Petals on the Wind

  "It may be a girl, Madame," Paul said softly, while he reached for my hand. "I know you long for a boy like your son, but I long for a little girl like Cathy and Carrie . . . but if it's a boy, I won't object."

  "Object?" cried Madame. "God in his infinite wisdom and mercy will send to Catherine the exact duplicate of Julian! And he will dance, and he will reach the fame that was waiting just around the corner for the son of my Georges!"

  Midnight found me all alone on the back veranda, rocking back and forth in Paul's favorite chair. My head was full of thoughts for the future. Thoughts of the past conflicted and nearly drowned me. The floorboards squeaked faintly; they were old and had known grief like mine before; they

  sympathized. The stars and moon were out; even a few fireflies came to bob about in the garden darkness.

  The door behind me opened and closed quietly. I didn't look to see who it was, far I knew. I was good at sensing people, even in the dark. He sat in the chair next to mine, and rocked his chair in the same rhythm as I rocked.

  "Cathy," he said softly. "I hate to see you sitting there with that lost and drained expression. Don't think all the good things in your life have passed you by and nothing is left. You're still very young, very beautiful, and after your baby is born, you can quickly whip yourself back into shape, and dance until you feel you're ready to retire and teach."

  I didn't turn my head. Dance again? How could I dance when Julian lay in the ground? All I had was the baby. I would make the baby the center of my life. I would teach my child to dance, and he or she would reach the fame that should have been Julian's and mine. Everything that Mamma failed to give us I would bestow on my child. Never would my child be neglected. When my child reached for me, I would be there. When my child cried out for Momma, he wouldn't have to make do with only an older sister. No . . . I'd be like Momma was when she had Daddy. That was what hurt the most, that she could change from someone loving and kind into what she was, a monster. Never, never would I treat my child as she'd treated hers!

  "Good night, Paul," I said as I stood to go. "Don't stay out here too long. You have to get up early, and you looked tired at dinner "

  "Catherine . .

  "Not now. Later. I need time."

  Slowly I ascended the hack stairs, thinking of the baby in my womb, how I had to be careful and not eat junk food; I had to drink plenty of milk, take vitamins, and think happy thoughts . . not vengeful ones. Every day from now on I would play ballet music. Inside me my baby would hear, and even before he or she was born a small living soul would be indoctrinated to the dance. I smiled, thinking of all the pretty tutus I could buy for my little girl. I smiled even more to think of a boy like his father with a wild tumble of dark curls. Julian Janus Marquet would be his name. Janus for looking both ways, ahead and behind.

  I passed Chris who was ready to come down the stairs. He touched me. I shivered, knowing what he wanted. He didn't have to say the words. I knew them backward and forward, inside and out, upside down, or right side up; I knew them . . . as I knew him.

  Though I tried diligently to think only of the innocent child growing within me, still my thoughts would steal to my mother, filling me with hate, filling me with unwanted plans for revenge. For somehow she had caused Julian's death too. If we'd never been locked away in the first place and needed to escape and run, then I would never have loved Chris, or Paul, and perhaps Julian and I would have met inevitably in New York. Then I could have loved him as he needed and wanted to be loved. I could have gone to him "virgin pure, brand new."

  And would that have made any difference, I asked over and over. . . . Yes! Yes! I convinced myself it would have made all the difference!

  Interlude for Three

  . As my baby grew within me, I began to find the identity I had lost, for the ballet kept the real me always in an embryo state, enclosed by my desire to dance and succeed. I was now standing firmly on the ground with the fantasy of glamorous life pushed to the background. Not that I didn't still crave the stage and the applause now and then. Oh, I had my sorrowful moments--but I had one sure way to shut them out. I turned my thoughts on my mother, on what she'd done to us. Another death on your record, Momma!

  Dear Mrs. Winslow,

  Are you still running away from me? Don't you know yet you can never run fast enough or far enough? Someday I will catch up, and we will meet again. Perhaps this time you will suffer as you made me suffer, and, hopefully, thrice the amount.

