and in the privacy of this room, you
opened each one, filled in the blank places for "Yes,
we will be happy to attend," and then mailed those in
the provided envelopes back to Bart. You see, I found
them in Bart's office. I never saw such a strange
assortment of crooked handwriting, all in various
shades of blue, violet, green, black and brown ink.
Joel, you changed pens to make it seem those cards
were signed by different guests, when it was you who
signed them all!"
Slowly Joel stood. He gathered about him the
handwoven invisible brown habit of a saintly monk,
thrusting his gnarled hands up those imaginary
sleeves. "I think you have lost your mind, woman," he
said coldly. "If you wish, go to your son and tell him
your barbaric suspicions, and see if he believes you." Jumping up, I headed for the door. "I intend to
do just that!' I slammed the door hard behind me and
hurried off.
In his study Bart was seated behind his desk,
now wearing pajamas covered by a black woolen robe
piped in red. Drunkenly he was tossing the R.S.V.P.
cards one by one into the roaring fire. I saw to my
dismay the last of the pile go up in flames as I
watched Bart pour another drink.
"What do you want?" he asked in a slurred way,
narrowing his eyes and seeming surprised to see me. "Bart, I've got to say this, and you have to
listen. I don't think Joel mailed your invitations, and
that is why your guests didn't show up."
He tried to focus his eyes and his intellect,
which must have reeled under the influence of all he'd
drunk. "Of course he did. Joel always does as I order."
He leaned back in his swivel chair with its back that lowered automatically from the pressure he applied and closed his eyes. "Tired now. Go away. Don't stand and stare at me with eyes of pity. And they did
accept .. . didn't I just burn their replies?"
"Bart, listen to me. Don't fall asleep before I
finish. Didn't you notice how strangely they were
signed? All the different colored ink? The crooked,
awkward handwriting? Joel did not mail your
invitations, but instead took them to his room, opened
them, extracted the R.S.V.P. cards and envelopes, and
since you had put stamps on all of them, all he had to
do was drive to the post office and mail them back to
you a few each day."
His closed eyes slotted. "Mother, I think you
should go to bed. My great-uncle is the best friend
I've ever had. He'd never do anything to hurt me." "Bart, please. Don't put too much faith in Joel."
"GET OUT!" he roared. "It's your fault they didn't
come! Yours and that man you sleep with!"
I stumbled as I turned away, feeling defeated
and so afraid this could very well be true--and Joel
was just what Bart and Chris believed him to be, a
harmless old man who wanted to live out his days in
this house, near the one person who respected and
loved him
Unto Us Is Born . . .
. Christmas Day was over. I was in bed curled up beside Chris, who could always fall easily into deep sleep, leaving me to fret and stew and flip and turn. Behind me the great one-eyed swan kept its ruby eye alert, causing me to look around often at what it could be seeing. I heard the deep, mellow tones of the grandfather clock at the end of our hall strike three o'clock. A few minutes ago I'd gotten up to watch Bart's red car speed down the drive, heading toward the local tavern where no doubt he'd drown his sorrows in additional liquor and end up in some whore's bed. More than once he'd come home reeking of liquor and cheap perfume.
Hour after hour passed as I waited for Bart to come home. I pictured all sorts of calamities. On a night like this the drunks were out, deadlier than arsenic.
Why lie here doing nothing? I slipped out of the bed, arranged the covers neatly over Chris's sleeping bulk, kissed his cheek, then arranged his heavy arms around a pillow that I presumed he'd think was me, and he did from the way he snuggled it close. It was my intention to wait for Bart in his room.
It was almost five on a cold, blustery, winter morning before I heard his car approaching. I was huddled in a deep pile robe of red-rose, curled up on one of his white sofas with his black and red pillows behind my back.
I dozed, then heard him climbing the stairs, heard him moving drunkenly from room to room, bumping into furniture as he had when he was a child. He was dedicated to checking each room to see if it had been neatly tidied before the servants retired. And to my dismay, from the length of time it was taking him to appear in his own rooms, he was doing that now. No newspapers could be left in sight. No magazines not neatly stacked in their respective piles. No articles of clothing left on the floor, or coats on doorknobs or draped on chair backs.
Minutes later Bart was in his room, flicking the switch to light the lamps. He swayed to and fro before he stared at me sitting in the dimness of his room, where I'd started a fire that crackled cheerfully in the darkness. Shadows danced on the white walls, turning them orange and rosy, the black leather of another wall catching red highlights, creating a kind of fake inferno.
"Mother, what the hell is going on? Didn't I tell you to st
ay out of my wing?" Yet, in his drunken state, he looked glad to see me.
