Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

  In the morning, my father and I took Aunt Barbara to the airport. He promised her that he would find the time for us to visit her in New York. She rattled on about all the things she would arrange for us to do. I could see how excited the possibility of her brother’s visit made her. She vowed to call Uncle Tommy and twist his arm so he would come to New York at the same time. It all seemed fabulous but more like a fantasy to me.

  Aunt Barbara held on to me longer when we hugged. “You’ve done a wonderful job with my brother,” she said. “I think it was a case of the daughter bringing up the father. Encourage him to get out more,” she added.

  I knew what she meant and assured her that I would.

  After she left and we were heading home, my father was quieter than usual. How important family was, I thought. How much we would forgive each other to keep our family bonds. It helped me understand why Christopher was so desperate to believe in his mother. I also realized that my father needed more than just me in his life. He had a wide hole in his heart that he had to fill. It was so important to have someone who cared about you and for whom you could care. He would always have me but not in the way he had me now. No one mentions that loneliness doesn’t simply mean not having someone else there to be interested in you. It means having no one there for you to devote your time and your energy to protect and comfort. It means not being able to give of yourself and not simply take from others.

  No wonder Christopher was clinging so hard to Cathy and they so easily accepted caring for their little brother and sister. I wished I could say, See, Dad? Reading the diary isn’t all horror and pain for me. It’s teaching me something valuable.

  But it wasn’t time to say that, not yet, perhaps not ever.

  When we got home, my father suggested that he would take Laura Osterhouse and me out to dinner.

  “I’m sure you’re both tired of leftovers,” he said.

  “Actually, I’m not,” I said. “I know there’s enough left. Do you mind terribly if I don’t go?” I smiled. “I might invite someone to help me finish off the food.”

  He looked suspicious for a moment and then laughed. “Okay. I’ll leave you to do the warming up.”

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to those leftovers,” I said. “I’ve spied on you enough.”

  He nodded and went to call Laura. I hurried up to my room to call Kane. I had no doubt he would rush over the moment he could. We’d eat, but we’d go upstairs and move ahead in the diary, no matter where it took us.

  He was there a half hour later.

  Just one look at me, and he knew. My father had left. We ate fast, both too anxious, anticipating. Afterward, silently, both our hearts racing with anticipation, we started up the stairway. I had forgotten I had moved the diary.

  “Something happen?” he asked quickly when he saw me take it from under the things in my closet.

  “No, but I became a little worried after my aunt’s questions about it.”

  He nodded, and we went up to the attic. Again, in a deeper silence than usual, we arranged things, and he took the diary, sat, and began.

  After five days had passed without Momma’s return, I told Cathy she was punishing us for being ungrateful. At first, she flared up.

  “We’re being ungrateful? We?”

  I explained that Momma was just very sensitive now. We didn’t know exactly what she was going through outside of this little bedroom and attic. Look how she had been whipped once.

  “She’s probably walking on tiptoes, dancing like a ballerina,” I said, and Cathy relaxed, nodded, and agreed not to be nasty to Momma whenever she returned.

  She didn’t come back for another five days, but when she did, we were as sweet and grateful as we could be.

  Then Momma dropped her bombshell.

  She told us she had married the attorney, Bart Winslow. I could see how excited she was. She raved about all his good qualities and told us he had always been in love with her. I felt a tightness in my chest and in my throat. For a few moments, I couldn’t speak. All this had been going on, her romance, her marriage, and her honeymoon, while we lingered here in the tiny bedroom and the attic, waiting, hoping to be free. I glanced at Cathy and shook my head slightly. This wasn’t the time for a blowup, but we were both hoping that when she saw Carrie and Cory and how they reacted to her, how strange and aloof they had become, she would realize we must be taken out of here now.

  “Does he know about us?” Cathy asked before I could.

  “Not yet,” she told us. She was waiting for her father to die first, and she assured us that Bart would understand why she had hidden us.

  Again, I gave Cathy the look that said, Don’t. Don’t start a fight.

  Afterward, I tried to be as optimistic as I could. Although it pained me to do so, I used logic and reason, telling her it made sense. How could she reveal us to Bart Winslow now while our grandfather was alive?

  “But maybe we don’t need his money now, Chris,” she rightly said. “A lawyer should have enough money to care for us all.”

  For a moment, I was stuck, and then I said, “Yes, but he’s our grandfather’s lawyer, and he probably makes most of his money working for him. What do you think our grandfather would do? He’d fire him, and then what would we have gained?”

  Reluctantly, she agreed. I was happy I had calmed her, but I was sad, too, because she had been right.

  Time, like a dripping icicle, began to wear on and on. Winter was coming again. The attic would soon be too cold for us. Day after day, Cathy and I cared for the twins and spent our free time reading, lying together on the old mattress near the window, talking about one of the books Momma had brought up from the house library. We were talking more about love now, about what it meant to fall in love with someone. Being so close to her for so long, I could see the dramatic changes, not only in her body but also in the way she was thinking about herself, and yes, about me, wondering about the changes in me. I knew it was wrong to think it and feel it, but what was happening between us whenever we had those conversations was the most thrilling thing right now, something I looked forward to doing, feeling.