  My husband has just died as the result of a car accident, just as your husband died many years ago. I am expecting his baby, but I won't do anything as desperate as you did. I will find a way to support him or her, even if I have triplets--or quadruplets!

  I mailed that letter off, addressed to her home in Greenglenna, but the newspapers later informed me she was in Japan. Japan! Wow, she did get about.

  I was turning into a woman I'd never seen before. Mirrors showed I wasn't slim and supple anymore. That terrified me. I saw my breasts become rounder, fuller, as my middle swelled outward. I hated to move less than gracefully, but my hands loved to caress the swell of my baby's small rump

  One day I realized I was luckier than most widows, I had two men needing me. Men who let me know in subtle ways they were ready to take Julian's place. And I had Carrie, Carrie who considered me a model by which she could mold her own life. Dear, sweet little Carrie who was now sixteen, and had never had a date, or a boyfriend, or been to a prom. Not that she couldn't have, if she'd forget her smallness. Chris persuaded his friends to date a younger sister who was dying on the vine for want of romance. She complained to me: "Chris doesn't have to make dates for you! That college student, he doesn't want me. He just comes to worm in closer to you." I laughed at how ridiculous that was. Nobody would want me in the condition I was, pregnant, a widow, and too old for a college boy.

  Carrie heard this, but sulked near the window. "Since you came back, Dr. Paul doesn't take me out to the movies and to dinner like he used to." "I used to pretend he wasn't my guardian, but my sweetheart, and that made me feel good inside, because all the ladies look at him, Cathy. He is handsome, even if he is old."

  I sighed, for to me Paul would never be old. He was wonderfully young looking for his age of fortyeight. I took Carrie in my arms and consoled her, saying love was waiting for her just around the corner. "He'll be young too, Carrie, near your own age. And once he sees you, and really knows what you are, he won't have to be coerced, he'll be more than willing to love you." Quietly she got up and entered her own room, not convinced by anything I'd said.

  Madame Marisha came often to check on my condition, and filled me with authoritative advice. "Now you keep up your practicing; play the ballet music to fill Julian's baby with love for beauty before he is born; inside you he'll know the dance is waiting for him." She glanced down at my feet that had finally healed. "How do those toes feel now?"

  "Fine," I answered dully, though they ached when it rained.

  Henny was there to wait on me hand and foot when Carrie wasn't around. She was growing old amazingly fast. I worried about her. She diligently tried to keep to the rigid diet both her "doctor-sons" insisted on, but she ate what she wanted to, never counting calories or cholesterol.

  The long days of grief sped by more quickly because I had Julian's baby, part of him to keep with me. Soon Christmas was upon us, and I was so large I didn't feel I should show myself. Chris insisted, along with Paul, that it would be good therapy to go shopping.

  I bought an antique gold locket to send to Madame Zolta, and inside I put two small photos of Julian and I, in our Romeo and Juliet costumes.

  Shortly after Christmas her thank-you note arrived.

  Dear Catherine, my own luv,

  Yours is the best gift of all. I grieve for your beautiful dancing husband. I grieve for you most of all if you decide not to dance again just because you are to become mother! Long ago you would have been a prima ballerina if your husband had shown less arrogance and mo
re respect for those in authority. Keep in shape, do exercises, bring your baby with you and we will all live together in my place until you find new danseur to luv. Life offers many chances, not just one. Come back.

  Her note put a wistful smile on my face. She even spelled love "luv." "What is it that makes you smile like that?" asked Paul, laying aside the medical journal that must have held only a part of his interest. Awkwardly I leaned forward to hand the note to him. He read it, then held out his arms, inviting me to come and cuddle on his lap and in his arms. Eagerly I accepted his invitation, I was hungry for affection. Life seemed to me nothing without a man.

  "You could go on with your career," he said softly. "Though I pray to God you won't go back to New York and leave me again."

