“Tomorrow I’ll bring bananas. Your grandfather doesn’t like them.”
“What has he got to do with it?”
“It’s the reason bananas are not purchased.”
“You drive back and forth to secretarial school every weekday—stop yourself and buy the bananas—and more peanuts, and raisins. And why can’t they have a box of popcorn once in a while? Certainly that won’t rot their teeth!”
Pleasantly she nodded, and verbally agreed. “And what would you like for yourself?” she asked.
“Freedom! I want to be let out. I’m tired of being in a locked room. I want the twins out; I want Chris out. I want you to rent a house, buy a house, steal a house—but get us out of this house!”
“Cathy,” she began to plead, “I’m doing the best I can. Don’t I bring you gifts every time I come through the door? What is it you lack besides bananas? Name it!”
“You promised we’d stay up here but a short while—and it’s been months.”
She spread her hands in a supplicating gesture. “Do you expect me to kill my father?”
Numbly I shook my head.
“You leave her alone!” Chris exploded the moment the door closed behind his goddess. “She does try to do the best she can by us! Stop picking on her! It’s a wonder she comes to see us at all, what with you riding her back, with your everlasting questions, like you don’t trust her. How do you know how much she suffers? Do you believe she’s happy knowing her four children are locked in one room, and left to play in an attic?”
It was hard to tell about someone like our mother, just what she was thinking, and what she was feeling. Her expression was always calm, unruffled, though she often appeared tired. If her clothes were new, and expensive, and we seldom saw her wear the same thing twice, she brought us many new and expensive clothes, too. Not that it mattered what we wore. Nobody saw us but the the grandmother, and we could have worn rags, which, indeed, might have put a smile of pleasure on her face.
We didn’t go up to the attic when it rained, or when it snowed. Even on clear days, there was that wind to snarl fiercely as it blew, screaming and tearing through the cracks of the old house.
One night Cory woke up and called to me, “Make the wind go away, Cathy.”
I left my bed and Carrie, who was fast asleep on her side, crawled under the covers beside Cory, and tightly I held him in my arms. Poor little thin body, wanting to be loved so much by his real mother . . . and he had only me. He felt too small, so fragile, as if that rampaging wind could blow him away. I lowered my face into his clean, sweet-smelling curly blond hair and kissed him there, as I had when he was a baby, and I had replaced my dolls with living babies. “I can’t make the wind go away, Cory. Only God can do that.”
“Then tell God I don’t like the wind,” he said sleepily. “Tell God the wind wants to come in and get me.”
I gathered him closer, held him tighter . . . never going to let the wind take Cory away, never! But I knew what he meant
“Tell me a story, Cathy, so I can forget the wind.”
There was a favorite story I had concocted to please Cory, all about a fantasy world where little children lived in a small cozy home, with a mother and father who were much, much bigger, and powerful enough to scare away frightening things. A family of six, with a garden out in back, where giant trees held swings, and where real flowers grew—the kind that knew how to die in the fall, and how to come up again in the spring. There was a pet dog named Clover, and a cat named Calico, and a yellow bird sang in a golden cage, all day long, and everybody loved everybody, and nobody was ever whipped, spanked, yelled at, nor were any of the doors locked, nor the draperies closed.
“Sing me a song, Cathy. I like it when you sing me to sleep.”
I held him snugly in my arms and began to sing lyrics I had written myself to music I had heard Cory hum over and over again . . . his own mind-music. It was a song meant to take away from his fear of the wind, and perhaps take from me my fears too. It was my very first attempt to rhyme.
I hear the wind when it sweeps down from the hill,
It speaks to me, when the night is still,
It whispers in my ear,
The words I never hear,
Even when he’s near.
I feel the breeze when it blows in from the sea,
It lifts my hair, it caresses me,
It never takes my hand,
To show it understands,
It never touches me, ten-der-ly.
Someday I know I’m gonna climb this hill,
I’ll find another day,
Some other voice to say the words I’ve gotta hear,
If I’m to live, another year . . . .
