Echoes of Dollanganger Read online

  “You never told me about the fight you had over it,” I said.

  “Your aunt can gossip like a hen in heat,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?”

  “Roosters don’t gossip.”

  “Chicken,” I said, and he laughed.

  “I might not be back for dinner,” he revealed. “There’s a ribeye in the freezer and some chicken cutlets and—”

  “Don’t worry about me. Where are you going for dinner?”

  “Not sure yet. I figure since I’m close to Richmond, there’s an old navy buddy of mine I might meet, he and his wife.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “If you want me to get back, I can—”

  “Dad, just have a good time, will you? I’ll be on my own most of the time very soon.”

  He nodded, and we finished breakfast.

  I told him I’d take care of all the cleaning up so he could get going.

  “I hope Laura’s ready,” he muttered. “Been a while since I waited on a woman to get herself ready.”

  “You’ve waited for me,” I said, and immediately regretted it. “But I know you’re as patient as a Venus flytrap.”

  “I’m afraid she knows that, too,” he said. “All right if I take your car?”

  “Sure. I’ve got my own chauffeur now.”

  So does Laura Osterhouse, I wanted to add, but I didn’t. There it was again, that nugget of jealousy bouncing beneath my breasts. I tried to shut it down quickly, smiled, and gave him a hug, wishing him a good trip and a nice time.

  “And if you worry about me just once . . .” I warned.

  He held up his hands. “Keep that shark out of my water,” he said, and walked off.

  When I heard the door close behind him, I couldn’t stop my eyes from tearing up.

  It was all happening quickly, the future. Most of the time, people talked about how sad parents were to see their children grow up and away from them. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but unlike my friends, I wasn’t eager to rush into adulthood and get away from everything that tied me to my life as it was now. There was that inevitable conflict of emotions coming on graduation day. We’d party and congratulate one another on cutting the ties that bound us to parental authority and all the rules that made us feel too young. But sometime during that celebrating, we were all sure to pause and feel not only a little sadness about putting away our childhood but also a little more fear than we’d be willing to admit or show. Nevertheless, it would all be there. I was simply anticipating it sooner than my friends, probably because of what I had already lost when my mother died, and where the future would take both my father and me, on different paths to different places.

  I was in such deep thought about it that I didn’t realize how much time had gone by until the phone rang. It was Kane.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “You can come now,” I said.

  “I’m on my way,” he replied.

  I hung up and gazed toward the attic, where I knew Christopher Dollanganger was waiting to finish his story. What would happen after that or because of it was actually somewhat terrifying for all the reasons I had conjured up along the way.

  Somehow, despite what my father believed, I was convinced that Foxworth would not be gone.

  Not ever.

  * * *

  Kane was here in record time.

  “We’re going to have all day,” I said, revealing my father’s plans as we walked up to my room. “No need to rush along.”

  “Okay. I’ve put aside all my other important appointments,” he kidded.

  I thought it was time to tell him about the house. I got out the diary but held on to it and sat on my bed.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s another mystery at work here,” I began.

  He joined me on the bed. “Really? What?”

  “It’s about the new house my father is building. Apparently, the man who hired him is not the man who’s going to live there. The title to the property is under a trust or something, and the one who is really involved in this turns out to be who we believe was Corrine Dollanganger’s psychiatrist when she was taken to that clinic after the fire she caused in the original mansion.”

  “Your father told you all this?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t know much more than that and doesn’t care to know.”

  “The answers to that won’t be in the diary, will they?”

  “Probably not.”

  He nodded and then stood. I hesitated. “Something else you want to tell me?”

  “No.”

  He knew what I was thinking. “It won’t be the same reading it anywhere else,” he said. “It’s too . . .”

  “Bright and happy down here,” I finished for him.

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” I rose, and we walked up to the attic.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said when we had settled in, him on his chair and me on the opened sofa.

  “Dreams?”

  “Yes, but mine were mostly about you,” he said. “Just as I know Christopher’s dreams have become mostly about Cathy at this point.”

  “Would they be about me if we weren’t reading the diary?” I asked.

  The question threw him for a moment. It was obviously something that hadn’t ever occurred to him. He smiled. “Of course. Remember, I was after you before you told me about the diary, Kristin.”

  “Good answer,” I said, and he laughed.

  “I will say, however, that my dreams about you are a lot more vivid.”

  “I hope I’m not undressed in every one of them.”

  “You must be spying on my dreams.”

  I lay back and closed my eyes. I was doing that whenever he read now. The words were playing like a movie on the insides of my eyelids.

  He took a deep breath and opened the diary, delving into it like a deep-sea diver.

  Cathy was constantly talking about her dreams, mostly nightmares involving either our grandmother or our mother. I was having nightmares, too, but I didn’t want to harp on them. I knew we couldn’t go on like this much longer, and one day soon, I promised her, we would escape, all four of us. The first problem was the key that unlocked the doors, a key I now knew was a master key for most other doors, too. My promise excited Cathy and filled her with renewed hope. I told her we had to keep this plan secret, and to do that, it was best to let Momma believe we appreciated every little thing she was doing for us, buying for us. We even pretended to enjoy her stories about her own happiness.