  "Once upon a time," I began, "there was a beautiful set of blond parents who gave life to four children who should never have been. And they adored them beyond reason. Then one day the father was killed, and the mother changed, and forgot all about the love, affection and attention those four children so desperately needed. So, now that another beautiful husband is dead, I will not have my child feel neglected, or fatherless, or unwanted and unnecessary. When my child cries, I'll be there. I'll be there always to make my child feel secure, and very loved, and I'll read to him, and sing to him, and he'll never feel left out, or betrayed--as Chris felt betrayed by the one he loved most. '

  "He? You sound as if you know." His iridescent eyes looked sad. "And are you going to be both mother and father to this child? Are you going to close the gates to any man who might want to share your life? Catherine, I hope you're not going to be one of those women who lets herself go sour because life doesn't always fulfill her wishes."

  I leaned my head backward to stare into his eyes. "You don't still love me, do you?"

  "Don't I?"

  "That's no answer."

  "I didn't think I needed to answer. I thought you could tell. I thought too, from the way you look at me, that you would turn to me again. I love you, Catherine. . . . Since the day you first came up my veranda steps, I've loved you. I love the way you talk, the way you smile, the way you walk--that is, before you became pregnant and started leaning backward and holding to your back--does it hurt that much?"

  "Oh," I said in disgust, "why did you have to stop saying all those sweet words to ask if my back hurts? Of course it bothers me. I'm not used to carrying an extra nineteen pounds in front--go on with what you were saying before you remembered you're a doctor."

  He slowly lowered his lips to brush mine, just lightly, before passion came and he pressed them hard with his own. My arms found their way around his neck and ardently I returned kiss for kiss.

  The front door opened and then banged shut. I pulled quickly away from Paul and tried to stand up before Chris came into the room--but I wasn't quick enough. He strode in, his overcoat covering his white intern suit. He carried a bag with a quart of pistachio ice cream that I had expressed a desire for at dinner. "I thought you were on duty tonight," I said too quickly to hide my distress and surprise. He thrust the ice cream into my hands and looked at me coldly.

  "I am on duty. But it's a dull night, so I thought I could take a few minutes off to drive and get you the dessert you seemed to want so much." He flicked his glance to Paul. "I'm sorry I arrived at the wrong time. Go on with what you were doing." He spun on his heel and left the room, then slammed the front door a second time.

  "Cathy," said Paul who got up to take the ice cream from me. "We have to do something about Chris. What he wants can never be. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he won't listen. He closes his ears and walks away. You must make him understand that he's ruining his life by refusing to let any other girl into his heart." He went on into the kitchen, coming back in a few minutes with two sherbet dishes of the green ice cream I didn't want now.

  He was right. Something did have to be done about Chris--but what? I couldn't hurt him; I couldn't hurt Paul. I was like a battlefield wanting both sides to win.

  "Catherine," said Paul softly, as if he'd been watching my reaction, "you don't owe me if you don't love me. Cut Chris off, make it clear that he has to let go and find someone else. Anyone else but you . . ."

  "I find it so difficult to tell him that," I said in a low voice, ashamed to admit I didn't want Chris to find anyone else. I wanted him with me always--just the nearness of him, the confidence he gave me-- nothing else. I was trying to balance my time between Chris and Paul, to give each of them enough, but not too much. I watched the jealousy between them grow, and felt it was none of my fault--only Momma's! As everything wrong in my life was her fault.

  It was a cold February night when I felt my first contraction. I gasped from the sharp pain--I had known it would hurt, but not so much! I glanced at the clock--two in the morning of St. Valentine's Day. Oh, how marvelous, my baby would be born on what would have been our sixth wedding anniversary! "Julian," I cried out, as if he could hear me, "you are about to become a father!"

  I got up and dressed as speedily as I could before I crossed the hall to rap on Paul's door. He mumbled something in way of a question. "Paul," I called, "I think I just had my first contraction."

  "Thank God!" he cried from the other side, instantly wide awake. "Are you all set to go?"

  "Of course. I've been ready for a month."

  "I'll call your doctor, then alert Chris--you sit down and take it easy!"

