Flowers in the Attic

  "Next time they behave like that," he told me in private, "I want you to ignore them, even if you have to go into the bathroom and lock the door. And, believe me, they won't die."

  That was exactly what they forced me to do--and they didn't die. That was the last time they pulled that stunt as a way to keep from eating food they didn't like--and they didn't like anything, or hardly anything.

  Carrie had the swayback posture of all little girls, protruding in front in a strong arc, and she adored skipping around the room, holding out her skirts so her ruffled panties showed. (Lace ruffled panties were the only kind she would wear.) And if they had little roses made of ribbons, or embroidered somewhere in front, you had to see them at least a dozen times a day, and comment on how charming she looked in her panties.

  Of course, Cory wore briefs like Chris, and he was very proud of this. Somewhere, lurking in his memory, were the diapers not too long ago discarded. If he had a temperamental bladder. Carrie was the one who got diarrhea if she ate one teensy bit of any fruit but citrus. I actually hated the days when peaches and grapes were brought up to us--for dear Carrie adored green grapes without seeds, and peaches, and apples . . . and all three had the same effect. Believe me, when fruit came in the door, I blanched, knowing who would have to wash the ruffled, lacy panties unless I moved fast as lightening, running with Carrie under my arm, and plopping her down in the nick of time. Chris's laughter would ring out when I didn't make it--or Carrie did make it. He kept that blue vase handy, for when Cory had to go, he had to let loose immediately, and woe if a girl was in the bathroom with the door locked. More than once he had wet his short pants, and then he'd bury his face in my lap, so ashamed. (Carrie was never ashamed--my fault for being slow.)

  "Cathy, when do we get to go outside?" he whispered after one accident.

  "As soon as Momma says we can."

  "Why doesn't Momma say we can?"

  "There is an old man downstairs who doesn't know we're up here. And we have to wait until he likes Momma again, enough to accept us too."

  "Who is the old man?"

  "Our grandfather."

  "Is he like the grandmother?"

  "Yeah, I'm afraid he is."

  "Why don't he like us?"

  "He doesn't like us because . . . because, well, because he hasn't got good sense I think he's sick in the head, as well as in the heart."

  "Does Momma still like us?"

  Now, that was a question to keep me awake at night.

  More than weeks had passed when a Sunday came where Momma didn't show up during the day. It hurt not having her with us, when we knew she had the day off from school, and we knew she was

  somewhere in this very house.

  I lay flat on my stomach on the floor where it was cooler, reading Jude the Obscure. Chris was up in the attic searching for new reading material, and the twins were crawling around pushing tiny cars and trucks.

  The day dragged on into evening before finally the door opened and Momma came gliding into our room, wearing tennis shoes, white shorts and a white top with a sailor collar trimmed in red and blue braid, and an anchor design. Her face was rosy tan from being outdoors. She looked so vibrantly healthy, so unbelievably happy, while we wilted and felt half-sick from the oppressive heat of this room.

  Sailing clothes--oh I knew them--that's what she'd been doing. I stared at her resentfully, longing for my skin to be tanned by the sun, with my legs as healthily colored as hers. Her hair was windblown, and it flattered her well, making her seem almost ten times more beautiful, earthy, sexy. And she was almost old, almost forty.

  Very obviously, this afternoon had given her more pleasure than any day since our father died. And it was almost five o'clock. Dinner was served at seven downstairs. That meant she would have very little time to spend with us before she had to leave for her own rooms, where she could bathe, then change into something more suitable for the meal.

  I laid aside my book and turned over to sit up. I was hurting, and I wanted to hurt her, too: "Where have you been?" I demanded in an ugly tone. What right did she have to be enjoy- ing herself when we were locked away, and kept from doing the youthful things that were our right? I would never have a summer when I was twelve again, nor would Chris enjoy this fourteenth summer, or the twins their fifth.

