Into the Woods

  Into the Woods

  DeBeers #4

  V.C. Andrews

  Copyright (c) 2003

  ISBN: 0743428595

  .

  Prologue

  Goodbye, Sailor Girl

  .

  My last memory of my daddy was watching

  him walk out to his helicopter at the Norfolk Naval Base, where his student pilots waited respectfully at attention. their helmets under their arms.

  They saluted him, and he saluted back. Then he turned to smile at me the way he always did whenever Mommy brought me to see him take off in a helicopter. He and I called it putting sunshine in our faces. In the years to follow, that smile would fade slowly like an old photograph until my imagination did more for it than my memory.

  His face would always brighten with a fresh, happy surprise when he looked back at me standing beside Mommy. The specks of hazel in his otherwise light blue eves would become more prominent. He used to call me Sailor Girl, and we would salute each other with only two fingers. He did it one last time that day. I responded with my salute, and then he turned back to his men.

  My eyes drifted to a sea gull that looked lost, confused, even a bit frantic. It did a quick turn and dipped before shooting off toward the ocean as if it had seen something that had terrified it. I watched it until the sounds of the helicopter motors ripped the air and pulled my attention back to Daddy.

  I stepped closer to Mommy. Something dark had already put its cold fingers on the back of my neck. My heart sank, and my stomach felt queasy. I had to feel Mommy beside me. Even at fifteen. I needed to be within the walls of her security. She and Daddy were my fortress. Nothing could harm me when I was with them.

  "How he stands that noise is beyond me," Mommy said, but she looked so proud and so beautiful with her shoulder-length apricot brown hair dancing about her chin and checks. She was five feet ten and always stood with an air of confidence. regal. Anyone who glanced her way stared at her for a few moments longer as if he or she were hypnotized by her beauty.

  Mommy's eves were almost navy blue. which Daddy said proved she belonged with him, a navy man. She was as loyal to him as he was to the flag, her devotion and her admiration for him unflappable. My eyes were more turquoise. but I wished they were more like Mommy's so Daddy would think I. too, was meant to be always at his side.

  "C'mon. Grace," she said. "I have errands to run, and you have studying to do and a guest for dinner."

  She nudged me, and I followed along reluctantly. Something was telling me to stay as long as I could. I looked back only once as the helicopters lifted. I didn't see Daddy, and that disappointed me. They whirled off toward the ocean, following the sea gull.

  A cloud blacked out the sun, and a long shadow fell around us as we continued toward our car.

  I would remember that.

  I would remember it all for a very long time.

  And then, like the sea gull, it would all disappear into the distance and leave me standing alone, yearning for just one more smile, one more salute.

  1

  The Life

  .

  When I was very little. I thought everyone lived

  the way we did: moving frequently from one place to another. Houses and homes were like way stations, scattered not only across the county but across the world. School would always be interrupted and changed. As soon as a new neighborhood became comfortable or even before. I would be taken to another, and the process would begin again. Friendships weren't meant to last long, and so it was always better not to get too friendly or too dependent on anyone. It was hard to keep from doing this, especially when it came to my teachers. I remember growing so attached to my third-grade teacher that I cried until my stomach ached the day Mommy came to take me out of the school and load me along with our luggage and other cherished belongings in our car.

  Daddy had been talking about the new naval base and our new living conditions for days, trying to make it sound as if everything would be nicer for all of us. As a naval helicopter pilot, he was away often on his aircraft carrier. Occasionally we would get phone calls from him, and lots of letters, always with a separate one for me inserted in with Mommy's. Mine always began 'Dear Sailor Girl." and he would go on and on about how much he missed me. He wasn't permitted to tell us where he was, but we knew that wherever it was, it was far away.

  So whenever he was being stationed at a base for what looked to be a prolonged period of land time. Mommy was the happiest and more than willing to pick up everything yet another time, load our car, and be off. The women she knew as friends were all like her, naval wives, and were just as accustomed to the nomadic existence as well as the short friendships and months without their husbands.

