Echoes of Dollanganger Read online

  That night, I woke during a seminal night loss that lasted so long it actually frightened me for a moment. Right before it happened, I had dreamed of touching Cathy in her private places, pretending I was explaining things to her like some health education teacher. In my dream, she saw what was happening to me as a result and then decided she should be able to touch me, too.

  And that’s when it happened.

  Kane put the diary down beside him and stared up at the ceiling. Then he turned to me slowly. I saw a deeply serious look of yearning in his eyes.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Last night, I had a wet dream, what he calls ‘seminal loss’ . . . thinking of you. It was almost an identical dream.”

  I did not know how something you heard could embarrass you and yet fascinate and excite you at the same time, but that was exactly what his revelation did. My close girlfriends and I trusted one another with confessions about our sexuality. Sometimes we told things to one another simply to confirm that our experience was normal. I know that for most of the girls, it was easier to tell one another these things than it was to tell their mothers or even their older sisters. They wanted to disclose their secrets to someone who wouldn’t impose any judgments. None of us would be critical or make fun of one of us for what she had told us.

  But I couldn’t remember any of my girlfriends ever telling something as personal as this that her boyfriend had revealed to her. Even Suzette had nothing like this to tell us. Of course, Kane would trust that I would never tell any of them what he had said. I don’t know whether he expected to hear something similar from me, but I did feel that I should give him something to show him that I had as much trust in him as he had in me.

  “I fantasize about you, too,” I said.

  He smiled, and then we kissed. “Maybe we should live our fantasies,” he whispered, his lips so close to my ear that it felt like his words caressed me. “What was your fantasy?”

  I hesitated.

  “If you can’t tell me, who could you tell?”

  “Maybe I should tell no one.”

  “Okay. Don’t tell me. Show me,” he said.

  Just the idea brought a flush into my face. I started to shake my head, but he leaned forward quickly and kissed me.

  Then he said, “Please.”

  My two voices that usually argued didn’t even begin. A wave of delicious warmth rose up my legs, consuming me in a rush of desire just like I had experienced in my fantasy, desire that had awakened me to the sound of my own moans of pleasure. And just like in my fantasy, my fingers moved to the buttons of my blouse. As I began to undress, Kane lay back on the pillow and watched. I saw his lips tremble when I unfastened my bra and then began to undo the belt on my jeans. As I lowered them, he put the diary down.

  “What did I do in this fantasy?” he asked, sounding fragile, almost helpless.

  “You just watched,” I said. “To prove to me that you could control yourself.”

  His eyes widened when I stepped out of my panties. “That’s cruel,” he said. It looked like tears had come into his eyes.

  I smiled and lay beside him again. “Just kiss me,” I said.

  He did, and then he smiled. “You put words into my mouth unfairly in your fantasy.” Then he brightened with a thought. “This is a fantasy Cathy might be having just at this point.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “We’re not reading her diary, though.”

  “Christopher is very intelligent. He knows she’s having it,” he insisted, and then he began to kiss me everywhere, moving randomly at first over my breasts, my stomach, and then my thighs.

  I could feel my resistance rapidly defrosting, but I had a surge of caution and gently pushed him back.

  “I’m dying here,” he protested.

  “You insisted that I show you my fantasy,” I told him, and he groaned. I looked at him seriously and thought lovingly. “Not yet,” I said.

  “When, then?”

  “I don’t know. I just know . . . not yet,” I said. “Please.”

  I felt his disappointment. It was that clear in his face, a face that was usually very good at hiding thoughts and feelings. He realized it, too, and gave me that smile and a shrug. “I promise I’ll respect you in the morning,” he said.

  “But will I respect myself?” I countered, and put on my panties.

  “Next time, I’ll keep my mouth shut, I think.” He put his hands behind his head and watched me finish dressing. “Was it the wig?” he asked when I was almost finished.

  I looked at him. Was it? I wondered. “Maybe,” I said.

  He reached for the diary quickly, so quickly it was as if he was positive that my hesitation would diminish somewhere in the pages to come.

  And that was more eerie than anything.

  Summer came, and because of the warmth, the attic was once again tolerable for us. Momma knew we needed more and more to keep us occupied. She began bringing us books that looked like they might have come from the library in the house, especially the history books. Sometimes I read things aloud to Cathy, and sometimes she read them to me. The twins would listen for a few moments and then get bored and distract themselves with their toys, Momma’s precious dollhouse, or just a nap.

  One afternoon while they were napping, Cathy and I lay together on the stained old mattress by the attic window and had one of the most intimate conversations between us. We talked about what nudity could lead to and then about her menarche. I was honest about the changes in me, too. I was sure that the honesty we shared made us closer than most brothers and sisters. I pressed my face to her hair and assured her that what was happening to her and to me was right and good and nothing to be ashamed of. We clung to each other silently, as if the whole world swirled around us and we had no place else to go to be safe but into each other’s arms.

  Before we parted, she asked me if I thought it was odd that Momma had kept us locked up so long, that she had put up with our grandmother’s demands no matter how it affected us. “She seems to be doing well,” she added. “Much better than we’re doing.”