  The ugly, accusing tone of my voice paled her radiance. She blanched and her lips quivered, and perhaps she regretted bringing us a big wall calendar so we could know when it was Saturday or Sunday. The calendar was filled with our big red X's to mark off our imprisoned days, our hot, lonely, suspenseful, hurting days.

  She fell into a chair and crossed her lovely legs, picking up a magazine to fan herself. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, with a loving smile in my direction. "I wanted to stop by and visit this morning, but my father demanded all of my attention, and I'd made plans for this afternoon, though I did cut them short so I could spend some time with my children before dinner." Though she didn't look sweaty, she raised a sleeveless arm and fanned her atinpit as though this room was more than she could bear. "I've been sailing, Cathy," she said. "My brothers taught me how to sail when I was nine, and then when your father came here to live, I taught him how. We used to spend a lot of time on the lake. Sailing is almost like flying . . . wonderful fun," she ended lamely, realizing her fun had stolen our fun.

  "Sailing?" I just about screamed. "Why weren't you down- stairs telling the grandfather about us? How long do you intend to keep us locked up here? Forever?"

  Her blue eyes skipped nervously about the room; she appeared on the verge of getting up from the chair we seldom used, for we saved it especially for her-- her throne. Maybe she would have gone then and there if Chris hadn't come down from the attic with his arms loaded down with encyclopedias so old they didn't include television or jet planes.

  "Cathy, don't shout at our mother," he scolded. "Hi, Mom. Boy, do you look great! I love that sailing outfit you've got on." He put down his load of books on the dressing table he used for a desk, then strolled over to put his arms around her. I felt betrayed, not only by Momma, but by my brother. The summer was almost over, and we hadn't done anything, been on a picnic or had a swim, or walked in the woods, even seen a boat or put on a bathing suit to wade in a backyard pool.

  "Momma!" I cried out, jumping to my feet, and ready to do battle for our freedom. "I think it's time you told your father about us! I'm sick of living in this one room, and playing in the attic! I want our twins out in the fresh air and sunshine, and I want out, too! I want to go sailing! If the grandfather has forgiven you for marrying Daddy, then why can't he accept us? Are we so ugly, so terrible, so stupid he'd be ashamed to claim us as his blood kin?"

  She shoved Chris away from her, then sank weakly down into the chair she'd just abandoned, leaned forward, and bowed her face down into her hands. Intuitively, I guessed she was going to reveal some truth she'd previously held back. I called to Cory and Carrie and told them to sit close at my sides so I could put my arm about each. And Chris, though I thought he would stay close by Momma's side, came over to sit on the bed next to Cory. We were again, as we'd been before, small fledgling birds sitting on a clothesline waiting for a strong gust of wind to blow us asunder.

  "Cathy, Christopher," she began, her head still bowed, though her hands were in her lap nervously working, "I haven't been completely honest with you."

  As if I hadn't guessed that already.

  "Will you be staying for dinner with us tonight?" I asked, for some reason wanting to put off the full truth.

  "Thank you for asking me. I'd like to stay, but I've made other plans for this evening."

  And this was our day, our time to be with her until dark. And yesterday she'd spent only half an hour with us.

  "The letter," she murmured, and her head lifted and shadows darkened the blue of her eyes into green, "the letter my mother wrote when we were still in Gladstone. That letter invited us to live here. I didn't tell you that my father wr
ote a short note on the bottom."

  "Yes, Momma, go on," I urged. "Whatever you have to tell us, we can take it."

  Our mother was a poised woman, cool and selfpossessed. But there was one thing she could never control, and that was her hands. Always they betrayed her emotions. One willful, capricious hand rose to flutter near her throat, fingering there, seeking some string of pearls to twist and untwist, and since she wore no jewelry, her fingers just endlessly sought. The fingers on the hand she kept in her lap restlessly rasped together, as if to cleanse themselves.

  "Your grandmother, she wrote the letter, signed it, but at the end, my father added his note." She hesitated, closing her eyes, waited a second or two, and then opened them to glance at us again. "Your grandfather wrote he was glad your father was dead. He wrote the evil and corrupt always get what they deserve. He wrote the only good thing about my marriage was it hadn't created any Devil's issue."