  She was so cute, so eager to have romance and be loved just like any girl her age, but unlike any girl her age, she was locked away from parties, from flirting, from having crushes and giggling about silly little things. I missed all these things, too, although I would never admit it. I tried to feel sorrier for her than for myself. We laughed and giggled, and I hugged her and kissed her cheeks, and just as suddenly, I felt myself drawn to her even closer. I couldn’t stop looking at her, at the way her breasts were forming, at the smooth lines of her neck, the gracefulness of her legs, her thighs.

  I saw that she realized how I was looking at her, and I couldn’t help but feel the blood rush into my face. I turned away as quickly as I could and then told her that all this talk about romance that we read in books was just silly. She got mad at me and accused me, along with all men, of wanting the same romantic things. She was right, of course. I couldn’t stand it and lost myself for a moment, wailing just as she would about all I was missing but, more important, how I had to hold back all my manly feelings because we were forbidden to do this or that by a grandmother who was just waiting to pounce on us. I ranted until she reached out and touched me so lovingly and gently I had to stop.

  “I understand,” she said. “I know what you’re missing, too.”

  I squinted at her. How could she know? Did she figure it out from all those silly romance stories? She tried to make me feel better, telling me she’d cut my hair and that when we were free, girls would chase after me because I was so handsome. She went for the scissors, and she cut my hair, shaping it like an artist. I was shocked at how well she did. I told her she’d made me look like a prince, Prince Valiant or something. I wanted to cut and reshape her hair. She ran off, and I chased her around the attic until she fell and scratched herself. I went for our kit of bandages and antiseptic. All the while, as I treated he
r, I could feel her eyes on me. I tried not to look into hers, but it was impossible. I had tears in my eyes. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have chased her.

  She cupped my face just like Momma often did and drew me to her breast, stroking my hair and telling me it wasn’t my fault. I lay there quietly, my lips touching her naked breast. Neither of us spoke. I couldn’t resist. I kissed her nipple, and she leaped up, surprised at what was going on inside her, too. I was sure of it. I was surprised when she asked me what happened next between a man and a woman. I assured her that I knew, but I also lied and told her that I didn’t think about it, not the way other boys did. She asked me if I thought she was pretty. I had an ache inside me like never before, but I stayed calm. I buttoned her sweater, told her she was pretty, but also told her that brothers don’t think of their sisters as girls, just as sisters. Wisely, I think, I decided we should go down to the twins. She followed me, but something had happened. She said she wondered if we had been sinful, as sinful as our grandmother expected us to be.

  I didn’t want to think of it that way, despite the voices I heard inside me. “If you think it’s sinful, it is,” I told her sharply, and she didn’t ask again.

  That night, when we went to bed, I couldn’t stop thinking of her breasts, her nipples, the feel of her lips on my face, the softness of her skin, the softness between her thighs. I turned to look at her there in her bed and saw that she was looking at me. I couldn’t help smiling at her, and she couldn’t help smiling at me.

  Kane paused and looked at me. A flush had come into my cheeks that matched his, I was sure. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I. He closed the diary softly and came to me, kneeling at first and putting his head against my knees. Slowly, as if all resistance in my legs had evaporated, he nudged them apart and leaned in to kiss the insides of my thighs. I gasped and lay back against the sofa as his lips moved gently from my left to my right thigh, until he kissed me between my legs and kept his lips pressed into me. I felt his hands move up my thighs, his fingers move under the waistband of my panties and slowly edge them down.

  “Oh, Kane,” I finally said, and he stood and then slipped beside me on the sofa. We were dancing on the edge of the Rio Grande.

  “I feel just like Christopher,” he said. “I see no other girl but you. I might as well be locked in an attic with you for years and years.”

  We kissed. I let him undress me, but when he went to undress himself, I put my hand on his. “Not yet,” I whispered. “Not yet.”

  I felt the depth of his disappointment, because I was feeling my own. We lay there, our hearts pounding against each other. He kissed me so passionately I almost surrendered, but I clung to No, not yet.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Cathy hasn’t,” I said.

  “But . . .” He was going to say You’re not Cathy, but he didn’t. “How do you know she will?” he asked.

  “I know.” I didn’t know. I felt it, and I feared it.

  “Whoever you do this with, Kristin, won’t care for you as much as I do,” he said. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes. I just feel . . . not ready,” I said. “Please, understand.”

  He put his finger on my lips and then kissed me. “I do understand,” he said. “But I wish I didn’t.”

  That made me smile. He lowered his head to my breasts and closed his eyes. I ran my fingers through his hair and closed my eyes, too. We nearly fell asleep as we were, but I realized how long we had been in the attic, and I rushed to get dressed as he moved quickly to restore everything to the way it was. We went down to my room. I put the diary under my pillow again.

  “What about tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. Let me see what my father has planned.”

  He went into my bathroom and threw cold water on his face. I followed and fixed my hair, and then we went down and sat in the living room, watching television until my father arrived less than twenty minutes later. He looked like he’d had a good time. I pushed aside that little nugget of jealousy quickly.

  “Hey, you guys,” he said. “How’d she do on the leftovers, Kane?”

