PETALS ON THE WIND

BY

V. C. ANDREWS

 Books by V. C. Andrews

 Flowers in the Attic
 Petals on the Wind
 If There Be Thoms
 My Sweet Audrina
 Seeds ol'Yesterday
 Heaven
 Dark Angel
 Garden of Shadows
 Fallen Hearts
 Gates ol'Paradise

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 Petals
      onthe
 - *--'ind
 VE a
   CAndrews

POCKET BOOKS
New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo
                                    For Bill & Gene
Who remember when ...

 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
 are either the product of the author's imagination or are used
 fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
 living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

      POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenu-,~ of
      the Americas, New York, NY 10020

 Copyright (0 1980 by Virginia Andrews

 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
 portions theieof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket
 Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

 ISBN: 0-671-68288-1

 First Pocket Books printing June 1980

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 O'er the earth there comes a bloom; Sunny light for sullen gloom; Warm
 perfume for vapor coldI smell the rose above the mold!

            -Thomas Hood
 -PART
  ONE
 PIC710, at Last!

 How young we were the day we escaped. How exuberantly alive we should have
 felt to be freed, at last, from such a grim, lonely and stiffing place. How
 pitifully delighted we should have been to be riding on a bus that rumbled
 slowly southward. But if we felt joy, we didn't show it. We sat, all three,
 pale, silent, staring out the windows, very frightened by all we saw.
  Free. Was ever a word more wonderful than that one? No. even though the
  cold and bony hands of death would reach out and drag us back, if God
  wasn't up there somewhere, or maybe down here on the bus, riding with us
  and looking out for us. At some time in our life we had to believe in
  someone.
  The hours passed with the miles. Our nerves grew frazzled because the bus
  stopped often to pick up and let off passengers. It stopped for rest
  breaks, for breakfast, then to pick up a single huge black lady who stood
  alone where a dirt road met the concrete interstate. It took her forever to
  pull herself onto the bus, then lug inside the many bundles she carried
  with her. Just as she was finally seated, we passed over the state line
  between Virginia and North Carolina.
  Oh! The relief to be gone from that state of our imprisonment! For the
  first time in years, I began to relax-a little.
  We three were the youngest on the bus. Chris was seventeen years old and
  strikingly handsome with long, waving blond hair that just touched his
  shoulders, then curled upward. His darkly fringed blue eyes rivaled the

               3
 color of a summer sky, and he was in personality like a warm sunny day-he
 put on a brave face despite the bleakness of our situation. His straight
 and finely shaped nose had just taken on the strength and maturity that
 promised to make him all that our father had been-the type of man to make
 every woman's heart flutter when he looked her way, or even when he
 didn't. His expression was confident; he almost looked happy. If he hadn't
 looked at Carrie he might have even been happy. But when he saw her
 sickly, pale face, he frowned and worry darkened his eyes. He began to
 pluck on the strings of the guitar strapped to his shoulder. Chris played
 "Oh Susannah," singing softly in a sweet melancholy voice that touched my
 heart. We looked at each other and felt sad with the memories the tune
 brought back. Like one we were, he and 1. 1 couldn't bear to look at him
 for too long, for fear I would cry.
  Curled up on my lap was my younger sister. She didn't look older than
  three, but she was eight years old and small, so pitifully small, and
  weak. In her large, shadowed blue eyes lingered more dark secrets and
  sufferings than a child her age should know. Carrie's eyes were old,
  very, very old. She expected nothing: no happiness, no love, nothing-for
  all that had been wonderful in her life had been taken from her. Weakened
  by apathy, she seemed willing to pass from life into death. It hurt to
  see her so alone, so terribly alone now that Cory was gone.
  I was fifteen. The year was 1960, and it was November. I wanted
  everything, needed everything, and I was so terribly afraid I'd never in
  all my life find enough to make up for what I had already lost. I sat
  tense, ready to scream if one more bad thing happened. Like a coiled fuse
  attached to a time bomb, I knew that sooner or later I would explode and
  bring down all those who lived in Foxworth Hall!
  Chris laid his hand on mine, as if he could read my mind and knew I was
  already thinking about how I would bring hell to those who had tried to
  destroy us.

               4
 He said in a low voice, "Don't look like that, Cathy. It's going to be all
 right. We'll get by."
  He was still the eternal cockeyed optimist, believing, despite everything,
  that whatever happened was for the best! God, how could he think so when
  Cory was dead? How could that possibly be for the best?
  "Cathy," he whispered, "we have to make the most of what we have left, and
  that is each other. We have to accept what's happened and go on from there.
  We have to believe in ourselves, our talents, and if we do, we will get
  what we want. It works that way, Cathy, really it does. It has to!"
  He wanted to be a dull, staid doctor who spent his days in small
  examination rooms, surrounded by human miseries. I wanted something far
  more fanciful-and a mountain of it! I wanted all my star-filled dreams of
  love and romance to be fulfilledon the stage, where I'd be the world's most
  famous prima ballerina; nothing less would do! That would show Momma!
  Damn you, Momma! I hope Foxworth Hall bums to the ground! I hope you never
  sleep a comfortable night in that grand swan bed, never again! I hope your
  young husband finds a mistress younger and more beautiful than you! I hope
  he gives you the hell you deserve!
  Carrie turned to whisper: "Cathy, I don't feel so good. My stomach, it
  feels funny. . . ." I was seized by fear. Her small face seemed unnaturally
  pale; her hair, once so bright and shining, hung in dull, lank strings. Her
  voice was merely a weak whisper.
  "Darling, darling." I comforted and then kissed her. "Hang on. We're taking
  you to a doctor soon. It won't be so long before we reach Florida and there
  we'll never be locked up."
  Carrie slumped in my arms as I miserably stared out at the dangling Spanish
  moss that indicated we were now in South Carolina. We still had to pass
  through Georgia.. It would be a long time before we arrived in Sarasota.
  Violently Carrie jerked upright and began to choke and retch.

               5
  I'd judiciously stuffed my pockets with paper napkins during our last rest
  break, so I was able to clean up Carrie. I handed her over to Chris so I
  could kneel on the floor to clean up the rest. Chris slid over to the
  window and tried to force it open to throw out the sodden paper napkins.
  The window refused to budge no matter how hard he pushed and shoved. Carrie
  began to cry.
  "Put the napkins in the crevice between the seat and the side of the bus,"
  whispered Chris, but that keeneyed bus driver must have been watching
  through his rear-view mirror, for he bellowed out, "You kids back there-let
  rid of that stinking mess some other way!" What other way but to take
  everything from the outside pocket of Chris's Polaroid camera case, which
  I was using as a purse, and stuff the smelly napkins in there.
  "I'm sorry," sobbed Carrie as she clung desperately to Chris. "I didn't
  mean to do it. Will they put us in jail now?"
  "No, of course not," said Chris in his fatherly way. "In less than two
  hours we'll be in Florida. Just try to hang on until then. If we get off
  now we'll lose the money we've paid for our tickets, and we don't have much
  money to waste."
  Carrie began to whimper and tremble. I felt her forehead and it was clammy,
  and now her face wasn't just pale, but white! Like Cory's before he had
  died.
  I prayed that just once God would have some mercy on us. Hadn't we endured
  enough? Did it have to go on and on? While I hesitated with the squeamish
  desire to vomit myself, Carrie let go again. I couldn't believe she had
  anything left. I sagged against Chris while Carrie went limp in his arms
  and looked heartbreakingly near unconsciousness. "I think she's going into
  shock," whispered Chris, his face almost as pale as Carrie's.
  This was when a mean, heartless passenger really began to complain, and
  loudly, so the compassionate ones looked embarrassed and undecided as to
  what to do to help us. Chris's eyes met mine. He asked a mute question-what
  were we to do next?
 I was beginning to panic. Then, down the aisle,

               6
 swaying from side to side as she advanced toward us, came that huge black
 woman smiling at us reassuringly. She had paper bags with her which she held
 for me to drop the smelly napkins in. With gestures but no words she patted
 my shoulder, chucked Carrie under the chin and then handed me a handful of
 rags taken from one of her bundles. "Thank you," I whispered, and smiled
 weakly as I did a better job of cleaning myself, Carrie and Chris. She took
 the rags and stuffed them in the bag, then stood back as if to protect us.
  Full of gratitude, I smiled at the very, very fat woman who filled the
  aisle with her brilliantly gowned body. She winked, then smiled back.
  "Cathy," said Chris, his expression more worried than before, "we've got to
  get Carrie to a doctor, and soon!"
 "But we've paid our way to Sarasota!"
 "I know, but this is an emergency."
  Our benefactor smiled reassuringly, then she leaned over to peer into
  Carrie's face. She put her large black hand to Carrie's clammy brow, then
  put her fingers to her pulse. She made some gestures with her hands which
  puzzled me, but Chris said, "She must not be able to talk, Cathy. Those are
  the signs deaf people make." I shrugged to tell her we didn't understand
  her signs. She frowned, then whipped from a dress pocket beneath a heavy
  red sweater she wore a pad of multicolored sheets of notepaper and very
  swiftly she wrote a note which she handed to me.
  My name Henrietta Beech, she'd written, Can hear, but no talk. Little girl
  is very, very sick and need good doctor. I read this, then looked at her
  hoping she'd have more information. "Do you know of a good doctor?" I
  asked. She nodded vigorously, then quickly dashed off another green note.
  Your good fortune I be on your bus, and can take you to my own doctor-son,
  who is very best doctor.
  "Good golly," murmured Chris when I handed him the note, "we sure must be
  under a lucky star to have someone to direct us to such a doctor."
 "Look here, driver," yelled the meanest man on the

                7
 bus. "Get that sick kid to a hospital! Damned if I paid my good money to
 ride on a stinking bus!"
  The other passengers looked at him with disapproval, and I could see in
  the rear-view mirror that the driver's face flushed with anger, or
  perhaps it was humiliation. In the mirror our eyes met. He lamely called
  to me. "I'm sorry but I've got a wife and five kids and if I don't keep
  my schedules, then my wife and kids won't eat, because I'll be out of a
  job." Mutely I pleaded with my eyes, making him mumble to himself, "Damn
  Sundays. Let the week days go by just fine, then comes Sunday, damn
  Sundays."
  This was when Henrietta Beech seemed to have heard enough. Again she
  picked up her pencil and notepad and wrote. This note she showed to me.
  Okay, man in driver's seat who hates Sundays. Keep on ignoring little
  sick girl, and her parents will sue big shot bus owners for two million!
  No sooner had Chris had the chance to skim this note than she was
  waddling up the aisle and she pushed the note into the driver's face.
  Impatiently he shoved it away, but she thrust it forward again, and this
  time he made an attempt to read it while keeping one eye on the traffic.
  "Oh, God," sighed the driver whose face I could clearly see in the
  mirror. "The nearest hospital is twenty miles off my route."
  Both Chris and I watched, fascinated, as the mammoth black lady made
  gestures and signals that left the driver as frustrated as we had been.
  Once again she had to write a note, and whatever she wrote in that one
  soon had him turning the bus off the wide highway onto a side road that
  led into a city named Clairmont. Henrietta Beech stayed with the driver,
  obviously giving him instructions, but she took the time to look back at
  us and shine on us a brilliant smile, assuring us that everything would
  be just fine.
  Soon we were rolling along quiet, wide streets with trees that arched
  gracefully overhead. The houses I stared at were large, aristocratic,
  with verandas and towering cupolas. Though in the mountains of Virginia
 it had already snowed once or twice, autumn had not yet laid a frosty hand
 here. The maples, beeches, oaks and magnolias still held most of their
 summer leaves, and a few flowers still bloomed.
  The bits driver didn't think Henrietta Beech was directing him right, and
  to be honest I didn't think she was either. Really, they didn't put medical
  buildings on this kind of residential street. But just as I was beginning
  to get worried, the bus jerked to a sudden halt in front of a big white
  house perched on a low, gentle hill and surrounded by spacious lawns and
  flower beds.
  "You kids!" the bus driver bellowed back to us, "pack your gear, turn in
  your tickets for a refund, or use them before the time limit expires!" Then
  quickly he was out of the bus and opening up the locked underbelly, and
  from there he pulled out forty or so suitcases before he came to our two.
  I slung Cory's guitar and banjo over my shoulders, as Chris very gently,
  and with a great deal of tenderness, lifted Carrie in his arms.
  Like a fat mother hen, Henrietta Beech hustled us up the long brick walk to
  the front veranda and there I hesitated, staring at the house, the double
  black doors. To the right a small sign read FOR PATIENTS ONLY. This was
  obviously a doctor who had offices in his own home. Our two suitcases were
  left back in the shade near the concrete sidewalk while I scanned the
  veranda to spy a man sleeping in a white wicker chair. Our good Samaritan
  approached him with a wide smiJe before she gently touched him on the arm,
  and when he still slept on she gestured for us to advance and speak for
  ourselves. Next she pointed to the house, and made signals to indicate she
  had to get inside and prepare a meal for us to eat.
  I wished she'd stayed to introduce us, to explain why we were on his porch
  on Sunday. Even as Chris and I stole on cautious pussywillow feet toward
  him, even as I filled with fear I was sniffing the air filled with the
  scent of roses and feeling that I'd been here before and knew this place.
  This fresh air perfumed with roses was

               9
 not the kind of air I'd grown to expect as the kind deemed worthy for such
 as me. "It's Sunday, damn Sunday," I whispered to Chris, "and that doctor
 may not appreciate our being here."
  "He's a doctor," said Chris, "and he's used to having his spare time
  robbed ... but you can wake him up."
  Slowly I approached. He was a large man wearing a pale gray suit with a
  white carnation in his buttonhole. His long legs were stretched out and
  lifted to the top of the balustrade. He looked rather elegant, even
  sprawled out as he was with his hands dangling over the arms of the
  chair. He appeared so comfortable it seemed a terrible pity to awaken him
  and put him back on duty.
  "Are you Dr. Paul Sheffield?" asked Chris who had read the sign with the
  doctor's name. Carrie lay in his arms with her neck arched backwards, her
  eyes closed and her long golden hair waving in the soft, warm breezes.
  Reluctantly the doctor came awake. He stared at us long moments, as if
  disbelieving his eyes. I knew we looked strange in our many layers of
  clothing. He shook his head as if trying to focus his eyes, and such
  beautiful hazel eyes they were, bejeweled with flecks of blue, green and
  gold on soft brown. Those remarkable eyes drank me in, then swallowed me
  down. He appeared dazzled, slightly drunk, and much too sleepy to put on
  his customary professional mask that would keep him from darting his eyes
  from my face to my breasts, then to my legs before he scanned slowly
  upward. And again he was hypnotized by my face, my hair. It was hair that
  was far too long, I knew that, and it was clumsily cut on top, and too
  pale and fragile on the ends.
 "You are the doctor, aren't you?" demanded Chris.
  "Yes, of course. I'm Dr. Sheffield," he finally said, now turning his
  attention to Chris and Carrie. Surprisingly graceful and quick, he lifted
  his legs from the railing, rose to his feet to tower above us, ran long
  fingers through the mop of his dark hair, and then stepped closer to peer
  down into Carrie's small, white face. He parted her closed lids with
  forefinger and

               10
 thumb and looked for a moment at whatever was revealed in that blue eye.
 "How long has this child been unconscious?"
  "A few minutes," said Chris. He was almost a doctor himself, he'd studied
  so much while we were locked away upstairs. "Carrie threw up on the bus
  three times, then began to tremble and feel clammy. There was a lady on
  the bus named Henrietta Beech, and she brought us here to you."
  The doctor nodded, then explained that Mrs. Beech was his
  housekeeper-cook. He then led us to the door for patients only, and into
  a section of the house with two small examination rooms and an office,
  all while apologizing for not having his usual nurse available. "Take off
  all Carrie's clothes but her underpants," he ordered me. While I set
  about doing this, Chris dashed back to the sidewalk to fetch our
  suitcases.
  Full of a thousand anxieties, Chris and I backed up against a wall and
  watched as the doctor checked Carrie's blood pressure, her pulse, her
  temperature and listened to her heart, front and back. By this time
  Carrie had come around so he could request her to cough. All I could do
  was wonder why everything bad had happened to us. Why was fate so
  persistently against us? Were we as evil as the grandmother had said? Did
  Carrie have to die too?
  "Carrie," said Dr. Sheffield pleasantly after I had dressed her again,
  "we're going to leave you in this room for a while so you can rest." He
  covered her with a thin blanket. "Now don't be afraid. We'll be right
  down the hall in my office. I know that table isn't too soft, but do try
  and sleep while I talk to your brother and sister. "
  She gazed at him with wide, dull eyes, not really caring if the table was
  hard or soft.
  A few minutes later Dr. Sheffield was seated behind his big impressive
  desk with his elbows on the blotter pad, and that's when he began to
  speak earnestly and with some concern. "The two of you look embarrassed
  and ill-at-case. Don't be afraid you're depriving me of Sunday fun and
  games, for I don't do much of that. I'm

               11
 a widower, and Sunday for me is no different than any other day ......
  Ali, yes. f le could say that, but he looked tired, as if he worked too
  many long hours. I perched uneasily on the soft brown leather sofa, close
  by Chris. The sunlight filtering through the windows fell directly on our
  faces while the doctor was in the shadows. My clothes felt damp and
  miserable, and suddenly I remembered why. Quickly I stood to unzip and
  remove my filthy outer skirt. I felt quite pleased to see the doctor
  start in surprise. Since he'd left the room when I undressed Carrie, he
  didn't realize that I had two dresses on underneath. When I sat again
  next to Chris, I wore only one dress of blue, princess styled, and it was
  flattering and unsoiled.
  "Do you always wear more than one outfit on Sundays?" he asked.
  "Only on the Sundays I run away," I said. "And we have only two suitcases
  and need to save room for the valuables we can hock later on when we have
  to." Chris nudged me sharply, mutely signaling I was revealing too much.
  But I knew about doctors, from him mostly. That doctor behind the desk
  could be trusted-it was in his eyes. We could tell him anything,
  everything,
  "Sooo," he drawled, "you three are running away. And just what are you
  running from? Parents who offended you by denying you some privileges?"
  Oh, if he only knew! "It's a long story, Doctor," said Chris, "anti right
  now all we want to hear about is Carrie."
  "Yes," lie agreed, "you're right. So we'll talk about Carrie." All
  professional now, he continued, "I don't know who you are, or where
  you're from, or why you feel you have to run. But that little girl is
  very, very ill. If this weren't Sunday, I'd admit her to a hospital today
  for further tests I can't make here. I suggest you contact your parents
  immediately."
 Just the words to make me panic!
  "We're orphans," said Chris. "But don't worry about not being paid. We
  can pay our own way."

               12
  "It's good you have money," said the doctor. "You're going to need it."
  He swept long, observant looks over both of us, sizing us up. "Two weeks
  in a hospital should be sufficient to discover the factor in your
  sister's illness I can't quite put my finger on." And while we gasped,
  stunned that Carrie was that sick, he made an approximate guess as to the
  amount of money it would cost. Again we were stunned. Dear God! Our
  stolen cache of money wouldn't even pay for one week, much less two.
  My eyes clashed with the appalled look in Chris's blue eyes. What would
  we do now? We couldn't pay that much.
  The doctor easily read our situation. "Are you still orphans?" he asked
  softly.
  "Yes, we're still orphans," stated Chris defiantly, then glanced hard at
  me to let me know I was to keep my trap shut. "Once you're an orphan you
  stay that way. Now, tell us what you suspect is wrong with our sister,
  and what you can do to make her well again."
  "Hold up there young man. First you have to answer a few questions." His
  was a soft voice, but firm enough to let us know he was in command here.
  "First, what is your last name?"
  "I am Christopher Dollanganger, and this is my sister, Catherine Leigh
  Dollanganger, and Carrie is eight years old, whether or not you believe
  it!"
  "Why shouldn't I believe it?" the doctor asked mildly, when just a few
  minutes ago in the cubelike examination room, he'd shown shock to hear
  her age.
  "We realize Carrie is very small for her age," said Chris defensively.
  "Indeed she is small." He flicked his eyes to me when he said this, then
  to my brother, and leaned forward on his crossed arms in a friendly,
  confidential manner that made me tense in preparation. "Now look. Let's
  stop being suspicious of one another. I'm a doctor, and anything you
  confide to me will remain in my confidence.
 "If you really want to help your sister, you can't sit

               13
 there and make up lies. You have to give me the truth, or else you're
 wasting my time and risking Carrie's life."
  We both sat silent, holding hands, our shoulders pressed one against one
  other. I felt Chris shudder, so I shuddered too. We were so scared, so
  damned scared to speak the full truth-for who would believe? We'd trusted
  those who were supposedly honorable before so how could we trust again?
  And yet, that man behind the desk ... he looked so familiar, like I'd
  seen him before. "All right," fie said, "if it's that difficult, let me
  ask more questions. Tell me what all three of you ate last. "
  Chris sighed, relieved. "Our last meal was breakfast very early this
  morning. We all ate the same thing, hot dogs with everything, french
  fries dipped in catsup, and then chocolate milkshakes. Carrie ate only
  a little of her meal. She's very picky about food under the best of
  circumstances. I'd say she's never really had a healthy appetite. "
  Frowning, the doctor noted this down. "And all three of you ate exactly
  the very same things for breakfast? And only Carrie was nauseated?"
 "Right. Only Carrie."
 "Is Carrie often nauseated?"
 "Occasionally, not often."
 "How occasionally?"
  "Well . . . " said Chris slowly, "Carrie threw up twice last week, and
  aboul five times last month. It's worried me a lot; her attacks seem to
  be growing more violent as they come more often."
  Oh, the evasive way Chris was telling about Carrie made me really
  furious! He would protect our mother even now, after all she'd done.
  Maybe it was my expression that betrayed Chris and made the doctor lean
  my way, as if he knew he'd hear a more complete story from me. "Look, you
  came to me for help, and I'm willing to do what I can, but you aren't
  giving me a fair chance if you don't give me all the facts. If Carrie
  hurts inside, I can't look inside to see where it is--she has to tell me,
  or you have to tell me. I need

               14
 information to work with-full information. Already I know Carrie is
 malnourished, underexercised and underdeveloped for her age. I see that
 all three of you have enlarged pupils. I see you are all pale, thin and
 weak looking. Nor can I understand why you hesitate about money when you
 wear watches that look quite expensive, and someone has chosen your
 clothes with taste and considerable cost-though why they fit so poorly is
 beyond my speculations. You sit there with gold and diamond watches,
 wearing rich clothes and shoddy sneakers, and tell me half-truths. So now
 I'm going to tell you a few full truths!" His voice grew stronger, more
 forceful. "I suspect your small sister is dangerously anemic. And because
 she is anemic she is susceptible to myriad infections. Her blood pressure
 is dangerously low. And there is some elusive factor I can't put my finger
 on. So, tomorrow Carrie will be admitted to a hospital, whether or not you
 call your parents, and you can hock those wristwatches to pay for her
 life. Now ... if we admit her to the hospital this evening, the tests can
 begin early tomorrow morning."
 "Do what you feel necessary," said Chris dully.
  "Wait a minute!" I cried, jumping to my feet and moving swiftly to the
  doctor's desk. "My brother isn't telling you everything!" I threw Chris
  a hard glance over my shoulder, while he shot his fierce look to forbid
  me to reveal the whole truth. I thought bitterly, don't worry, I'll
  protect our precious mother as much as I can!
  I think Chris understood, for tears came to his eyes. Oh, how much that
  woman had done to hurt him, hurt all of us, and he could still cry for
  her sake. His tears put tears in my heart too, not for her, but for him,
  who'd loved her so well, and for me who loved him so well, and tears for
  all we'd shared and suffered....
  He nodded, as if saying okay, go ahead, and then I began to tell what
  must have seemed to the doctor an incredible tale. At first I could tell
  he thought I was lying, or at least exaggerating. Why was that when every
  day the newspapers told terrible tales of what loving, caring parents did
  to their children?
     And so, after Daddy was in that fatal accident,

                15
 Momma came and told us she was deeply in debt, and she had no way to earn
 a living for the five of us. She began writing letters to her parents in
 Virginia. At first they didn't reply, but then one day a letter came. She
 told us her parents lived in a fine, rich house in Virginia and were
 fabulously wealthy, but because she had married her half-uncle she'd been
 disinherited. Now we were going to lose everything we owned. We had to
 leave our bicycles in the garage, and she didn't even give us time to say
 good-bye to our friends, and that very evening we set off on a train
 headed for the Blue Ridge Mountains.
  "We felt happy to be going to a fine, rich house, but not so happy about
  meeting a grandfather who sounded cruel. Our mother told us we'd have to
  hide away until she could win back his affections. Momma said one night
  only, or maybe two or three, then we could go downstairs and meet her
  father. He was dying of heart disease and never climbed the stairs so we
  were safe enough up there as long as we didn't make much noise. The
  grandmother gave us the attic to play in. It was huge-and dirty, and full
  of spiders, mice and insects. And that's where we played and tried to
  make the best of it until Momma. won back her father's good will and we
  could go down and begin to enjoy living like rich children. But soon
  enough we found out that our grandfather was never going to forgive our
  mother for marrying his half-brother and we were going to remain 'Devil's
  issue.' We'd have to live up there until he was dead!"
  I went on, despite the look of pained incredulity in the doctor's eyes.
  "And as if that weren't bad enough, being locked up in one room with our
  playground in the attic, we soon found out our grandmother hated us too!
  She gave us a long list of what we could do and what we couldn't do. We
  were never to look out of the front windows, or even open the heavy
  draperies to let in some light.
  "At first the meals the grandmother brought up each morning in a picnic
  hamper were rather good, but gradually they worsened to only sandwiches,
  potato

               16
 salad and fried chicken. Never any desserts, for they would rot our teeth
 and we couldn't go to a dentist. Of course, when our birthdays came around,
 Momma would sneak us up ice cream and a bakery cake, and plenty of presents.
 Oh, you bet she bought us everything to make up for what she was doing to
 us-as if books and games and toys could ever make up for all we were
 losing-our health, our belief in ourselves. And, worst of all, we began to
 lose faith in her!
  "Another year came, and that summer Momma didn't even visit us at all!
  Then, in October she showed up again to tell us she'd married a second time
  and had spent the summer touring Europe on her honeymoon! I could have
  killed her! She could have told us, but she'd gone away and not said a word
  to explain! She brought us expensive gifts, clothes that didn't fit, and
  thought that made up for everything, when it didn't make up for anything!
  Finally I was able to convince Chris we should find a way to escape that
  house and forget about inheriting a fortune. He didn't want to go, because
  he thought that any day the grandfather might die, and he wanted to go to
  college, then medical school and become a doctor-like you."
  "A doctor like me . . ." said Dr. Sheffield with a strange sigh. His eyes
  were soft with sympathy, and something darker too. "It's a strange story,
  Cathy, and hard to believe."
  "Wait a minute!" I cried. "I haven't finished. I haven't told you the worst
  part! The grandfather did die, and he did write our mother into his will so
  she'd inherit his tremendous fortune-but he added a codicil that said she
  could never have children. If it were ever proven she'd given birth to
  children by her first husband, she'd have to forfeit everything she'd
  inherited and everything she'd bought with the money!"
  I paused. I glanced at Chris who sat pale and weak looking, staring at me
  with hurt and pleading eyes. But he needn't have worried; I wasn't going to
  speak of Cory. I turned again to the doctor. "Now that mysterious, elusive
  factor you can't put your finger on-the thing wrong with Carrie that makes
  her throw up, and

               17
 us too sometimes. It's really very simple. You see, once our mother knew
 she could never claim us and keep the fortune, she decided to get rid of
 us. The grandmother began to add sugared doughnuts to the basket. We ate
 them eagerly enough, not knowing that they were coated with arsenic."
 And so I'd said it.
  Poisoned doughnuts to sweeten our imprisoned days as we stole from our
  room by using the wooden key Chris had fashioned. Day by day dying for
  nine months while we sneaked into our mother's grand bedroom suite and
  took all the one- and five-dollar bills we could find. Almost a year we'd
  traversed those long, dim corridors, stealing into her room to take what
  money we could.
  "In that one room, Doctor, we lived three years and four months and
  sixteen days."
  When I'd concluded my long tale the doctor sat very quietly staring at
  me with compassion, shock, and concern. "So you see, Doctor," I said to
  finish, "you can't force us to go to the police and tell our story! They
  might throw the grandmother and our mother in jail, but we'd suffer too!
  Not only from the publicity, but also from being separated. They'd put
  us in foster homes, or make us wards of the court, and we've sworn to
  stay together, always!"
  Chris was staring at the floor. He spoke without looking up. "Take care
  of our sister. Do whatever is needed to make her well again, and both
  Cathy and I will find a way to meet our obligations."
  "Hold on, Chris," said the doctor in his slow, patient way. "You and
  Cathy have been fed arsenic too and will need to undergo many of the same
  tests I order for Carrie. Look at the two of you. You're thin, pale,
  weak. You need good food, rest and plenty of fresh air and sunshine.
  Maybe there is something I can do to help. 9 ~
  "You're a stranger to us, sir," Chris said respectfully, "and we don't
  expect or need anyone's charity or pity. Cathy and I are not that weak
  or sick. Carrie's the one most affected."

               18
  Full of indignation, I spun about to glare at Chris. We'd be fools to
  reject help from this kind man just so we could salvage some of our pride
  that had already gone down in defeat so many times before. What difference
  did one more time make?
  ". . . Yes," continued the doctor, as if both Chris and I had already
  agreed to his generous offer to help, 61expenses are not as high for an
  'out' patient as for an 'in' patient-no room and no board to pay. Now
  listen, this is only a suggestion which you're free to refuse, and travel
  on to wherever you have in mind-by the way, where are you going?"
  "To Sarasota, Florida," Chris said weakly. "Cathy and I used to swing from
  the ropes we tied to the attic rafters, so she thought we could become
  aerialists, with some practice." It sounded silly when I heard him say it.
  I expected the doctor to laugh, but he didn't. He just looked sadder.
  "Honestly, Chris, I would hate to see you and Cathy risk your lives like
  that, and as a doctor I feel I can't allow you to go as you are. Everything
  in my personal ethics and professional ones too refuses to let you go on
  without medical treatment. Common sense tells me I should keep my distance
  and not give a damn about what happens to three kids on their own. For all
  I know that horrendous story may just be a pack of lies to gain my
  sympathy." He smiled kindly to take the sting from his words. "Yet, my
  intuition tells me to believe your story. Your expensive clothes, your
  watches and the sneakers on your feet, your pale skin and the haunted look
  in your eyes all testify to the truth."
  Such a voice he had, hypnotizing, soft and melodious, with just a bit of
  Southern accent. "Come," he said, charming me, if not Chris, "forget about
  pride and charity. Come live in my home of twelve lonely rooms. God must
  have put Henrietta Beech on that bus to lead you to me. Henny is a terrific
  worker and keeps my house spotless, but she constantly complains that
  twelve rooms and four baths are just too much for one woman to care for.
  Out in the back I have four acres of garden. I hire two gardeners to help,
  for I just can't

               19
 devote as much time to the garden as I need to. At this point he riveted
 his brilliant eyes directly on Chris. "You can help earn your keep by
 mowing the lawns, clipping the hedges and preparing the gardens for
 winter. Cathy can help out in the house." He shot me a questioning,
 teasing look with his eyes twinkling. "Can you cook?"
  Cook? Was he kidding? We'd been locked upstairs for more than three
  years, and we'd never even had a toaster to brown our bread in the
  mornings, and no butter, or even margarine!
  "No!" I snapped. "I can't cook. I'm a dancer. When I'm a famous prima
  ballerina I'll hire a woman to do the cooking, like you do. I don't want
  to be stuck away in some man's kitchen, washing his dishes and fixing his
  meals and having his babies! That's not for me."
 "I see," he said, his expression blank.
  "I don't mean to sound ungrateful," I explained. "I will do what I can
  to help out Mrs. Beech. I'll even learn how to cook for her-and you."
  "Good," he said. His eyes were laughing, full of sparkling lights as he
  templed his fingers beneath his chin and smiled. "You are going to be a
  prima ballerina, and Chris is going to be a famous doctor, and you are
  going to achieve all of this by running away to Florida to perform in the
  circus? Of course I'm of another stodgy generation and I can't fathom
  your reasoning. Does it really make good sense to you?"
  Now that we were out of the locked room and the attic and in the full
  light of reality, no, it didn't make good sense, It sounded like foolish,
  childish and unrealistic folly.
  "Do you realize what you'd be up against as professional aerialists?" the
  doctor asked. "You would have to compete against people who've trained
  from early childhood, people descended from long lines of circus
  performers. It wouldn't be easy. Still, I'll admit there's something in
  those blue eyes that tells me you two are very determined young people,
  and no doubt you'll get what you go after if you really want it badly
  enough. But what about school? What about Carrie? What's she

               20
 going to do while the two of you swing from trapezes? Now don't bother to
 answer," he said quickly when my lips parted. "I'm sure you can come up
 with something to convince me, but I must dissuade you. First you have to
 tend to your health and Carrie's. Any day the two of you could come down
 as swiftly as Carrie and be just as sick. After all, didn't all three of
 you exist under the same miserable conditions?"
  Four of us, not three, was the whisper in my ears, but I didn't speak of
  Cory.
  "If you meant it about taking us in until Carrie is well," said Chris
  with his eyes shining suspiciously, 64we're extremely grateful. We'll
  work hard, and when we can we'll leave and repay you every cent you spent
  on us."
  "I meant it. And you don't have to repay me, except by helping out in the
  house and the yard. So, you see, it isn't pity, or charity, only a
  business arrangement to benefit all of us."

 A New "ome

 That's the way it started. We moved quietly into the doctor's home and
 into his life. We took him over, I know that now. We made ourselves
 important to him, as if he hadn't had a life before we came. I know that
 now too. He made it seem we were doing him a favor by relieving him of a
 dreary, lonely life by adding our youthful presence. He made us feel that
 we were being generous to share his life, and oh, we did want to believe
 in someone.
  He gave Carrie and me a grand bedroom to share, with twin beds and four
  tall windows facing south, and two windows facing east. Chris and I
  looked at each

               21
 other with a terrible shared hurt. We were to sleep in different rooms for
 the first time in ever so long. I didn't want to part from him and face
 the night with only Carrie, who could never protect me as he had. I think
 our doctor may have sensed something that told him to fade into the
 background, for he excused himself and drifted toward the end of the hall.
 Only then did Chris speak. "We've got to be careful, Cathy. We wouldn't
 want him to suspect. . . ."
  "There is nothing to suspect. It's over," I answered, but I didn't meet
  his eyes, guessing, even then, that it would never be over. Oh, Momma,
  look what you started by putting the four of us in one locked room, and
  leaving us there to grow up, knowing how it would be! You of all people
  should have known!
  "Don't," Chris whispered. "Kiss me good night, and there won't be any
  bedbugs here."
  He kissed me, I kissed him, we said good night, and that was all. With
  tears in my eyes I watched my brother back down the hall, still holding
  his eyes on me.
  In our room Carrie let out a loud howl. "I can't sleep in no little bed
  all by myself!" she wailed. "I'll fall off! Cathy, why is that bed so
  little?"
  It ended up with Chris and the doctor coming back so they could take away
  the nightstand that separated the twin beds. Then they shoved the narrow
  beds so close they appeared one wide bed. This pleased Carrie enormously,
  but, as the nights passed, somehow the crack between our beds grew ever
  wider until 1, the restless sleeper, finally woke up with one leg and one
  arm in the crack and Carrie being pulled along with me to the floor.
  I loved that room Paul gave us. It was so beautiful with its pale blue
  wallpaper, and matching curtains. The rug was blue; each of us had a
  chair with lemon-yellow cushions and all the furniture was antique white.
  It was the kind of room a girl should have. No gloom. No pictures of hell
  on the wall. All the hell I had was in my mind, put there by thinking
  back much too often. Momma could have found another solution if she'd
  really wanted to! "She didn't have to lock us up!

               22
 It was greed, avarice, that damned fortune ... and Cory was in the ground
 because of her weakness!
  "Forget it, Cathy," said Chris when we were again saying good night.
  I was terribly afraid to tell him what I suspected. My head bowed low
  against his chest. "Chris, it was a sinful thing we did, wasn't it?"
  "It won't happen again," he said stiffly, then broke away and almost ran
  down the hall as if I were chasing. I wanted to lead a good life and hurt
  no one, especially Chris. Even so, I had to leave my bed around midnight
  and go to Chris. While he slept I crawled in the bed beside him. He
  wakened when he heard the bedsprings squeak. "Cathy, what the hell are
  you doing here?"
  "It's raining outside," I whispered. "Just let me lie beside you for a
  moment or so, and then I'll go away." Neither of us moved, or even
  breathed. Then without even knowing how it came about, we were in each
  other's arms and he was kissing me. Kissing with such ardent fervor it
  made me respond when I didn't want to. It was evil and wrong! Yet I
  didn't really want him to stop. That sleeping woman inside of me woke up
  and took over, wanting what he felt he had to have, and 1, the thinking,
  calculating part, pushed him away. "What are you doing? I thought you
  said this would never happen again."
 "You came . he said hoarsely.
 "Not for this!"
  "What do you think I'm made of? Steel? Cathy, don't do this again."
  I left him and cried in my own bed, for he was down the hall and not
  there to waken me if I had a nightmare. No one to comfort me. No one to
  lend me strength. Then my mother's words came to haunt me with a horrible
  thought-was I so much like her? Was I going to be the kind of weak,
  clinging-vine female who always needed a man for protection? No! I was
  sufficient unto myself!
  I believe it was the next day that Dr. Paul brought me four pictures to
  hang. Ballerinas in four different positions. For Carrie he brought a
  milk-glass vase filled

               23
 with delicate plastic violets. Already he'd learned about Carrie's passion
 for all things purple or red. "Do what you can to make this room yours,"
 he told us. "If you don't like the color scheme, we'll have it changed in
 the spring." I stared at him. We wouldn't be here, come spring.
  Carrie sat holding her vase of fake violets while I forced myself to
  speak up and say what I had to. "Dr. Paul, we won't be here in the
  spring, so we can't afford to let ourselves become too attached to the
  rooms you've given us."
  He was in the doorway, ready to depart, but he halted and turned to look
  back at me, He was tall, six two or more, and his shoulders were so wide
  they almost filled the doorway.
  "I thought you liked it here," he said in a wistful tone, his dark eyes
  gone bleak.
  "I do like it here!" I quickly answered. "We all like it here, but we
  can't take advantage of your good nature forever." He nodded without
  replying and left, and I turned to see Carrie staring at me with a great
  deal of animosity.
  Daily the doctor took Carrie to the hospital with him. At first she'd
  wail and refuse to go unless I went along too. She made up fantastic
  stories about what they did to her in the hospital, and complained about
  all the questions they asked her.
  "Carrie, we never tell lies; you know that. The three of us always tell
  the truth to each other-but we don't go around telling everybody about
  our past lives upstairs-understand?"
  She stared up at me with those big, haunted eyes. "I don't tell nobody
  Cory went away to heaven and left me. I don't tell nobody but Dr. Paul."
 "You told him?"
  "I couldn't help it, Cathy," Carrie buried her head in her pillow and
  cried.
  So now the doctor knew about Cory, and how he was supposed to have died
  in a hospital from pneumonia. How sad his eyes were that night when he
  questioned

               24
 Chris and me, wanting all the details of Cory's illness that ended in his
 death.
  Chris and I were huddled up close on the living room sofa when Paul said,
  "I'm very happy to report that arsenic has not done any permanent damage
  to any of Carrie's organs, as we all feared it might have. Now don't look
  like that. I haven't let out your secret but I had to tell the lab
  technicians what to look for. I made up a story about how you'd taken the
  poison accidentally, and your parents were good friends of mine, and I'm
  considering making you three my legal wards."
  "Carrie's going to live?" I whispered, drowning in relief.
  "Yes, she'll live-if she doesn't go swinging on trapezes." He smiled
  again. "I've made appointments for the two of you to be examined
  tomorrow-by me-unless you have some objections."
  Oh, I had objections! I wasn't keen about taking off my clothes and
  having him go over me, even if a nurse was there. Chris told me I was
  silly to think a doctor of forty would get any erotic pleasure from
  looking at a girl of my age. But when he said it, he was looking the
  other way, so how could I tell what he was really thinking? Maybe Chris
  was right, for when I was on that examination table, naked and covered
  by a paper robe, Dr. Paul didn't seem the same man whose eyes followed
  me around when we were in the "home" side of his house. He did to me the
  same things he'd done to Carrie, but asked even more questions.
  Embarrassing questions.
  "You haven't menstruated in more than two months?"
  "I've never been regular, really! I started when I was twelve, and twice
  I skipped from three to six months. I used to worry about it, but Chris
  read up on the subject in one of the medical books Momma brought him, and
  he told me too many anxieties and too much stress can make a girl miss.
  You don't think ... I mean ... there isn't anything wrong with me, is
  there?"
 "Not that I can tell. You seem normal enough. Tbo

               25
 thin, too pale, and you're slightly anemic. Chris is too, but because of
 his sex not as much as you are. I'm going to prescribe special vitamins
 for all three of you."
  I was glad when it was over and I could put on my clothes and escape that
  office where the women who worked for Dr. Paul looked at me so funny.
  I raced back to the kitchen. Mrs. Beech was preparing dinner. Her smile
  shone big and wide when I came in, lighting up a moon face with skin as
  slick as oiled rubber. The teeth she displayed were the whitest, most
  perfect teeth I'd ever seen. "Golly, am I happy that's over!" I said,
  failing into a chair and picking up a knife to peel potatoes. "I don't
  like doctors poking me over. I like Dr. Paul better when he's just a man.
  When he puts on that long white jacket, he also puts a shade over his
  eyes. Then I can't see what he's thinking. And I'm very good at reading
  eyes, Mrs. Beech."
  She grinned at me with teasing devilry, then whipped out a pink notepad
  from the huge square pocket of her starched white apron. With the apron
  tied about her middle she resembled nothing more than a rolled-up
  goosedown comforter, waddling about speechless. By now I knew she had a
  congenital speech defect. Though she was trying to teach Chris, Carrie
  and me to understand her sign language, as yet none of us had caught on
  enough to carry on a quick conversation. I think I enjoyed her notes too
  much-notes she could write lightning-fast in a very abbreviated style.
  Doctor says, she'd written, young people need lots of good fresh fruit
  and vegetables, plenty of lean meat, but go easy on starches and
  desserts. He wants to put on you muscle not fat.
  Already we'd gained some weight in the two weeks of eating Mrs. Beech's
  delicious cooking, even Carrie who was so dam finicky. Now she ate with
  enthusiasm, and for her that was remarkable. So, as I peeled the red
  potatoes, Mrs. Beech wrote another note when her signals failed to
  communicate. Fairy-Child, from now on call me only Henny. No Mrs. Beech.
  She was the first black person I'd known, and though at first I'd felt
  ill-at-ease with her and a little afraid of

               26
 her, two weeks of intimacy had taught me much. She was just another human
 being of another race and color, with the same sensitivities, hopes and
 fears we all had.
  I loved Henny, her broad smiles, her loose, flowing gowns with flowers
  blooming riotously, and most of all I loved the wisdom that came from her
  small pastel paper sheets. Eventually, I did learn to understand her sign
  language, though I was never as good at it as her "doctor-son."
  Paul Scott Sheffield was a strange man. So often he looked sad when there
  was no apparent reason for him to be sad. Then he'd smile and say, "Yes,
  God favored Henny and me that day he put you three on that bus. I lost
  one family, and grieved for them, and fate was kind enough to send me
  another, ready-made family."
  "Chris," I said that evening when we had to reluctantly part, "when we
  lived in the room upstairs, you were the man, the head of the
  household.... Sometimes it feels funny to have Dr. Paul around, watching
  what we do and listening to what we say."
  He blushed. "I know. He's taking my place. To be honest," and here he
  paused and blushed a deeper red, "I don't like him replacing me in your
  life, but I'm very grateful for what he's done for Carrie."
  Somehow all that our doctor did for us made Momma seem a thousandfold
  worse in comparison. Ten thousandfold worse!
  The next day was Chris's eighteenth birthday, and though I'd never
  forget, it surprised me that the doctor had planned a party with many
  fine gifts that sparkled Chris's eyes, and then saddened them with the
  guilt both he and I felt. Already we'd accepted so much. Already we had
  been making plans to leave soon. We just couldn't stay on and take
  advantage of Dr. Paul's good nature, now that Carrie was well enough to
  travel on.
  After the party Chris and I sat on the back veranda, mulling this over.
  One look at his face and I could tell he didn't want to leave the one and
  only man who could, and would, help him reach his goal of becoming

               27
 a doctor. "I really don't like the way he keeps looking at you, Cathy. His
 eyes follow you about all the time. Here you are, so available, and men
 his age find girls your age irresistible."
  They did'? How fascinating to know. "But doctors have plenty of pretty
  nurses available to them," I said lamely, knowing I would do anything
  short of murder, to see that Chris reached his goal. "Remember that day
  we first came? He spoke of the kind of competition we'd be up against in
  the circus. Chris, he's right. We can't go work for the circus; that's
  only a silly dream."
  He stared off into space with knitted brows. "I know all of that. "
  "Chris, he's just lonely. Maybe he only watches me because there isn't
  anything else as interesting to watch as me." But how fascinating to know
  that men of forty were susceptible to girls of fifteen. How wonderful to
  wield over them the power that my mother had.
  "Chris, if Dr. Paul says the right thing, I mean, if he really honestly
  wants us, would you stay on?"
  He frowned and studied the hedges he'd so recently clipped. After long
  consideration he spoke slowly, "Let's give him a test. If we tell him
  we're leaving, and he doesn't say anything to prevent us, then that will
  be his polite way to let us know he doesn't really care."
 "Is it fair to test him like that?"
  "Yes. It's a good way to give him the chance to get rid of us and not
  feel guilty about it. You know, people like him often do nice things
  because they feel they should, not because they really want to."
 "Oh."
  We were not ones to procrastinate. The next evening after dinner, Paul
  came to join us on the back veranda. Paul. I was calling him that in my
  thoughts-getting familiar, liking him more and more because always he
  looked so casualty elegant, so clean, so nice, sitting in his favorite
  white wicker rocker, wearing a red cableknit sweater with gray slacks and
  slowly, dreamily puffing on a cigarette. We three wore sweaters too, for
  the evening was chilly. Chris perched beside me on the

               28
 balustrade while Carrie crouched on the top step. Paul's gardens were
 fabulous. Shallow marble steps nine feet across took you down a few feet
 to other steps which took you to a higher level. There was a small
 Japanese footbridge lacquered red, arching over a small stream. There were
 nude statues of men and women, placed at random, which lent to his gardens
 an atmosphere of seduction, of worldly sensuality. They were classic
 nudes. Graceful, and elegantly posed, and yet, and yet ... I knew that
 garden for what it was. For I'd been there before in my dreams.
  The doctor was telling us, even as the wind turned colder and started to
  blow dead leaves hither and yon, that he traveled abroad every other year
  to search out the beautiful marble statues he'd ship home and add to his
  collection. He'd been so lucky the last time to come across a full-sized
  copy of Rodin's The Kiss.
  I sighed with the wind. I didn't want to go. I liked it here with him,
  with Henny, with the gardens that held me in thrall and made me feel
  enchanted, beautiful, desirable.
  "So all my roses are old-fashioned roses that haven't had the heady scent
  bred from them," said Dr. Paul. "Why have roses at all if they don't reek
  of perfume?"
  In the fading, purplish light of the failing day his glimmering eyes met
  with mine. My pulse quickened and forced another sigh. I wondered what
  his wife had been like, and how it felt to be loved by someone like him.
  Guiltily my eyes fled from his long, searching look, afraid he'd see what
  I was thinking. "You look disturbed, Cathy. Why?" His question teased me,
  as if he knew already my secrets. Chris turned his head to give me a hard
  look of warning.
  "It's your red sweater," I said foolishly. "Did Henny knit it for you?"
  He chuckled softly, then glanced down at the handsome sweater he wore.
  "No, not Henny. My older sister knitted the sweater for my birthday, then
  mailed it to me parcel post. She lives on the other side of town.

               29
  "Why would your sister mail you a gift and not bring it in person?" I
  asked. "And why didn't you tell us you had a birthday? We would have
  given you gifts too."
  "Well," be began, settling back comfortably and crossing his legs, "my
  birthday came and went shortly before you arrived. I'm forty in case
  Henny hasn't told you. I've been a widower thirteen years, and my sister,
  Amanda, has not spoken to me since the day my wife and young son died in
  an accident." His voice faded away and he stared off into space, moody,
  solemn, distant.
  Dead leaves scuttled on the lawn, chased over the porch and came to
  nestle near my feet, like brown, dried-up ducklings. All this took me
  back to a certain forbidden night when Chris and I had so desperately
  prayed while we huddled on the cold slate roof under a moon that looked
  like the scowling eye of God. Would there be a price to pay for just one
  terrible sin committed? Would there? The grandmother would quickly say,
  yes! You deserve the worst punishment! Devil's spawn, I knew it all
  along!
  And while I sat there floundering Chris spoke up. "Doctor, Cathy and I
  have been talking this over, and we feel now that Carrie is well we
  should be leaving. We deeply appreciate everything you've done, and we
  intend to repay you every cent, though it may take us a few years. . .
  ." His fingers squeezed tight around mine, warning me not to say anything
  different.
  "Hold on there, Chris," interrupted the doctor, jerking upright in his
  chair and planting both his feet solidly on the floor. Clearly he meant
  business. "Don't think for one minute I haven't seen this coming. I've
  dreaded each morning, fearful I'd wake up to find you gone."
  "I've been looking into the legal ramifications of making the three of
  you my wards. And I've found out it isn't as complicated as I thought.
  It seems most children who run away say they're orphans, so you'll have
  to give me proof your father is really dead. If he's alive, I would need
  his consent, as well as your mother's."

               30
  My breath caught! My mother's consent? That meant we'd have to see her
  again! I didn't want to see her, not ever!
  He went on, his eyes soft as they saw my distress. "The court would
  petition your mother to appear at a hearing. If she lived in this state
  she'd be forced to comply in three days, but since she's in Virginia,
  they'll give her three weeks. If she doesn't show up, then instead of
  having only temporary custody of you, I will be granted permanent
  custody-but only if you're willing to say I've done a good job as a
  guardian."
  "You've been wonderful!" I cried out. "But she won't come! She wants to
  keep us a secret! If the world finds out about us, she'll lose all that
  money. Her husband might turn against her too if he knew she'd hidden us
  away. You can bet your life if you dare to try for permanent custody,
  you'll get it-and you might be sorry in the end!"
  Chris's hand tightened more on mine, and Carrie looked up with huge, scared
  eyes.
  "In a few weeks Christmas will be here. Are you going to leave me to spend
  another lonely holiday by myself? You've been here for almost three weeks,
  and I've explained to everyone who asked that you were the children of a
  relative of mine who died recently. I'm not going into this blindly. Henny
  and I have given this a great deal of thought. She feels, just as I feel,
  that the three of you are good for us. We both want you to stay on. Having
  young people in the house makes it more like a home. I feel healthier than
  I have in years, and happier too. Since the death of my wife and son, I've
  missed having a family. In all this time I've never gotten used to being a
  bachelor again." His persuasive tone grew wistful. "I feel fate wants me to
  have custody of you. I feel God planned for Hermy to be on the bus, just so
  she could bring you to me. When fate steps in and makes the decisions, who
  am I to deny it? I accept the fact you three are godsent to help me make up
  for the mistakes I've made in the past."
  Wow! Godsent! I was more than half-won. I knew people could always find the
  motivation to justify what

               31
 they wanted; well enough I knew that. Even so, tears filled my eyes as I
 looked at Chris questioningly. He met my look and shook his head in
 bewilderment, confused as to what I wanted. Ms hand gripped mine like iron
 while he spoke, still looking at me, not at Dr. Paul. "We're sorry for the
 loss of your wife and son, sir. But we can't replace them, and I don't know
 if we'd be doing right to burden you with the expense of three kids not your
 own." Then he added, looking the doctor squarely in the eyes. "And you
 should think about this too. You'll have one hell of a time finding another
 wife when you assume guardianship of us."
  "I don't intend to marry again," he replied in a strange way. Then he went
  on with an abstract air, "Julia was the name of my wife, and my son was
  named Scotty. He was only three when he died."
  110h," I breathed, "how terrible to lose a son so young, and your wife too.
  " Ms obvious grief and remorse reached out and touched me; I was very in
  tune with those who grieved. "Did they die in an accident, a car accident
  like our father?"
 "An accident," he said sharply, "but not in a car."
  "Our father was only thirty-six when he was killed, and we were having a
  surprise birthday party, with a cake, presents ... and he never came, only
  two state policemen. . . ."
  "Yes, Cathy," he said softly, "you've told me. The adolescent years aren't
  easy for anyone, and to be young and on your own, without the proper
  education, with little money, no family, no friend&--2'
  "We've got each other!" said Chris staunchly, so as to test him more. "So,
  we will never truly be alone."
  Paul went on. "If you don't want me, and what I have to give you isn't
  enough, then go on to Florida with my blessings. Throw away all those long
  hours you studied, Chris, just when you're almost there. And you, Cathy,
  can forget your dream of being a prima ballerina. And don't you think for
  one moment that's going to be a healthy, happy life for Carrie. I'm not
  persuading you to stay, for you'll do what you want to and have to. So make
  up your minds-is it to be me and

               32
 the chance to fulfill your aspirations, or is it to be the hard, unknown
 world?"
  I sat there on the balustrade as close as possible to Chris, with my hand
  held in his. I wanted to stay. I wanted what the doctor could give to
  Chris, to say nothing of Carrie and myself.
  The southern breezes kept blowing, caressing my cheek and whispering too
  convincingly that everything would work out right. I could hear Henny in
  the kitchen making fresh dough for the hot rolls we'd eat in the morning,
  made golden by dripping butter. Butter was one of the things denied us
  before, and the luxury Chris had missed most.
  Everything here beguiled me, the air, the soft, warm glow in the doctor's
  eyes. Even the banging of Henny's pots and pans began to work magic, and my
  heart, so heavily burdened for so long, began to feel lighter. Maybe
  perfection did exist outside of fairy tales. Maybe we were good enough to
  walk upright and proud beneath God's blue sky; maybe we were not contami-
  nated shoots grown from the wrong seed planted in the wrong soil.
  And more than anything the doctor had said, or anything his sparkling eyes
  implied, I think it was the roses that still bloomed, though it was winter,
  that made me feel dizzy from the overwhelming sweetness of their perfume.
  But it wasn't Chris and I who decided. It was Carrie. Suddenly she jumped
  up from the top step and went flying into the doctor's outstretched arms.
  She flung herself against him and wrapped her thin arms about his neck. "I
  don't want to go! I love you, Dr. Paul!" she cried out, almost frantic. "I
  don't want no Florida and no circus! I don't want to go anywhere!" Then she
  was crying, letting out all her grief for Cory, withheld for so long. He
  picked her up and held her on his lap, and put kisses on her wet cheeks
  before he used his handkerchief to mop up the tears.
  441 love you too, Carrie. I always wanted a little girl with blond curls
  and big blue eyes, just like yours." But he wasn't looking at Carrie. He
  was looking at me.

               33
  "And I wanna be here for Christmas," sobbed Carrie. "I've never seen Santa
  Claus, not once." Of course she had, years ago, when our parents took the
  twins to a department store and Daddy snapped a picture of the two of them
  on Santa's lap, but maybe she'd forgotten.
  How could a stranger come so easily into our lives and give us love, when
  our own blood kin had sought to give us death?

