Another reason I gave you to Geraldine is that Geraldine has been a more obedient daughter to my husband and me than I was to my father and mother, and I knew she would do everything she was told to do as she was told to do it. I suppose my husband and I were no better than my parents, running our family just like the monarchy in which I was raised. At least, that was how we behaved toward each other
Geraldine is very different from me. She's more like my husband, but sometimes I think she's better off the way she is because I've suffered in ways she'll never experience. She has never truly loved and lost, not in the passionate sense of those words.
I have, and if you're reading this letter; you're probably old enough to conclude even before I tell you, that the man I loved, truly loved passionately, was your real father.
I'm looking at the clock now and I see the time it's taken me to write these thoughts. I'll have to stop for now The man you know as your grandfather is calling for me. We're on our way to one of his business dinners and they're always so important that we can't be a minute late.
I guess I should have started writing this earlier; but (and you might find this either amusing or interesting) I looked at myself in the mirror and I suddenly saw you. I saw myself in your face and 1 thought what if all this time goes by and we never look at each other truthfully? It put such a pang of fear in my heart that I sat right down and began writing.
Of course, I'll write again and again. For now, I'll have to hide this letter; just as I've had to hide my real feelings. My fingers tremble as I sign this.
Love, Mother
I sat there with the letter in my hands for a moment and then looked back over the other cartons. All these things must have been things she had given me, but I didn't recognize any of it. Geraldine kept them from me, I realized.
Surely, that was so, but why keep toys and blankets, combs and jewelry from me?
Suddenly, I heard a noise below, a loud clap of wood. My heart jumped. I turned and looked down through the crawl space door. My ladder! It was gone! I heard it being carried away.
"Mother!" I screamed. "Mother!"
She had taken the ladder back to the garage. A few minutes later, she appeared in the pantry. She was in her robe and slippers and she looked up at me.
"Why did you take away the ladder?"
"Who told you to go up there?" she replied instead.
"I wanted to see what was up here," I said. "How am I supposed to get down?"
"Since when do you go sneaking around our home like this? Since when do you go and do something without first asking me? tell you since when, since you started with that psychotherapist and those wicked girls. You go and disobey me and go swimming and who knows what, and then you come home and go snooping. You think that's all just some coincidence? Huh? I don't. I told you this would happen. I warned you."
"Bring back the ladder," I pleaded. "How am I supposed to get down from here?"
"You wanted to be up there. Be up there," she said, turning away.
"It's scary up here. I can't stay up here. Stop it," I shouted.
She paused in the doorway to look up at me.
"You made your bed for the night. Sleep in it," she said.
"Wait," I called. "What are these things? Why didn't you ever give me these letters?"
She turned again and without replying, put out the pantry lights and walked out, closing the pantry door be hind her.
"Mother!" I shouted, and then I looked down at the letter in my hands and screamed, "Geraldine!"
I waited, but she didn't return. Opening all the cartons and crawling about up in this tiny storage space had stirred the thick dust. It made me cough and sneeze and feel dirty all over. I leaned over the little doorway and directed the flashlight through the door. It looked to be at least ten feet to the floor. I'd have to lower myself carefully, hold on with my hands and then try to drop to my feet. How stupid. What did she think I would do, stay here until morning?
I put the letters back into the carton and closed it. Then I started to position myself at the top of the crawl space doorway. It was impossible to hold onto the flashlight at the same time. I debated dropping it to the floor below, but imagined it would break, so I decided to stuff it into my blouse. After I did that, I began to lower myself through the now very dark opening. My heart was thumping so hard, I thought I might lose my breath and fall. My fingers didn't seem strong enough to grip the sides. This is so crazy, I kept telling myself. Why did she do this?
I turned my body and with my legs shaking, continued to lower myself through the opening. With the full weight of my body on my hands and wrists, my fingers slipped badly and I felt splinters gouge into my skin I lost hold with my left hand, and my right just seemed to fly off the wood. Screaming, I fell downward and hit the floor awkwardly, my left foot hitting first, twisting under my body and getting caught under me. I actually heard the bone snap.
My head hit the floor hard enough to roll stars through my eyes and send a sharp ache down the back of neck and shoulders. I lost my breath, gasped, and pulled my left leg out from under me but I was so full of pain, I couldn't breathe fast enough. I must have blacked out for a few seconds or even a full minute. When my eyes opened again, I saw only darkness. My ankle seemed to have a mouth of its own and screamed pain up my leg.
"Mother!" I cried. "Help me!"
Crying, I pulled myself forward. I tried, but it wasn't possible to stand on my ankle I reached into my blouse and pulled out the flashlight. Then I dragged myself toward the door. Practically crawling and sliding through it, I braced myself on the kitchen counter and screamed again and again for her. The pain filled my eyes with hot tears that streaked down my cheeks.
Finally, the lights went on in the hallway. I heard her footsteps on the stairs and moments later, she appeared in the kitchen doorway, her hands on her hips, scowling.
