Echoes of Dollanganger Read online

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He kissed me again, softer but quicker, and then headed to his car. Before he got in, he paused and looked up at the attic. He didn’t look back at me. He got in and backed out. Suddenly, I felt very cold and hurried into the house.

  I was surprised my father wasn’t waiting up for me. The television wasn’t on, and there was only a small lamp lit in the living room and a nightlight on in the kitchen. I turned off everything I had to and started up the stairs. He came out of his room in his robe just as I turned toward my room.

  “Hey. I was just going down to wait for you,” he said.

  “Oh. I turned everything off.”

  “That’s all right. You won’t have to wake me up to go to sleep. How was your dinner?”

  “Very impressive. I had something called coq au vin.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t had that for years. It’s going to get so I’ll have to study up on some recipes to impress you.”

  “I doubt it. How was your dinner?”

  “The steak was a little overcooked.”

  “I didn’t mean the food. Was it a business dinner or what?”

  “Business dinner,” he said. “As it turns out, the decorator is married.” He shrugged. “Which was fine with me. I guess I’m just a little . . .”

  “Paranoid,” I filled in, and he smiled. “Anyway, Mrs. Osterhouse will be happy to hear it,” I added, and he shook his head.

  “Good night, Kristin,” he sang, and headed back to his bedroom.

  “Bonne nuit,” I said, mimicking the maître d’ at La Reserve.

  He glanced back, smiled again, and went into his room.

  * * *

  I meant what I had told Kane. I wanted my Sunday to be full of quality time with my father. To do that, I had to put Christopher’s diary and Foxworth Hall out of my mind. And to do that, I had to put Kane out of my mind, too. With my vague answers, I thwarted my father’s questions at breakfast about my dinner date, and he changed the subject quickly. One thing we were both good at was reading each other’s moods.

  Sometimes I thought we could blindfold ourselves and move through our house all day without bumping into each other. We were very good at anticipating each other’s needs. I was confident that this was true to some degree for all my friends and their parents, but not to the extent that it was for my father and me. It wasn’t only because I was an only child. My mother was no longer with us. He had no one else to command his interest and attention, and neither did I. Once we were both home, our world revolved around only each other. How were our days? What had made us happy, and what had made us sad? Sometimes the most trivial things became headline news. We worked at making each other laugh and often talked until I retreated to do my homework. It was as if from the day my mother passed away, we were both afraid of silence.

  We began this Sunday morning like all others, by doing our weekly cleaning of the house. My father always took the kitchen, because “it’s a battleground I’ve known,” he said, referring to his earlier days working in the diner. While he went at the floor, stove, grill, and refrigerator, I vacuumed the living room, polished furniture, and went over the windows. Both of us did laundry, but he was better at folding everything, because he did it so long in the navy and when he was a bachelor. The bottom line was that we had become an efficient two-man team and could do this house by midday. We would go off to lunch to reward ourselves.

  Midway through my work, the phone began to ring. The first call was from Suzette. I had anticipated it, of course, and gave her my planned response about Kane’s behavior at the party. I knew she didn’t buy it, but I deflected any more questions and told her I had to get back to my housework because my father and I had plans for the day.

  The last thing she said made me nervous. “You didn’t used to be this secretive, Kristin. Something’s changed you.”

  Of course I protested and then promised to talk to her more the first chance I got.

  Kane’s call came not five minutes afterward. My father popped his head into the living room and chanted, “Busy, busy.” I grimaced, and he laughed.

  “Both my sister and Julio think you’re great,” Kane began. “I took your advice and apologized to him for my behavior. He’s not so bad, and my sister needs an ally in this house, anyway.”

  “Good.”

  “So your day is still full?”

  “To the brim. I’ve got to get back to my vacuuming, or I’ll be too far behind to do what we have to do.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, then?”

  “Yes. Oh, and I’ll meet you at school, Kane.”

  “Why?”

  “I just think it’s better if you don’t pick me up every morning.”

  “Better?”

  “Trust me,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, obviously upset. “Have a good time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Later, when I had a chance, I would explain to him that it would help me keep everything secret if I didn’t look like I was spending every free breathing moment with him. My father knew I was still reading Christopher’s diary. It would only be natural for him to suspect that Kane knew about it if he was with me whenever I was free to do it.

  The phone rang again, but I didn’t answer it. It was Kyra, and I knew she would have the same questions and the same reactions to my answers as Suzette did. Most likely, Suzette had already called her to complain about me, and she had volunteered to see where she could get with me. We were always curious about each other, but this curiosity about Kane and me was becoming irritating. Probably unfairly so, but I couldn’t help it. Besides, the calls were slowing me up. When I finally put away the vacuum cleaner, I saw my father waiting at the foot of the stairs. I had the feeling he had been watching me for a while.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Maybe we should do the attic,” he said. “We haven’t for some time.”

  There’s some truth to the advice that if you want to get away from a lie, you should tell a half-truth. It reduces the chances of your being doubted and gives your troubled conscience some relief, not that it was something I had to do too often. If it was ever necessary, however, it was right now.

