Flowers in the Attic

  He was stroking my wet back, and when I turned to see his profile, he looked dreamy, wistful.

  "You see, Cathy, it's not going to be so bad, this short time while we're shut up here. We won't have time to feel depressed, for we'll be too busy thinking of ways to spend all of our money. Let's ask Momma to bring us a chess game. I've always wanted to learn to play chess. And we can read; reading is almost as good as doing. Momma won't let us get bored; she'll bring us new games and things to do. This week will pass in a flash." He smiled at me brilliantly. "And please stop calling me Christopher! I can't be confused with Daddy anymore, so from now on, I am only Chris, okay?"

  "Okay, Chris," I said. "But the grandmother-- what do you think she'd do if she caught us in the bathroom together?" "Give us hell--and God knows what else."

  Still, when I was out of the tub, drying off, I started to tell him not to look. However, he wasn't looking. Already we knew each other's bodies well, having been looking at them naked since I could remember. And in my opinion, mine was the best. Neater.

  All of us wearing clean clothes, and smelling good, we sat down to eat our ham sandwiches, and lukewarm vegetable soup from the small thermos, and more milk to drink Lunch without cookies was an abysmal thing.

  Furtively, Chris kept glancing at his watch. It might be a long, long time before our mother showed up. The twins prowled around restlessly after lunch was over. They were cranky, and they expressed their displeasure with everything by kicking at it, and from time to time as they prowled the room, they shot both me and Chris scowling looks. Chris headed for the closet, and the attic, to the schoolroom for books to read, and I started to follow.

  "No!" screamed Carrie. "Don't go up in the attic! Don't like it up there! Don't like it down here! Don't like nothin' ! Don't want you being my momma, Cathy! Where is my real momma? Where'd she go? You tell her to come back and let us go out to the sandbox!" She took off for the door to the hall and turned the knob, then screamed like an animal in tenor when the door wouldn't open. Wildly she beat her small fists against the hard oak and all the while she screamed for Momma to come and take her out of this dark room!

  I ran to catch her up in my arms while she kicked and kept right on yelling. It was like holding a wildcat. Chris seized Cory, who ran to protect his twin. All we could do was put them down on one of the big beds, haul out their storybooks, and suggest naps. Teary and resentful, both twins glared up at us.

  "Is it night already?" whimpered Carrie, gone hoarse from so many fruitless screams for freedom, and a mother who wouldn't come. "I want my momma so bad. Why don't she come?"

  "Peter Rabbit," I said, picking up Cory's favorite storybook with colorful illustrations on every page, and this alone made Peter Rabbit a very good book. Bad books had no pictures. Carrie had a fondness for The Three Little Pigs, but Chris would have to read like Daddy used to, and huff and puff, and make his voice deep like the wolf's. And I wasn't sure he would.

  "Please let Chris go up in the attic and find himself a book to read, and while he does that, I'll read to you from Peter Rabbit. And let's see if Peter will steal into the farmer's garden tonight and eat his fill of carrots and cabbages. And if you fall asleep while I'm still reading, the story will end in your dreams."

  Maybe five minutes passed before both the twins were asleep. Cory clutched his storybook against his small chest to make the transportation of Peter Rabbit into his dreams as easy as possible. A soft, warm feeling swept over me, making my heart ache for little ones who really needed a grown-up mother, not one only twelve. I didn't feel much different than I had at ten. If womanhood was just around the corner, it hadn't reared its head to make me feel mature and capable Thank God we weren't going to be shut up here long, for what would I do if they got sick? What would happen if there was an accident, a fall, a broken bone? If I banged hard on the locked door, would the despicable grandmother come running in response? There was no telephone in this room. If I cried out for help, who would hear me from this remote, forbidden wing?

  While I stewed and fretted, Chris was up in the attic school- room, collecting an assortment of dusty, buggy books to bring down to the bedroom for us to read. We had brought along a checker board, and that's what I wanted to do--not stick my nose in an old book.