 LiteS Second Chance

 Carrie decided. We stayed. Even if she hadn't decided, still we would have
 stayed. How could we not?
  We tried to give Dr. Paul what money we had left. He refused. "You keep
  that money for yourselves. You worked hard to get it, didn't you? And you
  might as well know I've seen my attorney so he can fill out the petitions
  that will bring your mother to Clairmont. I know you believe she won't
  come, but you can never tell. If I'm so lucky as to win permanent custody,
  I'll give each of you a weekly allowance. No one can feel free and happy
  without some money in his pocket. Most of my colleagues give their teenage
  children five dollars a week. Three dollars should be enough for a girl
  Carrie's age." He planned to buy all our clothes and everything else we
  needed for school. We could only stare at him, amazed he'd be so
  generous--again.
  A few days before Christmas he drove us to a shopping mail that was
  carpeted in red; the ceiling was a glass dome; throngs of people swarmed
  about as pop Christmas music played. It was like fairyland! I glowed; so
  did Carrie and Chris--and our doctor. His huge hand held Carrie's small one
  as Chris and I held on to

               34
 each other. I saw him watching us, enjoying our wide-eyed stares. We were
 charmed by everything. Awed, impressed, very wanting, fearful too he would
 see and try to satisfy all our yearnings.
  I turned in circles when we reached the department that sold clothes for
  teenage girls. Dazzled and bewildered by so much, I looked at that, and
  looked at this, and couldn't decide what I wanted when everything was so
  pretty and I'd never had the chance to shop for myself before. Chris
  laughed at my indecision. "Go on," he urged, "now that you have the chance
  to fit yourself perfectly, try on what you like." I knew what he was
  thinking, for it had been my mean way to complain that Momma never brought
  me anything that fitted right.
  With great care I selected parsimoniously the outfits I thought suitable
  for school that would begin for us in January. And I needed a coat, real
  shoes, and a raincoat and hat and umbrella. Everything that kindhearted,
  generous man allowed me to buy made me feel guilty, as if we were taking
  advantage of him.
  To reward me for my slowness and my reluctance to buy too much, Paul said
  impatiently, "For heaven's sake, Cathy, don't think we're going shopping
  like this every week. I want you to buy enough today to last you through
  the winter. Chris, while we finish up here, you dash on to the young men's
  section and begin picking out what you want. While you do that, Cathy and
  I can outfit Carrie with the clothes she needs."
  I noticed that all the adolescent girls in the store were turning to stare
  at my brother as he made his way to the young men's department.
  At last we were going to be normal kids. Then, when I felt tentatively
  secure, Carrie let out a howl to shatter crystal palaces in London! Her
  cries jolted the salespeople, startled the customers, and a lady bumped her
  baby-stroller into a dummy who went crashing down. The baby in the stroller
  added his screams to Carrie's!
  Chris came on the run to see who was murdering his small sister. She stood,
  feet wide apart, head thrown back, with tears of frustration streaming her
  cheeks.

               35
 "Good God, what's wrong now?" asked Chris as our doctor looked
 dumbfounded.
  Men-what did they know? Obviously Carrie was outraged by the pretty
  little pastel dresses brought out for her approval. Baby clothes-that's
  what. Even so, all were too large, and none were red or purpleabsolutely
  not Carrie's style at all! "Try the toddler department," suggested the
  heartless, haughty blonde with the beehive hair. She smiled graciously
  at our doctor who appeared embarrassed.
  Carrie was eight! To even mention "toddler clothes" was insulting! She
  screwed her face into a puckered prune. "I can't wear toddler clothes to
  school!" she wailed. She pressed her face against my thigh and hugged my
  legs. "Cathy, don't make me wear pink and blue baby dresses! Everybody
  will laugh! I know they will! I want purple, red-no baby colors!"
  Dr. Paul soothed her. "Darling, I adore blond girls with blue eyes in
  pastels, so why not wait until you're older to wear all those brilliant
  colors?"
  Bittersweet milksop like this was something someone as stubborn as Carrie
  couldn't swallow. She glared her eyes, balled her fists, prepared her
  foot for kicking and readied her vocal cords for screaming when a middle-
  aged, plump woman who must have had someone like Carrie for a
  granddaughter suggested calmly that she could have her clothes custom
  made. Carrie hesitated uncertainly, looking from me to the doctor, then
  to Chris and back to the saleslady.
  "A perfect solution!" said Dr. Paul enthusiastically, looking relieved.
  "I'll buy a sewing machine and Cathy can make you purple, red, and
  electric-blue clothes, and you'll be a knock-out."
  "Don't warma be no knock-out-just want bright colors." Carrie pouted
  while I was left with my mouth agape. I was a dancer, not a seamstress!
  (Something that didn't escape Carrie's knowledge.) "Cathy don't know how
  to make good clothes," she said. "Cathy don't do nothing but dance."
  That was loyalty. Me, who'd taught her and Cory to read, with a little
  help from Chris. "What's the matter

               36
 with you, Carrie?" snapped Chris. "You're acting like a baby. Cathy can do
 anything she sets her mind toremember that!" The doctor readily agreed. I
 said nothing as we shopped for an electric sewing machine.
  "But in the meantime, let's buy a few pink, yellow and blue dresses, all
  right, Carrie?" Dr. Paul grinned mockingly. "And Cathy can save me tons of
  money by sewing her own clothes too."
  Despite the sewing I'd have to learn, heaven was ours that day. We went
  home loaded, all of us made beautiful in barber shops and beauty salons;
  each of us had on new shoes with hard soles. I had my very first pair of
  high-heeled pumps-and a dozen pairs of nylons! My first nylons, my first
  bra--and to top it all off, a shopping bag full of cosmetics. I'd taken
  forever to select makeup while the doctor stood back and watched me with
  the queerest expression. Chris had grumbled, saying I didn't need rouge or
  lipstick, or eyeshadow, liner and mascara. "You don't know anything at all
  about being a girl," I answered with an air of superiority. This was my
  first shopping binge, and by heaven I was making the most of it! I had to
  have everything I'd seen on Momma's fabulous dressing table. Even her kind
  of wrinkle cream, plus a mud pack for firming.
  No sooner were we out of the car and unloaded than Chris, Carrie and I
  dashed upstairs to try on all our new clothes. Funny how once new clothes
  had come to us so easily and hadn't made us happy like this. Not when no
  one would see us wear them. Yet, being what I was, when I slipped on the
  blue velvet dress with tiny buttons down the front, I thought of Momma. How
  ironic that I should want to cry for a mother we'd lost, who I was
  determined to hate forever. I sat on the edge of my twin bed and pondered
  this. Momma had given us new clothes, toys and games out of guilt for what
  she was doing, depriving us of a normal childhood. A childhood we'd never
  have the chance to recover. Lost years, some of the best years, and Cory
  was in a grave, no new suits for him.
 Ffis guitar was in the corner where Carrie could wake

               37
 up and see it and the banjo. Why was it us who always had to suffer, why not
 her? Then, suddenly it hit me! Bart Winslow was from South Carolina! I ran
 down to our doctor's study and purloined his big atlas, then back I raced to
 the bedroom, and there I found the map of South Carolina. I found Clairmont
 ... but didn't believe my eyes when I saw it was a twin city to Greenglenna!
 No, that was too much of a coincidence--or was it? I looked up and stared
 into space. God had meant for us to come here and live near Momma-if she
 ever visited her husband's home town. God wanted me to have the chance to
 inflict a little pain of my own. As soon as I could, I was going to
 Greenglenna and look up all the information I could about him and his
 family. I had five dollars a week-to order a subscription of the community
 paper that told of all the social activities of the wealthy people who lived
 near Foxworth Hall.
  Yes, I was gone from Foxworth Hall, but I was going to know every move she
  made, and when she came this way I'd know that too! Sooner or later, Momma
  was going to hear from me, and know I would never, never forget or forgive.
  Somehow, in some way, she was going to hurt ten times more than we had!
  With this decided, I could join Chris and Carrie in the living room to
  model all our new clothes for our doctor and Henny. Henny's smile beamed
  like a dazzling sun. I watched the bejeweled eyes of our benefactor, only
  to see them shadow over as he frowned reflectively. I saw no admiration or
  approval. Suddenly, he got up and left the room, offering a weak excuse of
  needing to do some paperwork.
  Soon Henny became my mentor in all things domestic. She taught me to bake
  biscuits from scratch, and tried to teach me how to make rolls light and
  fluffy.
  Wham! went Henny's hand into the dough. Henny wiped her hands clean of
  flour and dashed off a note. Henny got bad eyes for seeing small things
  like needle eyes. You have good eyes you sew on doctor son's missing shirt
  buttons--yes?

               38
  "Sure," I agreed without enthusiasm, "I can sew holes, and I can also knit,
  crochet, needlepoint and do crewel work. My mother taught me how to do all
  those things as a way to keep busy." Suddenly I couldn't speak. I wanted to
  cry. I saw my mother's lovely face. I saw Daddy. I saw Chris and me as
  children hurrying home from school, rushing in with snow on our shoulders
  to find Momma knitting baby things for the twins. I couldn't help but bow
  my head into Henny's lap and begin to cry, really bawl. Henny couldn't
  speak, but her soft hand on my shoulder showed she understood. When I
  glanced upward, she was crying too. Big, fat tears that slid down to wet
  her bright red dress. "Don't cry, Henny. I'll be happy to sew on Dr. Paul's
  missing buttons. He's saved our lives, and there's nothing I wouldn't do
  for him." She gave me a strange look, then got up to fetch years of mending
  and perhaps a dozen shirts with missing buttons.
  Chris spent every available moment with Dr. Paul who was coaching him so he
  could enter a special college-prep school in midterm. Carrie was our
  biggest problem. She could read and write but she was so very small. How
  would she manage in a public school where children were not always kind?
  "It's a private school I have in mind for Carrie," explained our doctor. "A
  very good school for young girls, run by an excellent staff. Since I'm on
  the board of trustees, I think Carrie will be given special attention, and
  not subjected to any kind of stress." He eyed me meaningfully.
  That was my worst fear, that Carrie would be ridiculed and made to feel
  ashamed because of her overlarge head and undersized body. Once Carrie had
  been so beautifully proportioned, so very perfect. It was all those lost
  years when the sun was denied us that made her so small. It was, I knew it
  was!

  I was scared to death Momma would show up on that day she was supposed to
  appear at the court hearing. But I was certain, almost, that she wouldn't
  come. How

               39
 could she? She had too much to lose and nothing to gain. What were we but
 burdens to bear? And there was jail too, a murder charge....
  We sat very quietly with Paul, dressed in our best to appear in the
  judge's chamber, and waited, and waited, and waited. I was a tight wire
  inside, stretched so taut I thought I might break and cry. She didn't
  want us. Again she told us by not showing up, how little she cared! The
  judge looked at us with too much pity, making me feel so sorry for all
  of us-and so angry with her! Oh, damn her to hell! She gave us birth, she
  claimed to have loved our father! How could she do this to his
  children-her own children? What kind of mother was she? I didn't want
  that judge's pity, or Paul's. I held my head high and bit down on my
  tongue to keep from screaming. I dared to glance at Chris and saw him
  sitting blank-eyed, though I knew his heart was being shredded, as mine
  was. Carrie crouched in a tight ball on the doctor's lap, as his hands
  soothed her, and he whispered something in her ear. I think he said,
  "Never mind, it's all right. You have me for a father and Henny for a
  mother. You'll never want for anything as long as I live."

  I cried that night. I wet my pillow with tears shed for a mother I'd
  loved so much it hurt to think back to the days when Daddy was alive and
  our home life was perfect. I cried for all the good things she had done
  for us back then, and, most of all, for all the love she'd so generously
  given us-then. I cried more for Cory who was like my own child. And
  that's when I stopped crying and turned to bitter, hard thoughts of
  revenge. When you set out to defeat someone, the best way was to think
  as they did. What would hurt her most? She wouldn't want to think of us.
  She'd try to forget we ever existed. Well, she wouldn't forget. I'd see
  to it that she didn't. This very Christmas I would send her a card, and
  sign it with this, "From the four Dresden dolls you didn't want," and I
  had to change that to "The three alive Dresden dolls you didn't want,
  plus the dead one you carried away and never brought back." I could see

               40
 her staring at that card, thinking to herself, I only did what I had to.
  We had let down our shields and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable again.
  We allowed faith, hope and trust to come and dance like sugarplums in our
  heads.
 Fairy tales could come true.
  They were happening to us. The wicked queen was out of our lives, and Snow
  White would reign one day. She wouldn't be the one to eat the poisoned red
  apple. But every fairy tale had a dragon to slay, a witch to overcome or
  some obstacle to make things difficult. I tried to look ahead and figure
  out who would be the dragon, and what would be the obstacles. All along I
  knew who was the witch. And that was the saddest part of being me.
  I got up and went out on the upper veranda to stare up at the moon. I saw
  Chris standing near the railing, gazing up at the moon too. From the slump
  of his shoulders, usually held so proud, I knew he was bleeding inside,
  just as I was. I tiptoed over to surprise him. But he turned as I neared
  and held out his arms. Without thought I went straight into them and put my
  arms up around his neck. He wore the warm robe Momma had given him last
  Christmas, though it was much too small. He'd have another from me when he
  looked under the tree Christmas morning, with his monogram-CFS-for he
  wanted never to be called Foxworth, but Sheffield.
  His blue eyes gazed down into mine. Eyes so much alike. I loved him as I
  loved the better side of myself, the brighter, happier side.
  "Cathy," he whispered, stroking my back, his eyes bright, "if you feel like
  crying, go ahead, I'll understand. Cry enough for me too. I was hoping,
  praying that Momma would come and somehow give us a reasonable explanation
  for doing what she did."
  "A reasonable excuse for murder?" I asked bitterly. "How could she dream up
  one clever enough? She's not that smart." f le looked so miserable I
  tightened my arms about his neck. One hand stole into his hair and twined
  there. My other hand lowered to stroke his

               41
 cheek. Love, it was such an encompassing word, different from sex and ten
 times more compelling. I felt full of love for him when he lowered his
 face into my hair and sobbed. He murmured my name over and over again, as
 if I were the only person in the world who would ever be real and solid,
 and dependable.
  Somehow his lips found mine and we were kissing, kissing with so much
  passion he was aroused and tried to draw me into his room. "I just want
  to hold you, that's all. Nothing else. When I go away to school, I need
  to have something more to hold to--give me just a little more, Cathy,
  please." Before I could answer he had me in his arms again, kissing me
  with such burning lips I became terrified--and excited too.
  "Stop! Don't!" I cried, but he went on, touching my breasts and pushing
  my gown aside so he could kiss them. "Chris!" I hissed, angry then.
  "Don't love me, Chris. When you're gone, what you feel for me will fade
  away like it never happened. We'll force ourselves to love others so we
  can feel clean. We can't be our parents in duplicate. We can't make the
  same mistake. "
  He held me tighter and didn't say a word, yet I knew what he was
  thinking. There wouldn't be any others. He wouldn't let it come about.
  One woman had hurt him too deeply, betrayed him too monstrously when he
  was young and very, very vulnerable. There was only me he could trust.
  He stepped back, two tears shining in the corners of his eyes. It was up
  to me to slice the bond, now, here. And for his own good. Everybody
  always did everything for someone's good,

  I couldn't go to sleep. I kept hearing him calling me, wanting me. I got
  up and drifted down the hall and again got in his bed, where he lay
  waiting. "You'll never be free of me, Cathy, never. As long as you live,
  it will be me and you."
 "No!"
 "Yes!"
 "No!" But I kissed him, then jumped from his bed

               42
 and raced back to my room, slamming and locking the door behind me. What
 was the matter with me? I should never have gone to his room and gotten
 into his bed. Was I as evil as the grandmother said? No, I wasn't. I
 couldn't be!

 43
 1:3A
 I fART
 TWO
 Visions of Sugarplums

 It was Christmas. The tree touched the twelve-foot ceiling, and spread
 under it were gifts enough for ten children! Not that Chris and I were
 children anymore. Carrie was thrilled by everything Santa had brought for
 her. Chris and I had used the last of our stolen hoard of money to buy
 Paul a luscious red lounging robe, and a brilliant gown of ruby red velvet
 for Henny--size fifty-eight! Dazzled and pleased, she held it before her.
 Then she wrote a thank-you note, Make good church dress. Make all friends
 jealous.
  Paul tried on his lavish new lounging robe. He looked divine in that
  color and it fitted him beautifully.
  Next came the biggest surprise of all. Paul strode over to me and
  hunkered down on his heels. From his wallet he pulled five large yellow
  tickets. If he had sat down for a year and thought about nothing but a
  way to please me most, he couldn't have been more successful. There,
  fanned in his large, finely shaped hand, were tickets to The Nutcracker,
  performed by the Rosencoff School of Ballet.
  "It's a very professional company, I hear," explained Paul. "I don't know
  much about ballet myself, but I've asked around, and they say it is one
  of the best. They also teach beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons.
  Which level are you?"
  "Advanced!" proclaimed Chris while I could only stare at Paul, too happy
  to speak. "Cathy was a beginner when she went upstairs to live. But
  something

               47
 wonderful happened to her in the attic-the ghost of Anna Pavlova came and
 took over her body. And Cathy taught herself how to go on pointe. "
  That night all of us, including Henny, sat enthralled in the third row,
  center section. Those dancers on stage weren't just good-they were
  superb! Especially the handsome man named Julian Marquet who danced the
  lead. As in a dream I followed Paul backstage during intermission, for
  I was going to meet the dancers!
  He led us toward a couple standing in the wings. "Madame, Georges," he
  said to a tiny woman sleek as a seal and a not much larger man by her
  side, "this is my ward, Catherine Doll, who I was telling you about. This
  is her brother Christopher, and this younger beauty is Carrie, and you
  have met Henrietta Beech before. . . . "
  "Yah, of course," said the lady who looked like a dancer, talked like a
  dancer, and wore her black hair just like a dancer would, drawn back from
  her face and pinned up in a huge chi non. Over black leotards she wore
  a floating chiffon Tiress of black, and over that a bolero of leopard
  skins. Her husband, Georges, was a quiet man, sinewy, pale-faced, with
  startlingly black hair, and lips so red they seemed made of congealed
  blood. They were a pair, all right, for her lips were scarlet slashed
  too, and her eyes were charcoaled smudges in pale pastry dough. Two pairs
  of black eyes scanned me and then Chris. "You too are a dancer?" they
  asked of my brother. My, did they always speak simutaneously?
  "No! I don't dance," said Chris, appearing embarrassed.
  "Ali, the pity of that," sighed the madame regretfully. "What a glorious
  pair the two of you woutd make on stage. People would flock to stare at
  beauty such as you and your sister possess." She glanced down at small
  Carrie, clinging fearfully to my hand, and casually disregarded her.
 "Chris plans to be a doctor," explained Dr. Paul.
  "Ha!" Madame Rosencoff scoffed, as if Chris must have taken leave of his
  senses. Both she and her

               48
 husband turned their ebony eyes on me, concentrating with such intensity I
 began to feel hot, sweaty, selfconscious.
  "You have studied the daunce?" (Always she said "daunce," as if it had a
  "u.")
 "Yes," I said in a small voice.
 "Your age when you started?"
 "I was four years old."
 "And you are now ... T'
 "In April I will be sixteen."
  "Good. Very, very good." She rubbed the palms of her long, bony hands
  together. "Eleven years and more of professional training. At what age did
  you go on pointe?"
 "Twelve.
  "Wonderful!" she cried. "I never put girls on full pointe until they are
  thirteen, unless they are excellent. Then she frowned suspiciously. "Are
  you excellent, or only mediocre?"
 "I don't know."
 "You mean no one has ever told you?"
 "No."
  "Then you must be only mediocre." She halfsneered, turned toward her
  husband and waved her hand arrogantly to dismiss us.
  "Now you wait a minute!" flared Chris, looking red and very angry. "There's
  not a dancer on that stage tonight who is as good as Cathy! Not one! That
  girl out there, playing the lead role of Clara--sometimes she is out of
  time with the music--Cathy is never out of time. Her timing is perfect; her
  ear is perfect. Even when Cathy dances to the same melody, each time she
  varies it just a little, so she never duplicates, always improvises to make
  it better, and more beautiful, and more touching. You'd be lucky to get a
  dancer like Cathy in your company!"
  nose slanted, jet eyes turned to him, savoring the intensity of his report.
  "You are an authority on the subject of ballet?" she asked with some scom.
  "You know h:)w to separate the gifted dancers from the hordeT

               49
  Chris stood as if in a dream, and spoke as if his feet were firmly rooted
  there, and even his voice had a huskiness to betray his feelings. "I only
  know what I see, and what emotions Cathy makes me feel when she dances. I
  know when the music turns on, and she begins to move with it, my heart
  stands still, and when her dance is over, I know I am left aching because
  such beauty has gone. She doesn't just dance a role, she i's that
  character; she makes you believe-because she believes-and there's not a
  girl in your company who reaches out and grabs my heart and squeezes it
  until it throbs. So go on and turn her away, and let some other dance
  company benefit from your stupidity."
  The Madame's jet eyes fixed on Chris long and penetratingly, as did our
  doctor's eyes. Then slowly Madame Rosencoff turned to me, and from head to
  toe I was assessed, weighed, measured. "T)morrow, one o'clock sharp. At my
  studio you will audition for me." It was not a request, but a command-not
  to be disobeyed-and for some reason when I should have been happy, I was
  angry.
  "Tomorrow is too soon," I said. "I have no costumes, no leotards, no
  pointes. " All of those things had been left behind in the attic of
  Foxworth Hall.
  "Trifles," she dismissed, with an arrogant wave of her shapely hand. "We
  will supply what you need-just be there-and don't be late, for we demand
  that our dancers be disciplined in all things, including punctuality!" With
  a queenly gesture we were dismissed, and gracefully she drifted off with
  her husband in tow, leaving me stunned. Mouth agape, speechless, I caught
  the strong study of the dancer, Julian Marquet, who must have overheard
  every word. His dark eyes shone with a glow of interest and admiration.
  "Feel flattered, Catherine," he said to me. "Customarily she and Georges
  won't take anyone unless they've waited months, or sometimes years, for an
  audition."

  I cried that night in Chris's embrace. "I'm out of practice," I sobbed. "I
  know I'm going to make a fool of myself tomorrow. It isn't fair that she
  won't let me have more time to prepare! I need to limber up. I'm
               50
 going to be stiff, clumsy, and they won't want me, know they won't!"
  "Aw, come off it, Cathy," he said, tightening his arms about me. "I've
  seen you in here holding to the bedpost, and doing your plids and tendus.
  You are not out of practice, or stiff, or clumsy-you're just scared.
  You've got a great big case of stage fright, that's all. And you don't
  need to worry, you're terrific. I know it, you know it."
  He brushed a tight good-night kiss on my lips, dropped his arms and
  backed toward the door. "Tonight I'll go down on my knees and pray for
  you. I'll ask God to let you wow them tomorrow. And I'll be there to
  gloat when I see their stunned expressions--for no one is gonna believe
  the dancing wonder of you."
  With that he was gone. And I was left aching and wanting. I crawled under
  my covers to lie wide awake and full of trepidations.
  Tomorrow was my big day, my chance to prove what I was and if I had that
  special something you had to have if you were to reach the top. I had to
  be the best, nothing else would do. I had to show Momma, the grandmother,
  Paul, Chris, everybody! I wasn't evil, or corrupt, or the Devil's issue.
  I was only me-the best ballerina in the world!
  I tossed, turned, fretted in and out of nightmares while Carrie slept on
  peacefully. In my dreams I did everything wrong at the audition, and,
  what was worse, I did everything wrong throughout my whole lifetime! I
  ended up a withered old lady begging on the streets of some huge city.
  In the dark I passed by my mother and begged for alms. She was still
  young and beautiful, richly gowned, bejeweled and furred, and escorted
  by forever-young and faithful Bart Winslow.
  I awoke. It was still night. What a long night. I stole down the stairs
  to find the Christmas tree lights burning, and on the floor, Chris was
  lying and staring up into the tree branches. It was what the two of us
  used to do when we were children. Tbough I should have known better, I
  was irresistibly drawn toward him, and I lay down beside him. I gazed up
  into the sparkling other-worldliness of the Christmas tree.
               51
  "I thought you'd forgotten," Chris murmured without looking my way.
  "Remember when we were in Foxworth Hall, the tree was so small and it was
  on a table and we couldn't lie under it like this-and look what happened.
  Let's never forget again. Even if our future trees are only one foot
  high, we will hang it up high, so we can lie underneath."
  It worried me the way he said that. Slowly I turned my head to stare at
  his profile. He was so beautiful, lying there with his fair hair changing
  colors. Each strand seemed to catch a different rainbowed hue, and when
  he turned his head to meet my eyes his eyes were glowing too. "You look
  ... so divine," I said in a tight voice. "I see candy in your eyes and
  the crown jewels of England too."
  "No-4hat's what I am seeing in your eyes, Cathy. You're so very beautiful
  in that white nightgown. I love you in white nightgowns with blue satin
  ribbons. I love the way your hair spreads like a fan, and you turn your
  cheek so it rests on a satin pillow." He moved closer, so his head was
  on my hair too. Even closer he inclined his head until our foreheads met.
  His warm breath was on my face. I moved so my head tilted backward and
  my neck arched. I didn't feel quite real when his warm lips kissed the
  hollow of my throat and stayed there. My breath caught. For long, long
  moments I waited for him to move away. I wanted to pull back myself, but
  somehow I couldn't. A sweet peace stole over me, quivering my flesh with
  a tingling sensation. "Don't kiss me again," I whispered, clinging harder
  to him and pressing his head to my throat.
  "I love you," he choked. "There will never be anyone for me but you. When
  I'm an old, old man, I'll look back to this night with you under the
  Christmas tree, and remember how sweet it was of you to let me hold you
  like this."
  "Chris, do you have to go away and be a doctor? Couldn't you stay on here
  and decide on something else?"
  He lifted his head to stare down into my eyes. "Cathy---do you have to
  ask? All my life it's been the only thing I've wanted, but you . .

               52
  Amin I sobbed. I didn't want him to gol I tickled his face with a tress of
  my hair, until he cried out and kissed my lips. Such a soft kiss, wanting
  to grow bolder, and afraid I'd turn away if he did. He began to say wild
  and crazy things when our kiss was over, about how much I looked like an
  angel. "Cathy-4ook at me! Don't turn your head and pretend you don't know
  what I'm doing, what I'm saying! Look and see the torment you've put me in!
  How can I find anyone else, when you've been bred into my bones-and are
  part of my flesh? Your blood runs fast when mine doesl Your eyes bum when
  mine do-4on't deny it!" His trembling hands began to ftimble with the tiny,
  lace-covered buttons that opened my nightgown to the waist. I closed my
  eyes and was again in the attic, when he'd accidentally stabbed me in the
  side with the scissors, so now I was hurting, bleeding, and I needed his
  lips to kiss and take away the pain.
  "How beautiful your breasts are," he said with a low sigh, leaning to
  nuzzle them. "I remember when you were flat, and then when you began to
  grow. You were so shy about them, always wanting to wear loose sweaters so
  I couldn't see. Why were you ashamed?"
  Somewhere above I hovered, watching him tenderly kiss my breasts, and
  somewhere deep inside me I shivered. Why was I letting him do this? My arms
  drew his body tighter against me, and when my lips again met his, maybe it
  was my fingers that had unbuttoned his pajama jacket so his bare chest was
  against mine. We melded in a hot blend of unsatisfied desire-before I
  suddenly cried out, "No-4t would be sinful!"
 "Then let us sin!"
  "Then don't ever leave me! Forget about being a doctor! Stay with me! Don't
  go and leave me! I'm afraid of myself without you! Sometimes I do crazy
  things. Chris, please don't leave me alone. I've never been alone, please
  stay!"
  "I have to be a doctor," he said, then groaned. "Ask me to give up anything
  else, and I'd say yes. But don't ask me to give up the only thing that's
  held me together. You wouldn't give up dancing--would you?"
 I didn't know, as I responded to his demanding
 kisses, the fire between us growing larger, overwhelming us both and
 taking us to the brinks of hell. "I love you so much sometimes I don't
 know how to handle it," he cried. "If only I could have you just once, and
 there would be no pain for you, only joy."
  The unexpected parting of his hot lips, his tongue that forced my lips
  open, shot through me with a jolt of electricity! "I love you, oh, how
  I love you! I dream of you, think of you all day." And on and on he went,
  while his breath came faster, until he was panting and I was overcome by
  my body ready and willing to be satisfied. While my thoughts wanted to
  deny him, I wanted him! I gasped with the shame of it!
  "Not here," he said between kisses. "Upstairs in my room."
  "No! I'm your sister-and your room is too near Paul's. He'd hear us."
  "Then we'll use your room. Carrie can sleep through a war."
  Before I knew what was happening he had me in his arms and was racing up
  the back stairs and into my room where he fell with me on my bed. He had
  my gown off and his pajamas too when he fell down beside me and started
  again to complete what he had begun. I didn't want this. I didn't want
  it ever to happen again! "Stop!" I cried, then rolled away from under
  him. I fell to the floor. In a flash he was on the floor with me,
  wrestling. Over and over we turned, two naked bodies that suddenly
  collided with something hard.
  That was what stopped him. He stared at the box with Oreo cookies, a loaf
  of bread, apples, oranges, a pound of cheddar cheese, a stick of butter,
  several cans of tuna fish, beans and tomato juice. Out spilled a can
  opener, dishes, glasses and silverware. "Cathy! Why are you stealing
  Paul's food and hiding it under your bed?"
  I shook my head, fuzzy about why I had taken the food and hidden it away.
  Then I sat up and reached for the gown he'd tugged off, and modestly I
  held it before me. "Get out! Leave me alone! I don't love you except as
  a brother, Christopher!"
 He came to put his arms about me, and bowed his

               54
 head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. Oh, darling, I know why you took the food.
 You feel you have to keep food handy-you're afraid someday we will be
 punished again. Don't you know I'm the only one who will understand? Let me
 love you just one more time, Cathy, just one more time to last us our whole
 lives. Let me just once give you the pleasure I didn't before, just once to
 last us both all our lives through."
  I slapped his face! "No!" I spat. "Never again! You promised, and I thought
  you would keep that promise! If you have to be a doctor, and go away and
  leave me-then it will always be no!" I stopped short. I didn't mean that.
  "Chris ... don't look at me like that, please!"
  Slowly he drew on his pajamas. He flashed me a hurt look. "There is no life
  for me if I'm not a doctor, Cathy."
  I put both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. What was wrong with
  me? I couldn't demand him to abandon his dream. I wasn't like my mother,
  making everyone else suffer so she could have her way. I sobbed in his
  arms. In my brother I had already found my everlasting, forever-green,
  springtime love that could never, never blossom. Later, as I lay alone on
  my bed with my eyes open, I realized from the hopeless, flat way I felt
  that even in a valley without mountains the wind could still blow.

 The Audition

 It was the day after Christmas. At one o'clock I had to be in Greenglenna,
 the home of Bart Winslow and Rosencoff School of Ballet.
  We all crowded into Dr. Paul's car and we arrived with five minutes to
  spare.

               55
  Madame Rosencoff told me to call her Madame Marisha, if I was accepted.
  If I failed, I need never address her again, by any name. She wore only
  black leotards, which showed up every hill and valley of her superb body,
  kept trim and slim though she must be nearing fifty. Her nipples poked
  through the black knit material hard as metal points. Her husband,
  Georges, was also wearing black to show off his sinewy body which was
  just beginning to show age with the small protrusion of his belly. Twenty
  girls and three boys were to audition.
  "What music do you choose?" she asked. (It seemed her husband was never
  going to speak, though he kept his bright bird eyes on me constantly.)
  "Sleeping Beauty," I said meekly, believing the role of Princess Aurora
  the greatest of all testing pieces in the classical repertory--so why
  choose a less demanding part? "I can dance The Rose Adagio all alone,"
  I boasted.
  "Wonderful," she said sarcastically. Then added with additional scorn,
  "I guessed, just by your looks, you would want The Sleeping Beauty. "
 That made me wish I'd chosen something lesser.
 "What color leotards do you want?"
 "Pink.,,
 "I thought so."
  She tossed me a pair of faded pink leotards and then, just as casually,
  picked at random from a triple row of many dozens of pointe shoes. She
  threw me a pair that fitted perfectly, unbelievable as it sounds. When
  I'd undressed and donned my leotards and slippers, I sat before a long
  dressing table with a mirror to equal its length and began to bind up my
  hair. I didn't have to be told Madame would want to see my neck cords,
  and any Opaulernent I'd perform was sure to displease her. I knew that
  already.
  Hardly had I finished dressing and doing my hair, with a gaggle of
  giggling girls surrounding me, when Madame Marisha put her head through
  a partially opened door to see if I was ready. Critically her jet black
  eyes scanned me. "Not bad. Follow me," she

               56
 ordered, and off she strode, her strong legs heavily muscled. I-low had she
 let that come about? I was never going to be on pointe so much my legs would
 look lumpy like hers--never!
  She led me out into a big arena with a polished floor that really wasn't as
  slick as it appeared. Seats for onlookers were lined against the walls, and
  I saw Chris, Carrie, Henny and Dr. Paul. Now I wished I hadn't asked them
  to come. If I failed, they'd witness my humiliation. Eight or ten other
  people were there too, though I didn't pay much attention to them. The
  girls and boys of the company gathered in the wings to watch. I was more
  afraid than I'd thought I'd be. Sure, I'd practiced some since I escaped
  Foxworth Hall, but not with the same dedication as in the attic. I should
  have stayed up all night and exercised, and arrived at dawn to warm up
  more-then maybe I wouldn't feel nervous enough to be sick.
  It was my desire to be last, to watch all the others and see the mistakes
  they made and learn from them, or to see their accomplishments and benefit
  from those. In this way .1 could size up what I should do.
  Georges himself sat down to play the piano. I swallowed over the lump in my
  throat; my mouth felt dry, and butterflies panicked in my chest as my eyes
  raked over the spectators to find the lodestone I needed in the blue of
  Chris's eyes. And as always, he was there to smile, and telegraph his pride
  and confidence and undying admiration. My dear, beloved Christopher Doll,
  always there when I needed him, always giving to me and making me better
  than I would have been without him. God, I prayed, let me be good. Let me
  live up to his expectations!
  I couldn't look at Paul. He wanted to be my father, not my touchstone. If
  I failed and embarrassed him, certainly he'd see me differently. I'd lose
  what charm I had for him. I'd be nobody special.
  A touch on my arm made me jump. Whirling about I confronted Julian Marquet.
  "Break a leg," he whispered, then smiled to show his very white and perfect
  teeth. His dark eyes sparkled wickedly. He was taller

               57
 than most male dancers, almost six feet, and soon I'd learn he was nineteen.
 His skin was as fair as mine, though in contrast to his dark hair it made
 him look too pale. His strong chin sported a devil's cleft and another
 dimple in his right check teased in and out at his will. I thanked him for
 his wish of good luck, very much taken by his astonishing good looks. "Wow!"
 he said when I smiled, his voice husky. "You're sure a beautiful girl. Too
 bad you're only a kid."
 "I'm not a kid!"
 "What are you then, some old lady of eighteen?"
  I smiled, very pleased to think I looked that old. "Maybe so, maybe not."
  He grinned as if he had all the answers. From the way he bragged of being
  one of the hottest dancers in a New York company, maybe he did have all the
  answers. "I'm only here for the holidays-to do Madame a favor. Soon I'll go
  back to New York where I belong." He looked around, as if the "provinces"
  bored him beyond belief, while my heart did a flip-flop. I was hoping he
  was one of the dancers I'd work with.
  We exchanged a few more words and then my musical cue sounded. Suddenly I
  was alone in the attic, with colored paper flowers dangling on long
  strings; nobody but me and that secret lover who danced always just ahead,
  never letting me get near enough to see his face. I danced out, fearful at
  first, and did all the right things, the entrachets, the arm flutters, the
  pirouettes. I was sure to keep my eyes open and my face always toward the
  viewers I didn't see. Then the magic came and took me. I didn't have to
  plan and count, the music told me what to do, and how to do it, for I was
  its voice and could do no wrong. And as always that man appeared to dance
  with me-only this time I saw his face! His beautiful pale, pale face, with
  the dark and flashing eyes, and the blue-black hair and the ruby lips.
  Julian!
  I saw him as in a dream, stretching out his strong arms as he went down on
  one knee, and the other leg pointed backward gracefully. With his eyes he
  signaled I was to run, then leap into his receiving arms.

               58
 Enchanted to see him there, a professional, I was halfway to him when a
 terrible pain seized my abdomen! I doubled over and cried out! At my feet
 was a huge pool of blood! Blood streamed down my legs; it stained my pink
 shoes, my leotards. I slipped and fell to the floor, and grew so weak I
 could only lie there and hear the screams. Not my screams, but Carrie's. I
 closed my eyes not caring who it was who came to pick me up. From a far
 distance I heard Paul's voice and Chris's. Chris's concerned face hovered
 above me, with his love for me too clearly revealed; it both comforted me
 and frightened me, for I didn't want Paul to see. Chris said something about
 not being afraid as blackness came and took me to a far, far place where
 nobody wanted me.
  And my dancing career, not yet begun, was over, over.
  Out of a dream of witches I emerged to find Chris sitting on the hospital
  bed, holding my limp hand ... and those blue eyes, oh, God, those eyes ...
  41W5 he said softly, squeezing my fingers. "I've been waiting for you to
  come around."
 "Hi yourself."
  He smiled and leaned to kiss my cheek. "I'll tell you this, Catherine Doll,
  you sure know how to end a dance dramatically."
  "Yeah, that's talent. Real talent. I guess I'd better go into acting."
  He shrugged indifferently. "You could, I guess, though I doubt you will."
  "Oh, Chris," I stormed weakly, "you know I've ruined what chance I had! Why
  did I bleed like that?" I knew my eyes were full of fear. Fear that he saw
  and knew the cause. He leaned to draw me up into his embrace and held me
  fast against his chest.
  "Life offers more than one chance, Cathy, you know that. You needed a D &
  C. You'll be fine and on your feet by tomorrow."
 "What's a D & CT'
  He smiled and stroked my cheek tenderly, always forgetting I wasn't as
  medically sophisticated as he was.

               59
 "It's short for a procedure in which a woman is dilated, and an instrument
 called a curette is used to scrape waste material from the lining of the
 uterus. Those missed periods of yours must have clotted and then broke
 free."
  Our eyes met. "That's all it was, Cathy ... all, nothing else."
  "Who did the scraping?" I whispered, scared it was Paul,
  "A gynecologist narned Dr. Jarvis, a friend of our doctor. Paul says he's
  the best gyn. around."
  I lay back on the pillows, not knowing what to think. Of all times for
  something like that to happen-in front of everyone I was trying to
  impress. My God, why was life so cruel to me?
  "Open your eyes, my lady Catherine," said Chris. "You're making too much
  out of this, when it doesn't matter. '&ke a look at that dresser over
  there and see all the pretty flowers, real flowers, not paper ones. I
  hope you don't mind if I took a peek at the cards." Of course I didn't
  mind what he did, and soon he was back from the dresser and putting a
  small white envelope in my flaccid hand. I stared at the huge floral
  bouquet, thinking it was from Paul, and only then did my eyes flick to
  the card in my hand. My fingers shook as I extracted from the envelope
  the small note that read:

 Hope you recoversoon. I expect to see you next
 Monday, three o'clock sharp.
                    Madame Marisha.

  Marisha! I was accepted! "Chris, the Rosencoffs want me!"
  "Of course they do," he said mildly. "They'd be just plain dumb if they
  didn't, but that woman scares the hell out of me! I wouldn't want her
  controlling my life, even if she is little. But, I guess you can handle
  her fine; you can always bleed on her feet."
  I sat tip and threw my arms about him. "Is it going to work out for us,
  Chris? Do you really think it will? Can we be that lucky?

               60
  He nodded, smiled and then pointed to another bouquet, one from Julian
  Marquet with another short note. r1l be seeing you when Ifly down from
  New York again, Catherine Doll, so don't forget me.
  And over Chris's shoulder, while his arms held me tight, Paul came into
  the room and hesitated near the doorway, frowning as he stared at the two
  of us, then he put on a smile and came forward. Quickly Chris and I drew
  apart.

 Suchlool DaYS Renewed

 There caine a day in January when we had to part. We'd taken exams to
 grade our abilities, and, much to Chris's surprise, and mine, we'd all
 done extremely well. I qualified for the tenth grade, Carrie for the
 third, and Chris for a college-prep school. But there was no happiness on
 Carrie's face when she screamed out, "No! No!" Her foot was ready for
 kicking, her fists balled to do battle with anyone who tried to force her.
 "Don't want no private ole school for funny lookin' IF girls! I won't go!
 You can't make me go! I'm gonna tell Dr. Paul, Cathy!" Her face was red
 with fury and her weeping voice was a siren's wail.
  I wasn't overjoyed by the idea of putting Carrie in a private school ten
  miles outside the city. The day after she left, Chris would be leaving
  too. I'd be left alone to attend high school-and we'd sworn a solemn vow
  never, never to part. (I'd forced myself to put back the hidden cache of
  food-and no one knew about that but Chris.) I lifted Carrie onto my lap
  to explain to her how Dr. Paul had selected this very special school and
  had already paid an enormous tuition. She squinched her eyes shut and
  tried not to hear. "And it is not a school

               61
 for funny little girls, Carrie," I said soothingly and then kissed her
 forehead. "It's a school for rich girls with parents who can afford the
 best. You should feel proud and very lucky to have Dr. Paul as our legal
 guardian." Did I convince her? Had I ever convinced her of anything?
  "I still don't wanna go," she wailed stubbornly. "Why can't I go to your
  school, Cathy? Why do I have to go off all alone with nobody?"
  "Nobody?" I laughed to hide what I was feeling, a reflection of her own
  fears. "You won't be alone, darling. You'll be with hundreds of other
  girls near your own age. Your school is an elementary one; I have to go
  on to high school." I rocked her to and fro in my arms, and stroked her
  long, shining cascade of hair, then tilted her piquant dollface to mine.
  Oh, she was a pretty little thing. Such a beauty she'd be if only her
  body would grow in proportion to her large head. "Carrie you have four
  people who love you very much. Dr. Paul, Henny, Chris and me. We all want
  what's best for you, and even though a few miles separate us, you'll be
  in our hearts, in our thoughts, and you can come home every weekend. And,
  believe it or not, school is not such a dreary place, it's fun, really.
  You'll share a lovely room with a girl your own age. You'll have expert
  teachers and, best of all, you'll be with girls who will think you're the
  prettiest thing they've ever seen. And you must want to be with other
  children. I know that being with a great many girls is loads of fun. You
  play games, and have secret societies and parties, and whisper and giggle
  all through the night. You'll love it." Yeah. Sure. She'd love it.
  Carrie acquiesced only after she'd shed a waterfall of tears, her
  pleading eyes telling me she was going only to please me and her big
  benefactor whom she loved well. She'd sleep on nails to please him. And
  to her that school for girls was a bed of nails to endure. Just in time
  to hear, "Am I gonna stay there a long, long time?" Paul and Chris
  entered the living room. The two of them had been sequestered in Paul's
  study for hours,

               62
 with Paul coaching Chris on some of the chemistry he'd neglected studying
 while locked away. Paul gave Carrie just one glance, saw her misery, then
 headed for the hall closet. Shortly, he was back with a big box wrapped in
 purple paper and tied with red satin ribbon three inches wide. "This is for
 my favorite blond," he said kindly.
  Carrie's big, haunted eyes stared up at him before she smiled thinly. "Oh!"
  she cried in delight to open her gift and see the bright red leather
  luggage, complete with a cosmetic case outfitted with a gold comb, brush,
  miffor and little plastic jars and bottles, and a leather stationery case
  for writing letters home to us. "It's bea-u-ti-ful!" she exclaimed, won
  over at once by everything red and so fine. "I never knew they made red
  suitcases and put gold mirrors and things in them."
  I had to look at Paul, who certainly didn't think a little girl needed
  makeup.
  As if he read my thoughts, he said, "I know it's rather adult, but I wanted
  to give her something she can use for many, many years. When she sees it
  years from now, she'll think of me."
  "That's the prettiest luggage I ever saw," I said cheerily. "You can put
  your toothbrushes, your toothpaste, your bath powder and your toilet water
  in your makeup case."
  "I'm not gonna put no nasty toilet water in my suitcases! "
  That made all of us laugh. Then I was up and running toward the stairs,
  hurrying to my room to fetch a small box that I rushed back to Carrie.
  Gingerly I held that box in my hands, wondering if I should give it to her
  and awaken old memories. "Inside this box are some old friends of yours,
  Carrie. When you're in Miss Emily Dean Calhoun's School for Properly Bred
  Young Ladies and feel a little lonely, just open this box and see what's
  inside. Don't show the contents to everybody, just to very special
  friends."
  Her eyes grew large when she saw the tiny porcelain people and the baby
  she'd loved so much, all stolen by

               63
 me from that huge, fabulous doll house that she'd spent so many hours
 playing with in the attic. I'd even taken the crib.
  "Mr. and Mrs. Parkins," breathed Carrie, tears of happiness shining in
  her big, blue eyes, "and little baby Clara! Where did they come from,
  Cathy?"
 "You know where they came from."
  She looked at me, holding the box full of cotton to cushion the fragile
  dolls and handmade wooden crib, all priceless heirlooms. "Cathy, where
  is Momma?"
  Oh, God! Just what I didn't want her to ask. "Carrie, you know we are
  supposed to tell everybody both our parents are (lead."
 "Is Momma dead?"
 "No ... but we have to pretend she is."
 "Why?91
  Once again I had to explain to Carrie why we could never tell anyone who
  we really were, and that our mother still lived, or else we'd end up back
  in that dreary northern room. She sat on the floor near her shiny new red
  luggage, with the box of dolls in her lap, and stared at me with haunted
  eyes and no comprehension at all.
  "I mean this, Carrie! You are never to mention any family but Chris and
  me, and Dr. Paul and Henny. Do you understand?"
  She nodded, but she didn't understand. It was in her lips that quivered
  and in her wishful expression--she still wanted Momma!
  Then came the terrible day when we drove Carrie ten miles outside the
  city limits of Clairmont to enter her in that fancy private school for
  the daughters of the affluent. The building was large, painted white,
  with a portico in front and the customary white columns. A brass plaque
  near the front door read, ESTABLISHED IN 1824.
  We were received in a warm and cozy-looking office by a descendant of the
  school founder, Miss Emily Dean Dewhurst. A stately, handsome woman with
  startling, white hair and not a wrinkle to betray her age. "She's a
  lovely child, Dr. Sheffield. Of course we'll

               64
 do what we can to make her happy and comfortable while she learns."
  I leaned to embrace Carrie who trembled and I whispered, "Cheer up, make
  an effort to enjoy yourself. Don't feel abandoned. Every weekend we'll
  come to take you home with us. Now is that so bad?"
  She brightened and forced a smile. "Yes, I can do it," she murmured
  weakly.
  It wasn't easy to drive away and leave Carrie in that beautiftfl, white,
  plantation house.
  The very next day was Chris's time to depart for the boy's prep-school,
  and oh, how I hurt to see him pack up his things. I watched but couldn't
  speak. Chris and I couldn't even bear to look at one another.
  His school was even farther away. Paul drove thirty miles before we
  reached the campus with buildings of rose-colored bricks and, again, the
  obligatory white columns. Sensing we needed to be alone, Paul made some
  flimsy excuse of wanting to inspect the gardens. Chris and I weren't
  really alone, but in an alcove with big bay windows. Young men were
  constantly passing by to glance in and stare at us. I wanted to be in his
  arms, with my cheek against his. I wanted this to be a farewell to love,
  so complete we'd know it was forever gone, at least forever gone from
  being wrong. "Chris,
 I stammered, near tears, "whatever am I going to do without you?"
  His blue eyes kept changing colors, jumbling his kaleidoscope emotions.
  "Cathy, nothing will change," he whispered hoarsely, clinging to my
  hands. "When next we see each other, we'll still feel the same. I love
  you. I always will-right or wrong, I can't help it. I'll study so
  diligently I won't have time to think about you, and miss you, and wonder
  what's going on in your life."
  "And vou'll end up the youngest graduate from med school in the history
  of mankind," I chided, though my voice was as hoarse as his. "Save a
  little love for me, and store it away in the deepest part of your heart,
  the same as I'm going to store my love for you. We can't make the same
  mistake our parents did."
 He sighed heavily and hung his head, studying the

               65
 floor at his feet, or maybe he was studying my feet in the high heels that
 made my legs look so much prettier. "You'll take care of yourself."
  "Of course. You take care of yourself. Don't study too much. Have some fun,
  and write me at least once a day; I don't think we should run up phone
  bills."
  "Cathy, you're awfully pretty. Maybe too pretty. I took at you and see our
  mother all over again, the way you move your hands, and the way you tilt
  your head to the side. Don't enchant our doctor too much. I mean, after
  all, be's a man. He has no wife--and you'll be living in the same house
  with him." He looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Don't rush into anything
  trying to escape what you feel for me. I mean it, Cathy."
  "I promise to behave myself." It was such a weak promise when he'd awakened
  that primitive urge in me that should have been held back until I was old
  enough to handle it. Now all I wanted was to be fulfilled and loved by
  someone I could feel good about.
  "Paul," Chris said tentatively, "he's a great guy. I love him. Carrie loves
  him. What do you feel for him?"
  "Love, the same as you and Carrie. Gratitude. That's not wrong."
 "He hasn't done anything out of the way?"
 "No. He's honorable, decent."
  "I see him looking at you, Cathy. You're so young, so beautiful, and so ...
  needing." He paused and flushed, looking away guiltily before he went on.
  "I feel ugly asking you, when he's done so much to help us, but still,
  sometimes I think he took us in only because, well, only because of you.
  Because he wants you!"
  "Chris, he's twenty-five years older than me. How can you think like that?"
  Chris looked relieved. "You're right," he said. "You are his ward, and much
  too young. There must be plenty of beauties in those hospitals who'd be
  happy to be with him. I guess you're safe enough."
  Smiling now, he pulled me gently into his embrace and lowered his lips to
  mine. Just a soft, tender kiss of good-bye-for-a-while. "I'm sorry about
  Christmas night," he said when our kiss was over.

               66
  My heart was an aching ruin as I backed off to leave him. How was I going
  to live without him nearby? Another thing she'd done to us. Made us care
  too much, when we should never have cared in the way we did. Her fault,
  always her fault! Everything gone wrong in our lives could be laid at her
  door!
  "Don't overwork yourself, Chris, or soon you will be needing to wear
  glasses." He grinned, promised, made a reluctant gesture of farewell.
  Neither of us could manage to speak the word "good-bye." I spun about to
  run out, with tears in my eyes as I raced down the long halls, and then out
  into the bright sunshine. In Paul's white car I crouched down low and
  really sobbed, like Carrie when she bawled.
  Suddenly Paul showed up from nowhere and silently took his place behind the
  wheel. He switched on the ignition, backed the car out and turned to head
  for the highway again. He didn't mention my reddened eyes or the sodden
  handkerchief I clutched in my hand to dab at the tears that kept coming. He
  didn't ask why I sat so silently when usually I teased, and gibed, and
  rattled on nonsensically just to keep from hearing silence. Quiet, silence.
  Hear the feathers fall, listen to the house squeal. That was the attic
  gloom.
  Paul's strong, well-cared-for hands guided the car with an easy, casual
  skill, while he sat back relaxed. I studied his hands, for, next to a man's
  eyes, I noticed his hands. Then I moved my glance to his legs. Strong,
  well-shaped thighs which his tight, blue knit trousers showed up well,
  perhaps too well, for all of a sudden I wasn't sad, or gloomy, but felt an
  onrush of sensuality.
  Giant trees lined the wide, black road, trees gnarled and dark, thick and
  ancient. "Bull Bay magnolias," said Paul. "It's a pity they aren't in bloom
  now, but it won't be too long. Our winters are short. One thing you must
  remember: never breathe on a magnolia blossom, or touch one; if you do it
  will wither and die." He threw me a teasing look so I couldn't tell whether
  or not he was speaking the truth.
  "I used to dread turning onto my street, before you came with your brother
  and sister. I was always so

               67
 alone. Now I drive home happily. It's good to feel happy again. Thank you,
 Cathy, for running south instead of north or west."
  As soon as we got home Paul headed for his office and I headed upstairs
  to try to work off my loneliness by exercising at the barre. Paul didn't
  come home for dinner, and that made it even worse. He didn't show up
  after dinner either, so I went to bed early. All alone. I was all alone.
  Carrie was gone. My steadfast Christopher Doll, gone too. For the first
  time we were to sleep under separate roofs. I missed Carrie. I felt
  awful, afraid. I needed someone. The silence of the house and the deep
  dark of the night were screaming all about me. Alone, alone, you are
  alone, and nobody cares, nobody cares. I thought about food. I'd worried
  that I hadn't kept a big supply at hand - Then I remembered I needed some
  warm milk. Warm milk was supposed to help you fall asleep---and sleep was
  what I needed.

 Enchantress ... Me?

 Soft firelight glowed in the living room. The gray logs had guttered into
 ashes in the hearth, and Paul, wrapped in his warm red robe, sat in a
 wing-backed chair and slowly drew on a pipe.
  I gazed at his smoke-haloed head and saw someone warm, needing, wistful
  and yearning, as I yearned, and I wished. And being the fool I often was,
  I drifted toward him on bare feet that didn't make a sound. How nice he'd
  wear our gift so soon. I wore a gift from him-a soft, turquoise peignoir
  of airy fabric that floated over a gown of the same color.
  He started to see me there, so near his chair, in the middle of the
  night, though he didn't speak to break the

               68
 spell that was somehow binding us together in a mutual need.
  There was a lot I didn't know about myself, nor did I understand what
  impulse lifted my hand to caress his cheek. His skin felt raspy, as if he
  needed a shave. He put his head back against the chair and tilted his face
  to mine.
 "Why are you touching me, Catherine?"
  His question was asked in a tight, cold voice, and I could have felt
  rebuked and hurt, but his eyes were soft, limpid pools of desire, and I had
  seen desire before, only not in the kind of eyes he had. "Don't you like to
  be touched?"
  "Not by a seductive young girl wearing flimsy clothes who is twenty-five
  years my junior."
  "Twenty-four and seven months your junior," I corrected, "and my maternal
  grandmother married a man of fifty-five, when she was only sixteen."
 "She was a fool and so was he."
  "My mother said she made him a good wife," I added lamely.
  "Why aren't you tip in your bed asleep?" he snapped.
  "I can't steep. I guess I'm too excited about school tomorrow."
  "Then you'd better go to bed so you'll be at your best."
  I started to go, really I did, for the thought of warm milk was still in my
  head, but I had other thoughts, too, more seductive. "Dr. Paul . . ."
  "I hate it when you call me that!" he interrupted. "Use my first name or
  don't speak to me at all."
 "I feel I should show you the respect you deserve."
  "A fig for respect! I'm not any different than other men. A doctor isn't
  infallible, Catherine."
 "Why are you calling me Catherine?"
  "Why shouldn't I call you Catherine? It's your name, and it sounds more
  grown up than Cathy."
  "A moment or so ago, when I touched your cheek, you flared your eyes at me,
  as if you didn't want me to be grown up."

               69
  "You're a witch. In a second you change from a naive girl into a
  seductive, provocative woman-a woman who seems to know exactly what she's
  doing when she lays her hand on my face."
  My eyes fled before the onslaught of his. I felt hot, uneasy, and wished
  now I'd gone directly to the kitchen. I stared at the fine books on the
  shelves and the miniature objets d'art he seemed to crave. Everywhere I
  looked was something to remind me that what he needed most was beauty.
  "Catherine, I'm going to ask you something now that is none of my
  business, but I must ask. Just what is there between you and your
  brother?"
  My knees began to click together nervously. Oh, dear God, Did it show on
  our faces? Why did he have to ask? It wasn't any of his business. He had
  no right to ask such a question. Common sense and good judgment should
  have glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth and kept me from saying what
  I did in a shamed, lame way. "Would you be shocked to hear that when we
  were locked up in one room, always together, four of us, and each day was
  an eternity, that sometimes Chris and I didn't always think of ourselves
  as brother and sister? He attached a barre in the attic for me, so I
  could keep my muscles supple, so I could keep on believing someday I'd
  be a ballerina. And while I danced on that soft, rotten wood, he'd study
  in the attic schoolroom, poring for hours over old encyclopedias. He'd
  hear my dance music and come and stand in the shadows to watch. . . ."
  "Go on," he urged when I paused. I stood with my head bowed, thinking
  backward, forgetting him. Then he suddenly leaned forward, seized hold
  of me and vanked me down onto his lap. "'Fell me the rest."
  I didn't want to tell him, yet his eyes were hot, demanding, making him
  seem a different person.
  Swallowing first, I continued with reluctance, "Music has always done
  something special for me, even when I was small. It takes me over and
  lifts me up and makes me dance. And when I'm up there's no way to come
  down except by feeling love for someone. If you come

               70
 down and feel your feet on the floor, and there's no one there to love,
 then you feel empty and lost. And I don't like to feel lost or empty."
  "And so you danced in the attic, and dwelled in your fanciful
  imagination, and came back to the floor and found the only one there to
  love was your brother?" he said with icy heat, burning his eyes into
  mine. "Right? You had another kind of love you reserved for your little
  twins, didn't you? You were mother to them. I know that. I see that every
  time you look at Carrie and speak Cory's name. But what kind of love do
  you have for Christopher? Is it motherly? Sisterly? Or is it-" He paused,
  flushed, and shook me. "What did you do with your brother when you were
  locked up there, when you were alone?"
  Seized by panic, I shook my head, and pushed his hands from my shoulders.
  "Chris and I were decent! We did the best we could!"
  "'The best you could'?" he fired, looking hard and belligerent, as if the
  kindly, gentle man I knew had been only a disguise. "What the hell does
  that tell me?"
  " All you need to know!" I flared back and flashed my eyes with temper
  as hot and red as his. "You accuse me of seducing you. That's what you're
  doing; you sit and you watch every move I make! You undress me with your
  eyes. You take me to bed with you with your eyes. You talk about ballet
  classes, and sending my brother to college and medical school, and all
  the while you imply that sooner or later you are going to demand your
  payment, and I know what kind of payment you want!" I took my hands and
  ripped open the peignoir so the skimpy bodice of the aqua nightgown was
  revealed. "Look at the kind of gift you gave me. Is this the kind of
  nightgown a girl of fifteen wears? No! It's the kind of gown a bride
  wears on her wedding night! And you gave it to me, and you saw Chris
  frown, and you didn't even have the decency to blush!
  Ms laughter mocked me. I smelled the strong red wine he liked to drink
  before retiring. His breath was hot on my face, his face very close to
  mine so I could see each strong dark hair that poked from his skin. It

               71
 was the wine that made him act as he did, I thought. Only the wine. Any
 woman on his lap would serveany woman! Teasingly he touched the peaks of
 both my nipples, skipping from one to the other, and then he dared to slip
 his hand beneath my bodice so he could fondle the young breasts that were
 fired with heat from his unexpected caresses. Then my nipples rose up hard
 and I was breathing just as heavily and fast as he was, "Would you undress
 for me, Catherine?" he whispered in a mocking way. "Would you sit naked
 on my lap and let me have my way with you? Or would you pick up that
 Venetian glass ashtray and crash it down on my head?"
  He stared at me then, suddenly shocked to find his hand where it was,
  cupping my left breast, and he yanked his hand away as if my flesh burned
  him. He pulled the fabric of my frail peignoir together and hid what his
  hungry eyes had devoured before. He stared at my lips that were slightly
  parted and waiting to be kissed, and I think he planned to kiss me just
  before he gained control and shoved me away. At that moment thunder
  crashed overhead, and a lightning bolt sizzled jaggedly to crackle with
  fire as it struck a telephone wire outside. I jumped! Cried out!
  As suddenly as he had withdrawn his hand, he snapped out of his fog and
  into what he was custornarily-a detached, lonely man who was determined
  to keep himself aloof. How wise I was in my innocence to know this even
  before he snapped, "What the hell are you doing sitting on my lap half
  naked? Why did you let me do what I did?"
  I didn't say anything. He was ashamed; I could see that now in the glow
  of the dying fire, and in the intermittent flashes of lightning. He was
  thinking all sorts of self-condemning thoughts, chastising, berating,
  whipping himself-I knew it was my fault; as always it was my fault.
  "I'm sorry, Catherine. I don't know what possessed me to do what I did."
 "I forgive you."