  Mommy was also happy because Daddy was succeeding. Almost every move we made was, in her words, a "vertical mow." He was climbing in rank and in importance. and I thought there, was little doubt in her mind that someday he would became an admiral. They joked about it all the time, with her calling him Admiral Houston, Once, when I was only seven. I even told my classmates my father was already an admiral. I had heard it so often at home. I believed it. Of course, the older boys and girls made fun of me.

  The only fleet your father is admiral of is an enema," a much older teenage boy said. and I ran home and told my mother, who surprised me by laughing. I know I looked as if I was going to cry.

  "That's all right. Grace," she said. "Don't pay any attention to anyone. Someday your father will be an admiral, and they will have to swallow their jokes whole or choke on them.'

  'But why do you call him Admiral if he isn't an admiral?" I wanted to know.

  She sat me down in our small living room in a house situated in what was the married naval officers' housing complex and explained to me how, when two people are as in love as she was with Daddy and he was with her, they often teased each other

  affectionately.

  "When I first met your father, in fact, he pretended he was already a captain. I didn't

  understand the stripes and ranks then. so I believed him."

  He lied to you?" I asked. astounded. Daddy was my straight arrow. Lying, deception, betrayal could never be any part of who and what he was to me. He was perfect, a model for a navy poster, incorruptible, unadulterated, pure, and forever strong.

  Physically he looked the part, too. He was six feet two and weighed 180 pounds that were always trim. Gym training was as much a part of his daily routine as eating, and I loved to sit and watch him play tennis or even half-court basketball with some of the other junior officers. Whenever he did something good, he would turn my way and give me that salute. It was almost as if his smile and mine were connected, his laugh becoming my laugh. I could no more take my eyes off him than a moth could stop circling a candle flame.

  Mommy scrunched her nose and shook her head at my question and surprise.

  "It wasn't a lie exactly, Grace. It was a little embellishment which he later described as part of his effort to win my attention. He was afraid I wouldn't give him the time of day if he wasn't an officer, but I was young and foolish, and nothing mattered but what I saw in his eyes."

  "Why was that foolish, Mommy?"

  She sighed, "You can't help being a little foolish when you're young, Grace. You're almost supposed to be a bit reckless." She thought for a moment, and then her eyes narrowed the way they did when she became very serious or very sad, and she continued with. "You know what love really is, Grace?"

  Of course. I shook my head and held my breath. I knew it was something special, but I had no idea how to put it into words, especially the love between a man and a woman.

  "It's an investment, taking a chance, and any investment involves some risk, and some risk means being somewhat foolish. In my heart of hearts I knew your father was going to be a big success. Every part of me believed it. so I wasn't afraid even though we were married and lived on a shoestring, and I had to be willing to send him off time after time, willing to contend with great loneliness until..." She smiled. "Until we had you, and I would never be lonely again," she said.

  She hugged me.

  And everything was all right. Everything would always be all right. Even if it was raining or snowing, the sun always shone when either she or Daddy beamed their broad, happy smiles on me. How I miss that feeling, that faith in our lives being one everlasting summer's day. Yes, we weren't rich, but if we lacked something necessary, I was unaware of it. Mommy was always buying me new things to wear, especially if we moved to a different climate. We always had a late-model automobile, and my room, no matter where it was, was decorated with all sorts of dolls and pictures and mementos Daddy brought home from each and even sea duty.

  So much of that is buried in trunks now. I don't even look at them anymore. Memories can be very painful, each like a separate needle piercing your heart, bringing tears to your eyes and an ache into your chest. Better to keep them out of sight and out of mind.

  Be careful about whom you permit to touch you deeply, a voice inside me warned and continues to warn even to this day. Your heart hardens around their words, their promises, and their touches like handand footprints in cement, and you carry them within you until you die and maybe even afterward. The more you love someone, the deeper the pain iswhen they are gone, and they will be gone, the voice insists. It makes me tremble every time someone tries to be close.

