Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

“What if it’s Christopher Jr. who’s moving back to Charlottesville—something had happened to him and he’s handicapped now?”

  His eyes widened. “You really think that’s possible?”

  “I think we need to find out,” I said. “My father has always been a little annoyed at the effort to hide the real buyer and builder. Don’t you see?” I said. “Look at how much trouble whoever it is has gone through to hide his identity. First, it looks like this Arthur Johnson is doing it. It’s even leaked that way to the press. He’s wealthy enough, and he’s involved, visiting the site. Then my father discovers there’s a trust involved, and the manager of the trust is kept secret. All of a sudden, as more detailed decisions about the interior have to be made, he is introduced to this Dr. West. New designs are introduced to facilitate access to the home for someone who’s handicapped. It’s almost as if it wasn’t until much later in the construction that the real owner and resident decided to go through with it. And now we have this name . . . Anderson,” I added.

  Kane thought, nodding to himself. “What should we do?”

  “I don’t want to say anything to my father, of course. We’re getting out of school Tuesday. It’s a half day. Let’s go to Richmond to see Dr. West.”

  “What makes you think he would tell us anything? And he’s sure to tell your father that you went to see him.”

  “I’ll take the risk. If I say something to my father now, he’ll forbid me to go or something, and then I’d have to tell him everything about the diary, about reading it with you.”

  He thought a moment and then gave me that famous Kane Hill shrug and smile. “You could go as a patient, and there would be doctor-patient confidentiality,” he kidded. Then he changed expression quickly, seeing the way I was reacting. “We just appear? This does sound crazy. Maybe we’re the ones who need Dr. West.”

  “If you don’t think we should, I’ll—”

  “No. We’ll do it,” he said. “We’ve come this far with it. We need to see it to the end.”

  Because I was so nervous about it and already feeling so guilty that I had revealed the diary to someone else, I was afraid my father would see this new deception in my face and ask me the questions I couldn’t answer. Of course, I would have to, and it would be a terrible moment between us. I didn’t even try to come up with a fictional story for why I wouldn’t be home Tuesday after school had let out for the holidays. I would do it all first, and then I would confess everything.

  Luckily for me, my father was very occupied, both with the construction project and with Laura. He rattled off some plans for us over the Christmas holiday and mentioned that Aunt Barbara was going to come visit us again. He then mentioned the possibility that Uncle Tommy would drop by on his way to a Caribbean vacation, staying at some film producer’s villa on St. Martin. I thought that would mean using the sofa bed in the den, and I thought I would volunteer to give him my room, but he added that Uncle Tommy was bringing his newest Hollywood girlfriend along, and they would be staying at a hotel in Charlottesville. He laughed about it, but I could see he was more excited than he had been in years.

  And here I was, about to disappoint him more than I ever had.

  * * *

  It occurred to me that this was going to be the first time I had taken the diary out of my house since we had found it in the rubble of Foxworth Hall. Kane picked me up in the morning, and to be sure I didn’t expose it to anyone at school, we hid the diary under the front seat of his car. I worried about it all day, the way someone might worry about leaving his or her wallet under the seat. I tried to be as excited about the holiday as everyone else in my school, but I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding every time I looked at the clock and realized how soon Kane and I would be on the highway to Richmond. When my girlfriends asked me why I was acting this way, I referred to my uncle’s and aunt’s arrivals and how long it had been since we had all been together. I didn’t say that the last time was my mother’s funeral, but I think some realized it.

  It wasn’t until I was in Kane’s car and we were heading for Richmond, which was just a little more than an hour away, that he asked me, “So what are you going to say to this psychiatrist?”

  “The truth,” I replied. “What was found and what we read. I’ll make it clear how much we want to return it to Christopher Jr.”

  “What if Dr. West refuses to see us?”

  “We’ll camp out on his front doorstep,” I said, and Kane looked at me, smiled, and nodded.

  “I believe you would. So what if we convince him about the diary and he says he’ll take care of it?”

  “I’ll say no. I don’t trust anyone to do this but us now. I won’t give it to him. If I have to, I’ll threaten to give the story about the estate’s new owner to the newspapers. I’m confident that he doesn’t want that to happen.”

  “Then he’ll really call your father.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, but I was a great deal more frightened than I was showing.

  We followed the car GPS and easily found Dr. West’s office, which was in an office building on Bremo Road. After we parked, Kane looked at me, hesitating.

  “I just want you to be sure about this,” he began. “Once you go in there and reveal yourself to him, Kristin, your father will surely find out, and I know how special your relationship with your father is.”

  “Yes,” I said in a very weak, tiny voice. I was clutching the diary the way some religious person might clutch the Bible. “I think when my father expressed how much he wished I wouldn’t read this, he was telling me that once I had, it would bring on a major responsibility, an obligation. He was right. We owe it to Christopher now, Kane. He has to know that someone else knows their story, and if William Anderson is really him, he should get it back and do with it what he wishes. You don’t have to come in with me.”