               72
 "Why do you forgive me?"
 "Because I love you."
  Again he jerked his head into profile, and I couldn't see his eyes well
  enough to read them. "You don't love me," he said calmly, "you're only
  grateful for what I've done. "
  "I love you-and I'm yours, when, or if, you want me. And you can say you
  don't love me, but you'll be lying, for I see it in your eyes each time
  you look at me." I pressed closer against him and turned his face to
  mine. "When I was put away by Momma, I swore that when I was free, if
  love came and demanded of me I'd open my door and let it in. The first
  day I came I found love in your eyes. You don't have to marry me, just
  love me, when you need me."
  Ile held me and we watched the storm. Winter fought with spring and
  finally conquered. Now it only hailed, and the thunder and lightning were
  gone, and I felt so . . . so right. We were much alike, he and 1. "Why
  aren't you afraid of me?" he softly asked, as his big, gentle hands
  stroked my back, my hair. "You know you shouldn't be here, letting me
  hold you, touch
 YOU."
  "Paul . I began tentatively, "I'm not bad; neither is Chns. When we were
  locked away, we did do the best we could, honest. But we were locked in
  one room and growing up. The grandmother had a list of rules that forbade
  u- to e,z-Tn look at each other and now I think I know why. Cur eyes used
  to meet so often and without a ,A!ord spoken he could comfort me, and he
  said my eye i did that for him too. That wasn't bad, was it?"
  "I shouldn't have asked, and of course you had to look at each other.
  That's why we have eyes."
  "Living like we did for so long, I don't know a lot about other girls my
  age, but ever since I was only table high, any kind of beauty has made
  me light up. Just to see the sun falling on the petals of a rose, or the
  way light shines through tree leaves and shows the veins, and the way
  rain on the road turns the oil iridescent, all

               73
 that makes me feel beautiful. More than anything, when music is playing,
 especially my kind, ballet music, I don't need the sun or flowers or fresh
 air. I light up inside and wherever I am magically turns into marble
 palaces, or I am wild and free in the woods. I used to do that in the attic,
 and always just ahead a dark-haired man danced with me. We never touched,
 though we tried to. I never saw his face, though I wanted to. I said his
 name once, but when I woke up I couldn't remember what it was. So, I guess
 I'm really in love with him, whoever he is. Every time I see a man with dark
 hair who moves gracefully I suspect he's the one."
  He chuckled and twined his long fingers into my unbound hair. "My, what a
  romantic you are."
  "You're making fun of me. You think I'm only a child. You think if you
  kissed me it wouldn't be exciting. "
  He grinned, accepted the challenge and slowly, slowly his head inclined
  until his lips met mine. Oh! So this was what it was like, a kiss from a
  stranger. Electric tingles sizzled madly up and down my arms, and all those
  nerves that a "child" my age wasn't supposed to have burned with fire! I
  drew away sharply, afraid. I was wicked, unholy, still the Devil's spawn!
 And Chris would be shocked!
  "What the hell are we doing?" he barked, coming out of the spell I'd cast.
  "What kind of little devil are you to let me handle you intimately and kiss
  you? You are very beautiful, Catherine, but you are only a child." Some
  realization darkened his eyes as he guessed at my motives. "Now get this
  straight in your pretty head-you don't owe me, not anything! What I do for
  you, for your brother and sister, I do willingly, gladly, without expecting
  any repayment--of any kind-do you understand?"
  "But ... but . . . "I sputtered. "I've always hated it when the rain beats
  hard and the wind blows at night. This is the first time I've felt warm and
  protected, here, with you, before the fire."
 "Safe?" he teased lightly. "You think you're safe

               74
 with me, as you sit on my lap, and kiss me like that? What do you think
 I'm made of?"
 "The same as other men, only better."
  "Catherine," Paul said, his voice softer and kinder now, "I've made so
  many mistakes in my life, and you three give me an opportunity to redeem
  myself. If I so much as lay a hand on you again, I want you to scream for
  help. If no one is here, then run to your room, or pick up something and
  bash me over the head."
  "Ooh," I whispered, "and I thought you loved me!" Tears trickled down my
  cheeks. I felt like a child again, chastised for presuming too much. How
  foolish to have believed love was already knocking on my door. I sulked
  as he lifted me away from him. Then he gently lifted me to my feet, but
  kept his hands on my waist as he looked up into my face.
  "My God, but you are beautiful and desirable," he said with a sigh.
  "Don't tempt me too much, Catherine-for your own good."
  "You don't have to love me." My head bowed to hide my face and my hair
  was something to hide behind as I shamelessly said, "Just use me when you
  need me, and that will be enough."
  He leaned back in the chair and took his hands from my waist. "Catherine,
  don't ever let me hear you offer such a thing again. You live in
  fairyland, not reality. Little girls get hurt when they play grown-up
  games. You save yourself for the man you marry-but for God's sake, wait
  to grow up first. Don't rush into having sex with the first man who
  desires you."
  I backed off, scared of him now, while he stood to come within arm's
  reach. "Beautiful child, the eyes of Clairmont are fixed upon you and me,
  wondering, speculating. I don't have a gilt-edged reputation. So, for the
  health of my medical practice and the good of my soul and conscience stay
  away from me. I'm only a man, not a saint."
  Again I backed off, scared. I flew up the stairs as if pursued. For he
  wasn't, after all, the kind of man I wanted. Not him, a doctor, perhaps
  a womanizer--the

               75
 last kind of man who could fulfill my dreams of faithful, devoted and
 forever-green-springtime-TOmantic lovel

  The school Paul sent me to was big and modem with an indoor swimming
  pool. My schoolmates thought I looked good and talked funny, like a
  Yankee. They laughed at the way I said "water, father, farther" or any
  word that had an "a" in it. I didn't like being laughed at. I didn't
  like. being different. I wanted to be like the others, and though I tried
  I found out I was different. How could it be otherwise? She had made me
  different. I knew Chris was feeling lonely in his school because he too
  was an alien in a world that had gone on without us. I was fearful for
  Carrie in her school, all alone, made different too. Damn Momma for doing
  so much to set us apart, so we couldn't blend into the crowd and talk as
  they (lid and believe as they did. I was an outsider, and in every way
  they could all my schoolmates made me feel it.
  Only one place made me feel I belonged. Straight from my high school
  classes I'd catch a bus and ride to ballet class, toting my bag with
  leotards, pointes and a small handbag tucked inside. In the dressing room
  the girls shared all their secrets. They told ridiculous jokes, sexy
  stories, some of them even lewd. Sex was in the air, all around us,
  breathing hotly and demandingly down our necks. Girlishly, foolishly,
  they discussed whether they should save their bodies for their husbands.
  Should they pet with clothes on or off--or go 11 all the way"--and how
  did they stop a guy after they had "innocently" turned him on?
  Because I felt so much wiser than the others I didn't contribute
  anything. If I dared to speak of my past, of those years when I was
  living "nowhere" and the love that had sprung up from barren soil, I
  could imagine how their eyes would pop! I couldn't blame them. No, I
  didn't blame anyone but the one who'd made it all happen! Momma!
  One day I ran home from the bus stop and dashed off a long, venomous
  letter to my mother-and then I didn't know where to send it. I put it
  aside until I found

               76
 out the address in Greenglenna. One thing for sure, I didn't want her to
 know where we lived. Though she had received the petition, it didn't have
 Paul's name on it, or our address, only the address of the judge. Sooner or
 later though, she'd hear from me and be sorry she did.
  Each day we began bundled up in heavy, woolen, knitted leg-warmers, and at
  the barre we exercised until our blood flowed fast and hot and we could
  discard the woolens as we began to sweat. Our hair, screwed up tight as old
  ladies' who scrubbed floors, soon became wet too, so we showered two or
  three times a daywhen we worked out eight or ten hours on Saturdays. The
  barre was not meant for holding onto tightly, but was meant only for
  balance, to help us develop control, grace. We did the plids, the tendus,
  and glisses, the fondus, the ronds de jambe a terre-and none of it was
  easy. Sometimes the pain of rotating the hips in the turnouts could make me
  scream. Then came the frappes on three-quarter pointe, the ronds de jambe
  en I'air, the petite and grande battlements, the developpes and all the
  warm-up exercises to make our muscles long, strong and supple. Then we left
  the barre and used the center arena to repeat all of that without the aid
  of the barre.
  And that was the easy part-from there on the work became increasingly
  difficult, demanding technical skills awesomely painful to do.
  Ib hear I was good, even excellent, lifted me sky-high ... so there had
  been some benefits gained from dancing in the attic, dancing even when I
  was dying, so I thought as I pli6d un, deux, and on and on as Georges
  pounded on the old upright piano. And then there was Julian.
  Something kept drawing him back to Clairmont. I thought his visits were
  only ego trips so we could sit in a circle on the floor and watch him
  perform in the center, showing off his superior virtuosity, his spinning
  turns that were blurrily fast. His incredible, leaping elevations defied
  gravity, and from these grand jet6s he'd land goose-down soft. He cornered
  me to tell me it was

               77
 ' 'his" kind of dancing that added so much excitement to the performance.
  "Really, Cathy, you haven't seen ballet until you see it done in New
  York." He yawned as if bored and turned his bold, jet eyes on Norma Belle
  in her skimpy see-through, white leotards. Quickly I asked why, if New
  York was the best place to be, he kept coming back to Clairmont so often.
  "To visit with my mother and father," he said with a certain
  indifference. "Madame is my mother, you know."
 "Oh, I didn't know that."
  "Of course not. I don't like to boast about it." He smiled then,
  devastatingly wicked. "Are you still a virgin?" I told him it was none
  of his business and that made him laugh again. "You're too good for this
  hick place, Cathy. You're different. I can't put my finger on it, but you
  make the other girls look clumsy, dull. What's your secret?"
 "What's yours?"
  He grinned and put his hand flat on my breast. "I'm great, that's all.
  The best there is. Soon all the world will know it," Angry, I slapped his
  hand away. I stomped down on his foot and backed away. "Stop it!"
  Suddenly, as quickly as he'd cornered me, he lost all interest and walked
  away to leave me staring.
  Most days I'd go straight home from class and spend the evening with
  Paul. He was so much fun to be with when he wasn't tired. He told me
  about his patients without naming them, and told tales of his childhood,
  and how he'd always wanted to be a doctor, just like Chris. Soon after
  dinner he'd have to leave to make his rounds at three local hospitals,
  including one in Greenglenna. I'd try and help Henny after dinner while
  I waited for Paul to come back. Sometimes we watched TV, and sometimes
  he took me to a movie. "Before you came, I never went to movies."
 "Never?" I asked.
  "Well, almost never," he said. "I did have a few dates before you came,
  but since you've been here my time just seems to disappear. I don't know
  what uses it all up."
               78
  "Talking to me," I told him, teasing with my finger that I trailed along
  his closely shaven cheek. "I think I know more about you than I know
  about anyone else in the world, except Chris and Carrie."
  "No," he said in a tight voice, "I don't tell you everything. "
 "Why not?"
 "You don't need to know all my dark secrets."
  "I've told you all my dark secrets, and you haven't turned away from me."
 "Go to bed, Catherine!"
  I jumped up and ran over to him and kissed his cheek, which was very red.
  Then I dashed for the stairs. When I was at the top, I turned to see him
  at the newel post, staring upward, as if the sight of my legs under the
  short, rose, baby-doll nightie fascinated him.
  "And don't run around the house in such things!" he called to me. "You
  should wear a robe."
  "Doctor, you brought this outfit to me. I didn't think you'd want me to
  cover myself. I thought you wanted to see me with it on."
 "You think too much."
  In the mornings I was up early, before six, so I could eat breakfast with
  him. He liked me to be there, though he didn't say so. Nevertheless, I
  could tell. I had him bewitched, charmed. I was learning more and more
  how to be like Momma.
  I think he tried to avoid me, but I didn't let him. He was the one to
  teach me what I needed to know.
  His room was down the hall from mine, but I never dared to go to him at
  night as I had to Chris. I longed for Chris and for Carrie. When I woke
  up, I ached not to see them in the room beside me; I ached more not to
  see them at the breakfast table, and if Paul hadn't been there, I think
  I might have started off each and every day with tears instead of forced
  smiles.
  "Smile for me, my Catherine," Paul said one morning when I sat staring
  down at my plate of grits and scrambled eggs and bacon. I looked up,
  caught by
               79
 something I heard in his voice, something wistful, as if he needed me.
  "Don't ever say my name like that again," I said hoarsely. "Chris used to
  call me his lady Cath-er-ine, and I don't like to hear anyone else call me
  his Catherine."
  He didn't. say anything more, just laid aside the newspaper, got up and
  went out to the garage. From there he'd drive to the hospitals, then back
  to his home offices, and I wouldn't see him again until dinner time. I
  didn't see enough of him, never enough of anyone I cared about.
  Only on the weekends, when Chris and Carrie were home, did he seem really
  at ease with me. And yet, when Chris and Carrie were back in their schools,
  something would come between us, some subtle spark that revealed that he
  was just as attracted to me as I was to him. I wondered if the real reason
  was the same as my own. Wits he trying to escape memories of his Julia by
  letting me into his heart? Just as I was trying to escape Chris?
  But my shame was worse than his, or so I thought then. I thought I waE the
  only one with a dark, ugly past. I never dreamed anyone as fine and noble
  as Paul could have ugliness in his life too.

  Only two weeks passed and Julian flew down from New York again. This time
  he made it very obvious he'd come just to see me. I felt flattered and a
  little awkward, for he'd already gained success, while I was still only
  hoping. He had an old ricky-tin car he said had cost him nothing 1-at his
  time, for all the pieces had come from the junkyard. "Next to dancing, I
  love to tinker with cars," he explained as he drove me home from dance
  class. "Someday, when I'm rich, I'm going to have luxury cars, three or
  four, or maybe seven, one for each day of the week."
  I laughed; it sounded so outrageous and ostentatious. "Does dancing pay
  that much?"
  "It will when I hit the big-time money," he answered confidentially. I had
  to turn my head and stare at his handsome profile. If you took his features
  apart one by

               80
 one, you could find fault with them, for his nose could have been better,
 and his skin needed more color, and perhaps his lips were too full and red,
 and too sensual. But when he was put all together, he was sensational
 looking. "Cathy," he began, throwing me a long look as his tinny car chugged
 and choked along, "you'd love New York. There's so much to do, so much to
 see and experience. That doctor you live with isn't your real father, you
 shouldn't stick around just to please him. Think about moving to New York as
 soon as possible." He put his arm about my shoulders to draw me closer to
 his side. "What a team we'd make, vou and I," he said softly, cajolingly,
 and painted for me bright pictures of what our life would be like in New
 York. Clearly he made me understand I'd be under his wing, and in his bed.
  "I don't know you," I answered, pulling away to sit as far from him as
  possible. "I don't know your past, and you don't know mine. We're nothing
  at all alike, and though you flatter me with your attention you also scare
  me."
 "Why? I won't rape you."
  I hated him for saying that. It wasn't rape I was afraid of. In fact I
  didn't know what made me afraid of him, unless I was more afraid of myself
  when I was with him, "Tell me who you are, Julian Marquet. Tell me about
  your childhood, your parents. Tell me why you think you are God's gift to
  the dance world and to every woman you meet."
  Casually he lit up a cigarette, which he wasn't supposed to do. "Let me
  take you out tonight and I'll give you all the answers you want."
  We'd reached the big house on Bellefair Drive. He parked in front, while I
  stared toward the windows softly lit in the rosy twilight glow. I could
  barely discern the dark shadow of Henny who peered out to see who was
  parking in front of her home. I thought of Paul, but more than anyone else
  I thought of Chris, my better half. Would Chris approve of Julian? I didn't
  think he would, and still I said yes, I'd date him that night. And what a
  night it turned out to be.

               81
 My First Date

 I was hesitant about bringing up the subject of Julian to Paul. It was
 Saturday night; Chris and Carrie were home, and, truthfully, I'd just as
 soon have gone to a movie with them and Paul. It was with great reluctance
 that I brought up the fact I had a date with Julian Marquet, "Tonight,
 Paul, you don't mind, do you?"
  He flashed me a tired look and a weak smile. "I think it's about time you
  started dating. He's not too much older, is he?"
  "No," I whispered, feeling a little disappointed that he didn't object.

  Julian showed up promptly at eight. He was slicked up in a new suit, with
  his shoes shined, his unruly hair tamed, his manners so perfect he didn't
  seem himself. He shook hands with Paul, leaned to kiss Carrie's cheek.
  Chris glared at him. The two had been bicycling when I'd told Paul about
  my first date, and even as Julian held my new spring coat I felt Chris's
  disapproval.
  He drove to a very elegant festaurant where colored lights churned and
  rock music played. With surprising confidence Julian read the wine list,
  then tasted what the waiter brought and nodded, saying it was fine. This
  was all so new to me I felt on edge, afraid of making a mistake. Julian
  handed me a menu. My hands trembled so much I turned it over to him and
  asked him to select. I couldn't read French, and it seemed he could from
  the speedy way he chose our meal. When the

               82
 salad and main course came it was just as good as he'd promised.
  I was wearing a new dress, cut low in front and much too old for a girl
  of my age. I wanted to appear sophisticated, even though I wasn't.
  "You're beautiful," he said, while I was thinking the same thing about
  him. My heart felt funny, as if I were betraying someone. "Much too
  beautiful to be stuck here in Mcktown for years on end while my mother
  exploits your talents. I'm not a male lead like I told you before, Cathy;
  I'm second string in the corps. I wanted to impress you, but I know if
  I had you with me, as my partner, both of us could make it big. There's
  a certain magic between us I've never had with another dancer. Of course
  you'd have to begin in the corps. But soon enough Madame Zolta would see
  your talent far surpasses your age and experience. She's an old crow, but
  no dummy. Cathy, I've danced my head off to get where I am-but I could
  make it easier for you. With me to back you up you'll make it quicker
  than I did. 'R)gether we'd make a sensational team. Your fairness
  complements my darkness; it's the perfect foil." And on and on he talked,
  half-convincing me I was great already, when a certain part of me knew
  deep down I wasn't that sensational, and not nearly good enough for New
  York. And there was Chris whom I couldn't see if I went to New York, and
  Carrie who needed me on the weekends. And Paul, he fit in my life some-
  where, I knew he fit somewhere. The problem waswhere?
  Julian wined and dined me, then danced me out onto the floor. Soon we
  were dancing to rock like no one else in the place could. Everyone drew
  back just to wat&, then applaud. I was giddy with the nearness of him and
  the amount of wine I'd consumed. On the way home Julian drove onto a
  secluded lane where lovers parked to make out. I'd never made out and
  wasn't ready for someone as overwhelming as Julian.
  "Cathy, Cathy, Cathy," he murmured, kissing my neck, behind my ears,
  while his hand sought to stroke my upper thigh.

               83
  "Stop!" I cried. "Don't! I don't know you well enough! You go too fast!"
  "You're acting so childish," he said with annoyance. "I fly all the way
  from New York just to be with you, and you can't even let me kiss you."
 "Julian!" I stormed, "take me home!"
  "A kid," he muttered angrily and turned on the ignition. "Just a damned
  beautiful kid who tantalizes but won't come through. Wise up, Cathy. I'm
  not going to hang around forever."
  He was in my world, my dancing, glamorous world, and suddenly I was afraid
  of losing him. "Why do you call yourself Marquet when your father's name is
  Rosencoff?" I asked, reaching to turn off the ignition.
  He smiled and leaned back, then turned to me. "Okay, if you want to talk.
  I think you and I are a lot alike, even if you won't admit it. Madame and
  Georges are my mother and father, but they have never seen me as a son,
  especially my father. My father sees me as an extension of himself. If I
  become a great dancer, it won't be to my credit; it will be just because I
  am his son and bear his name. So I put an end to that idea by changing my
  name. I made it up, just like any performer does when he wants to change
  his name.
  "You know how many baseball games I've played? None! They wouldn't let me.
  Football was out of the question. Besides, they kept me so busy practicing
  ballet positions, I was too tired for anything else. Georges never let me
  call him Father when I was little. After a while I wouldn't call him Father
  if he got down on his knees and begged. I tried my damndest to please him,
  and I never could. He'd always find some flaw, some minute mistake I'd made
  to keep any performance from being perfect. So, when I make it, I'm making
  it on my own steam, and nobody is going to know he is my father! Or that
  Marisha is my mother. So don't go shooting off your mouth to the rest of
  the class. They don't know. Isn't it funny? I throw a tantrum if he even
  dares to mention he has a son, and I refuse to dance. That kills him, so he
  let me go on to New York, thinking I wouldn't make it without his name. But
  I have made it, and without his help. I think

               84
 that kills him. Now tell me about you. Why are you living with that doctor
 and not your own parents?"
  "My parents are dead," I said, annoyed he'd ask. "Dr. Paul was a friend
  of my father, so he took us in. He felt sorry for us and didn't want us
  to go into an orphanage. "
  "Lucky you," he said with a certain sourness. Yd never be so lucky." Then
  he leaned over until his forehead was pressed against mine and our lips
  were only inches apart. I could feel his breath hot on my face. "Cathy,
  I don't want to say and do anything wrong with you. I want to make you
  the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am thirteenth in a long line
  of male dancers who have married ballerinas, most of them. How do you
  think that makes me feel? Not lucky, you can bet. I've been in New York
  since I was eighteen, and last February I turned twenty. That's two
  years, and still I'm not a star. With you I could be. I've got to prove
  to Georges I'm the best, and better than he ever was. I've never told
  anyone this before, but I hurt my back when I was a kid, trying to lift
  an engine that was too heavy. It bothers me all the time, but still I
  dance on. And it's not just because you're small and don't weigh much.
  I know other dancers who are smaller and lighter, but something about
  your proportions seems to balance just right when I lift. Or maybe it's
  what you do to your body that adjusts to my hands.... Whatever it is you
  do, you fit me to a tee. Cathy, come with me to New York, please."
 "You wouldn't take advantage of me if I did?"
 "I'd be your guardian angel."
 "New York is so big. . . ."
  "I know it like the palm of my hand. Soon you'll know it just as well "
  "There's my sister and my brother. I don't want to leave them yet."
  "Eventually you'll have to. The longer you stay the harder it will be to
  make the break. Grow up, Cathy, be your own person. You never are when
  you stay home and let others dominate you." He looked away, his scowl
  bitter. I felt sorry for him, and touched too.
 "Maybe. Let me think about it more."

               R.5
  Chris was on the upper veranda outside my bedroom when I went in to
  undress. When I saw him out there in his pajamas, his slouched shoulders
  drew me to him.
 "How'd it go?" he asked without looking at me.
  Nervously my hands fluttered around. "Okay, I guess. We had wine with
  dinner. Julian got a little drunk, I think. Maybe I did too."
  He turned to stare in my eyes. "I don't like him, Cathy! I wish he'd stay
  in New York and leave you alone! From what I hear from all the girls or
  boys in your dance company, Julian has claimed you so now no other dancer
  will ask you out. Cathy, he's from New York. Those guys up there move fast,
  and you're only fifteen!" He moved to cradle me in his arms.
  "Who are you dating?" I asked with a sob in my throat. "Don't tell me
  you're not seeing any girls."
  His cheek was against mine when he answered slowly, "There's no girl I've
  met who can compare to you. "
  "How are your studies going?" I asked, hoping to take his mind off me.
  "Great. When I'm not thinking of all I have to do in the first year of med
  school--gross anatomy, microanatomy and neuroanatomy-I get around to
  prepping for college."
 "What do you do in your spare time?"
  "What spare time? There's none left when I finish worrying about what's
  happening to you! I like school, Cathy. I'd really enjoy it if you weren't
  constantly on my mind. I wait for the weekends when I can see you and
  Carrie again."
  "Oh, Chris ... you've got to try to forget me and find someone else."
  But just one long look into his tortured eyes revealed that what had been
  started so long ago wasn't going to be easy to stop.
  I had to try to find someone else and then he'd know it was over, forever
  over. My thoughts took wing to Julian who was striving so to prove himself
  a better dancer than his father. How like me, who had to be better in all
  ways than my mother.

               86
  I was ready the next time Julian flew down. When he asked me for a date,
  this time I didn't hedge. It might as well be him; we did have the same
  goals, Then, after the movie and a soft drink in a club for me, and beer
  for him, he again drove to the lover's lane every city seemed to have.
  I allowed him this time to do a bit more than just kiss me, but too soon
  he was breathing hot and fast, and touching me with so much expertise
  that soon I was responding even when I didn't want to. He pushed me back
  on the seat. Suddenly I realized what he was about to do-and I grabbed
  up my handbag and began to beat him on his face. "Stop! I told you
  before, go slower!"
  "You asked for it!" he raged. "You can't lead me on, then turn me off.
  I despise a tease."
  I thought of Chris and began to cry. "Julian, please. I like you, honest
  I do. But you don't give me a chance to fall in love with you. Please
  stop coming at me so fast. "
  He seized my arm and ruthlessly twisted it behind my back until I cried
  out from the pain. I thought he meant to break it. But he released it
  just when I was about to scream.
  "Look, Cathy. I'm half in love with you already. But no girl strings me
  along like I'm some country bumpkin. There are plenty of girls willing
  to give out--so I don't need you as much as I thought-not for anything!"
  Of course he didn't need me. Nobody really needed me but Chris and
  Carrie, though Chris needed me in the wrong way. Momma had twisted and
  warped him, and turned him toward me, and now he couldn't turn away. I
  couldn't forgive her for that. She had to pay for eve hing wrong she'd
  caused. If he and I had sinned, sherVad made us.

  I thought and thought that night of how I could make Momma pay, and I
  came up with the exact price that would hurt most. It wouldn't be money,
  she had too much of that. It would have to be something she prized more
  than money. Two thing"er honorable reputation which was a bit tarnished
  from marrying her

               87
 half-uncle, and her young husband. Both would be gone when I was through
 with her.
  Then I was crying. Crying for Chris, for Carrie who didn't grow and for
  Cory who was by now, probably, only bones in his grave.
  I turned over to grope for Carrie, reaching to draw her into my arms. But
  Carrie was in a private school for girls, ten miles outside the city
  limits. Chris was thirty miles away.
  It began to rain hard. The staccato beats on the roof overhead were
  military drums to take me into dreams and back to exactly where I didn't
  want to go. I was dumped down in a locked room cluttered with toys and
  games and massive, dark furniture, and pictures of hell on the walls. I sat
  in an old wooden rocker, half coming apart, and on my lap I held a ghostly,
  small brother who called me Momma, and on and on we rocked, and the
  floorboards creaked, and the wind blew, and the rain pelted down, and below
  us, around us, above us, the enormous house of countless rooms was waiting
  to eat us up.
  I hated the rain so close above my head, like it used to be when we were
  upstairs. How much worse our lives had been when it rained, and the room
  was damp and chill, and in the attic there was nothing but miserable gloom
  and dead faces that lined the wall. Bands like the grandmother's gray iron
  came to tighten about my head, smothering my thoughts, making me confused
  and terrified.
  Unable to sleep, I left the bed and slipped on a filmy negligee. For some
  curious reason I stole to Paul's bedroom and cautiously eased open his
  closed door. The alarm clock on his nightstand read two o'clockand still he
  wasn't home! Nobody in the house but Henny who was so far, far away-way at
  the other end of the house in her room adjacent to the kitchen.
  I shook my head and stared again at Paul's smoothly made bed. Oh, Chris was
  crazy to want to be a doctor! He'd never have a full night's rest. And it
  was raining. Accidents happened so often on rainy nights. What if Paul
  should be killed? What would we do then! Paul,

               88
 Paul, I screamed to nnyself as I raced toward the stairs and flew down
 them, then sped on to where I could peer out the French windows in the
 living room. I hoped to see a white car parked in the drive, or turning
 into the drive. God, I prayed, don't let him have an accident! Please,
 please-don't take him like you took Daddy!
 "Cathy, why aren't you in bed?"
  I whirled about. There was Paul sitting comfortably in his favorite
  chair, puffing on a cigarette in the dark. There was just enough light
  to see he wore the red robe we'd given him for Christmas. I was so
  overwhelmed with relief to see him safe and not spread out dead on a
  morgue slab. Morbid thoughts. Daddy, I can barely remember how you
  looked, or how your voice sounded, and the special smell of you has faded
  away.
 "Is something wrong, Catherine?"
  Wrong? Why did he call me Catherine at night when we were alone, anti
  only Cathy during the day? Everything was wrong! The Greenglenna
  newspapers and the Virginia one I'd subscribed to and had delivered to
  my ballet school both told stories of how Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow would
  make her second "winter" home in Greenglenna. Extensive renovation was
  being done so her husband's home would be as it was when it was new. Only
  the best for my mother! For some reason I couldn't fathom I lit into Paul
  like a shrew. "How long have you been home?" I demanded sharply. "I've
  been upstairs worrying about you so much I can't sleep! And here you
  were, all the time! You missed your dinner; you missed last night's
  dinner; you were supposed to take me out to a movie last night and you
  forgot all about it! I finished my homework early, dressed in my best
  clothes and sat around waiting for you to show up, and you forgot it! Why
  do you let your patients make so many demands on your time so you don't
  have a life of your own?"
  For a long time he didn't answer. Then when my lips parted to speak
  again, he said in a mild tone, "You really do sound upset. I guess the
  only excuse I can offer is to say I'm a doctor, and a doctor's time is
  never

               89
 his own. I'm sorry I forgot about the movie. I apologize for not calling
 and telling you there was an emergency and I couldn't leave."
  "Forget- -how could you forget? Yesterday you forgot to bring the things
  I had on my list, so after I waited for hours on end for you to come home
  I sat around thinking you might come home and bring me the shampoo I
  wanted, but you didn't!"
  "I'm sorry again. Sometimes I have things on my mind other than movies
  and the cosmetics you need."
 "Are you being sarcastic?"
  "I am trying to control my temper. It would be nice if you could control
  yours."
  "I'm not mad!" I shouted. He was so like Momma, so much in control, so
  poised, when I never was! He didn't care. That's why he could sit there
  and look at me like that! He didn't really care if he made promises and
  broke them-like her! I ran forward as if to strike him, but he caught my
  fists and stared up at me in utter surprise. "Would you hit me,
  Catherine? Does missing a movie mean so much to you that you can't
  understand how I could forget? Now say you're sorry for screaming at me,
  as I said I was sorry for disappointing you."
  What tortured me was more than mere disappointment! Nowhere was there
  anyone I could depend on---only Chris who was forbidden to me. Only Chris
  who would never forget anything I needed or wanted.
  I shuddered. Oh, what kind of person was I? Was I so like Momma I had to
  have what I wanted, when I wanted, no matter what the cost to others? Was
  I going to make Paul pay for what she'd done? None of it was his fault.
  "Paul, I am sorry I yelled at you. I do understand. "
  "You must be very tired. Perhaps you take your ballet classes too
  seriously. Maybe you should let up a little."
  How could I tell him I couldn't let up? I had to be the best, and to be
  the best at anything meant hours and hours of work. I fully intended to
  give up all the pastimes other girls my age enjoyed. I didn't want a
  boyfriend who wasn't a dancer. I didn't want any

               90
 girlfriends who didn't dance. I didn't want anything to come between me
 and my goal, and yet, and yet ... sitting there, looking up at me, was a
 man who said he needed me, and who was hurt by the hateful way I'd acted.
  "I read about my mother today," I said lamely, "and a house stie's having
  remodeled and redecorated. She always gets what she wants. I never get
  anything. So I act ugly to you and forget all that you've done." I backed
  off a few feet, aching with the shame I felt. "How long have you been
  home?"
  "Since eleven-thirty," he answered. "I ate the salad and the steak Henny
  left for me in the warming oven. But I don't sleep well when I'm
  exceptionally tired. And I don't like the sound of the rain on the roof."
  "Because the rain shuts you off and makes you feel lonely?"
  He half-smiled. "Yeah, something like that. How did you know?"
  How he felt was all over his face as dim as it was in that big room. He
  was thinking of her, his Julia, his dead wife. Always he looked sad when
  Julia was on his mind. I approached his chair and impulsively reached out
  to touch his cheek. "Why do you have to smoke? How can you tell your
  patients to quit the habit and keep on smoking yourself?"
  "How do you know what I tell my patients?" he asked in that soft voice,
  in a way that tingled my spine. Nervously I laughed, telling him he
  didn't always close his office door tight, and if I happened to be in the
  back hall, sometimes, despite my will, I couldn't help overhearing a few
  things. He told me to go to bed and stop hanging around in the back hall
  where I didn't belong-and he'd smoke if he wanted to smoke.
  "Sometimes you act like a wife, asking such questions, getting angry at
  me for forgetting to stop at the drugstore for you. Are you sure you
  didn't desperately need that shampoo?"
  Now he had me feeling a fool, and again I was angry. "I only asked you
  to get those things because you pass by a discount store where everything
  is cheaper! I was

               91
 just trying to save money! From now on I'll never ask you to pick tip
 anything I need! When you invite me to dinner in a restaurant, or to a
 movie, I'll be prepared to be disappointed, and that way I won't be
 disappointed. I might as well get used to expecting the worst from
 everyone."
  "Catherine! You can hate me if that's what you want, make me pay for
  everything you have suffered, and then, perhaps, you can go to sleep at
  night and not toss and turn and cry out in your sleep, and call for your
  mother like a child of three."
 Stunned, I stared at him. "I call out for her?"
  "Yes," he said, "many, many times I've heard you call for your mother."
  I saw the pity in his eyes. "Don't be ashamed of being human, Catherine.
  We all expect only the best from our mothers."
  I didn't want to talk about her, so I stepped nearer. "Julian is back in
  town. I went out with him tonight since you stood me up last night.
  Julian thinks I'm ready for New York. He thinks his dance instructor,
  Madame Zolta, would develop me quicker than his mother. He thinks
  together we'd make a brilliant team."
 "And what do you think?"
  "I think I'm not ready for New York yet," I whispered, "but he comes on
  so strong, sometimes he makes me believe, because he seems so convinced."
  "Go slowly, Catherine. Julian is a handsome young man, with arrogance
  enough for ten men. Use your own good common sense and don't be
  influenced by someone who might only want to use you."
  "I dream every night of being in New York, on stage. I see my mother in
  the audience staring up at me with disbelieving eyes. She wanted to kill
  me. I want her to see me dance and realize I have more to give the world
  than she does."
  He winced. "Why do you need revenge so much? I thought if I took you
  three in and did the best I could for you, you'd find peace and
  forgiveness. Can't you forgive and forget? If there's one chance we poor

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 humans have of reaching godliness, it's in learning to forgive and forget."
  "You and Chris," I said bitterly. "It's easy for you to talk about
  forgiving and forgetting-because you haven't been a victim, and I have.
  I've lost my younger brother who was like my own son. I loved Cory, and she
  stole away his life. I hate her for that! I hate her for ten million
  reasons--so don't talk to me about forgiving and forgetting-when she's got
  to pay for what she did! She lied to us, betrayed us in the worse possible
  way! She said nothing to let us know our grandfather had died, and kept
  right on letting us stay locked up--for nine long, long months-and in those
  long months we were eating poisoned doughnuts! So don't you dare talk to me
  of forgiving and forgetting! I don't know how to forgive and forget! All I
  know how to do is hate! And you don't know what it's like to hate as I do!"
 "Don't IT' he asked in a flat voice.
 "No, you don't know!"
  He drew me down on his lap when I sobbed and tears streamed down my face.
  He comforted me as a father would, with little kisses and kind, stroking
  hands. "Catherine, I've got a story of my own to tell. Maybe in some ways
  it equals the horror of yours. Maybe if I tell you you'll be able to use
  some of what I've learned."
  I stared up into his face. His arms held me lightly as I leaned back. "Are
  you going to tell me about Julia and Scotty?"
  "Yes." A hard edge toned his voice. His eyes fixed on the rain-washed
  windows, and his hand that found mine squeezed tight. "You think only your
  mother commits crimes against those she loves-well, you're wrong. It's done
  every day. Sometimes it's done to gain money, but there are other reasons."
  He paused, sighed, then went on. "T. hope when you've heard my story, you
  can go to bed tonight and forget about vengeance. If you don't you'll hurt
  yourself more than anyone else."
  I didn't believe that because I didn't want to believe that. But I was
  eager enough to hear the tale of how Julia and Scotty both died on the same
  day.

               93
  When Paul began to speak of Julia, I feared the ending. I squeezed my
  eyelids closed, wishing now my ears didn't have to hear, for I didn't
  need more to add to the anguish I already felt for one little dead boy.
  But he did it for my sake, to save me, as if anything could.
  "Julia and I were childhood sweethearts. She never had another boyfriend;
  I never had another girlfriend. Julia belonged to me, and I let every
  other boy know it. I never gave myself, or her, the chance to experience
  what others were like~and that was a terrible mistake. We were foolish
  enough to believe our love would last forever.
  "We went steady, we wrote love letters to each other though she lived
  only a few blocks away. The older Julia grew, the more beautiful she
  became. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world, and she thought
  I was perfect. We both had each other up on pedestals. She was going to
  be the perfect doctor's wife, and I was going to be the perfect husband,
  and we'd have three children. Julia was an only child, and her parents
  doted on her. She adored her father; she used to say I was like him."
  Ifis voice deepened here, as if what he had to say was very painful.
  "I put an engagement ring on Julia's finger the day she was eighteen. I
  was nineteen at the time. When I was in college, I'd think of her back
  here and wonder what man had his eye on her. I was afraid I'd lose her
  to someone else if we didn't marry. So at age nineteen she married me.
  I was twenty."
  ffis voice turned bitter while his eyes went blank, and his arms
  tightened about me. "Julia and I had kissed many times, and we always
  held hands, but she would never let me do anything truly intimate-that
  had to wait until she had a wedding band on her finger. I'd had a few
  sexual encounters, not many. She was a virgin and thought I was. I didn't
  take my marriage vows lightly, and I meant to be exactly the kind of
  husband who'd make her happy. I loved her very much. So, on our wedding
  night, she took two hours to undress in the bathroom. She came out of the
  bathroom wearing a long white gown, and her face was as white as that

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 gown. I could tell she was terrified. I convinced myself I would be so
 tender, so loving, she would enjoy being my wife.
  "She didn't enjoy sex, Cathy. I did the best I could to arouse her, while
  she cringed back with her eyes wide and full of shock, and then she
  screamed when I tried to take off her nightgown. I stopped and thought
  I'd try again the next night, after she pleaded for me to give her more
  time, The next night it was the same thing all over again, only worse.
  'Why, why can't you just lie here and hold meT she asked tearfully. 'Why
  does it have to be so uglyT
  "I was just a kid myself, and didn't know how to handle a situation like
  that. I loved her, and I wanted her, and in the end I raped her--or so
  she said time and again. Still I loved her. I'd loved her most of my life
  and I couldn't believe I'd made the wrong choice. So I began to read
  every book on lovemaking I could find, and I tried all the techniques to
  arouse her and make her want me-and she was only repulsed. I took to
  drinking after I graduated from medical school, and when I felt like it
  I found some other woman who was glad to have me in her bed. The years
  passed while she held herself aloof, cleaned my house, washed my clothes,
  ironed my shirts and sewed on my missing buttons. She was so lovely, so
  desirable and so near that sometimes I'd force her, even if she cried
  afterward. Then, she found out she was pregnant. I was delighted, and I
  think she was too. Never was a child more loved and pampered than my son,
  and, fortunately, he was the kind of child who couldn't be spoiled by too
  much love."
  His voice took on an even deeper register while I huddled closer in his
  arms, fearing what was to come, for I knew it would be terrible.
  "After Scotty's birth Julia told me flatly she'd done her duty and given
  me a son, and that from now on I was to leave her alone. Gladly I left
  her alone, but I was deeply wounded. I talked to her mother about our
  problem, and her mother hinted at some dark secret in Julia's past, a
  cousin of hers who'd done something to

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 Julia when she was only four. I never learned just what he'd done, but
 whatever it was, it spoiled sex forever for my wife. I suggested to Julia
 we should both visit a marriage counselor or a psychologist but she'd have
 none of that-it would be too embarrassing-why couldn't I leave her alone?
  "I did leave her alone after that," he went on. "There are always women
  around willing to accommodate a man, and in my office I had a lovely
  receptionist who let me know she was more than available, anytime,
  anyplace. We had an affair that lasted several years. I thought we were
  both very discreet, and no one knew. Then one day she came and told me
  she was pregnant with my child. I couldn't believe her, for she'd told
  me she was on the pill. I couldn't even believe the child was mine since
  I knew she had other lovers. So I said no, I couldn't divorce my wife and
  risk losing Scotty to father a child who might not be mine. She blew up.
  "I went home that evening to confront a wife I'd never known before.
  Julia lashed out at me for being unfaithful, when she'd done the best she
  could and given me the son I wanted. And now I'd betrayed her, broken my
  vow and made her the laughing stock of the town! She threatened to kill
  herself. I pitied her as she screamed out she'd make me hurt! She'd
  threatened suicide before but she'd never done anything.
  "I thought this blow-up would clear the air between us. Julia never spoke
  to me again about my affair. In fact she stopped speaking to me at all
  except when Scotty was around, for she wanted him to have a normal home
  with ostensibly happy parents. I had given her a son she loved beyond
  reason.
  "Then came June and Scotty's third birthday. She planned a party for him
  and invited six small guests, who naturally had to bring along their
  mothers as well. It was on a Saturday. I was home, and to help calm
  Scotty, who was very excited about his party, I gave him a sailboat to
  go with the sailor suit he was going to wear. Julia came down the stairs
  with him, dressed in blue voile. Her lovely dark hair was bound back with
  a blue satin ribbon. Scotty clung to his mother's hand,

               96
 and in nis free hand he carried the sailboat. Julia told me she was afraid
 she hadn't bought enough candy for the party, and it was such a beautiful
 day that she and Scotty would walk to the nearest drugstore and buy some
 more. I offered to drive her there. She refused. I offered to walk along
 with them. She said she didn't want me to. She wanted me to wait and be
 there in case any of the guests arrived early. I sat down on the front
 veranda and waited. Inside, the dining table was all set for the party, with
 balloons suspended from the chandelier, and snappers, hats and other favors,
 and Henny had made a huge cake.
  "The guests began to arrive around two. And still Julia and Scotty didn't
  return. I began to worry so I got in my car and drove to the drugstore,
  expecting to see them on the sidewalk leading home. I didn't see them. I
  asked the druggist if they'd been there; none of the clerks had seen them.
  That's when I began to feel really frightened. I cruised the streets
  looking for them, and stopped to ask passers-by if they'd seen a lady
  dressed in blue with a little boy in a sailor suit. I guess I'd questioned
  four or five before a boy on a bicycle told me yes, he'd seen such a lady
  in blue, with a little boy carrying a sailboat, and he pointed out the
  direction they'd taken.
  "They were headed for the river! I drove as far as I could then jumped out
  of the car and ran down the dirt path, fearing every moment I'd get there
  too late. I couldn't bring myself to believe she'd really do it. I kept
  calming myself by thinking Scotty only wanted to float his boat on the
  water, like I used to do. I ran so fast my heart hurt, and then I reached
  the grassy river bank. And there they were, the two of them, both in the
  water floating face upward. Julia had her arms locked around Scotty who'd
  clearly tried to free himself from her hold, and his little boat was
  sailing with the tide. The blue ribbon had come unbound from her hair, and
  it floated too, and all about her hair streamed like dark ribbons to twine
  in the weeds. The water was only knee-high. "
 I made some small sound that choked my throat,

               97
 feeling his terrible anguish, but he didn't hear. He went on, "In no time
 at all I had them both in my arms and I carried them to shore. Julia was
 barely alive, but Scotty seemed dead, so it was him I worked over first
 in a futile effort to bring him around. I did everything possible to pump
 the water from his lungs, but he was dead. I then turned to Julia and did
 the same for her. She coughed and choked out the water. She didn't open
 her eyes but at least she was breathing. I put both of them in my car and
 drove them to the nearest hospital where they slaved to bring Julia back,
 but they couldn't. No more than I could bring Scotty back to life."
  Paul paused and stared deep into my eyes. "That is my story for a girl
  who thinks she's the only one who has suffered, and the only one who has
  lost, and the only one who grieves. Oh, I grieve just as much as you do
  but I also bear the guilt. I should have known how unstable Julia was.
  We had watched Medea on TV only a few nights before Scotty's birthday and
  she showed unusual interest in it, and she didn't care for television.
  I was stupid not to know what she was thinking and planning. Yet, even
  now, I cannot understand how she could kill our son when she loved him
  so much. She could have divorced me and kept him. I wouldn't have taken
  him from her. But that wasn't enough revenge for Julia. She had to kill
  the thing I loved best, my son."
  I couldn't speak. What kind of woman had Julia been? Like my own mother?
  My mother killed to gain a fortune. Julia killed for revenge. Was I going
  to do the same thing? No, no, of course not. My way would be better, much
  better, for she'd live to suffer on, and on, and on.
  "I'm sorry," I said brokenly, so sorry I had to kiss his cheek. "But you
  can have other children. You can marry again." I put my arms about him
  when he shook his head.
  "Forget Julia!" I cried, throwing my arms about his neck and snuggling
  closer in his arms. "Don't you tell me all the time to forgive and
  forget? Forgive yourself,

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 and forget what happened to Julia. I remember my mother and father; they
 were always loving and kissing. I've know since I was a little girl that
 men need to be loved and touched. I used to watch my mother to see how she
 tamed Daddy down when he was angry. She did it with kisses, with soft
 looks and small touches." I tilted my head back and smiled at him as I'd
 seen my mother smile at my father. "Tell me how a wife should be on her
 wedding night. I wouldn't want to disappoint my bridegroom."
 "I will tell you no such thing!"
  "Then I'll just pretend you're my bridegroom, and I have just come from
  the bathroom after getting undressed. Or maybe I should undress in front
  of you. What do you think?"
  He cleared his throat and tried to shove me away, but I clung like a
  burr. " I think you ought to go to bed and forget games of pretending."
  I stayed where I was. Over and over again I kissed him and soon he was
  responding. I felt his flesh grow warmer but then his lips beneath mine
  tightened into a firm line as his hands went under my knees and
  shoulders. He stood with me in his arms and headed toward the stairs. I
  thought he was going to take me to his room and make love to me and I was
  frightened, ashamed--and excited and eager too. But he headed straight
  for my room and there by my narrow bed he hesitated. He held me close
  against his heart for an excruciatingly long time as the rain pelted down
  and beat on the window glass. Paul seemed to forget who I was as his
  raspy cheek rubbed against mine, caressing with his cheek, not his hands
  this time. And again, as always, I had to speak and spoil it all.
  "Paul." My timid voice drew him out of some deep reverie that might, if
  I'd stayed silent, have led me sooner toward that forever-withheld
  ecstasy my body yearned for. "When we were locked away upstairs our
  grandmother always called us Devil's spawn. She told us we were evil seed
  planted in the wrong soil, that nothing good would ever come of us. She
  made us all unsure of what we were, or whether we had the right to

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 be alive. Was it so terrible what our mother did, to marry her half-uncle
 when he was only three years older than she? No woman with a heart could
 have resisted him. I know I couldn't have. He was like you. Our grandparents
 believed our parents had committed an unholy sin so they despised us, even
 the twins who were so little and adorable. They called us unwholesome. Were
 they right? Were they right to try to kill us?"
  I'd said exactly the right words to snap him back into focus. Quickly he
  dropped me. He turned his head sideways so I couldn't read his eyes. I
  hated for people to hide their eyes from me so I couldn't see the truth.
  "I think your parents were very much in love and very young," he said in a
  strange, tight voice, "so much in love they didn't pause to consider the
  future and the consequences. "
  "Oh!" I cried, outraged. "You think the grandparents were right-and we are
  evil!"
  He spun about to face me, his full, sensual lips open, his expression
  furious. "Don't take what I say and twist it about to suit your need for
  revenge. There's no reason, ever, to justify murder, unless it's a case of
  self-defense. You're not evil. Your grandparents were bigoted fools who
  should have learned to accept what was and make the best of it. And they
  had much to be proud of in the four grandchildren your parents gave them.
  And if your parents took a calculated gamble when they decided to have
  children, I say they won. God and the odds were on your side and gave you
  too much beauty and appreciation of it, and perhaps too many talents. Most
  certainly there is one very young girl who smolders with adult emotions too
  large for her size and age."
 "Paul ... ?"
 "Don't took at me like that, Catherine."
 "I don't know how I'm looking."
 "Go to steep, Catherine Sheffield, this instant!"
  "What did you call me?" I asked as he backed off toward the door.
  He smiled at me. "It wasn't a Freudian slip, if that's what you're
  thinking. Dollanganger is too long a name.

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 Sheffield would be a much better choice. Legally we can arrange to have your
 surname changed."
 "Oh." He made me feel sick with disappointment.
  "Look here, Catherine," he said from the doorway. He was so large he
  blocked out the light from the hall. "You're playing a dangerous game.
  You're trying to seduce me and you're very lovely and very hard to resist.
  But your place in my life is as my daughternothing else."
  "Was it raining that day in June when you put Julia and Scotty in the
  ground?"
  "What difference does that make? Any day you put someone you love
  underground it's raining!" And he was gone from my door, striding quickly
  down the hall to his room where he slammed the door hard.
  So, I'd tried twice and he'd rejected me twice. Now I was free to go on my
  merry, destructive way to dance and dance until I reached the top. And that
  would show Momma, who could do nothing but embroider and knit, just who had
  the most talent and brains. She would see who could make a fortune on her
  own without selling her body, and without stooping to murder to inherit it!
  The whole world was going to know about me! They'd compare me to Anna
  Pavlova and say I was better. She'd come to a party they threw in my honor,
  and with her would be her husband. She'd look old, jaded, tired, while I'd
  be fresh and young, and her darling Bart would come straight to me, his
  eyes dazzled as he kissed my hand. "You are the most beautiful woman I've
  ever seen," he'd say, "and the most talented." And with his eyes alone I'd
  know he loved me, loved me ten times more than he had ever loved her. And
  then when I had him and she was alone, I'd tell him who I was, and he'd not
  believe at ftrst. Then he would. And he'd hate her! He'd take all her money
  from her. Where would it go? I paused, stumped. Where would the money go if
  it were taken from Momma? Would it go back to the grandmother? It wouldn't
  come to us, not Chris, Carrie or me, for we just didn't exist as Foxworths.
  Then I smiled to myself, thinking of the four birth certificates I'd found
  sewn

               101,
 under the lining of one of our old suitcases. I began to laugh. Oh, Momma,
 what stupid things you do! Imagine, hiding the birth certificates. With
 those I could prove Cory existed, and without them it would be her word
 against mine, unless the police went back to Gladstone and found the doctor
 who had delivered the twins. And then there was our old babysitter, Mrs.
 Simpson-and Jim Johnston. Oh, I hoped none had moved away and that they
 could still remember the four Dresden dolls.
  I knew I was evil, just like the grandmother said from the beginning, born
  to be bad. I'd been punished before I'd even done anything evil, so why not
  let the punishment fit the crime that was to be? There was no reason why I
  should be haunted and ruined just because once upon a miserable time, I had
  turned for refuge into the arms of my brother. I'd go to the man who needed
  me most. If that was evil, to give what his words denied and his eyes
  pleaded for, then let me be evil!
  I began, as I grew sleepy, to plan how it would be. He wouldn't turn away
  and put me off, for I'd make it impossible. He wouldn't want to hurt me.
  He'd take me and then he'd think to himself he had to, and then he wouldn't
  feel guilty, not guilty at all.
  The guilt would all be mine. And Chris would hate me and turn, as he had
  to, to someone else.

 Sweeter Than All the Roses

 I was sixteen in April of 1961. There I was, at the blossoming, ripe age
 when all men, young and old, and most of all those past forty, turned to
 stare at me on the streets. When I waited on the comer for a bus, cars

               102
 slowed because male drivers couldn't keep from gaping at me.
  And if they were enraptured, I was even more so. I preened before the
  many mirrors in Paul's home and saw, sometimes by surprise, a lovely,
  even breathtakingly beautiful girl-and then that glorious revelation-that
  was me! I was dazzling and I knew it. Julian flew down often to turn his
  desiring eyes upon me, telling me he knew what he wanted even if I
  didn't. I saw Chris only on the weekends and I knew he still wanted me,
  still loved me more than he'd ever love anyone again.
  Chris and Carrie came home for my birthday weekend and we laughed and
  hugged and talked so fast, as if we'd never have the time to say enough,
  especially Chris and 1. 1 wanted to tell Chris that Momma would be living
  in Greenglenna soon but I was afraid he'd try to stop me from doing what
  I had planned so I never mentioned it. After a while Carrie drew away to
  sit with big, sad eyes and stare at our kind benefactor. That big,
  handsome man who ordered me to dress up in my very best. "Why not wear
  that dress you've been saving for a special occasion? For your birthday
  I'm treating all of you to a gourmet feast at my favorite restaurant The
  Plantation House."
  Right away I had to rush upstairs and begin dressing. I was going to make
  the most of my birthday. My face didn't really need makeup, yet I put it
  on, the whole works, including mascara black as ink, and then I used
  tongs to curl my lashes. My nails gleamed like lustrous pearls and the
  gown I wore was Paris pink. Oh, did I feel pretty as I preened and
  primped before a cheval glass bought for my vanity.
  ,,My lady Catherine," said Chris from the open doorway. "You do look
  gorgeous but it is in appallingly bad taste to admire yourself so much
  you have to kiss your own reflection. Really, Cathy, wait for compliments
  from others--don't give them to yourself."
  "I'm afraid no one will tell me," I said defensively, "so I tell it to
  myself to give myself more confidence. Do I look beautiful and not just
  pretty?"

