Petals on the Wind

  "My parents are dead," I said, annoyed he'd ask. "Dr. Paul was a friend of my father, so he took us in. He felt sorry for us and didn't want us to go into an orphanage."

  "Lucky you," he said with a certain sourness. "I'd never be so lucky." Then he leaned over until his forehead was pressed against mine and our lips were only inches apart. I could feel his breath hot on my face. "Cathy, I don't want to say and do anything wrong with you. I want to make you the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am thirteenth in a long line of male dancers who have married ballerinas, most of them. How do you think that makes me feel? Not lucky, you can bet. I've been in New York since I was eighteen, and last February I turned twenty. That's two years, and still I'm not a star. With you I could be. I've got to prove to Georges I'm the best, and better than he ever was. I've never told anyone this before, but I hurt my back when I was a kid, trying to lift an engine that was too heavy. It bothers me all the time, but still I dance on. And it's not just because you're small and don't weigh much. I know other dancers who are smaller and lighter, but something about your proportions seems to balance just right when I lift. Or maybe it's what you do to your body that adjusts to my hands. . . . Whatever it is you do, you fit me to a tee. Cathy, come with me to New York, please."

  "You wouldn't take advantage of me if I did?" "I'd be your guardian angel."

  "New York is so big. . .

  "I know it like the palm of my hand. Soon you'll know it just as well."

  "There's my sister and my brother. I don't want to leave them yet."

  "Eventually you'll have to. The longer you stay the harder it will be to make the break. Grow up, Cathy, be your own person. You never are when you stay home and let others dominate you." He looked away, his scowl bitter. I felt sorry for him, and touched too.

  "Maybe. Let me think about it more."

  Chris was on the upper veranda outside my bedroom when I went in to undress. When I saw him out there in his pajamas, his slouched shoulders drew me to him

  "How'd it go?" he asked without looking at me.

  Nervously my hands fluttered around. "Okay, I guess. We had wine with dinner Julian got a little drunk, I think. Maybe I did too."

  He turned to stare in my eyes. "I don't like him, Cathy! I wish he'd stay in New York and leave you alone! From what I hear from all the girls or boys in your dance company, Julian has claimed you so now no other dancer will ask you out. Cathy, he's from New York. Those guys up there move fast, and you're only fifteen!" He moved to cradle me in his arms.

  "Who are you dating?" I asked with a sob in my throat. "Don't tell me you're not seeing any girls."

  His cheek was against mine when he answered slowly, "There's no girl I've met who can compare to you.'

  "How are your studies going?" I asked, hoping to take his mind off me.

  "Great. When I'm not thinking of all I have to do in the first year of med school--gross anatomy, micro- anatomy and neuroanatomy--I get around to prepping for college."

  "What do you do in your spare time?"

  "What spare time? There's none left when I finish worrying about what's happening to you! I like school, Cathy. I'd really enjoy it if you weren't constantly on my mind. I wait for the weekends when I can see you and Carrie again."

  "Oh, Chris . . . you've got to try to forget me and find someone else."

  But just one long look into his tortured eyes revealed that what had been started so long ago wasn't going to be easy to stop.

  I had to try to find someone else and then he'd know it was over, forever over. My thoughts took wing to Julian who was striving so to prove himself a better dancer than his father. How like me, who had to be better in all ways than my mother.

  I was ready the next time Julian flew down. When he asked me for a date, this time I didn't hedge. It might as well be him; we did have the same goals. Then, after the movie and a soft drink in a club for me, and beer for him, he again drove to the lover's lane every city seemed to have. I allowed him this time to do a bit more than just kiss me, but too soon he was breathing hot and fast, and touching me with so much expertise that soon I was responding even when I didn't want to. He pushed me back on the seat. Suddenly I realized what he was about to do--and I grabbed up my handbag and began to beat him on his face. "Stop! I told you before, go slower!"

  "You asked for it!" he raged. "You can't lead me on, then turn me off. I despise a tease."

  I thought of Chris and began to cry. "Julian, please. I like you, honest I do. But you don't give me a chance to fall in love with you. Please stop coming at me so fast."

  He seized my arm and ruthlessly twisted it behind my back until I cried out from the pain. I thought he meant to break it. But he released it just when I was about to scream.

  "Look, Cathy. I'm half in love with you already. But no girl strings me along like I'm some country bumpkin. There are plenty of girls willing to give out--so I don't need you as much as I thought--not for anything!"

  Of course he didn't need me. Nobody really needed me but Chris and Carrie, though Chris needed me in the wrong way. Momma had twisted and warped him, and turned him toward me, and now he couldn't turn away. I couldn't forgive her for that. She had to pay for everything wrong she'd caused. If he and I had sinned, she had made us.

  I thought and thought that night of how I could make Momma pay, and I came up with the exact price that would hurt most. It wouldn't be money, she had too much of that. It would have to be something she prized more than money. Two things--her honorable reputation which was a bit tarnished from marrying her half-uncle, and her young husband. Both would be gone when I was through with her.

  Then I was crying. Crying for Chris, for Carrie who didn't grow and for Cory who was by now, probably, only bones in his grave.