  “Like I would ever let you do this alone. Let’s go, then,” he said, and opened his door. I opened mine and stepped out, overcoming any hesitation. We walked toward the main entrance of the building and checked the directory to be sure Dr. West’s office was here. Then we entered the lobby. There was a festive atmosphere, with Christmas decorations and a small Christmas tree in the lobby. People going to and fro were infected with the joviality, laughing and wishing each other a happy holiday. Kane and I went to the elevator, pushed the button for Dr. West’s floor, and then held hands in the elevator, neither of us speaking.

  Dr. West’s outer office also had Christmas decorations. There was a small Christmas tree on a table to the right. It was a light oak paneled outer office with simple but comfortable imitation leather chairs and a sofa and a dark brown tiled floor. The table in front of the sofa was covered with entertainment and fashion magazines. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that this was a psychiatrist’s office and that the people who came here had serious mental and emotional problems.

  The receptionist was a woman who looked to be in her early sixties at least. She had short, curly, grayish light brown hair and what I would call a grandmother’s pleasant smile, with soft hazel eyes. She wore almost no makeup, but her cheeks were as rosy as the cheeks of someone who had just come in from the cold. She wore a light blue cardigan sweater and a white blouse with a pretty cameo above her right breast. In my mind, she was the perfect receptionist for a psychiatrist, because she gave off a relaxed, friendly demeanor that would help the most nervous person take a breath and feel some desperately sought tranquility. That was how she made me feel. There was a box of holiday candy in front of her for anyone to sample.

  “Hello there,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re here to see Dr. West. It’s very important,” I said, widening my eyes to impress her with just how important it was.

  “You haven’t made an appointment.”

  “No. We just drove in from Charlottesville.”

  “Well, what’s this about?” she asked. “Are you related to one of the doctor’s patients?”

  Kane and I look
ed at each other.

  “In a very distant way, I am,” I said. “But that’s not why we have to see him. It’s very important. He’ll want to see us when he learns why we’re here.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “The doctor’s not here,” she said. “He’s on his way back from the hospital.”

  “May we wait?”

  She looked at her appointment book. “He has a patient in about an hour,” she said.

  “We won’t take up much of his time,” I promised.

  “You may wait here,” she said, with the tone of a monitor approving a bathroom pass or something. She suddenly looked less friendly to me, perhaps because we were so secretive.

  “Thank you,” I said, and we sat on the sofa. I saw the way she was looking at me because of how tightly I had the diary clutched against my body. Maybe I looked like someone who needed a psychiatrist.

  Kane started to flip through magazines. The receptionist went back to her paperwork, looking up periodically and then looking down again.

  Finally, close to twenty minutes later, Dr. West entered his outer office. He was at least six foot three or four and very slim, with a dark brown, well-trimmed mustache, thick, wavy dark brown hair that showed some ripples of gray, and very thoughtful-looking grayish-brown eyes. I thought he looked to be in his mid-sixties or so. He wore a dark blue suit and a gray tie. His somewhat thin lips curled immediately into a curious smile when he set eyes on us. He looked quickly at the receptionist.

  “These two insisted on seeing you, Dr. West,” she said with a somewhat apologetic tone. “They wouldn’t tell me why,” she added. “Nor have they told me their names.”

  His bushy eyebrows rose like two caterpillars nudged.

  “Oh? How can I help you?” he asked, not moving toward his inner office.

  I glanced at Kane and at the receptionist before turning back to Dr. West.

  “My father is Burt Masterwood,” I said, hoping that would be enough to capture his interest. It did.

  “Did he send you to see me?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I said. “This doesn’t have to do with the house construction.”

  He nodded and indicated his inner office door. We both rose and followed him.

  He closed the door behind us and gestured at the more comfortable-looking, real leather auburn sofa on our right. He put his briefcase down on his dark cherrywood desk, which had everything neatly arranged on it, and then pulled a matching cherrywood rocking chair closer to us.

  I had never met a psychiatrist, and Kane had never mentioned either him or anyone in his family ever being treated by any. I was sure his father must know many doctors, including psychiatrists. They all needed good deals on cars. Dr. West leaned back in his chair. If he had any concerns or apprehensions, he didn’t show them. He looked relaxed and ready to talk about anything. And yet I had the sense that he wasn’t surprised I was here.

  “So, what’s this about?” he asked, intertwining his long fingers and placing his palms against his flat stomach. He struck me as someone who either jogged regularly or played tennis.

  I began at the beginning, describing how my father and Todd had come upon the metal box and the diary. I told him who had written it and in general terms described what it had revealed. The expression on his face changed ever so slightly as I highlighted the most important parts, especially the poisoning of Cory and the deception Corrine and her mother had created to keep the children locked in the small bedroom and attic for so many years.

  When I finished, he rocked a little, and then, with his eyes suddenly steely, he looked at me and said, “Why bring this to me? Why don’t you bring it to the police?”

  “We think someone else should do that, if he wants to,” I said.

  “To repeat, why bring this to me?”