  "Here," he said, thrusting an old book into my hands. He said he'd shaken it free of all bugs that might send me off into hysteria again. "Let's save the checkers until later when the twins are awake. You know how you cut up when you lose."

  He settled down in a comfortable chair, flinging his leg across the fat, rounded chair arm, and opened up Tom Sawyer I flung myself down on the only empty bed and began to read about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And, believe it or not, that day a door opened I hadn't known existed before: a beautiful world when knighthood was in flower, and there was romantic love, and fair ladies were put on pedestals and worshipped from afar. A love affair with the medieval age began that day for me, one I was never to lose, for, after all, weren't most ballets based on fairy tales? And weren't all fairy tales written from folklore of medieval times?

  I was the kind of child who'd always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells. I didn't want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific explanation. I didn't know at that time that I had come to live in what was virtually a strong and dark castle, ruled over by a witch and an ogre. I didn't guess that some modern-day wizards could weave money to create a spell. . . .

  As daylight drew away behind the heavy drawn draperies, we sat down at our small table to eat our meal of fried chicken (cold) and potato salad (warm) and string beans (cold and greasy). At least Chris and I ate most of our meal, cold and unappetizing or not. But the twins just picked at their food, complaining all the time that it didn't taste good. I felt that if Carrie had said less, then Cory would have eaten more.

  "Oranges are not funny looking," said Chris, handing me an orange to peel, "or supposed to be hot. Actually, oranges are liquid sunshine." Boy, he did say the right thing that time. Now the twins had something they could eat with pleasure--liquid sunshine.

  Now it was night, and really not much different than the day had been. We turned on all four lamps, and one tiny little rose nightlamp our mother had brought along to comfort the twins who didn't like the dark.

  After their naps, we had dressed the twins again in their clean clothes, and brushed their hair, and washed their faces, so they looked sweet and appealing as they settled down on the floor to put large pieces of puzzles together. Those puzzles were old ones and they knew exactly which piece fitted into the other, and it was not so much of a problem, but a race to see who could fit in the most pieces first. Soon the race to put puzzles together bored the twins, so we piled all on one of the beds and Chris and I told stories we made up. That too grew boring for the twins, though my brother and I could have gone on longer, competing to see who had the most imagination. Next we hauled the small cars and trucks from the suitcases so the twins could crawl around and push cars from New York to San Francisco, by route of wriggling under the beds and between the table legs--and soon they were dirty again. When we tired of that, Chris suggested we play checkers, and the twins could transport orange peels in their trucks and dump them down in Florida, which was the trash can in the corner.

  "You can have the red pieces," announced Chris patronizingly. "I don't believe as you do, that black is a losing color."

  I scowled, sulked away. It seemed an eternity had passed between dawn and dusk, enough to change me so I'd never be the same again. "I don't want to play checkers!" I said nastily.

  So I fell on a bed and gave up the struggle to keep my thoughts from roaming up and down endless alleys of dark suspicious fears, and tormenting nagging doubts, wondering always if Momma had told us all of the truth. And while we all four waited, and waited, and waited for Momma to show up, there wasn't a calamity my thoughts didn't touch upon. Mostly f
ire. Ghosts, monsters, and other specters lived in the attic. But in this locked room fire was the uppermost threat.

  And time passed so slowly. Chris in his chair, with his book, kept sneaking glances at his watch. The twins crawled to Florida, dumped their orange peels, and now they didn't know where to go. There were no oceans to cross, for they had no boats. Why hadn't we brought a boat?

  I whipped a glance at the paintings depicting hell and all its torments, and marveled at how clever and cruel the grandmother was. Why did she have to think of everything? It just wasn't fair for God to keep an ever watchful eye on four children, when outside in the world so many others were doing worse. In God's place, from His all-seeing perspective, I wouldn't waste my time looking at four fatherless children locked up in a bedroom. I'd be staring at something far more entertaining. Besides, Daddy was up there-- he'd make God take good care of us, and overlook a few mistakes.