  “Leftovers? I thought it was all new,” he kidded.

  My father smiled. “This is one clever young man. He knows what to say to glide over thin ice,” he told me.

  “How was your dinner?” I asked.

  “Very nice. Laura found a new restaurant. Quite homey, run by an Italian family. They call it Diana’s, the family’s last name. How was your Thanksgiving dinner, Kane?”

  “Bountiful,” Kane said.

  “Well. I’m sure it was good,” my father said, laughing. “I’m going up. I have some errands to run tomorrow.”

  “On Sunday?” I asked.

  “I’ve got to visit this property just outside of Richmond. There are things about its landscaping that the Johnsons want me to see. I figured you’d be catching up on your homework, so I asked Laura to come along,” he said. “We’ll have breakfast before I go,” he quickly added.

  I glanced at Kane. His face was lit with expectation and happiness. My father would be gone most of the day. We could be back in the attic.

  “Okay,” I said. “Yes, I did leave everything for tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Masterwood. I’ll make sure she gets it done and has a good lunch.”

  “You’ll make sure she gets it done? Now, why does that sound like a contradiction?” my father joked.

  Kane laughed, and I forced a smile. Be still, my jealous heart, I told myself. Remember what Aunt Barbara told you, asked you to do. Your father has needs, too.

  “I’d better get going, too,” Kane said, standing. “Good night, Mr. Masterwood.”

  “ ’Night,” Dad said.

  I walked Kane to the door. As soon as my father was out of earshot, Kane seized my hand and said, “Isn’t this great? Maybe we can finish the diary tomorrow.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Call me the moment he leaves.”

  “Why do I think you might be hiding outside just to see when he leaves?”

  “Very funny.” He thought a moment. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

  “It is a bad idea. If he sees you just waiting . . . that early, too . . .”

  “Okay, okay. Good night,” he said, and kissed me softly, his lips lingering on mine. “Until tomorrow.”

  I watched him leave. Until tomorrow. How many nights did Christopher and Cathy think that? Tomorrow never seemed to come for them. How could they live so long with their mother’s promises and not lose all hope? Something was happening to them. It had nothing to do with them getting sick, either. They had nowhere to go to explore and discover their own sexuality but inside themselves. It wasn’t going to end well, and I didn’t mean only whatever happened to their little brother. I was so tempted now to read ahead, but just like every time since Kane and I had begun to read it together, I feared he would feel betrayed. Somehow, for some reason, it didn’t seem like something I could do alone.

  Usually, even on Sundays, I’d be up by the time my father rose in the morning, but this Sunday, I slept late, so late that he had to come to my room to wake me. I heard him knock and then peek in.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty, I wanted to spend time with you at breakfast. I’m working up your favorite omelet.”

  “Oh, sorry. What time is it?” I looked at the clock. Dreams, I thought, dreams had kept me sleeping later. They were a mixture of my life and Cathy Dollanganger’s. In one dream, my bedroom door opened, and Laura Osterhouse tiptoed in to pour tar on my hair. When I sat up in the dream, she wasn’t there. Kane was watching from the doorway. I did wake up, and because the dream was so vivid, I ran my fingers through my hair. Relieved, I went back to sleep.

  “I’ll be right down,” I said, and he left. I did rush to get dressed. I so wanted to spend time with him before he left. He had everything ready, the table set, the oranges squeezed into fresh juice, and fresh bagels on a plate with my favorite ginger jelly.

&nb
sp; Suspicion reared its ugly head.

  Was he being extra nice to me because he felt guilty about his new, more demonstrable interest in Laura Osterhouse? Or perhaps it wasn’t as new as I thought. Perhaps he had been seeing her more than I knew. Was he about to make a life-changing announcement? I watched him closely as he moved about the kitchen.

  “You feeling okay?” he asked when I began eating, very slowly, almost as if I had no appetite.

  “I’m good,” I said. “So what exactly are you going to do today?”

  “As it turns out, there’s a close example of the architect’s work that I’ve been encouraged to visit. There’s also been a serious modification to the plans.”

  “What do you mean? What modification?”

  “We’re going to install an elevator,” he said.

  “But it’s only two levels, right?”

  “Right, but if someone can’t navigate the stairway, it doesn’t matter if it’s two, three, or four levels.”

  “Who’s going to live in this house? Don’t you know that yet?”

  He shook his head.

  I paused and sat back. “That’s weird, Dad. How can you build a house for someone you don’t know? I mean, someone who doesn’t watch it going up and make comments? Is it an investment property after all? A house built to sell? Are they asking you for an elevator so it could sell to anyone, even a very elderly person or something? I don’t get it.”

  He shrugged. “I ask and am basically told not to be concerned, just do the work and follow the plans. Hey, workers in car factories don’t worry about who will eventually be driving them.”

  “You’re not a factory worker. You’re a personal builder,” I said, perhaps too sharply.

  “What can I do? I’m not walking off the job because I don’t know the personal stuff. I’ll build the house they want, make sure the landscaping is what they want, and hand over the keys to whomever when the time comes. What happens next is none of my business. I will say, Foxworth will be gone. Maybe people will stop asking us about it.”