Flowers in the Attic

  It was October. In November, Chris would be seventeen. He was still only a boy compared to her huge size. He was considering resistance, but glanced at me, then at the twins, who whimpered and clung to each other, and he allowed that old woman to drag him into the bathroom. She closed and locked the door. She ordered him to strip, and to lean over the bathtub.

  The twins came running to me, burying their faces in my lap. "Make her stop!" pleaded Carrie. "Don't let her whip Chris!"

  He didn't make a sound as that whip slashed down on his bare skin. I heard the sickening thuds of green willow biting into flesh. And I felt every painful blow! Chris and I had become as one in the past year; he was like the other side of me, the way I'd like to be, strong and forceful, and able to stand that whip without crying out. I hated her. I sat on that bed, and gathered the twins in my arms, and felt hate so large looming up inside of me that I didn't know how to release it except by screaming. He felt the whip, and I let loose his cries of pain. I hoped God heard! I hoped the servants heard! I hoped that dying grandfather heard!

  Out of the bathroom she came, with her whip in her hand. Behind her, Chris trailed, a towel swathed around his hips. He was dead-white. I couldn't stop screaming.

  "Shut up!" she ordered, snapping the whip before my eyes. "Silence this second, unless you want more of the same!"

  I couldn't stop screaming, not even when she dragged me off to the bed and threw the twins aside when they tried to protect me. Cory went for her leg with his teeth. She sent him reeling with one blow. I went then, my hysteria quelled, into the bath- room, where I, too, was ordered to strip. I stood there looking at her diamond brooch, the one she always wore, counting the stones, seventeen tiny ones. Her gray taffeta was patterned with fine red lines, and the white collar was hand-crocheted. She fixed her eyes on the short stubble of hair the scarf about my head revealed with an expression of gloating satisfaction.

  "Undress, or I will rip off your clothes."

  I began to undress, slowly working on the buttons of my blouse. I didn't wear a bra then, though I needed one. I saw her eyeing my breasts, my flat stomach, before she turned her eyes away, apparently offended. "I'm going to get even one day, old woman," I said. "There's going to come a day when you are going to be the helpless one, and I'm going to hold the whip in my hands. And there's going to be food in the kitchen that you are never going to eat, for, as you incessantly say, God sees everything, and he has his way of working justice, an eye for an eye is his way, Grandmother!"

  "Never speak to me again!" she snapped. She smiled then, confident there would never come that day when I was in control of her fate. Foolishly, I had spoken, using the worst possible timing, and she let me have it. While the whip bit down on my tender flesh, in the bedroom the twins screamed, "Chris, make her stop! Don't let Cathy be hurt!"

  I fell down on my knees near the tub, crouching in a tight ball to protect my face, my breasts, my most vulnerable areas. Like a wild woman out of control, she lashed at me until the willow switch broke. The pain was like fire. When the switch broke, I thought it was over, but she picked up a long-handled brush and with that she beat me about the head and shoulders. Try as I would to keep from screaming, like the brave silence Chris had kept, I had to let it out. I yelled, "You're not a woman! You're a monster! Something unhuman and inhumane!" My reward for this was a belting whack against the right side of my skull. Everything went black.

  I drifted into reality, hurting all over, my head splitting with pain. Up in the attic a record was playing the "Rose Adiago" from the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. If I live to be a hundred I will never forget that music, and the way I felt when I opened my eyes to see Chris bending over me, applying antiseptic, taping on adhesive plasters, tears in his eyes dropping down on me. He'd ordered the twins up into the attic to play, to study, to color, to do anything to keep their minds off of what was going on down here. When he had done for me all that he could with his inadequate medical supplies, I took care of his welted, bloody back. Neither of us wore clothes. Clothes would adhere to our oozing cuts. I had the most bruises from the brush she'd wielded so cruelly. On my head was a dark lump that Chris feared might be a concussion.

  Doctoring over, we turned on our sides, facing one another under the sheet. Our eyes locked and melded as one set. He touched my cheek, the softest, most loving caress. "Don't we have fun, my brother . . . don't we have fun?" I sang in a parody of that song about Bill Bailey. "We'll hurt the livelong da-ay . . . you'll do the doctoring and I'll pay the rent . . ."

