Flowers in the Attic Read online

Each day of the ten that passed before Momma visited us again, Chris and I speculated for hours on end just why she had gone away to Europe and stayed so long, and most of all--what was the big news she had to tell us?

  We thought of those ten days as just another form of punishment. For punishment was what it was, and it hurt to know she was in this same house, and yet she could ignore us and shut us out, as if we were only mice in the attic.

  So, when she showed up, at long last, we were thoroughly chastised, and most fearful she would never come back if Chris and I showed more hostility or repeated our demands to be let out. We were quiet, timid and accepting of our fate. For what would we do if she never returned? We couldn't escape by using the ladder made of torn-up sheets--not when the twins went hysterical just to be on the roof.

  So we smiled at Momma, and uttered not one word of complaint. We didn't ask why she had punished us again by staying away ten days, when already she'd been gone for months. We accepted what she was willing to give us. We were, as she had told us she had learned to be with her father, her dutiful, obedient, and passive children. And, what's more, she liked us this way. We were again, her sweet, her loving, her private "darlings."

  Since we were so good, so sweet, so approving of her now, and so very respectful, and apparently trusting, this was the time she chose to drop her bombshell.

  "Darlings, rejoice for me! I am so happy!" She laughed and spun around in a circle, hugging her arms over her chest, loving her own body, or so it seemed to me. "Guess what happened-- go on, guess!"

  Chris and I glanced at each other. "Our

  grandfather has died," he said cautiously, while my heart was doing pirouettes, preparing to really leap and bound if she gave us the glad tidings.

  "No!" she said sharply, as if her happiness had dimmed some.

  "He's been taken to the hospital," said I, guessing second best.

  "No. I really don't hate him now, so I wouldn't come to you and say I was rejoicing over his death."

  "Why don't you just tell us your good news, then," I said dully. "We'll never be able to guess; we don't know much about your life anymore."

  She ignored what I implied and rhapsodized on: "The reason I was gone for so long, and what I found so difficult to explain--I've married a wonderful man, an attorney named Bart Winslow. You're going to like him. He's going to love all of you. He's dark-haired and so handsome, and tall and athletic. And he loves to ski, like you do, Christopher, and he plays tennis, and he's brilliant, like you are, darling," and she was looking at Chris, of course. "He's charming and everybody likes him, even my father. And we went to Europe on our honeymoon, and the gifts I brought to you all came from England, France, Spain or Italy." And on and on she raved about her new husband, while Chris and I sat silent.

  Since the night of the Christmas party, Chris and I had voiced our suspicions many times. For as young as we had been back then, we were wise enough to know that a beautiful young woman who was as needing of a man as our mother, was not likely to remain a widow for long. But still, almost two years passed without a wedding, and that had given us reason enough to believe that the handsome, darkhaired man with the big moustache was of no real importance to Momma--just a passing fancy--one suitor amongst many. And deep down in our foolish hearts, we had convinced ourselves that she was going to be ever-faithful, ever-devoted to our dead father-- our blond and blue-eyed Grecian god father whom she had to love beyond reason to have done what she did--marry a man so closely related.

  I closed my eyes to try and shut out her hateful voice, telling us of another man who was taking our father's place. Now she was another man's wife, a totally different kind of man, and he'd been in her bed and sleeping with her now, and we'd see even less of her than we had. Oh, dear God, how long, how long?

  Her news and her voice gave birth to a little gray bird of panic that fluttered wild in the cage of my ribs . . . wanting out, out, out!

  "Please," Momma begged, her smiles and laughter, joy and happiness all struggling to survive in the bleak, sterile air of our reception to her news. "Try and understand, and be happy for me. I loved your father, you know that, but he's gone, and been gone for so long, and I need someone else to love, and someone to love me."

  I saw Chris open his mouth to say he loved her, that we all loved her, but then he tightened his lips, realizing, as I did, that love from her children wasn't the kind of love she was speaking about. And I didn't love her anymore. I wasn't even sure I liked her now, but I could smile and pretend, and say the words just so the twins would not be frightened by my

  expression. "Yes, Momma, I'm glad for you. It's nice you found someone to love you again."