  Once I would have asked: What was that? Now I knew. Devil's issue was the same as Devil's spawn-- something evil, rotten, born to be bad.

  I sat on the bed with my arms about the twins, and I looked at Chris, who must be much like Daddy had been at his age, and a vision flashed of my father in his white tennis clothes, standing tall, proud, goldenhaired, and bronze-skinned Evil was dark, crooked, crouched and small--it didn't stand straight and smile at you with clear sky-blue eyes that never lied.

  "My mother made the plans for your concealment on a page of the letter my father didn't read," she concluded lamely, her face flushed.

  "Was our father considered evil and corrupt only because he married his half-niece?" asked Chris, in the same controlled, cool voice our mother had used. "Is that the only thing he ever did wrong?"

  "Yes!" she cried, happy that he, her beloved, understood. "Your father in all his life committed one single, unforgivable sin--and that was to fall in love with me. The law forbids marriage between an uncle and niece, even those who are only half- related. Please don't condemn us. I explained how it was with us. Of us all, your father was the best . . ." She faltered, on the verge of tears, and pleaded with her eyes, and I knew, I knew what was coming next.

  "What is evil, and what is corrupt, is in the eyes of the beholder," she rushed on, eager to make us see it her way. "Your grandfather could find these faults in an angel. He is the kind of man who expects perfection from everyone in his family, and he is far from perfect. But just try and tell him that, and he would smack you down." She swallowed nervously then, appearing near sick with what she had to say. "Christopher, I thought once we were here, and I could tell him about you, how you were the most brilliant boy in your class, and always have been a straight-A student, and I thought when he saw Cathy, and knew of her great talent for dancing--I thought surely those two things alone would win him over without him even seeing the twins, how beautiful they are and how sweet--and who knows what talent they have waiting to be developed? I thought, foolishly, hopefully, that he would easily yield and say he'd made a mistake in believing our marriage was so wrong."

  "Momma," I said weakly, almost crying myself, "you make it sound as if you're never going to tell him. He's never going to like us, no matter how pretty the twins are, or how smart Chris is, or how good I can dance. None of it's gonna make any difference to him He'll still hate us, and think of us as Devil's issue, won't he?"

  She got up and came to us, and she fell down on her knees again and tried to wrap us all in her embrace. "Haven't I told you before he hasn't got long to live? He gasps for breath every time he exerts himself in the least way? And if he doesn't die soon, I'll find a way to tell him about you. I swear I will. Just have patience. Be understanding. What fun you lose now, I'll make up for later on, a thousandfold!"

  Her teary eyes were beseeching. "Please, please, for me, because you love me, and I love you, keep on having patience. It won't be long, it can't be long, and I'll do what I can to make your lives as enjoyable as possible. And think of the riches we'll have one day soon!"

  "It's all right, Momma," said Chris, drawing her into his embrace just as our father would. "What you ask isn't too much, not when we have so much to gain."

  "Yes," Momma said eagerly, "just a short while more to sacrifice, and a little more patience, and all that is sweet and good in life will be yours."

  What was there left for me to say? How could I protest? Already we'd sacrificed over three weeks-- what was a few more days, or weeks, or even another month?

  At the end of the rainbow waited the pot of gold. But rain- bows were made of faint and fragile gossamer--and gold weighed a ton--and since the world began, gold was the reason to do most anything.

  To Make a Garden Grow

  .

  Now we knew the full truth.

  We would be in this room until the day our

  grandfather died. And it came to me in the night, when I was low and dreary, that perhaps she had known from the very beginning that her father was not the kind to forgive anyone anything.

  "But," said my cheerful optimist Christopher, "any day could see him gone. That is the way of heart disease. A clot could break free and find its way to his heart or lung and snuff him out like a candle."

  Chris and I said cruel and irreverent things between ourselves, but in our hearts we ached, knowing it was wrong, and we were disrespectful as a way to salve the pain of our bleeding self-esteem.