  "Stop!" he cried out, looking hurt and defenseless. "I know it was my fault! I stood at the window. She didn't have to hurt you, too!"

  "It doesn't matter, sooner or later she would do it. From the very first day, she planned to punish us for some trifling reason. I just marvel that she held back for so long in using that whip."

  "When she was lashing me, I heard you

  screaming--and I didn't have to. You did it for me, Cathy, and it helped; I didn't feel any pain but yours."

  We held each other carefully. Our bare bodies pressed together; my breasts flattened out against his chest. Then he was murmuring my name, and tugging off the wrapping from my head, letting loose my spill of long hair before he cupped my head in his hands to gently ease it closer to his lips. It felt odd to be kissed while lying naked in his arms . . . and not right. "Stop," I whispered fearfully, feeling that male part of him grow hard against me. "This is just what she thought we did."

  Bitterly, he laughed before he drew away, telling me I didn't know anything. There was more to making love than just kissing, and we hadn't done more than kiss, ever.

  "And never will," I said, but weakly.

  That night I went to sleep after thinking of his kiss, and not the whipping or the blows from the brush. Swelling up in both of us was a turmoil of whirling emotions. Something sleeping deep inside of me had awakened, quickened, just as Aurora slept until the Prince came to put on her quiet lips a long lover's kiss.

  That was the way of all fairy tales--ending with the kiss, and the happy ever after. There had to be some other prince for me to bring about a happy ending.

  To Find a Friend

  . Somebody was screaming on the attic stairs! I bolted awake and looked around to see who was missing. Cory!

  Oh, God --what had happened now?

  I bounded from bed and raced toward the closet, and I heard Carrie wake up and add her yowls to Cory's, not even knowing what he was yelling about. Chris cried out, "What the hell is going on now?"

  I sped through the closet, raced up six steps, and then stopped dead and just stared. There was Cory in his white pajamas, yelling his head off--and darned if I could see why.

  "Do something! Do something!" he screamed at me, and finally he pointed to the object of his distress.

  Ohhh on the step was a mousetrap, the same place we left one every night, set with cheese. But this time the mouse wasn't dead. It had tried to be clever, and steal the cheese with a forepaw instead of his teeth, and it was a tiny foot caught beneath the strong wire spring. Savagely, that little gray mouse was chewing on that trapped foot to free itself, despite the pain it must have felt.

  "Cathy, do something quick!" cried Cory, throwing himself into my arms. "Save his life! Don't let him bite off his foot! I want him alive! I want a friend! I've never had a pet; you know I always wanted a pet. Why do you and Chris always have to kill all the mice?"

  Carrie came up behind me to beat on my back with her tiny fists. "You're mean, Cathy! Mean! Mean! You won't let Cory have nothin'!"

  As far as I knew, Cory had just about everything money could buy except a pet, his freedom and the great outdoors. And truly, Carrie might have slaughtered me on the stairs if Chris hadn't rushed to my defense and unhinged the jaws clenched on my leg, which was fortunately well covered over with a very full nightgown that reached my ankles.

  "Stop all this racket!" he ordered firmly. And he bent over to use the wash cloth he must have gone for
just to pick up a savage mouse, and save his hand from being bitten.

  "Make him well, Chris," pleaded Cory. "Please don't let him die!"

  "Since you seem to want this mouse so badly, Cory, I'll do what I can to save his foot and leg, though it's pretty mangled."

  Oh, what a hustle and bustle to save the life of one mouse, when we had killed hundreds. First Chris had to carefully lift the wire spring, and when he did, that uncomprehending wild thing almost hissed as Cory turned his back and sobbed, and Carrie screamed. Then the mouse seemed to half-faint, from relief, I suppose.

  We raced down to the bathroom, where Chris and I scrubbed up and Cory held his near-dead mouse well wrapped in the pale blue washcloth, as Chris warned not to squeeze too tight.

  On the countertop I spread all the medication we had on a clean towel.

  "He's dead!" yelled Carrie, and she struck Chris. "You killed Cory's only pet!"