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  "Yeah," he said in a funny, tight voice, "I doubt I'll ever see another
  girl as beautiful as you look right now. "
 "Would you say I'm improving with age?"
  "I'm not going to compliment you anymore! It's no wonder the grandmother
  broke all the mirrors. I've got a good mind to do that myself. Such
  conceit!"
  I frowned, not liking to be reminded of that old woman. "You look
  fantastic, Chris," I said, giving him a big, warm smile. "I'm not ashamed
  or embarrassed to hand out compliments when they're deserved. You're as
  handsome as Daddy."
  Every time he came home from his school he looked more mature and more
  handsome. Though, when I peered closer, wisdom was putting something
  strange in his eyes, something that made him seem much, much older than I
  was. He also appeared sadder than me, more vulnerable, and the combination
  was extremely appealing. "Why aren't you happy, Chris?" I asked. "Is life
  disappointing you? Is it less than you thought it would be when we were
  locked away and we had so many dreams for the future? Are you sorry now
  that you decided on being a doctor? Are you wishing instead to be a dancer
  like me?"
  I had neared to watch his oh, so revealing eyes, but he lowered them to
  hide away and his hands tried to span my waist, but my waist wasn't that
  small or his hands weren't that large. Or was he just doing something to
  touch me? Making a game out of what was serious. Was that it? I ducked to
  peer into his face and I saw the love I was looking for and then wished I
  didn't know.
 "Chris, you haven't answered."
 "What did you ask?"
  "Life, medical training, is it living up to your expectations?"
 "What does?"
 "That sounds cynical. My style, not yours."
  He raised his head and smiled brightly. Oh, God! "Yes," he said, "life on
  the outside is what I thought it would be. I was realistic, unlike you. I
  like school and

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 the friends I've made. But I still miss you; it's hard being separated from
 you, always wondering what you're up to." His eyes shifted again and became
 shadowed as he yearned for the impossible. "Happy birthday, my lady
 Cath-er-ine," he softly said, and then brushed my lips with his. Just a
 feathery little kiss that didn't dare much. "Let's go," he said resolutely,
 taking hold of my hand. "Everyone is ready but fussy, prissy you.
  We descended the stairs hand in hand. Paul and Carrie were all dressed and
  waiting, with Hermy too. The house felt strange, so hushed and expectant-so
  weirdly dark, with all the lights off but in the hall. How funny.
  Then, suddenly, out of the dark came, "Sur-prisel Sur-prise!" Screamed by
  a chorus of voices as the lights all came on, and members of my ballet
  class, thronging about Chris and me.
  Henny carried in a birthday cake of three layers, each smaller than the one
  underneath and proudly said she'd made it and decorated it herself. Let me
  always succeed at what I set out to do, I wished with my eyes closed when
  I blew out all the candles. Fm gaining on you, Momma-getting older and
  wiser each day, so when the time comes, I'll be ready-your match.
  I blew so well the melted pink wax smeared the sugary pink roses nestled
  sweetly on pale green leaves. Across from me was Julian. His ebony eyes
  riveted as mutely he asked the same question over and over.
  Whenever I tried to meet eyes with Chris he had his turned another way or
  lowered to stare at the floor. Carrie crowded close beside Paul, who sat
  some distance away from the boisterous revelry and tried not to look stern.
  As soon as I had all the presents opened Paul got up, picked Carrie up in
  his arms, and both disappeared up the stairs.
  "Good night, Cathy," called Carrie, her small face happy and flushed with
  sleepiness, "this is the best birthday party I've ever been to."
  I could have cried from the pain of that, for she was almost nine years old
  and the birthday parties she could

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 remember, except (Iris's last November, had been pitiful attempts to make
 much out of little.
  "Why are you looking sad?" asked Julian who came up and swung me into his
  embrace. "Rejoice-for now you have me at your feet, ready to set your
  heart on fire along with your body."
  Truly I hated him when he acted like that. He tried to demonstrate in
  every way possible that I belonged to him and him alone. His gift had
  been a leather tote to carry my ballet leotards, shoes, etc. I danced
  away from him, not wanting to be claimed tonight. All the girls who
  weren't already infatuated with Julian immediately fell for Chris, and
  this in no way enhanced Julian's liking for my brother. I don't know what
  happened to put the match to the grass but suddenly Chris and Julian were
  in a comer arguing and about to exchange blows. "I don't give a damn what
  you think!" stormed Chris in his eye-of-the-hurricane calm way. "My
  sister is too young for a lover and not ready for New York!"
  "You! You-" fired Julian back. "What do you know about the dance? You
  know nothing! You can't even manage to move your feet without stepping
  on yourself!"
  "That may be true," said Chris in an icy voice, "but I have other skills.
  And we're talking about my sister and the fact that she is still
  underaged. I won't have you persuading her to accompany you to New York
  when she hasn't even finished high school yet!"
  My head swiveled from one to the other and between the two it was hard
  to say which was the better looking. I felt sick that they would show
  everyone their hostility, and sick because I wanted so much for them to
  like each other. I trembled on the brink of crying out, stop, don't do
  this! But I said nothing.
  "Cathy," called Chris, not moving his eyes for one second from Julian who
  appeared ready to throw a blow or deliver a kick, "do you honestly
  believe you are ready to make your debut in New York?"
 "No . . ." I said in a near whisper.
 Julian's eyes raged my way, for he was at me,

               106
 demanding of me every second we were together, wanting me to accompany him
 to New York and be his mistress and dance partner. I knew why he wanted
 me-my weight, my height, my balance suited his abilities perfectly. It was
 of utmost importance to find the perfect partner when you wanted to
 impress in a pas de deux.
  "May all your birthdays be hell on earth!" Julian said as he headed for
  the front door, and he slammed it hard behind him. That's how my party
  ended, with everyone going home looking embarrassed. Chris stalked up to
  his room without wishing me good night. With tears in my eyes I began to
  pick up the trash from the living room carpet. I found a hole burned in
  the plushy green from a carelessly held cigarette. Someone had broken one
  of Paul's prized pieces of hand-blown glass-a transparent rose of
  shimmering crystal. I held it, thinking about buying glue that would put
  it back together again, even as I planned a way, for there had to be a
  way, to cover up the holes in the carpet and take the white rings from
  the tables.
  "Don't worry about the rose," Paul's voice came from behind me, "it's
  just a cheap knickknack. I can always buy another."
  I turned to look at him. He was standing so casually in the archway of
  the foyer, meeting my teary look with his soft, kind eyes. "It was a
  beautiful rose," I choked, "and I know it was expensive. I'll buy you
  another if I can find a duplicate, and if I can't I'll buy you something
  better when I can. . .
 "Forget it."
  "Thank you again for the beautiful music box." Nervously my hands
  fluttered to my daring decolletage and sought to hide the cleavage. "My
  father gave me a silver music box with a ballerina inside once but I had
  to leave it. . . ." My voice trailed off and I could speak no more, for
  thoughts of my father always left me in childish ruins of bleakness
  without hope.
  "Chris told me about the music box your father gave you and I tried to
  find one just like it. Did I succeed?"
 "Yes," J said, though it wasn't the same.

               107
  "Good. Now go to bed. Forget the mess-Henny will clean up. You look
  sleepy."
  I was soon up the stairs and into my room, where to my surprise Chris was
  waiting for me.
  "What is going on between you and Julian?" he shot out fiercely.
 "Nothing is going on!"
  "Don't lie to me, Cathy! He doesn't fly down here so often for nothing!"
  "Mind your own damned business, Christopher!" I said viciously. "I don't
  try to tell you what to do and I demand the same from you! You are not
  a saint and I am not an angel! The trouble is you're just another man who
  thinks you can do anything you want while I have to sit prim and prissy
  on the sidelines and wait for someone to come along and marry me! Well,
  I'm not that kind of woman! Nobody is going to push me around and make
  me do what I don't want to-never again! Not Paul! Not Madame! Not
  Julian-and not you either!" His face paled as he listened and restrained
  himself from interrupting. "I want you to stay out of my life,
  Christopher. I'll do what I have to, anything I have to, to get to the
  top!"
  He glared at me with his heavenly blue eyes shooting devilish.electric
  sparks. "I take it you'll sleep with just any man if that's necessary."
  "I'll do what I have to!" I raged back, though I hadn't given that any
  thought.
  He seemed on the verge of slapping me, and the control it took to keep
  his hands at his sides made him clench them into fists. A white line
  etched about his tightened lips. "Cathy," he began in a hurt voice,
  "what's come over you? I didn't think you'd ever become another
  opportunist."
  Bitterly I met his eyes. What did he think he was doing? We'd stumbled
  fortunately upon an unhappy, lonely man and we were using him, and sooner
  or later there'd be a price to pay. Our grandmother had always told us
  nobody did anything for nothing. But somehow I couldn't hurt him more,
  and I couldn't speak a word against Paul who'd taken us in and was doing
  every-
  
               108
 thing he could. Truthfully, I had reason enough for knowing he didn't
 expect any reward.
  "Cathy," he pleaded, "I hate every word you just said. How can you talk
  to me like that when you know how much I love and respect you? There
  isn't a day that passes that I don't long for you. I live for the
  weekends when I can see you and Carrie. Don't turn from me, Cathy, I need
  you. I'll always need you. It scares the hell out of me to think I'm not
  nearly that necessary in your life." He had hold of my arms and would
  have pulled me against his chest, but I yanked away and turned my back.
  How could I tell what was wrong and what was right when nobody seemed to
  care anymore?
  "Chris," I began brokenly, "I'm sorry I spoke like that. It matters to
  me very much what you think. But I'm all torn up inside. I think I have
  to have everything immediately to help make up for all I've lost and
  suffered. Julian wants me to go with him to New York. I don't think I'm
  ready yet and I don't have the discipline I need-Madame tells me that all
  the time and she's right. Julian says he loves me and will take care of
  me. But I'm not sure what love is, or if he loves me at all or only wants
  me to help him reach his goal. But his goal is my goal. So tell me how
  I can tell if he loves me or if he only wants to use me?"
  "Have you let him make love to you?" he asked flatly, his eyes dead
  looking.
 "No! Of course not!"
  His arms encircled me and held me fast. "Wait at least one more year,
  Cathy. Trust Madame Marisha, not Julian. She knows more than he does."
  He paused and forced me to lift my bowed head. I studied his handsome
  face and wondered why he hesitated and didn't go on.
  I was an instrument of yearning, filled with a ravenous desire for
  romantic fulfillment. I was scared too of what was inside me. So scared
  I was like Momma. When I looked in the miffors I saw my mother's face
  beginning to emerge more definitely. I was exalted that I looked like
  her, and paradoxically I hated myself for being her reflection. No, no,
  I wasn't

               109
 like her inside, only on the outside. My beauty was not only skin deep.
  I kept telling myself this as I made a special trip to Greenglenna
  downtown. In the city hall there I made some flimsy excuse about looking
  up my mother's birth certificate just so I could look up the birth
  certificate of Bart Winslow. I found out he was eight years younger than
  my mother and I also discovered exactly where he lived. I walked fifteen
  blocks until I came to a quiet, elm-lined street where old mansions were
  in a state of decaying disrepair. All but the home of Bart Winslow! His
  home had scaffolding all around. Dozens of workmen were putting up storm
  windows on a freshly painted brick home with white trim around the win-
  dows and a white portico.
  Another day found me in the Greenglenna library where I read up on the
  Winslow family. Much to my delight, when I searched back through the old
  newspapers I found a society editor who seemed to devote most of her
  column to Bart Winslow and his fabulously wealthy and very beautiful wife
  with her aristocratic background. "The heiress to one of the country's
  greatest fortunes."
  That column I snipped out furtively and sneaked home to Chris. I didn't
  want him to know Momma would live in Greenglenna. He showed some distress
  as he scanned the column. "Cathy, where did you find this article?"
  I shrugged. "Oh, it was in some Virginia paper they sell in a newsstand."
  "She's in Europe again," he said in a queer way. "I wonder why she keeps
  going to Europe." He turned his blue eyes my way and a dreamy expression
  softened his features. "Remember the summer she went on her honeymoon?"
  Remember? As if I could ever forget. As if I would ever let myself
  forget. Someday, someday when I was rich and famous too, Momma was going
  to hear from me and when she did, she'd better be well prepared, for bit
  by bit I was forming my strategy.

               110
  Julian didn't come to Greenglenna as much as he had before my sixteenth
  birthday party. I figured Chris had scared him off. I didn't know if that
  made me happy or not. When he did visit his parents he ignored me. He
  began to pay attention to Lorraine DuVal, my best friend. For some reason
  I felt hurt and resentment, not only against him but also against
  Lorraine. In the wings I half-bid myself and watched them dance a
  passionate pas de deux. That was when I determined I'd study twice as
  hard as I had before, for I was going to show Julian too! I was going to
  show everyone just what I was made of!
 Steel, covered over with frilly, silly tulle tutus!

 owl on thC ROOf

 Now I'm going to recount an event in Carrie's life, for this is her story
 and Chris's as well as mine. When I look back now and reflect on how life
 turned out for Carrie, I truthfully believe what happened to Carrie in
 Miss Emily Dean Calhoun's School for Properly Bred Young Ladies had a
 great deal to do with how she thought of herself in the future.
  Ah, dig me a well to cry in before I begin, for I loved her so, and what
  pain she had to bear I bear, even now.
  From the jigsaw pieces that I've gathered from Carrie herself and from
  Miss Dewhurst, and from several other students at that school, this was
  Carrie's nightmare to endure, and I will report it as honestly as
  possible.
  Carrie spent her weekends with us but she had retreated into that quiet,
  little apathetic creature who'd grieved so when her twin died. Everything
  about Carrie

               III
 worried me. Though when I asked her questions she insisted everything was
 all right and refused to say anything against that school or the student
 body or the faculty. She said one thing, and one thing only, to express
 her feelings--and what a clue it was. "I like the carpet-it's colored I
 ike grass." That was it. She left me wondering, worried, trying to guess
 what was troubling her. Something was wrong, I knew it, and she wouldn't
 tell me what it was.
  Each Friday about four Paul would drive to fetch Carrie and Chris and
  bring them back home. He did his best to make all our weekends memorable.
  Though Carrie appeared happy enough with us, she seldom laughed. Try as
  we would, all we could pull from her was a weak smile.
  "What's wrong with Carrie?" whispered Chris. I could only shrug.
  Somewhere along the way I'd lost Carrie's confidence. Her big, blue eyes
  fastened on Paul. They mutely pleaded with him. But he was looking at me,
  not Carrie.
  As the time approached for her to be driven back to school Carrie would
  grow very quiet; her eyes would become blank and resigned. We'd kiss her
  good-bye and tell her to be good, make friends, "and if you need us, you
  know how to call."
  "Yes," she said weakly, her eyes downcast. I pressed her against me
  telling her again how much I loved her, and if she was unhappy she had
  to speak up and say so. "I'm not unhappy," she answered with her eyes
  fixed sadly on Paul.
  It was truly a beautiful school. I'd have loved to attend such a school.
  Each girl was allowed to decorate her side of a double room as she saw
  fit. Miss Dewhurst had only one restriction, and that was each girl had
  to choose "proper, ladylike" appointments. Soft, passive femininity was
  greatly stressed in the South. Soft, whispering clothes, drifting
  chiffon, dulcet voices, shy, downcast eyes, weak, fluttery hands to
  express helplessness, and absolutely no opinions that would conflict with
  male ones-and never, never let a man know you had a brain that might be
  better than his. And I'm

               112
 afraid, after reconsidering, it wouldn't be the proper school for me after
 all.
  Carrie's bed was twin size, covered by a bright purple spread. On it she
  had decorator pillows of rose, red, purple, violet and green. Beside her
  bed was a nightstand with the milk-glass vase filled with plastic violets
  given to her by Paul. Whenever he could he brought her real flowers.
  Strangely, she adored that little pot of violets more than the real
  flowers that soon withered and died.
  Since Carrie was the smallest girl in the school of one hundred students,
  she was given as a roommate the next smallest girl, named Sissy Towers.
  Sissy had brick-red hair, emerald eyes that were long and narrow, thin,
  paper-white skin, and a spiteful, mean temper which she never displayed
  to any adult, but saved for the girls she knew how to intimidate. Worst
  of all, though she was the second smallest, she towered over Carrie by
  six inches!
  Carrie had celebrated her ninth birthday with a party the week before her
  ordeal began. It was May, and it began on a Thursday.
  The school days ended at three. The girls had two hours to play outside
  before dinner at five-thirty. All the students wore uniforms of colors
  determined by what grade they were in. Carrie was in the third grade; her
  uniform was of yellow broadcloth with a dainty white organdy pinafore to
  top it off. Carrie had a strong dislike for the color yellow. Yellow
  represented to her, as it did to Chris and me, the color of all the best
  things we couldn't have when we'd been locked away and made to feel
  unwholesome, unwanted and unloved. Yellow was also the color of the sun
  that was denied us. The sun was what Cory had wanted most to see, and now
  that all yellow things were so easily accessible, and Cory wasn't, yellow
  was a hateful thing.
  Sissy T)wers adored yellow. She envied Carrie's long, golden locks and
  despised her own head of crinkly rust. Perhaps too she envied the beauty
  of Carrie's doll-like face, and those big, blue eyes with the long, dark,
  curling lashes, and her lips ripe as strawberries.

               113
 Oh, yes, our Carrie was a doll with an exquisite face, sensational
 Goldilocks hair and, the pity of it all, this beauty hovered above a body
 much too thin, too smaU, and a neck too delicate to support a head that
 belonged on someone bigger and taller.
  Yellow dominated Sissy's side of the room; yellow spread, yellow
  slip-covered chairs; her dolls were blondes wearing yellow, her books
  wore yellow jackets, homemade. Sissy even wore yellow sweaters and skirts
  when she went home. The fact that Sissy looked unbecomingly sallow in
  yellow did not lessen her determination to annoy Carrie with the
  color--come what may. And on this day, for some trifling reason that was
  never explained, she began to taunt Carrie in a mean, spiteful way.
  "Carrie is a dwarf ... a dwarf ... a dwarf," sang Sissy in a sing-song
  chant.
  "Carrie should be in a circus ... a circus ... a circus," Sissy chanted
  on and on. Then she jumped up on the top of her desk and in the loud,
  brassy manner of a barker touting a freak show at a carnival Sissy really
  began to shout, "Come one! Come all! Come pay your quarter to see the
  living sister of Tom Thumb! Come see the world's smallest woman! Come,
  pay your money and see the little one with the huge, huge eyes-like an
  owl's! Come view the huge, huge head on the little, scrawny neck! Come
  pay your quarter to see our little freak naked!"
  Dozens of little girls crowded into the room to stare at Carrie who
  crouched in a comer on the floor, with her head hanging low and her long
  hair hiding her shamed, terrified face.
  Sissy opened up her small purse to receive the quarters the affluent
  little girls dropped in willingly. "Now take off your clothes, little
  dwarf-freak," ordered Sissy. "Give the customers their money's worth!"
  Quivering and beginning to cry, Carrie crouched into a tighter ball and
  pulled up her knees and prayed that God would somehow open up the floor.
  But floors never graciously open up and swallow you when they

               114
 should. It remained hard and unyielding beneath her as the taunting voice of
 Sissy went on and on.
  "Look at her tremble ... look at her shake ... she's gonna make ... an
  earthquake!"
  All the girls giggled, except one average-sized girl of ten who looked on
  Carrie with pity and sympathy. "I think she's cute," said Lacy St. John.
  "Leave her alone, Sissy. It's not nice what you're doing."
  "Of course it's not nice!" Sissy said with a laugh. "But it's such fun!
  She's such a timid little mouse! You know, she never says anything. I don't
  think she can talk!" Down from the chair Sissy jumped to run to where
  Carrie was, and there she prodded Carrie with her foot. "Have you got a
  tongue, little freak? Come, little big-eyes, tell us how you got to be so
  funnylooking. Did the cat steal your tongue? Do you have a tongue? Stick it
  out!"
 Carrie hung her head even lower.
  "See, she doesn't have a tongue!" proclaimed Sissy, jumping up and down.
  Sissy whirled around and spread her arms wide. "Look at what they gave me
  for a roomy-an owl without a tongue! What can we do to make her talk?"
  Lacy moved protectively closer to Carrie. "Come on, Sissy, enough is
  enough, leave her alone."
  Pivoting, Sissy stomped down hard on Lacy's foot. "Shut up! This is my
  room! When you're in my room, you do as I say! And I'm just as big as you
  are, Lacy St. John, and my daddy's got more money too!"
  "I think you are a mean, nasty, ugly girl to torment Carrie!" said Lacy.
  Sissy raised her fist in the manner of a professional boxer, dancing around
  to take quick jabs at Lacy. "You wanna fight? C'mon, put up your dukes!
  Just see if you can get me before I blacken your eyes!" And before Lacy
  could raise her hands for protection, Sissy shot out a right that caught
  Lacy squarely on the left eye. Then Sissy's left hook smashed Lacy's fine
  straight nose! Blood spurted everywhere!
  This was when Carrie lifted her head, saw the only girl who'd shown her the
  least bit of kindness being

               115
 beaten to a pulp, and that was cause enough for Carrie to use her most
 formidable weapon-her voice. She began to scream. Full blast, using every
 bit of vocal power she had, Carrie threw back her head and let go!
  Down in her study on the first floor, Miss Emily Dean Dewhurst bolted
  upright and smeared the ink in her ledger. She ran to sound an alarm in
  the hall to bring each and every female teacher on the run.
  It was eight o'clock in the evening. Most of the faculty had retired to
  their rooms. Clad in bathrobes, negligees, and one in a scarlet evening
  gown, apparently ready to slip out on the sly, the teachers raced toward
  the clamor. They burst into the room Carrie shared Ath Sissy and found
  a frightful scene. Twelve girls all doing battle, while others stood back
  and watched. One girt, like Carrie, only screamed, but the others were
  Min kicking, wrestling on the floor, pulling hair,
 M 91
  g and tearing off clothes-and above all the racket of the fray resounded
  the blaring trumpet of one small human in terror.
  "Where is the man-the man?" cried out Miss L,onghurst, the one in the
  scarlet evening gown with her bosom about to fall out of the lowcut
  bodice.
  "Miss Longhurst, control yourself!" ordered Miss Dewhurst, who promptly
  assessed the situation and planned her strategy. "There is no man here.
  Girls!" she boomed, "stop this fracas this very second, or every one of
  you will be denied liberty this weekend!" Then she said in a low voice
  to the sexy Longhurst, "You report to my office when this is under
  control."
  Every girl in that room about to have her hair pulled or her face
  scratched jerked abruptly still and quiet. With horrified eyes they
  looked around and saw the room full of teachers-and worst of all Miss
  Dewhurst, who was not known for showing mercy once bedlam broke loose.,
  as it often did. All hushed. All but Carrie who kept right on screaming,
  her eyes squeezed shut, her small, pale hands in tight fists.
  "Why is that child screaming?" asked Miss Dewhurst as a guilty-looking
  Miss Longhurst sneaked away to

               116
 take off her incriminating evidence-that somewhere a man was hiding and
 waiting.
  Naturally, it was Sissy 'Ibwers who recovered first. "She's the one who
  started it all, Miss Dewhurst. It's all Carrie's fault. She's like a
  baby. You've just got to give me a new roomy or I'll die living so close
  to a baby."
  "Repeat what you just said, Miss 'Ibwers. Tell ML again what I must do."
  Intimidated, Sissy smiled uneasily. "I mean, I would like to have a new
  roomy; I don't feel good living so close to someone so unnaturally
  small."
  Coldly Miss Dewhurst eyed Sissy. "Miss Towets, you are unnaturally cruel.
  From now on you will room on the first floor in the room next to mine
  where I can keep an eye on you." She flashed her sharp gaze around the
  room. "As for the rest of you, I'm going to notify your parents that your
  weekend leaves are canceled! Now, each of you report to Miss Littleton
  so she may mark your records with demerits." The girls groaned and one
  by one they drifted out to have their names recorded with minus marks.
  Only then did Miss Dewhurst advance to where Carrie was on her hands and
  knees, her voice faded to a whimper, but her head kept moving from side
  to side in a hysterical way. "Miss Dollanganger, are you calm enough now
  to tell me what happened?"
  Carrie was beyond speech. T~rror and the sight of blood had taken her
  back to the locked room, to a hungry day when she had been forced to
  drink blood or starve to death. Miss Dewhurst was touched and bewildered.
  Forty years she'd seen girls come and go, and she knew girls could be
  just as devastatingly ugly and cruel as boys. "Miss Dollanganger, unless
  you respond to me, you will not visit your family this weekend. I know
  you've had a hard time of it and I want to be kind to you. Can't you
  please explain what happened?"
  Fallen flat on the floor now, Carrie looked up. She saw the older woman
  towering above her, and the blue skirt she wore was almost gray. Gray was
  the color the

               117
 grandmother always wore. And the grandmother did terrible things; somehow
 the grandmother had caused Cory to die--and now she had come to get Carrie
 too!
  "I hate you! I hate you!" screamed Carrie over and over, until finally
  Miss Dewhurst was driven from the room and the school nurse was sent in
  to give Carrie a sedative.
  That Friday, I answered the telephone when Nfiss Dewhurst called to say
  twelve of her girls had broken her rules and disobeyed her orders, and
  Carrie was one of them. "I'm sorry, really I am. But I can't give your
  sister privileges and still punish the others. She was in the room and
  she refused to quiet when I ordered her

 to.17

  I waited until evening at the dinner table to discuss it with Paul. "It's
  a terrible mistake to leave Carrie over the weekend, Paul. You know we
  promised hershe could come home every weekend. She's too little to be the
  cause of anything, so it's not fair she should be punished too!"
  "Really, Cathy," he said, putting down his fork, 'Mss Dewhurst called me
  right after she talked to you. She does have rules, and if Carrie
  misbehaved then she has to suffer along with the rest of the girls. And
  I respect Nfiss Dewhurst even if you don't."
  Chris, home for the weekend, spoke up and agreed with Paul. "Sure, Cathy,
  you know as well as I do that Carrie can cut up when she wants to. If she
  did nothing but scream she could drive you batty-and deaf."
  That weekend was a flop without Carrie. I couldn't get her off my mind.
  1, stewed, fretted, worried over Carrie. I seemed to hear her calling to
  me. I closed my eyes and I saw her small, white face with her eyes huge
  and haunted by fear. She was all right! She had to be, didn't she? What
  could happen to a little girl in an expensive school controlled by such
  a responsible, respectable woman as M&-, Emily Dean Dewhurst?

  When Carrie was hurting and at odds with herself and all the world, and
  there was no one near who loved

               118
 her, she retreated to yesterdays and the safe comfort of the tiny procelain
 dolls she'd carefully hidden away beneath all of her clothes. Now she was
 the only girl in the school with a room all to herself. She'd never been
 alone before. Not once in all her nine years had Carrie spent a night in a
 room alone. She was alone now and she knew it. Every girl in the school had
 turned against her, even pretty Lacy St. John.
  From her very secret place Carrie would take her dolls, Mr. and Mrs.
  Parkins and dear little baby Clara, and she'd talk to them as she used to
  do when she was locked away in the attic. "And Cathy," she told me later,
  "I thought maybe Momma was up in God's heaven, in the garden with Cory and
  Daddy, and I felt so mean at you and Chris because you let Dr. Paul put me
  in that place, and you know how much I liked to be with all of you. And I
  hated you, Cathyl I hated everybody! I hated God for making me so small so
  people laugh at my big head and little body!"
  In the short halls and long corridors of green carpeting Carrie heard the
  girls whispering. Furtively they shifted their eyes when she looked their
  way. "I told myself I didn't care," whispered Carrie hoarsely to me, "but
  I did care. I told myself I could be brave like you wanted and Chris wanted
  and Dr. Paul wanted. I kept on making myself feel brave but I wasn't really
  brave. I don't like dark. And I told myself God was gonna hear my prayers
  and make me grow taller, 'cause everybody grows taller when they grow
  older, and so would 1.
  "It was so dark, Cathy, and the room felt so big and scary. You know I
  don't like night and darkness with no lamp burning, with nobody there but
  me. I even wanted Sissy back, she seemed better than nobody. Something in
  the shadows moved and I was terrified, and though we're not supposed to I
  turned on a lamp. I wanted to take all my little dolls to bed with me so
  I'd have company. I was gonna be so careful not to toss and turn and break
  off their heads.
  " I always put Mr. and Mrs. Parkins left and right with baby Clara in the
  middle in the bottom drawer of

               119
 my dresser. I picked up the cotton wadding that was in the middle first
 and felt something hard. But when I looked, Cathy, when I looked there was
 no baby, only a little stick! I unwrapped Mr. and Mrs. Parkins, and they
 were only sticks too--bigger ones! It hurt so bad not to find them I began
 to cry. All my little dolls gone, all turned to wood, so I knew God was
 never gonna let me grow tall when he would make my pretty dolls into only
 sticks.
  "Something funny happened to me then, like I turned into wood too. I felt
  stiff and couldn't see too good. I went and crouched in a comer and
  waited for something bad to happen. The grandmother said something
  terrible would happen if I broke a doll, didn't she?" Not another word
  would she say, but I learned from others what happened after that.
  In the dark, long after midnight, the twelve little rich girls Miss
  Dewhurst had denied liberty all stole furtively into Carrie's room. It
  was Lacy St. John who had the integrity to tell me, but only when Miss
  Dewhurst was out of hearing.
  Twelve girls, all wearing long white cotton nightgowns, the official
  sleeping garments of the school, filed into Carrie's room, each bearing
  a single candle held so her face was lit up under her chin. Such lighting
  made their eyes appear sunken, dark hollows and lent their youthful faces
  an eerie, ghoulish appearanceenough to terrify a little girl still
  crouched in the corner, already in a trance of haunted fear.
  They came to form a semicircle around Carrie, to stare down at her as
  each put over her head a pillowcase with holes for eyes. Then came the
  ritual of weaving the candles intricately in formalized patterns as they
  chanted in the way of real witches. They sought to drive the smallness
  out of Carrie. They sought to set her "free" and themselves "free" from
  whatever evil they were driven to do for self-protection from someone so
  "unnaturally small and strange."
  One voice shrilled above all the others and Carrie knew it was Sissy
  Towers. 'Ib Carrie, all those shrouded girls in their long nightgowns
  with white hoods over
 their heads and the black holes for eyes were devils straight from hell! She
 began to whimper, to tremble, and oh, she was so scared, as if once more the
 grandmother were in the room, only this time she had multiplied until there
 were twelve of her!
  "Don't you cry, don't you fear," soothed the nightmarish voice from a
  mouthless hood. "If you live through this night, through this initiation,
  you, Carrie Dollanganger, will become a member of our most private and very
  exclusive society. If you succeed from this night forward, you will share
  in our secret rituals, our secret parties, our secret hoards of goodies."
  "Ohhh," moaned Carrie, "go away, leave me alone, go away, leave me alone."
  "Quiet!" ordered the shrill voice of the hidden speaker, "you have no
  chance to become one of us unless you sacrifice your most beloved and
  precious possessions. It is either that or suffer our trial."
  Crouched in the corner, Carrie could only stare at the moving shadows
  behind the white witches who threatened her. The glows from the candles
  grew larger, larger, turning her world into one of yellow and scarlet fire.
  "Give to us what you dearly cherish or you must suffer, suffer, suffer."
 "I have nothing," whispered Carrie honestly.
  "The dolls, the pretty little china dolls, give us those," intoned the
  austere voice of the speaker. "Your little clothes won't fit us; we don't
  want those; give us your dolls, your pretty man, woman and child dolls."
  "They're gone," cried Carrie, fearful they would set fire to her. "They
  turned to wooden sticks."
  "Ho-ho! A likely story! You he! So now you must suffer, little owl, to
  become one of us---or die. Take your choice."
  It was an easy decision. Carrie nodded and tried not to sniffle.
  "All right, from this night forward you, Carrie Dollanganger, funny name,
  funny face, will be one of
 US. 11
 It hurts to write of how they took Carrie and

               121
 blindfolded her, then tied her small hands behind her back, then pushed
 her out into the hall, then up a flight of steep stairs, and suddenly they
 were outside. Carrie felt the cool night air, the slant of the support
 beneath her bare feet, and guessed correctly the girls had taken her onto
 the roof! There was only one thing she feared more than the grandmother
 and that was the roof-any roof! Anticipating her bellowing screams the
 girls had gagged Carrie. "Now lie or sit still as a proper owl should,"
 said the same harsh voice. "Perch here on the roof, near the chimney under
 the moon, and in the morning you will be one of us."
  Struggling and frantic now, Carrie tried to resist the pull of so many
  who forced her to sit. Then, even worse, they suddenly took away their
  hands and left her there in the darkness on the roof--all alone. Far away
  she heard the whispering titters of their retreat and the slight click
  of a door latching down.
  Cathy, Cathy, she screamed to herself, Chris, come save me! Dr. Paul, why
  did you put me here? Don't nobody want me? Sobbing, making small mewing
  sounds while blindfolded, gagged and bound, Carrie braved the steep
  incline of the huge, strange roof and began to move toward where the
  latching sound had come from. Inch by inch, sitting up and sliding along
  on her bottom, Carrie moved forward, praying every time she moved an inch
  not to fall. It seemed from her faltering report that she gave me much,
  much later that she was not only guided by instinct, but she could hear,
  above and from behind the oncoming spring thunderstorm, the sweet and
  distant voice of Cory singing as he strummed his melancholy song of
  finding his home and the sun again.
  "Oh, Cathy, it was so strange way up there high, and the wind started to
  blow, and the rain began to fall, and the thunder rumbled and the
  lightning struck so I could see the brightness through the blindfold-and
  all the time Cory was singing and leading me to the trapdoor that opened
  when I used my feet to force it upward, and somehow I wiggled through.
  Then I fell down the stairs! I fell into blackness and I heard a bone
  break. And the pain, it came like teeth and bit me so I couldn't

               122
 see or feel anything or even hear the rain anymore. And Cory, he went
 away."

  Sunday morning came and Paul, Chris and I were at the breakfast table
  eating brunch.
  Chris had a hot, homemade buttery roll in his hand, his lips parted wide
  to put at least half inside with one bite, when the telephone in the hall
  rang. Paul groaned as he put down his fork. I groaned too, for I had made
  my first cheese souffld and it had to be eaten right away. "Would you
  mind getting that, Cathy?" he asked. "I really want to dig into your
  souffid. It looks delicious and it smells heavenly."
  "You sit right there and eat," I said, jumping up and hurrying to answer,
  "and I'll do what I can to protect you from the pesky Mrs. Williamson.
  . . ."
  He softly laughed and flashed me an amused look as he picked his fork up
  again. "It may not be my lonely widow lady with another of her minor
  afflictions." Chris went right on eating.
  I picked up the phone and in my most adult and gracious way I said, "Dr.
  Paul Sheffield's residence."
  "This is Emily Dean Dewhurst calling," said the stem voice on the other
  end. "Please put Dr. Sheffield on the phone immediately!"
  "Miss Dewhurst!" I said, already alarmed. "This is Cathy, Carrie's
  sister. Is Carrie all right?"
  "You and Dr. Sheffield are needed here immediateIYV~
 "Miss Dewhurst----2'
  But she didn't let me finish. "It seems that your younger sister has
  disappeared rather mysteriously. On Sundays those girls who are being
  punished by weekend liberty denial are required to attend chapel
  services. I myself called the roll and Carrie did not respond to her
  name." My heart beat faster, apprehensive of what I was to hear next, but
  my finger moved to push a button that would put Miss Dewhurst's message
  onto the attached microphone so Chris and Paul would hear even as they
  ate.
  "Where was she?" I asked in a small voice, already terrified.
               123
  She spoke calmly. "A strange hush came in the air this morning when your
  sister's name was called and when I asked where she was. I sent a teacher
  to check your sister's room and she wasn't there. I then ordered a
  thorough search of the grounds and the entire school building from
  basement to attic, and still your sister wasn't found. I would, if your
  sister was of a different character, presume she'd run off and was on her
  way home. But something in the atmosphere warns that at least twelve of
  the girls here know what has happened to Carrie and they refuse to talk
  and incriminate themselves. "
  My eyes widened. "You mean you still don't know where Carrie is?"
  Paul and Chris had stopped eating. Now both stared at me with mounting
  concern. "I'm sorry to say I don't. Carrie hasn't been seen since nine
  o'clock last night. Even if she walked all the way home she should have
  reached there by now. It's almost noon. If she is not there and she is
  not here, then she is either injured, lost or some other accident has
  befallen her....
  I could have screamed. How could she speak so dispassionately! Why, why
  every time something terrible came into our lives was it a flat, uncaring
  voice that told us the bad news?

  Paul's white car sped down Overland Highway toward Ca-he's scibool. 1.
  was sandwiched in the front seat between Paul aj id Chris. My brother had
  his bag so he could catch a bus and go on to his school after he found
  out what had happened to Carrie. He had my hand squeezed tight in his to
  reassure me that this child of ours was going to five! "Stop looking so
  worried, Cathy," said Chris as he put an arm about my shoulder and drew
  my head to his shoulder. "You know how Carrie is. She's probably hiding
  and just won't answer. Remember how she was in the attic? She wouldn't
  stay even when Cory wanted to. Carrie'd take off to do her own thing. She
  hasn't run away. She'd be too afraid of the dark. She's hiding somewhere.
  Somebody did something to hurt her feelings and she's punishing them

               124
 by letting them worry. She couldn't face the world in the dead of night."
  Dead of night! Oh, God! I wished Chris hadn't mentioned the attic where
  Cory had almost died in a trunk before he went on to meet Daddy in heaven.
  Chris kissed my cheek and wiped away my tears. "Come now, don't cry. I said
  all of that wrong. She'll be all right."
  "What do you mean you don't know where my ward is?" fired Paul in a hard
  voice as he coldly eyed Miss Dewhurst. "It was my understanding the girls
  in this school were properly supervised twenty-four hours a day!"
  We were in the posh office of Miss Emily Dean Dewhurst. She was not seated
  behind her impressive, large desk, but restlessly pacing the floor.
  "Really, Dr. Sheffield, nothing like this has ever happened before. Never
  have we lost a girl. We make a room check every night to see the girls are
  tucked in bed with lights out, and Carrie was in her bed. I myself looked
  in on her i wanting to comfort her if she'd let me, but she refused to look
  at me or to speak. Of course it all began with that fight in your ward's
  room and the demerits that resulted in their loss of their weekend liberty.
  Every member of the faculty has helped me search and we've questioned our
  girls who profess to know nothing about it-which I imagine they do-but if
  they won't talk, I don't know what to do next."
  "Why didn't you notify me when you first found her missing?" Paul asked. I
  spoke up then and asked to be taken to Carrie's room. Miss Dewhurst turned
  eagerly to me, anxious to escape the doctor's wrath. As we three followed
  her up the stairs she spilled forth lengthy excuses so we'd understand how
  difficult it was to handle so many mischievous girls. When we finally
  entered Carrie's room several students trailed behind us, whispering back
  and forth about how much Chris and I looked like Carrie, only we weren't
  "so freakishly small."
  Chris turned to scowl at them. "No wonder she hates it here if you can say
  things like that!"

               125
  "We'll find her," assured Chris. "If we have to stay all week and torture
  each little witch here we'll make them tell us where she is."
  "Young man," shot out Miss Dewhurst, "nobody tortures my girls but me!"
  I knew Carrie better than anyone and around the grooves of her brain I
  ambled. Now, if I were Carrie's age, would I try to escape a school that
  had unjustly kept me from going home? Yes! I would do exactly that. But
  I was not Carrie; I would not run away in only a nightgown. All her
  little uniforms were there, custom sewn by Henny, and her small sweaters,
  skirts and blouses, and pretty dresses, all there. Everything she'd
  brought to this school was in its proper place. Only the porcelain dolls
  were missing.
  Still on my knees before Carrie's dresser, I sat back on my heels and
  looked up at Paul and showed him the box that contained nothing but
  cotton wadding and sticks of wood. "Her dolls aren't here," I said dully,
  not comprehending the sticks at all, "and as far as I can tell the only
  article of her clothing that's missing is one of her nightgowns. Carrie
  wouldn't go outside wearing only her nightgown. She's got to be
  here-.someplace no one has looked."
  "We have looked everywhere!" Miss Dewhurst spoke impatiently, as if I had
  no voice in this matter, only the guardian, the doctor, whose favor she
  sought even while Paul turned on her another of his stem, hard looks.
  For some reason I can't explain I swiveled my head about and caught a
  cat-who's-eaten-the-canary look on the pale and sickly face of a
  frizzled, rust-haired, skinny girl whom I detested merely from hearing
  the little Carrie had told me about her roommate. Maybe it was just her
  eyes, or the way she kept fingering the big square pocket of her organdy
  pinafore that narrowed my own eyes as I tried to pierce the depths of
  hers. She blanched and shifted her green eyes toward the windows,
  shuffled her feet about uneasily and quickly yanked her hand from her
  pocket. It was a lined pocket and it bulged suspiciously.

               126
  "You," I said, "you're Carrie's roommate, aren't you?"
 "I was," she murmured.
 "What is that you have in your pocket?"
  Her head jerked toward me. Her eyes sparked green fire as the muscles
  near her lips twitched. "None of your business!"
  "Miss Towers!" whiplashed Miss Dewhurst. "Answer Miss Dollanganger's
  question!"
  "It's my purse," said Sissy Towers, glaring at me defiantly.
  "It's a very lumpy purse," I said, and suddenly I lunged forward and
  seized Sissy Towers about the knees. With my free hand, as she struggled
  and howled, I pulled from her pocket a blue scarf. From that scarf
  tumbled Mr. and Mrs. Parkins and baby Clara. I held the three porcelain
  dolls in my hand and demanded, "What are you doing with my sister's
  dolls?"
  "They're my dolls!" said the girl, her gimlet eyes narrowing to slits.
  The girls gathered around began to snicker and made whispering remarks
  to one another.
 "Your dolls? These dolls belong to my sister."
  "You lie!" she fired back. "You are stealing from me and my father can
  have you thrown in jail!"
  "Miss Dewhurst," ordered the small demon, her hand reaching for the
  dolls, "you make this person leave me alone! I don't like her, no more
  than her dwarf sister!"
  I got to my feet and towered threateningly above her. Protectively I put
  the dolls behind my back. She'd have to kill me to get to them!
  "Miss Dewhurst!" shrieked the imp as she attacked me. "My mommy and daddy
  gave me those dolls for my Christmas!"
  "You lying little devil!" I said, itching to slap her defiant face. "You
  stole those dolls and the crib from my sister. And because you did Carrie
  is at this very moment in extreme danger!" I knew it. I felt it. Carrie
  needed help and fast. "Where is my sister?" I raged.

               127
  I stared hard at that red-haired girl named Sissy, knowing she had the
  answer to where Carrie was but knowing she'd never tell me. It was in her
  eyes, her mean, spiteful eyes. It was then that Lacy St. John spoke up
  and told us what they'd done to Carrie the night before.
  Oh, God! There was no place in the world more terrifying to Carrie than
  a roof-any roof! I went reeling back into the past, when Chris and I had
  tried to take the twins out on the roof of Foxworth Hall so we could hold
  them in the sunlight and keep them in the fresh air so they'd grow. And
  like children out of their minds from fright they'd screamed and kicked.
  I squeezed my eyelids very tight, concentrating fully on Carrie, where,
  where, where? And behind my eyes I saw her crouched in a dark comer in
  what seemed a canyon rising tall on either side of her.
  "I want to look in the attic myself," I said to Miss Dewhurst, and she
  quickly said they'd already thoroughly searched the attic and called and
  called Carrie's name. But they didn't know Carrie like I did. They didn't
  know my small sister could go off to a nevernever land where speech
  didn't exist, not when she was in shock.
  Up the attic stairs all the teachers, Chris, Paul and I climbed. It was
  so much like it used to be, a huge, dim and dusty place. But not full of
  old furniture covered with dusty gray sheets or remnants of the past. Up
  here were only stacks upon stacks of heavy wooden crates.
  Carrie was here. I could sense it. I felt her presence as if she reached
  out and touched me, though when I looked around I saw nothing but the
  crates. "Carrie!" I called as loudly as possible. "It's me, Cathy. Don't
  hide and keep quiet because you're afraid! I've got your dolls and Dr.
  Paul is with me and so is Chris. We've come to take you home, and never
  again are we going to send you away to school!" I nudged Paul, "Now you
  tell her that too."
  He abandoned his soft voice and boomed, "Carrie, if you can hear me, it's
  just as your sister says. We want

               128
 you to come home with us to stay. I'm sorry, Carrie. I thought you'd like
 it here. Now I know you couldn't possibly have been happy. Carrie, please
 come out, we need you."
  Then I thought I heard a soft whimper. I raced in that direction with
  Chris close at my heels. I knew about attics, how to search, how to find.
  Abruptly I drew to a halt and Chris collided with me. Just ahead, in the
  dim shadows created by the towers of heavy wooden crates, still in her
  nightgown, all torn, dirty and bloody, gagged and still blindfolded, I
  spied Carrie. Her spill of blond hair gleamed in the faint light. Beneath
  her a leg was twisted in a grotesque way. "Oh, God," whispered Chris and
  Paul at the same time, "her leg looks broken."
  "Wait a minute," Paul cautioned in a low voice, clamping both his hands
  down on my shoulders when I would heedlessly run forward and rescue
  Carrie. "Look at those crates, Cathy. Just one careless move on your part
  and they will all come crashing down on both you and Carrie."
  Somewhere behind me a teacher moaned and began to pray. How Carrie had
  managed to drag herself down that close passageway while blind and bound
  was unbelievable. A fully adult person couldn't have done it-but I could
  do it-I was still small enough.
  Even its I spoke I planned the way. "Carrie, do exactly as I say. Don't
  lean to the right or to the left. Lie flat on your stomach, aim for my
  voice. I'm going to crawl in to you and take hold of you under your arms.
  Raise your head high so your face won't be scraped. Dr. Paul will grab
  hold of my ankles and pull us both out. "
 "Tell her it's going to hurt her leg."
  "Did you hear Dr. Paul, Carrie? It's going to hurt your leg so please
  don't thrash about if you feel pain; everything will be over in a second
  or two and Dr. Paul will make your leg well again."
  It seemed to take hours for me to inch down that tunnel while the crates
  teetered and rocked, and when 1

               129
 had her by the shoulders I heard Dr. Paul cry out, "Okay, Cathyl" Then he
 pulled, fast and hard! Down thundered the wooden crates! Dust flew
 everywhere. In the confusion I was at Carrie's side, removing the gag and
 blindfold while the doctor untied her bonds.
  Then Carrie was clinging to me, blinking because the light hurt, crying
  from the pain, terrified to see the teachers and her leg so crooked.
  In the ambulance that came to take Carrie to the hospital Chris and I
  rode and shared the same stool, each of us holding one of Carrie's hands.
  Paul followed in his white car so he'd be there to supervise the
  orthopedist who would set Carrie's broken leg. Lying face upward on the
  pillow near her head with fixed smiles and rigid bodies were Carrie's
  three dolls. That's when I remembered. Now the crib was missing too, just
  as the cradle had disappeared years ago.

  Carrie's broken leg spoiled the long summer vacation trip our doctor had
  planned for all of us. Again I raged inwardly at Momma. Her fault; always
  we were punished for what she'd caused! It wasn't fair that Carrie had
  to be laid up and we couldn't journey north-while our mother gallivanted
  from here to there, going to parties, hobnobbing with the jet set and the
  movie stars as if we didn't exist at all I On the French Riviera now. I
  cut that item from Greenglenna's society column and pasted it into my
  huge scrapbook of revenge. That was one article I showed to Chris before
  I put it into the book. I didn't show him all of them. I didn't want him
  to know I had subscribed to the Virginia newspaper that reported on
  everything the Foxworths did.
  "Where did you get this?" he demanded, looking up from the clipping he
  handed back to me.
  "The Greenglenna newspaper-it's more concerned with high society than
  Clairmont's Daily News. Our mother is a hot item, didn't you know?"
  "I try to forget, unlike you!" he said sharply. "We don't have it so bad
  now, do we? We're lucky to be with

               130
 Paul, and Carrie's leg will mend and be as good as ever. And other summers
 will come when we can go to New England."
  How did he know that? Nothing ever was offered twice. Maybe in other
  summers to come we'd be too busy or Paul would. "You realize, being an
  'almost' doctor, don't you, that her leg might not grow while she's in that
  cast?"
  He looked strangely ill-at-ease. "If she grew like average kids I guess
  there might be that risk. But, Cathy, she doesn't grow very much, so
  there's little chance one leg will be shorter than the other."
  110h, go bury your nose in Gray's Anatomy!" I flared, angry because he'd
  always make fight of anything I said that made Momma the fault of anything.
  He knew why Carrie didn't grow as well as I did Deprived of love, of
  sunshine and freedom, it was a marvel she'd lived to survive! Arsenic too!
  Damn Momma to hell!
  Busily, day by day, I added to my collection of news clippings and blurry
  photographs cut from many newspapers. That's where most of my "pin money"
  went. Though I stared at all the pictures of Momma with hate and loathing,
  I looked at her husband with adn-dration. How very handsome, how powerfully
  built her young husband was with his long, lean, darkly bronzed skin. I
  stared at the photograph that showed him lifting a champagne glass high as
  he toasted his wife on their second wedding anniversary.
  I decided that night to send Momma a short note Sent first class, it would
  be forwarded.

 Dear Mrs. Winslow,
   How well I remember the summer of your
 honeymoon. It was a wonderful summer, so
 refreshingly pleasant in the mountains in a locked
 room with windows that were never opened.
   Congratulations and my very best wishes, Mrs.
 Winslow, and I do hope all your future summers,
 winters, springs and falls will be haunted by the

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  memory of the kind of summers, winters, springs
  and falls your Dresden dolls used to have.
        Not yours anymore,
         The doctor doll,
           The ballerina doll,
The praying-to-grow-taller doll, And the dead doll.

  I ran to post the letter and no sooner had I dropped it in the mailbox
  on the comer than I was wishing I had it back. Chris would hate me for
  doing this.
  It rained that night and I got up to watch the storm. Tears streaked my
  face as much as the rain streaked the window glass. Because it was
  Saturday Chris was home. He was out there on the veranda, allowing the
  winddriven rain to wet his pajamas and glue them to his skin.
  He saw me just about the time I saw him, and he stepped into my room
  without saying a word. We clung together, me crying and him trying hard
  not to. I wanted him to go, even as I held hard to him and cried on his
  shoulder. "Why, Cathy, why all the tears?" he asked as I sobbed on and
  on.
  "Chris," I asked when I could, "you don't still love her, do you?"
  He hesitated before he answered. That made anger simmer my blood into a
  rolling boil. "You do!" I cried. "How can you after what she did to Cory
  and to Carrie? Chris, what's wrong with you that you can go on loving
  when you should hate as I do?"
  Still he didn't say anything. And his very silence gave me the answer.
  He went on loving her because he had to if he were to go on loving me.
  Every time he looked in my face he saw her and what she'd been like in
  her early youth. Chris was just like Daddy, who had been just as
  vulnerable to the kind of beauty I had. But it was only a surface
  resemblance. I wasn't weak! I wasn't without abilities! I could hav -~
  thought of one thousand ways to earn a living, rathe, lian lock my four
  children in a miserable room and le ,e them in care of an evil
 old woman who wanted to see them suffer for sins that weren't even theirs!
  While I thought my vengeful thoughts and made my plans to ruin her life
  when I could, Chris was tenderly kissing me. I hadn't even noticed. "Stop!"
  I cried when I felt his lips pressing down on mine. "Leave me alone! You
  don't love me like I want to be loved, for what I am. You love me because
  my face is like hers! Sometimes I hate my face!"
  He looked terribly wounded as he backed toward the door. "I was only trying
  to comfort you," he said in a broken voice. "Don't turn it into something
  ugly."

  My fear that Carrie's leg would come out of the cast shorter than the other
  proved groundless. In no time at all after her leg was cut free from the
  plaster she was walking around as good as ever.
  As fall neared, Chris, Paul and I conferred and decided that a public
  school where Carrie could come home every afternoon would be best for her
  after all. All she'd have to do was board a bus three blocks from home; the
  same bus would bring her home at three in the afternoon. In Paul's big
  homey kitchen she'd stay with Henny while I attended ballet class.
  Soon September was upon us again, then November had gone by, and still
  Carrie hadn't made a single friend. She wanted most desperately to belong,
  but always she was an outsider. She wanted someone as dear as a sister but
  she found only suspicion, hostility and ridicule. It seemed Carrie would
  walk the long halls of that elementary school forever before she found a
  friend.
 "Cathy," Carrie would tell me, "nobody likes me."
  "They will. Sooner or later they will know how sweet and wonderful you are.
  And you have all of us who love and admire you so don't let others worry
  you. Don't care what they think!" She sniffed, for she did care, she did!

  Carrie slept on heir twin bed pushed close beside mine, and every night I
  saw her kneel beside her bed,

               133
 temple her small hands under her chin, and with lowered head she prayed,
 "And please, God, let me find my mother again. My real mother. And most
 of all, Lord God, let me grow just a little bit taller. You don't have to
 make me as tall as Momma, but almost as tall as Cathy, please God, please,
 please."
  Lying on my bed and hearing this, I stared bleakly up at the ceiling and
  I hated Momma, really despised and loathed her! How could Carrie still
  want a mother who'd been so cruel? Had Chris and I done right in sparing
  her the grim truth of how our own mother had tried to kill us? How she'd
  caused Carrie to be as small as she was?
  Upon her smallness Carrie placed all her unhappiness and loneliness. She
  knew she had a pretty face and sensational hair, but what did they matter
  when the face and the hair were on a head much too large for the thin
  little body? Carrie's beauty did nothing at all to win her friends and
  admiration, just the opposite. "Doll face, Angel Hair. Hey you, midget,
  or are you a dwarf? Are you gonna join a circus and be their littlest
  freak?" And home she'd run, all three blocks from the bus stop, scared
  and crying, tormented again by children without sensitivity.
  "I'm no good, Cathy!" she wailed with her face buried in my lap. "Nobody
  likes me. They don't like my body 'cause it's too little, and they don't
  like my head ,cause it's too big, and they don't even like what is pretty
  'cause they think it's wasted on somebody too little like me!"
  I said what I could to comfort her but I felt so inadequate. I knew she
  watched my every movement and compared my proportions to hers. She
  realized I was very much in proportion and how much she was constructed
  grotesquely.
  If I could have given her a part of my height, gladly I would have done
  so. Instead, I gave her my prayers. Night after night, I too went down
  on my knees and prayed to God, "Please let Carrie grow! Please, God,
  she's so young, and it hurts her so much, and she's been through so much.
  Be kind. Look down, God! See us! Hear us!"
               134
  One afternoon Carrie went to the only one who
 could deliver almost everything --- so why not size?
  Paul was sitting on his back veranda, sipping wine, nibbling cheese and
  crackers. I was at ballet class, so I heard only Paul's version of what
  happened.
  "She came to me, Cathy, and asked if I didn't have a stretching machine to
  pull her out longer."
 I sighed when he told me.
  41 'If I had such a machine,' I told her"--and I knew he'd done it with
  love, kindness and understanding, not with mockery-----" 'it would be a
  very painful process. Have patience, darling, you're taller than you were
  when you came. Time will make you grow. Why, I've seen the shortest young
  people suddenly just shoot up overnight after they reach puberty.' She
  stared at me with those big blue haunted eyes and I saw her disappointment.
  I had failed her. I could tell from the way she ambled off with her
  shoulders drooping and her head hung so low. Her hopes must have ridden
  high when those cruel kids at her school chided her about finding a
  'stretching machine."'
  "Isn't there one thing modern medicine can do to help her grow?" I asked
  Paul.
  "I'm looking into it," he said in a tight voice. "I'd give my soul to see
  Carrie reach the height she wants. I'd give her inches of my height, if
  only I could."

 Momma:s Shadow

 We had been with our doctor for one year and a half, and what exhilarating
 and baffling days they were. I was like a mole coming out of darkness only
 to find the brilliant days weren't at all like I had supposed they would
 be.
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  I'd thought once we were free of Foxworth Hall and I was almost an adult
  life would lead me down a clear and straight path to fame, fortune and
  happiness. I had the talent; I saw that in the admiring eyes of Madame
  and Georges. Madame especially harped on every little flaw of technique,
  of control. Every criticism told me I was worth all her efforts to make
  me not only an excellent (lancer but a sensational one.
  During summer vacation Chris obtained a job as a waiter in a cafe from
  seven in the mornings to seven in the evenings. In August he would leave
  again for Duke University where he would begin his second year in
  college. Carrie fiddled away her time playing on the swing, playing with
  her little girl toys, though she was ten now and should be outgrowing
  dolls. I spent five days a week in ballet class, and half of Saturday.
  My small sister was like a shadow tagging after me when I was at home.
  When I wasn't she was Henny's shadow. She needed a playmate of her own
  age but she couldn't find one. She had only the porcelain dolls to
  confide in now that she felt too old to act the baby with Chris and me,
  and suddenly she stopped complaining about her size. But her eyes, those
  sad, sad yearning eyes, told how she longed to be as tall as the girls
  we saw walking in the shopping malls.
  Carrie's loneliness hurt so much that again I thought of Momma and damned
  her to everlasting bell! I hoped she was hung over the eternal fires by
  her heels and prodded by imps with spears.
  More and more often I was writing Momma short notes to torment her sunny
  life wherever she was. She never settled down in one place long enough
  to receive my letters, or if she did she didn't respond. I waited for the
  letters to come back stamped ADDRESS UNKNOWN but none ever did.
  I read the Greenglenna newspaper carefully every evening, trying to find
  out just what my mother was up to and where she was. Sometimes there was
  news.
  Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow left Paris and flew on to Rome to visit Italy's
  new chic couturier. I cut out that clipping and added it to my scrapbook.
  Oh, what 1

               136
 would do when I met up with her! Sooner or later she'd have to come to
 Greenglenna and live in that home of Bart Winslow's which was newly
 repaired, redecorated and refurbished. I cut out that news article too and
 stared long and hard at a photograph which was not flattering. This was
 unusual. Customarily she could put on a brilliant smile to show the world
 how happy and contented she was with her life.
  Chris left for college in August, two weeks before I went back to high
  school. In late January I would graduate. I couldn't wait to be finished
  with high school so I studied like mad.