  I couldn’t deny that Momma seemed to have more money, beautiful clothes, and jewelry. I had to admit that I had the same thoughts, but I told her we had to have faith in her. She seemed to know what she was doing. She had a plan, and we had to let her work it out.

  And then, after a time when she hadn’t been by to see us, Momma came and told us that, finally, her father was very ill. He was much worse than he was when we had first arrived. She was confident that he would die soon, and as soon as he did, we would be free. How happy Cathy and I were all those days as we waited, hopeful. I didn’t even feel guilty about wishing for my grandfather’s death.

  And then one day, Momma came to our door, poked her head in, and told us he had recuperated and the doctors said he had passed through a crisis. She left before I could ask a single medical question.

  Neither Cathy nor I could speak. We put the twins to bed that night and looked at the calendar. With rage in her fingers, Cathy made an X through the day, then turned to me and said something I had either deliberately forgotten or just hadn’t realized.

  It was August.

  We had been here a year!

  When Kane stopped reading and lowered the diary, neither of us spoke. A dark pall of silence fell between us. Without looking at me, he got up and went to the windows and looked out. I watched him and waited, as if no matter what I said or how I said it, the sound of my voice would shatter us both. For a few moments, with him standing there like that and wearing that wig, I could easily imagine Christopher by a window in the Foxworth Hall attic, gazing out at the warm sunshine and the full-blown woods that surely resembled a green sea with waves of maples and oaks flowing toward the horizon. Perhaps he looked longingly toward the lake where Kane and I had picnicked. Perhaps he watched birds enjoying their freedom, soaring onto higher branches and enjoying their power of flight, and envied them. How torn he had to be, struggling to balance what he knew wa
s their need to grow and mature in a world with others their age and his mother’s desperate plan to bring them back into financial security and promise for their future. Surely he was wondering if the price they were paying was far too high, especially after a year. Maybe he was wondering how he could have lost track of that fact. Maybe he was more afraid now about what was happening to him. If he lost it, what would become of his little brother and sister? What would become of Cathy?

  “How long were they really up there, exactly, you think?” Kane asked, without turning back to me.

  “I only know from the same stories you read and heard, Kane.”

  He turned to me. “Your father never offered an opinion, a hint at what was true?”

  “I told you, he doesn’t like talking about it. He said my mother hated hearing about it. It disturbed her, and he can’t forget that.”

  “To keep your children locked up for just one year is crazy enough, especially those little ones. How confused and frightened . . .” His voice trailed off. He wiped his head with a quick motion and swiped off the wig. He held it for a moment, turning it slowly in his hand as though he was looking for something, and then he opened one of the trunks and dropped it inside. “I have to go home for dinner tonight,” he said, coming back to the sofa bed. “My sister might be back from college in time for dinner.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “With her boyfriend,” he added. “Should be interesting. It will be the first time my parents have met him. I hope my mother doesn’t put him in the maids’ quarters.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, would she?”

  “My sister would turn around and leave if she did.”

  I stood up, and we began to put the attic back to the way it was.

  “Maybe we should skip tomorrow,” I said. “Sounds like you’ll have lots to do.”

  “No, no,” he quickly responded. “She’ll be showing him around all day. We want to get as much read as we can while your father has this schedule, right?”

  “I’m not sure what his schedule will be. I’ll find out tonight.”

  “Well, even if he’s back for dinner, we still have a few hours after school. I don’t want to whiz through it, but I can’t help but wonder where this is all heading.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He smiled, but I could see that he was still quite disturbed. We walked down to my room. He started to pick up his books, paused, and flopped back on the desk chair. I stood there for a moment and then sat on my bed. He looked emotionally exhausted, like a shadow had darkened his eyes even more.

  “Do you want to stop reading this?” I said, holding up the diary. “Because if you’re saying what you’re saying and doing it just for me . . .”

  “Oh, no, no. I can handle it.”

  “Then what is it? I see that something’s seriously upset you.”

  He smiled. “I’m still reeling from your fantasy and the frustration that followed.”

  “No, you’re not. Don’t try to joke your way out of this. I’m getting to know you too well.”

  “You mean I’m losing the famous Kane Hill mystique?”

  “What is it, Kane?” I persisted.

  He nodded, a sign of surrender, and then leaned forward, thinking. When he looked up, I could see he had decided on something very important to him. I held my breath. My mind raced from one end of the spectrum to the other, ranging from thinking he might tell me about some terrible illness he or someone in his family was suffering to imagining a confession about something terrible he had done. If it involved one of the girls in our classes, I was hoping he wouldn’t reveal it.

  “I’m still a virgin,” he confessed instead.

  If there was anything I did not expect to hear, it was that. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Of course, I was sure I looked skeptical.

  “I know, I know,” he continued, putting up his hand before I could say anything, not that I knew what to say. “I’ve got this reputation. Funny, the girls I have been with would never say we hadn’t gone that far if they were asked. It would reflect more on them than me, I guess. It’s not that they didn’t want to; it’s more that I didn’t want to with them. Do you believe me?”