  On one of those occasions, Cathy kept Momma busy, asking her about her parties, her clothes, everything, while I slipped her key into my pocket, went into the bathroom, and pressed it into a bar of soap to get the impression. It took me three days after that to carve a successful hardwood version of it, but I did, and it worked.

  But I told Cathy that an opening of the doors wasn’t enough. We would need money once we got out, money to travel and live on. There was only one way now to get it, to venture out when I could. I spent most of the winter pilfering from Bart Winslow’s pants and sometimes his wallet whenever I found it in their bedroom. I wanted us to have as much as possible, at least five hundred dollars. Of course, Cathy was impatient. She counted and recounted what we had, pressing me to say it was enough. But it wasn’t, and I had to convince her that it would be worse for us out there with two little children and no money. Oddly, our grandmother was taking relatively good care of us now, always there with the food, even some dessert, powdered sugar doughnuts. Cathy was still impatient. Finally, I asked her to come along on a money mission. I thought she should see the house, too, in all its grandeur. Our house in Gladstone would fit at least three times in this house. I especially wanted her to see our mother’s bedroom.

  The truth was, I wanted to see her reaction to the opulence, the sight of our mother’s clothes and jewelry and that swan bed. I wanted Cathy to see how well Momma was livi
ng with us stashed away like forgotten old clothes in an attic and a bedroom one-quarter of the size of hers, and ours for four of us. Her eyes nearly exploded at the sight of it. She tested the bed and then went into the walk-in closet. “There are more clothes here than in a department store!” she cried. I smiled to myself and began my search for money, rifling through drawers, while she explored and then began to experiment with Momma’s makeup, just the way she had when we lived in Gladstone. I wasn’t paying attention to her now. I concentrated on searching every possible place, collecting even small change.

  When I turned to her again, she had put on one of Momma’s bras and stuffed it with tissues, was wearing high heels, all that makeup, and a ridiculous amount of jewelry, dozens of bracelets and rings. In my mind, it was like someone turning my mother into a cartoon. “Take all that off!” I told her. “You look like a streetwalker. Ridiculous.”

  Her joy collapsed like a balloon with a hole in it, but she took everything off.

  “And put it all back neatly enough so no one will know it was used, Cathy. That’s very important.”

  I didn’t notice what she was doing next, but when I turned to her, I saw she was engrossed in a book. I stepped up behind her and looked at what she was reading. It was a book depicting couples having sex, showing a variety of positions, even pictures of multiple people having sex. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe or take my eyes from the pages. She turned and looked up at me.

  “We’ve got to get out of here now,” I told her, and took the book out of her hands. “Put this where you found it!”

  She said nothing, and I said nothing. I took her hand and quickly led her out of the room, through the halls, and back to our small bedroom.

  “Chris, that book.”

  “Don’t think about it,” I said. “Go take your bath.”

  She checked on the twins and then went into the bathroom. I sat there, my body still trembling from seeing those vivid and explicit sex pictures. I was unaware of how much variety there was to what I thought was the simple act of intercourse, and those women, with their firm and large breasts, the curves in their waists, and what my father used to call “butts,” quickened my heartbeat. I felt myself getting more and more aroused, and when Cathy finally emerged, looking soft, lithe, and graceful, her robe opened just enough for me to see most of her breasts, I quickly turned away and tried counting and multiplying numbers. Then I rose quickly and went into the bathroom to take my bath, but I couldn’t help it. I had to relieve myself first. I was afraid I would appear again with my erection still firm, and Cathy would see. Now that she had seen those pictures, she would know exactly what was happening. She was still brushing her hair when I came out. I avoided looking at her until we were both in our beds. She was staring at me strangely. My mind was reeling with images and thoughts. I could simply slip in beside her, just to feel her against me. Maybe . . .

  I was arousing myself again.

  “Good night,” I said quickly. She said good night, and we turned away from each other. Sleep couldn’t come fast enough for me this night, I thought.

  “Should I tell you how often this has happened to me since we started going together?” Kane asked, pausing.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Don’t talk about it. Just read,” I ordered, and he laughed.

  “Yes, boss,” he said. He stared at me a moment and then opened the diary again.

  I had tried to look angry and bossy to keep him from seeing how riled up inside I was, too. Aside from my friend Suzette, who I always believed was the most promiscuous of all of us, none of us openly admitted to being sexually aroused at what we would all consider the most innocent occasions, like simply standing in the hall talking and watching some boys horse around with each other. One might grab at the other’s crotch. She would openly admit to having orgasms at that sight and even having them when she went to try on jeans and they were too tight in her crotch. Most of us stared at her with amusement when she said things like this, half believing, but some of us, especially me, wondered if we were missing something by not being as sexually sensitive as she was. I almost asked my aunt Barbara about it, but I hesitated in the end.