And my little one was asleep in my arms, breathing evenly, feeling safe. Beyond his head Chris lay with his eyes wide open, fixed upward on the ceiling. When my song was over, he turned his head and met my eyes. His fifteenth birthday had come and gone, with a bakery cake, and ice cream to mark the occasion as special. Gifts—they came every day, almost. Now he had a polaroid camera, a new and better watch. Great. Wonderful. How could he be so easily pleased?
Didn’t he see our mother wasn’t the same anymore? Didn’t he notice she no longer came every day? Was he so gullible he believed everything she said, every excuse she made?
* * *
Christmas Eve. We had been five months at Foxworth Hall. Not once had we been down into the lower sections of this enormous house, much less to the outside. We kept to the rules: we said grace before every meal; we knelt and said prayers beside our beds every night; we were modest in the bathroom; we kept our thoughts clean, pure, innocent . . . and yet, it seemed to me, day by day our meals grew poorer and poorer in quality.
I convinced myself it didn’t really matter if we missed out on one Christmas shopping spree. There would be other Christmases when we were rich, rich, rich, when we could go into a store and buy anything we wanted. How beautiful we’d be in our magnificent clothes, with our stylish manners, and soft, eloquent voices that told the world we were somebodies . . . somebodies who were special . . . loved, wanted, needed somebodies.
Of course Chris and I knew there wasn’t a real Santa Claus. But we very much wanted the twins to believe in Santa Claus, and not miss out on all that glorious enchantment of a fat jolly man who whizzed about the world to deliver to all children exactly what they wanted—even when they didn’t know what they wanted until they had it.
What would childhood be like without believing in Santa Claus? Not the kind of childhood I wanted for our twins!
Even for those locked away, Christmas was a busy time, even for one beginning to despair, and doubt, and distrust. Secretly, Chris and I had been making gifts for Momma (who really didn’t need anything), and gifts for the twins—plushy stuffed animals that we tediously backstitched by hand, and then filled with cotton. I did all the embroidery work on the faces when they were still flat. I was, in private in the bathroom, knitting Chris a cap of scarlet wool—it grew and it grew and it grew; I think Momma must have forgotten to tell me something about gauge.
Then Chris came up with an absolutely idiotic and horrific suggestion. “Let’s make the grandmother a gift, too. It’s really not right to leave her out. She does bring up our food and milk, and who knows, a token like this may be just the thing needed to win over her affection. And think how much more enjoyable our lives would be if she could tolerate us.”
I was dopey enough to think it might work, and for hours and hours we slaved on a gift for an old witch who hated us. In all this time she had never even once said our names.
We bonded tan linen to a stretcher frame, glued on different colored stones, then carefully applied gold and brown cording. If we made a mistake, ever so painstakingly we’d do it over and make it right so she wouldn’t notice. She was bound to be a perfectionist who’d see the slightest flaw and frown. And never, truly, would we give her anything less than our best efforts could produce.
“You see,” said Chr
is again, “I really do believe we have a chance in winning her over to our side. After all, she is our grandmother, and people do change. No one is static. While Momma works to charm her father, we must work to charm her mother. And even if she refuses to look at me, she does look at you.”
She didn’t look at me, not really, she only saw my hair—for some reason she was fascinated by my hair.
“Remember, Cathy, she did give us yellow chrysanthemums.” He was right—that alone was a strong straw to grasp.
In the late afternoon, toward dusk, Momma came to our room bearing a live Christmas tree in a small wooden tub. A balsam tree—what could smell more like Christmas? Momma’s wool dress was of bright red jersey; it clung and showed off all the curves I hoped to have one day. She was laughing and gay, making us happy, too, as she stayed to help us trim the tree with the miniature ornaments and lights she’d brought along. She gave us four stockings to drape on the bedposts for Santa to find and fill.
“Next year this time we’ll be living in our own house,” she said brightly, and I believed.
“Yes,” said Momma, smiling, filling all of us with cheer, “next year this time life will be so wonderful for all of us. We’ll have plenty of money to buy a grand home of our own, and everything you want will be yours. In no time at all, you’ll forget this room, the attic. And all the days you have all endured so bravely will be forgotten, just like it never happened.”