  The autumn days flew swiftly by, so much in contrast to other autumns when
  time had crept monotonously while we grew older and youth was stolen from
  us. Just keeping track of my mother's activities kept me busy, and then
  when I really put my nose on the trail of Bart's family history I used up
  more of my precious time.
  In Greenglenna I pored for hours over old books written about the founding
  families of Greenglenna. His ancestors had arrived just about the same time
  mine had, back in the eighteenth century, and they too had been from
  England, settling down in Virginia in the part that was now North Carolina.
  I looked up and stared into space. Was it just a coincidence that his
  ancestors and mine had been part of that "Lost Colony"? Some of the
  husbands had sailed back to England for more supplies only to return much
  later and find their colony abandoned, with not one single survivor to tell
  why. After the Revolution the Winslows had moved to South Carolina. How
  odd. Now the Foxworths too were in South Carolina.

  Not a day passed as I shopped and traveled on the busy streets of
  Greenglenna that I didn't expect to see my mother. I stared after every
  blond I saw. I went into expensive shops looking for her. Snobbish salesla-
  dies would come up silently behind me and inquire if

               137
 they could help. Of course they couldn't help. I was looking for my
 mother, and she wasn't hanging from a clothes rack. But she was in town!
 The society column had given me this information. Any day I would see her!
  One sunny Saturday I was rushing to do an errand for Madame Marisha when
  I suddenly spotted on the sidewalk ahead of me a man and a woman so
  familiar my heart almost stopped beating! It was them! Just to see her
  strolling so casually at his side, enjoying herself, put me in a state
  of panic! Sour gall rose in my throat. I dared to draw nearer, so I was
  very close behind them. If she turned she'd be sure to see me-and what
  would I do then? Spit in her face? Yes, I would like to do that. I could
  trip her and make her fall and watch how she lost her dignity. That would
  be nice. But I didn't do anything but tremble and feel ill as I listened
  to them talk.
  Her voice was so soft and sweet, so cultivated and genteel. I marveled
  at how svelte she still was, how lovely her pale, gleaming hair that
  waved softly back from her face. When she turned her head to speak again
  to the man at her side I saw her profile. I sighed. Oh, God, my mother
  in that expensive, rose-colored suit. The beautiful mother I had loved
  so well. My murdering mother who could still take my heart and wring it
  dry, for once I had loved her so very much and trusted her ... and deep
  inside of me was that little girl, like . Carrie, who still wanted a
  mother to love. Why, Momma? Why did you have to love money more than you
  loved your children?
  I stifled the sob that she might have heard. My emotions raged out of
  control. I wanted to run up and scream accusations before her husband,
  and shock him and terrify her! I also wanted to run up and throw my arms
  about her, cry out her name and plead that she love me again. But all the
  tempestuous emotions I felt were submerged in the tidal wave of spite and
  vengeance I felt. I didn't accost her, for I wasn't ready to face her
  yet. I wasn't rich or famous. I wasn't anybody special and she was still
  a great beauty. She was one of

               138
 the wealthiest women in the area and also one of the luckiest.
  I dared much that day but they didn't turn to see me. My mother was not the
  type to look behind her or stare at passers-by. She was accustomed to being
  the one who drew all the admiring glances. Like a queen among peasants she
  strolled as if no one was on the street but her and her young husband.
  When I had my fill of viewing her, I looked at her husband and drank up the
  special kind of virile, pantherlike handsomeness that was his. He no longer
  sported a huge thick mustache. His dark hair was waved smoothly back and
  was styled modishly. He reminded me a bit of Julian.
  The words my mother and her husband exchanged weren't particularly
  revealing. They were discussing what restaurant they should dine in, and
  did he think the furniture they'd shopped for this afternoon could be
  bettered if they shopped in New York? "I do love the breakfront we chose,"
  she said in a voice that brought back my childhood. "It reminds me so much
  of the one I bought just before Chris was killed."
  Oh, yes. That breakfront had cost two thousand five hundred dollars and was
  so needed to balance one end of the living room. Then Daddy died on the
  highway and everything unpaid for was repossessed, including the
  breakfront.
  I followed where they led, daring fate to let them see me. They were here,
  living in the home of Bart Winslow. As I tagged along, full of vengeful
  schemes, despising her, admiring him, I planned which way to hurt her most.
  And what did I do-I chickened out! I did nothing, absolutely nothing!
  Furious with myself I went home and raged in front of the mirror, hating my
  image because it was her all over! Damn her to hell! I picked up a heavy
  paperweight from the special little French provincial desk Paul had bought
  me and I hurled it straight at the mirror! There, Momma! You're broken in
  pieces now! Gone, gone, gone! Then I was crying, and later a workman came
  and replaced the glass in the mirror frame. Fool, that's what I was.

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 Now I'd wasted some of the money I was planning to use for a wonderful
 gift for Paul's forty-second birthday.
  Someday I'd get even, and in a way in which I wouldn't be hurt. It
  would be more than just a broken mirror. Much, much more.

 A Birthday Gift

 Medical conventions ruined many a plan of mine, as did patients. On this
 unique day I skipped ballet class to rush straight home from high school.
 I found Henny in the kitchen slaving over a gourmet menu I had planned-all
 Paul's favorite dishes. A Creole jambalaya with shrimp, crabmeat, rice,
 green bellpeppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms and so many other things I
 thought I'd never finish measuring out half teaspoons of this and that.
 Then all the mushrooms and other vegetables had to be sautded. It was a
 troublesome dish I wasn't likely to make again.
  No sooner was this in the oven than I began another cake from scratch.
  The first was sunk in the middle and was soggy. I covered up the hollow
  with thick frosting and gave it to the neighborhood kids. Henny bustled
  and bumbled around, shaking her head and throwing me critical glances.
  I had the last rose squeezed from the pastry tube when Chris dashed in
  the back door bearing his gift. "Am I late?" he asked breathlessly. "I
  can't stay longer than nine o'clock; I have to be back at Duke before
  roll call."
  "You're just in time," I said, all flustered and in a fluffy to get
  upstairs and bathe and dress. "You set the table while Hermy finishes up
  with the salad." It was

               140
 beneath his dignity, of course, to set a table, but for once he obliged
 without complaint.
  I shampooed my hair and set it on large rollers, and polished my nails
  a glowing, silvery pink, my toenails too. I painted my face with an
  expertise born of hours of practice and long consultations with Madame
  Marisha and the beauty assistants in the department stores. When I was
  done no one would have guessed I was only seventeen. Down the stairs I
  drifted, borne aloft by the admiration that shone from my brother's eyes
  and by the envy from Carrie's and a big grin that split Henny's face from
  ear to ear.
  Fussily I arranged the table again, changing around the noise-makers, the
  snappers and the colorful, ridiculous paper clown hats. Chris blew up a
  few balloons and suspended them from the chandelier. And then we all sat
  down to wait for Paul to come and enjoy his "surprise party."
  When he didn't show up and the hours passed, I got up to pace the floor
  as Momma had done on Daddy's thirty-sixth birthday party when he never
  came home, not ever.
  Finally Chris had to leave. Then Carrie began to yawn and complain. We
  fed her and let her go to bed. She slept in her own room now, especially
  decorated in purple and red. Next it was only Henny and me watching TV
  as the Creole casserole kept warming and drying out, and our salad was
  wilting, and then Henny yawned and left for bed. Now I was left alone to
  pace and worry, my party ruined.
  At ten I heard Paul's car turn into the drive and through the back door
  he strode, bearing with him the two suitcases he'd taken to Chicago. He
  tossed me a casual greeting before he noticed my fancy attire. "Hey, .
  . ." he said, throwing a suspicious glance into the dining room and
  seeing the party decorations, "have I somehow managed to spoil something
  you planned?"
  He was so damned casual about being three hours late I could have killed
  him if I hadn't loved him so much. Like those who always try to hide the
  truth, I lit

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 into him, "Why did you have to go to that medical convention in the first
 place? You might have guessed we'd have special plans for your birthday!
 And then you go and call us up and tell us what time to expect you home,
 and then you're three hours late----7'
 "My flight was delayed-" he started to explain.
  "I've been slaving to make you a cake that tastes as good as your
  mother's," I interrupted, "and then you don't show up!" I brushed past
  him and pulled the casserole from the oven.
  "I'm ravenous," said Paul humbly, apologetically. "If you haven't eaten,
  we might as well make the most of what looks like it could have been a
  very festive and happy occasion. Have mercy on me, Cathy. I don't control
  the weather."
  I nodded stiffly to indicate I was at least a little understanding. He
  smiled and lightly brushed the back of his hand over my cheek, "You look
  absolutely exquisite," he breathed softly, "so take the frown off your
  face and get things ready, and I'll be down in ten minutes."
  In ten minutes he had showered and shaved and changed into fresh clothes.
  By the light of four candles the two of us sat down at the long dining
  table with me to his left. I had arranged this meal so I wouldn't have
  to hop up and down to serve him. Everything that was needed was put upon
  a serving cart. The dishes that had to be served hot were on electrical
  heating units, and the champagne was cooling in a bucket. "The champagne
  is from Chris," I explained. "He's developed a liking for it."
  He lifted the champagne bottle from the ice and glanced at the label.
  "It's a good year and must have been expensive; your brother has
  developed gourmet taste."
  We ate slowly and it seemed whenever I lifted my eyes they met with his.
  He'd come home looking tired, mussy; now he looked completely refreshed.
  He'd been gone two long, long weeks. Dead weeks that made me miss his
  presence in the open doorway of my bedroom

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 as I practiced at the barre, doing my warm-up exercises before breakfast to
 beautiful music that sent my soul soaring.
  When our meal was over I dashed into the kitchen, then glided back bearing
  a gorgeous coconut cake with miniature green candles fitted into red roses
  made of icing. Across the top I'd written as skillfully as I could with
  that pastry tube, Happy Birthday to Paul.
  "What do you think?" Paul asked after he blew out the candles.
  "Think about what?" I questioned back, carefully setting down the cake with
  twenty-six candles, for that was the age he appeared to me, and the age I
  wanted him to be. I felt very much an adolescent, floundering in the world
  of adult quicksand. My short, formal gown was flame-colored chiffon, with
  shoestring straps and lots of cleavage showing. But if my attempts to look
  sophisticated had succeeded, inside I was in a daze as I tried to play the
  role of seductress.
  "My mustache--surely you've noticed. You've been staring at it for half an
  hour."
  "It's nice," I stammered, blushing as red as my gown. "It becomes you."
  "Now ever since you came you've been hinting how much more handsome and
  appealing I'd be with a mustache. And now that I've taken the trouble to
  grow one you say it's nice. Nice is such a weak word, Catherine."
  "It's because ... because you do look so handsome," I stumbled, "that I can
  find only weak words. I fear that Thelma Murkel has already found all the
  strong words to flatter you."
  "How the hell do you know about her?" He fired this at me as he narrowed
  his beautiful eyes.
  Gosh, he should know-gossip--and so I told him this: "I went to that
  hospital where Thelma Murkel is the head nurse on the third floor. And I
  sat just beyond the nurses's station and watched her for a couple of hours.
  In my opinion she's not quite beautiful, but handsome, and she seemed to me
  terribly bossy. And

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 she flirts with all the doctors, in case you don't know that."
  I left him laughing with his eyes lit up. Thelma Murkel was a head nurse
  in the Clairmont Memorial Hospital and everyone there seemed to know she
  had her mind set on becoming the second Mrs. Paul Scott Sheffield. But
  she was only a nurse in a sterile white uniform, miles and miles away,
  and I was under his nose, with my intoxicating new perfume tickling his
  senses (as the advertisement had said, a bewitching, beguiling, seductive
  scent no man could resist). What chance did Thelma Murkel, age
  twenty-nine, have against the likes of me?
  I was giddy from three glasses of Chris's imported champagne and hardly
  alert at all when Paul began to open the gifts Carrie, Chris and I had
  saved up to buy for him. I'd embroidered for him a crewel painting of his
  gingerbread white house with trees showing above the roof and a part of
  the brick wall to the sides with a little of the flowers showing. Chris
  had sketched it for me and I'd slaved many hours to make it perfect.
  "It's a stunningly beautiful work of art!" he said with impressed awe.
  I couldn't help but think of the grandmother, and how she'd cruelly
  rejected our tedious and hopeful gesture to win her friendship. "Thank
  you very much, Catherine, for thinking so much of me. I'm going to hang
  it in my office where all my patients can see it."
  Tears flooded my eyes, smeared' my mascara as I furtively tried to blot
  them away before he realized it wasn't just the candlelight making me
  this beautiful, but three hours of preparation. He didn't notice the
  tears or my handkerchief that came from the cleavage of my low-cut gown.
  He was still admiring the small stitches I'd so carefully made. He put
  the gift aside, caught my glance with his own shining eyes and stood to
  help me up. "It's too beautiful a night to go to bed," he said as he
  glanced at his watch. "I've got a yearning to walk in the garden by
  moonlight. Do you ever have yearnings like that?"

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  Yearnings? I was made of yearnings, half of them adolescent and too
  fanciful to ever come true. Yet as I strolled by his side through the magic
  of his Japanese garden and over the little red-lacquered footbridge, and as
  we ascended marble steps and walked on hand in hand, I felt we'd both
  entered a magical never-never land. It was the marble statues, of course,
  life-size marble statues standing in their cold and perfect nudity.
  The breezes were blowing the Spanish moss, and Paul had to duck to escape
  it, while I could stand straight and smile because having height did cause
  a few problems I could escape. "You're laughing at me, Cath-er-ine," he
  said, just as Chris used to tease, and separate my name into slow and
  distinct syllables. My lady, Cath-er-ine.
  I ran on ahead and down the marble steps to the center where Rodin's The
  Kiss dominated the garden. Everything seemed silvery bluish and unreal, and
  the moon was big and bright, full and smiling, with long dark clouds
  streaking its face and making it seem sinister one moment and gay the next.
  I sighed, for it was like that strange night that put Chris and me up on
  the roof of Foxworth Hall, both of us fearful we'd roast over the eternal
  fires of hell.
  "It's a pity you are here with me and not with that beautiful boy you dance
  with," said Paul, yanking me back from thoughts of yesterday.
  "Julian?" I asked in surprise. "He's in New York this week-but I suspect
  he'll be back again next week."
  "Oh," he said. "Then next week will belong to him, and not me."
 "That all depends.
 "On what?"
  "Sometimes I want him and sometimes I don't. Sometimes he seems just a boy
  and I want a man. Then again, sometimes he's very sophisticated and that
  impresses me. And when I dance with him I fall madly in love with the
  prince he's supposed to be. He looks so splendid in those costumes."
 "Yeah," he said, "I've noticed that myself."

               145
  "His hair is jet black, while yours is sort of brownish smoky black."
  641 suppose jet black is more romantic than brownish smoky black?" he
  teased.
 "That all depends."
  "Catherine, you are female through and throughstop giving me enigmatic
  answers."
  "I'm not enigmatic, I'm just telling you love isn't enough, nor romance.
  I want skills to see me through life so I'll never have to lock away my
  children to inherit a fortune I didn't earn. I want to know how to earn
  a buck and see us through, even if we don't have a man to lean on and
  support us."
  "Catherine, Catherine," he said softly, taking both my hands in his and
  holding them tight. "How hurt you've been by your mother. You sound so
  adult, so hard. Don't let bitter memories deprive you of one of your
  greatest assets--your soft, loving ways. A man likes to take care of the
  woman he loves and his children. A man likes to be leaned on, looked up
  to, respected. An aggressive, domineering woman is one of God's most
  fearsome creatures."
  I yanked free of him and ran on to the swing and threw myself down on the
  seat. I pushed myself high, higher, fast, faster, flying so high it took
  me back to the attic and the swings there when the nights were long and
  stuffy. Now here I was, free, on the outside and swinging crazily to put
  myself back into the attic! It was seeing Momma and her husband again
  that was making me desperate, making me want what should be put off until
  I was older.
  I flew so high, so wild, so abandoned my skirts fanned up into my face
  and made me blind. Dizzy, I suddenly fell to the ground! Paul came
  running to my side, falling down on his knees to lift me up in his arms.
  "Are you hurt?" he asked, and kissed me before I could answer. No, not
  hurt. I was a dancer who knew how to fall. He started murmuring the love
  words I needed to hear between his kisses that came slower and lasted
  longer, and the look in his eyes made me fill with

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 a drunkenness far headier and far more sparkling than any imported French
 champagne.
  My lips parted beneath his prolonged kiss. I gasped because his tongue
  touched mine. His kisses came hot, soft, moist on my eyelids, my cheeks,
  my chin, neck, shoulders, cleavage as his hands endlessly roamed and
  sought all my most intimate places.
  "Catherine," he gasped, pulling away and gazing down at me with his eyes
  on fire, "you're only a child. We can't let this happen. I swore I'd
  never let this happen, not with you." Useless words that I snuffed out
  by encircling his neck with my arms. My fingers sank into the thickness
  of his dark hair as I murmured huskily, "I wanted to give you a shiny
  silver Cadillac for your birthday, but I didn't have enough money. So I
  thought I'd give you second best-me,"
  He moaned softly. "I can't let you do this-you don't owe me. " I laughed
  and kissed him, shamelessly kissed him long and deep.
  "Paul, it's you who owes me! You've given me too many long, desiring
  looks to tell me you don't want me now. If you say that you're lying. You
  think of me as a child. But I grew up a long time ago. Don't love me, I
  don't care. For I love you and that's enough. I know you'll love me the
  way I want to be loved, because even though you won't admit it, you do
  love me and want me.11
  The moon fit up his eyes and made them shine. Even as he said, "No,
  you're a fool to think it will work," his eyes were speaking differently.
  To my way of thinking, his very restraint proved exactly how very much
  he did love me. If he had loved me less he would have eagerly taken long
  ago what I wouldn't have denied. So when he made a move to rise, to leave
  me and have done with temptation, I took his hand and put it where it
  would pleasure me most. He groaned. And groaned even louder when I put
  my hand where it would pleasure him most. Shameless what I did, I knew
  it. I shut off my thoughts of what Chris would think, of how the
  grandmother would consider

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 me a scarlet harlot. Oh, was it fortunate or just the opposite that that
 book in Momma's nightstand drawer had shown me well what to do to pleasure
 a man and how to respond?
  I thought he would take me there on the grass under the stars, but he
  picked me up and carried me back into the house. Up the back stairs he
  stole quietly. Neither of us spoke though my lips traveled over his neck
  and face. Far off, in the room to the rear of the kitchen, I could hear
  Henny's TV as she listened to a late-night talkshow.
  On his bed he laid me down and with his eyes alone he began his lovemaking,
  and in his eyes I drowned, and things grew blurry as my emotions swelled
  higher like a tidal wave engulfing both of us. Skin to skin we pressed,
  just holding close at first and thrilling in the exaltation of sharing what
  the other had to give. With each touch of his lips, of his hands I was shot
  through with electrifying sensations, until at last I was wild to have him
  enter me, no longer tender, but fervent with his own fierce, demanding need
  to reach the same heights I was seeking.
 "Catherine! Hurry, hurry, come!"
  What was he talking about? I was there beneath him, doing what I could.
  Come where? He was slippery and wet with sweat. My legs were raised and
  clutched about his waist and I could feel the terrible effort of his
  restraint as he kept telling me to come, come, come! Then he groaned and
  gave up.
  Hot juices spurted forth to warm up my insides pleasantly five or six
  times, and then it was over, all over, and he was pulling out. And I hadn't
  reached any mountain high, or heard bells ringing, or felt myself
  exploding-not as he had. It was all over his face, relaxed and at peace
  now, vaguely smeared with joy. How easy for men, I thought, while I still
  wanted more. There I was on the verge of Fourth-of-July fireworks and it
  was all over. All over but for his sleepy hands that roamed over my body,
  exploring all hills and crevices before he fell asleep. Now his heavy leg
  was

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 thrown over mine. I was left staring up at the ceiling with tears in my
 eyes. Good-bye, Christopher Dollnow you are set free.

  Sunlight through the window wakened me early. Paul was propped up on an
  elbow gazing dreamily down at me. "You are so beautiful, so young, so
  desirable. You aren't sorry, are you? I hope you don't wish now you had
  done it differently?"
  I snuggled closer against his bare skin. "Explain one thing, please. Why
  did you keep asking me to come?" He roared with laughter.
  "Catherine, my love," he finally managed. "I nearly killed myself trying
  to hold back until you could climax. And now you lie there with those big
  innocent blue eyes and ask what I meant! I thought those dancing play-
  mates of yours had explained everything to you. Don't tell me there is
  one subject you haven't read about in a book!"
  "Well, there was a book I found in Momma's nighttable drawer. . ~ . But
  I just looked at the photographs. I never read the text, though Chris
  did, but then he stole more often to her bedroom suite than I did."
  He cleared his throat. "I could tell you what I meant by what I said, but
  demonstrating would be more fun. Really, you don't have the least idea?"
  "Yes," I said defensively, "of course I do. I'm supposed to feel stunned
  by lightning bolts so I stiffen out and go unconscious and then I'm split
  wide apart into atoms that float around in space and then gather together
  and sizzle me with tingles so I can float back to reality with
  dream-stars in my eyes-like you had."
  "Catherine, don't make me love you too much." He sounded serious, as if
  I'd hurt him if he did.
 "I'll try to love you the way you want."
  "I'll shave first," he said, throwing back the covers and making ready
  to get up.
  I reached to pull him back. "I like the way you look now, so dark and
  dangerous."

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  Eagerly I surrendered to all Paul's desires. We developed delicate ways of
  keeping our trysts secret from Henny. On Henny's day off I washed the bed
  linens that were duplicates of the ones soiled that I hid away until they
  could be washed. Carrie could have been in another world she was so
  unobservant. But when Chris was home we had to be more discreet and not
  even look at each other, lest we betray ourselves. I felt strange with
  Chris now, like I'd betrayed him.
  I didn't know how long the rapture between Paul and me would last. I longed
  for passion undying, for ecstasy everlasting. Yet my suspicious self
  guessed nothing as glorious as what Paul and I had could go on indefinite-
  ly. He would soon tire of me, a child whose mental capacities couldn't
  compete with his, and he'd go back to his old ways-maybe with Thelma
  Murkel. Maybe Thelma Murkel had gone with him to that medical convention,
  though I was wise enough not to question him ever about what he did when I
  wasn't with him. I wanted to give him everything Julia had denied, and give
  gladly with no recriminations when we parted.
  But in the moment of our flaming obsession with each other I felt so large,
  so generous, and I gloated in our selfless abandonment. And I think the
  grandmother with her talk of evil and sin had made it ten times more
  exciting because it was so very, very wicked.
  And then again I'd flounder, not wanting Chris to think I was wicked. Oh,
  it mattered so much to me what Chris would think. Please, God, let Chris
  know why Fm doing this. And I do love Paul, I do!
  After Thanksgiving Chris still had a few days of vacation, and while we
  were at the dinner table with Hermy hovering nearby, Paul asked all of us
  what we wanted for Christmas. This would be our third Christmas with Paul.
  In late January I'd be graduating from high school. I didn't have much time
  to go, for my next step, I hoped, would be New York.
 I spoke up and told Paul what I wanted for Christ-
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 mas. I wanted to go to Foxworth Hall. Chris's eyes widened and Carrie
 began to cry. "No!" said Chris firmly. "We will not open healed
 wounds!"
  "My wounds are not healed!" I stated just as firmly. "They will never
  be healed until justice is done!"

 Foxworth Hall, from the Outside

 The minute the words left my mouth he shouted, "No! Why can't you let
 bygones be bygones?"
  "Because I am not like you, Christopher! You like to pretend that Cory
  didn't die of arsenic poisoning, but of pneumonia, because you feel more
  comfortable with that! Yet you were the one who convinced me she was the
  one who did it! So why can't we go up there and see for ourselves if any
  hospital has a record of Cory's death?"
  "Cory could have died of pneumonia. He had all the symptoms. " How lamely
  he said that, knowing full well he was protecting her.
  "Now wait a minute," said Paul who had kept quiet, and spoke only when
  he saw the fire blazing from my eyes. "If Cathy feels she must do this
  thing, why not, Chris? Though if your mother admitted Cory to a hospital
  under a false name it won't be easy to check UP. 1~

  "She had a fake name put on his tombstone too," said Chris, giving me a
  long, hateful look. Paul gave that some thought, wondering aloud how we
  could find a grave when we didn't know the name. I believed I had all the
  answers. If she registered Cory in a hospital for treatment under a
  certain name, then naturally she'd

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 use the same name when he was buried. "And Paul, since you're a doctor you
 can gain entry to all the hospital records, right?"
  "You really want to do this?" he asked. "It's sure to bring back a lot
  of unhappy memories and, like Chris just said, open up healed wounds."
  "My wounds are not healed, and will never be healed! I want to put
  flowers on Cory's grave. I think it will comfort Carrie to know where
  he's buried, then we can visit him from time to time. Chris, you don't
  have to go if you are so dead set against it!"
  What I wanted Paul tried to deliver, despite Chris's opposition. Chris
  did travel with us to Charlottesville, riding in the back seat with
  Carrie. Paul went inside several hospitals and charmed the nurses into
  giving him the records he wanted. He looked and I looked while Carrie and
  Chris stayed outside. Not one eightyear-old boy had died of pneumonia two
  years ago in late October! Not only that, the cemeteries didn't have a
  record of a child his age being buried! Still stubbornly determined, I
  had to trek through all the cemeteries, feeling Momma might have lied and
  put Dollanganger on his headstone after all. Carrie cried, for Cory was
  supposed to be in heaven, not in the ground lightly frosted with a recent
  snowfall.
  Fruitless, time-consuming, unrewarding waste! As far as the world was
  concerned, no male child of eight years had died in the months of October
  and November 1960! Chris insisted we go back to Paul's. He tried to
  persuade me that I didn't really want to see Foxworth Hall.
  I whirled to glare at Chris. "I do want to go there! We do have time! Why
  come this far and turn back without seeing that house? At least once in
  the daylight, on the outside-why not?"
  It was Paul who reasoned with Chris by telling him I needed to see the
  house. "And to be honest, Chris, I'd like to see it myself."
  Brooding sullenly in the back seat beside Carrie, Chris relented. Carrie
  cried as Paul headed his car toward the climbing mountain roads that
  Momma and

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 her husband must have traversed thousands of times. Paul stopped at a gas
 station to ask directions to Foxworth Hall. Easily we could have guided
 Paul to Foxworth Hall, if we knew where the train tracks were and could
 find the mail depot that was a stop-off point.
  "Beautiful country," said Paul as he drove. Eventually we did come upon
  that grand house that sat all alone on a mountainside. "That's the one!"
  I cried, terribly excited. It was huge as a hotel, with double wings that
  jutted out front and back from the long main stem constructed of pink
  brick with black shutters at all the windows. The black slate roof was
  so sharply pitched it looked scary-how had we ever dared to walk up
  there? I counted the eight chimneys, the four sets of dormer windows in
  the attic.
  "Look over there, Paul," I directed, pointing out the two windows on the
  northern wing where we had been held prisoners for so long, waiting
  endlessly for our grandfather to die.
  While Paul stared at those two windows, I looked up at the dormer windows
  of the attic and saw that the fallen slat from one of the black shutters
  had been replaced. There wasn't a scorch mark anywhere or signs of a
  fire. The house hadn't burned! God hadn't sent an errant breeze to blow
  the candle flame until it caught a dangling paper flower on fire. God
  wasn't going to punish our mother or the grandmother, not for anything!
  All of a sudden Carrie let out a loud howl. "I want Momma!" she screamed.
  "Cathy, Chris, that's where we used to live with Cory! Let's go inside!
  I want Momma, please let me see my real momma!"
  It was frightful the way she cried and pleaded. How could she remember
  the house? It had been dark the night we arrived, with the twins so
  sleepy they couldn't have seen anything. The morning we stole away it was
  before dawn and we'd left by the back door. What was it that told Carrie
  this was our prison of yesteryears? Then I knew. It was the houses lower
  down the street. We were at the end of the cul-de-sac and up much higher.
  We'd often peeked out the windows of our

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 locked room and gazed down on all the fine houses. Forbidden to look out
 of the windows-and yet we dared, on occasion.

  What had been accomplished by our long journey? Nothing, nothing at all
  except more proof that our mother was a liar beyond belief. I mulled it
  over, day after day, even when I was perched on one of the built-in
  shower seats as Paul lathered my hair and carefully began to wash it. The
  long length couldn't be piled on top and screwed around or I'd never get
  out the tangles. He did it the way I'd taught him, working the soapy
  lather from scalp to ends, and when it was over, he'd dry it, brush it
  free of tangles and all around me it would fall like a silken shawl to
  cover my nakedness, like Eve must have covered hers.
  "Paul," I asked, my eyes downcast, "it's not sinful what we're doing, is
  it? I keep thinking of the grandmother and all her talk of evil. Tell me
  that love makes this all right."
  "Open your eyes, Cathy," he said softly, using a washcloth to wipe away
  the suds before I did. "Look at what you see-a naked man, the way God
  planned him to be." When I'd looked, he tilted my face upwards and then
  lifted me so he could hold me close. Holding me in his tight embrace, he
  began to talk, and every word he said told me our love was beautiful and
  right.
  I couldn't speak. Silently I cried inside, for so easily I could have
  ended up the prude the grandmother wanted to make of me.
  Like a young child I allowed him to dry'me off and brush my hair, and do
  what he would with his kisses and caresses, until the embers always ready
  between us caught fire and he picked me up and carried me to his bed.
  When our passion was sated, I lay in the circle of his arms and thought
  of all I could do. Things that would have shocked me as a child. Things
  that once I would have considered terribly gross, ugly, for I had thought
  then only of the acts and not of the feelings of giving. How strange that
  people were born so sensual and had

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 to be stifled for so many years. I recalled the first time his tongue had
 touched me there and the electrifying jolt I'd felt.
  Oh, I could kiss Paul everywhere and feel no shame, for loving him was
  better than smelling roses on a sunny summer day, better than dancing to
  beautiful music with the best of all partners.
  That was what loving Paul was like for me when I was seventeen and he was
  forty-two.
  He had restored me and made me whole, and deeper down I shoved the remorse
  I felt for Cory.
 There was hope for Chris, he was alive.
  There was hope for Carrie, that she could grow and find love too.
  And maybe, if things turned out right-there was hope for me too.

 Toward the Top

 Julian didn't fly down as often as he used to, and his mother and father
 complained about this. When he did come, he danced better than ever, but not
 once did I see him glance my way. I had the suspicion though, he did plenty
 of looking when he knew I couldn't see him. I was getting better, more
 disciplined, more controlled ... and I worked. Oh, how I worked!
  From the very first I'd been included in the professional group of the
  Rosencoff Ballet Company, but only as a member of the corps de ballet. This
  Christmas we were to alternate performances of The Nutcracker and
  Cinderella.
  Long after the others had gone home I had the dance studio all to myself on
  a Friday afternoon, and I was lost in the world of the Sugarplum Fairy,
  intent upon

               155
 giving this role something different, when suddenly Julian was dancing
 with me. He was like my shadow, doing what I did, even pirouetting, making
 a mockery of what I did.
  He frowned, then grabbed up a towel to dry his face and hair. I wiggled
  my toes and started toward the dressing room. I was going out to dinner
  with Paul that evening.
  "Cathy, hold up!" he called. "I know you don't like me-P
 "I don't."
  He grinned wickedly, leaning forward to stare into my eyes. His lips
  brushed my cheek as I cringed away, then he had me pinioned in his arms,
  with his palms flat against the wall to prevent my running away. "You
  know what, I think you should be the one to dance Clara, or Cinderella."
  He tickled under my chin, then kissed near my ear. "If you're nice to me
  I could see to it that you dance both lead roles."
  I ducked and ran. "Come off it, Julian!" I flared. "Your favors would
  demand a price ... and you don't interest me."
  Ten minutes later I had showered and dressed and was ready to leave the
  building when Julian showed up in his street clothes. "Cathy, seriously,
  I think you're ready for New York now. Marisha thinks so too." His smile
  was wry, as if his mother's opinion wasn't as worthy as his own. "No
  strings attached. Not unless someday you decide you want strings."
  Now I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. I did get chosen for
  both the roles for the Rosencoff performances. I thought the other girls
  would be jealous and resentful, but instead they applauded when it was
  announced. We all worked well together, making it one merry, hectic time.
  Then came my debut as Cinderella!
  Julian didn't even knock before he entered the girl's dressing room to
  survey me in my costume of rags and tatters. "Stop being so damned
  nervous. They're only people out there. You don't think I'd come back
  here to dance with a girl who wasn't sensational, do you?"

               156
  As we stood in the wings his arm stayed about my shoulders, lending me
  confidence as we both counted toward my cue to go on. His part didn't come
  until much later. I couldn't see Paul, Chris, Carrie or Henny out in the
  darkened audience. I trembled more as the footlights dimmed and the
  overture was played, and then the curtain rose. My mounting anxiety disap-
  peared and took all my insecurity along with it, as some astonishing
  kinesthetic memory took over and I allowed the music to control and direct
  me. I wasn't Cathy, or Catherine, or anybody but Cinderella! I swept ashes
  from the hearth and enviously watched two hateful stepsisters prepare for
  the ball, feeling love and romance would never come into my life.
  If I made mistakes, if my technique wasn't perfect, I didn't know it. I was
  in love with the dance, with performing before a large audience, with being
  young and pretty, and most of all I was in love with life and all it had to
  offer outside of Foxworth Hall.
  Red, yellow and pink roses came to fill my arms. I thrilled when the
  audience rose to give us a standing ovation. Three times I handed Julian a
  rose of a different color; each time our eyes met and clung. See, his were
  saying to me mutely, we do create magic together! We are the perfect
  dancing partners!
  He cornered me again during the buffet party. "Now you've had a taste of
  what it's like," he said softly and persuasively, his dark eyes pleading.
  "Can you give up the applause? Can you keep on staying here, in a hick
  town, when New York is waiting for you? Cathy, as a team we'll be
  sensational! We look so right together. I dance with you better than I
  dance with any other ballerina. Oh, Cathy, you and I could reach the top so
  much sooner together. I swear to take good care of you. I'll look out for
  you and never let you feel lonely."
  "I don't know," I said miserably, though I was lit up inside. "I have to
  finish high school first-but do you really think I'm good enough? Up there
  they expect the best. "
  "You are the best! Trust me, believe in me. Madame Zolta's company isn't
  the largest, or top rank, but she's

               157
 got what it takes to make our company rate as high as the larger and older
 ones-once she has a couple of fantastic dancers like us!"
  I asked what Madame Zolta was like. Somehow that made him confident I'd
  already agreed and, laughing first, he managed to plant a kiss on my
  lips. "You're going to adore Madame Zolta! She's Russian and the
  sweetest, kindest, most gentle little old lady you ever met. She'll be
  like your mother. [Good God!] She knows everything there is about dance.
  She's our doctor sometimes, our psychologist; whatever we need, she's it.
  Life in New York is like living on Mars compared to here, another world,
  a better world. In no time at all you'll love it. I'll take you to famous
  restaurants where you'll eat food such as you've never tasted before.
  I'll introduce you to movie stars, TV celebrities, actors, actresses,
  authors."
  I tried to resist him by fastening my eyes on Chris, Carrie and Paul, but
  Julian moved so he blocked out my view. All I could see was him. "It's
  the kind of life you were born for, Cathy," and this time he sounded
  sincere and deeply earnest. "Why have you studied and put yourself
  through so much torture, if not for success? Can you achieve the kind of
  fame you want here?"
 No. I couldn't.
  But Paul was here. Chris and Carrie were here. How could I leave them?
  "Cathy, come with me to where you belong, behind the footlights, on
  stage, with roses in your arms. Come with me, Cathy, and make my dreams
  come true too."
  Oh, he was winning that night, and I was heady with my first success, and
  even when I wanted to say no, I nodded and said, "Yes ... I'll go, but
  only if you come down here and fly with me. I've never been on a plane,
  and I wouldn't know where to go once I landed."
  He took me in his arms then, tenderly, and held me as his lips brushed
  my hair. Over his shoulder, I could see both Chris and Paul staring our
  way, both of them looking astonished and more than a little hurt.
 In January of 1963 1 graduated from high school. 1

               158
 wasn't particularly brilliant, like Chris, but I'd made it through.
  Chris was so smart it was more than likely he'd finish college in three
  years rather than four. Already he'd won several scholarships to help take
  the financial burden of his education from Paul's shoulders, though he
  never mentioned a word about any of us paying him back-for anything. It was
  understood, though, that Chris would become an associate with Paul when he
  had his M.D. I marveled that Paul could keep spending on us and never
  complain, and when I asked, he explained. "I enjoy knowing I'm helping to
  contribute to the world the wonderful doctor Chris will makeand the super
  ballerina you will be one day. " He looked so sad when he said that, so
  terribly sad. "As for Carrie, I hope she decides to stay home with me and
  marr y a local boy, so I can see her often."
  "When I'm gone it will be Thelma Murkel for you again, won't it?" I asked
  with some bitterness, for I wanted him to stay faithful, no matter how many
  miles I put between us.
 "Maybe," he said.
  "You won't love anyone else as much as you love me, say you won't."
  He smiled. "No. How could I love anyone as much as I love you'? No other
  could dance into my heart the way you did, could she?"
  "Paul, don't mock me. Say the word and I won't go. I'll stay."
  "How can I say the words to make you stay when you have to fulfill your
  destiny? You were born to dance, not to be the wife of a stodgy, small-town
  doctor."
  Marriage! He'd said wife! He'd never mentioned marriage before.
  It was more than awful to tell Carrie I was leaving. Her screams were
  deafening and pitiful. "You cannot go!" she bellowed, tears streaming. "You
  promised we would all stay together, and now you and Chris both go away and
  leave me! Take me too! Take me!" She beat at me with small fists, kicked at
  my legs, determined to inflict some pain for what Chris and I were giving

               159
 her-and already I felt pain enough for the world in leaving her. "Please
 try and understand, Carrie, I will be coming back, and Chris will too-you
 won't be forgotten. "
  "I hate you!" she screamed. "I hate both you and Chris! I hope you die
  in New York! I hope you both fall down and die!" It was Paul who came to
  save me.
  "You've still got me every day, and Henny," he said, hefting Carrie's
  slight weight up in his arms. "We're not going anywhere. And you'll be
  the only daughter we have when Cathy is gone. Come, dry your tears, put
  a smile on your face and be happy for your sister. Remember this is what
  she'd been striving for all those long years when you were locked up."
  I ached inside as I wondered if I really wanted a dance career as much
  as I had always thought. Chris threw me a long, sad look then bent to
  pick up my new blue suitcases. He hurried out the front door trying not
  to let me see the tears in his eyes. When we all went out, he stood near
  Paul's white car, his shoulders squared off, his face set, determined not
  to show any emotion.
  Hermy had to pile in with the rest of us; she didn't want to be left home
  to cry alone. Her so eloquent brown eyes spoke to me, wishing me good
  luck as her hands were kept busy wiping the tears from Carrie's face.
  At the airport Julian paced back and forth, constantly glancing at his
  watch. He was afraid I'd back out and wouldn't show up. He looked very
  handsome in his new suit as his eyes fit up when he saw me approach.
  "Thank God, I was thinking I flew down here for nothing-and I wouldn't
  do this twice."
  The evening before, I'd already said a private good-bye to Paul. His
  words rang in my ears to haunt me even as I boarded the plane. "We both
  knew it couldn't last, Catherine. From the beginning I warned you, April
  just can't marry with September."
  Chris and Paul followed us up the ramp to help with the many pieces of
  hand luggage I wouldn't trust to the baggage compartment, and once more
  I had to hug

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 Paul close. "Thank you, Catherine," he whispered so neither Chris nor Julian
 could overhear, "for everything. Don't look back with any regrets. Forget
 about me. Forget all the past. Concentrate on your dancing and wait before
 you fall in love with anyone-and let it be someone near your own age."
 Choking, I asked, "And what about you?"
  He forced a smile and then a chuckle. "Don't worry about me. I've got my
  memories of a beautiful ballerina and that's enough."
  I burst into tears! Memories! What were they? Just something to torture
  yourself with, that's all! Blindly I turned to find myself locked in
  Chris's arms. My Christopher Doll who was six feet tall now, my knight so
  gallant, chivalrous and sensitive. Finally I could pull away and then he
  took my hands, both of them, as our gazes met and locked. We too had shared
  a great deal, even more than Paul and I. Good-bye my walking, talking,
  cheerful, chiding, and living set of encyclopedias, my fellow prisoner of
  hope .... You don't need to cry for me.... Cry for yourself ... or don't
  cry at all. It's over. Accept it, Chris, like I have, like you have to.
  You're only my brother. Tm only a sister, and the world is full of
  beautiful women who'd love you better than I can, or could.
  Every word I didn't speak I knew he heard, and still he kept on looking at
  me with his heart in his eyes, making me hurt all over.
  "Cathy," he said hoarsely, loud enough for Julian to hear, "it's not that
  I'm afraid you won't make it, I'm sure you will if you don't get so damned
  impulsive! Please don't do anything reckless that you'll regret later on.
  Promise to think of all the ramifications first before you jump in with
  both feet. Go easy on sex and love. Wait until you're old enough to know
  what you want in a man before you choose one."
  I'm sure my smile was crooked, for already I'd chosen Paul. I flicked my
  eyes from Paul who looked serious, to Julian who was frowning and glaring
  at Chris, then at Paul. "You go easy on sex and love too," I said jokingly
  to Chris, making sure my tone was light.

               161
 I hugged him tight once more, hurting to let him go. "And write to me
 often, and come to New York with Paul, Carrie and Henny whenever you
 can--or come alone, but come-promise?"
  Solemnly he promised. Our lips met briefly, and then I turned to take my
  seat near the window. Since this was my first plane trip, Julian
  graciously gave up that privilege. I waved like mad to my family who I
  couldn't even see from the plane window.
  Julian, so adroit and adept on stage, was at a loss when it came to
  handling a girl who sobbed on his shoulder, trembling, already homesick,
  wishing she wasn't going even before the plane was five thousand feet up.
  "You've got me," he said smoothly. "Didn't I swear to take care of you?
  And I will, honest to God, I'll do everything possible to make you
  happy." He grinned at me and kissed me lightly. "And, my love, I'm afraid
  I exaggerated the charms of Madame Zolta just a wee, wee bit, as you'll
  soon find out."
 I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
  He cleared his throat ard without the slightest embarrassment he told me
  about his first meeting with the once-famous Russian dancer. "I don't
  want to spoil the surprise in store when you meet up with this great
  beauty, so I'll save that and let you see for yourself. But I'll wam you
  about this, Madame Z. is a toucher. She likes to feel you, your muscles,
  how hard and firm they are. Would you believe she put her hand directly
  on my fly to find out the size of what was underneath?"
 "No! I don't believe that!"
  He laughed merrily and threw his arm about me. "Oh, Cathy, what a life
  we're going to live, you and V What heaven will be ours when you find out
  you've got sole property rights to the handsomest and most gifted and
  graceful danseur ever born." He drew me even closer and whispered in my
  ear, "And I haven't said a word about the talented lover I am."
  I laughed too-and shoved him away. "If you aren't the most conceited,
  arrogant person I've ever met. And I suspect you can be quite ruthless
  too when it comes to getting what you want."

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  "Ri,aht on!" he said with a following laugh. "I'm all of that and more
  too, as you'll soon find out. After all, wasn't I ruthlessly determined
  to get you where I want you?"

 New York, New York

 It was snowing hell-bent when our plane landed in New York. The cold in my
 nostrils stunned me. I'd forgotten bitter winters like this. The wind
 howling down those narrow canyonways seemed to want to rip the skin from my
 face. Ice seemed to enter my lungs and shrivel them with constricting pain.
 I gasped, laughed, turned to glance at Julian who was paying the cab driver,
 and then I pulled from my coat pocket a red knitted scarf Henny had made for
 me. Julian took it and helped me swath it about my head and neck so it
 half-covered my face. Then I shocked him by pulling from the other pocket a
 red scarf I had knitted for him.
  "Gosh, thanks. I never thought you cared." He seemed very pleased as he
  wrapped his neck and ears.
  On this day of days the cold had made his cheeks as red as his lips, and
  with that blue-black hair that curled just above his coat collar and those
  sparkling dark eyes the sheer beauty of him was enough to steal anyone's
  breath. "Okay," he said, "pull yourself together, and prepare to meet
  ballet personified-my sweet, delicate, delicious dance instructor whom you
  will positively adore."
  Just to be here had me on edge, so I clung as close as possible to Julian,
  staring at all the people who dared to brave such ferocious weather.
  The luggage we'd brought was left in a waiting room of the huge building,
  and in the flurry of scurrying after

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 Julian I didn't notice much of anything until we were in the office of our
 ballet mistress, Madame Zolta Korovenskov. Her stance, her arrogance
 immediately reminded me of Madame Marisha. But this woman was much older,
 if all those wrinkles could be counted as tree-rings to indicate her age.
  Queenly stiff she rose from behind a desk that was impressively wide.
  Coolly, all business, she stalked over to us and looked us over with
  bead-black eyes as small as those of a mouse. What hair she had was
  skinned back from her dry brittle face like fine white floss. She wasn't
  five feet tall, but radiated six feet of authority. Her half-moon glasses
  perched precariously on the end of an astonishingly long thin nose. Above
  those half-disks she peered at us, squinting, so her minute eyes almost
  disappeared in the crow's feet. Julian was so unlucky as to gain her
  scrutiny first.
  Her puckered little prune mouth drew up like a drawstring purse. I
  watched and waited for a smile to come and break her parchment skin. I
  expected her voice to crackle, cackle, witchlike.
  "So!" she spat at Julian. "You take off when you want, and come back when
  you want and you expect me to say I'm glad to see you! Bah! Do that one
  more time and out you go! Who is this girl with you?"
  Julian gave the old hag a charming smile, and quickly put his arm about
  her. "Madame Zolta Korovenskov, may I introduce you to Miss Catherine
  Doll, the wonderful dancer I've been telling you about for months and
  months,-and she is the reason why I left without your permission."
  She looked me over with very interested gimlet eyes. "You come from some
  nowhere too?" she whiplashed. "You've got the look of another place, like
  my black devil here does. He's a very good dancer, but not as good as he
  thinks. Can I believe him about you?"
  "I guess, Madame, you'll just have to watch me dance and judge for
  yourself,"
 "Can you dance?"
  "As I said before, Madame, wait and judge for yourself."
 "See, Madame," Julian said eagerly, "Cathy's got

               164
 spirit, fire! You should see her whip her leg doing foueWs. She's so fast
 she's a blur!"
  "Ha!" she snorted, then came to encircle me and next she gave my face
  such a close scrutiny I was blushing. She felt my arms, my chest, even
  my breasts, then put her bony hands on my neck and felt the cords. Those
  audacious hands roamed down the length of my body while I wanted to
  scream out I wasn't a slave to be sold in the marketplace. I was grateful
  she didn't put her hand on my crotch as she'd done to Julian. I stood
  still and endured the inspection and felt all the while a deep, hot
  blush. She looked up to see it and smiled sarcastically.
  When she'd done and I'd been physically appraised and evaluated, she
  delved the depths of my eyes to drink up my essence. I felt she was
  trying to absorb my youth with her eyes and drain it from me. Then she
  was touching my hair. "When do you plan to marry?" she shot out.
  "Sometime when I'm near thirty, maybe, or maybe never." I answered
  uneasily. "But most certainly I'm going to wait until after I'm rich and
  famous, and the world's best prima ballerina."
  "Hah! You have many illusions about yourself. Beautiful faces don't
  usually go with great dancers. Beauty thinks it needs no talent and can
  feed on itself, so it soon dies. Look at me. Once I was young and a great
  beauty. What do you see now?"
  She was hideous! And she couldn't have ever been beautiful, or there'd
  be some evidence.
  As if sensing my doubt to her claim, she gestured arrogantly to all the
  photographs on the walls, on her desk, on the tables, bookshelves. All
  showed the same lovely young ballerina. "Me," she proudly informed. I
  couldn't believe it. They were old photos, brownish in color, the
  costumes outdated, and yet she had been lovely. She gave me a wide,
  amused smile, patted my shoulder and said, "Good. Age comes to everyone
  and makes everyone equal.
  "Who did you study with before Marisha Rosencofp"
 "Miss Denise Danielle." I hesitated, fearful of telling

               16-5
 her about all the years I'd danced alone and been my own instructor.
  "Ah," she sighed, looking very sad, "I saw Denise Danielle dance many
  times, such a brilliant performer, but she made the old mistake and fell
  in luv. End of promising career. Now, all she do is teach." Her voice
  rose and fell, quivering, gaining strength, then losing it. She
  pronounced "luv" with a long "u," making the word sound foreign and
  silly. "Big-head Julian says you are a great (lancer, but I have to see
  you dance before I believe, and then I will decide if beauty is its own
  excuse for being." Once more she sighed. "You drink?"
 "No.,,
 "Why is your skin so pale? Do you never go in sun?"
 "Too much sun burns me."
  "Ah ... you and your lover boy-afraid of the sun."
  "Julian is not my lover!" I said between clenched teeth, shooting him a
  fierce look, for he must have told her we were.
  Not an element of our expressions missed the keen observation of those
  ebony-bead eyes. "Julian, did you or did you not tell me you were in luv
  with this girl?"
  He flushed and lowered his eyes, and had the decency to look embarrassed
  for once. "Madame, the love is all on my side, I'm ashamed to admit.
  Cathy feels nothing for me ... but she will, sooner or later."
  "Fine," the old witch said with a birdlike nod. "You have a big passion
  for her, she has none for you-that makes for sizzling, sensational
  dancing on your part. Our box office will overflow. I see it coming!"

  That was, of course, the reason she took me on, knowing Julian had his
  unsatisfied lust and knowing I had a smoldering desire to find someone
  else offstage. Onstage, he was everything beautiful, romantic and
  sensual---my dream lover. If we could have danced through all our days
  and nights, we could have set the world on fire. As it was, when he was
  only himself, with his glib and often smutty tongue, I ran from him. I
  went

               166
 to bed each night thinking of Paul prowling his lonely gardens, and refused
 to let myself dream of Chris.
  I was soon ensconced in a small apartment twelve blocks from the dance
  studio. TWo other dancers shared the three small rooms and one tiny bath
  with me. Two floors above, Julian shared an apartment with two male dancers
  in rooms no bigger than those we three girls had. His roommates were Alexis
  Thrrell and Michael Michelle, both in their early twenties, and both just
  as determined as Julian to become the best male danseur of their
  generation. I was astonished to find out Madame Zolta considered Alexis the
  best, and Michael next, and Julian third. I soon found out why she held him
  back--he had no respect for her authority. He wanted to do everything in
  his own way, and because of this she punished him.
  My roommates were as different as night and day. Yolanda Lange was half
  British, half Arab, and the strange combination made for one of the most
  exotic, dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauties I'd ever seen. She was tall for a
  dancer, five eight, the same height as my mother. Her breasts, when I saw
  them, were small hard lumps, all large dark nipples, but she wasn't ashamed
  of their size. She delighted in walking about naked, showing off, and soon
  I found out her breasts mirrored her personality--small, hard and mean.
  Yolanda wanted what she wanted when she wanted it and she'd do anything to
  get it. She asked me a thousand questions in less than an hour, and in that
  same hour told me her life story. Her father was a British diplomat who'd
  married a belly dancer. She'd lived everywhere, done everything. I
  immediately disliked Yolanda Lange.
  April Summers was from Kansas City, Missouri. She had soft brown hair,
  blue-green eyes; we were both the same height, five feet four and a half
  inches. She was shy and seldom did she raise her voice above a whisper.
  When loud, raucous Yolanda was around, April seemed to have no voice at
  all. Yolanda liked noise; at all times the record player or the television
  had to be turned on. April spoke of her family with love, respect and
  pride, while Yolanda professed hatred for parents

               167
 who'd pushed her into boarding schools and left her alone on holidays.
  April and I became fast friends before our first day together was over.
  She was eighteen and pretty enough to please any man, but for some
  strange reason the boys of the academy didn't pay April one whit of
  attention. It was Yolanda who made them hot and panting, and soon enough
  I learned why--she was the one who gave out.
  As for me, the boys saw me, they asked for dates, but Julian made it
  clear I wasn't available-I was his. He told everyone we were lovers.
  Though I persistently denied this, he would tell them in private I was
  old-fashioned and ashamed to admit we were "living in sin." He chidingly
  explained in my very presence, "It's that old southern-belle tradition.
  Gals down south like guys to think they're sweet, shy, demure, but under-
  neath that cool magnolia exterior-sexpots--every one!" Of course they
  believed him and not me. Why should they believe the truth when a lie was
  so much more exciting?
  I was happy enough though. I adapted to New York as one native born,
  rushing about as every New Yorker had to-get there fast, don't waste a
  second, there was so much to prove before someone else with a pretty face
  and more talent showed up to knock you off the board. But while I was
  ahead in the game, it was wild and heady stuff, exhausting and demanding.
  How grateful I was that Paul kept sending me a weekly check, for what I
  earned at the dance company wouldn't have paid for my cosmetics.
  The three of us who shared rooms 416 required at least ten hours of
  sleep. We got up at dawn to limber up at our home barre before breakfast.
  Breakfast had to be very light, as was lunch. Only during the last meal
  of the day,, after a performance, could we really satisfy our ravenous
  appetites. It seemed I was always hungry, that I never had enough to eat.
  In just one performance in the corps de ballet I lost five or six pounds.
  Julian was with me constantly, shadowing me too closely, keeping me from
  dating anyone else. Depend-
  
               168
 ing on my mood or state of exhaustion, I was resentful of this, and other
 times happy to have someone around who wasn't a stranger.
  Madame Zolta said one day in June, "Your name is silly! Change it!
  Catherine Doll-what kind of name for dancer? An inane, unexciting
  name--4t doesn't suit you at all!"
  "Now you wait a minute, Madame!" I snapped back, abandoning my attitude
  position. "I chose that name when I was seven and my father liked it. He
  thought it suited me fine, so I'm going to use it, stupid or not!" I
  longed to tell her Madame Naverena Zolta Korovenskov wasn't exactly what
  I'd call a lyrical name either.
  "Don't argue with me, girl, change it!" She used her ivory walking cane
  to pound on the floor. But, if I changed my name, how would my mother
  know when I reached the top? She had to know! Still that wretched little
  witch in her outdated, silly costume could narrow her fierce dark eyes
  and lift that cane and brandish it so I was forced to yield, or else!
  Julian slouched nearby and grinned.
  I agreed I would change the spelling of my last name from Doll to Dahl.
  "Ibat is better," she said sourly, "somewhat."
  Madame Z. rode my back. She nagged. She criticized. She complained if I
  was innovative and complained when I wasn't. She didn't like the way I
  wore my hair and said I had too much. "Cut it off!" she ordered but I
  refused to snip off even an inch, for I believed my long hair a great
  asset for the role of Sleeping Beauty. She snorted when I said this.
  (Snorting was one of her favorite means of expression.) If she hadn't
  been a wonderfully gifted instructor we'd have all hated her. Her very
  dour nature forced the best from us, for we so wanted to see her smile.
  She was also a choreographer, but we had another too who came and went
  and supervised when he wasn't in Hollywood, in Europe, or off in some
  remote spot dreaming up new dancing scores.
  One afternoon after class, when we dancers were playing about foolishly,
  I jumped up to dance wildly to

               169
 a popular song. Madame came in and caught me, then exploded, "We dance
 classical here! No modern dance here!" Her dry, wrinkled face screwed into
 a dried, headhunter's belt ornament. "You, Dahl, explain the difference
 between classical and modem."
  Julian winked at me, then fell backward to rest on his elbows and cross
  an elegant ankle over a knee, as he delighted in my discomfort.
  "Succinctly, Madame," I began with my mother's poise, "the modem form of
  ballet consists mostly of groveling about on the floor and posturing,
  while classical stands up on its toes, whirls, spins, and is never too
  seductive or awkward. And it tells a story."
  "How rigbt you are," she said icily. "Now get you home to bed and posture
  and grovel there if you feet the need to express yourself in such a
  manner. Never let me catch you doing such before my eyes again!"
  Modem and classical could be blended and made beautiful. The tightness
  of that small shrew enraged me, and I screamed back, "I hate you, Madame!
  I despise your ratty old gray costumes that should have been thrown away
  thirty years ago! I hate your face, your voice, your walk and your talk!
  Find yourself another dancer. rm going home!" I flounced off toward the
  dressing room, leaving all the dancers standing in shock staring after
  me.
  I ripped off my practice clothes and yanked on underwear. Into the
  dressing room stalked the grimfaced witch, her eyes mean, her lips
  pressed tightly together. "If you go home you never come back!"
 "I don't want to come back!"
 "You will wither away and die!"
  "You're a fool if you think that!" I snapped without regard to her age
  or respect for her talent. "I can live my life without dancing, and
  happily too-so go to hell, Madame Zolta!"
  As if a spell had been broken that old hag smiled at me, and sweetly too.
  "Ah ... you have spirit. I was wondering if you did. Tell me to go to
  hell, it is nice to hear. Hell is better than heaven anyway. Now,
  seriously, Catherine," she said in a kind tone, kinder than I'd ever

               170
 heard from her, "you are a wonderfully gifted dancer, the best I have, but
 you are so impulsive you abandon the classical and toss in whatever comes
 to your mind. I only try to teach you. Invent all you want, but keep it
 classical, elegant, beautiful." Tears glistened her eyes. "You are my
 delight, did you know? I think you are the daughter I never had; you take
 me back to when I was young and thought all life was one big romantic
 adventure. I'm so afraid life will steal your look of enchantment, your
 childish wonderment. If you can hang onto that expression, you'll soon
 have the world at your feet."
  It was my attic face she was speaking of. That enchanted expression that
  used to so enthrall Chris. "I'm sorry, Madame," I said humbly. "I was
  rude. I was wrong to scream, but you pick on me all the time, and I'm
  tired, homesick too."
  "I know, I know," she crooned as she came to embrace me, then rocked with
  me back and forth. 11b be young and in a strange city is hard on the
  nerves and confidence. But remember, I only needed to know what you are
  made of. A dancer without fire is no dancer at all."

