"Cathy, please," said Chris, tugging me away. I sobbed when Bart's hand slipped from my grasp. "We have to go! There's no reason for us to stay on now that it is all over."
All over, all over--it was all over.
My eyes followed the ambulance with Bart's body inside, and my grandmother too. I didn't grieve for her--for she had got out of life what she put in.
I turned to Chris and cried again in his arms, for who would live long enough to let me keep the love I had to have? Who?
Hours and hours passed while Chris pleaded with me to leave this place that had brought us nothing but unhappiness and sorrow. Why hadn't I
remembered that? Sadly I leaned to pick bits and pieces of craft paper that once had been orange and purple, and other pieces of our attic decorations blew on the wind, torn petals, jagged leaves, ripped from their stems.
It was dawn before the fire was brought under control. By that time the mammoth greatness that had once been Foxworth Hall was only a smoldering ruin. The eight chimneys still stood on the sturdy brick foundation, and, oddly enough, the dual winding staircases that curved up into nowhere still remained.
Chris was eager to depart, but I had to sit and watch until the last wisp of smoke was blown away and became part of the wind called nevermore. It was my salute, the final one to Bartholomew Winslow whom I'd first seen at the age of twelve. On first sight I'd given my heart to him. So much so that I had to have Paul grow a mustache so he'd look more like Bart. And I'd married Julian because his eyes were dark, dark like Bart's. . . . Oh, God, how could I live with the knowledge I had killed the one man I'd loved best?
"Please, please Cathy, the grandmother is gone and I can't say I'm sorry, though I am about Bart. It must have been our mother who started the fire. From what the police say, it began in that attic room at the top of the stairs."
His voice came to me as from a far distance, for I was locked up in a shell of my own making. I shook my head and tried to clear it. Who was I? Who was that man next to me--who was the little boy in the back seat asleep in the arms of an older woman?
"What's the matter with you, Cathy?" Chris said impatiently. "Listen, Henny had a massive stroke tonight! In trying to help her Paul suffered a heart attack! He needs us! Are you going to sit here all day too and grieve for a man you should have left alone, and let the one man who has done the most for us die?"
The grandmother had said a few things so right. I was evil, born unholy. Everything was my fault! All my fault! If I'd never come, if I'd never come, on and on I kept saying this to myself as I cried bitter tears for the loss of Bart.
Reaping the Harvest
. It was autumn again, that passionate month of October. The trees this year were ablaze from the touch of early frost. I was on the back veranda of Paul's big white house, shelling peas and watching Bart's small son chase after his older half-brother Jory. We'd named Bart's son after him, thinking it only right, but his last name was Sheffield, not Winslow. I was now Paul's wife.
In a few months Jory would be seven years old, and though at first he'd been a bit jealous he was now delighted to have a younger brother to share his life-- someone he could boss, instruct and patronize. However young, Bart was not the kind to take orders. He was his own person, right from the beginning.
"Catherine," called Paul's weak voice. I put the bowl of green peas quickly aside and hurried to his bedroom on the first floor. He was able to sit up in a chair for a few hours a day now, though on our wedding day, he'd been in bed. On our wedding night he'd slept in my arms, and that was all.
Paul had lost a great deal of weight; he looked gaunt. All his youth and vitality, held on to so valiantly, had disappeared almost overnight. Yet he'd never moved me more than when he smiled at me and held out his arms. "I just called to see if you'd come. I ordered you to get out of this house for a change."
"You're talking too much," I cautioned. "You know you aren't supposed to talk but a little." This was a sore point with him to only listen and not join in, but he tried to accept it. His next words took me by complete surprise. I could only stare at him, mouth open and eyes wide. "Paul, you don't mean that!"
Solemnly he nodded, his still beautiful iridescent eyes holding mine. "Catherine, my love, it's been almost three years that you have been a slave to me, doing your best to make my last days happy. But I'm never going to get well. I could live on like this for years and years, like your grandfather did, while you grow older and older, and miss out on the best years of your life."