She kissed us, and said she loved us. We watched her leave and didn’t feel bereft, as before. She filled all our eyes, all our hopes and dreams.
* * *
Momma came in the night while we slept. In the morning I woke up to see the stockings filled to the brim. And gifts galore were stacked under the small table where the tree was, and in every empty, available space in that room were all the toys for the twins that were too large and awkward to wrap.
My eyes met with Chris’s. He winked, grinned, then bounded from his bed. He grabbed for the silver bells attached to red plastic reins, and he shook them vigorously above his head. “Merry Christmas!” he boomed. “Wake up, everybody! Cory, Carrie, you sleepyheads—open your eyes, get up, and behold! Look and see what Santa Claus brought!”
They came so slowly out of dreams, rubbing at sticky eyes, staring in disbelief at the many toys, at the beautifully wrapped packages with name tags, at the striped stockings stuffed with cookies, nuts, candy, fruit, chewing gum, peppermint sticks, chocolate Santas.
Real candy—at last! Hard candy, that colorful kind that churches and schools gave out at their parties, the best kind of candy for making black holes in your teeth. Oh, but it looked and tasted so Christmasy!
Cory sat on his bed, bedazzled, and again his small fists lifted to rub at his eyes, and he appeared too bewildered for speech.
But Carrie could always find words. “How did Santa Claus find us?”
“Oh, Santa has magic eyes,” explained Chris, who lifted Carrie up and swung her to his shoulder, and then he reached to do this to Cory, too. He was doing as Daddy would have done, and tears came to my eyes.
“Santa would never overlook children deliberately,” he said, “and besides, he knew you were here. I made sure he knew, for I sat down and wrote him one very long letter, and gave him our address, and I made out a list of things we wanted that was three feet long.”
How funny, I thought. For the list of what all four of us wanted was so short and simple. We wanted outside. We wanted our freedom.
I sat up in bed and looked around, and felt a sour-sweet lump in my throat. Momma had tried, oh, yes. She’d tried, done her best from the way it looked. She did love us, she did care. Why, it must have taken her months to buy all of this.
I was ashamed and full of contrition for everything mean and ugly I’d thought. That’s what came from wanting everything, and at once, and having no patience, and no faith.
Chris turned to look at me questioningly. “Aren’t you ever gonna get up? Gonna sit there the whole day through—you don’t like gifts anymore?”
While Cory and Carrie tore off gift wrappings, Chris came over to me and stretched out his hand. “Come, Cathy, enjoy the only Christmas you’ll have in your twelfth year. Make this a unique Christmas, different from any we will experience in the future.” His blue eyes pleaded.
He was wearing rumpled red pajamas piped in white, and his gold hair fluffed out wildly. I was wearing a red nightgown made of fleece, and my long hair was far more disheveled than his. Into his warm hand I put my own, and I laughed. Christmas was Christmas, no matter where you were, and whatever the circumstances, it was still a day to enjoy. We opened everything wrapped, and we tried on our new clothes while stuffing candy into our mouths before breakfast. And “Santa” had left a note telling us to hide the candy from a certain “you-know-who.” After all, candy still caused cavities. Even on Christmas Day.
I sat on the floor wearing a stunning new robe of green velvet. Chris had a new robe of red flannel to match his pajamas. I dressed the twins in their new robes of bright blue. I don’t think there could have been four happier children than we were early that morning. Chocolate bars were devilishly divine and made even sweeter because they were forbidden. It was pure heaven to hold that chocolate in my mouth and slowly, slowly let it melt while I squeezed my eyelids tight to better savor the taste. And when I looked, Chris had his eyes closed too. Funny how the twins ate their chocolate, with wide open eyes, so full of surprise. Had they forgotten about candy? It seemed so, for they appeared to be holding paradise in their mouths. When we heard the doorknob rattle, we quickly hid the candy under the nearest bed.