  Suzette swore that she had overheard her mother and a few of her friends talking about all this, confessing to having orgasms just looking at pictures of male models or something. Kyra told me Suzette’s mother was “a bit trampy,” but I had never seen her do or heard her say anything I’d consider off-color. As far as I could tell, she was critical of Suzette’s loose ways, the sexy clothes she wore, and the late hours she kept whenever she did go out on a date. I told Kyra that, and she just shook her head, confident she was right, and said, “It takes one to know one. Her mother is one.”

  “But by that logic, you’d be one, too,” I told her, and she got mad at me.

  When I first began to read the diary by myself, I anticipated discovering secrets about the Foxworth family and what was true and what wasn’t about the legend of children being locked in a house attic for years and years, but I had no idea, of course, that it would come to these intense sexual revelations. Surely, no one could know what went on between Christopher Jr. and his sister. Their mother and especially their grandmother would never reveal any of that later on. The truth was that it would be only in this diary that those discoveries would be made.

  Boys loved to label girls who were considered more uninhibited, like Suzette, as being nymphomaniacs. Once you had that reputation, it wasn’t easy getting washed of it. It would stain you and last throughout your high school life. I knew of girls who had that reputation and then left either for college or some job, and I could only imagine how difficult it was for them to return to live here, especially if they married someone not from here and then returned. Boys from school who had never left and knew of their reputation would surely smirk and whisper behind a new husband’s back. “Who hadn’t had your wife when she was in school here?” they might say, and cause terrible fights, even divorces.

  How unfair it was for girls. Boys were looked up to, respected, admired, and envied if they achieved the reputation of being good and experienced lovers. They could strut and smile, throw out their chests, and tease young girls, promising to give them the time of their lives and teach them things about sex no one else might, and that would be all right, just perfect, even expected, but if a girl would even suggest such a thing—there went her reputation, maybe for life if she remained here.

  Tack onto all that a mere suggestion of something “dirty” happening between a brother and a sister, and both, but especially the sister, had better go pretty far away, maybe even change their names. Now I recalled an occasion once when I was with my father in Charley’s, and one of the construction workers was telling jokes about redneck hillbillies. I was only ten and didn’t really understand why my father got so upset with him telling the joke in front of me, but now I understood why. The joke was about a hillbilly introducing his wife to someone new. “I’d like you to meet my wife and my sister.”

  Ha, ha. Lots of laughter followed, but my father had turned on him.

  “I have my daughter here,” he said. I rarely saw him get that angry. The man slinked away like some rodent and sat in a booth mumbling under his breath. We went home pretty quickly after that, and when I asked my father what had happened, he said, “Someone undressed his stupidity in public,” which I didn’t quite understand then, either.

  “Are you going to listen?” Kane asked, because I was obviously in such deep thought that I looked far away.

  “Yes, go ahead,” I said petulantly. “Don’t worry. I’m listening.”

  A few days later, I was suddenly taken sick, vomiting and feeling generally weak and nauseated. I knew I couldn’t go out and safely sneak around the house to rummage for money, but we desperately needed to get as much as we could as quickly as we could. I didn’t like what was happening with the twins now. They were lethargic, sleeping too much, uninterested in everything, with their attention spans even short
er than they were, and they were just not growing the way they should. I told Cathy she had to go alone. She was very worried about me, but I assured her I would be all right. I was going to study up on my symptoms while she was out there. I warned her about not being discovered. Reluctantly, she left without me, but when she returned, I saw immediately that something had disturbed her.

  “How much did you find?” I asked.

  “Nothing, not a penny,” she said.

  Something wasn’t right, but I was too tired to pursue her with more questions. She wanted to stay beside me, holding me, more than usual, but I warned her that our grandmother could just pop in on us, so she returned to her bed.

  Time went by slowly, and our thoughts about escape were suffering, because our hunt for money wasn’t producing enough yet. We had to be careful not to take too much when we did find some, or else we would arouse suspicions. That’s all our grandmother would have to find out, I explained. Forget about her whipping us. She would do something much worse, I was sure. Summer was here again, and Cathy pointed out that we were entering our third year. The twins were getting worse. I was very concerned about their bouts of nausea, their listlessness, their loss of appetite, and the stunting of their growth.

  “Look,” Kane said suddenly, turning the diary so I could see it. “There’s a page blank right here. Weird.”

  “Maybe he just turned it too quickly. What could he do once he began writing, that’s all.”

  Kane shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Christopher is too much of a perfectionist.”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  “I think he was going to stop.”

  I froze for a moment. What if Kane was right? What would make Christopher change his mind about keeping a diary? What would stop anyone? Was this why he locked it in that metal box and hid it away, why he didn’t take it with him when he left? And yet he hadn’t destroyed it, torn it up, or anything. It was almost as if he wanted someone to find it years later. That was his plan, never anticipating a horrendous fire.

  “Maybe we should stop, then, Kane.”