  “No.”

  He nodded. “Understandable.”

  “Why tell me that, anyway?” I asked. “You think that is the reason I’ve held back, that you’ve been with so many other girls, and I’d just be another?”

  “Well, it could be your reason.”

  “If I thought you believed that, I would certainly be even more skeptical about what you’re saying now, wouldn’t I? Naturally, I’d think you were manipulating me.”

  “I guess, but you’re about as easy to manipulate as a steel rod.” He leaned back.

  “Remember that conversation we had once about why some girls are easy and some aren’t? You’ve tried to get me to go further, Kane. You’re not exactly Mr. Shy. You don’t come off as a virgin.”

  “I wanted to, yes. I wanted to upstairs just now. I don’t think I ever wanted to more. I want to every moment I’m with you. You think that’s dirty or something?”

  “No. I didn’t say that.”

  “I think it will mean more with you. I hope you think or will think the same. I suppose all I’m trying to say is, when you’re ready, I’m ready.”

  I smiled.

  “What?”

  “I think you’ve been ready from the first day.”

  He held up his hands. “Guilty,” he said, and stood up. “I’d better get out of here before I confess too much more.” He scooped up his books and turned toward the door.

  “What brought on this confession, Kane?”

  He stood looking at the floor.

  “It was Christopher, wasn’t it?” I asked him before he could leave. “The things he wrote about sex, his feelings? That’s what got you to tell me this, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t think he would answer. He looked like he just wanted to leave, but after a moment, with his head still down, he said, “Yes.”

  “Why? What exactly was it that pushed your buttons? Don’t try to make a joke of it,” I added quickly. “What will make anything between us significant is honesty.”

  He looked at me and said, “My sister is only a few years older than I am. She’s very pretty.”

  “I know. I’ve seen her. So?” My mind began spinning with the possibilities. What else was he going to tell me? Did I want to hear it?

  “Enough said for now, maybe,” he replied. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  If I had ever felt I was hanging off a cliff, it was right then. He was already halfway to the stairs. I got up to follow him down and to the doorway. He paused and turned to me. Suddenly, he looked more like he did in the attic, more like Christopher than Kane. I even imagined that wig. The light in his eyes seemed to flicker. He had never looked as serious and less Kane Hill–like than he did at this moment. It made my heart flutter.

  “I feel like we have something very special because of the diary, don’t you? Like we’re privileged by being granted entry to someone else’s most private, painful, and yet at times strangely wonderful thoughts. Do you feel it, too, this . . . this possession? I mean, it’s really as if Christopher Dollanganger is talking to you and me. Right?”

  I could see he thought he might be going mad and wanted confirmation. But it was true. I did feel the same things. “Yes.”

  “Let’s not do anything that might make us lose it.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled, gave me a quick kiss on the lips, and started for his car. I stood there watching him get in and then back the car out. He waved and drove off. Little butterflies of panic were fluttering in my head. I couldn’t help but think that he was more than right, that we had crossed some forbidden line. The diary had led us into a world where emotions whirled, fears crawled about like electric spiders, and private secrets locked in our hearts began popping around us like bubbles.

  Suddenly, I felt lonelier than I h
ad felt in a very long time. I remembered myself as a little girl for no apparent reason turning away from my toy world and rushing to my mother, who seemed to instinctively know she had to embrace me and kiss me and smile softly, lovingly.

  It was only natural for very young children to be overtaken by inexplicable fears, perhaps the leading one being the fear of being deserted, to suddenly turn around and be afraid that you were all alone. I thought of the Dollanganger twins literally shoved into that strange, cold world and left to cling to each other, to a sister barely old enough to comfort herself and to an older brother who was struggling to be a man with a man’s responsibilities long before that should happen.

  My mother couldn’t stop herself from comforting me. It was essential to being a mother. What inside Corrine was stronger than that need? When she went to sleep at night, did she toss and turn, thinking of her children locked away yet so close? Did she imagine their moans? Hear them calling for her? Did she struggle with the urge to go to them and rip them out of that dark world, where nightmares danced around them?

  Among other things, like me, Kane felt some of this, understood their pain. I was sure, but I was also sure there was some other feeling, some other memory that had just been exposed in today’s reading. Whatever had kept it from resurfacing had been ripped away. Did I want to know, to pursue it until I found out? Maybe it was better if we remained somewhat strangers to each other.

  I had started to return to my room when the phone rang.

  “Hey,” my father said.

  He had heard something in my voice when I said hello. I wasn’t surprised. Because we were so dependent on each other since my mother’s death, we were both sensitive to the smallest changes, the slightest signals in our voices or in our faces. We both knew when something troubled or annoyed one of us. Loving someone meant being able to understand him or her better than anyone else.

  He paused and then asked, “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, fine,” I said. In the small pause, I knew that he knew that wasn’t so, but he chose not to pursue it.

  “Free for dinner?”

  “Yes.”