"What are you howling about?"
"I fell," I cried. "I fell and I think I broke my ankles" She gazed down at my foot quickly.
"Nonsense," she said.
"No, it's not nonsense. I heard it crack. Why did you take away the ladder?" I shouted at her. "How could you do that? My foot feels like it's blowing up like a balloon."
She shook her head and went to the refrigerator.
"All you need is some ice on it," she said, without even looking at my foot.
She scooped out some cubes and put them in a plastic bag.
"Here," she said, thrusting it at me. "Put this on it and go to sleep. This is what comes of being disobedient. Maybe now you'll listen and stay away from those nasty girls who poisoned you."
She turned and started away.
"It's not just swollen, I tell you. It's broken. I heard it snap."
She didn't turn back.
"Let's see how it looks in the morning," I heard her say. "If you can't get upstairs, sleep on the sofa in the living room."
I heard her footsteps on the stairs and then all was quiet, except the ringing in my ears and the screams caught in my throat. Hopping and pulling myself along, I did make it to the living room where I flopped on the sofa. I pulled off my shoe and put the ice on my ankle, but it didn't relieve the pain. All night I moaned and cried until sometime before morning, I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, she was standing over me, gazing down at my ankle. It was all purple and swollen.
"Maybe it is broken," she decided. "Sit up and I'll help you get into the car. I guess we'll have to go to the hospital emergency room. This is a fine thing, a fine way to start a new day," she muttered, "and all because you're associating with sick people."
I was in too much pain and too tired to argue with her. She let me lean on her as we made our way to the car. Once inside, I closed my eyes and leaned against the door. She muttered her stream of complaints all the way to the emergency room. When we arrived, she went inside first and an attendant brought out a wheelchair for me. It took almost an hour for anyone to look at me and then I was sent for X-rays and it took another
two hours before the doctor came to see me. All the while Geraldine sat in the waiting room with me, shaking her head at the magazines displayed on tables around the room.
"What if a child comes in here? They could read or look at any of these. Just look at this picture of this actress in her nightgown. She might as well be naked. You can look right through it and see what she had for breakfast."
I was still in too much pain to really listen or reply, but I saw the way the other patients were gaping at her and listening to the things she said. They were all whispering to each other.
Finally, the nurse had me return to the examination room where the doctor had my X-rays up on the lighted screen.
"It's a fracture," he said. "Did you try to walk on this after you injured it?"
"Yes," I said.
"Hmm. Rotation is unstable," he said, examining my foot. "You'll need a long leg cast and you'll have to have frequent X-rays to avoid delayed discovery of disastrous displacement."
Geraldine groaned as if this was all happening to her instead of me.
"Doctors and medicine," she muttered.
"Pardon me?" the doctor said.
"Nothing," she mumbled, turning to me. "This is what you get being places you're not supposed to be."
"Oh. How did this happen?" he asked.
"I fell trying to get down from the attic," I lied.
He nodded.
"You'll be all right," he added, and called the nurse to start the preparations for my cast. After another three hours, we were on our way home and I had a cast and crutches. They had given me something for the pain, too, and I felt myself starting to drift in and out of sleep.
Either Geraldine finally stopped complaining about Doctor Marlowe, the girls, and me or I simply didn't hear her anymore. The medicine was kicking in and turning off my eyes, my ears, even my thoughts.
When we got home, she had to help me out of the car. Going up the stairs to my room was an ordeal, especially because I felt so bleary-eyed. She didn't have the strength to support me and I wobbled and made her scream. Somehow we managed, and I got into bed. Almost the moment my head hit the pillow, I was asleep, and when I woke up, I could see that it was nearly twilight. My stomach rumbled. I hadn't eaten anything all day. I groaned and started to sit up, forgetting the cast. It quickly reminded me this was not a dream.
As usual the door to my room was closed. I threw my leg and cast over the side of the bed and turned myself around, reaching for the crutches. After I caught my breath, I hobbled to the door and opened it.
"Mother!" I called. A moment later she was at the foot of the stairway.
"What?"
"I'm hungry and thirsty," I said.
"Fine. Now I'll become a maid. Go back to bed. I'm bringing up your supper," she said.
"Did anyone call me?" I called after her.
"No," she shouted.
She wouldn't tell me if they had, I thought. Why did I even bother to ask?
A little while later, she came up the stairs, each of her steps sounding heavier than the one before it. She looked out of breath, even pale when she came through my bedroom door carrying the tray.
"I can come downstairs to eat," I said. She nodded.
"Next time you'll have to. I guess I'm not as young as I was. Aggravation can age you years in minutes," she added, sending a sharp, cold look my way.
She put the tray down on my desk and I hobbled over to it and sat. There were two boiled eggs, jam and toast, a glass of prune juice and some Jell-O. Usually, she cooked chicken or fish.
"It looks like a hospital meal," I said.