  "Now look," he said, "since we are going to be up here a while longer, we should set about with more determination to placate the twins, and ourselves, with more entertaining things to do. And when we really apply ourselves, gosh knows, we might just dream up some pretty wild and fantastic things"

  When you have an attic full of junk, and great armoires full of rotting, stinking, but nevertheless very fancy costumes, you are inspired to put on plays, naturally. And since one day I was going to be on stage, I would be the producer, the director, the choreographer, as well as the female star. Chris, of course, would have to play all the male lead roles, and the twins could participate and play minor parts.

  But they didn't want to participate! They wanted to be the audience, and sit and watch and applaud.

  It wasn't such a bad idea, for what was a play without an audience! It was a great pity they didn't have any money to buy tickets.

  "We'll call this dress rehearsal," said Chris, "and since you seem to be everything else, and know everything about theatrical productions, you write the script."

  Hah! As if I needed to write the script. This was my chance to play Scarlett O'Hara. We had the hoops to wear under the flouncy ruffled skirts, and the stays to squeeze you tight, and just the clothes for Chris to wear, and fancy parasols with a few holes. The trunks and the armoires offered a great deal to select from, and I had to have the best costume, hauled from one of the armoires, and the underwear and petticoats came from one of the trunks. I'd curled my hair in rags so it hung in long, spiraling curls, and on my head I wore a floppy old Leghorn hat of straw, bedecked with faded silk flowers and banded by green satin ribbon, that was browning about the edges. My ruffled gown worn over wire hoops was of some flimsy stuff that felt like voile. Once, I think, it might have been pink, now it was hard to say just what color it was.

  Rhett Butler wore the fancy costume of creamcolored trousers, and a brown velvet jacket with pearl buttons, and a satin vest underneath with fault red roses scattered on it. "Come, Scarlett," he said to me, "We've got to escape Atlanta before Sherman reaches here and sets the town on fire."

  Chris had strung ropes on which we draped blankets to act as stage curtains, and our audience of two were stomping their feet impatiently, eager to see Atlanta burn. I followed Rhett onto the "stage" and was ready to taunt and tease, flirt and bewitch, and put him on fire before I rushed off to some pale-haired Ashley Wilkes, when one of my bedraggled ruffles caught beneath my too large, funny-looking old shoe, and down I sprawled in an undignified heap that showed my dirty pantaloons with lace hanging in ragged strings. The audience gave me a s
tanding ovation, thinking this was a pratfall and part of the act. "Play's over!" I announced, and began to rip off the smelly old clothes.

  "Let's eat!" cried Carrie, who'd say anything to take us down from this despised attic.

  Cory pouted his lower lip and looked around. "I wish we had the garden again," he said so wistfully it hurt. "I don't like to swing when the flowers don't sway in the wind." His flaxen hair had grown long enough to touch his shirt collar, and it curled in ringlets, while Carrie's hair hung halfway down her back and rippled like cascading waves. They were wearing blue today, for Monday. We had colors for each day. Yellow was our Sunday color. Red was for Saturday.

  The wish spoken by Cory put thoughts into Chris's head, for he turned in a slow circle, giving the huge attic an appraising survey. "Admittedly this attic is a grim and dreary place," he mused, "but why can't we, as a constructive way to use our creative talents, bring about a metamorphosis and turn this ugly caterpillar into a brilliant soaring butterfly?" He smiled at me, at the twins, in such a charming, convincing way that I was immediately won over. It would be fun to attempt to pretty up this dismal place, and give the twins a colorful fake garden where they could swing and enjoy looking at beauty. Of course, we'd never finish decorating all of the attic, it was so tremendous--and any day the grandfather could die, and then we'd leave, never to return again.

  We couldn't wait for Momma to come that evening, and when she did, Chris and I

  enthusiastically told her our plans of decorating the attic, and turning it into a cheerful garden the twins wouldn't be afraid of. The strangest expression flickered momentarily in her eyes.