He wove his way uncertainly to a chair, took careful aim and fell down, closing his darkly shadowed eyes. I got up to massage the back of his neck while he drooped his head forward and held it as if it pained him dreadfully. His hands cupped his face as my hands took away the pain. Then he sighed, leaned back and stared fuzzily up into my eyes. "I should know better than to drink," he murmured in a slurred way, sighing as I stepped back and sat before him. "It always makes me do crazy things, and then I feel sick. Stupid to keep it up when liquor has never done anything for me but add to my problems. Mother, what's wrong with me? I can't even drink myself into a forgetful stupor. I'm always too sensitive. I overheard Jory tell you one day he was building that wonderful clipper ship to give to me, and I was secretly thrilled. No one has ever spent months and months making me a gift--and then it's broken. He did such a great job, taking so many pains to see that everything was exactly right. Now all that work is in the trash pile."
He sounded childlike, vulnerable, easy to reach and I was going to try, try to give him every ounce of love I had. Not mean when he was drunk, not silly but loveable, touching in his humanity. "Darling, Jory will gladly make you another," I volunteered, not sure he would be glad to do all that tedious work a second time.
"No, Mother, I don't want it now. Something would happen to that one, too. That's the way my life goes. Life has a cruel way of taking from me what I want most. There's no happiness or love waiting for me around the bend of tomorrow. No gaining what I want--my heart's desire, as I used to call the impossible dreams of my youth. Wasn't that childish and silly? No wonder you pitied me--I wanted so much. Too much. I was never satisfied. You and that man you love gave me everything I ever said I wanted, and many things I didn't even mention, and still you never gave me happiness. So I've decided not to care about anything anymore. The Christmas ball wouldn't have given me pleasure even if the guests had showed up. I still would have failed to impress them. Inside, all along, I knew my party would prove just another failure, like all the other parties you used to give me. Still I went ahead and hypnotized myself into believing that if tonight was successful it would set a precedent, so to speak, and all my life would then change for the better."
My second son was talking to me as he'd never done before. Liquor was loosening his tongue.
"Stupid, aren't I?" he went on. "Cindy's right when she calls me a jerk and a creep. I look in my mirrors and see a handsome man, very much like my father, whom you say you loved more than any other man. But I don't feel I am handsome inside. I'm uglier than sin inside. Then I wake up, feel the fresh morning mountain air, see the dew sparkling on the roses, see the winter sun shining on the snow, and that tells me maybe life is going to offer me my chance after all. I have hopes of one day finding the real me--the one I can like, and that's why, months ago, I decided to make this the happiest Christmas of all our lives, not only for Jory, who deserves it, but for you and for myself. You think I don't love Jory, but I do."
He bowed his head into his waiting hands and sighed heavily. "Confession time, Mother. I hate Jory, too, I don't deny that. But I hold no love at all for Cindy. She's done nothing but steal from me--and she isn't even one of us. Jory's always had the largest portion of your love, the part you've got left over after giving your brother the best. I've never had the major portion of anyone's love. I thought that Melodie had given me that. Now I know she'd have taken any man just to replace Jory. Any man at all who was available and willing, and that's why I hate her now, just as much as I hate Cindy."
His hands came down to show how bitterly his dark eyes glowed; the reflection from the fire made them like red-hot coals. Those drinks had made his breath reek. My heart almost stopped beating. What would he want? I stood up, moved behind his chair and slid my arms around his neck before my head lowered to rest on top of his disheveled hair. "Bart, you drove away tonight and left me sleepless and waiting for you to come home. Tell me what can I do to help. Nobody here hates you like you think. Not even Cindy. Often you make us angry because you disappoint us, not because we want to reject you."
"Send Chris away," he said tonelessly as if he said this without hope of ever seeing Chris gone from my life. "That will tell me you love me. Only when you break with him can I feel good about myself, and you."
Pain stabbed me. "He'd die without me, Bart," I whispered. "I know you can't understand the way it is between us, and I myself can't explain why he needs me, and why I need him, except we were young and alone and in a terrifying situation, and we had only each other. We created a fantasy dreamlike world when we were locked away and trapped ourselves in so doing, and now that we're both middle-aged we still live in that fantasy. We can't survive without it. To lose him now would destroy not only him, but me as well."
"But Mother!" he cried out passionately, turning to hold me, to press his face between my breasts, "you'd still have me!" He gazed up into my face, his arms around my waist. "I want you to purify your soul before it's too late. What you do with Chris is against the rules of God and society. Let him go, Mother. Please let him go--before someone does something terrible, let go of your brother's love."
I drew away, brushed back a fallen wisp of my hair. Feeling defeated and hopeless, for it was so impossible, what he asked. "Would you hurt me, Bart?"