  "He's been in love with me for a long time, Cathy," she rushed on, encouraged and smiling with confidence again, "though he did have his mind set on being a bachelor. It wasn't easy to convince him he needed a wife. And your grandfather never wanted me to marry a second time, just as another punishment for the evil I did when I married your father. But he likes Bart, and when I kept on begging and begging, he finally relented, and said yes, that I could marry Bart and still inherit." She paused to chew on her lower lip. Then she swallowed nervously. Her beringed fingers fluttered to her throat, to nervously work the string of genuine pearls she wore, and thus betrayed all the ways of a woman in distress, who could smile, even so. "Of course, I don't love Bart as much as I did your father."

  Hah! How weakly she said this. Her glowing eyes and radiant complexion betrayed a love that loomed larger than any she'd known before. And I sighed. Poor Daddy.

  "The gifts you brought us, Momma. . . they weren't all from Europe, or the British Isles. That box of maple sugar candy came from Vermont--did you go to Vermont, too? Is that where he's from?"

  Her laughter came with lilting joy, uninhibited and even a lit- tle sensual, as if Vermont had given her much. "No, he isn't from Vermont, Cathy. But he has a sister living there and we visited her for a weekend after we came from Europe, and that's where I bought the box of candy, for I know how much you love maple sugar candy. He has two other sisters living down South. He's from some little town in South Carolina--Greenglena, Grenglenna, or something like that. But he stayed so long in New England, where he graduated from Harvard Law School, that he sounds more like a Yankee than a Southerner. And oh, it is so beautiful in Vermont in the autumn; it absolutely took my breath away. Of course, when you're on your honeymoon, you don't want to be with other people, so we visited his sister and her family only a short while, and then spent some time on the seashore." She flicked her eyes uneasily at the twins, and again her pearls were twisted so likely they'd break any second. Apparently, genuine pearls are more strongly strung than the simulated kind.

  "Did you like the little boats I brought you, Cory?"

  "Yes, ma'am," he answered, very politely, staring at her with his large, shadowed eyes, just as if she were a stranger.

  "Carrie, sweetheart . . . the little dolls, I picked those up for you in England, to add to your collection. I hoped to find you another cradle, but they don't seem even to make dollhouse cradles anymore."

  "It's all right, Momma," answered Carrie, her eyes on the floor. "Chris and Cathy made me a cradle out of cardboard, and I like it fine."

  Oh, God, didn't she see?

  They didn't know her now. They felt

  uncomfortable with her now.

  "Does your new husband know about us?" I asked, dead serious. Chris glowered at me for asking, telling me mutely that of course our mother wouldn't be deceitful and not tell the man she'd married that she had four hidden children--that some considered the Devil's issue.

  Shadows came to darken and pain Momma's happiness. Again I had asked a wrong question. "Not yet, Cathy, but just as soon as Daddy dies, I'll tell him about you four. I'll explain in minute detail. He'll understand; he's kind and gentle. You're going to like him "

  She had already said that more than once. And here was another thing that had to wait until an old man died. />
  "Cathy, stop looking at me like that! I couldn't tell Bart before our marriage! He's your grandfather's attorney. I couldn't let him know about my children, not yet, not until the will is read, and I have the money in my name "

  Words were on the tip of my tongue to say a man should know when his wife had four children by her first husband. Oh, how I wanted to say this! But Chris was glaring meanly at me, and the twins were huddled over, crouching small, with their large eyes fixed on the TV set. And I didn't know if I should speak, or stay silent. At least when you were silent, you didn't make any new enemies. Maybe she was right, too. God, let her be right. Let my faith be renewed. Let me believe in her again. Let me believe that she is not just beautiful on the surface, but all the way through.

  God didn't reach down and lay a warm, reassuring hand on my shoulder. I sat there, realizing my suspicions were stretching the cord between her and me, very, very fine.

  Love. How often that word came up in books. Over and over again. If you had wealth and health, and beauty and talent. . . you had nothing if you didn't have love. Love changed all that was ordinary into something giddy, powerful, drunken, enchanted.