"Complaints? You're lucky to get anything. All this is your fault. Don't forget that," she said, wagging her long, thin finger at me.
"How is it my fault, Mother? You took the ladder away. That was cruel and stupid."
She pulled her shoulders back.
"Don't you dare call me cruel and stupid!" she shouted. She paused, pressed her lips together and made her eyes small and hateful. "Anyway, after what you did, you deserved to be punished."
"What did I do that was so terrible?" I cried, holding up my arms.
"Sneaking up there when my back was turned," she replied.
"Well, why didn't you ever give me those letters? And why are all those things hidden away in those cartons? Those things were all for me, weren't they? You never gave me any of them, did you?"
"No, and I was right not to. It was just her way to try to make up for her own sins by buying you things," she spat. That was followed by a cold smile. "She was hoping to buy your love, to get you to care more about her than you did me. It always worried her that you might," she added. "I knew that was a constant fear gnawing at her heart. Serves her right," she said with satisfaction in her smile
"You hated your own mother?"
"No, I didn't hate her. I pitied her for her weaknesses," she said, quickly wiping the smile off her face.
"Why didn't you ever tell me I had a trust fund?" I followed, as I ate.
"What for? You can't touch it for another year," she replied.
"Still, I should have been told," I insisted. "How much is in it?"
"Oh, so now you're worrying about how much money you have, is that it?"
"No, but I'd like to know. Is that wrong?" I asked. I held the tears locked under my lids even though they were hot.
"When the time comes, you'll know," she said. "In the meantime, I'll look after the finances, thank you."
"Can't you tell me more about what happened?" I pleaded. I remembered what Jade told me to discover. "Where was I born, for example? Was it here in Los Angeles or did she go some place else to have me?"
She pressed her lips together tightly as if she was preventing her tongue from forming the answer.
"It was all a despicable mess. There's no need to rake up the dirty past and have to relive those months and weeks and days. Besides, what difference does it make? You're who you are now and you're here and that's that," she added. She took a deep breath as if her lungs were not giving her enough air on their own. Then she nodded at my tray. "I'll be back later for the dishes."
"It's my past," I said, pressing on. "I have a right to know it."
She stopped and pivoted back to glare at me.
"Right? You have a right? Who gives you any rights? I give you your rights, that's who. Who's had to suffer the most because of all this? I'm the one who had to suffer the most, not you. You were well-taken care of, weren't you? No orphanage for you even though you were born out of wedlock. No farming you out to strangers. You had a home with family right from the beginning, didn't you?"
"Family," I muttered bitterly. "Some family."
"I'll not be blamed for what he did. You could have come to me earlier."
"Oh, right," I said. "You wouldn't listen to anything that had the slightest relationship to that," I said. "You wouldn't even help me when I had my first period. He was the only one who ever pretended to care about me. That's why it all happened."
She shook her head.
"You were never this disrespectful before. It's surely those girls. They're like some sort of disease. Don't let me hear of you even talking to them, hear?"
"They are my friends," I insisted.
"We'll see," she said. She started out and stopped to look back at me. "We'll see."
She closed the door and left me choking on a piece of toast in my tightened throat. I drank some juice and pushed the plates away. I won't eat, I thought. That's what I'll do. I'll fast until she lets me talk to the girls.
An hour later she came in and saw that I had barely touched my supper.
"What's this waste of food?" she demanded. "You had to be hungry. You didn't eat all day."
"And I won't eat," I said, "not another morsel until you let me talk to Misty or Jade or Star when one of them calls me."
She stared at me a moment, almost with a look of amusement in her eyes.
"Is that so?" she said. She picked up the tray and started out.
At the door she turned. "You're just like her," she said again, "selfish and stubborn. She got what she deserved and you'll get what you deserve. It won't be my fault. I have told you the right things. If you choose not to listen, you choose not to listen.
"I'll not bring up another meal. If you want to eat, go down and get it yourself. If you don't..." She shrugged. "You don't."
She closed the door again and it was quiet except for the heavy sound of her footsteps as she descended.
I hugged my pillow. The pain had returned. It thumped up my leg and added to my thick pool of misery.
I should have brought those letters down from the crawl space with me, I thought. Now it would be some time before I could go back up there and finally learn the differences between all the lies and the truth. That is if Geraldine didn't destroy them first.
I lay back and recalled the first letter. I had committed practically the whole document to memory. I replayed it in my mind. She sounded so regretful, so sorry, and so eager to have me love her. Why couldn't she have raised me? The world might have been so different for me. I wouldn't have had my father doing the things he had done to me. I wouldn't have Geraldine tormenting me with her anger and hate. The shadows would disappear.
What had I done to deserve this except be born? Right now, I thought, if I had been given the chance to decide, I would have said, no thanks. Leave me where I am. Keep your world, your earth, your air and water, trees and flowers. Let me stay here, behind some cloud waiting for another chance, the chance to really be someone's daughter instead of someone's mistake.