"I'm not missing out on anything," I said with a sob in my throat.
He smiled at me gently and held out his arms, and gladly I went to cuddle on his lap, though his arms about me no longer felt strong. He kissed me, and I held my breath. Oh, to be loved again. . . but I wouldn't let him, I wouldn't!
"Think about it, my darling. Your children need a father, the kind of father I can't be now."
"It's my fault!" I cried. "If I had married you years ago, instead of Julian, I could have kept you well, and forced you not to work so hard and drive yourself night and day. Paul, if we three hadn't come into your life, you wouldn't have had to earn so much money, enough to send Chris through college and me to ballet classes. . . ."
He put his hand over my mouth, and told me but for us, he would have died years ago from overwork. "Three years, Catherine," he said again. "And when you think about it, you will realize you are very much a prisoner, just as when you were in Foxworth Hall, waiting for your grandfather to die. I don't want you and Chris to grow to hate me . . . so think about it, and talk to him about it--and then decide."
"Paul, Chris is a doctor! You know he wouldn't agree!"
"Time is running out, Catherine, not only for me, but for you and Chris too. Soon Jory will be seven years old. He will be remembering everything more clearly. He will know Chris is his uncle, but if you leave now and forget about me, he will consider Chris his stepfather, not his uncle."
I sobbed. "No! Chris would never agree."
"Catherine, listen to me. It wouldn't be evil! You are now unable to have more children. Though I was terribly sorry you had such a difficult time giving birth to your last son, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I'm impotent; I'm not a real husband, and soon you will be a widow again. And Chris has waited for so long. Can't you think about him, and forget the sin?"
And so, like Momma, we'd written our scripts too, Chris and I. And maybe ours were no better than hers, though I'd never plotted to kill anyone, nor had I meant to drive her over the brink of insanity so the rest of her life she'd live in a "convalescent" home. And the irony of ironies, when all that she'd inherited from her father had been taken away, it had reverted to her mother. The grandmother's will had been read and her entire fortune, plus the remains of Foxworth Hall, now belonged to a woman who could only sit in a mental institution and stare at four walls. Oh, Momma, if only you could have looked into the future when first you considered taking your four children back to Foxworth Hall! Cursed with millions--and unable to spend a cent. Nor would one penny come to us. When our mother died, it would be distributed to different charities.
In the spring of the following year we sat near the river water where Julia had led Scotty, then held him under so he drowned in the shallow, greenish water where my own two small sons sailed small boats and waded in water that only reached their ankles.
"Chris," I began falteringly, embarrassed, and yet happy too, "Paul made love to me last night for the first time. We were both so happy, we cried. It was safe enough, wasn't it?"
He bowed his head to hide his expression, and the sun blazed his golden hair. "I'm happy for the both of you. Yes, sex is safe enough now, as long as you don't work him up to a great pitch of excitement."
"We took it easy." After four severe heart attacks, it had to be easy sex.
"Good."
Jory shrieked out then he'd caught a fish. Was it too small? Would he have to throw back another? "Yes," called Chris, "that's just a baby. We d
on't eat baby fish, only the big ones."
"Come," I called, "let's head for home and dinner." They came running and laughing, my two sons, both so much alike they appeared whole brothers, and not halfs. And as yet we hadn't told them any different. Jory hadn't asked, and Bart was too young to question. But when they did, we would tell them the truth, as difficult as it was.
"We've got two daddies," cried Jory, flinging himself into Chris's arms as I picked up Bart. "Nobody at school but me has two daddies and they don't understand when I tell them. . . but maybe I don't tell it right."
"I'm sure you don't tell it right," said Chris with a small smile.