  I turned over to grope for Carrie, reaching to draw her into my arms. But Carrie was in a private school for girls, ten miles outside the city limits. Chris was thirty miles away.

  It began to rain hard. The staccato beats on the roof overhead were military drums to take me into dreams and back to exactly where I didn't want to go. I was dumped down in a locked room cluttered with toys and games and massive, dark furniture, and pictures of hell on the walls. I sat in an old wooden rocker, half coming apart, and on my lap I held a ghostly, small brother who called me Momma, and on and on we rocked, and the floorboards creaked, and the wind blew, and the rain pelted down, and below us, around us, above us, the enormous house of countless rooms was waiting to eat us up.

  I hated the rain so close above my head, like it used to be when we were upstairs. How much worse our lives had been when it rained, and the room was damp and chill, and in the attic there was nothing but miserable gloom and dead faces that lined the wall. Bands like the grandmother's gray iron came to tighten about my head, smothering my thoughts, making me confused and terrified.

  Unable to sleep, I left the bed and slipped on a filmy negligee. For some curious reason I stole to Paul's bedroom and cautiously eased open his closed door. The alarm clock on his nightstand read two o'clock-- and still he wasn't home! Nobody in the house but Henny who was so far, far away--way at the other end of the house in her room adjacent to the kitchen.

  I shook my head and stared again at Paul's smoothly made bed. Oh, Chris was crazy to want to be a doctor! He'd never have a full night's rest. And it was raining. Accidents happened so often on rainy nights. What if Paul should be killed? What would we do then! Paul,

  Paul, I screamed to myself as I raced toward the stairs and flew down them, then sped on to where I could peer out the French windows in the living room. I hoped to see a white car parked in the drive, or turning into the drive. God, I prayed, don't let him have an accident! Please, please--don't take him like you took Daddy!

  "Cathy, why aren't you in bed?"

  I whirled about. There was Paul sitting comfortably in his favorite chair, puffing on a cigarette in the dark. There was just enough light to see he wore the red robe we'd given him for Christmas. I was
so overwhelmed with relief to see him safe and not spread out dead on a morgue slab. Morbid thoughts. Daddy, I can barely remember how you looked, or how your voice sounded, and the special smell of you has faded away.

  "Is something wrong, Catherine?"

  Wrong? Why did he call me Catherine at night when we were alone, and only Cathy during the day? Everything was wrong! The Greenglenna newspapers and the Virginia one I'd subscribed to and had delivered to my ballet school both told stories of how Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow would make her second "winter" home in Greenglenna. Extensive renovation was being done so her husband's home would be as it was when it was new. Only the best for my mother! For some reason I couldn't fathom I lit into Paul like a shrew. "How long have you been home?" I demanded sharply. "I've been upstairs worrying about you so much I can't sleep! And here you were, all the time! You missed your dinner; you missed last night's dinner; you were supposed to take me out to a movie last night and you forgot all about it! I finished my homework early, dressed in my best clothes and sat around waiting for you to show up, and you forgot it! Why do you let your patients make so many demands on your time so you don't have a life of your own?"

  For a long time he didn't answer. Then when my lips parted to speak again, he said in a mild tone, "You really do sound upset. I guess the only excuse I can offer is to say I'm a doctor, and a doctor's time is never his own. I'm sorry I forgot about the movie. I apologize for not calling and telling you there was an emergency and I couldn't leave."

  "Forget--how could you forget? Yesterday you forgot to bring the things I had on my list, so after I waited for hours on end for you to come home I sat around thinking you might come home and bring me the shampoo I wanted, but you didn't!"

  "I'm sorry again. Sometimes I have things on my mind other than movies and the cosmetics you need." "Are you being sarcastic?"

  "I am trying to control my temper. It would be nice if you could control yours."

  "I'm not mad!" I shouted. He was so like Momma, so much in control, so poised, when I never was! He didn't care. That's why he could sit there and look at me like that! He didn't really care if he made promises and broke them--like her! I ran forward as if to strike him, but he caught my fists and stared up at me in utter surprise. "Would you hit me, Catherine? Does missing a movie mean so much to you that you can't understand how I could forget? Now say you're sorry for screaming at me, as I said I was sorry for disappointing you."

  What tortured me was more than mere disappointment! Nowhere was there anyone I could depend on--only Chris who was forbidden to me. Only Chris who would never forget anything I needed or wanted.

  I shuddered. Oh, what kind of person was I? Was I so like Momma I had to have what I wanted, when I wanted, no matter what the cost to others? Was I going to make Paul pay for what she'd done? None of it was his fault. "Paul, I am sorry I yelled at you. I do understand."

  "You must be very tired. Perhaps you take your ballet classes too seriously. Maybe you should let up a little."

  How could I tell him I couldn't let up? I had to be the best, and to be the best at anything meant hours and hours of work. I fully intended to give up all the pastimes other girls my age enjoyed. I didn't want a boyfriend who wasn't a dancer. I didn't want any girlfriends who didn't dance. I didn't want anything to come between me and my goal, and yet, and yet .. . sitting there, looking up at me, was a man who said he needed me, and who was hurt by the hateful way I'd acted.