  Disregarding my sulky ways and objections, Chris put down his book and carried over the gaming box, which held equipment enough to play forty different games.

  "What's the matter with you?" he asked, as he began to place the red and black rounds on the board. "Why are you sitting so quiet, so scared looking? Afraid I'll win again?"

  Games, I wasn't thinking of games. I told him my thoughts of fire, and my idea of ripping up sheets and knotting them together to form a ladder to reach the ground, just like they did in many an old movie. Then if a fire started, maybe tonight, we'd have a way to reach the ground after we broke a window, and each of us could tie a twin to our back.

  I'd never seen his blue eyes show so much respect as they lit up with admiration. "Wow, what a fantastic idea, Cathy! Terrific! Exactly what we'll do if a fire starts--which it won't. And boy, it sure is good to know you're not going to be a crybaby after all. When you think ahead and plan for unexpected

  contingencies it shows you're growing up, and I like that."

  Golly-day, in twelve years of hard striving, I had at last won his respect and approval, and reached a goal I thought impossible. It was sweet knowing we could get along when shut up so close. Our exchanged smiles promised that together we were going to manage to survive until the end of the week. Our newfound camaraderie constructed some security, a bit of happiness to grab hold of, like hands clasping.

  Then, what we'd found was shattered. Into our room came our mother, walking so funny, wearing the strangest expression. We'd waited so long for her return, and somehow it didn't give us the anticipated joy to be with her again. Maybe it was only the grandmother, who followed so close at her heels, with her flint hard, mean gray eyes that quickly quelled our enthusiasm.

  My hand rose to my mouth. Something dreadful had happened. I knew it! I just knew it!

  Chris and I were sitting on a bed, playing a checker game and from time to time looking at each other while we rumpled the bedspread.

  One rule broken ... no, two ... looking was forbidden as well as rumpling.

  And the twins had puzzle pieces here and there, and their cars and marbles were scattered about, so the room wasn't exactly tidy.

  Three rules broken.

  And boys and girls had been in the bathroom together.

  And maybe we'd even broken another rule, for we were always to feel, no matter what we did, that God and the grandmother had some secret communication between them.

  The Wrath of God

  . Momma came into our room this first night, tightlimbed and stiff-jointed, as if every movement she made hurt. Her lovely face was pale and bloated; her swollen eyes red-rimmed. At the age of thirty-three, someone had humiliated her so much she couldn't squarely meet a pair of our eyes. Looking defeated, forlorn, humbled, she stood in the center of the room like a child brutally chastised. Thoughtlessly, the twins ran to greet her. They threw enthusiastic arms about her legs, laughing and crying out in happy voices, "Momma, Momma! Where have you been?"

  Chris and I ambled over to tentatively hug her. One might have thought she had been gone a decade of Sundays, and not just one Wednesday, but she represented our hope, our reality, our line to the world outside.

  Did we kiss her too much? Did our eager, hungry, clinging embraces make her wince from pain, or from the obligations? While fat and slow tears slid silently down her pale cheeks, I thought she cried only for the pity she felt for us. When we sat, all wanting to be as close to her as possible, it was on one of the big beds. She lifted both twins to her lap so Chris and I could cuddle close on either side. She looked us over, and compli mented our glowing cleanliness, and smiled because I had tied a green ribbon in Carrie's hair to match the green stripes on her dress. She spoke, her voice hoarse, as if she had a cold, or that fabled frog had lodged in her throat. "Now, tell me honestly, how did it go for you today?"

  Resentfully, Cory's plump face pouted, mutely saying his day had not gone well at all. Carrie put her unspoken umbrage into words. "Cathy and Chris are mean!" she screamed, and it was no sweet bird twitter. "They made us stay inside all day! We don't like inside! We don't like that big dirty place they told us was nice! Momma, it's not nice!"

