Flowers in the Attic Read online

The whisper of her menacing gray dresses, the

  sound of her voice, the tread of her heavy feet, the

  sight of her huge pale hands, soft and puffy, flashing

  with diamond rings, and spotted brown with dying

  pigment . . . oh, yes, just to see her was to loathe her. Then there was our mother, rushing to us often,

  doing what she could to help the twins back to health.

  Shadows were under her eyes, too, as she gave the

  twins aspirins and water, and later on orange juice,

  and hot chicken soup.

  One morning Momma rushed in carrying a big

  thermos of orange juice she had just squeezed. "It's

  better than the frozen or canned kind," she explained,

  "full of vitamins C and A, and that's good for colds."

  Next she listed what she wanted Chris and me to do,

  saying that Chris and I were to give orange juice often. We stored the thermos on the attic steps--as

  good as any refrigerator in the wintertime.

  One glance at the thermometer from Carrie's lips,

  and a frenzied panic blew away all of Momma's cool.

  "Oh, God!" she cried out in distress. "One hundred

  three-point-six. I have to take them to a doctor, a

  hospital!"

  I was before the heavy dresser holding to it lightly

  with one hand and exercising my legs, as I did each

  day, now that the attic was too cold to limber up in. I

  threw my grandmother a quick glance, trying to read

  her reactions to this.

  The grandmother had no patience for those who

  lost control and made waves. "Don't be ridiculous,

  Corrine. All children run high fevers when they are

  sick. Doesn't mean a thing You should know that by

  now. A cold is just a cold."

  Chris jerked his head up from the book he was

  pursuing. He believed the twins had the flu, though

  how they had caught the virus he couldn't guess. The grandmother continued: "Doctors, what do

  they know about curing a cold? We know just as

  much. There are only three things to do: stay in bed,

  drink lots of liquids, and take aspirins-- what else?

  And aren't we doing all of those things?" She flashed me a mean look. "Stop swinging your legs, girl. You make me nervous." Again she directed her eyes, and her words, at our mother. "Now, my mother had a saying, colds take three days coming, three days

  staying, and three days leaving."

  "What if they have the flu?" asked Chris. The

  grandmother turned her back and ignored his

  question. She didn't like his face; he resembled our

  father too much. "I hate it when people who should

  know better question those who are older and far

  wiser. Everyone knows the rule for colds: six days to

  start and stay, and three days to leave. That's the way

  it is--they'll recover."

  As the grandmother predicted, the twins

  recovered. Not in nine days. . . in nineteen days. Only

  bed rest, aspirins, and fluids did the trick--no

  perscriptions from a doctor to help them back to

  health more quickly. By day the twins stayed in the

  same bed; by night Carrie slept with me, and Cory

  with his brother. I don't know why Chris and I didn't

  come down with the same thing.

  All night long we jumped up and down, to run for

  water, for orange juice kept cold on the attic stairs.

  They cried for cookies, for Momma, for something to

  unstop their nostrils. They tossed and fretted, weak and uneasy, worried by bothersome things they couldn't express except by large fearful eyes that tore at my heart. They asked questions while they were sick that they didn't ask while they were well . . . and

  wasn't that odd?

  "Why do we stay upstairs all the time?" "Has downstairs gone away?"

  "Did it go where the sun hides?"

  "Don't Momma like us no more?"

  "Anymore," I corrected.

  "Why are the walls fuzzy?"

  "Are they fuzzy?" I asked in return.

  "Chris, he looks fuzzy, too."

  "Chris is tired."

  "Are you tired, Chris?"

  "Kinda. I'd like for you both to go to sleep and

  stop asking so many questions. And Cathy is tired,

  too. We'd both like to go to sleep, and know the two

  of you are sleeping soundly, too."

  "We don't sound when we sleep."

  Chris sighed, picked up Cory, and carried him

  over to the rocker, and soon Carrie and I were seated

  on his lap. There we rocked back and forth, back and

  forth, telling stories at three o'clock in the morning.

  We read stories on other nights till four in the morning. If they cried and wanted Momma, as they incessantly did, Chris and I acted as mother and father and did what we could to soothe them with soft lullabies. We rocked so much the floorboards started

  to creak, and surely below someone could have heard. And all the while we heard the wind blowing

  through the hills. It scraped the skeleton tree branches,

  and squeaked the house, and whispered of death and

  dying, and in the cracks and crevices it howled,

  moaned, sobbed, and sought in all ways to make us

  aware we weren't safe.