  A few weeks before my fifteenth birthday Daddy came home with what Mommy would say was the best possible present he could have brought. A year before. Daddy had been transfe
rred to San Diego. We were living in what was a little smaller house than the one we were in previously. Nevertheless. I had my own room. and I was in it doing my homework because I wanted to be free to watch a music special on TV. I also had an English test the next day, but I was confident about it.

  As soon as Daddy greeted Mommy when he came home, he boomed a loud "Where's my Sailor Girl?"

  "That sailor girl is nearly fifteen. Roland. You are going to have to stop treating her as if she was five," Mommy told him, but Daddy shook it off.

  "She'll always be five to me." he declared, his arms waiting for me. Then he held me out with his hands on my shoulders and said. "Take a seat. Gracey,"

  "Oh, no." Mommy cried, her hand to her forehead. "Whenever you call her Gracey. Roland Stemper Houston, that means anchors aweigh."

  -This is good, it's good," he insisted, waving her into a seat as well. Then he stood back with that catate-the-mouse grin,

  "Well?" Mommy asked. "Don't keep us sitting here like steamed-up ships in the harbor. Launch or drop anchor. sailor."

  Daddy laughed. "First." he began, "I've been assigned to HC-8 in Norfolk. 'Virginia. That's Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Eight, the Dragon Whales."

  "What do they do?" Mommy asked quickly, her eves narrowing with concern and worry.

  "Well. HC-8 flies the Ch-46 Sea Knight helicopter and performs search and rescue and vertical replenishment in support of the Atlantic Fleet." he replied proudly. 'However," he continued before Mommy could ask him how dangerous it all was. "HC-8 also operates Heliops."

  "What's that?" I asked first.

  "That. Sailor Girl, is the Atlantic Fleet Helicopter Operations School, and yours truly is to be an instructor, which means." he continued without taking a breath. "as permanent a location for us as is possible. Maybe as long as three years!"

  Mommy just stared at him. She looked as if she were afraid she had dreamed the words and if she said anything or interrupted him, it would all pop like a bubble of dialogue in some cartoon.

  "Of course, this means a promotion." he said, and stood at attention. "You are now looking at Lieutenant Commander Houston, pay grade zerofour."

  He turned his shoulder down to be sure we both saw his new shoulder board with its thick band, narrow band, and thick band. Then he flipped out a packet of pages and handed them to Mommy,

  "Our new digs," he declared.

  She looked at the pictures of the housing on base. "Nice, huh?"

  "Yes," she said after taking a breath, leaning back, and turning to me.

  She could see it in my face: I knew it was to be goodbyes again, the departing words spoken practically in mid-sentence. Daddy caught the look on both our faces.

  "Sailor Girl will be fine," Daddy said, "Shipping out is in her blood by now, right. Sailor Girl?"

  "Right, Daddy."

  "I'm sorry, honey," Mommy said. "I know you've made some friends."

  "It's all right. There's no one with whom I'm that close." The truth was, there wasn't, but I also knew it was my fault more than anyone. else's.

  "You'll have a bigger room," Daddy promised. "It's going to be a very nice house and a good school and..."

  "She knows the drill by now. Roland." Mommy said. "Save your breath."

  He nodded. She stood up and kissed him. "Congratulations. Roland."

  "I'm closing in on that admiral," Daddy said proudly. "What do you say we celebrate and go out to dinner?"

  Mommy looked to me.

  "It's all right. I've almost got all my homework done," I said. "My sailor girls," Daddy said, and hugged us both.

  I looked at the house I had barely grown to know, the house we were now deserting like a sinking ship. Someday, I thought, will live in one place for a long time, and I will get to know people and have real friends, and all this will seem like a dream.

  Would I be happier?

  I longed to discover the answer,

  .