  Troubled and pained looking, Momma tried to soothe Carrie, telling the twins that circumstances had changed, and now they had to mind their older brother and sister, and think of them as parents to obey.

  "No! No!" shrilled an even more irate bundle of red-faced fury. "We hate it here! We want the garden; it's dark here. We don't want Chris and Cathy, Momma, we want you! Take us home! Take us out of here!"

  Carrie hit at Momma, at me, at Chris, yelling how much she wanted her home, as Momma sat there not defending herself, apparently unhearing, and not knowing how to handle a situation in which a fiveyear-old ruled. The more unhearing Momma became, the louder Carrie screamed. I covered my ears.

  "Corrine!" commanded the grandmother. "You stop that child from screaming this very second!" I knew, just looking at her stone cold face, that she would know exactly how to shut Carrie up, and at once. However, sitting on Momma's other knee was a little boy whose eyes grew wide as he stared up at the tall grandmother--someone who threatened his twin sister, who had jumped down from Momma's lap and was now standing in front of the grandmother. Planting her small feet wide apart, Carrie threw back her head, opened up her rosebud mouth and she really let go! Like an opera star who'd saved her best for the grand aria finale, her former cries seemed like weak mewings from a small kitten. Now we had a tigress-- enraged!

  Oh, boy, was I impressed, awed, terrified of what would happen next.

  The grandmother seized hold of Carrie by the hair, lifting her up enough to make Cory jump from Momma's lap. Quick as a cat he pounced on the grandmother! Faster than I could wink, he ran to bite her leg! I cringed inside, knowing now we were all in for it. She gazed down at him, then shook him off as one does a small, annoying lap-dog. But the bite did make her release Carrie's hair. Down she dropped to the floor, to quickly scamper to her feet, and take a quick swipe, just missing the grandmother's leg with her foot.

  Not to be outdone by his twin sister, Cory raised his small white shoe, took careful aim, then kicked the grandmother's leg as hard as he could manage.

  In the meanwhile, Carrie had scuttled over to the corner where she crouched down and wailed like an Irish banshee set on fire!

  Oh, indeed, it was a scene worthy of

  remembering, and recording.

  So far Cory hadn't said a word, or uttered one cry, as was his silent and resolute way. But no one was going to hurt or threaten his twin sister--even if that "no one" stood close to six feet, and weighed in at close to 200 pounds! And Cory was very small for his age.

  If Cory didn't like what was happening to Carrie, or the potential threat to himself, the grandmother didn't like what was happening to her either! She glared down at his small, defiant, angry face, which was tilted up to hers. She waited for him to cower, to take the scowl from his face, and the defiance from his blue eyes, but he stood determinedly before her, daring, challenging her to do her worst. H
er thin and colorless lips tightened into a fine, crooked pencil line.

  Up came her hand--a huge, heavy hand, flashing with diamond rings. Cory didn't flinch, his only reaction to this very obvious threat was a deeper, more fierce scowl as his small hands knotted into fists raised in professional boxer technique.

  Good-golly day! Did he think he could fight her-- and win?

  I heard Momma call Cory's name, her voice so choked it was only a whisper.

  Decided on her course of action now, the grandmother delivered against his round, defiant baby face a stinging slap so hard it sent him reeling! He stumbled backward, then fell to the floor, but was up in a flash, spinning around to consider a fresh assault against that huge mountain of hateful flesh. His indecision then was a pitiful thing. He faltered, reconsidered, and common sense won out over anger. He scampered over to where Carrie crouched, halfcrawling, half-running, and then flinging his arms about her, they knelt, holding one to the other, cheek pressed to cheek, and he added his siren howls to hers!

  Beside me, Chris mumbled something that sounded like a prayer.

  "Corrine, they are your children--shut them up! This instant!"

  However, the buttercup twins, once started, were practically impossible to quiet. Reasoning never reached their ears. They heard only their own terror, and like mechanical toys, they had to run down from pure exhaustion.