  We read so much aloud, sang so much, both Chris

  and I grew hoarse and half-sick ourselves from

  fatigue. We prayed every night, down on our knees,

  asking God to make our twins well again. "Please,

  God, give them back to us the way they were." A day came when the coughing eased, and

  sleepless eyelids drooped, and eventually closed in

  peaceful sleep. The cold, bony hands of death had

  reached for our little ones, and was reluctant to let go,

  for so tortuously, slowly, the twins drifted back to

  health. When they were "well" they were not the same

  robust, lively pair. Cory, who had said little before,

  now said even less. Carrie, who had adored the sound

  of her own constant chatter, now became almost as truculent as Cory. And now that I had the quiet I so often longed for, I wanted back the bird-like chitchat that rattled on incessantly to dolls, trucks, trains, boats, pillows, plants, shoes, dresses, underpants,

  toys, puzzles, and games.

  I checked her tongue, and it seemed pale, and

  white. Fearfully, I straightened to gaze down on two

  small faces side by side on one pillow. Why had I

  wanted them to grow up and act their proper ages?

  This long illness had brought about instant age. It put

  dark circles under their large blue eyes, and stole their

  healthy color. The high temperatures and the

  coughing had left them with a wise look, a sometimes

  sly look of the old, the tired, the ones who just lay and

  didn't care if the sun came up, or if it went down, and

  stayed down. They scared me; their haunted faces

  took me into dreams of death.

  And all the while the wind kept blowing. Eventually they left their beds and walked about

  slowly. Legs once so plump and rosy and able to hop,

  jump, and skip were now as weak as thin straws. Now

  they were inclined to only creep instead of fly, and

  smile instead of laugh.

  Wearily, I fell face down on my bed and thought

  and thought and thought--what could Chris and I do

  to restore their babyish charm?

  There was nothing either he or I could do, though

  we would ha
ve given our health to restore theirs. "Vitamins!" proclaimed Momma when Chris and I

  took pains to point out the unhealthy differences in

  our twins. "Vitamins are exactly what they need, and

  what you two need, as well-- from now on, each one

  of you must take a daily vitamin capsule." Even as she

  said this, her slim and elegant hand rose to fluff the

  glory of her beautifully coiffed, shining hair. "Does fresh air and sunshine come in capsules?" I

  asked, perching on a nearby bed, and glaring hard at a

  mother who refused to see what was wrong. "When

  each of us has swallowed a vitamin capsule a day, will

  that give to us the radiant good health we had when

  we lived normal lives, and spent most of our days

  outside?"

  Momma was wearing pink--she did look lovely

  in pink. It put roses in her cheeks, and her hair glowed

  with rosy warmth.

  "Cathy," she said, tossing me a patronizing glance

  while she moved to hide her hands, "why do you

  incessantly persist in making everything so hard for

  me? I do the best I can. Really I do. And, yes, if you

  want the truth, in vitamins you can swallow the good health the outdoors bestows--that is exactly the

  reason so many vitamins are made."

  Her indifference put more pain in my heart. My

  eyes flashed over to Chris, who had bowed his head

  low, taking all this in, but saying nothing "How long

  is our imprisonment going to last, Momma?" "A short while, Cathy, only a short while longer--

  believe that."

  "Another month?"

  "Possibly."

  "Could you manage, somehow, to sneak up here

  and take the twins outside, say, for a ride in your car?

  You could plan it so the servants wouldn't see. I think

  it would make an immense amount of difference.

  Chris and I don't have to go."

  She spun around and glanced at my older brother

  to see if he were in this plot with me, but surprise was

  a dead giveaway on his face. "No! Of course not! I

  can't take a risk tike that! Eight servants work in this

  house, and though their quarters are quite cut off from

  the main house, there is always someone looking out a

  window, and they would hear me start up the car.

  Being curious, they'd look to see which direction I

  took."

  My voice turned cold. "Then would you please see if you can manage to bring up fresh fruit, especially bananas. You know how the twins love

  bananas, and they haven't had one since we came." "Tomorrow I'll bring bananas. Your grandfather

  doesn't like them."

  "What has he got to do with it?"

  "It's the reason bananas are not purchased." "You drive back and forth to secretarial school

  every weekday--stop yourself and buy the bananas--

  and more peanuts, and raisins. And why can't they

  have a box of popcorn once in a while? Certainly that

  won't rot their teeth!"

  Pleasantly she nodded, and verbally agreed. "And

  what would you like for yourself?" she asked. "Freedom! I want to be let out. I'm tired of being

  in a locked room. I want the twins out; I want Chris

  out. I want you to rent a house, buy a house, steal a

  house--but get us out of this house!"

  "Cathy," she began to plead, "I'm doing the best I

  can. Don't I bring you gifts every time I come through

  the door? What is it you lack besides bananas? Name

  it!"

  "You promised we'd stay up here but a short

  while--and it's been months."

  She spread her hands in a supplicating gesture.

  "Do you expect me to kill my father?"

  Numbly I shook my head.

  "You leave her alone!" Chris exploded the

  moment the door closed behind his goddess. "She

  does try to do the best she can by us! Stop picking on

  her! It's a wonder she comes to see us at all, what with

  you riding her back, with your everlasting questions,

  like you don't trust her. How do you know how much

  she suffers? Do you believe she's happy knowing her

  four children are locked in one room, and left to play

  in an attic?"