He bit down on his lip, a childish habit that came back when he was disturbed. "I don't know. Sometimes I want to. More than I want to hurt him. You smile at me with such sweetness, and my heart reaches out, wanting you never to change. Then I go to bed and hear whispers in my head that tell me you are evil and deserve to die. When I think of you dead and in the ground, tears fill my eyes and my heart feels empty and broken, heavier than lead--and I'm undone. I feel so cold, so alone and scared. Mother, am I crazy? Why is it I can't fall in love with confidence that it will last? Why can't I forget about what you do?
"I thought for a while that Melodic and I had it made. She seemed to me so perfect, and then she began to turn fat and ugly. She whined and nagged, and complained about my home. Even Cindy was more appreciative. I took her to the best restaurants, to plays and movies, and tried to take her mind off Jory, but she wouldn't let it go. She kept talking of the ballet and how much it means to her, and that's when I found out I was only a substitute for Jory and she never loved me, never loved me at all. She used me as a way to forget her loss for a while. Now she doesn't even look like the girl I fell in love with. She wants pity and sympathy, not love. She took my love and turned it around, so now I can't stand to look at her."
Sighing, he lowered his eyes and said in such a low voice I could hardly hear him, "I see that kid, Cindy, and realize she must look the way you used to, and a little bit of me knows why Chris fell in love with you. That makes me hate her worse. She teases me, you know. Cindy would like to creep under my skin and make me do something as wicked as what Chris does with you. She strolls around in her bedroom wearing nothing but bikini bra and bottoms. And she knows I check her rooms before I retire. Tonight she had on a nightgown so transparent I could see right through it. She just stood there and let me stare. Joel tells me she's nothing, but a whore."
"Then don't go to her bedroom," I said with control. "Lord knows we don't have to see anyone who lives here if we don't want to--and Joel is a bigoted, narrow-minded fool. All Cindy's generation wears next-to-nothing undergarments. But you're right, she shouldn't parade around in them. I'll speak to her about that in the morning. You're sure she displayed herself deliberately?"
"You must have done the same thing," he said, dully accusing. "All those years locked up with Chris did you show him your body--deliberately?"
How could I tell him how it had been and make him understand? He'd never understand. "We, all tried to be decent, Bart. It's so long ago and I don't like to remember. I try to forget. I want to think that Chris is my husband and not my brother. We can't have children, never could. Doesn't that make it better--a litt
le better?"
Shaking, his head, his eyes darkened. "Go away. You
just give me excuses, and you bring it all back, the sickness I used to feel when I found out about you and him. I was just a kid wanting to feel clean and wholesome. I still want to feel that way. That's why I keep showering, shaving, picking up, ordering the servants to scrub, vacuum, dust and dust, and do it every day. I'm trying to eliminate the dirt you and Chris put in my life--and I can't do it!"
There was no comfort in Chris's arms as I tried to sleep. I drifted into an uneasy dream. Then I bolted awake to hear distant screams. Leaving my bed for the second time in the same night, I raced toward the screams.
Disoriented, I stared down at Melodie on the floor of the long corridor. She seemed to be wearing a white nightgown with ragged red stripes. She crawled along, moaning, causing me to think I was still dreaming. Her long hair was in damp disarray, her brow dripped sweat--and behind her was a trail of blood!
Blindly she stared up at me, imploring. "Cathy, my baby is coming . . ." She screamed, then slowly, slowly, her pleading eyes went blank before she keeled over in a dead faint
I ran for Chris, shaking him awake. "It's Melodie!" I cried as he sat up and rubbed at his tired eyes. "She's in labor. Right now she's fainted, lying face down in the hall with a trail of blood behind her . . ."
"Take it easy," he soothed, leaping out of bed and pulling on his bathrobe. "First babies are notoriously slow in arriving." Nevertheless there was a look of anxiety in his eyes, as if he were mentally calculating just how long Melodie had been in labor. "I've got everything I'll need in my bag," he said as he rushed about gathering up blankets, clean sheets, towels. He still had the same black doctor's bag they'd given him when he graduated from medical school, as if that bag were sacred to him "No time to get her to the hospital if she's hemorrhaging like you say. Now all you have to do is rush down to the kitchen and put on all that hot water all doctors in the movies seem to need."
I yelled impatiently, thinking he just wanted me out of his way. "We're not in the movies, Chris!"
We were in the hall now, and he was bending over Melodie. "I know that--it would help if you did something except run beside me and act hysterical. Now move aside, Catherine," he barked as he leaned to pick Melodie up. In his arms she seemed to weigh no more than a feather, while her middle seemed a mountain high.
Seeds of Yesterday Page 27