  "Would it be all right if I came in?"

  He swung open the door, wearing only his trousers. His chest was bare. "You're the calmest mother-to-be I've ever seen," he said as he helped me sit. He raced next to swipe at his face with an electric razor, then he was running to put on a shirt and tie. "Had any more contractions?" It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, when another seized me. I doubled over. "Fifteen minutes since the last," I gasped. He looked pale as he pulled on his jacket, then came to help me up. "Okay, I'll put you in the car first, then go for your suitcase. Keep calm, don't worry, this baby will have three doctors doing their very best . . ."

  "To get in each other's way," I concluded.

  "To see you have the best medical attention possible," he corrected, then he bellowed toward the kitchen. "Henny, I'm taking Catherine to the hospital! Tell Carrie when she wakes up. Then call Madame Marisha and put on that tape we made for her."

  We'd thought of everything. When Paul opened the front door after he'd backed his car out, I heard behind me the tape playing for Madame M., my own voice speaking "Madame," I'd taped weeks ago, "your grandchild is on the way."

  It seemed forever before the hospital loomed up ahead. Under a protective canopy at the emergency entrance, a solitary intern paced restlessly back and forth. Chris, who said "Thank God you're here! I was picturing all sorts of calamities," even as he assisted me out, while someone else rushed up with a wheelchair, and without any of the preliminaries other patients had to endure, I was snug in bed in no time at all--and gasping from another contraction.

  Three hours later, my son was born. Chris and Paul were there, both of them with tears in their eyes, but it was Chris who picked up my son, still with the cord attached, messy and bloody. He put him upon my belly and held him there while another doctor did what he had to. "Cathy . . . can you see him9"

  "He's beautiful," I breathed in awe, seeing all the dark, curling hair, the perfect little red body. With a fierce anger so like his father's he waved his tiny fists and flailed his thin legs, screaming at all the indignities inflicted upon him--and all the light that came so suddenly to shine in his eyes, and put him center stage, so to speak.

  "His name is Julian Janus Marquet, but I'm going to call him Jory."

  Both Chris and Paul heard my thin whisper. I was so tired, so sleepy.

  "Why would you call him Jory?" asked Paul, but it wasn't me who had the strength to answer. It was Chris who understood my reasoning.

  "If he had been blond, she would have named him Cory--but the J will stand for Julian, and the rest for Cory."
>
  Our eyes met and I smiled. How wonderful to be understood, and never have to explain.

  PART FOUR My Small Sweet Prince

  . If ever a child was born into a palace of adoring worshipers, it was my Jory with his blue-black curls, his pale creamy skin, and his dark, dark blue eyes. He was Julian all over, and to him I could give the lavish affection I'd been unable to give his father.

  From the very first Jory seemed to know I was his mother. He seemed to know my voice, my touch, even the sound of my footsteps. Yet he had almost as great a love for Carrie who ran home every night straight from Paul's office to gather him in her arms and play with him for hours.

  "We should find our own place," said Chris, who wanted to establish himself firmly as Jory's father. In Paul's home, this wasn't possible.

  I didn't know what to say to that. I loved Paul's big house, and being with him and Henny. I wanted Jory to have the garden paths where I could push him in his carriage and he'd be surrounded by beauty. And in no way could Chris and I give him as much. Chris didn't know about my sky-high debts.

  Upstairs Paul had made a nursery, completely refurbished with crib, playpen, bassinet and dozens of soft plushy stuffed animals a baby could enjoy without harming himself. There were times when both Paul and Chris would rush home with the same toy. They'd look at each other, and both would force a smile to hide the embarrassment. Then I had to rush forward and exclaim, "Two men with the same idea." And one would have to be taken back . . . but never, never did I let either one know whose gift it was that I returned.

  Carrie graduated from high school the June she was seventeen. She didn't want college; she was very much contented to be Paul's private secretary. Her small fingers could fly over the typewriter keyboard; she took dictation with remarkable speed and accuracy--but still she kept wishing for someone to love her, despite her small size.