  I'd been living in New York seven months, working even on the weekends
  until I fell into bed dead tired, before Madame Zolta thought I should
  be given a chance to dance a lead role with Julian to partner me. It was
  Madame's rule to alternate lead roles, so that there would be no stars
  in her company, and though she'd hinted many times she wanted me for
  Clara in The Nutcracker, I thought she just used that to dangle before
  me, like a rich plum I'd never be allowed to eat. Then it became a
  reality. Our company was in competition with much larger and better-known
  companies, so it was an absolute stroke of genius that she was able to
  sell a television producer on the notion that people who couldn't afford
  to buy ballet tickets could be reached by television.
  I called Paul long distance to tell him my great news. "Paul, I'm going
  to appear on TV in The Nutcracker.

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 I'll be Clara!" He laughed and congratulated me. "I guess that means you
 won't be coming home this summer," he said rather sadly. "Carrie misses
 you an awful lot, Cathy. You've only paid us one short visit since you
 went away."
  "I'm sorry, I want to come but I need this chance to star, Paul. Please
  explain to Carrie so her feelings won't be hurt. Is she there?"
  "No, she's finally made a friend and is 'sleepingover.' But call again
  tomorrow night and reverse the charges, and tell her yourself."
 "And Chris, how is he?" I asked.
  "Fine, fine. He gets nothing but A's, and if he can manage to keep that
  up, he'll be accepted for an accelerated program and can finish out his
  fourth year of college while starting his first year in medical school."
  "Simultaneously?" I asked, marveling that anyone, even Chris, could be
  that smart and accomplish so much.
 "Sure, it can be done."
  "Paul, what about you? Are you well? Are you working too much, too many
  long hours?"
  "I'm healthy and yes, I do work long hours, as every doctor does. And
  since you can't come to visit us, I think it would be nice for Carrie if
  we came to visit you.),
  Oh, that was the best idea I'd heard in months and months. "And bring
  Chris," I said. "He'll love to meet all the pretty ballerinas I can
  introduce him to. But you, Paul, you'd better not look at anyone but me."
  He made a strange sound in his throat before he chuckled. "Don't worry,
  Catherine, there's not a day that passes that I don't see your face
  before me."
  In early August the television production of The Nutcracker was taped for
  Christmastime release. Julian and I sat close together and watched the
  rushes, and when it was over he turned to take me in his arms, and for
  the first time he told me with the kind of sincerity I could believe, "I
  love you, Cathy. Please stop taking me so lightly!"

               172
  Hardly had we rested up from The Nutcracker when Yolly fell and sprained
  her ankle, and April was visiting her parents, so I had the chance to be
  Sleeping Beauty! Since Julian had played two roles in the TV production,
  both Alexis and Michael thought it should be their turn to partner me.
  Madame Zolta frowned and looked at Julian, then at me. "Alexis, Michael,
  I promise you the very next lead roles, but let Julian dance with Cather-
  ine. They have a rare magic between them that is spellbinding. I want to
  see how they do in a really lavish production like The Sleeping Beauty."
  Oh, the thoughts I had on stage as I lay so still on the purple velvet
  couch, waiting for my lover to come and put on my lips an arousing,
  come-alive kiss. The glorious music made me feel more real on that couch
  than when I was just me with no royal blood at all. I felt enchanted,
  surrounded by an aura of beauty as I quietly, gracefully lay with my arms
  folded on my breasts and my heart pulsated in rhythm with the glorious
  music. Out in the dark audience, Paul, Chris and Carrie and Henny were
  watching for the first time a New York performance. Truly, I felt in my
  bones I was that mystical medieval princess.
  I saw him dreamily from beneath almost closed eyes, my prince. He danced
  about me, then down on one knee he knelt to tenderly gaze upon my face
  before he dared to put a hesitant kiss upon my closed lips. I awakened,
  shy, disoriented, fluttering my eyelids. I feigned love on sight, but was
  so frightened, so maidenly virtuous, he had to woo me with more dancing
  and coax me to dance too, and in the most passionate pas de deux I soon
  succumbed to his charms and in conquest he lifted me high and up on the
  flat of his palm that knew well the exact spot to balance my weight just
  right, and I was carried offstage.
  The last act ended; the applause thundered and resounded as time and
  again the curtain rose and came down. Julian and I took eight curtain
  calls of our very own! Red roses were thrust again and again into my
  arms, and flowers were tossed onto the stage. I looked down to see one
  single yellow buttercup weighted down

               173
 by a folded slip of paper. I bent to pick it up and knew it was from Chris
 even before I had the chance to read his note. Daddy's four yellow
 buttercups-and here was one put in a freezer to keep it fresh until it
 could be thrown to me as a tribute to what we used to be.
  Blindly I stared out into an audience of bluffed faces, searching to see
  those I loved. All I could see was the attic, the gloomy, awesomely huge
  attic with its paper flowers, and over there, near the stairwell, was
  Chris standing in the shadows, near the shrouded sofa and the big trunk
  and his yearning desire was on his face as he watched me dance on and on.
  I was crying, and the audience loved it. They gave me a standing ovation.
  I turned to hand a red rose to Julian, and again they thundered their
  applause. And he kissed me! Right in front of thousands-he dared to kiss
  me-and it wasn't respectful, it was possessive. "Damn you for doing
  that!" I hissed, feeling humiliated.
 "Damn you for not wanting me!" he hissed back.
 "I'm not yours!"
 "You will be!"

  My family came backstage to lavish me with praise. Chris had grown taller
  but Carrie was very much the same-maybe a bit taller, not much. I kissed
  Henny's firm, round cheek. Only then could I look at Paul. Our eyes
  locked and held. Did he still love me, want me, need me? He hadn't
  answered my last letter. Easily hurt, I'd written only to Carrie to tell
  her of the upcoming performances, and only then did Paul call to say he
  was bringing my family to New York.
  After the performance came the buffet party given for us by the rich
  patrons Madame Z. cultivated. "Wear the costumes you have on," she
  instructed. "Tbe aficionados get a big thrill seeing dancers up close in
  costumes-but take off the stage makeup, use what you wear every day to
  look stunning. Never for one second give the public the idea you are less
  than glamorous!"
  Music was playing and Chris took me into his arms for a waltz, the dance
  I had taught him so many years ago. "This is still the way you dance?"
  I chided.

               174
  He grinned in a self-effacing way. "Can't help it if you got all the
  dancing talent and I got all the brains."
  "Remarks like that could easily make me think you have no brains."
  He laughed again and I was drawn closer. "Besides, I don't have to dance
  and posture to win over the girls. Just take a look at your friend Yolanda.
  She's quite a beauty, and she's been giving me the eye all evening."
  "She gives every good-looking guy the eye, so don't feel so flattered.
  She'll sleep with you tonight if you want that, and tomorrow night with
  someone else."
  "Are you like her too?" he shot back, narrowing his eyes.
  I smiled at him wickedly, thinking, no, I was like Momma, sweet and cool
  and able to handle men-at least, I was learning. To prove this I winked at
  Paul, seeing if he'd come over and cut in. Swiftly Paul was on his feet,
  moving gracefully across the dance floor to take me from Chris. My
  brother's lips tightened, then he strolled straight from me to Yolanda. In
  a minute or two they disappeared.
  "I guess you think I'm all hands and clumsy feet, after dancing with
  Julian," said Paul, who could dance better than Chris. Even when the music
  changed into a faster rhythm with a jungle beat he followed along,
  surprising me that he could let go of his dignity and jiggle around almost
  as abandoned as a college kid. "Paul, you're wonderful!" He laughed and
  said I made him feel young again. It was so much fun to see him like this,
  relaxed, that I went a bit wild with my dancing.
  Carrie and Henny looked tired and ill-at-ease. "I'm sleepy," complained
  Carrie, rubbing her eyes. "Can't we go to bed now?" It was twelve o'clock
  when we dropped Henny and Carrie off at their hotel, then Paul and I sat in
  a quiet Italian cafe and looked at one another. He still wore the
  mustache-not a neat, dandy one, but a thick brush above his sensual lips.
  He'd gained a few pounds, but it didn't detract from his looks or his
  appeal. He reached across the table to gather both my hands in his, then
  lifted them to his face so he could rub his cheek against them. And all the
  while he did this, his eyes asked a burning question, forcing a

               175
 question from me. "Paul, have you found someone else?"
 "Have you?"
 "I asked first."
 "I'm not looking for anyone else."
  It was an answer to make my heartbeats quicken, for it had been so long
  and I loved him too much. I watched him pay the check, pick up my coat
  and hold it, and then his own for me to hold. Our eyes met-and then we
  almost ran from the restaurant to the nearest hotel where he registered
  us as Mr. and Mrs. Paul Sheffield. In a room painted dark red, he took
  off my clothes with such seductive slowness I was ready even before he
  went down on his knees to kiss me everywhere. Then he held me close,
  caressed and cherished me, kissed and pleasured until we were again made
  one.
  After we were spent, he traced his finger along my lips, looking at me
  so tenderly. "Catherine, what I wrote on that hotel register I meant,"
  he said, kissing me softly.
  I stared at him, disbelieving. "Paul, don't tease me.71
  "I'm not teasing, Catherine. I've missed you so much since you've been
  away. I realized what a fool I've been to deny you and myself the chance
  to find happiness. Life is too short to have so many doubts. Now you're
  finding success in New York; I want to share it with you. I don't want
  us to have to sneak around behind Chris's back, I don't want to have to
  worry about the small-town gossips. I wants to be with you, I want you
  forever, I want you to be my wife."
  "Oh Paul," I cried, throwing my arms about his neck, "I'll love you
  forever, I promise!" My eyes filled with tears, I was so relieved he'd
  asked me to marry him at last. "I'll make you the best wife any man has
  ever known." I meant it too.
  We didn't sleep that night. We stayed awake, planning how it would be
  when we were married. I would stay with the company, somehow we'd work
  it out. The only shadow that darkened our joy was Chris. How would we
  tell Chris? We decided to wait until

               176
 Chistmas, when I would be in Clairmont. Until then I had to keep my
 happiness a secret, hide it from the world, so no one would guess I was
 about to become Mrs. Paul Scott Sheffield.

        f
 A Fighting Chance

 That was the autumn of my happiness, of my burgeoning success, of my love
 for Paul. I thought I had fate fully under my control; I dared it to stop
 me, for I was free and running true on my course. Almost on top now. I had
 nothing to fear now, nothing at all. I couldn't wait to tell the world
 about my engagement to Paul. But steathily I protected my secret. I told
 no one, not Julian, nor Madame Zolta, for there was much at stake, and I
 had to bide my time, to make sure everything would continue to go my way.
 Right now I still needed Julian to partner me, just as much as he needed
 me. And I needed Madame Zolta to have complete confidence in me. If she
 knew I was going to be married, something she did not highly approve of,
 she might not give me all the lead roles, she might think I was a lost
 cause and not worth her time. And I still had to be famous. I still had
 to show Momma how much better I was than she.
  Now that Julian and I were achieving a little recognition, Madame Zolta
  began to pay us more money. Julian came running to me one Saturday
  morning, terribly excited as he grabbed me up and swung me off my feet
  in a circle. "Guess what? The old witch said I could buy her Cadillac on
  a time payment plan! It's only two and a half years old, Cathy." He
  looked wistful. "Of course, I always hoped my first Cadillac would be a
  brand new one, but when a certain ballet

               177
 mistress is scared to death a certain sensational danseur might join
 another ballet company and take along with him her best ballerina-how can
 that certain someone refuse to almost give away her Cadillac?"
  "Blackmail!" I cried. He laughed and grabbed my hand, and we dashed to
  look at his new car parked outside our apartment building. My breath
  pulled in, it looked so new! "Oh, Julian, I love it! You couldn't
  blackmail her if she didn't want you to have one of her pets-she knows
  you will pamper it-and don't ever, ever sell it."
  "Oh, Cathy," his eyes shone brilliantly with unused tears. "Can't you see
  why I love you so? We're alike-why can't you love me, just a little?"
  Proudly he swung open the door to give me the rare privilege of being the
  first girl to ride in his first Cadillac.
  We had a wild and crazy kind of day from there on. We drove through
  Central Park and all the way up through Harlem, to the George Washington
  Bridge and back. It was raining but I didn't mind. It was warm and cozy
  in the car.
  Then Julian started in again. "Cathy ... you're never going to love me,
  are you?" It was a question he put to me at least once or twice a day,
  in one form or another. I longed to tell him of my engagement to Paul,
  to put an end to his questions once and for all. But I steadfastly kept
  my secret.
  "It's because you're still a virgin, isn't it? I'll be so gentle, so
  tender, Cathy ... give me a chance, please."
  "Good God, Julian, is that all you ever have on your mind?"
  "Yeah!" he snarled. "You're damned right it is! And I'm sick and tired
  of the game you play with me!" He guided the car out into a heavy stream
  of traffic. "You're a cockteaser. You lead me on while we dance, then
  kick me in the groin when we're not!"
  "Take me home, Julian! I find that kind of talk disgusting! "
  "Right! You bet I'll take you home!" he spat at me as I crouched near the
  passenger door he had locked. He

               178
 shot me a fierce, distraught look then bore down hard on the gas pedal!
 We sped down all those rain-slick streets, and every so often he'd glance
 my way to see how I was enjoying the terrifying ride! He laughed, wild and
 crazy, then braked so fast I was flung forward so my forehead struck the
 windshield! Blood trickled from the cut. Next he snatched the purse from
 my lap, leaned to unlock my door, then he shoved me out into the pouring
 rain!
  "To hell with you, Catherine Dahl!" he shouted as I stood there in the
  rain, refusing to beg. My coat pockets were empty. No money. "You've had
  your first and your last ride in my car. I hope you know your way
  around!" He saluted me with an evil smile. "Get home the best way you
  can, puritan saint," he spat out, "if you can!"
  He drove off leaving me on the street comer in the downpour, in Brooklyn
  where I'd never been before. I didn't have even a nickel. I couldn't make
  a phone call, or use a subway, and the rain came down strong. My
  lightweight coat was soaked through. I knew I was in an unsavory district
  where anything could happen . . . and he'd left me here, when he'd sworn
  to take care of me!
  I began to walk, not knowing north from south, east from west, and then
  I saw a cab cruising by and hailed it. Nervously I leaned forward to
  watch the meter click away the miles-and the dollars. Damn you again,
  Julian, for taking me so farl Finally we reached my apartment
  building--at the cost of fifteen dollarsl
  "What do you mean you ain't got it on yuh?" the cab driver flared. "I'll
  drive ya straight to the police precinct!"
  We bickered back and forth, with me trying to explain he couldn't be paid
  unless he let me out to go for money, and all the while the meter was
  running. Finally he agreed. "But you'd better be back, chicky, in five
  minutes--or else!"
  An English fox chased by a hundred hounds couldn't have run faster than
  I did. The elevator crawled upward, creaking all the way. Never did I
  step in that thing

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 when I wasn't afraid it would stop between floors and I'd be trapped.
 Finally, the door opened, and I raced down the hall to bang on the door,
 praying April or Yolanda would be there to let me in. Crazy Julian had my
 hand bag and my key!
  "Ihke it easy!" bellowed Yolanda. "I'm comin'. Who is it anyway?"
  "Cathy! Let me in quick! I've got a taxi driver waiting with his meter
  running!"
  "If you think you're going to put the bite on me, forget it!" she said,
  swinging open the door. She wore only nylon briefs, and her freshly
  shampooed head was wrapped with a red towel. "You look like something the
  sea coughed up," she said invitingly. I wasn't one to pay much attention
  to Yolanda. I shoved her aside, ran to where I hid my secret cache of
  emergency moneythen I went slack. The small key to my locked treasure
  chest was in the bag Julian had-if he hadn't thrown it away. "Please,
  Yolly, loan me fifteen and a buck for a tip. "
  Shrewdly she looked me over while she removed the towel and began to comb
  her long dark hair. "What yah got to trade for small favors like that?"
  "I'll give you anything you want. Just give me the money."
  "Okay--you just keep your promise to repay." Slowly she took a twenty
  from her fat billfold. "Give the driver a fiver; that will cool him
  down-and anything I want-right?" I agreed and raced off.
  No sooner did the driver grab the twenty, than he was smiling, friendly
  as he tipped his cap. "See you around, chicky." I hoped he'd drop dead!
  I was so chilled the first thing I did was to run a tub of hot water, but
  only after I'd scrubbed off the dirty ring Yolly had left.
  My hair was still wet as I pulled on clothes, planning to go to Julian
  and demand my purse back, when Yolly blocked my way. "Come on, Cathy ...
  I want you to keep your bargain-anything I want, right?"
 "Right," I said, disgusted. "What do you want?"
 She smiled and leaned provocatively against a wall.

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 "Your brother ... I want you to invite him up next weekend."
  "Don't be ridiculous! Chris is in college. He can't come up here any time
  he wants."
  "You get him up here any way you have to. Say you're sick, say you
  desperately need him, but get him up here! And then you can keep the
  twenty."
  I turned to stare at her with hostility. "No! I've got the money to pay
  you back.... I'm not going to let Chris get involved with the likes of
  you!"
  Still wearing only the briefs, she smeared on scarlet lipstick without
  looking in a mirror. "Cathy, love, your dear, precious brother is already
  involved with the likes of me."
 "I don't believe you! You're not his type!"
  "Nooo," she purred, her eyes narrowing as she watched me finish dressing,
  "let me tell you something, dollface, there isn't a guy alive who doesn't
  go for my type. Including your dear brother and your lover-boy Julian!"
  "You lie!" I cried. "Chris wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole-and
  as for Julian, I don't give a damn if he sleeps with ten whores like
  you!"
  Suddenly her face flamed red, she stiffened and came at me with her hands
  raised and her fingers curled into claws with long red fingernails!
  "Bitch!" she snarled. "Don't you dare call me a whore! I don't take pay
  for what I want to give out-and your brother likes what I give out--go
  and ask him how many times he's---2'
  "Shut up!" I yelled, not letting ner finish. "I don't believe anything
  you say! He's too smart to do anything but use you for physical needs....
  Beyond that, you couldn't mean more than dirt to him!"
  She grabbed me and I belted her back, hard. Hard enough so she fell to
  the floor. "You're nothing but a shallow, mean tramp, Yolanda Lange!" I
  screamed with fury. "Not nearly good enough for my brother to wipe his
  feet on! You've slept with every dancer in the company. I don't care what
  you do ... just leave me. and leave my brother alone!"

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  Her nose was bleeding.... Oh, I didn't know I'd hit that hard, and her
  nose was also beginning to swell. Quickly she jumped to her feet, but for
  some reason she backed off from me. "Nobody talks to me like that and
  gets away with it.... You're gonna regret this day, Catherine Dahl! I'll
  get your brother. And what's more, I'll take Julian from you too! And
  when he's mine, you'll find out that without him you're nothing! Nothing
  but a hick dancer Madame Z. would throw out if Julian didn't insist on
  keeping you on because he's got the hots for a virgin."
  What she screamed out could be so true. Maybe she was right, that without
  Julian I wouldn't be anything special. I felt sick and I hated her-hated
  her for soiling Chris and my image of him. I began to throw my clothes
  in my suitcases, determined I'd go back to Clairmont before I'd live
  another hour near Yolanda!
  "Go on!" she hissed between her clenched teeth. "Run away, little
  prude-what a fool you are. I'm not a whore! It's just I'm not the tease
  you are-and between the two, I choose my kind!"
  Heedless of what she said, I finished packing, then strapped the handles
  of my three bags together so I could drag them out into the hall, and
  under my arm I carried a soft leather satchel stuffed full. I turned at
  the door to look back at Yolanda who had sprawled on the bed like a sleek
  cat. "You really do terrify me, Yolanda. I'm so seared I could laugh.
  I've faced up to bigger and better than you, and still I'm alive ... so
  don't you come near me again, or it will be you who fives to regret this
  day!"
  Shortly after I slammed the door I was on Julian's floor. Dragging along
  my tied-together luggage, I banged on the door to Julian's apartment with
  both fists! "Julian!" I cried, "if you're in there, open this door and
  give me back my purse. Open this door or you'll never have me for a dance
  partner again!"
  He opened the door quickly enough, wearing nothing but a bath towel
  wrapped about his narrow hips. Before I knew what was happening he
  dragged me into the room and threw me down on the bed. I looked

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 around frantically, hoping to see Alexis or Michael, but it was my bad
 luck he had the apartment to himself. "Sure," he barked, "you can have
 your damned purse back-after you answer a few questions!"
  I jumped up from the bed-and he shoved me down again, then knelt so he
  straddled my body, and in no way could I escape! "You let me go, you
  beast!" I yelled. "I walked six blocks in the rain and was freezing
  cold-now let me up and give me my purse!"
  "Why can't you love me?" he shot out, holding me down with both hands as
  I struggled to free myself. "Is it because you're in love with someone
  else? Who is it? It's that big doctor who took you in, isn't it?"
  I shook my head, terribly afraid of him. I couldn't tell him the truth.
  He looked almost insane with jealousy. His hair was so wet from his
  recent shower he dripped water on me. "Cathy, I've had about all I can
  take from you! It's been about three years since we met, and I'm not
  getting anywhere. It can't be me that's wrong--so it must be you! Who is
  it?"
  "Nobody!" I lied. "And you are all wrong for me! The only thing I like
  about you, Julian Marquet, is the way you dance!"
  Blood flooded his face. "You think I'm blind and stupid, don't you?" he
  asked, so furious he could likely explode. "But I'm not blind, I'm not
  stupid and I've seen the way you look at that doctor-and so help me God
  if I haven't seen you look at your own brother in the same way! So don't
  go getting up on your high horse of morals, Catherine Dahl, for I've
  never seen a brother and sister so fascinated with each other before!"
  I slapped him then! He slapped back, twice as hard! I tried to fight him
  off , but he was like an eel as he wrestled me down to the floor where
  I feared he'd soon rip off my clothes and rape me-but he didn't do that.
  He only held me beneath him and breathed heavily until he had some
  control of his raging emotions, and only then did he speak. "You're mine,
  Cathy, whether you know it or not ... you belong to me. And if any man
  comes between us, I'll kill him-and you too. So

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 remember that before you turn your eyes on anyone but me."
  He gave me my purse then, and told me to count my money to see if he'd
  stolen any. I had forty-two dollars and sixty-two cents, it was all
  there.
  Shakily I gained my feet, when he allowed me to, and I trembled as I
  backed to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hall clutching
  my purse tight. Only then did I dare to speak what I thought.
  "There are institutions for madmen like you, Julian. You can't tell me
  whom to love, and you can't force me to love you. If you had deliberately
  set out to make yourself repugnant to me, you couldn't have done a better
  job of it. Now I can't even like you-and as for dancing together again,
  forget it!" I slammed the door in his face, then hurried away.
  But as I reached the elevator, he had the door open again, and he cursed
  something so terrible I can't repeat it, except it ended with, "Damn you
  to hell, Cathy.... I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... and
  you'll wish to God you were in hell before I'm done with you!"

  After that terrible scene with Yolanda, then Julian, I sought out Madame
  Zolta and told her I just couldn't live any longer in an apartment with
  a girt determined to ruin my career.
  "She afraid of you, Catherine, that's all. Yolanda was the superstar in
  my small company until you came along. Now she feels threatened. Make up
  with her.... Be a good girl, and go and say you're sorry for whatever it
  was."
  "No, Madame. I don't like her, and I refuse to live in the same apartment
  with her. So if you don't give me more money, I'll have to go to another
  company and see if they will, and if they won't then I'll go back to
  Clairmont."
  She groaned, bowed her skeleton head into her bony hands and moaned some
  more. Oh, how grand Russians were at expressing emotions! "Okay ... you
  blackmail me, and I give in. I'll give you a small raise,

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 and tell you where to find cheap apartment-but it won't be so nice as one
 you left."
  Hah! That had been nice? But she was right. The only apartment I could
  find would fit in Paul's smallest bedroom, all two rooms of it. But it
  was my own ... the very first place I'd had all to myself, and for a few
  days I exalted in fixing it up as best I could. Then I really began to
  sleep restlessly, waking up every few minutes to listen to all the
  squeaks and squeals the old building made. I longed for Paul. I longed
  for Chris. I heard the wind blow, and there was no one in another bed
  three feet from mine to comfort me with soft words and sparkling blue
  eyes.
  Chris's eyes were in front of me as I got up and sat at my kitchen table
  to write a note to "Mrs. Winslow." I sent her my first rave review, one
  with a sensational photo of Julian and me in The Sleeping Beauty. And I
  wrote at the bottom of my letter,

 It won't be long now, Mrs. Winslow. Think about
 that every night before you fall asleep. Remem
 ber somewhere I'm still alive, and I'm thinking of
 you, and planning.

  I even mailed off that letter m the middle of the night before I had the
  chance to reconsider and tear it up. I raced home, threw myself on my bed
  and sobbed. Oh God, I was never going to be set free' Nlever! And despite
  all my tears I woke up again, thinking of how I could hurt her so she'd
  never be the same. Be happy now, Momma, for it won't be long!

  I bought six copies of all papers that had anything to say about me.
  Unfortunately, most often my name was coupled with Julian's. Paul and
  Chris were also favored with my reviews; the others I kept for myself--or
  Momma. I pictured how she'd look when she opened the envelope, though it
  was my fear she'd just pitch it in the trashcan after she'd torn up the
  envelope with its contents unread, Not once did I call her Mother or

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 Momma, but kept my salutations always formal and cold. There would come
 a day when she would see me face to face and I would call her Mother and
 I would watch her pale, then shudder.

  One morning I was awakened by someone banging on my door. "Cathy, let me
  in! I have terrific news!" It was Julian's voice.
  "Go way!" I said sieepily, getting up and pulling on a robe before I
  stumbled over to make him stop pounding on the door. "Stop that!" I
  yelled. "I haven't forgiven you-I never wil"o stay out of my life!"
  "Let me in or I'll kick the door down!" he bellowed. I unlocked the
  deadbolts, and swung the door open a crack. Julian barged in to sweep me
  up in his arms and plant on my lips a long, hot kiss while I was half
  yawning. "Madame Zolta ... yesterday after you left, she broke the news!
  We're going on tour in London! TWo weeks there! I've never been to
  London, Cathy, and Madame is so delighted they've taken official notice
  of us over there!"
  "Really?" I asked, catching his excitement. Then I staggered off toward
  my minute kitchen.... Coffee, had to have coffee before I could think
  straight.
  "God, are you always so disoriented in the mornings?" he asked, following
  me into the kitchen where he straddled a chair backwards and leaned on
  his elbows to watch my every move. "Wake up, Cathy! Forgive me, kiss me,
  be my friend again. Hate me all you want tomorrow, but love me this
  day-for I was born for this day, you too-Cathy, we're going to make it!
  I know we are! Madame Zolta's company was never noticed before we became
  a team! It isn't her success--it's ours!"
  His modesty deserved a medal. "You've eaten breakfast?" I asked, and
  hoped. I had only two slices of bacon and wanted both for myself.
  "Sure I have; I grabbed a bite before I came over, but I can eat again."
  Naturally he could eat again! He could always eat ... and that's when it
  hit me ... London! Our

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 company going to London! I spun around, crying, "Julian, what you said,
 you're not kidding? We're going over there-all of us?"
  He jumped up. "Yes, all of us! It's a big break, our chance to make it
  big! We'll make the world sit up and take notice! And you and I, we'll
  be the stars! Because together we're the best, and you know it as well
  as I do."
  I shared my meal and listened to him rhapsodize on the long and fantastic
  career we had just ahead. We'd be rich, and when we grew older, we'd
  settle down and have a couple of kids, and then teach ballet, I'd like
  that, wouldn't I? I hated to spoil his plans, but I had to say it.
  "Julian, I don't love you, so we can never be married. We'll go to London
  and dance together, and I'll do my best-but I plan to marry someone else.
  I'm already engaged. I have been for a long time now."
  His long, glaring look of disbelief and pure hatred delivered and
  redelivered a series of visual slaps on my face. "You're lying!" he
  screamed. I shook my head to deny it. "Goddamn you to hell for leading
  me on!" he raged, then hurled himself out of my apartment. I'd never led
  him on, except when we were dancing, and that was my role to play....
  That was all, all there was between us.

 Winter Dreams

 I was going home for Chirstmas. The unpleasantness with Julian was
 forgotten in my happy anticipation of seeing Paul, and bringing with me
 such good news. Thank God I had Paul to escape to. And I wasn't going to
 let Julian take the joy from this Christmas. For this was the time Paul
 and I had agreed to announce

               187
 our engagement, and the only person who could ruin my happiness now was
 Chris.

  At two o'clock in the morning Chris and Paul met me at the airport. It
  was bitterly cold even in South Carolina. It was Chris who reached me
  first to catch me up in his strong arms, and he tried to put a kiss on
  my lips but I turned my face so his kiss landed on my cheek. "Hail to the
  conquering ballerina!" he cried, hugging me tight and looking at me with
  so much pride. "Oh, Cathy, you are so beautiful! Each time I see you, you
  make my heart hurt."
  He made my heart hurt too, to see him more handsome than even Daddy had
  been. Quickly I looked in another direction. I tore away from my
  brother's embrace and ran toward Paul who stood and watched. He stretched
  out his hands to take mine in them. Careful, careful, warned his long
  look, mustn't let our news escape too soon.
  That was our best Christmas ever, from beginning to end--or almost to the
  end. Carrie had grown half an inch, and to see her sitting on the floor
  on Christmas morning with her big blue eyes happy and glowing as she
  exclaimed over the red velvet dress I'd bought her, found after hours and
  hours of searching almost every shop in New York. She looked like a
  radiant, small princess when she tried the dress on. I tried to picture
  Cory seated cross-legged on the floor looking at his gifts too. It was
  impossible for me to leave the memory of him out of any happy occasion.
  Oh, many a time I'd glimpsed a small boy with blond curls and blue eyes
  on the streets of New York, and I'd run to chase after, hoping by some
  miracle it would be him-and it never was, never was.
  Chris put a small box into my hands. Inside was a tiny gold heart-locket
  and in the center of the lid was a genuine diamond, a small one, but a
  diamond nevertheless. "Paid for by my own hard-earned cash," he said as
  he fastened the chain about my neck. "Waiting on tables pays well when
  you give good service with a smile." Then, furtively, he slipped a folded
  note in my

               188
 hand. An hour later, when I had the chance, I read a note that made me cry:

 To my lady Catherine,
I give you gold with a diamond you can barely see,
But the gem would be castle-sized if it expressed all I feel for thee.
I give you gold because it endures, and love like the eternal sea.
 Only your brother, Christopher.

  I hadn't read that note when Paul gave me his gift wrapped in gold foil and
  topped by a huge red satin bow. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the
  many layers of tissue, all while he watched expectantly. A grey fox coat!
  "The kind of coat you really need for New York winters," he said, his eyes
  shining with all the warmth and love he felt.
  "It's too much," I choked, "but I love it, absolutely love it!"
  He smiled, made happy so easily. "Every time you wear it, it's essential
  you think of me, and it should keep you warm on those cold, foggy days in
  London too."
  I told him it was the most beautiful coat I'd ever seen, though I felt
  uneasy. It brought back thoughts of Momma and her closet full of many furs,
  gained only because she had the heartless cruelty to lock us away, and thus
  gain a fortune, and furs, and jewelry, and everything else money could buy.
  Chris jerked his head around to catch something on my face that must have
  betrayed my love for Paul. His brows drew together in a scowl before he
  shot a glance at Paul. Then he got up and left the room. Somewhere upstairs
  a door slammed violently. Paul pretended not to notice. "Look over in the
  comer, Catherine-that's a gift for all of us to enjoy."
  I stared at the huge cabinet TV set that Carrie jumped up and ran to turn
  on. "He bought it just so we

               189
 could watch you dance in The Nutcracker in color, Cathy. Now he won't let
 me touch it."
  "It's only because it is the devil to tune in correctly," Paul
  apologized,
  Throughout the rest of Christmas Day I saw very little of Chris, except
  at mealtimes. He wore the bright blue sweater I'd knitted for him-and it
  did fit-and under it the shirt and tie I'd given him as well. But none
  of my gifts to him could equal that gold and diamond locket with the
  small poem that left my heart bleeding. I hated it that he kept caring
  so much, and yet-when I thought about it later-I would hate it more if
  he didn't.
  That evening we all settled down comfortably before the new color TV. I
  curled up on the floor near Paul's leg as he sat in a chair, with Carrie
  close at my side. Chris sat far away, deep in a mood that took him even
  farther away than the actual feet that separated us. So I didn't feel as
  happy as I should have as I watched the credits roll by on the colorful
  screen. A tape which had been made in August and only now was to be seen
  in hundreds of cities across the country. How beautiful the sets looked
  in color; they hadn't appeared nearly so ethereal in reality. I gazed at
  myself as Clara-did I really look like that? I forgot myself and leaned
  unconsciously against Paul's thigh, and I felt his fingers twine into my
  hair-and then I didn't know where I was, except on stage, with Julian now
  transformed by magic from the ugly nutcracker into the handsome prince.
  When it was over I came back to myself and the first thing I thought of
  was my mother. God, let her be home this night, and let her have seen me.
  Let her know what she tried to kill! Let her hurt, cry, grieve ...
  please, please!
  "What can I say, Cathy," said Paul in an awed way. "No dancer could have
  performed that role better than you did. And Julian was superb too."
  "Yeah," said Chris coldly, getting to his feet and coming to lift Carrie
  up in his arms. "You both were

               190
 sensational-but it sure wasn't the kiddy performance I remember seeing when
 I was a child. The two of you made it seem a romance. Really, Cathy, turn
 that guy off, and quickly!" With those words he strode from the room and up
 the stairs to tuck Carrie into bed.
  "I think your brother is suspicious," said Paul mildly, 64not only of
  Julian, but also of me. All day he has treated me as a rival. He's not
  going to be happy when he hears our news."
  Because like others I wanted to put off what was unpleasant, I sug ested we
  not tell him until the next day. Then, when I was curled up on Paul's lap
  and we had our arms wrapped about each other, we exchanged the kind of
  passionate kisses held back until now. I was aching for him. After we'd
  turned off all the lights we stole up the back stairs and with the zeal
  born of starvation made love on his bed. Later on we slept, then woke up to
  make love again. At dawn I kissed him once more, then slipped on a robe to
  sneak down the hall to my own room. To my utter dismay, just as I stepped
  from Paul's room into the hall, Chris opened his door and came out!
  Abruptly he jerked to a stop and stared at me with astonished, hurt eyes.
  I cringed backward, so ashamed I could cry! Neither of us said a word. His
  eyes were the first to break from the frozen stare that also stilled our
  limbs. He ran for the stairs, but halfway there he turned to throw me a
  look of outraged disgust. I wanted to die! I went in to look at Carrie who
  was sound asleep with her red velvet dress clutched in her arms. And on my
  bed I lay trying to think of what to say to Chris to make it right between
  us again. Why did I feel in my heart that I was betraying him?

  The day after Christmas was for returning the gifts you hated, didn't want,
  or those that didn't fit. I forced myself to approach Chris who was in the
  garden, fiercely snipping at the rose bushes with hedge clippers. "Chris,
  I need to talk to you and explain a few things. "
 He exploded. "Paul had no right to give you a fur

               191
 coat! A gift like that makes you seem a kept woman! Cathy, give him back
 that coat! And, most of all, stop what you are doing with him!"
  First I took the clippers from his hands before he ruined Paul's beloved
  roses. "Chris, it isn't as bad as you believe. You see ... Paul and I ...
  well, we are planning to marry in the spring. We love each other, so it
  isn't wrong what we do together. It's not an affair to be forgotten
  tomorrow; he needs me and I need him." I stepped closer when he turned
  his back to hide his expression. "It's better this way for me and for you
  too," I said softly. I encircled his waist and twisted about to stare up
  in his face. He seemed stunned, like a healthy man who learns suddenly
  he has a terminal illness-and all hope had fled from him.
 "He's too old for you!"
 "I love him."
  "So, you love him. What about your career? Are you throwing away all
  those years of dreaming, of working? Are you going to break your word?
  You know we swore to each other to go after our goals and not let those
  lost years make a difference."
  "Paul and I have discussed that. He understands. He thinks we can work
  it out. . . ."
  "He thinks? What does a doctor know about the dancer's life? You'll never
  be with him. He'll be here; you'll be God knows where, with men your own
  age. You don't owe him anything, Cathy, you donT We'll pay him back every
  cent he's spent on us. We'll give him the respect he deserves, and the
  love-but you don't owe him your life."
  "Don't IT' I asked in a whisper, aching inside for Chris. "I think I do
  owe him my life. You know how I felt when I came here. I thought no one
  could be trusted or depended on. I expected the worst to happen to us,
  and it would have too without him. And I don't love him just for what
  he's done. I love him because of who and what he is. Chris, you don't see
  him as I do."
  He whirled about, seizing the shears from my hands. "And what about
  Julian? You are going to be married to Paul and dance with Julian? You
  know Julian is mad

               192
 for you. It's all over him, the way he looks at you, the way he touches
 you."
  I backed off, stricken. Chris wasn't talking just of Julian. "I'm sorry
  if this has ruined your holiday," I said, "but you'll find someone too.
  You love Paul, I know you do. And when you've thought about this, you'll
  know we are right for each other, despite our age difference, despite
  everything." I went off, leaving Chris in the garden with the hedge
  clippers.
  Paul drove me to Greenglenna while Carrie stayed home to enjoy the new
  color TV set and all her new clothes and games. Paul chatted happily of
  the party he planned for all of us tonight at his favorite restaurant.
  "I wish I could be selfish and leave Chris and Carrie at home. But I want
  them there when I put the ring on your finger." I fixed my eyes on the
  winter landscape rolling by, the trees bare, the grass brown, the pretty
  houses with decorations and outdoor lights turned on after dark. Now I
  was part of the show, no longer just a spectator locked away-and yet I
  felt so torn, so miserable.
  "Cathy, you are seated beside the happiest man in the world!"
  And back in his garden, I'd left a man just as miserable as I felt.

  In my purse I had a ring I'd bought for Carrie in New York. A tiny ruby
  for a very small finger, and even so, it was too large for anything but
  her thumb. As I stood there, in the better jewelry department of the best
  store in town, discussing just how the ring could be reduced in size
  without ruining the setting, I suddenly heard a very familiar voice! A
  sweet, husky, dulcettoned voice. As in slow motion, I cautiously turned
  my head.
  Momma! Standing right next to me! If she'd been alone, perhaps she would
  have seen me, but she was absorbed in chatting to her female companion
  who was dressed just as elegantly as she was. I'd changed considerably
  since she saw me last-still if she looked, she would have to know who I
  was. The two of them

               193
 were discussing the party they had attended last night. "Really, Corrine,
 Elsie does carry the festive theme through to an outrageous extreme-all
 that red!"
  Parties! Was that all she did, go to parties! My heart went pounding in
  fox-trot time. My spirits went limp, sagged out by disappointment. A
  party~l should have known! She ~ever stayed at home and watched TV! She
  hadn't seen me! Oh, but I was angry! I turned to make her see me! A small
  standing mirror on the glass jewelry showcase reflected her profile, and
  showed me how lovely she was still. A bit older looking, but striking
  nonetheless. Her flaxen hair was drawn back to emphasize the perfection
  of her small gem of a nose, her pouting red lips, her long and naturally
  dark lashes that were made thicker by mascara. Her ears glittered with
  gold and diamonds, the real things-and she was speaking.
  "Can't you show me something just right for a lovely young girl?" she
  asked the saleslady. "Something in good taste, not gaudy, or too large,
  but something a young girl can keep all her life and be proud of."
  Who? What girl did she have to give gifts to? I felt jealous and watched
  her select a lovely gold locket very much like the one Chris had given
  me! Three hundred dollars! Now our dear mother was spending money on a
  girl not her own, forgetting about us. Didn't she think of us, wonder how
  we were faring? How could she sleep at night when the world could be so
  cold, ugly and cruel to children on their own?
  As far as I could tell, she was completely without guilt or regrets.
  Maybe that was what millions could do--nail a satisfied smirk to one's
  face-Aespite what it covered. I wanted to speak and see her poise
  collapse! I wanted her smiles to peel off like bark from a tree and she'd
  be revealed before her friend for what she was-a monster without a heart!
  A killer! A fraud! But I said nothing.
  "Cathy," said Paul, coming up behind me and putting his hands on my
  shoulders, "I've returned everything-how about you? Ready to go now?"
 I wanted desperately for my mother to see me with

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 Paul, a man every bit as handsome as her darling "Bart." I wanted to shout
 it out. See, I too can attract intelligent, kind, educated and handsome
 men! So quickly I glanced to see if Momma had heard Paul speak my name,
 hoping to delight in her stunned surprise, her guilt, her shame. But she'd
 moved on farther down the counter, and if she heard the name, Cathy, it
 didn't cause her to turn her head.
 For some reason I didn't understand, I sobbed.
  "Are you all right, darling?" asked Paul. He saw something on my face
  that puzzled him and put concern in his eyes. "You're not having second
  thoughts about us, are you?"
  "No, of course not!" I denied. But I was having second thoughts about me.
  Why hadn't I done something? Why hadn't I put out my foot this time and
  tripped her? Then I could have seen her sprawled on the floor, her poise
  vanished-maybe. It would be like her to fall gracefully and have all the
  men in the store hurry to assist her up--even Paul,

  I was dressing for the big affair at The Plantation House when Chris came
  into my bedroom and sent Carrie away. "Go watch TV," he said with more
  sharpness than I'd ever heard him use with her. "I want to speak to your
  sister." Carrie threw him, then me, an odd look before she skipped out
  of the room.
  No sooner had Carrie closed the door behind her, than Chris was at my
  side and seizing my shoulders. He shook me violently. "Are you going
  through with this farce? You don't love him! You still love me! I know
  you do! Cathy, please, don't do this to me! I know you're trying to set
  me free by marrying Paul, but that's not a good reason for marrying a
  man." He hung his head, released my shoulders, and looked terribly
  ashamed. His voice came so low I had to keen my ears to hear his words.
  "I know it's wrong what I feel for you. I know I should try and find
  someone else, like you try to do ... but I can't stop loving you and
  wanting you. I think about you all during my days, every day. I dream
  about you at night. I want to wake

               195
 up and see you in the room with me. I want to go to bed and know you're
 there, very close, where I can see you, touch you." A sob tore from his
 throat before he could go on. "I can't bear to think of you with another
 man! Damn it, Cathy, I want you! You don't plan to have children anyway,
 so why can't it be me?"
  I'd drawn away when he released my shoulders. When his words stopped I
  ran to fling my arms about him, as he clutched at me, as if I were the
  one and only woman who could save him from drowning. And we'd both drown
  if I did as he wanted. "Oh, Chris, what can I say? Momma and Daddy made
  their mistake in marrying each other-and we were the ones to pay the
  price. We can't risk repeating their mistake!"
  "Yes we can!" he fervently cried. "We don't have to have a sexual
  relationship! We can just live together, be together, just brother and
  sister, with Carrie too. Please, please, I beg you not to marry Paul!"
  "Shut up!" I screamed. "Leave me alone!" I struck at him then, wanting
  to hurt him, as every word he said hurt me. "You make me feel so guilty,
  so ashamed! Chris, I did the best I could for you when we were prisoners.
  Maybe we did turn to each other, but only because we had no others! If
  there had been, you would never have wanted me, and I would never have
  given you a second glance! You are only a brother to me, Chris, and I
  want to keep you where you should be ... which isn't in my bed!"
  Then he had me in his arms, and I couldn't help but cling to him with my
  cheek pressed against his thudding heart. He was having a hard time
  controlling his tears. I wanted him to forget ... but every second he
  held me hard against him raised his hopes, and he was aroused! And he was
  the one who thought we could live platonically together! "Let me go,
  Chris. If you love me for the rest of your life, keep it to yourself; I
  never want to hear about it again! I love Paul, and nothing you say will
  keep me from marrying him!"
  "You're lying to yourself," he choked, holding me tighter. "I see you
  watching me before you turn your eyes his way. You want me, and you want
  him. You

               196
 want everyone, and everything! Don't ruin Paul's life when already he's
 suffered enough! He's too old for you-and age does count! He'll be old and
 dried up sexually when you're at your peak! Why even Julian would be
 better!"
 "You are one big fool if you believe that!"
  "Then I'm a fool! I've always been a fool, haven't I? When I put my love
  and trust in you that was the biggest mistake of my life, wasn't it? You
  are just as heartless, in your own way, as our mother! You want every man
  who appeals to you, regardless of the consequences ... but I would let you
  have whomever you wanted, as long as you always came back to me."
  "Christopher, you're jealous because I found someone to love before you
  did! And don't stand there and glare your icy blue eyes at me-for you've
  had plenty of affairs! I know you've slept with Yolanda Lange, and God
  knows how many others. And what did you tell them? You told them you loved
  them too! Well I don't love you now! I love Paul, and there's not one thing
  you can do to stop us from marrying each other!"
  He stood there, pale faced and quivering all over, and then he said in a
  hoarse whisper, "Yes there is. I could tell him about us ... he wouldn't
  want you then."
  "You wouldn't tell him that. You're much too honorable, and besides, he
  already knows."
  For long, long moments we glared at each other ... and then he ran from the
  room, slamming the door so hard behind him it put a long crack in the
  ceiling plaster.

  Only Carrie accompanied Paul and me to The Plantation House. "It's too bad
  Chris doesn't feel well. I hope he doesn't have the flu.... Everyone else
  does. "
  I didn't say anything, just sat and listened to Carrie chatter on and on
  about how much she loved Christmas and the way it made everything ordinary
  look so pretty.
  Paul slipped a two-carat diamond ring on my finger while a huge fire
  crackled the Yule log, and soft music

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 played. I did my best to make it a joyous occasion, laughing, smiling,
 exchanging long, romantic looks while we sipped champagne and toasted each
 other and our long and happy future together. I danced with him under the
 giant crystal chandeliers and kept my eyes closed, picturing Chris home
 alone, sulking in his room and hating me.
  "We're going to be so happy, Paul," I whispered, standing on the toes of my
  high-heeled silver slippers. Yes, this was the way our life together would
  be. Easy. Sweet. Effortless. Just like the lilting, old-fashioned waltz we
  danced to. Because when you truly loved there were no problems that love
  couldn't overcome.
 Me ... and my ideas.

 APIVS FOO1

 Drive. Dedication. Desire. Determination. The four D's of the ballet world
 we had to live by. If Madame Z. had been tough on us before Christmas, now
 she clamped down on us such a heavy schedule of practice all we did was
 work. She lectured on how perfect The Royal Ballet was, strictly
 classical-but we were to do everything in our own unique American way,
 classical ... but more beautiful and innovative.
  Julian was absolutely ruthless, even demonic. I began to really despise
  him! We were both wet with sweat and our hair hung in strings. My leotard
  was glued to my skin. Julian wore only a loin cloth. He yelled as if I were
  deaf, "Do it right this time, damn it! I don't want to be here all night!"
  "Stop yelling at me, Julian! I can hear perfectly well!"
 "Then do it right! First take three steps and then you

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 kick, then jump for me to catch, and for God's sake this time lay back
 immediately! Don't stay upright and stiff, the moment I catch you fall
 backwards and go limp-if you can manage to do anything right or graceful
 today. -
  That was my trouble. I didn't trust him now. I was afraid he was going
  to try to hurt me. "Julian, you yell at me as if I'm deliberately doing
  everything wrong!"
  "It seems to me you are! If you really wanted to do it right you could.
  All you have to do is take three steps, kick, then jump, and I lift and
  you fall back. Now see if you can get it right at least one time out of
  fifty tries!"
  "Do you think I like this? Look at my armpits," I said as I lifted my
  arms to show him. "See how raw they are, how you've rubbed the skin off?
  And tomorrow I'll be black and blue all over from the bruises you make
  with your hard grasps!"
  "Then do it right!" He raged not only with his voice, but with his jet
  eyes, and I was terribly afraid he was just waiting for the opportunity
  to let me fall--on purpose-for revenge. But I got up, and we did it
  again. And again I failed to fall back and fully trust him. This time he
  threw me to the floor where I lay panting, gasping, and wondering why the
  hell I kept this up.
  "You're gasping for breath?" he asked sarcastically, towering above me,
  his bare feet wide apart and straddling my legs. His bare chest glistened
  with perspiration that dripped down to fall on me. "I do all the hard
  work, and you lie there sprawled out and exhausted looking. What happened
  to you down there? Did you use all your energy making it with your
  doctor?"
  "Shut up! I'm tired from twelve hours of continuous practice, that's
  all!"
  "If you're tired, I'm ten times more so--so get up, and let's do it
  again-and get it right this time, goddamn you!"
  "Don't you swear at me! Get yourself another partner! You tripped me up
  and made me fall so my knee hurt for three (lays afterward-so how can I
  run

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 and jump into your arms-you're mean enough to cripple me permanently!"
  "Even if I hated you, I wouldn't let you fall. And, Cathy, I don't hate
  you. Not yet. "
  After practicing over and over again to the piano music, counting, timing,
  repeating the same series of steps, at last I got it right, and even Julian
  could smile and congratulate me. Then came the final dress rehearsal and
  the performance of Romeo and Juliet.
  It was the stunning sets and dazzling costumes that brought out the best in
  all of us when combined with a full orchestra. Now I could give to the role
  of Juliet all the little nuances that would make her real, and not some
  wooden stick that Yolanda appeared tonight, as she did her pli6s while her
  eyes seemed glassy, unfocused. Madame Z. came up to peer closely into her
  face, and then she sniffed Yolly's breath. "By God ... you been smoking
  grass! No dancer of mine goes spaced out onto the stage and cheats my
  audience-get home and to bed. Catherine, get ready to play Juliet!"
  Yolanda staggered past me, then tried to give me a savage kick as she
  hissed, "Why did you have to come back? Why didn't you stay down there
  where you belong?"
  I didn't think of Yolanda and her threats as I stood on the flimsy balcony
  and gazed dreamily down into Julian's pale face that tilted upward to mine.
  He appeared so beautiful under the bluish lights, wearing white tights,
  with his dark hair gleaming, his jet eyes glittering along with the fake
  jewels on his medieval costume. He seemed to be my attic lover who would
  ever bound away from me, and never let me near enough to see the features
  of his face.
  The applause thundered as the curtain lowered. And behind it, out of breath
  Julian sprang up to hug me close. "You were sensational tonight! How do you
  manage to frustrate me right up until the moment of performance?" The
  curtain rose for our bows-then he kissed me full on the lips. "Bravo," they
  cried, for this was the sort of drama and passion all balletomanes craved.

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  It was our night, the best yet, and drunk with success I dashed past
  photographers, and autograph hounds toward my dressing room, for there
  was a big bash afterward, a celebration before our company took off for
  London. Quickly I lathered on cold cream to take off the makeup, then I
  changed from my last act costume into a short formal of periwinkle blue.
  Madame Zolta rapped on my door and called out, "Catherine, a lady here
  says she has flown all the way from your home town to watch you dance.
  Come, open your door and we will hold up the party until you arrive."
  A tall attractive woman entered. Dark-haired, darkeyed, her clothes were
  expensive and flattering to her figure. For some strange reason, it
  seemed I'd met her before, or she reminded me of someone. She looked me
  over from head to toe, and only then did she turn to stare around the
  small dressing room filled with plastic bags jammed with all the costumes
  I was taking with me to England, each labeled with my name and the name
  of the ballet the costumes were designed for. I waited impatiently for
  her to have her say, then go, so I could get on to putting on my coat.
 "I don't think I know you," I said to huffy her up.
  She smiled crookedly, then sat down uninvited to cross her nicely shaped
  legs. Rhythmically she swung one foot in a high-heeled black pump back
  and forth.
  "Of course you don't know me, my dear child ... but I know a great deal
  about you."
  There was something in her sweet and too-smooth tongue to warn me, and
  I stiffened, prepared for whatever she'd come to deliver-and it would be
  bad. I could tell from the mean took that hid beneath the false sweet
  one.
 "You're very pretty, maybe even beautiful."
 "Thank you."
  "You dance exceptionally well-that surprised me. Though of course you
  would have to dance well to be with this company which I've heard is fast
  becoming an important one."
  "Thank you again," I said, thinking she'd never come to the point.

               201
  She took a long time before she spoke again, keeping me in suspense, on
  edge. I picked up my coat, trying to signal to her that I was trying to
  leave.
  "Nice fur coat," she commented. "I suppose my brother gave you that. I've
  heard he's throwing away his money like a drunken sailor. Giving all he's
  saved to three nobodies who came on a bus and took over his life." She
  laughed low and sarcastically, the way women of culture know how to
  laugh. "Now I know why, seeing you; though I've heard from others you
  were pretty enough to make any man foolish. Still, I had no idea a child
  such as you could look so voluptuous, so sensual and skinny all at the
  same time. You're a peculiar blend, Miss Dahl. All innocence and
  sophistication too. Such a brew must be heady intoxication for a man of
  my brother's type." She chortled. "There's nothing like the combination
  of youth, long blond hair, a beautiful face and full breasts to bring out
  the beast even in the best of men." She sighed, as if pitying me. "Yes,
  that's the trouble with being too young and beautiful. Men are made their
  worst selves. Paul's made an ass of himself before, you know. You're not
  his first little playmate; though he's never given one a fur coat before,
  and a diamond ring. Just as if he could possibly marry you."
  So this was Paul's sister, Amanda--4he queer sister who knitted him
  sweaters and mailed them off Parcel Post, but refused to speak to him on
  the streets.
  Amanda got up and prowled around me. A cat on the stalk, ready to spring.
  Her perfume was Oriental, musky, heavy, as she moved in on what she must
  think a timid prey. "Such flawless skin you have," she said, reaching to
  stroke my cheek, "so firm, like porcelain. You won't keep that skin, or
  all that hair once you're thirty-five or so, and long before then he'll
  have tired of you. He likes his women young, very young. He likes them
  pretty, intelligent and talented. I have to acknowledge he has good
  taste, if not good sense. You see," she smiled again that hateful smile,
  "I really don't give a damn what he does as long as it stays within the
  limits of decency and doesn't reflect on my life."