  "I read about my mother today," I said lamely, "and a house she's having remodeled and redecorated. She always gets what she wants. I never get anything. So I act ugly to you and forget all that you've done." I backed off a few feet, aching with the shame I felt. "How long have you been home?"

  "Since eleven-thirty," he answered. "I ate the salad and the steak Henny left for me in the warming oven. But I don't sleep well when I'm exceptionally tired. And I don't like the sound of the rain on the roof."

  "Because the rain shuts you off and makes you feel lonely?"

  He half-smiled. "Yeah, something like that. How did you know?"

  How he felt was all over his face as dim as it was in that big room. He was thinking of her, his Julia, his dead wife. Always he looked sad when Julia was on his mind. I approached his chair and impulsively reached out to touch his cheek. "Why do you have to smoke? How can you tell your patients to quit the habit and keep on smoking yourself?"

  "How do you know what I tell my patients?" he asked in that soft voice, in a way that tingled my spine. Nervously I laughed, telling him he didn't always close his office door tight, and if I happened to be in the back hail, sometimes, despite my will, I couldn't help overhearing a few things. He told me to go to bed and stop hanging around in the back hall where I didn't belong--and he'd smoke if he wanted to smoke.

  "Sometimes you act like a wife, asking such questions, getting angry at me for forgetting to stop at the drugstore for you. Are you sure you didn't desperately need that shampoo?"

  Now he had me feeling a fool, and again I was angry. "I only asked you to get those things because you pass by a discount store where everything is cheaper! I was just trying to save money! From now on I'll never ask you to pick up anything I need! When you invite me to dinner in a restaurant, or to a movie, I'll be prepared to be disappointed, and that way I won't be disappointed. I might as well get used to expecting the worst from everyone."

  "Catherine! You can hate me if that's what you want, make me pay for everything you have suffered, and then, perhaps, you can go to sleep at night and not toss and turn and cry out in your sleep, and call for your mother like a child of three."

  Stunned, I stared at him "I call out for her?"

  "Yes," he said, "many, many times I've heard you call for your mother." I saw the pity in his eyes. "Don't be ashamed of being human, Catherine. We all expect only the best from our mothers."

  I didn't want to talk about her, so I stepped nearer. "Julian is back in town. I went out with him tonight since you stood me up last night. Julian thinks I'm ready for New York. He thinks his dance instructor, Madame Zolta, would develop me quicker than his mother. He thinks together we'd make a brilliant team."

  "And what do you think?"

  "I think I'm not ready for New York yet," I whispered, "but he comes on so strong, sometimes he makes me believe, because he seems so convinced."

  "Go slowly, Catherine. Julian is a handsome young man, with arrogance enough for ten men. Use your own good common sense and don't be influenced by someone who might only want to use you."

  "I dream every night of being in New York, on stage. I see my mother in the audience staring up at me with disbelieving eyes. She wanted to kill me. I want her to see me dance and realize I have more to give the world than she does."

  He winced. "Why do you need revenge so much? I thought if I took you three in and did the best I could for you, you'd find peace and forgiveness. Can't you forgive and forget? If there's one chance we poor humans have of reaching godliness, it's in learning to forgive and forget."

  "You and Chris," I said bitterly. "It's easy for you to talk about forgiving and forgetting--because you haven't been a victim, and I have. I've lost my younger brother who was like my own son. I loved Cory, and she stole away his life. I hate her for that! I hate her for ten million reasons--so don't talk to me about forgiving and forgetting--when she's got to pay for what she did! She lied to us, betrayed us in the worse possible way! She said nothing to let us know our grandfather had died, and kept right on letting us stay locked up--for nine long, long months--and in those long months we were eating poisoned doughnuts! So don't you dare talk to me of forgiving and forgetting! I don't know how to forgive and forget! All I know how to do is hate! And you don't know what it's like to hate as I do!"

  "Don't I?" he asked in a flat voice.

  "No, you don't know!"

  He drew me down on his lap when I sobbed and tears streamed down my face. He comforted me as a father would, with little kisses and kind, stroking hand
s. "Catherine, I've got a story of my own to tell. Maybe in some ways it equals the horror of yours. Maybe if I tell you you'll be able to use some of what I've learned."

  I stared up into his face. His arms held me lightly as I leaned back. "Are you going to tell me about Julia and Scotty?"

  "Yes." A hard edge toned his voice. His eyes fixed on the rain-washed windows, and his hand that found mine squeezed tight. "You think only your mother commits crimes against those she loves--well, you're wrong. It's done every day. Sometimes it's done to gain money, but there are other reasons." He paused, sighed, then went on. "I hope when you've heard my story, you can go to bed tonight and forget about vengeance. If you don't you'll hurt yourself more than anyone else."

  I didn't believe that because I didn't want to believe that. But I was eager enough to hear the tale of how Julia and Scotty both died on the same day.

  When Paul began to speak of Julia, I feared the ending. I squeezed my eyelids closed, wishing now my ears didn't have to hear, for I didn't need more to add to the anguish I already felt for one little dead boy. But he did it for my sake, to save me, as if anything could.