  Thus ran the course of my thoughts on a day early in winter, when rain pelted on the roof, and the twins sat on the floor in the bedroom, before the TV. Chris and I were in the attic, lying side by side on the old mattress, near the window in the schoolroom, reading together one of the antique books Momma had brought up from the big library downstairs. Soon the attic would again turn arctic winter, so we spent as much time up there as possible now, while we still could. Chris liked to scan a page, and then quickly leap to another. I liked to dawdle over the beautiful lines, going back to read through them twice, sometimes three times. We argued incessantly about this. "Read faster, Cathy! You try to absorb the words."

  Today he was patient. He turned his back and stared up at the ceiling while I took my time, pursuing each beautifully written line, and soaking up the feel of Victorian times, when people wore such fancy clothes, and spoke in such elegant ways, and felt so deeply about love. From paragraph one, the story had captivated both of us with its mystical, romantic charm. Each slow page spinning out an involved tale of star- crossed lovers named Lily and Raymond, who had to overcome monumental obstacles to find and stand upon the magic place of purple grass, where all dreams are fulfilled God, how I wanted them to find that place! Then I discovered the tragedy of their lives. All along they had stood on the purple grass .. . can you imagine? On that special grass all the time, and they never looked down even once to see it. I hated unhappy endings! I slammed that hateful book shut and hurled it against the nearest wall. "If that isn't the most stupid, silly, ridiculous story!" I raged at Chris, as if he had written the book. "No matter whom I love, I'll learn to forgive and forget!" I continued to rail along with the storm outside, the weather and me beating out the same crescendo. "Now why couldn't it have been written differently? How is it possible for two intelligent people to float along with their heads in the clouds, not realizing happenstance can always bring about bad luck? Never, never am I going to be like Lily, or Raymond, either! Idealistic fools who don't know enough to look down at the ground on occasion!"

  My brother seemed amused that I took a story so seriously, but then he reconsidered, and stared thoughtfully at the driving rain. "Perhaps lovers aren't supposed to look down at the ground. That kind of story is told in symbols--and earth represents reality, and reality represents frustrations, chance illnesses, death, murder, and all kinds of other tragedies. Lovers are meant to look up at the sky, for up there no beautiful illusions can be trampled upon."

  Frowning, sulky, I gazed moodily at him. "And when I fall in love," I began, "I will build a mountain to touch the sky. Then, my lover and I will have the best of both worlds, reality firmly under our feet, while we have our heads in the clouds with all our illusions still intact. And the purple grass will grow all around, high enough to reach our eyes."

  He laughed, he hugged me, he kissed me lightly, tenderly, and his eyes were so gentle and soft in the murky, cold gloom of the attic. "Oh, yes, my Cathy could do that. Keep all her fanciful illusions, dancing eye-high in purple grass, wearing clouds for gossamer clothes. She'd leap, she'd bound and pirouette until her clumsy-footed, awkward lover was dancing, too, just as gracefully."

  Put on quicksand, I quickly jumped to where I was sure- footed. "It was a beautiful story though, in its own peculiar way. I feel so sorry that Lily and Raymond had to take their own lives, when it should have worked out differently. When Lily told Raymond the full truth, how she was virtually raped by that awful man, Raymond shouldn't have accused her of seducing him! Nobody in their right mind would want to seduce a man with eight children."

  "Oh, Cathy, sometimes, really, you are just too much."

  His voice sounded deeper than usual when he said that. His soft look traveled slowly over my face, lingering on my lips, then down to my bosom, to my legs, sheathed in white leotards. Over the leotards I wore a short wool skirt and a wool cardigan sweater. Then his eyes moved upward again, coming to lock with my surprised look. He flushed as I kept on staring at him, and turned aside his face for the second time today. I was close enough to hear his heart drumming fast, faster, racing, and all of a sudden my own heart caught the rhythm of his, in the only tempo hearts can have--thumpity-bump, thumpity-bump. He shot me a quick glance. Our eyes melded and held. He laughed nervously, trying to hide and pretend none of this could possibly be serious.