  It was hard to tell about someone like our mother,

  just what she was thinking, and what she was feeling.

  Her expression was always calm, unruffled, though

  she often appeared tired. If her clothes were new, and

  expensive, and we seldom saw her wear the same

  thing twice, she brought us many new and expensive

  clothes, too. Not that it mattered what we wore.

  Nobody saw us but the grandmother, and we could

  have worn rags, which, indeed, might have put a smile

  of pleasure on her face.

  We didn't go up to the attic when it rained, or

  when it snowed. Even on clear days, there was that

  wind to snarl fiercely as it blew, screaming and

  tearing through the cracks of the old house.

  One night Cory woke up and called to me, "Make

  the wind go away, Cathy."

  I left my bed and Carrie, who was fast asleep on

  her side, crawled under the covers beside Cory, and

  tightly I held him in my arms. Poor little thin body,

  wanting to be loved so much by his real mother . . .

  and he had only me. He felt too small, so fragile, as if

  that rampaging wind could blow him away. I lowered

  my face into his clean, sweet-smelling curly blond

  hair and kissed him there, as I had when he was a

  baby, and I had replaced my dolls with living babies.

  "I can't make the wind go away, Cory. Only God can

  do that."

  "Then tell God I don't like the wind," he said

  sleepily. "Tell God the wind wants to come in and get

  me."

  I gathered him closer, held him tighter . . . never

  going to let the wind take Cory away, never! But I

  knew what he meant "Tell me a story, Cathy, so I can

  forget the wind."

  There was a favorite story I had concocted to

  please Cory, all about a fantasy world where little

  children lived in a small cozy home, with a mother

  and father who were much, much bigger, and

  powerful enough to scare away frightening things. A family of six, with a garden out in back, where giant trees held swings, and where real flowers grew--the kind that knew how to die in the fall, and how to come up again in the spring. There was a pet dog named Clover, and a cat named Calico, and a yellow bird sang in a golden cage, all day long, and everybody loved everybody, and nobody was ever whipped, spanked, yelled at, nor were any of the doors locked,

  nor the draperies closed.

  "Sing me a song, Cathy. I like it when you sing

  me to sleep."

  I held him snugly in my arms and began to sing

  lyrics I had written myself to music I had heard Cory

  hum over and over again . . . his own mind-music. It

  was a song meant to take away from his fear of the

  wind, and perhaps take from me my fears too. It was

  my very first attempt to rhyme.

  I hear the wind when it sweeps down from the

  hill, It speaks to me, when the night is still,

  It whispers in my ear,

  The words I never hear,

  Even when he's near.

  I feel the breeze when it blows in from the s
ea, It

  lifts my hair, it caresses me,

  It never takes my hand,

  To show it understands,

  It never touches me, ten-der-ly.

  Someday I know I'm gonna climb this hill, I'll find

  another day,

  Some other voice to say the words I've gotta hear,

  If I'm to live, another year. . . .

  And my little one was asleep in my arms,

  breathing evenly, feeling safe. Beyond his head Chris

  lay with his eyes wide open, fixed upward on the

  ceiling. When my song was over, he turned his head

  and met my eyes. His fifteenth birthday had come and

  gone, with a bakery cake, and ice cream to mark the

  occasion as special. Gifts--they came every day,

  almost. Now he had a polaroid camera, a new and

  better watch. Great. Wonderful. How could he be so

  easily pleased?

  Didn't he see our mother wasn't the same

  anymore? Didn't he notice she no longer came every

  day? Was he so gullible he believed everything she

  said, every excuse she made?

  Christmas Eve. We had been five months at

  Foxworth Hall. Not once had we been down into the

  lower sections of this enormous house, much less to

  the outside. We kept to the rules: we said grace before

  every meal; we knelt and said prayers beside our beds every night; we were modest in the bathroom; we kept our thoughts clean, pure, innocent . . . and yet, it seemed to me, day by day our meals grew poorer and

  poorer in quality.

  I convinced myself it didn't really matter if we

  missed out on one Christmas shopping spree. There

  would be other Christmases when we were rich, rich,

  rich, when we could go into a store and buy anything

  we wanted. How beautiful we'd be in our magnificent

  clothes, with our stylish manners, and soft, eloquent

  voices that told the world we were somebodies . . .

  somebodies who were special . . . loved, wanted,

  needed somebodies.

  Of course Chris and I knew there wasn't a real

  Santa Claus. But we very much wanted the twins to

  believe in Santa Claus, and not miss out on all that

  glorious enchantment of a fat jolly man who whizzed

  about the world to deliver to all children exactly what

  they wanted--even when they didn't know what they

  wanted until they had it.

  What would childhood be like without believing

  in Santa Claus? Not the kind of childhood I wanted

  for our twins!

  Even for those locked away, Christmas was a busy