  “You treated Corrine Foxworth sometime after 1972,” I said without hesitation.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know it. What’s the difference how?” I said defiantly. I was gambling on being right. I didn’t want him to think my father had told me, but then it suddenly occurred to me that maybe my father really had known and just didn’t want me to know for sure.

  There was a pause as he rocked and looked at Kane and then at me. “There was a great deal of misery and unhappiness in that grand old house. Maybe it’s time to bury it all and let it go. Including that diary,” he added, nodding at it still clutched in my hands.

  “It’s not ours to do,” I said.

  “Corrine Foxworth died some years ago under tragic circumstances,” he said. “I know about it only because some follow-ups were ended, but I know nothing else about her or what happened to her children.”

  I knew it was quite arrogant of me, a high school senior, even a valedictorian candidate, to look at a psychiatrist and accuse him of lying, but my instincts told me I was right.

  “I’d like to hand this back to Christopher Jr., her son,” I said, as if he had said nothing. “I think you can help me do that.”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea where he is. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, but I have a patient coming in fifteen minutes. I have some work to prepare.” He stood up and put his rocking chair back where it had been.

  I looked at Kane. It was written in his face. We had failed. We should go home. We stood up. Dr. West went behind his desk, and Kane went to the door. Just as he opened it, I turned back to Dr. West.

  “I’d like to give this to William Anderson, then,” I said. “You and I know he would want it. Once I give it to him, as you say, all the misery and unhappiness will be buried, if that is what he wants. Otherwise, all that these children went through will be for nothing.”

  Dr. West stared at me a moment. I held my breath. “Does your father know you’re here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “This was something we did together,” Kane said quickly. “It means a lot to us now.”

  He nodded slowly. “Close the door,” he said.

  * * *

  Neither of us said a word until we were in Kane’s car and on our way. What we said to each other only had to do with directions to the address. Neither of us was prepared to hear the sort of details Dr. West decided to relate. He understood we had something special in our hands, and I thought that weakened any reluctance he had to share what he knew. He saw how important it was to put it all in perspective. We had only Christopher’s viewpoint of events. We knew nothing of Corrine after the first fire. I never intended to feel a bit sorry for her, but learning how her mother tormented her, hated her in a sense, truly upset me.

  The doctor had described how her mother had gotten a replica of a child’s skeleton and put it in a trunk, suggesting that it was her poisoned child. Dr. West said it was one of the things that sent her over the edge of sanity. Now it made more sense to us.

  When we pulled up to the curb, Kane turned off the engine, and we sat there looking at the house. There was a ramp in front for wheelchair access. From my father’s work and my own study of houses, I knew this was a classic Colonial Revival, with its gabled roof, entry porch with slender columns and double-hung sash windows with multipane glass. It had a stone veneer. This particular home wasn’t the largest on the residential street, but it wasn’t the smallest, either. It had a lawn that looked too small for the house, however. There was a dark green van in the driveway. All the curtains in all the windows in the house were drawn open, obviously to gather in the remaining afternoon sunshine.

  I knew why Kane was full of hesitation. Dr. West had made it clear to us that William Anderson didn’t know ninety percent of what we knew.

  “Considering the journey he has made, the pain he has gone through, and the difficulties he has had to understand himself and what had happened to him, and especially how his brother and his sisters felt, it would not be right for me to deny him what you have to give,” he continued. “So I will tell you where you will find him. The final decision will be y
ours to make. You’ve become part of this now. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you will respect his need for anonymity.”

  We both swore to that.

  “Strange,” he said, smiling, “but the thing that most drew him to want to return to that property is the image printed on his mind of that view from the attic window. I can’t tell you how many times he’s described it to me.”

  “Which was why it was so important for my father to have a bedroom window that offered that view,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t want to disagree with a psychiatrist, but I had a different reason in my mind for him being drawn back to the Foxworth property.

  I confessed that my father did not know that Kane and I had read the diary together, nor did he know we had finished reading it. I revealed that I had broken a promise I had made to my father.

  “I want to tell him everything in my own way at the proper moment,” I explained.

  Dr. West thought a moment and then shrugged. “Normally, there’s something about this office that prevents me from revealing what I have heard in it,” he said. “I made an exception to that rule today for what I think were justifiable reasons. As for what has gone on between us, however, you can depend on me to keep it within these walls.”

  I was grateful for that.

  But there was no question in my mind what Dr. West meant by “justifiable reasons.” What Dr. West had learned treating Corrine Foxworth had caused him to go beyond the patient-doctor relationship and in the end do what he was doing for William Anderson.

  “You two are quite extraordinary,” he told us in his doorway just before we left his office.

  “She’s the extraordinary one,” Kane said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  Dr. West laughed. “Any man who knows how to compliment his woman will do real well in this world,” he told him.

  Kane’s smile was big and bright enough to light the whole state of Virginia.

  “It’s still not too late to turn around and drive home,” Kane said as we sat in his car in front of William Anderson’s home.

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “It became too late as soon as I disobeyed my father and turned the first few pages.”