  "You were right the first time, Cathy. It was a stupid, silly story. Ridiculous! Only insane people would die for the sake of love. I'll bet you a hundred to one a woman wrote that junky romantic trash!"

  Just a minute ago I'd despised that author for bringing about such a miserable ending, then there I went, rushing to the defense. "T. M. Ellis could very well have been a man! Though I doubt any woman writer in the nineteenth century had much chance of being published, unless she used her initials, or a man's name And why is it all men think everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy--or just plain silly drivel? Don't men have romantic notions? Don't men dream of finding the perfect love? And it seems to me, that Raymond was far more mushy- minded than Lily!"

  "Don't ask me what men are like!" he stormed with such bitterness he didn't seem himself at all. He raged on: "Up here, living as we do, how am I ever going to know how it feels to be a man? Up here, I'm not allowed to have any romantic notions. It's don't do this, and don't do that, and keep your eyes averted, and don't see what's before your very eyes gliding about, showing off, pretending I'm just a brother, without feelings, without any emotions but childish ones. It seems some stupid girls think a gonna-be doctor is without sexuality!"

  My eyes widened. Such a vehement outburst from one seldom upset took me completely by surprise. In all our lives he'd never spoken so fervently to me, and with such anger. No, I was the sour lemon, the bad apple in the barrel of good. I'd contaminated him He was acting now like he had when Momma went away and stayed so long. Oh, it was wicked of me to make him the troublesome thing I was. He should stay always what he was, the happy-go-lucky cheerful optimist. Had I robbed him of his greatest asset, besides his good looks and charm?

  I put out my hand to touch his forearm. "Chris," I whispered, near tears. "I think I know exactly what you need to feel manly." "Yeah," he bit out. "What can you do?"

  Now he wouldn't even look at me. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the ceiling above. I ached for him. I knew what had him down; he was letting go of his dream, for my benefit, so he could be like me, and not care whether or not we inherited a fortune. And to be like me, he had to be sour, bitter, hating everyone, and suspicious of their hidden motives.

  Tentatively, I reached out to touch his hair. "A haircut, that's what you need. Your hair is much too long and pretty. To feel a man, you must have shorter hair. Right now, your hair looks like mine "

  "And who has ever said your hair is pretty?" he asked in the tightest of voices.
"Maybe once you had pretty hair, before the tarring."

  Really? It seemed I could recall many times his eyes had told me my hair was more than just pretty. And I could recall the way he looked when he picked up the shiny shears to cut off that front hair, so delicate and brittle. He snipped with such reluctance it seemed he was cutting off fingers and not just hair that didn't feel pain. Then one day I caught him sitting in the attic sunshine, holding the long lengths of cutoff hair in his hands. He'd sniffed it, then put it to his cheek, and then to his lips, and then he hid it away in a box to keep under his pillow.

  Not easily could I force laughter to deceive him and not let him know I'd seen. "Oh, Christopher Doll, you have the most expressive blue eyes. When we are free of this place, and out in the world, I pity all the girls who are going to fall for you. Most especially I'll feel sorry for your wife, with such a handsome husband to charm all his beautiful patients into wanting affairs. And if I were your wife I'd kill you if you even had one extra- marital affair! I'd love you so much, I'd be so jealous. . . I might even make you retire from medicine at age thirty-five."

  "I never told you even once your hair was pretty," he said sharply, ignoring everything I'd said.

  Ever so lightly I stroked his cheek, feeling the whiskers that needed shaving off.

  "Sit right where you are. I'll run for the scissors. You know, I haven't given you a haircut for the longest time." Why should I bother cutting his hair and Cory's when the way our hair looked didn't seem important to our life-style? Not since we came had Carrie and I had our hair trimmed. Only the top of mine had been snipped off to signify our submission to a mean old woman made of steel.

  And while I raced for the scissors, I thought how odd it was that none of our green plants would grow, yet each of us grew lots of hair. It seemed in all the fairy tales I'd read, the damsels in distress always had long, long blond hair. Had any brunette ever been locked away in a turret--if an attic could be considered a turret?