In Chris's new blue car we drove home to the big white house that had given us so much. As we had the first time we came, we saw a man on the front veranda with his white shoes propped up on the balustrade. As Chris took my sons into the house I went over to Paul and smiled to see him dozing with a pleased smile upon his face. The newspaper he'd been reading had slipped from his slack hand to fan on the veranda floor. "I'll go in and bathe the boys," whispered Chris, "and you can pick up the newspapers before the wind blows them onto our neighbors' lawns."
As quietly as you can try to pick up papers and fold them neatly, somehow they will crackle and rustle, and soon Paul half-opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Hi," he said sleepily. "Did you have a good day? Catch anything?"
"Two small fish bit on Jory's line, but he had to throw them back. What were you dreaming before you woke?" I asked, leaning to kiss him. "You looked so happy--was it a sexy dream?"
Again he smiled, sort of wistfully. "I was dreaming of Julia," he said. "She had Scotty with her, and they were both smiling at me. You know, she very seldom smiled at me after we married."
"Poor Julia," I said, kissing him again. "She missed out on so much. I promise my smiles will make up for all she didn't give."
"They already have." He reached to touch my cheek and stroked my hair. "It was my lucky day when you climbed my veranda steps on that Sunday. . . ."
"That damned Sunday," I corrected. He smiled. "Give me ten minutes more before you call me in to dinner. I'd like to get hold of that bus driver and tell him no Sundays are damned when you are on the bus."
I went in to help Chris with the boys, and while he buttoned up Jory's pj's I helped Bart Scott Winslow Sheffield with his yellow pajamas. We ate early, so we could dine with our children.
Soon the ten minutes were up and again I went to waken Paul. Three times I said his name softly and stroked his cheek gently, then blew in his ear. Still he slept on. I started to say his name again, and louder, when he made some small sound that sounded like my name. I looked, already trembling and afraid. Just the strangeness of the way he said that filled me with a terrible dread.
"Chris," I called weakly, "come quick and look at Paul."
He must have been in the hall, sent by Emma to see what was taking us so long, for he stepped out of the door immediately, then ran to Paul's side. He seized up his hand and felt for his pulse, and then in another second he was pulling his head back and holding his nose and breathing into his mouth. When that didn't work he struck him several times very hard on his chest. I ran into the house and called an ambulance.
But, of course, none of it did any good. Our benefactor, our savior, my husband was dead. Chris put his arm about my shoulder and drew me to his chest. "He's gone, Cathy, the way I would like to go, in my sleep, feeling well and happy. It's a good way for a good man to die, with no pain and no suffering-- so don't look like that, it's not your fault!"
Nothing was ever my fault. Behind me lay a trail of dead men. But I wasn't responsible for the death of even one, was I? No, of course not. It was a wonder Chris had the nerve to climb in the car and sit beside me, heading his car west. Behind us, we trailed a U-Haul with all our worldly goods inside. Going west like the pioneers to seek a new future and find different kinds of lives. Paul had left everything he owned to me, including his family home. Though his will had stated, if I decided to sell, he wanted Amanda to have the final bid.
So at last Paul's sister had their ancestorial home she had always wanted and schemed to get--but I made sure it was at a steep price.
Chris and I rented a home in California until we could have a custom-designed ranchhouse built to our specifications, with four bedrooms and two and a half baths. Plus we had another bath and bedroom for our maid, Emma Lindstrom. My sons call my brother Daddy. They both know they have other fathers who went on to heaven before they were born. So far, they don't realize Chris is only their uncle. A long time ago Jory forgot that. Maybe children too forget when they want to, and ask no questions that would be embarrassing to answer.
At least once a year we travel east to visit friends, including Madame Marisha and Madame Zolta. Both make a great to-do about the dancing abilities of Jory, and both try with fervent zeal to make Bart a dancer too. But so far, he doesn't have the inclination to be anything but a doctor. We visit all the graves of our beloved ones, and put flowers there. Always red and purple ones for Carrie, and roses of any color for Paul and Henny. We have even sought out our father's frave in Gladstone, and paid our respects to him too with flowers. And Julian is never overlooked, or Georges.