  “Oh, I’ve done that this week,” I said. “I even did the windows.”

  He simply stared at me for a moment. My heart was starting to race. Was this it? Was this the moment I confessed? I had full intentions to do so after Kane and I had finished the diary. I often thought about how I would do it. I even considered first turning the diary over to him to do with it what he wished and then revealing what Kane and I had done. I dreaded the look on his face that I knew would come. One reaction I feared was his telling me that now he had no choice. He couldn’t get rid of it. If it got out into the community that we’d had such a document and had destroyed it, the horrid rumors would multiply tenfold. It wouldn’t matter how much I assured him that Kane would keep it a secret. Kane could come over and make the pledge in person. My father would say, “The genie is out of the bottle.”

  I heard it often in dreams.

  To my surprise, this time, he smiled.

  “I should have figured you would do that,” he said. I knew that in his mind, I had done it solely because of my mother’s things in the antique wardrobe.

  Guilt made my shoulders sag, but once again, he misinterpreted my reaction. Now he felt sorry for bringing on a moment of sadness.

  “C’mon. Let’s go get some lunch. You drive,” he added, which surprised me.

  “We’re not going in Black Beauty?” He was never comfortable with me driving his truck. He said it was a one-man horse.

  “No. What’s the point in having a built-in chauffeur if I don’t use her?”

  “Don’t make me nervous,” I warned, and we started for the garage. “Charley’s?” I asked when I started the car.

  “No. I need a day off from those guys. Take me someplace new.”

  I wanted to avoid any of the places my friends might go to, so I dr
ove us to a restaurant I recalled Mrs. Osterhouse mentioning once. My father was quite surprised but also looked a little pleased.

  “You’ve been to the Dew Drop Inn? I thought it was only for members of the AARP. It’s the only place that serves prune juice in warm water,” he joked.

  “Never, but I thought you’d appreciate the peace and quiet.”

  Still smiling, he shrugged. When we entered, he probably immediately thought that I had planned it. There was Mrs. Osterhouse with one of her neighbors, Lilly Taylor, seated at a corner table. She had obviously had her burgundy hair cut and styled over the weekend. I had to admit to myself that she looked much more attractive than usual, even younger. Perhaps unfairly, I never liked to think of Mrs. Osterhouse as being a pretty woman, but she did have extraordinary Irish green eyes, which made sense since her maiden name was O’Brian. Actually, I didn’t know all that much about her. From the moment I had sensed her feelings for my father and her sometimes not-so-subtle pursuit of him, a wall dropped between me and her. No matter how sweet she was to me, and she was, I couldn’t help being cold and formal with her. If I told Kane any of this, he would surely accuse me of having an Electra complex.

  I couldn’t help my feelings toward her, but I knew they were wrong. After all, she had lost her husband when he was only in his early forties, when he was killed in a terrible car accident on the interstate during a freak storm in April that year. I should have been thinking of her when I had read Christopher’s description of their learning about his father’s rather weird car accident. It had been more than five years for Mrs. Osterhouse. I knew she had tried dating again but hadn’t found anyone in whom to invest her love and energy—until she began working for my father, that is.

  He looked at me, and I shook my head.

  The Dew Drop Inn was a modest restaurant with the capacity for about fifty patrons. It was done in a light oak, with a half dozen booths on both sides and a dozen tables in the center. The far wall consisted of a large fieldstone fireplace that I imagined was built by the Wilsons. It was lit with four or five chunks of hard oak firewood. The scent of it was not overpowering but did add authenticity, along with the antique pots and pewter farm implements hanging on walls and the paintings capturing colonial Virginia in villages and farms.

  We crossed to say hello to Mrs. Osterhouse. She had been after me for years to call her Laura, but I was reluctant, sensing that the moment I did so, I would open the door to more intimacy and, in my young girl’s mind, maybe signal to my father that he had my permission to pursue a romantic relationship. I realized how foolish and even selfish that was now, but I still hadn’t called her Laura once.

  She introduced me to Mrs. Taylor. My father knew her from the First National Bank, where she worked as VP of commercial loans.

  “Looking forward to Thanksgiving, Kristin?” Mrs. Osterhouse asked. “I am,” she added, before I could reply. “I still don’t know your father’s secret to making that turkey moister than any I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He has a few cooking and baking secrets he won’t reveal. I think he gets up in the middle of the night when I’m asleep and does things.”

  Both women laughed.

  “It’s all very simple once the turkey and I come to an understanding,” my father said, and the women laughed again.

  I was afraid they would ask us to join them, so I turned to the hostess and nodded at the booth behind them. She set the menus down. My father added some small talk about the weather and then followed me to the booth. He looked at me over the menu.

  “Just a coincidence,” I said to those suspicious eyes.

  He shook his head. We’d had this discussion a few times. He didn’t believe in coincidence. He always said, “If you didn’t plan it, someone else did. Someone behind you or above you.”

  Maybe he was right, I thought. Maybe everything happens for a reason, even the fate of the Dollanganger children. What’s often difficult is discovering what that reason is, especially if it’s something tragic or sad.