It was the grandmother. She came in quietly, with the picnic basket. She put the basket on the gaming table. She didn’t greet us with “Merry Christmas,” nor did she say good morning, nor even smile, or show in any way that this was a special day. And we were not to speak to her unless she spoke to us first.
It was with reluctance and fear, and also with great hope, that I picked up the long package wrapped in red foil that had come from one of Momma’s gifts to us. Beneath that beautiful paper was our collage painting on which all four of us had worked to create a child’s version of the perfect garden. The old trunks in the attic had provided us with fine materials, such as the gossamer silk to make the pastel butterflies that hovered over bright yarn flowers. How Carrie had wanted to make purple butterflies with red spots—she loved purple combined with red! If ever a more glorious butterfly existed—it wouldn’t be a live one—it would be Cory’s made of yellow, with green and black splotches, and tiny little red stone eyes. Our trees were made of brown cording, combined with tiny tan pebbles to look like bark, and the branches gracefully entwined so brightly colored birds could perch or fly between the leaves. Chris and I had taken chicken feathers from old pillows and dipped them in watercolors, and dried them, and used an old toothbrush to comb the matted hairs, and make them lovely again.
It may be conceited to say that our picture showed signs of true artistry, and a great deal of creative ingenuity. Our composition was balanced, yet it had rhythm, style . . . and a charm that had brought tears to our mother’s eyes when we showed it to her. She had to turn her back so we, too, wouldn’t cry. Oh, yes, by far this collage was the very best piece of artwork we had as yet turned out.
Trembling, apprehensive, I waited to time my approach so her hands would be empty. Since the grandmother never looked at Chris, and the twins were so terrified of her they shriveled in her presence, it was up to me to give her the gift . . . and darned if I could make my feet move. Sharply, Chris nudged me with his elbow. “Go on,” he whispered, “she’ll go out the door in a minute.”
My feet seemed nailed to the floor. I held the long red package across both my arms. From the very positioning it seemed a sacrificial offering, for it wasn’t easy to give her anything, when she had given us nothing but hostility, and was waiting her chance to give us pain.
That Christmas morning, she succeeded very well in giving u
s pain, even without a whip or a word.
I wanted to greet her in the proper way and say, “Merry Christmas Day, Grandmother. We wanted to give you a little something. Really, don’t thank us; it was no trouble at all. Just a little something to show how much we appreciate the food you bring to us each day, and the shelter you have given us.” No, no, she would think me sarcastic if I put it that way. Much better to say something like this: “Merry Christmas, we hope you like this gift. We all worked on it, even Cory and Carrie, and you can keep it so when we’re gone, you’ll know we did try, we did.”
Just to see me near with the gift held before me took her by surprise.
Slowly, with my eyes lifting to bravely meet hers, I held out our Christmas offering. I didn’t want to plead with my eyes. I wanted her to take it, and like it, and say thank you, even if she said it coldly. I wanted her to go to bed this night and think about us, that maybe we weren’t so bad, after all. I wanted her to digest and savor all the work we’d put into her gift, and I wanted her to question the right and wrong of how she treated us.
In the most withering way, her cold and scornful eyes lowered to the long box we’d wrapped in red. On the top was a sprig of artificial holly and a huge silver bow. A card was tied to the bow, and read: “To Grandmother, from Chris, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie.”
Her gray-stone eyes lingered on the card long enough to read it. Then she lifted her gaze to stare directly into my hopeful eyes, pleading, begging, wanting so much to be assured we weren’t—as I sometimes feared—evil. Back to the box her eyes skipped, then deliberately she turned her back. Without a word she stalked out of the door, slammed it hard, then locked it from the other side. I was left in the middle of the room, holding the end product of many long hours of striving for perfection and beauty.
Fools!—that’s what we’d been! Damned fools!
We’d never win her over! She’d always consider us Devil’s spawn! As far as she was concerned, we really didn’t exist.
And it hurt, oh, you bet, it did hurt. Right down to my bare feet I ached, and my heart became a hollow ball shooting pains through my chest. Behind me, I could hear Chris raspily breathing in and out, and the twins began to whimper.
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! Page 18