Last of all, we visit Momma.
She lives in a huge place that tries
unsuccessfully to look homey. Usually she screams when she sees me. Then she jumps up and tries to tear the hair from my head. When she is restrained, she turns the hatred upon herself, trying time after time to mutilate her face, and free herself forever of any resemblance to me. Just as if she no longer looked in the mirrors that would tell her we no longer look alike. Remorse has made of her something terrible to see. And once she'd been so very beautiful. Her doctors allow only Chris to visit with her an hour or so, while I wait outside with my two sons. He reports back that if she recovers, she won't be faced with a murder charge, for both Chris and I have disclaimed there ever was a fourth child named Cory. She doesn't fully trust Chris, sensing he is under my evil influence, and if she lets go her facade of being insane, she will end up with a death penalty. So year after year passes as she clings to her calculated fallacy as a way to escape the future with no one who really cares for her. Or perhaps, more truly, she seeks to torment me through Chris and the pity he insists on feeling for her. She is the one issue that keeps our relationship from being perfect.
So, the dreams of perfection, of fame, of fortune, of undying, ever-abiding love without one single flaw, like the toys and games of yesteryears, and all other youthful fantasies I have outgrown, I have put away.
Often I look at Chris, and wonder just what it is he sees in me. What is it that binds him to me in such a permanent way? I wonder too why he isn't afraid for his future and the length of it, since I am better at keeping pets alive than husbands. But he comes home jauntily, wearing a happy grin, as he strides into my welcoming arms that respond quickly to his greeting, "Come greet me with kisses if you love me."
His medical practice is large, but not too large, so he has time to work in our four acres of gardens with the marble statues we brought along from Paul's gardens. As much as possible we have duplicated what he had, except for the Spanish moss that clings, and clings, and then kills
Emma Lindstrom, our cook, our housekeeper, friend, lives with us as Henny lived with Paul. She never asks questions. She has no family but us, and to us she is faithful, and our business is our own.
Pragmatic, blithe, the eternal, cockeyed optimist, Chris sings when he works in the gardens. When he shaves in the mornings he hums some ballet tune, feeling no trepidations, no regrets, as if long, long ago he had been the man who danced in the shadows of the attic and had never, never let me see his face. Did he know all along that just as he had won over me in all other games it would be him in the end?
Why hadn't I known?
Who had shut my eyes?
It must have been Momma who told me once, "Marry a man with dark, dark eyes, Cathy. Dark eyes feel s
o terribly intense about everything." What a laugh! As if blue eyes lacked some profound steadfastness; she should have known better.
I should know better too. It worries me because I went yesterday into our attic. In a little alcove to the side, I found two single-size beds, long enough for two small boys to grow into men.
Oh, my God! I thought, who did this? I would never lock away my two sons, even if Jory did remember one day that Chris was not his stepfather but his uncle. I wouldn't even if he did tell Bart, our youngest. I could face the shame, the embarrassment, and the publicity that would ruin Chris professionally. Yet. . . yet, today I bought a picnic hamper, the kind with the double lids that open up from the center; the very same kind of hamper the grandmother had used to bring us food.
So, I go uneasily to bed and lie there awake, fearing the worst in myself, and struggling to keep firm hold of the best. It seems, as I turn over, and snuggle closer to the man I love, that I can hear the cold wind blowing from the blue-misted mountains so far away.
It's the past that I can never forget, that shadows all my days, and hides furtively in the corners when Chris is home. I do make an effort be like he is, always optimistic, when I am not at all the kind who can forget the tarnish on the reverse side of the brightest coin.
But. . . I am not like her! I may look like her, but inside I am honorable! I am stronger, more determined. The best in me will win out in the end. I know it will. It has to sometimes. . . doesn't it?
V. C. Andrews, Petals on the Wind
(Series: Dollenganger # 2)
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