  We were going clear across the country. from California to Virginia. Daddy decided we would sell our car, ship what we wanted to take with us, and fly. We would buy a new car in Norfolk. His orders required a very fast departure anyway, so if we didn't, he would fly. and Mommy and I would have had to drive across country ourselves, not that we hadn't gone long distances ourselves in the past. This time more than any time, however, they both wanted to have the sense of a truly new beginning with as much of it as fresh as possible. Possessions were more temporary for us than they were for most people. We had no furniture we had to take with us. Any pictures and decorations Mommy had bought for the present house would be either given away or sold.

  Most of the children of naval personnel whom I have met and known seem almost numb to being ripped up and out of their "digs," as Daddy liked to call them. The faces of my current girlfriends were stoical, neither sad nor happy for me exactly. There was some curiosity about where we were going and what my father was going to do, but almost before I finished describing it all. I could see their eves shifting, their attention moving off me, their mental erasers working, scrubbing my name and face from the pages of their memories. I had yet to actually walk out of the school and leave our house. but I was gone as far as they were all concerned. I couldn't blame them.

  The phone didn't ring the day we were scheduled to depart. No one called to say goodbye or promise to write or ask me to write. We naval children floated by one another like faces on balloons, caught in some wind over which we had no control. We were ribbons tied to the rear bumpers of cars and had just as much power and say over where the car would turn and go. At least gypsies moved in a small community, remaining together as if the world moved under their feet and they never left. Occasionally. I had run into someone I had known from a previous naval base whose father had been transferred shortly after or even before my father. but I found this more of an exception than a rule, and, besides, it didn't result in any tightening of any relationship. I think we were all afraid of the same inevitable goodbye.

  It couldn't have been a more beautiful May day for our arrival in Norfolk. Virginia. The sky was my favorite shade of turquoise, close to my eye color, with clouds of whipped cream that looked dabbed onto a canvas, seemingly unmoving. It was warm with a soft breeze. and I remember how everything looked so new and crisp to me.

  Daddy was right to be enthusiastic about our new home. It was in a gated community, and each home had beautiful landscaping. As soon as we arrived, the wives of other naval officers were on the scene to greet Mommy. One of them brought her daughter along. Her name was Autumn Sullivan, and she was just two months younger than I. We would be in the same grade and have the same classes. I could see she was anxious to tell me all about the school, the teachers, the other students, and activities.

  Autumn had hair the color of amber fall leaves and tiny rust- tinted freckles spotting the crests of her cheeks. She immediately told me that was not the reason her parents had named her after the fall season of the year.

  "It has always been my mother's favorite time of the year, and she would have named me Autumn even if I had black hair. She's from upstate New York, and when the leaves turn, she says it's the most beautiful sight. I've seen it a few times. We've gone back to visit my grandmother and my aunts. and my mother always tries to time the trips about midOctober," Autumn said.

  Right from the start she was eager to talk and tell me as much about herself as she could in a single day. I think we were all like that, insecure naval brats, afraid that if we didn't get everything out quickly enough, we would not only forget but would be moved on before we had a chance to do it. Our friendships, which we knew would be short, had to be crammed full of events and information almost as if we were fast-forwarding our lives on a television screen.

  Autumn's father was a lieutenant and an instructor in Heliops, too, teaching in the Landing Signal-man Enlisted School. They had already been at Norfolk for nearly a year. Autumn had an older sister. Caitlin. She was a senior in high school. and

  Autumn let me know immediately that her sister's boyfriend. Jarvis Martin. was Vice Admiral Martin's son. He had already been accepted to Annapolis.

  Just a little over five feet one. Autumn was plump and more chesty than I was. She had dimples in both her cheeks, deep enough to hold a nickel, as Daddy would say. I liked her immediately because of how bubbly and excited she was. Before I could get a word in, she rattled off a list of her CDs and made sure I knew exactly who were her favorite singers and group s .