  "This mouse is not dead," said Chris calmly. "Now please, all of you, be quiet, and don't move. Cathy, hold him still. I've got to do what I can to repair the torn flesh, and then I'll have to splint up that leg."

  First he used antiseptic to clean the wound, while the mouse lay as if dead, only its eyes were open and staring up at me in a pitiful way. Next he used gauze that had to be split lengthwise to fit such a tiny foot and leg, and then over that he wrapped cotton and for a splint he used a toothpick, broke it in half and taped that in place with adhesive.

  "I'm going to call him Mickey," said Cory--a thousand candles behind his eyes because one small mouse would live to become his pet.

  "It may be a girl," said Chris, who flicked his eyes to check.

  "No! Don't want no girl mouse--want a Mickey mouse!"

  "It's a boy all right," said Chris. "Mickey will live and survive to eat all of our cheese," said the doctor, having completed his first surgery, and made his first cast, and looking, I must admit, rather proud of himself.

  He washed the blood from his hands, and Cory and Carrie were lit up like something marvelous had finally come into their lives.

  "Let me hold Mickey now!" cried Cory.

  "No, Cory, let Cathy hold him for a while longer. You see, he's in shock and her hands are larger and will give Mickey more warmth than yours. And you might, just accidentally, squeeze too much."

  I sat in the bedroom rocker and nursed a gray mouse that seemed on the verge of having a heart attack--its heart beat so fiercely. It gasped and fluttered its eyelids. As I held it, I felt its small, warm body struggling to live on, I wanted it to live and be Cory's pet.

  The door opened and the grandmother came in.

  None of us was fully clothed; in fact, we still wore only our nightclothes, without robes to conceal what might be revealed. Our feet were bare, our hair was tousled, and our faces weren't washed.

  One rule broken.

  Cory cringed close at my side as the grandmother swept her discerning gaze over the disorganized, (well, truthfully,) really messy room. The beds weren't made, our clothes were draped on chairs, and socks were everywhere.

  Two rules broken.

  And Chris was in the bathroom washing Carrie's face, and helping her put on her clothes, and fasten the buttons of her pink coveralls.

  Three rules broken. The two of them came out, with Carrie's hair up in a neat ponytail, tied with a pink ribbon.

  Immediately, when she saw the grandmother, Carrie froze. Her blue eyes went wide and scared. She turned and clung to Chris for protection. He picked her up and carried her over to me and put her down in my lap. Then he went on to where the picnic basket was on the table and began to take out what she had brought up.

  As Chris neared, the grandmother backed away. He ignored her, as he swiftly emptied the basket.

  "Cory," he said, heading toward the closet, "I'll go up and find a suitable birdcage and while I'm gone, see if you can't put on all of your clothes, without Cathy's help, and wash your face and hands."

  The grandmother remained silent. I sat in the rocker and nursed the ailing mouse, as my little children crowded in the seat with me, and all three of us fixed our eyes on her, until Carrie could bear it no longer and turned to hide her face against my shoulder. Her small body quivered all over.

  It troubled me that she didn't reprimand us and speak of the unmade beds, the cluttered, messy room that I tried to keep neat and tidy--and why hadn't she scolded Chris for dressing Carrie? Why was she looking, and seeing, but saying nothing?

  Chris came down from the attic with a birdcage and some wire screening he said would make the cage more secure.

  Those were words to snap the grandmother's head in his direction. Then her stone eyes fixed on me, and the pale blue washcloth I held. "What do you hold in your hands, girl?" she fired in a glacial tone.

  "An injured mouse," I answered, my voice as icy as hers.

  "Do you intend to keep that mouse as a pet, and put it in that cage?"

  "Yes, we do." I stared at her defiantly and dared her to do something about it. "Cory has never owned a pet, and it is time that he did."

  She pursed her thin lips and her stone-cold eyes swept to Cory, who trembled on the verge of tears. "Go on," she said, "keep the mouse. A pet like that suits you." With that she slammed out the door.

  Chris began to fiddle with the birdcage, and the screening, and spoke as he worked. "The wires are much too far apart to keep Mickey inside, Cory, so we'll have to wrap the cage with this screen, and then your little pet can't escape."

  Cory smiled. He peeked to see if Mickey still lived. "It's hungry. I can tell, its nose is twitching."

