Petals on the Wind

  "Julia and I were childhood sweethearts. She never had another boyfriend; I never had another girlfriend. Julia belonged to me, and I let every other boy know it. I never gave myself, or her, the chance to experience what others were like--and that was a terrible mistake. We were foolish enough to believe our love would last forever.

  "We went steady, we wrote love letters to each other though she lived only a few blocks away. The older Julia grew, the more beautiful she became. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world, and she thought I was perfect. We both had each other up on pedestals. She was going to be the perfect doctor's wife, and I was going to be the perfect husband, and we'd have three children. Julia was an only child, and her parents doted on her. She adored her father; she used to say I was like him." His voice deepened here, as if what he had to say was very painful.

  "I put an engagement ring on Julia's finger the day she was eighteen. I was nineteen at the time. When I was in college, I'd think of her back here and wonder what man had his eye on her. I was afraid I'd lose her to someone else if we didn't marry. So at age nineteen she married me. I was twenty."

  His voice turned bitter while his eyes went blank, and his arms tightened about me. "Julia and I had kissed many times, and we always held hands, but she would never let me do anything truly intimate-- that had to wait until she had a wedding band on her finger I'd had a few sexual encounters, not many. She was a virgin and thought I was. I didn't take my marriage vows lightly, and I meant to be exactly the kind of husband who'd make her happy. I loved her very much. So, on our wedding night, she took two hours to undress in the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom wearing a long white gown, and her face was as white as that gown. I could tell she was terrified. I convinced myself I would be so tender, so loving, she would enjoy being my wife.

  'She didn't enjoy sex, Cathy. I did the best I could to arouse her, while she cringed back with her eyes wide and full of shock, and then she screamed when I tried to take off her nightgown. I stopped and thought I'd try again the next night, after she pleaded for me to give her more time. The next night it was the same thing all over again, only worse. 'Why, why can't you just lie here and hold me?' she asked tearfully. 'Why does it have to be so ugly?'

  "I was just a kid myself, and didn't know how to handle a situation like that. I loved her, and I wanted her, and in the end I raped her--or so she said time and again. Still I loved her. I'd loved her most of my life and I couldn't believe I'd made the wrong choice. So I began to read every book on lovemaking I could find, and I tried all the techniques to arouse her and make her want me--and she was only repulsed. I took to drinking after I graduated from medical school, and when I felt like it I found some other woman who was glad to have me in her bed. The years passed while she held herself aloof, cleaned my house, washed my clothes, ironed my shirts and sewed on my missing buttons. She was so lovely, so desirable and so near that sometimes I'd force her, even if she cried afterward. Then, she found out she was pregnant. I was delighted, and I think she was too. Never was a child more loved and pampered than my son, and, fortunately, he was the kind of child who couldn't be spoiled by too much love."

  His voice took on an even deeper register while I huddled closer in his arms, fearing what was to come, for I knew it would be terrible.

  "After Scotty's birth Julia told me flatly she'd done her duty and given me a son, and that from now on I was to leave her alone. Gladly I left her alone, but I was deeply wounded. I talked to her mother about our problem, and her mother hinted at some dark secret in Julia's past, a cousin of hers who'd done something to Julia when she was only four. I never learned just what he'd done, but whatever it was, it spoiled sex forever for my wife. I suggested to Julia we should both visit a marriage counselor or a psychologist but she'd have none of that--it would be too embarrassing--why couldn't I leave her alone?

  "I did leave her alone after that," he went on. "There are always women around willing to

  accommodate a man, and in my office I had a lovely receptionist who let me know she was more than available, anytime, anyplace. We had an affair that lasted several years. I thought we were both very discreet, and no one knew. Then one day she came and told me she was pregnant with my child. I couldn't believe her, for she'd told me she was on the pill. I couldn't even believe the child was mine since I knew she had other lovers. So I said no, I couldn't divorce my wife and risk losing Scotty to father a child who might not be mine. She blew up.

  "I went home that evening to confront a wife I'd never known before. Julia lashed out at me for being unfaithful, when she'd done the best she could and given me the son I wanted. And now I'd betrayed her, broken my vow and made her the laughing stock of the town! She threatened to kill herself. I pitied her as she screamed out she'd make me hurt! She'd

  threatened suicide before but she'd never done anything.

  "I thought this blow-up would clear the air between us. Julia never spoke to me again about my affair. In fact she stopped speaking to me at all except when Scotty was around, for she wanted him to have a normal home with ostensibly happy parents. I had given her a son she loved beyond reason.

  "Then came June and Scotty's third birthday. She planned a party for him and invited six small guests, who naturally had to bring along their mothers as well. It was on a Saturday. I was home, and to help calm Scotty, who was very excited about his party, I gave him a sailboat to go with the sailor suit he was going to wear. Julia came down the stairs with him, dressed in blue voile. Her lovely dark hair was bound back with a blue satin ribbon. Scotty clung to his mother's hand, and in his free hand he carried the sailboat. Julia told me she was afraid she hadn't bought enough candy for the party, and it was such a beautiful day that she and Scotty would walk to the nearest drugstore and buy some more. I offered to drive her there. She refused. I offered to walk along with them. She said she didn't want me to. She wanted me to wait and be there in case any of the guests arrived early. I sat down on the front veranda and waited. Inside, the dining table was all set for the party, with balloons suspended from the chandelier, and snappers, hats and other favors, and Henny had made a huge cake.

  "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 t
o 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 den
ied 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.

  Sweeter Than All the Roses

  . 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.