               202
  "Get out of here," I managed to say. "You don't know your brother at all.
  He's an honorable, generous man and in no way could he harm your life."
 Pityingly she smiled.
  "My dear child, don't you realize you are ruining his career? Are you fool
  enough to think this affair has gone unnoticed? In a town the size of
  Clairmont everybody knows everything. Though Henny can't talk, the
  neighbors do have eyes and ears. Gossip, that's all I hear, gossip-throwing
  away his money on juvenile delinquents who take advantage of his good
  nature, and soon enough he'll be broke, and he won't have a medical
  practice left!" She was heating up now, and I feared any moment she'd rake
  my face with her long red nails.
  "Get out of here"' I ordered hotly. "I know all about you, Amanda, for
  gossip has reached my ears too! Your trouble is you think your brother owes
  you the rest of his life because you worked to help put him through college
  and medical school. But I used to keep his books, and he's paid you back,
  plus ten percent interest--so he doesn't owe you anything! You're a liar to
  try and make him seem small in my eyes-for you can't do that! I love him,
  and he loves me, and nothing you say can stop our marriage!"
  She laughed again, hard and mirthless, then her face turned hard,
  determined. "Don't order me to do anything! When I'm ready to go, I'll
  leave-and that's when I've had my say! I flew up here just to see his
  newest little paramour, his dancing doll ... and believe me you won't be
  his last. Why Julia used to tell me he-"
  I hotly interrupted, "Get out! Don't you dare say one word more about him!
  I know about Julia. He's told me. If she drove him to others, I don't blame
  him; she wasn't a real wife; she was a housekeeper, a cook-not a wife!"
  Merrily she laughed--God how she liked to laugh! She was enjoying this,
  someone competitive enough to fight back, someone she could claw. "Fool
  girl! That's the same old line every married man passes on to his

               203
 newest conquest. Julia was one of the dearest, sweetest .. kindest and
 most wonderful women who ever lived. She did everything she could to
 please him. Her one fault lay in the fact she couldn't give him all the
 sex he wanted, or the kind of sex he demanded, so yes, in a way, he did
 have to turn to others-like you. FU admit most married men fool around,
 but they still don't do what he did!"
  I hated the spiteful witch now, really detested her. "What's he done that
  was so terrible? Julia drowned his three-year-old son-there's nothing on
  earth that would make me take the life of my child! I don't need revenge
  that muchl"
  "I agree," she said, back to mild tone now. "That was an insane thing for
  Julia to do. Scotty was such a handsome, lovely boy-but Paul drove her
  to do what she did. I understand her reasoning. Scotty was the thing Paul
  loved most. When you seek to destroy someone emotionally, you kill what
  he loves best."
 Oh! The horror of her!
  "He wears a hair shirt, doesn't he?" she asked in a gloating way, her
  dark, pretty eyes glowing with satisfaction. "He tortures himself, blames
  himself, longs for his son, and then you came along, and he put a baby
  in you. Don't think the whole town doesn't know about your abortion! We
  know! We know everything!' :
  "You lie!' I shrieked. "It wasn't an abortion! I had a D & C because my
  periods weren't regular!"
  "It's on the hospital records," she said to me smugly. "You miscarried
  a two-headed embryo with three legs-twins who didn't separate properly.
  You poor thing, don't you know a D & C is an abortion procedure?"
  Drowning, drowning, I was going under, black swirls of water all around
  ... two headed? Three legs? Oh, God-the monster baby I so dreaded! But
  Paul hadn't touched me then, not Paul. "Don't cry," she soothed, and I
  yanked from the touch of her large hand that flashed with diamonds, "all
  men are beasts, and I guess he didn't tell you. But don't you see, you
  can't marry him. I'm doing this for your own good. You're beauti-
  
               204
 ful, young, gifted, and to live in sin with a married man is a pure waste.
 Save yourself while you can."
  Tears bluffed my vision. I rubbed at my eyes as a child would, feeling
  a child in a crazy adult world as I stared dully at her bland, smooth
  face. "Paul's not a married man. Paul's a widower. Julia's dead. She
  killed herself the day she drowned Scotty."
  Like a mother she patted my shoulder. "No, child, Julia is not dead.
  Julia lives in an institution where my brother put her after she drowned
  Scotty. She's still his legal wife, insane or not."
  She thrust into my slack hand several snapshots, pictures of a thin,
  pitiful-looking woman lying on a hospital bed, her face in profile in
  both. A woman ravaged by suffering. Her eyes wide open and staring
  blankly into space, and her dark hair lay like strings on the pillows.
  Yet I'd seen too many pictures of Julia not to recognize her, even as
  changed as she was.
  "By the way," said Paul's sister, leaving me with the snapshots, "I
  enjoyed the performance. You're a marvelous dancer. And that young
  man-he's spectacular. Take him. He's obviously in love with you." She
  left then. Left me in a daze of broken dreams and floundering in despair.
  How was I ever going to learn to swim in an ocean of deceit?

  Julian took me to the big bash which was being thrown in our honor.
  Hordes of people surrounded us, congratulated us, said so many flattering
  words. They meant nothing to me. All I could think was Paul had lied to
  me, lied to me, took me when he knew he was married--4ies, I hated lies!
  Never had Julian been sweeter or more considerate. He held me close in
  one of those slow, old-fashioned dances, so close I could feel every hard
  muscle of his lean body, and the maleness of him pressed hard, hard. "I
  love you, Cathy," he whispered. "I want you so much I can't sleep at
  night. I want to hold you, make love to you. If you don't let me soon,
  I'll go mad." He buried his face in my piled up hair. "I've never had
  anyone brand new, like you. Cathy, please, please love me, love me. "
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  His face swam before me. He seemed dreamgodlike, perfect, and yet, and yet
  . "Julian, what if I told you I wasn't brand new?"
 "But you are! I know you are!"
  "How can you tell?" I giggled drunkenly. "Is there something written on my
  face that says I am still a virgin?"
  "Yes," he said firmly. "Your eyes. Your eyes tell me you don't know what
  it's like to be loved."
 "Julian, I fear you don't know much."
  "You underestimate me, Cathy. You treat me like a little boy one minute,
  and the next like some hungry wolf who will eat you up. Let me make love to
  you, then you'll know no man has ever touched you before."
 I laughed. "All right-but one night only."
  "If you have me for one night, you will never, never want me to go," he
  warned, and his eyes glowed and sparkled, black as coal.
 "Julian ... I don't love you."
 "But you will-after tonight."
  "Oh, Julian," I said with a long yawn, "I'm tired, and partially drunk--go
  away, leave me alone."
  "Not on your life, kiddo. You said yes, and I'm holding you to it. It's me
  tonight ... and every night for the rest of your life-or mine."

  On a rainy Saturday morning, with all our luggage already piled into the
  taxies that would take our company to the airport, Julian and I stood in
  the city hall with our best friends to support us, and a judge said the
  words that would bind us together until "death you do part." When it came
  my turn to speak my vows, I hesitated, wanting to run away and fly to Paul.
  He would be crushed when he found out. Then there was Chris. But Chris
  would rather see me marry Julian than Paul; that's what he'd told me.
  Julian held tight to me, his dark eyes soft and shining with love and
  pride. I couldn't run. I could only say what I was supposed to, and then I
  was married to the one man I'd sworn I would never allow to touch me
  intimately. Not only Julian was happy and proud, but

               206
 also Madame Zolta who beamed at us and gave us her blessings, kissed our
 cheeks and shed motherly tears. "You've done the right thing, Catherine.
 You will be so happy together, such a beautiful couple ... but remember
 not to make any babies!"
  "Darling, sweetheart, love," Julian whispered when we were on the plane
  flying over the Atlantic, "don't look so sad. This is our day for
  rejoicing! I swear you will never be sorry. I'll make you a fantastic
  husband. I'll never love anyone but you."
  My head bowed down on his shoulder, then I bawled! Crying for everything
  that should have been mine on my wedding day. Where were my birdsongs,
  the bells that should chime? Where was the green grass, and the love that
  was mine? And where was my mother who was the cause of everything gone
  wrong? Where? Did she cry when she thought of us? Or did she, more
  likely, just take my notes with the newsclippings and tear them up? Yes,
  that would be like her, never to face up to what she'd done. How easily
  she tripped away on her second honeymoon and left us in the care of a
  merciless grandmother, and back she came, all smiling and happy, telling
  us of what a wonderful time she had. While we, locked up, had been
  brutalized and starved, and she'd never even looked at Cory and Carrie
  who didn't grow. Never noticed how shadowed their hollow eyes, how thin
  their weak legs and arms. Never noticed anything she didn't want to see.
  The rain kept coming down, down, forecasting what was ahead. That cold
  blasting torrent of freezing water put ice on the wings of the plane that
  was carrying me farther and farther from all those I loved. That ice was
  in my heart too. And tonight I had to sleep with a man I didn't even like
  when he wasn't on stage, and dressed in costume, and playing the role of
  a prince.
  But to give Julian his due, he was all he boasted of being in bed. I
  forgot who he was, and pretended he was someone else as his kisses played
  over my body, and not one inch went unexplored, unkissed or uncaressed.
  Before he finished, I wanted him. I was more

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 than willing to have him take me ... and try to erase the persistent
 thought that I had just made the worst mistake of my life.
 And I had made many mistakes.

 LabYrinth Of LiCS

 Before our bodies had adjusted to jet lag, we went into rehearsals with The
 Royal Ballet looking on, comparing our style to theirs. Already Madame Z.
 had told us their way was strictly classical, but we were to do everything
 in our own way, and were not to be intimidated. "Stick to your guns, keep it
 pure, but make each dance your very own. Julian, Catherine, as newlyweds,
 all eyes will be upon you two--so make every scene as romantic as you can.
 The two of you together touch my heart and make it cry ... andifyou keep it
 up, what you're doing, you may make ballet history. "
  She smiled, and tears filled the deep furrows about her tiny eyes. "Let us
  all prove that America too can produce the very best!" She broke then and
  turned her back, so we couldn't see her face crumple. "I luv all of you so
  much," she sobbed. "Now go away ... leave me be ... and make me proud of
  you."
  We were determined to do our very damndest to make Madame Zolta's name
  famous once more, not as a dancer, but as a teacher. We practiced until we
  fell exhausted into our beds.
  The Royal Opera House, Covent Gardens shared its space with the ballet
  company, and when I first saw it I sucked in my breath and held fast to
  Julian's hand. The red and gold auditorium seated more than two thousand
  people. Its sparkling swirl of balconies that rose up to a high dome with
  a sunburst design in the middle
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 stunned me with its old-fashioned splendor. Soon we were to find out that
 backstage was far less opulent, with no charm in its crowded dressing
 rooms and a rabbit warren of tiny offices and workrooms; worst of all, no
 rehearsal studios at all! Try as I would to find something admirable about
 British plumbing and heating facilities, I failed utterly. I was forever
 cold, except under the duress of dancing. I hated the stingy supply of hot
 water in the bathrooms, forcing me to take the quickest bath possible
 before I froze to death.
  And all the time Julian stayed glued to my side. Privacy was something
  he'd never heard of and had no respect for. Even when I was in the
  bathroom he had to be there, so I'd race to lock the door and leave him
  pounding. "Let me in! I know what you're doing, why all the secrecy?"
  Not only that, he wanted to crawl into my mind and know all my past, all
  my thoughts, everything I'd done. "And so your mother and father were
  killed in an auto crash, what happened next?" he asked, holding me in an
  iron embrace. Why did he have to hear it again? I swallowed. By now I had
  concocted a believable story about the law wanting to put us in an
  orphanage, so Chris, Carrie and I had to run away. "We had a little money
  saved up, you know, from birthdays, Christmas, and such. We caught a bus
  that would take us to Florida, but Carrie was sick and threw up, and this
  huge fat black lady came and took us to her 'doctor son.' I guess he felt
  sorry for us; he took us in ... and that's all there is to it."
  "All there is to it," he repeated slowly. "There's a hell of a lot you're
  not telling me! Though I can guess the rest. He saw a rich plum in a
  young beautiful girl, and that's why he was so damned generous. Cathyjust
  how intimate were you with him?"
 "I loved him, and I planned to marry him."
  "Then why didn't you?" he shot out. "Why did you finally say yes to me?"
  Tact and subtlety were never among my virtues. I grew angry because he
  was making me explain, when I didn't want to explain. "You were at me all
  the time!" 1

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 stormed. "You made me believe I could learn to love you-but I don't think I
 can! We've made a mistake, Julian! A horrible mistake!"
  "Don't you say anything like that again, you hear!" Julian sobbed as if I'd
  wounded him terribly, and I was reminded of Chris. I couldn't go through my
  life damaging everyone I met, so my rage vanished as I allowed him to take
  me in his arms. His dark head lowered so he could kiss my neck. "Cathy, I
  love you so much. More than I ever wanted to love any woman. I've never had
  anyone love me for myself. Thank you for trying to love me, even though you
  say you don't."
  It hurt to hear the quiver in his voice. He seemed a small boy who was
  pleading for the impossible to happen, and perhaps I was doing him an
  injustice. I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. "I do want to love
  you, Jule. I did marry you, and I am committed, so I'll try and make you
  the best wife I can. But don't push at me! Don't make demands-just let love
  come as I learn more about you. You're almost a stranger to me, even though
  we've known each other for three years."
  He winced, as if I ever really knew him, then love would be, indeed,
  impossible. He doubted himself so much. Oh, God, what had I done? What kind
  of person was 1, that I could turn from an honest, sincere, honorable man
  and rush headlong into the arms of someone I suspected was a brute?
  Momma had a way of acting impulsively, and being sorry when it was too
  late. I wasn't like her underneath; I couldn't be! I had too many talents
  to be like someone who had none ... none but for making every man fall in
  love with her, and that wasn't intelligence. No, I wanted to be like Chris
  ... and then I floundered again, caught, as always, in the quicksand of her
  making. All of it was her fault, even my marriage to Julian!
  "Cathy, you're going to have to learn to overlook a lot of flaws," said
  Julian. "Don't put me up on a pedestal, don't expect perfection. I have
  feet of clay, as you already know, and if you try to make me into the
  Prince Charming I think you want ... you are going to
               210
 fail. You have that doctor of yours on a pedestal too; I think you might
 be the kind to put all the men you love up so high they are bound to come
 tumbling down. Just love me and try not to see what doesn't please you."
  I wasn't good at overlooking faults. I'd always seen Momma's when Chris
  never had. I always flipped over the brightest coin and looked for the
  tarnish. Funny. Paul's tarnish had seemed all Julia's fault until Amanda
  came with her horror story. Another reason to hate Momma, making me doubt
  my instinct!
  Long after Julian returned to bed I sat by the windows and contemplated
  myself, my eyes fixed on the long shiverlets of ice striking the glass.
  The weather was only telling me what lay ahead. Spring was back there in
  the garden with Paul ... and I'd done it myself. I didn't have to believe
  Amanda. God help me if I turned out to be like Momma inside, as well as
  out!
  Our weeks in London were busy, exciting and exhausting-but I dreaded the
  time when we returned to New York. How long could I keep putting off
  telling Paul? Not forever. Sooner or later he had to know.

  Shortly before the first day of spring, we flew back to Clairmont, and
  we taxied to Paul's house. It was the place of our deliverance, and it
  seemed nothing there had changed. Only I had, for I was coming to
  devastate a man who didn't need to be hurt again.
  I stared at the boxwoods neatly clipped into cones and spheres, and the
  wisteria trees that were blooming; azaleas rioted colorfully everywhere,
  and the big magnolias were ripe and soon to flower, and over everything
  emerald draped the dangling gray Spanish moss, misting and fogging, to
  create shreds of living lace. I sighed. If at twilight there was anything
  more beautiful and somehow romantically, sadly mystical than a live oak
  dripping with Spanish moss that would in the end kill its host, I'd yet
  to see it. Love that clung and killed.
  I thought I could take Julian inside, then tell Paul our news-but I
  couldn't. "Would you mind waiting on the veranda until I tell Paul?" I
  asked. For some reason he only nodded. I'd expected an argument.
  Agreeably, for

               211
 a change, he sat in a white wicker rocker, the same one Paul had been in
 when first we found him dozing on that Sunday afternoon, after the bus put
 us off. He'd been forty then. He was now forty-three.
  Quivering a little, I went on alone to open the front door with my own key.
  I could have telephoned or sent a cable. But I had to see his face and
  watch his eyes, and try to read his thoughts. I needed to know if I'd
  really injured his heart, or only wounded his pride and ego.
  No one heard me open the door. No one heard my footsteps on the hard
  parquet of the foyer. Paul.was sprawled in his favorite chair before the
  color television and the fireplace, dozing. His long legs were stretched to
  rest on the matching ottoman, his ankles crossed and his shoes off. Carrie
  was sitting cross-legged on the floor near his chair, as needing as always
  to be near someone who loved her. She was deeply engrossed in her play with
  the small porcelain dolls. She wore a white sweater banded at the neck and
  wrists with purple, and over this her red corduroy jumper. She looked like
  a pretty little doll.
  My eyes went again to Paul. In his light dozing sleep he had the expression
  of someone anxiously waiting. Even his feet moved often to cross and
  uncross, while his fingers flexed into fists, then unflexed. His head was
  thrown back to rest on the high back of his chair, but that too kept moving
  from side to side ... dreaming, I thought, maybe of me. Then his face
  turned in my direction. Did he sense my presence even in his sleep?
  Ever so slowly his eyelids fluttered open. He yawned and lifted a hand to
  cover his mouth ... then stared at me fuzzily. As if I were merely an
  apparition. "Catherine," he murmured, "is that you?"
  Carrie heard his question, jumped up and came flying to me, crying out my
  name as I caught her and swung her high. I lavished on her small face a
  dozen or so kisses, and hugged her so tight she cried out, "Ouch, that
  hurts!" She looked so pretty, so fresh and well fed. "Oh, Cathy, why did
  you stay away so long? We wait every day for you to come home, and you
  never do. We

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 make plans for your wedding, but when you don't write, Dr. Paul says we
 should wait. Why did you send only postcards? Didn't you have time to
 write long letters? Chris said you must be awfully busy." She had pulled
 out of my arms and was back on the floor near Paul's chair, and staring
 at me reproachfully. "Cathy ... you forgot all about us, didn't you? All
 you care about is dancing. You don't need no family when you dance. "
  "Yes, I do need a family, Carrie," I said absently, with my eyes fixed
  on Paul, trying to read what he was thinking.
  Paul got up and came toward me, his eyes locked with mine. We embraced
  and Carrie sat quietly on the floor and watched, as if studying the way
  a woman should act with the man she loved. His lips only brushed over
  mine. Yet his touch shivered me as Julian's never did. "You look
  different," he said to me in his slow, soft way. "You've lost weight. You
  look tired too. Why didn't you telephone or telegraph to let me know you
  were on the way? I would have met you at the airport."
  "You look thinner too," I said in a hoarse whisper. His weight loss was
  far more becoming than mine. His mustache seemed darker, thicker. I
  touched it tentatively, longingly, knowing it wasn't mine to feel nowand
  he had grown it just to please me.
  "It hurt when you stopped writing to me every day. Did you stop when your
  schedule became too crowded?"
  "Something like that. It's tiring to dance every day, and try to see as
  much as possible at the same time.... I got so busy, I never had enough
  time."
 "I subscribe to Variety now."
  "Oh . . ." was all I could say, praying they didn't write about my
  marriage to Julian. "I've nominated myself as your clipping service,
  though Chris is keeping a scrapbook too. Whenever he's home, we compare
  clippings; if one of us has something the other doesn't, we have it
  photocopied." He paused as if puzzled by my expression, my demeanor,
  something. "They are all

               213
 rave reviews, Catherine, why do you look so ... so ... emotionless?"
  "Tired, like you said." I hung my head not knowing what to say, or how to
  meet his eyes. "And how've you been?"
  "Catherine, is something the matter? You act strange." Carrie was staring
  at me ... as if Paul had expressed her thoughts too. I gazed around the big
  room filled with the beauty of all that Paul had collected. Sunlight
  through the ivory sheers shone on the miniatures in his tall 6tag6re with
  the glass shelves, the black, gold-veined miffor behind them, and lit from
  the top and bottom. How easy to hide away in looking around, pretending
  everything was all right, when everything was all wrong.
  "Catherine, speak to me"' Paul cried. "There is something wrong!"
  I sat down, knees weak, my throat tight. Why couldn't I ever do anything
  right? How could he have lied to me, deceived me, when he knew I'd had
  enough of lying and deceit? And how could he look so trustworthy still?
 "When will Chris be home?"
  "Friday, for Easter vacation." His long look was reflective, as if he
  thought it strange when usually Chris and I kept in constant communication.
  Then there was Henny to greet and hug and kiss ... and I could put it off
  no longer ... though I found a way. "Paul, I brought Julian home with
  me.... He's out on the veranda waiting. Is that all right?"
  He gave me the strangest look, and then nodded. "Of course. Ask him in."
  Then he turned to Henny. "Set two more places, Henny."
  Julian came in, and, as I'd cautioned him, he didn't say a word to let
  anyone know we were married. Both of us had taken off our wedding rings and
  had them in our pockets. It was the strangest of quiet meals, and even when
  Julian and I handed out the gifts the stiffness grew, and Carrie only
  glanced at her bracelet of rubies and amethysts, though Henny beamed a
  broad smile when she put on her solid gold bracelet.

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  "Thank you for the lovely figurine of yourself, Cathy," said Paul,
  putting it carefully aside on the closest table, "Julian, would you
  please excuse Cathy and me for a while? I'd like to have a private talk
  with her." He said this as a doctor requesting a private interview with
  the responsible family member of a critically ill patient. Julian nodded
  and smiled at Carrie. She glared back at him.
  "I'm going to bed," stated Carrie defiantly. "Good night, Mr. Marquet.
  I don't know why you had to help Cathy buy me that bracelet, but thank
  you anyway."
  Julian was left in the living room to stare at the TV as Paul and I took
  off for a stroll in his magnificent gardens. Already his fruit trees were
  in bloom, and climbing red, pink and white roses made a brilliant display
  on the white trellises.
  "What's wrong, Catherine?" Paul asked. "You come home to me and bring
  along another man, so maybe you don't have to explain at all. I can
  guess."
  Quickly I put out my hand to seize hold of his. "Stop! Don't say
  anything!" Falteringly and very slowly I began to tell him about his
  sister's visit. I told him I knew now that Julia was still alive, and
  though I could understand his motivation, he should have told me the
  truth. "Why did you lead me to believe she was dead, Paul? Did you think
  me such a child I couldn't bear to hear it? I could have understood if
  you had told me. I loved you, don't you ever doubt that I did! I didn't
  give to you because I thought I owed you anything. I gave because I
  wanted to give, because I desperately needed you. I knew better than to
  expect marriage, and I was happy enough in the relationship we had. I
  would have been your mistress forever-but you should have told me about
  Julia! You should have known me well enough to realize I'm impulsive, I
  act without thought when I'm hurt-and it hurt terribly that night Amanda
  came and told me your wife was still alive!
  "Lies!" I cried. "Oh, how I hate liars! You of all people to he to me!
  Besides Chris, there was no one I trusted more than you."
 He'd stopped strolling, as I had. The nude marble

               215
 statues were all around, mocking us. Laughing at love gone awry. For now
 we were like them, frozen and cold.
  "Amanda," he said, rolling her name on his tongue as something bitter and
  fit to be spit out. "Amanda and her half-truths. You ask why-why didn't
  you ask why before you flew to London? Why didn't you give me the chance
  to defend myself?"
  "How can you defend lies!" I bit back meanly, wanting him to hurt as I'd
  hurt that night when Amanda slammed out of the theater.
  He walked away to lean against the oldest oak, and from his pocket he
  drew a pack of cigarettes.
  "Paul, I'm sorry. Tell me now what your defense would have been."
  Slowly he puffed on the cigarette, and exhaled smoke. That smoke came my
  way and weaved around my head, neck, body-and chased off the scent of
  roses. "Remember when you came," he began, taking his time, "you were so
  bitter from your loss of Cory, to say nothing of how you felt about your
  mother. How could I tell you my own sordid story when already you'd known
  too much pain? How was I to know you and I would become lovers? You
  seemed to me only a beautiful, haunted child-though you've touched me
  deeply-always you've touched me. You touch me now, standing there with
  your accusing eyes. Though you are right. I should have told you." He
  sighed heavily.
  "I told you about the day Scotty was three, and how Julia took him down
  to the river and held him under the water until he was dead. But what I
  didn't tell you was she lived on.... A whole team of doctors worked on
  her for hours on end trying to bring her out of the coma, but she never
  came out."
  "Coma," I whispered. "She's alive now, and still in the same coma?"
  He smiled so bitterly, and then looked up at the moon that was smiling
  too, sarcastically, I thought. He turned his head and allowed his eyes
  to meet with mine. "Yes, Juba lived on, with her heart beating, and
  before

               216
 you came along with your brother and sister I drove every day to visit her
 in a private institution. I'd sit beside her bed, hold her hand, and force
 myself to look at her gaunt face and skeleton body.... It was the best way
 I had to torment myself and try to wash away the guilt I felt. I watched her
 hair become thinner each day-the pillows, covers, everything covered by her
 hair as she withered away before my very eyes. She was connected to tubes
 that helped her to breathe, and a tube was in her arm through which she was
 fed. Her brain waves were flat, but her heart kept on beating. Mentally she
 was dead, physically she was alive. If she ever came out of the coma, she'd
 never speak, move, or even be able to think. She'd have been a living dead
 woman at the age of twenty-six. That's how old she was when she took my son
 down to the river to hold him under the shallow water. It was hard for me to
 believe a woman who loved her child so much could drown him and feel his
 struggles to live ... and yet she did it just to get back at me." He paused,
 flicked the ash from his cigarette and turned his shadowed eyes to me.
 "Julia reminds me of your mother.... Both could do anything when they felt
 justified."
  I sighed, he sighed, and the wind and flowers sighed too. I think those
  marble statues sighed along as well, in their lack of understanding the
  human condition. "Paul, when did you see Julia last? Doesn't she have any
  chanct, at all for a v-,-;i recovery?" I began to cry.
  He gathored ine in his arms and kissed the top of my head. "Don't cry for
  her, my beautiful Catherine. It's all over for Julia now; she is finally at
  peace. The year we became lovers, she died less than a month after we
  started. Quietly she just slipped away. I remember at the time you looked
  at me as if you sensed something was wrong. It wasn't that I felt less for
  you that made me stand back and look at myself. It was a blend of painful
  guilt and sorrow that someone as sweet and lovely as Julia, my childhood
  sweetheart, had to leave life without once experiencing all the wonderful,
  beautiful things it had to give." He cupped my face between his palms, and
  tenderly kissed away my tears. "Now

               217
 smile and say the words I see in your eyes, say you love me. When you
 brought Julian home with you, I thought it was over between us, but now I
 can tell it will never be over. You've given me the best you have within
 you, and I'll know that even when you're off thousands of miles, dancing
 with younger and handsomer men ... you'll be faithful to me, as I'll be
 faithful to you. We'll make it work, because two people who are sincerely in
 love can always overcome obstacles no matter what they are. "
  Oh ... how could I tell him now? "Julia's dead?" I asked, quivering, deep
  in shock, hating myself and Amanda! "Amanda fied to me.... She knew Julia
  was dead, and yet she flew to New York to tell me a lie? Paul, what kind of
  woman is she?"
  He held me so tight I felt my ribs ache, but I clung just as fast to him,
  knowing this was the last time I could. I kissed him wild and passionately,
  knowing I'd never feel his lips again on mine. He laughed jubilantly,
  sensing all the love and passion I had for him, and in a happy, lighter
  voice he said, "Yes, my sister knew when Julia died; she was at her
  funeral. Though she didn't speak to me. Now please stop crying. Let me dry
  your tears." He used his handkerchief to touch to my cheeks and the corners
  of my eyes, then held it so I could blow my nose.
  I'd acted the child, the impulsive, impatient child Chris had warned me not
  to be-and I had betrayed Paul who trusted me. "I still don't understand
  Amanda," I said in a mournful wail, still putting off that moment of truth
  I didn't know if I could face. He held me and stroked my back, my hair, as
  I clung with my arms about his waist, staring up into his face.
  "Sweetheart, Catherine, why do you look and act so strange?" he said in his
  voice that had gone back to normal. "Nothing my sister said should rob us
  of taking what joy we can from life. Amanda wants to drive me out of
  Clairmont. She wants to take over this house so she can leave it to her
  son, so she does her best to ruin my reputation. She's very active socially
  and fills the ears of her friends with lies about me. And if there were

               218
 women before Julia drowned my son, that was lesson enough for me to change
 my ways. There was no other woman until you! I've even heard it rumored
 that Amanda has spread it about that I made you pregnant and your D & C
 was actually an abortion. You see what a spiteful woman can do-anything!"
  Now it was too late, too late. He asked me again to stop crying.
  "Amanda," I said stiffly, my control about to break. "She said that D &
  C was the same as an abortion. She said you kept the embryo, one with two
  heads. I've seen that thing in your office in a bottle. Paul, how could
  you keep it? Why didn't you have it buried? A monster baby! It isn't
  fair-it isn't-why, why?"
  He groaned and wiped his hand over his eyes, to quickly deny everything.
  "I could kill her for telling you that! A lie, Catherine, all a he!"
  "Was it a lie? It could have been mine, you know that. For God's sake,
  Chris doesn't know-he didn't lie to me too, did he?"
  He sounded frantic as he denied everything, and sought once more to
  embrace me, but I jumped backward, and thrust forth both arms to ward him
  off. "There is a bottle in your office with a baby like that inside! I
  saw it! Paul, how could you? You, of all people, to save something like
  that!"
  "No!" he flared immediately. "That thing was given to me years ago when
  I was in med school-a joke, really-med students play all sorts of jokes
  you'd find gruesome, and I'm telling you the truth, Catherine, you didn't
  abort." Then he stopped abruptly, just as I did, with my thoughts
  reefing. I'd betrayed myself!
  I began to cry. Chris, Chris, there was a baby, there was a monster just
  like we feared.
  "No," said Paul again and again, "it's not yours, and even if it were,
  it wouldn't make any difference to me. I know you and Chris love each
  other in a special way. I've always known it, and I do understand."
  "Once," I whispered through my sobs, "only once on one terrible night."
 "I'm sorry it was terrible."

               219
  I stared up at him then, marveling that he could look at me with so much
  softness and so much respect, even knowing the full truth. "Paul," I asked
  tremulously, timidly, "was it an unforgivable sin?"
 "No ... an understandable act of love, I'd call it."
  He held me, he kissed me, he stroked my back and began telling me his plans
  for our wedding. ". . . and Chris will give you away, and Carrie will be
  your bridesmaid. Chris was very hesitant and wouldn't meet my eyes when I
  discussed this with him. He said he thought you weren9t mature enough to
  handle a complicated marriage like ours will be. I know it's not going to
  be easy for you, or for me. You'll be touring the world, dancing with
  young, handsome men. However, I'm looking forward to accompanying you on a
  few of those tours. To be the husband of a prima ballerina will be
  inspiring, exciting. Why, I could even be your company doctor. Surely
  dancers need doctors on occasion?"
  I went dead inside. "Paul," I began dully, "I can't marry you." Then, quite
  out of context, I went on, "You know, wasn't it stupid of Momma to hide our
  birth certificates inside the linings of our two suitcases? She didn't do
  too good a job and the linings ripped and I found them. Without my birth
  certificate I couldn't have applied for a passport, and I also needed that
  certificate to prove I was of age to apply for a marriage license. You see,
  several days before our company flew to London Julian and I had blood tests
  and our marriage ceremony was just a simple one, with Madame Zolta and the
  company dancers there, and even as I said my marriage vows, and swore
  fidelity to Julian ... I was thinking of you, and Chris, and hating myself,
  and knowing I was doing the wrong thing."
  Paul didn't say anything. He reeled backward, then staggered over to fall
  upon a marble bench. For moments he just sat, and then his head drooped
  into his hands and hid his face.
  I stood. He sat. He lost himself somewhere, while I waited for him to come
  back and rail at me. But his voice when it came was as soft as a whisper,
  "Come, sit

               220
   beside me for a while. Hold my hand. Give me time to realize it's all
 over between us." I did as he said and held his hand, while both of us
 stared up at the sky full of diamonds and dark clouds.

 "I'll never hear your kind of music again without thinking of you. . . ."

 "Paul, I'm sorry! I wish to God I'd have listened to my instinct that told
 me Amanda was lying. But the music was playing where I was too and you
 were far away, and Julian was there, pleading with me, telling me he loved
 and needed me, and I believed him, and convinced myself you didn't really
 love me. I can't bear to be without someone who loves me."

 "I'm very happy he loves you," he said, then got up quickly and started
 for the house, his strides so long and fast I'd never catch up even if I
 ran. "Don't say another word! Leave me alone, Catherine! Don't follow me!
 You did the right thing-don't doubt that! I was an old fool, playing with
 a young one, and you don't have to tell me I should have known better-I
 already know that!"

 Too Many Loves To Lose

 Gone as deaf and stony as one of Paul's marble statues, I sat on the
 veranda and stared up at the night sky that was turning stormy and black
 with clouds. Julian came out to sit beside me and in his embrace I began
 to softly cry. "Why?" he asked. "You do love me a little, don't you? Your
 doctor can't be really hurt; he was very kind to me, and told me to come
 out and comfort you."

 It was then that Hermy came out to signal with her lightningfast signs
 that her doctor-son was packing for a trip and I was to stay here. "What's
 she saying to

221
                                     you?" asked Julian with annoyance. "Damn, it's like hearing someone talk
 in a foreign tongue. I feel so left out."
  "Stay here and wait!" I ordered, then jumped up to race into the house
  and fly up the back stairs, then on into Paul's room where he was
  flinging his clothes into an open suitcase on his bed. "Look," I cried
  in distress, "there's no reason why you have to leave! This is your home.
  I'll go. I'll take Carrie with me, so you need never see my face again!"
  He turned to give me a long and bitter look as he went on putting shirts
  in his bag.
  "Cathy, you've taken the wife I expected to have, and now you want to
  take away my daughter. Carrie is like my own flesh and blood, and she
  wouldn't fit into your kind of life. Let her stay with me and Henny. Let
  me have something to call my own. I'll be back before you go ... and you
  should know that Julian's father is very, very ill."
 "Georges is ill?"
  "Yes. Perhaps you don't know that he's had kidney disease for several
  years, and has been on a dialysis machine for months. I don't think he'll
  live much longer. He's not my patient, but I stop in to visit him as
  often as I can, more or less to hear about you and Julian. Now will you
  please get out, Cathy, and not force me to say things I'd regret,"
  I cried face down on my bed until Henny came into my room.
  Strong, motherly, dark hands patted my back. Henny's misting, liquid
  brown eyes spoke when her tongue couldn't. She talked to me with her
  gestures, and then took from her apron pocket a clipping from the local
  newspaper. An announcement of my marriage to Julian! "Henny," I wailed,
  "what am I going to do? I'm married to Julian, and I can't demand a
  divorce; he depends on me, believes in me!"
  Henny shrugged her broad shoulders, expressing that people were as
  complex to her as they were to me. Then quickly she signaled, "Big sister
  always been big trouble maker. One man already hurt, no good hurting two.
  Doctor good man, strong man, will survive

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 disappointment, but young dancing man might not. Wipe away tears, cry no
 more, put on big smile and go downstairs and take hand of new husband. For
 everything work out for the best. You see."
  I did as Henny directed, and joined Julian in the living room, and there
  I told him about his father being in the hospital, and riot expected to
  live. His pale face went even whiter. Nervously he chewed on his lower
  lip. "It's really that serious?"
  It had been my opinion that Julian didn't care much for his father, so
  I was surprised to see his reaction. At that moment Paul came into the
  living room with his suitcase and offered to drive us to the hospital.
  "And remember, my house has plenty of rooms, and there is no reason at
  all why the two of you should even consider a hotel. Stay as long as you
  like. I'll be back in a few days. "
  He backed his car out of the garage so Julian and I could join him on the
  front seat. Hardly a word was said until he let us out in front of the
  hospital, and sadly I hesitated before the steps, watching Paul drive
  away into the night.

  They had Georges in a private room, and with him was Madame Marisha. When
  I saw Georges in the bed, I drew in my breath! Oh! To be like that! He
  was so thin he seemed already dead. His face had a grayish pallor, and
  every bone he had jutted forward to make jagged peaks beneath the thin
  skin. Madame M. was crouched at his side, staring down into his gaunt
  face pleading with her eyes, commanding him to hold on and live! :,My
  love, my love, my love," she crooned as to a baby, 'do not go, do not
  leave me alone. We have so much to do yet, to experience yet.... Our son
  has to reach fame before you die.... Hold on, my love, hold on."
  Only then did Madame Marisha glance up to see us there, and with her same
  old authority she snapped, "Well, Julian. You did finally come! And after
  all the cables I sent you! What did you do, tear them up and dance on,
  as if nothing matters?"
 I blanched, very surprised, and looked from him to

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 Madame. "My dear mother," he said coldly, "we were on tour, you know that.
 We had engagements and contracts, so my wife and I kept our commitments."
  "You heartless brute!" she snarled, then gestured for him to come closer.
  "Now you say something kind and loving to that man on the bed," she
  hissed in a whisper, Ccor so help me God I'll make you wish you were
  never born!"
  Julian had a great deal of trouble making the effort to approach the bed,
  so much so I had to give him a shove, while his mother sobbed into a
  handful of pink tissues. "Hello, Father," was all he could manage, along
  with, "I'm sorry you are so ill." Quickly he came back to me, and held
  me hard against him. I felt his whole body trembling.
  "See, my love, my sweetheart, my darling," crooned Madame Marisha again,
  once more bending above her husband and smoothing back his damp, dark
  hair. "Open your dear eyes and see who has flown thousands of miles to
  be at your side. Your own Julian and his wife. All the way from London
  they flew the moment they knew you were. so sick. Open your eyes, my
  heart, see him again, see them together, such a beautiful pair of
  newlyweds-please open your eyes, please look."
  On the bed the pale, thin wraith of a man slitted his dark eyes and they
  moved slowly, trying to focus on Julian and me. We were at the foot of
  his bed, but he didn't seem to see us. Madame got up to push us closer,
  and then held Julian there so he couldn't back off. Georges opened his
  eyes a bit wider and thinly smiled. "Ah, Julian," he sighed. "Thank you
  for coming. I have so much to say to you-things I should have said
  before. . . ." He faltered, stammered, "I should have-" and then he broke
  off. I waited for him to continue--and I waited. I saw his wide open eyes
  glaze and go blank and his head stayed so still. Madame screamed! A
  doctor and nurse came on the run, and shooed us out as they began to work
  over Georges.
  We formed a pitiful group in the hall outside his room, and in only a
  short while the gray-haired doctor came out to say he was sorry, all had
  been done that

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 could be done. It was over. "It is better so," he added. "Death can be a
 good friend to those in extreme pain. I wondered how he held on so long.
 . . ."
  I stared and stared at Julian, for we could have come back sooner. But
  Julian made his eyes blank and refused to speak. "He was your father!"
  screamed Madame as tears streaked her cheeks. "For two weeks he suffered,
  waiting to see you before he could let himself die and escape the hell
  of living on!"
  Julian whirled, his pale skin flamed with bright red fury, as he lashed
  out at his mother, "Madame Mother, just what did my father give me? All
  I was to him was an extension of himself! All he was to me was a dance
  instructor! Work, dance, that's all he ever said! He never discussed what
  I wanted besides the dance; he didn't give a damn what else I wanted, or
  what else I needed! I wanted him to love me for myself; I wanted him to
  see me as his son, not just as a dancer. I loved him; I wanted him to see
  I loved him, and say he loved me in return ... but he never did! And try
  as I would to dance perfectly, he never gave me a complimentfor I didn't
  do anything nearly as well as he could have done it when he was my age!
  So, that is what I was to him, somebody to step into his shoes and carry
  on his name! But, damn him, and you, I've got my own legal name ...
  Julian Marquet, not Georges Rosencoff, and his name will not live on and
  steal from me what fame I achieve!"
  I held Julian in my arms that night, understanding him as I hadn't
  before. When he broke and cried, I cried along with him, for a father
  he'd professed to des i when underneath he loved him. And I thought
  pise, of Georges, and how sad it was that he tried, too late, to say what
  he should have years and years ago.
  So we'd come from a honeymoon where we had achieved a certain amount of
  fame and publicity, and given many, many hours of hard work, only to
  attend the funeral of a father who wouldn't live to know about his son's
  accomplishments. All the glory of London now seemed shrouded in funeral
  mists.
 Madame Marisha held out her arms to me when the

               225
 graveside ceremony was over. She held me in her thin arms, as she might
 have once held Julian, and in a sort of hypnotic trance we rocked back and
 forth, both of us crying. "Be good to my son, Catherine," she sobbed and
 sniffled. "Have patience with him when he acts wild. His has not been an
 easy life, for much of what he says is true. Always lie felt himself in
 competition with his father, and never could he surpass his father's
 abilities. Now I will tell you something. My Julian has a love for you
 that is almost holy. He thinks you are the best thing that has ever
 happened in his life, and to him you are without flaw. If you have flaws,
 hide them. He won't understand. A hundred times he's been in then out of
 love, all within the space of a few months. For years you frustrated him.
 So now that he's your husband, give to him generously all the love that's
 been denied, for I am not a demonstrative woman. I have always wanted to
 be, but somehow I could never humble mvself to touch first. Touch him
 often, Catherine. Take fiis hand when he would pull from you and go off
 and sulk alone. Understand why he's moody, and love him three times as
 much. That way you will bring out the best in him, for he does have
 admirable qualities. He has to, for he is Georges's son."
  She kissed me, and said good-bye for a while, and made me swear to come
  with Julian often on visits. "Fit me in the corners of your life," she
  said with sadness making her face long and hollow eyed. But when I
  promised, and turned to look, Julian was glaring hard at the both of us.

  Chris came home for his Easter vacation, and less than eagerly he greeted
  Julian. I noticed Julian glaring at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
  No sooner were Chris and I alone when he bellowed, "You married him? Why
  couldn't you wait? How could you be so intuitive when we were locked away
  and so damned dumb now that we're out! I was wrong not wanting you to
  marry Paul only because he is so much older. And I admit it, I was
  jealous, and didn't want you to marry anyone. I had a dream of you and

               226
 me ... someday. Well ... you know what I dreamed. But if it had to be a
 choice between Paul and Julian, then it should have been Paul! He's the
 one who took us in, and fed and clothed us, and gave us the best of
 everything. I don't like Julian. He'll destroy you,"
  He hesitated, turning his back so I couldn't see his face. He was
  twenty-one and beginning to take on the virile strength of a man. In him
  I could see so much of our father-and our- mother. And when I wanted to,
  I could take things and twist them to suit my purpose, and so I thought
  he was more like Momma in some ways than like Daddy. I started to say
  this, and then I too floundered, for I couldn't. He wasn't anything at
  all like our mother!
  Chris was strong . she was weak. He was noble, she was without any honor
  at all. "Chris ... don't make it harder for me. Let's be friends again.
  Julian is hot-headed and arrogant and a lot of things that irritate on
  the surface, but underneath he's a little boy."
  "But you don't love him," he said without meeting my eyes.
  In a few hours Julian and I would be leaving. I asked Carrie if she would
  like to come and live in New York with us, but I had lost her trust; I
  had betrayed her too many times already and she let me know it. "You go
  on back to New York, Cathy, where it snows all the time, and muggers get
  you in the park, and killers get you in the subway-but you leave me here!
  I used to want to be with you, now I don't care! You went and married
  that ole Julian with the black eyes when you could have been Dr. Paul's
  wife, and my real mother. r1l marry himl You think he won't want me
  'cause I'm too little-but he will. You think he's too old for me, but I
  won't be able to get anybody else, so he'll feel sorry and marry me, and
  we'll have six children-you just wait and see!"
 "Carrie-"
  "Shut up' I don't like you now! Go away! Stay away! Dance until you die!
  Chris and me don't want you! Nobody here wants you!"
 Those screamed words hurt! My Carrie, yelling at me

               227
 to go away, when I'd been like a mother to her most of her life, Then I
 looked over to where Chris was standing before the pink sweetheart roses,
 his shoulders sagging, and in his eyes, oh, those blue, blue eyes ... that
 took would always follow me. Never, never was his love going to set me
 free to love anyone without reservations as long as he kept loving me.

  Just an hour before we had to leave for the airport Paul's car turned
  into the drive. He smiled at me as he always smiled, as if nothing
  between us had changed. He had some tale to tell Julian of a medical
  convention that had kept him away, and he was terribly sad and sorry to
  hear his father had died. He shook hands with Chris, then slapped him
  heartily on the back, the way men so commonly showed affection to one
  another. He greeted Henny, kissed Carrie and gave her a little box of
  candy, and only then did he look at me.
 "Hello, Cathy."
  That told me so much. I was no longer Catherine, a woman he could love
  as an equal, I had been moved back to only a daughter. "And, Cathy, you
  can't take Carrie with you to New York. She belongs with me and Henny so
  she can see her brother from time to time, and I'd hate for her to change
  schools too."
  "I wouldn't leave you for nothing," said Carrie staunchly. Julian went
  upstairs to finish packing his things, and I dared to follow Paul out
  into the garden, despite the forbidding look Chris gave me. He was down
  on his knees, still wearing a good suit, pulling up a few weeds someone
  had overlooked. He got up quickly when he heard my steps and brushed the
  grass from his trousers, then he stared off into space as if the last
  thing he wanted to do was to look at me.
 "Paul . . . this would have been our wedding day."
 "Would it? I'd forgotten."
  "You haven't forgotten," I said, drawing closer, "'The first day of
  spring, a fresh start' you said. I'm so sorry I spoiled everything. I was
  a fool to have believed Amanda. I was a double fool not to have waited
  to talk to you first before I married Julian."

               228
  "Let's not talk about it anymore," he said with a heavy sigh. "It's all
  over now, and finished." Voluntarily he stepped close enough to draw me
  into his arms. "Cathy, I went away to be alone. I needed that time to
  think. When you lost faith in me, you turned impulsively, but truthfully,
  to the man who has loved you for a number of years. Any fool with eyes
  could see that. And if you can be honest with yourself, you have been in
  love with Julian almost as long as he's loved you. I believe you put your
  love for him on a shelf because you thought you owed me. . . ."
  "Stop saying that! I love you, not him. I'll always love you!"
  "You're all mixed up, Cathy.... You want me, you want him, you want
  security, you want adventure. You think you can have everything, and you
  can't. I told you a long time ago April wasn't meant for September. We, did
  and said a lot of things to convince ourselves that the years between us
  didn't matter, but they do matter. And it isn't only the years, it's the
  space that would separate us. You'd be somewhere dancing and I'd be here,
  rooted and tied down but for a few weeks a year, I'm a doctor first and a
  husband second--sooner or later you'd find that out and you'd turn to
  Julian eventually anyway." He smiled, and tenderly kissed away the tears I
  always had to shed, and he told me fate always dealt out the right cards.
  "And we'll still see each other-it isn't as if we're forever lost to one
  another-and I have my memories of how wonderfully sweet and exciting it was
  between us."
  "You don't love mel" I cried accusingly. "You never loved me, or you
  wouldn't be taking this so agreeably!"
  Softly he chuckled and cuddled me close again, as a father would. "Dear
  Catherine, my hot-blooded, feisty dancer, what man wouldn't love you? How
  did you learn so much about loving locked away in a cold, dim, northern
  room?"
  "From books," I said, but the lessons taught were not all from books.
  His hands were in my hair and his lips were near mine. "I'll never forget
  the best birthday gift I ever

               229
 had." His breath was warm on my cheeks. "Now here's the way it's going to
 be from now on," he said firmly. "You and Julian will go back to New York,
 and you will make him the best wife you are capable of being. The two of
 you will do your damndest to set the world on fire with your dancing, and
 you've got to determine never to look back with regrets, and forget about
 me."
 "And you-what about you?"
  He lifted his hand and fingered his mustache. "You'd be surprised what
  this mustache has done for my sex appeal. I might never shave it off."
  We both laughed, real laugher, not faked. I took then the two-carat
  diamond ring he'd given me and tried to return it to him. "No! I want you
  to keep that ring. Save it to hock, when or if you ever need a bit of
  extra cash."

  Julian and I flew back to New York and hunted for weeks before we found
  just the right cozy apartment. He wanted something much more elegant, but
  between us we didn't earn enough for the penthouse apartment he thought
  was our due. "Sooner or later though, I'll see we live in that kind of
  place, near Central Park, in rooms filled with real flowers."
  "We don't have time to baby along real plants and flowers," I said,
  having experienced all the time and trouble it took to keep flowers and
  plants alive and healthy. "And when we go to visit Carrie, we can always
  enjoy Paul's gardens."
 "I don't like that doctor of yours."
  "He's not my doctor!" I felt fluttery inside, afraid for no reason at
  all. "Why don't you like Paul? Everybody else likes him well enough."
  "Yeah, I know," he answered shortly, pausing with his fork held midway
  between his plate and his mouth. He gave me a heavy, solemn look. "That's
  the trouble, my darling wife, I think you like him too much, even now.
  And what's more, I'm not crazy about your brother, either. Your sister
  is okay. You can ask her up for visits once in a while-but don't you ever
  forget, not for one second, that I come first in your life now. Not

               230
 Chris, not Carrie, and, most of all, not that doctor you were engaged to.
 I~m not blind or stupid, Cathy. I've seen him look at you, and though I
 don't know how far you went with him before you'd better let it be dead
 now!"
  My head bowed with the panic I felt. My brother and sister were like
  extensions of myself! I needed them in my life, not just on the fringes.
  What had I done? I had the blinding precognition that he was going to be my
  loving keeper, my jailor, and I'd be as imprisoned with him as I'd been in
  the locked room in Foxworth Hall! Only this time I'd be as free to come and
  go as far as his invisible chain would allow. "I love you like crazy," he
  said, polishing off the last of his meal. "You are the best thing that's
  ever happened to me. I want you at my side all the time, never out of
  sight. I need you to keep me straight. I drink too much sometimes, and then
  I get mean, real mean, C athy. I want you to make me over into what you
  think I am on stage; I don't want to hurt

 you.11
  He touched me then, for I knew he'd been terribly hurt, as I'd been hurt,
  and he'd been so disappointed in his father, as my mother had disappointed
  me. And he needed me. Maybe Paul was right. Fate had used Amanda to deal
  out the right cards so Julian and I would be winners, not losers. Youth did
  call to its own age, and he was young, handsome, a talented dancer-and
  charming when he wanted to be. He had a cruel, dark side, I knew that. I'd
  experienced some of that ... but I could tame him. I wouldn't let him be my
  ruler and my judge, my superior or my master. We'd make it fifty-fifty,
  share and be equals, and eventually, one bright and sunny morning, I'd wake
  up and see his darkly stubbled face and know I loved him. Know I loved him
  better than anyone I'd loved before-anyone.

               231
   PART
 THREE
 Dreams Come True

 While Julian and I worked slavishly to reach the top of the ballet world,
 Chris whizzed his way through college, and in his fourth year he entered
 an accelerated program for medical students, completing his fourth year
 of college while simultaneously beginning his first year of medical
 school.
  He flew to New York and explained it to me while we strolled hand in hand
  in Central Park. It was spring and the birds were chirping and merrily
  collecting the trash they needed to build nests.
  "Chris, Julian doesn't know you're here, and I'd rather he didn't find
  out. He's terribly jealous of you, and Paul too. Would you feel insulted
  if I didn't ask you over for dinner?"
  "Yes," he said stubbornly. "I came up to visit my sister, and visit my
  sister I will. Not furtively either. You can tell him I came to visit
  Yolanda. Besides, I only intend to stay for the weekend."
  Julian was obsessively possessive of me. He was like an only child who
  needed constant pampering, and I didn't mind, except when he tried to
  keep me from my family. "Okay. He's rehearsing now, and he thinks I'm
  home doing housework before I join him this afternoon. But stay away from
  Yolanda, Chris. She's nothing but trouble. Whatever she does with any man
  is news for the class the next day."
  He gave me a strange look. "Cathy, I don't give a damn about Yolanda. She
  was just my excuse to see you; I know your husband hates me."

               235
 "I wouldn't call it hate ... not exactly-,,
  "All right, call it jealousy, but whatever it is, he's not keeping me
  from you." His tone and his look grew serious. "Cathy, always you and
  Julian seem just on the verge of making it big, and then something
  happens, and you never become the stars you should be. What is it?"
  I shrugged. I didn't know what it was. I thought Julian and I were as
  dedicated to the dance as any others, and even more so, and still Chris
  was right ... we'd put on a spectacular performance and draw rave
  reviews, and then we'd slide backwards. Perhaps Madame Zolta didn't want
  us to become superstars, lest we leave her company and join another,
  "How is Paul?" I asked as we sat on a bench dappled with sunlight and
  shade.
  Chris had my hand in his and tightly he held it. "Paul's Paul ... he
  never changes. Carrie adores him; he adores her. He treats me like a
  younger brother he's very proud of. And really, Cathy, I don't think I
  would have made it as well without all the tutoring he gave me.~9
  "He hasn't found anyone else to love?" I asked in a tight voice. I didn't
  fully believe Paul's letters that said there weren't any women he cared
  for.
  "Cathy," said Chris, putting his fingers tenderly under my chin to tilt
  my face upward to his, "how can Paul find anyone to equal you?" I could
  have cried from the expression in his eyes. Would the past never set me
  free?

  No sooner did Julian see Chris than the two of them
 were at it. "I don't want you sleeping under my roof!"
 stormed Julian. "I don't like you and I never have and
 never will --- so get the hell out and forget you've got a
 sister!" Chris left to stay at a hotel, and on the sly we
 met once or twice before he went back to his school.
 Dully I went back to attend class with Julian, then the
 afternoon rehearsal and the evening performance.
 Sometimes we had the lead roles, sometimes only
 minor ones, and sometimes, as punishment for some

               236
 sarcastic remark Julian would make to Madame Zolta, we both had to dance
 in the corps. Chris didn't visit New York again for three years.

  When Carrie was fifteen she came to spend her first summer with us in New
  York. Hesitating and frightened-looking from the long flight she'd made
  all alone, she ambled slowly through the bustling, noisy crowds at the
  airport terminal. Julian spotted her first and he cried out, then bounded
  forward to sweep her up in his arms. "Hi there, gorgeous sister-in-law!"
  he greeted, planting a hearty kiss on her cheek. "My, how much you grow
  to look like Cathy-first thing you know I won't even know the
  difference---so watch out! Are you positively sure the dancing fife isn't
  for you?"
  She was made happy and secure by his pleasure to see her again, and
  quickly she responded by throwing her arms about his neck. In the three
  years Julian and I had been married, she'd learned to love him for what
  he appeared to be. "Don't you dare call me Tinkerbelle!" she said,
  laughing. It was our standing joke, for Julian thought Carrie just the
  right size to play a fairy-and kept telling her it still wasn't too late
  for her to become a dancer. If someone else had even suggested such a
  thing, she would have been deeply insulted, but for Julian, someone she
  deeply admired, she would be a fairy only by flitting around and
  fluttering her arms. She knew he meant "fairy" as a compliment, and not
  a criticism of her small size.
  Then it was my turn to have Carrie in my arms. I loved her so much I was
  overwhelmed by the force that swept over me and made me feel I was
  holding a child born of my own flesh. Though there was never a time I
  could look at Carrie and not long for Cory who should be at her side. I
  wondered too, if he had lived, would he too stand only four feet six
  inches tall? Carrie and I laughed and cried, exchanged news and then she
  whispered so Julian wouldn't overhear. "I don't wear a training bra
  anymore. I've got on a real one."
  "I know," I whispered back. "The first thing I noticed was your bosom."

               237
  "Really?" She appeared delighted. "You can see them? I didn't think they
  showed that much."
  "Well of course they show," said Julian, who shouldn't have sneaked so
  close to eavesdrop on this sisterly confidence. "That's the first thing
  my eyes go for once they get past a fabulous face. Carrie, do you realize
  you have a fabulous face? I just might kick out my wife and marry you."
  It was a remark that didn't sit well with me. Many an argument we'd have
  because he cared too much for very young girls. However I was determined
  to let nothing spoil Carrie's vacation in New York, the first time she'd
  come alone, and Julian and I had mapped out a schedule so we could show
  her everything. At least there was one member of my family Julian would
  accept.