  We enjoyed our lunch, and as usual, when my father felt relaxed and comfortable, he talked about his own youth more and revealed more about our family. Inevitably, our conversation worked around to my mother and some new memories of her that he wanted to share. It was therapeutic for both of us to think of her in happier times. We had finally reached that point where we could do so and not feel all broken up inside and cast ourselves into the darkness for the remainder of the day.

  Mrs. Osterhouse and her friend left before we did. She paused to talk to us a little more about Thanksgiving. I could see how much she really was looking forward to it, and I felt guiltier about making it seem so matter-of-fact. Before she turned to leave, I told her I was really looking forward to it, too, even to overeating. I saw the way her eyes warmed. Her smile was full of gratitude, and when I glanced at my father, I saw that he was happy I had broken the ice just a little.

  And then, I don’t know why, but I suddenly had the feeling that he might have broken that ice a while ago.

  I said nothing about it. After lunch, we went to do our shopping. Aside from the care and interest he always took with groceries, he was not fond of shopping for anything else. He really did depend on me for help with the gifts and navigating the department stores. He confessed that my mother had never liked going shopping with him.

  “I’ve always been an in-and-out guy,” he told me. “I’d go for what I needed, get it, and leave, whereas she’d want to look at everything, spend time studying new things, even though at the end of the day, she left with what we had come for.”

  We carried our laughter home with our groceries. I saw that I had more messages on my cell phone from girlfriends, but I didn’t call anyone back. I knew I’d be repeating the same things, and I thought I might do better dealing with it at school. I spent my time doing homework and studying for some quizzes I knew were coming. Teachers always hit us with something a day or two before we broke for a holiday.

  In the morning, my father didn’t say anything when I indicated that I was driving myself to school, but I could see he was more than a little curious about it. On my way, I debated suggesting to Kane that we put off any more diary reading until after Thanksgiving, but as soon as we met, it didn’t take me long to realize that if I did that, he would be more than seriously disappointed; he might even be very angry. I didn’t know where that would take us. Ironically, the diary had become the glue that bound us in our relationship now. It frightened me a little to think of it that way. What would happen to us when we closed it on the last page?

  I knew my girlfriends were still dissatisfied with my explanations for Kane’s behavior at Tina’s party. She was still complaining about it as loudly as she could. I saw that Kane’s buddies were a little put out with him, too, but he didn’t seem to care. He was with me every possible free moment, anyway.

  Even though I had driven myself to school, he waited for me in the parking lot. He had rejected any invitations or activities for after school and actually led the way to my house. I fell behind him, because I wasn’t going to break the speed limit.

  “You’re lucky,” I told him after I got out of my car. “They really watch that street this time of day.”

  “Yeah, I forgot,” he said. He looked at his watch. “We’ve only got a few hours, probably, right?”

  “Right,” I said, even though I knew my father would push his day later. I led him into the house.

  While I got us something to drink, Kane went up to arrange the attic. This time, he asked if he could get the diary, too. I could see how anxious he was to get started. It bothered me, but I didn’t say anything. He put on the wig and handed me the scarf. I took it, but I didn’t put it on.

  “You don’t want to put it on?” he asked, surprised.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Let’s just get into it.”

  “Okay,” he said, and opened the diary slowly, looking like someone who was about to enjoy one of the most delicious t
hings in his life.

  I never thought I would use my medical knowledge to save the life of a mouse, especially since we were trying to rid the attic of them, but one morning, Cory woke us all with his screams from the attic, and as usual, if Cory or Carrie screamed or cried, the other automatically did, too. Cathy and I rushed up to see what was wrong. Cory was pointing at a mouse that had its left forepaw caught in a trap. It disturbed Cory so much I had to work it loose, and then Cathy worked beside me like a surgical nurse while I cleaned it up and created a tiny bandage and splint. I felt foolish, but Cory and Carrie were so pleased. Cory had a pet.

  In the middle of it all, our grandmother arrived with a basket of food. She saw the mouse and loomed over us silently, looking like she was adding up all our violations. I pretended not to even notice her, just to irritate her. I went up to the attic, found an old birdcage, and brought it down to fix up a home for Cory’s pet mouse, doing it all right in front of our grandmother. When she realized we were going to keep a mouse for Cory, she finally spoke up, telling us it was a pet that fit us.

  Ironically, that little mouse did become a delightful pet for us all, and although I would never admit it, it kept us from thinking of how dreadful everything had become that we would find delight in a creature we were otherwise killing by the dozens. Maybe Grandmother Olivia was right. Maybe we were no better than a small trapped creature locked away in a world with spiders and other crawlers. We had to continually remind ourselves who we were and what we were in order to hold on to any self-pride at all.

  Cathy was always good at reminding me how much time had passed. If I tried to ignore anything, it was that, how long we had been locked away, and how long it had been since Momma had come to see us. At the moment, Cathy pointed out that we had been here almost two and a half years.

  When you spend so much time so close to each other the way Cathy and I had for that long, you get so you can tell each other things without speaking a word, and I don’t mean through sign language, either. It was more what we said when we merely looked at each other.