  The winning over of Mickey the attic mouse was quite a feat. First of all, he didn't trust us, though we'd set his foot free from the trap. He hated the

  confinement of the cage. He wobbled about in circles on the awkward thing we'd put on his foot and leg, seeking a way out. Cory dropped cheese and bread crumbs through the bars to entice him into eating and gaining strength. He ignored the cheese, the bread, and in the end, walked as far away as he could get, his tiny bead-black eyes wary with fear, his body atremble as Cory opened the rusty cage door, to put in a miniature soup tureen filled with water.

  Then he put his hand in the cage and pushed a bit of cheese closer. "Good cheese," he said invitingly. He moved a bit of bread nearer to the trembling mouse whose whiskers twitched, "Good bread. It will make you strong and well."

  It took two weeks before Cory had a mouse that adored him and would come when he whistled. Cory hid tidbits in his shirt pockets to tempt Mickey into them. When Cory wore a shirt with two breast pockets, and the right one held a bit of cheese, and the left a bit of peanut-butter-and-grape-jelly sandwich, Mickey would hesitate indecisively on Cory's shoulders, his nose twitching, his whiskers jerking. And only too plainly could you see we had not a gourmet mouse, but a gourmand who wanted what was in both pockets at the same time.

  Then, when finally he could make up his mind as to which he would go for first, down he'd scamper into the peanut-butter pocket, and eat upside down, and in a squiggle he'd race back up to Cory's shoulder, around his neck, and down into the pocket with the cheese. It was laughable the way he never went directly over Cory's chest to the other pocket, but always up and around his neck, and then down, tickling every funnybone Cory had.

  The little leg and foot healed, but the mouse never walked perfectly, nor could he run very fast. I think the mouse was clever enough to save the cheese for last, for that he could pick up and hold as he daintily nibbled, whereas the bit of sandwich was a messy meal.

  And believe me, never was there a mouse better at smelling out food, no matter where it was hidden. Willingly, Mickey abandoned his mice friends to take up with humans who fed him so well, and petted him, and rocked him to sleep, though oddly enough, Carrie had no patience with Mickey at all. It could be just because that mouse was as charmed by her dollhouse as she was. The little stairways and halls fitted his size perfectly, and once on the loose, he headed directly for the dollhouse!
In through a window he clambered, and tumbled down on the floor; and porcelain people, so delicately balanced, fell right and left, and the dining-room table turned over when he wanted a taste.

  Carrie screamed at Cory, "Your Mickey is eating all the party food! Take him away! Take him out of my living room!"

  Cory captured his lame mouse, which couldn't move too quickly, and he cuddled Mickey against his chest. "You must learn to behave, Mickey. Bad things happen in big houses. The lady who owns that house over there, she hits you for anything."

  He made me giggle, for it was the first time I'd ever heard him make even the slightest disparaging remark about his twin sister.

  It was a good thing Cory had a little, sweet gray mouse to delve deep into his pockets for the goodies his master hid there. It was a good thing all of us had something to do to occupy our time, and our minds, while we waited and waited for our mother to show up, when it was beginning to seem like she never would come to us again.

  At Last, Momma

  Chris and I never discussed what had happened between us on the bed the day of the whippings. Often I caught him staring at me, but just as soon as my eyes turned to meet his, his would shift away. When he turned suddenly to catch me watching him, mine were the eyes to flee.

  We were growing more day by day, he and I. My breasts filled out fuller, my hips widened, my waist diminished, and the short hair above my forehead grew out longer and curled becomingly. Why hadn't I known before that it would curl with- out so much weight to pull the curls into waves only? As for Chris, his shoulders broadened, his chest became more manly, and his arms too. I caught him once in the attic staring down at that part of him he seemed so taken with--and measuring it too! "Why?" I asked, quite astonished to learn that the length mattered. He turned away before he told me once he'd seen Daddy naked, and what he had seemed so inadequate in size. Even the back of his neck was red as he explained this. Oh, golly--just like I wondered what size bra Momma wore! "Don't do it again," I whispered. Cory had such a small male organ, and what if he had seen and felt as Chris did, that his was inadequate?