  The months flew swiftly by, and then the spring we'd waited for so long
  was upon us.
  Julian and I were in Barcelona, enjoying our first real vacation since
  we'd married. Five years and three months of married life, and still
  there were times when Julian seemed a stranger. Madame Zolta had
  suggested the vacation, thinking it a good idea if we visited Spain so
  we could study the Flamenco style of dancing. In a hired car we drove
  from one town to another, loving the beautiful countryside. We liked the
  late evening meals, the sleepy siesta afternoons lying on the rocky
  shores of the C6te d'Azur-but, most of all, we loved Spanish music and
  dancing.
  Madame Z. had mapped our tour throughout Spain, listing all the villas
  that charged nominal rates. She was thrifty and taught all her dancers
  her tricks. If one occupied one of the small cottages near a hotel, and
  cooked their own meals, the fee was even less. So this was where Julian
  and I were on the day Chris's graduation invitation arrived. It had
  followed us all over Spain, to catch up with us here.
  My heart jumped when I spied the thick creamy envelope, knowing it
  contained the graduation announcement of Chris's achievement-his medical

               238
 degree-at long last! It was almost as if I myself had completed college,
 then medical school all within seven years.
  Very carefully I used a letter opener so I could put this souvenir in my
  scrapbook of dreams, some of which were coming true. Inside was not only
  the formal announcement, but also a note on which Chris had written
  modestly:

 I am embarrassed to tell you this, but I am the top
 grad in a class of two hundred. Don't you dare find an excuse to keep away.
 You have to be there to bask in the glow of my excitement, as I bask in the
 radiance of your admiration. I cannot possibly accept my M.D. if you aren't
 there to see. And you can tell Julian this when he tries to prevent your
 coming.

  The bothersome thing about this was Julian and I had signed a contract some
  time ago to tape a TV production of Giselle. It was set for June, but now
  in May they wanted us both. We were sure the television exposure would make
  us the stars we'd strived so long to be.
  It seemed a perfect time to approach Julian with the news. We had returned
  to our cottage after touring old castles. As soon as our evening meal was
  over we sat out on the terrace sipping glasses of a red wine he was nuts
  about, but that gave me a headache. Only then did I dare to timidly
  approach going back to the States in time for Chris's May graduation.
  "Really, we do have the time to fly there, and be back in plenty of time to
  go into rehearsals for Giselle."
  "Oh, come off it, Cathy!" he said impatiently. "It's a difficult role for
  you, and you'll be tired, and you'll need to rest up. "
  I objected. Two weeks was plenty of time ... and a TV taping didn't take
  too long. "Please, darling, let's go. I'd be sick not to see my brother
  become a doctor, just as you'd be if your brother was reaching the goal
  he'd strived for year after year."
 "Hell, no!" he flared, narrowing his dark eyes and

               239
 shooting sparks my way. "I get so damned sick and dred of hearing Chris
 this, and Chris that, and if it isn't his name you drum in my ears, then
 it's Paul this and that! You are not going!"
  I pleaded with him to be reasonable. "He's my only brother, his
  graduation day is as important to me as it is to him. You can't
  understand how much this means not only to him, but to me as well! You
  think he and I lived lives of luxury compared to yours, but you can rest
  assured, it was no picnic!"
  "Your past is something you don't talk about to me," he snapped. "It's
  exactly as if you were born the day you found your precious Dr. Paul!
  Cathy, you are my wife now, and your place is with me. Your Paul has
  Carrie, and they'll be there, so your brother won't lack applause when
  he gets that damned M.DT'
  "You can't tell me what I can do and what I can't do! I'm your wife, not
  your slave!"
  "I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said, standing and seizing
  hold of my arm. "C'mon, let's hit the sack. I'm tired." Without speaking
  I allowed him to tug me into the bedroom where I began to undress. But
  he came over to help, and in this way I was informed it was to be a night
  of love, or rather sex. I shoved his hands away. Scowling, he put them
  back on my shoulders and leaned to nibble on my neck; he fondled my
  breasts before he reached to unhook my bra. I slapped his hands away,
  screamed no! But he persisted in taking off my bra. Easy as a mask to
  take off , he threw away his anger and put on his dreamy-eyed romantic
  look.
  There had been a time when Julian had appeared to me the epitome of
  everything sophisticated, worldly, elegant, but compared to the way he
  was now, since his father's death, he'd been only a country-bumpkin.
  There were times I actually detested him. This was such a time. "I am
  going, Julian. You may come with me, or you may meet me in New York after
  I fly back from the graduation ceremony. Or you can stay on here and
  sulk. Whatever-I am going. I want you to come with me and share in the
  family celebration, for you never share in anything-you hold me back, so
  I don't share
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 either-but this time you can't stop me! It's too important!"
  Quietly he listened and he smiled in a way that sent chills down my spine.
  Oh, how wicked he could look. "Hear this, beloved wife, when you married
  me, I became your ruler, and by my side you will stay until I kick you out.
  And I'm not yet ready to do that. You are not leaving me alone in Spain
  when I don't speak Spanish. Maybe you can learn from records, but I can't."
  "Don't threaten me, Julian," I said coolly, though I backed off and felt a
  terrible pounding of panic. "Without me you don't have anyone who cares,
  except your mother, and since you don't care for her, who have you got
  left?"
  Lightly he reached out to slap both my cheeks. I closed my eyes, resigned
  to accept anything he did, as long as I could go to Chris. I allowed him to
  undress me and do what he would, even though he clutched my buttocks so
  hard they hurt. I could, when I chose, withdraw until I was outside of
  myself, looking on, and what he did to me that was appalling didn't really
  matter-for I wasn't truthfully there-unless the pain was great-as sometimes
  it was.
  "Don't try and sneak away," he warned, his words muffled because he was
  kissing everywhere, teasing me as a cat who plays with a mouse when it's
  not hungry. "Swear on your word of honor that you will stay and miss your
  dearly beloved brother's graduation-stay with the husband who needs you,
  who adores you, who can't live without you."
  He was mocking me, though his need for me was that of a child needing his
  mother. That was what I had become-his mother, in everything but sex. I had
  to choose his suits, his socks and shirts, his costumes, his practice
  outfits, though he consistently refused to let me handle the household
  accounts.
  "I will not swear to anything so unfair. Chris has come to see you perform
  and you have gloried in showing off to him. Now let him have his turn. He's
  worked hard for it." I pulled free from him then, and strolled to pick up
  a black lace nightgown he liked me

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 to wear. I hated black nightgowns and underwear; they reminded me of
 whores and call girls-and my own mother who'd had a fancy for black
 lingerie. "Get up off your knees, Julian. You look ludicrous. You can't
 do anything to me if I choose to go. A bruise would show, and besides,
 you've grown so accustomed to my weight and balance you can't even lift
 another dancer properly. "
  He came at me angrily. "You're mad because we haven't made it to the top,
  aren't you? You're blaming me because our booking was canceled. And now
  Madame Z. has given us a leave so I can sober up and come back refreshed,
  made wholesome by playing games with my wife. Cathy, I don't know how to
  entertain myself except by dancing; I'm not interested in books or
  museums like you are, and there are ways of hurting and humiliating you
  that won't leave any bruises-except on your ego-and you should know that
  by now,"
  Foolishly I smiled, when I should have known better than to challenge him
  when h6 was feeling less than confident. "What's the matter, Jule? Didn't
  your sex break satisfy your lust for perversion? Why don't you go out and
  find a schoolgirl, for I'm not going to cooperate. "
  I'd never before thrown in his face that I knew about his debaucheries
  with very young girls. It had hurt at first when I found out, but now I
  knew he used those girls like he used paper napkins, to casually toss
  away when soiled, and back he'd come to me, to say he loved me, needed
  me, and I was the only one.
  Slowly he advanced, using his pantherlike stalk that told me he would be
  ruthless, but I held my head high, knowing I could escape by shutting off
  my mind, and he couldn't afford to hit me. He paused one foot away. I
  heard the clock on the nightstand ticking.
  "Cathy, you will do as I say if you know what's good for YOU."
  He was cruel that night, evil and spiteful; he forced upon me what should
  only be given in love. He dared me to bite. And this time I wouldn't have
  just one black

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 eye, but two, and maybe worse. "And I'll tell everybody you are sick. Your
 period has you so badly cramped you can't dance-and you won't skip out on
 me, or make any phone calls, for I'll bind you to the bed and hide your
 passport." He grinned and slapped my face lightly. "Now, honey-chile,
 whatcha gonna do this time?"

  Smiling and himself again, Julian sauntered naked to the breakfast table,
  flung himself down, sprawled out his long, beautifully shaped legs and
  asked casually, "What's for breakfast?" He held out his arms so I could
  come and kiss his lips, which I did. I smiled, brushed the lock of
  dangling hair from his forehead, poured his coffee, and then said, "Good
  morning, darling. Same old breakfast for you. Fried eggs and fried ham.
  I'm having a cheese omelet."
  "I'm sorry, Cathy," he murmured. "Why do you try to bring out the worst
  in me? I only use those girls to spare you."
  "If they don't mind, then I don't mind ... but don't ever force me to do
  what I did last night. I'm very good at hating, Julian. Just as good as
  you are at forcing. And at harboring revenge I'm an expert!"
  I slid onto his plate two fried eggs and two slices of ham. No toast and
  no butter. Both of us ate in silence. He sat across the checkered red and
  white tablecloth, closely shaven, clean and smelling of soap and shaving
  lotion. In his own dark and light exotic way he was the most beautiful
  man I'd ever seen.
 "Cathy - . . you haven't said you love me today."
 "I love you, Julian."
  An hour after breakfast I was madly searching every room to find my
  passport, while Julian slept on the bed, where I'd dragged him from the
  kitchen after he fell asleep from all the sedatives I'd dumped in his
  coffee.
  He wasn't nearly as good at hiding as I was at finding. Under the bed,
  and under the blue rug, I found my passport. Quickly I threw clothes into
  my suitcases. When I was packed, dressed and ready to go, I leaned above
  him and kissed him good-bye. He was breathing

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 deep and regularly, and smiling slightly; perhaps the drugs were giving
 him pleasant dreams. Though I'd drugged him, I hesitated, wondering if I'd
 done the right thing. Shrugging off my indecision, I headed toward the
 garage. Yes, I did what I had to do. If he were awake now, he'd be buffed
 to my side all through the day, with my passport in his pocket. I'd left
 a note telling him where I was going.

  Paul and Carrie met me at the airport in North Carolina. I hadn't seen
  Paul in three years. Down the ramp I went, my eyes locked with his. His
  face tilted up to mine, the sun in his eyes so he had to squint. "I'm
  glad you could come," he said, "though I'm sorry Julian couldn't make
  it."
  "He's sorry too," I said, looking up into his face. He was the type of
  man who improved with age. The mustache I'd persuaded him to grow was
  still there, and when he smiled dimples showed in both his cheeks.
  "Are you searching to find gray hair?" he teased when I stared too long
  and perhaps with too much admiration. "If you see any let me know and
  I'll have my barber touch them up. I'm not ready for gray hair

 et I like your new hair style; it makes you even more Lutiful. But you're
 much too thin. What you need is lots of Henny's home cooking. She's here,
 you know, in a motel's small kitchen, whipping up homemade rolls your
 brother so loves. It's her gift to him for becoming another doctor-son."
  "Did Chris get my telegram? He does know I'm coming?"
  "Oh, indeed yes! He was fretting through every moment, afraid Julian
  would refuse to let you leave him, and knowing Julian wouldn't come.
  Honestly, Cathy, if you hadn't shown up, I don't think Chris would accept
  his degree."
  To sit beside Paul, with Henny on his far side and Carrie next to me, and
  watch my Christopher stride down the aisle and up the steps to accept his
  diploma, and then stand behind the podium and make the valedictory
  speech, put tears in my eyes and a swelling

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 happiness in my heart. He did it so beautifully I cried. Paul, Henny and
 Carrie also had tears to shed. Even my success on stage couldn't compare
 to the pride I felt now. And Julian, he should be here too, making himself
 a part of my family and not stubbornly resisting all the time.
  I thought of our mother too, who should be here to witness this. I knew
  she was in London, for I was still following her movements about the
  world. Waiting, always waiting to see her again. What would I do when I
  did? Would I chicken out and let her get away again? I knew one thing,
  she'd learn that her eldest son was now a doctor-for I'd be sure she
  knew-just as I kept her informed about what Julian and I were doing.
  Of course I knew by now why my mother kept always on the move--she was
  afraid, so afraid I'd catch up with her! She'd been in Spain when Julian
  and I arrived. The news had been published in several papers, and not
  long after that I picked up a Spanish paper to see the lovely face of
  Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow, flying to London as fast as she could.
  Tearing my thoughts from her, I glanced around at the thousands of
  relatives crowded into the huge auditorium. When I looked back at the
  stage I saw Chris up there, ready to step behind the podium. I don't know
  how he managed to find me, but somehow he did. Our gazes met and locked,
  and across all the heads of those who sat between us, we met in silent
  communication and shared an overwhelming jubilation! We'd done it! Both
  of us! Reached our goals; become what we'd set out to be when we were
  children. It wouldn't have mattered at all about those years and months
  we'd lost-if Cory hadn't died, if our mother hadn't betrayed us, if
  Carrie had gained the height that should have been hers, and would have
  been if Momma had found another solution. Maybe I wasn't a prima
  ballerina yet-but I would be one day, and Chris would be the finest
  doctor alive.
  Watching Chris, I believed we shared the same thoughts. I saw him
  swinging a bat when he was ten to smash a ball over the fence, and then
  he'd run like mad

               245
 to touch all bases in the quickest possible time, when he could have
 walked and made his home run. But that wasn't his way, to make it look too
 easy. I saw him racing on his bike yards ahead of me, then slowing down
 deliberately so I could catch up and we'd both reach home at the same
 time. I saw him in the locked room, in his bed three feet from mine,
 smiling encouragingly. I saw him again in the attic shadows, almost hidden
 in the immense space, looking so lost and bewildered as he turned away
 from the mother he loved ... to me. Vicariously we'd shared so many
 romances while lying on a dirty old mattress in the attic while the rain
 pelted down and separated us from all humanity. Was that what did it? Was
 that why he couldn't see any girl but me? How sad for him, for me.

  The university planned a huge luncheon celebration, and at our table
  Carrie babbled away, but Chris and I could only stare at each other, each
  of us trying to find the right words to say.
  "Dr. Paul has moved into a new office building, Cathy," gushed Carrie
  breathlessly. "I'd hate him being so far away, but I am going to be his
  secretary! I am going to have a brand new electric typewriter colored
  red! Dr. Paul thought a custom-painted typewriter of purple might look
  a little garish, but I didn't think it would, so I settled for second
  best. And nobody ever is gonna have a better secretary than I'll be! I'll
  answer his phone, make his appointments, keep his filing system, do his
  bookkeeping, and every day he and I will eat lunch together!" She beamed
  on Paul a bright smile. It seemed he'd given her the security to regain
  the exuberant self-confidence that she'd lost. But I was to find out
  later, sadly, this was Carrie's false facade, one for Paul, Chris and me
  to see, and when she was alone, it was far different.
  Then Chris frowned and asked why Julian hadn't come. "He wanted to come,
  Chris, really he did," I lied. "But he has obligations that keep him so
  busy he couldn't spare the time. He asked me to give you his
  congratulations. We do have very tight schedules.

               246
 Actually, I can only stay two days. We're going to do a TV production of
 Giselle next month.
  Later we celebrated again in a fine hotel restaurant. This was our chance
  to give Chris the gifts each of us had for him. It had been our childish
  habit to always shake a present before it was opened, but the big box Paul
  gave Chris was too heavy to shake. "Books!" said Chris rightly. Six huge,
  fat medical reference volumes to represent an entire set that must have
  cost Paul a fortune. "I couldn't carry more than six," he explained. "The
  remainder of the set will be waiting for you at home." I stared at him,
  realizing his home was the only real home we had.
  Deliberately Chris saved my gift for last, anticipating this would be the
  best and in that way, just as we used to, we could stretch out the
  enjoyment. It was too large and much too heavy to shake and besides I
  cautioned him it was fragile, but he laughed, for we used to always try and
  trick the other, "No, it's more books-nothing else could be as heavy." He
  gave me a funny, wistful smile that made him seem a boy again.
  "I give you one guess, my Christopher Doll, and one hint. Inside that box
  is the one thing you said you wanted more than anything else-and our father
  said he would give it to you the day you got your black doctor's bag." Why
  had I used that kind of soft voice, to make Paul turn his eyes and narrow
  them, and see the blood that rose to stain my brother's cheeks? Were we
  never to forget, and change? Were we forever going to feel too much? Chris
  fiddled with the ribbons, careful not to tear the fancy paper. When he
  stripped off the paper, tears of remembrance welled in his eyes. His hands
  trembled as he carefully lifted from the cushioned box a French mahogany
  case with a gleaming brass lock, key and carrying handle. He gave me a
  tortured look even as his lips quivered, seeming incredulous that after all
  these years I'd remembered.
  "Oh, damn it, Cathy," he said all choked up with emotion, "I never really
  hoped to own one of these. You shouldn't have spent so much ... it must
  have cost a fortune ... and you shouldn't have!"

               247
  "But I wanted to, and it's not an original, Chris, only a replica of a
  John Cuff Side Pillar Microscope. But the man in the shop said it was an
  exact duplicate of the original and a collector's item nevertheless. And
  it works too." He shook his head as he handled the solid brass and ivory
  accessory instruments, and the optical lens, the tweezers, and the
  leather-bound book titled Antique Microscopes, 1675-1840.
  1 said faintly, "In case you decide to play around in your spare time,
  you can do your own research on germs and viruses."
  "Some toy you give," he said, gritty-voiced, and now the two tears in the
  comers of his eyes began to slide down his cheeks. "You remembered the
  day Daddy said he would give me this when I became a doctor."
  "How could I forget? That little catalog was the one thing you took of
  yours that wasn't clothes, when we went to Foxworth Hall. And every time
  he swatted a fly, or killed a spider, Paul, Chris would long to have a
  John Cuff microscope. And once he said he wanted to be the Mouseman of
  the Attic, and discover for himself why mice die so young."
  "Do mice die young?" asked Paul seriously. "How did you know they were
  young? Did you capture baby ones, and mark them in some way?"
  Chris and I met eyes. Yeah, we'd lived in another world back when we were
  young and imprisoned, so that we could look at the mice who came to steal
  and nibble on our food, especially the one named Mickey.

  Now I had to go back to New York and face Julian's wrath. But first I had
  to have a little time alone with my brother. Paul took Henny and Carrie
  to a movie while Chris and I strolled the campus of his university. "And
  you see that window up there on the second floor, the fifth from the end
  there-that was my room I shared with Hank. We had a study group of eight
  guys, and all through college and med school we stuck together, and
  studied together, and when we dated, we dated together. "

               248
 "Oh," I sighed. "Did you date a lot?"
  "Only on the weekends. The study schedule was too heavy for socializing
  during the week. None of it was easy, Cathy. There's so much to know,
  physics, biology, anatomy, chemistry, and I could go on and on."
  "You're not telling me what I want to hear. Who did you date? Was there,
  or is there, someone special?"
  He caught my hand and drew me closer to his side. "Well, should I begin
  to list them one by one, and by name? If I did it would take several
  hours. If there had been someone special, all I would do is name one-and
  I can't do that. I liked them all ... but I didn't like any well enough
  to love, if that's what you want to know."
  Yes, that was exactly what I wanted to know. "I'm sure you didn't live
  a celibate life, even though you didn't fall in love ... T'
 "That's none of your business," he said lightly.
  "I think it is. It would give me peace to know you had a girl you loved."
  "I do have a girl I love," he answered. "I've known her all my life. When
  I go to sleep at night, I dream of her, dancing overhead, calling my
  name, kissing my cheek, screaming when she has nightmares, and I wake up
  to take the tar from her hair. There are times when I wake up to ache all
  over, as she aches all over, and I dream I kiss the marks the whip made
  ... and I dream of a certain night when she and I went out on the cold
  slate roof and stared up at the sky, and she said the moon was the eye
  of God looking down and condemning us for what we were. So there, Cathy,
  is the girl who haunts me and rules me, and fills me with frustrations,
  and darkens all the hours I spend with other girls who just can't live
  up to the standards she set. And I hope to God you're satisfied."
  I turned to move as in a dream, and in that dream I put my arms about him
  and stared up into his face, his beautiful face that haunted me too.
  "Don't love me, Chris. Forget about me. Do as I do, take whomever knocks
  first on your door, and let her in."
 He smiled ironically and put me quickly from him. "I

               249
 did exactly what you did, Catherine Doll, the first who knocked on my door
 was let in-and now I can't drive her out. But that's my problem-not
 yours."
  "I don't deserve to be there. I'm not an angel, not a saint ... you
  should know that."
  "Angel, saint, Devil's spawn, good or evil, you've got me pinned to the
  wall and labeled as yours until the day I die. And if you die first, then
  it won't be long before I follow."

 Gathering Shadows

 Both Chris and Paul, to say nothing of Carrie, persuaded me to go back to
 Clairmont and spend a few days with my family. When I was there,
 surrounded by all the cozy comforts, the charm of the house and the
 gardens had their chance to beguile me again. I told myself this was the
 way it would have been if I'd married Paul. No problems. A sweet, easy
 life. Then, when I let myself wonder how Julian was faring, I thought of
 all the mean and spiteful ways he had of annoying me by opening my mail
 from Paul or Chris, as if he were looking for incriminating evidence. No
 doubt when he flew back from Spain, he'd deliberately let my house plants
 die as a way to punish me.
  There must be something weird about me, I was thinking as I stood on the
  balcony overlooking Paul's magnificent gardens. I wasn't that beautiful,
  or that unforgettable, or that indispensable, to any man. I stayed there
  and let Chris come up behind me and put his arm about my shoulders. I
  leaned my head against him and sighed, staring up at the moon. The same
  old moon that had known our shame before, still there to witness more.
  I didn't do anything; I swear I didn't, just

               250
 let his arm stay about me. Maybe I moved a little to contour myself
 against him when he had me in a tight embrace. "Cathy, Cathy," he groaned,
 pressing his lips down into my hair, "sometimes fife just doesn't have any
 meaning without you. I'd throw away my M.D. and set out for the South
 Pacific if you'd go with me.
 "And leave Carrie?"
  "We could take her with us." I thought he was playing a game of wishing,
  like we had when children. "I'd buy a sail boat and take out tourists,
  and if they cut themselves I'd have all the training to bandage their
  cuts." He kissed me then with the fervor of a man gone wild from denial.
  I didn't want to respond, yet I did, making him gasp as he tried to coax
  me into his room.
  "Stop!" I cried. "I don't want you except as a brother! Leave me alone!
  Go find someone else!"
  Dazed and hurt-looking, he backed off. "What kind of woman are you
  anyway, Cathy? You returned my kisses-you responded in every way you
  could-and now you draw away and pull the virtuous actl"
 "Hate me then!"
  "Cathy, I could never hate you." He smiled at me bitterly. "There are
  times when I want to hate you, times when I think you are just the same
  as our mother, but I don't ever stop loving once I start!" He entered his
  room and slammed the door, leaving me speechless, staring after him.
  No! I wasn't like Momma, I wasn't! I'd responded only because I was still
  seeking my lost identity. Julian stole my reflection and made it his.
  Julian wanted to steal my strength and call it his own; he wanted me to
  make all the decisions, so he couldn't be blamed when a mistake was made.
  I was still trying to prove my worth, so in the end I could disprove the
  grandmother's condemnation. See, Grandmother, I am not bad or evil. Or
  else everyone wouldn't love me so much. I was still that selfish,
  ravenous, demanding attic mouse who had to have it proven time and time
  again that I was worthy enough to live in the sunlight.
  I was thinking about this one day when I was on the back veranda, and
  Carrie was planting pansies she'd

               251
 grown from seed, and beside her were little pots with tiny petunia
 settings. Chris came out from the house and tossed me the evening
 newspaper. "There's an article in there that might be of some interest to
 you," he said in an off-hand way. "I thought about not showing it to you,
 but then I decided I should."

 The husband and wife ballet team of Julian Marquet and Catherine Dahl,
 our own local celebrities, seems to have parted company. For the first
 time Julian Marquet will partner a ballerina other than his wife in a
 major television production of Giselle. It has been rumored about that
 Miss Dahl is ill, and also rumored that the ballet team are about to
 split.

  There was more to read, including the fact that Yolanda Lange was to
  replace me! This was our big chance-another of many, to make stars of
  ourselves, and he was putting Yolanda in my part! Damn him! Why didn't
  he grow up? Every chance we had he blew it. He couldn't lift Yolanda
  easily, not with his bad back.
  Chris threw me a strange look before he asked, "What are you going to do
  about it?" I yelled back, "Nothing!" For a second or two he didn't say
  anything. "Cathy, he didn't want you to come to my graduation, did he?
  And that's why he's put Yolanda in your role. I warned you not to let him
  be your manager. Madame Zolta would have treated you more fairly."
  I got up to pace the porch. Our original contract with Madame Z. had
  expired two years ago, and all we owed her now was twelve performances
  a year. The rest of the time Julian and I were freelance, and could dance
  with whatever company we chose.
  Let Julian have Yolanda. Let him make a fool of himself-I hoped to God
  he dropped her! Let him have all his teeny-bopper playmates for sex games
  ... I didn't care. Then I was running in the house and up to my bedroom
  where I flung myself face down and bawled.

               252
  Everything was made worse by the fact that I had made a secret trip to the
  gynecologist the day before. Two missed periods didn't reaPv mean anything
  for a woman like me, who was so irrtgular. I might not be pregnant; it
  might be just another false alarm ... and if it wasn't, I prayed I'd have
  the strength to go through with an abortion! I didn't need a baby in my
  fife. I knew once I had a child, he or she would become the center of my
  world, and luv would again spoil a ballerina who could have been the best.
  Ballet music was in my head when I drove Chris's car to visit Madame
  Marisha one hot spring day when all the world seemed sleepy and lazy except
  for those idiot children being instructed by a shrill little bat wearing
  black, as always. I sat in the shadows near the far wall of a huge
  auditorium and watched the large class of boys and girls dance. It was
  scary to think of how soon those girls would grow up to replace the stars
  of the present. 'Men I too would become another Madame Marisha and the
  years would flow like seconds, until I was Madame Zolta, and all my beauty
  would be preserved only in old, faded photographs.
  "Catherine!" called Madame M. joyfully when she spied me. She came striding
  swiftly, gracefully my way. "Why do you sit in shadows?" she asked. "How
  nice to see your lovely face again. And don't think I don't know why you
  look so sad! You're one big fool to leave Julian! He's a big baby; you know
  he can't be left alone or he does things to hurt himself, and when he hurts
  himself, he hurts you too! Why did you let him get control of management?
  Why did you let him bum up your money as fast as it hits your pockets? I
  tell you this, in your place, I would never, never have let him put another
  in my role of Gisellel"
 God, what a blabbermouth he wasl
  "Don't worry about me, Madame," I said coolly. "If my husband doesn't want
  me for his partner anymore, I'm sure there will be others who will."
  She scowled, advanced. She put those bony hands on me and shook me as if to
  wake me up. Up close, I could see she'd aged terribly since Georges had
  died. Her

               253
 ebony hair was almost white now, and streaked with charcoal. She snarled
 then, baring teeth whiter than they used to be and far more perfect. "You
 gonna let my son make a fool of you? You let him put another dancer in
 your place? I gave you credit for having more backbone! Now you hightail
 it back to New York and push that Yolanda out of his life! Marriage is
 sacred, and wedding vows are meant to be kept!"
  Then she softened and said, "Come now, Catherine," and led me into her
  small cluttered office. "Now you tell me about this foolishness going on
  between yov. and your husband!"
 "It is really none of your business!"
  She swung another straight chair to where she could straddle it. Leaning
  forward upon her arms, she stabbed me with her hard penetrating glare.
  "Anything, and everything concerning my son is my business!" she snapped.
  "Now you just sit there and keep quiet, and let me tell you what you
  don't know about your husband." Her voice turned a little kinder. "I was
  older than Georges when we were married, and even so I dared putting off
  having a child until I believed the best of my career was behind me, and
  then I became pregnant. Georges never wanted a child to hold him down,
  and back, and so, from the beginning Julian had two strikes against him.
  "I tell myself we didn't force the dance upon our son, but we did keep
  him with us, so the ballet became part of his world, the most important
  part." She sighed heavily and wiped a bony hand over her troubled brow.
  "We were strict with him, I admit that. We did everything we could to
  make him what was perfect in our eyes, but the more we tried, the more
  determined he became to be everything we didn't want him to be -We tried
  to teach him perfect diction, so he ended up mocking us with all kinds
  of vulgar street languagegutter talk, Georges called it. You know," she
  went on with a wistful expression, "only after my husband was dead and
  buried did I realize that he never spoke to our son unless it was an
  order not to do something, or an order to improve his dancing technique.
  I never

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 realized that Georges could have been jealous of his own son, seeing that he
 was a better dancer and would achieve more fame. It wasn't easy for me to
 become only a ballet mistress, and for Georges to be only an instructor.
 Many a night we lay on our bed and held to each other, craving the applause,
 the adulation.... It was a hunger that would not be satisfied until we heard
 the applause for our son."
  Again she paused, and birdlike craned her neck to peer at me and see if I
  was paying full attention. Oh, yes, she had my attention. She was telling
  me so much I needed to know.
  "Julian tried to hurt Georges and Georges got hurt because Julian made
  light of his father's reputation. One day he called hA only a second-class
  performer. Georges didn't speak to his own son for a whole monthl They
  never got back together after that. Farther and farther they drifted apart
  ... until one fine Christmas Day when another prodigy drifted into our
  lives, and offered herself. You! Julian had flown back to visit us, only
  because I had pleaded with him to try and make it up with his father ...
  and Julian saw you.
  "It is our responsibility to pass along our skills of technique to the
  younger generation, and still I felt some apprehension in taking you on,
  mostly because I thought you would hurt my son. I don't know why I thought
  that, but it seemed obvious from the very start, it was that older doctor
  you loved. Then I thought you had something very rare, a passion for the
  dance that is seldom seen. You were, in your own way, equal to what Julian
  was, and the two of you together were so sensational I couldn't believe my
  eyes. My son felt it too, the rapport between you two. You turned those
  big, soft, admiring blue eyes on him, so later he came and told me you were
  a sex kitten who would fall easily under his spell and into his arms. He
  and I always had a close relationship, and he confessed to me what other
  boys would have kept secret."
  She paused, flicked her stony eyes over me and went on breathlessly, "You
  came, you admired him, you loved him when you were dancing with him, and
  when

               255
 you weren't, you were indifferent. The harder you were to win, the more
 determined he was to have you. I thought you clever, playing a skillful
 woman's game when you were only a child! And now you, you . , , you go and
 leave him when he was in a foreign country, when he couldn't speak the
 language, when you should have learned he has weaknesses, many of them,
 and that he cannot bear to be alone!"
  She jumped up like a black, scrawny alleycat and stood above me. "Without
  Julian to give you inspiration and enhance your talent with his own,
  where would you be? Without him would you be in New York, dancing with
  what is fast becoming one of the leading ballet companies? No! You'd be
  here, raising babies for that doctor. God knows why you said yes to
  Julian, and how you can keep from loving him. For he tells me you don't,
  and never have! So you drug him. You leave him. You take off to see your
  brother become a doctor, when you know damn well your place is at your
  husband's side, making him happy and taking care of his wants!
  "Yes! Yes!" she shrilled, "he called me long distance and told me
  everything! Now he thinks he hates you! Now he wants to cut you off. And
  when he does, he won't have a heart left to keep him alive! For he gave
  you his heart years and years ago!"
  Slowly I rose to my feet; my legs felt weak and trembly. I brushed a hand
  over my aching forehead, and held back tired tears. All of a sudden it
  hit me hard, I did love Juliani Now I saw how very much we were alike,
  him with his hate for his father who had denied him as a son. And me with
  my hatred for my mother, making me do crazy things, like sending off
  hateful letters and Christmas cards to sadden her life and never, never
  let her find peace. Julian in competition with his father, never knowing
  he'd won, and was better ... and me in competition with my motherbut I
  had yet to prove myself better. "Madame, I am going to tell you something
  Julian might not know, and I didn't really know until today; I do love
  your son.

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 Perhaps I always loved him, and just couldn't accept it."
  She shook her head, then fired her words like bullets. "If you love him,
  why did you leave him? Answer me that! You left him because you found out
  he has a liking for young girls? Fooll AD men have yearnings for young
  girls-but still they go on loving their wivesl If you let his desire for
  young flesh drive you away, you are crazy I Slap his face; kick his
  behind-tell. him to leave those girls alone or you will divorce him! Say
  all of that, and he will be what you want. But when you say nothing, and
  act like you don't care, you tell him plainly you don't love him, or want
  him, or need him!"
  "I'm not his mother, or a priest, or God," I said wearily, sick of all the
  passion she used. Backing toward the door, I tried to leave. "I don't know
  if I can keep Julian from young girls, but I'm willing to go back and try.
  I promise to do better. I'll be more understanding, and I'll let him know
  I love him so much, I can't abide the thought of him making love to anyone
  but me."
  She came to take me in her arms. She soothed, "Poor baby, if I have been
  hard on you, it was for your own good. You have to keep my son from
  destro5ug himself. When you save him, you save yourse ,
 lied when I said you would be nothing without Julian. He is the one who
 would be nothing without youl He has a death wish, always I've known it. He
 thinks be's not good enough to five on because his father could never
 convince him he was, and that was my fault too, as well as Georges's. Julian
 waited for years and years for his father to see him as a son, worthy of
 being loved for himself. He waited equally as long for Georges to say yes,
 you will be even a better dancer than I was, and I'm proud of what and who
 you are. But Georges kept his silence. But you go back and tell Julian
 Georges did love him. 'Ib me he said it many times. 141 him too that his
 father was proud of him. Tell him, Catherine. Go back and convince him of
 how much you need and love him. Tell him how sorry you are to have left him
 alone.

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 Go quickly before he does something terrible to himself!"

  It was tirne to say good-bye to Carrie, Paul and Henny again. Only this
  time I didn't have to bid adieu to Chris. He put his foot down. "No! I'm
  coming with you! I'm not letting you go back to a crazy man. When you've
  made your peace with him, and I know everything is all right--only then
  will I leave,"
  Carrie cried, as she always did, and Paul stood back and let only his
  eyes speak and say yes, I could find a place in his heart again.
  I looked down as the plane began to lift, and saw Paul holding Carrie's
  small hand, as she tilted her face to stare up at us and waved, and waved
  until we could see her no more. I squirmed into a comfortable position
  and put my head on Chris's shoulder, and told him to wake me when we
  reached New York. "A fine traveling companion you make," he grumbled, but
  soon his cheek was on my hair as he dozed off too. "Chris," I said
  sleepily, "remember that book about Raymond and Lily who were always
  seeking the magical place where purple grass grew that would fulfill all
  their wishes? Wouldn't it be wonderful to look down and see purple
  grass?"
  "Yeah," he said as sleepily as 1. "1 keep looking for it too. 91

  The plane set down at La Guardia around three. A hot, sultry day. The sun
  played coy, darting in and out of gathering storm clouds. We were both
  tired. "At this hour Julian will be in the theater rehearsing. They'll
  use the rehearsals as a promotion film. There have to be a lot of
  rehearsals; we've never danced in this theater before and it's important
  to get the feel of the space you have to move in."
  Chris was lugging along my two heavy suitcases, while I carried his much
  lighter bag. I laughed and smiled his way, glad he was with me, though
  Julian would be furious. "Now you stay in the background and don't let
  him even see you if everything goes

               258
 all right. Really, Chris, I'm sure he'll be glad to see me. He's not
 dangerous."
 "Sure," he said glumly.
  We sauntered on into the darkened theater. The stage up ahead was very
  brightly lit. The TV cameras were in position, ready to shoot the warm-ups.
  The director, producer and a few others were lined up in the front-row
  seats.
  The heat of the day was chased by the chill of the huge space. Chris opened
  up one of my bags and spread a sweater about my shoulders after we both sat
  down near the aisle, midway back in the center section. Automatically I
  lifted both my legs to stretch them on top of the seat just ahead. Though
  I shivered, the corps de ballet were sweating from the hot klieg lights.
  The eye was down and a few flats were up. I looked for Julian but didn't
  see him.
  Just to think of Julian was to bring him out of the wings, onto the stage
  in a series of whirling jeMs. Oh, he looked terrific in that snug, white
  leotard with bright green leg warmers.
  "Wow!" whispered Chris in my ear. "Sometimes I forget how sensational he is
  on stage. No wonder every ballet critic thinks he will be the star of this
  decade when he learns some discipline. Let it be soon ... and I mean you
  too, Cathy. " I smiled, for I too needed discipline. "Yes," I said, "I too,
  of course."
  No sooner had Julian finished his solo performance than Yolanda Lange
  pirouetted out from the wings, wearing red. She was more beautiful than
  ever! She danced extraordinarily well for a girl so tall. That was, she
  danced well until Julian came to partner her, and then everything went
  wrong. He reached for her waist and got her buttocks, then he had to
  quickly shift his hold, so she slipped and nearly fell and again he
  adjusted to save her. A male dancer who let a ballerina fall would soon
  never have a partner to lift. They tried again the same jump, lift, and
  fall back, and this time it went almost as awkwardly, making Yolanda seem
  ungainly, and Julian unskilled.
 Even 1, sitting halfway down the row of seats, could

               259
 hear her loud curse. "Damn you!" she screeched. "You make me look
 gauche-if you let me fall, Fll see you never dance again!"
  "Cut!" called the director, getting to his feet and looking impatiently
  from one to the other.
  The corps de ballet milled about, grumbling, throwing angry looks at the
  pair center stage that was wasting so much time. Obviously, from the
  sweaty, hot looks of all of them, this had been going on for some time,
  and badly. "Marquet!" called the director, well known for having little
  patience for those who required two, or even more takes. "What the hell
  is wrong with your timing? I thought you said you knew this ballet. I
  can't think of one thing you've done right in the past three days. 97
  "Me?" Julian railed back. "It's not me ... it's her---she jumps too
  soon!"
  "Okay," the director said sarcastically, "it's always her fault and never
  yours." He tried to control his impatience, knowing Julian would walk out
  in a second if criticized too much. "When is your wife going to be well
  enough to dance again?"
  Yolanda screamed out, "Hey, wait a minute! I came all the way from Los
  Angeles and now you're sounding as if you're going to replace me with
  Catherine! I won't have it! I'm written into that contract now! I'll
  suel"
  "I~fiss Lange," said the director smoothly, "you are the cover only--but
  while you are, let's attempt it again. Marquet, listen for your
  cue-Lange, make ready~-and pray to God this time it will be fit to show
  an audience who might expect better from professionals. "
  I smiled to hear she was only the cover; I had thought I was really
  written out.
  I perversely enjoyed watching Julian make a fool out of himself and
  Yolanda as well. Yet, when the dancers on stage groaned, I groaned along
  with them, feeling their exhaustion, and despite myself I began to feel
  pity for Julian who was diligently trying to balance Yolanda. Any second
  the director could call "take ten" and that's when I would make my move.

               260
  Up ahead, first row, Madame Zolta suddenly turned her wizened giraffe neck
  to crane my way, and those sharp little beady eyes saw me sitting tensely,
  watching like an eagle. "Hey, you, Catherine," she called with great
  enthusiasm. Come, she gestured, sit by my side.
  "Excuse me a minute, Chris," I whispered. "I've got to go up there and save
  Julian before he ruins both our careers. I'll be all right. There's not
  much he can do with an audience-is there?"
  Once I was seated beside Madame Zolta, she hissed, "Sooo, you not so
  sss-ick after all! Thank God for small favors. Your husband up there is
  ruining my reputation along with his and yours. I should have known better
  than to always let him partner you, so now he can dance with no one as
  well."
  "Madame," I asked, "who arranged for Yolanda to be my stand-in?"
  "Your husband, my luv," she whispered cruelly. "You let him get control-you
  were a fool to do that. He is impossible! He is a tempest, a devil, so
  unreasonable! Soon he will go mad, if he doesn't see your face--or we will
  go mad. Now run fast and put on dance clothes and save me from extinction!"
  It was only a matter of seconds before I had on a practice outfit and, as
  soon as I had my hair bound up and securely fastened in place, I strapped
  on my pointes. At the dressing room barre I warmed up quickly. Doing my
  p&s, and the rond de jambes to pump blood into each limb. Soon enough I was
  ready. Not a day passed I didn't do my exercises for several hours.
  In the darkened wings I hesitated. I was prepared, I thought, for most
  anything when Julian saw me-what would he do? While I watched him on stage,
  suddenly from behind I was brutally shoved aside! "You've been replaced,"
  hissed Yolanda. "Sssooo, get out-and stay out! You had your chance and
  loused it up-now Julian is mine! You hear that-he's mine! I have slept in
  your bed, and used your makeup and worn your jewelry-I have taken your
  place in everything."
 I wanted to ignore her and not believe anything she

               261
 said. When the cue came for Giselle to go on, Yolanda tried to hold
 me-4hat's when I turned savagely upon her and pushed her so hard she fell.
 She blanched with pain, while I went on pointe and glided onto the stage,
 making my perfect little string of pearls.... Each tiny step could have
 been measured and proven to be of an exact distance. I was the shy, young
 village girl, sweetly, sincerely falling in love with Loys. Others on
 stage gasped to see me. Relief lit up Julian's dark eyes-for an instant.
 "Hi," he said coolly as I neared him, and fluttered my dark lashes to
 enchant him more. "Why'd you come back? Your doctors kick you out? Sick
 of you already?"
  "You are a nasty, inconsiderate brute, Julian, to replace me with
  Yolanda! You know I despise her!"
  His back was to the lookers as he sneered wickedly, all the while keepm
  time, "Yeah, I know you hate her; that's why I wanteg her." He curled his
  beautiful red lips so they looked ugly. "Listen to this, dancing doll.
  Nobody runs out on me, especially my wife, and comes back and thinks she
  can still fit in my life. My love, my dearest heart, I don't want you
  now, I don't need you now, and you can go and play bitch to any man you
  want! Get the hell out of my life!"
  "You don't mean that," I said, as we both performed perfectly, and no one
  called cut. How could they when we did everything so exquisitely right?
  "You don't love me," he said bitterly. "You've never loved me. No matter
  what I did, or what I said, and now I don't give a damn! I gave you the
  best I had to give, and it wasn't enough. So, dear Cath-er-ine-I give you
  this!" And with those sudden words, he broke the routine, jumped high
  into the air, to come down forcefully and directly onto my feet. All his
  weight, brought down like a battering ram to crush my toest
  I uttered some small cry of pain, then Julian was whirling back to chuck
  me under the chin. "Now, luv, see who will dance Griselle with me.
  Certainly it won't be you, will it?"
  "Take ten!" bellowed the director, too late to save me.

               262
  Julian gripped my shoulders and shook me like a rag doll. I stared at him
  rattle-eyed, expecting anything. Then suddenly he whirled away leaving me
  center stage, alone, on two damaged feet that hurt so badly I could have
  screamed. Instead, I sank to the floor and sat there staring at my rapidly
  swelling feet.
  From out of the darkened auditorium Chris came running to my assistance.
  "Damn him to hell for doing this!" he cried, falling on his knees to take
  off my pointe shoes and examine my feet. Tenderly he tried to move my toes,
  but I cried out from the awful pain. Then he picked me up easily and held
  me tight against him. "You'll be all right, Cathy. I'll see that your toes
  heal properly. I fear a few are broken on each foot. You'll need an
  orthopedist."
  "Take Catherine to our orthopedist," ordered Madame Zolta who teetered
  forward and stared at my darkening, enlarging feet. She peered more closely
  at Chris, having seen him only a few times before. "You're Catherine's
  brother who caused all this trouble?" she asked. "71hke her quick to the
  doctor. We have insurance. But that fool husband, this is it. I fire him!"

 The Thirteenth Dancer

 Both of my feet were X-rayed, disclosing three broken toes on my left foot,
 and one broken small toe on my right. T'hank God both my big toes were
 spared, or else I might never dance again! An hour later Chris was carrying
 me out of the doctor's office with a plaster cast drying on one foot that
 reached to my knee, while the small toe was only taped and left to heal
 without such protection. Each of the toes in the cast was nestled

               263
 securely in its own little padded compartment so I couldn't move a one,
 and left exposed for everyone to admire the lovely shades of black, blue
 and purple. In my thoughts the sour lemon-drops of the doctor's last words
 failed to melt and sweeten the future - "You may, or you may not dance
 again, it all depends." On what it depended, he didn't say.
  So I asked Chris. "Sure," he said confidently, "of course you'll dance
  again. Sometimes a doctor likes to be overly pessimistic so you can think
  how great he was when everything works out fine--due to his special
  skill." Clumsily he tried to support me while he used my key to open the
  door of the apartment Julian and I shared. Then he carefully lifted me
  up again, carried me inside and kicked the door closed behind him. He
  tried to make me as comfortable as possible on one of the soft couches.
  I had my eyes squeezed tightly together, trying to suppress the pain I
  felt at every move.
  Chris tenderly supported both legs so he could stuff pillows under and
  keep them elevated to reduce the swelling. Another fat pillow was
  carefully eased under my back and head ... and he never said one word ...
  not one word.
  Because he was so silent, I opened my eyes and studied his face that
  loomed above me. He tried to look professional, detached, but he failed.
  He showed shock each time his eyes moved from one object to another.
  Fearful I looked around. My eyes bulged. My mouth opened. This room! The
  mess! Oh, God, it was awful!
  Our apartment was a wreck! Every painting Julian and I had so carefully
  selected was torn down from the walls, smashed on the floor. Even the two
  watercolors Chris had painted especially for me, portraits with me in
  costume. All the expensive bric-a-brac lay broken on the hearth. Lamps
  were on the floor, the shades slashed to ribbons and the wire frames
  bent. Needlepoint pillows I'd made during the long tedious flights from
  here to there while on tour were ripped, destroyed! Houseplants had been
  dumped from their pots and left with roots exposed to die. Two cloisonnd
  vases that

               264
 Paul had given as a wedding gift, gone too. Everything fine and costly, and
 very cherished, things he and I had planned to keep all our lives and leave
 to our children--all beyond restoration.
  "Vandals," said Chris softly. "Just vandals." He smiled and kissed my
  forehead and squeezed my hand as tears came to my eyes. "Stay calm," he
  said, then he went to check the other three rooms, while I sank back on the
  pillows and sniffed back my sobs. Oh, how he must hate me to do this!
  Shortly Chris was back with his expression very composed, in that same
  eye-of-thehurricane way I'd seen a few times on his face. "Cathy," he
  began, settling cautiously down on the edge of the sofa and reaching for my
  hand, "I don't know what to think. All your clothes and shoes have been
  ruined. Your jewelry is scattered all over the bedroom floor, the chains
  ripped apart, the rings stepped on, bracelets hammered out of shape. It
  looks as if somebody set out deliberately to ruin all of your things and
  left Julian's in perfect condition." He gave me a baffled, troubled look,
  and maybe the tears I tried to hold back jumped from my eyes to his. With
  glistening blue eyes he extended his palm to show me the setting of a once
  exquisite diamond engagement ring, given to me by Paul. The platinum band
  was now a crooked oval. The prongs had released their clasp on the clear
  and perfect two-carat diamond.
  Sedatives had been shot into my arm so I couldn't feel the pain of my
  broken toes. I felt fuzzy and disoriented, and rather detached. Someone
  inside me was screaming, screaming-hatred was near again-the wind was
  blowing, and when I closed my eyes, I saw the blue-misted mountains all
  around me, shutting out the sun-like upstairs, like in the attic.
  "Julian," I said weakly, "he must have done this. He must have come back
  and vented his rage on all my belongings. See the things left whole-they
  are things he chose for himself."
  "Damn him to hell!" cried Chris. "How many times has he vented his rage on
  you? How many black eyes-I've seen one-but how many others?"

               265
  "Please don't," I said sleepily, hazily. "He never hit me that he didn't
  cry afterward, and he'd say he was sorry." Yes, so sorry, my sweetheart,
  my only love ... I don't know what makes me act as I do when I love you
  so much!
  "Cathy," began Chris tentatively, tucking the platinum band in his
  pocket, "are you all right? You look close to fainting. I'll go in and
  straighten up the bed, so you can rest in that. Soon you'll fall asleep
  and forget all of this, and when you wake up, I'm taking you away. Don't
  cry for the clothes and things he gave you, for I'll give you better and
  more. As for this ring Paul gave you, I'll search around the bedroom
  until I find the diamond."
  He looked, but he didn't find the diamond, and when I drifted into sleep,
  he must have carried me to the bed he'd made up with clean sheets. I was
  under a sheet and a thin blanket when I opened my eyes, and he was
  sitting on the edge of the bed, watching my face. I glanced toward the
  windows and saw it was getting dark. Any moment Julian would come home,
  and find Chris with me-and there'd be hell to pay!
  "Chris ... did you undress me and put on this gown?" I asked dully,
  seeing the sleeve of a blue gown that was one of my favorites.
  "Yes. I thought you'd be more comfortable than wearing that pantsuit with
  the leg split up the seam. And I'm a doctor, remember? I'm used to seeing
  all there is-and I took care not to look."
  The darkness of late twilight was in the room, turning all the shadows
  soft and purplish. Fuzzily I saw him as he used to be, when the attic
  atmosphere was like this, purplish, dim, scary, and we were alone and
  facing some unknown horror ahead. Always he gave me comfort when nothing
  else could. Always he was there when I needed him to do and say the right
  thing.
  'fRemember the day Momma received the letter from the grandmother saying
  we could stay in her home? We thought wonderful things were ahead of us
  then; we later thought all joy lay in the past. Never, never in the
  present."

               266
  "Yes," he said softly, "I remember. We believed we'd be rich as King
  Nfidas, and everything we touched would turn to gold. Only we'd have more
  self-control, enough to keep those we loved still made of flesh and
  blood. We were young and silly then, and so trusting."
  "Silly? I don't think we were silly, only normal. You've achieved your
  goal of being a doctor. But I'm still not a prima ballerina." I said this
  last bitterly.
  "Cathy, don't belittle yourself. You will be a pnma ballerina yet!" he
  said fervently. "You would have been a long time ago, if Julian could
  control his fits of temper that makes every company manager afraid to
  sign the pair of you on. You get stuck in a minor company just because
  you won't leave him."
  I sighed, wishing he hadn't said that. It was true enough Julian's fiery
  temper tantrums had scared off more than one offer that would have placed
  us in a more prestigious company. "You've got to leave, Chris. I don't
  want him to come home and find you here. He doesn't want you near me. And
  I can't leave him. In his own way he loves me and needs me. Without me
  to keep him steady he would be ten times more violent, and I do love him
  after all. If he struck out sometimes, he was just trying to make me see
  that. Now 1 do see."
  "See?" he cried. "You're not seeing! You're letting pity for him rob you
  of good common sense! Look around you, Cathy! Only a crazy man could have
  done this. I'm not leaving you alone to face a madman! I'm staying to
  protect you. Tell me what you could do if he decides to make you pay
  again for leaving him alone in Spain? Could you get up and run? No! I'm
  not leaving you here, unprotected, when he might come home drunk, or on
  drug&---2'
  "He doesn't use drugs!" I defended, protective of the good that was in
  Julian, and for some reason, wanting to forget all that wasn't.
  "He jumped on your toes, when you need those toes to dance on-so don't
  tell me you will have a sane man to deal with. When you were putting on
  your clothes, I overheard someone say that since Julian started running
  around with Yolanda he's been an entirely differ-
  
               267
 ent man. Everyone else suspects he's on drugs--4hat's why I said it," and
 here he paused, "and besides, I know for a fact that Yolanda takes anything
 she can get."
  I was sleepy, in pain and worried about Julian who should be home by now,
  and there was an incipient baby in me whose fate I had to decide. "Chris,
  stay then. But when he comes home, let me do the talking-just fade into the
  background-promise?"
  He nodded, while I began to drift off again, feeling as if nothing was real
  but the bed underneath me and the sleep I needed. Lazily, without thought,
  I tried to turn on my side, and my legs slipped from the heaped pillows,
  making me cry out. "Cathy ... don't move," said Chris, quickly adjusting my
  legs back on the pillows. "Let me he beside you, and hold you until he
  comes. I promise not to sleep, and the minute he comes through that door,
  I'll jump up and fade away." He smiled to charm me into cheer again, so I
  too nodded and welcomed the warm, strong arms he put around me as again I
  sought the sweet relief of sleep.
  As in a dream I felt soft lips move on my cheek, in my hair, then lightly
  over my eyelids, and finally my lips. "I love you so much, oh, God, how
  much I love you," I heard him say, and I thought for a disoriented moment
  it was Julian who'd come home to say he was sorry for hurting and
  humiliating me ... for this was his way, to give me pain, and then
  apologize, and make love with passionate abandon. So I turned a bit on my
  side and responded to his kisses, and put my arms around him, and twined my
  fingers into his strong dark hair. That's when I knew. The hair I felt
  wasn't strong and crisp, but silky and fine, like my own. "Chris!" I cried
  out, "stop!" But he was out of control as he lavished my face, my neck, and
  the bosom he bared with his ardent kisses.
  "Don't cry stop," he murmured, caressing and stroking me, "all my life I've
  had nothing but frustrations. I try to love others, but it's always you ...
  you, whom I can never have! Cathy ... leave Julian! Come away with me!
  We'll go to some distant place, where no

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 one knows us, and together we can five as man and wife. We won't have any
 children ... I'll see to that. We can adopt babies. You know we make good
 parents ... you know we love each other and always will! Nothing can change
 that! You can run from me and marry twelve other men, but your heart is in
 your eyes when you took at me-it's me you want-as I want you!"
  He was carried away with his own persuasions and wouldn't listen to my weak
  words. "Cathy, just to hold you, to have you again! This time I'll know how
  to give you the pleasure I couldn't before-please, if you ever loved
  me-leave Julian before he destroys us both!"
  I shook my head, trying to focus on what he was saying and what he was
  doing. His blond hair was beneath my chin, nuzzling at my breasts, and he
  didn't see my denial, but he did hear my voice. "Christopher-I'm going to
  have Julian's baby. I went to a gynecologist while I was in Clairmont-4t's
  the reason I stayed longer than I originally intended. Julian and I are
  having a baby."
  I could have slapped him from the way he moved backward, abandoning the
  sweet ecstasy of kissing forbidden places that had aroused me. He sat up on
  the side of the bed and bowed his head into his hands. Then he sobbed,
  "Always you manage to defeat me, Cathy! First Paul, then Julian ... and now
  a baby. " Then suddenly he faced me. "Come away and let me be the father to
  that child! Julian isn't fit! If you never let me touch you, let me live
  near enough so I can see you every day and hear your voice. Sometimes I
  want it back like it used to be ... just you and 1, and our twins."
  Silence that we both knew well came and took us, and shut us away in our
  own secret world where sin lived and unholy thoughts dwelled, and we'd pay,
  pay, pay, if ever ... but no, there wouldn't be any "if ever". . . .
  "Chris, I'm going to have the baby with Julian." I said with a firm
  resolution that surprised me. "I want Julian's child-for I do love him,
  Chris-and I've failed

               269
 him in so many ways. Failed him because you and Paul got in my eyes, and
 I didn't appreciate what I could have had in him. I should have been a
 better wife, and then he wouldn't have needed those girls. I'll always
 love you-but it's a love that can't go anywhere, so I give it up. You give
 it up! Say good-bye to yesterdays and a Catherine Doll who doesn't exist
 anymore."
  "You forgive him for breaking your toes?" he asked, astonished.
  "He kept begging me to say I loved him, and I never would. I kept a
  deceptive parasol over my head, to keep dark doubts in my mind, and I
  refused to see anything that was noble and fine about him but his
  dancing. I didn't realize that to love me, even when I denied him, was
  noble and fine in itself. So, let me go, Chris-even if I never dance
  again, I'll have his child ... and he will go on to fame without me."
  He slammed the door and left me, and I soon fell asleep to dream of Bart
  Winslow, my mother's second husband. We were waltzing in the grand
  ballroom of Foxworth Hall, and upstairs, near the balcony balustrade, two
  children were hidden inside the massive chest with the wire screen
  backing. The Christmas tree over in the comer towered up to heaven, and
  hundreds of people danced with us, but they were made of transparent
  cellophane, not of the healthy flesh, blood and muscle that was the
  beauty of Bart and 1. Bart suddenly stopped dancing, and picked me up to
  carry me up the broad stairs, and down on the sumptuous swan bed he laid
  me. My beautiful gown of green velvet and softer green chiffon melted
  beneath the touch of his burning hands--and then that powerful male shaft
  that entered me and wound about me started shrieking, screaming, and each
  loud cry sounded exactly like a telephone ringing.
  I bolted awake ... why did a telephone ringing in the dead of night
  always have such a threatening sound? I sleepily reached for the
  receiver. "Hello?"
 "Mrs. Julian Marquet?"
  I came awake a bit more, and rubbed at my eyes. "Yes, this is she."

               270
  She named a hospital on the other side of town. "Mrs. Marquet, would you
  please come as quickly as possible? If you can, have someone else drive
  you. Your husband was in an auto accident, and is even now in surgery.
  Bring with you his insurance papers, identification, and any medical
  history you have.... Mrs. Marquet ... are you there?"
  No. I wasn't there. I was back in Gladstone, Pennsylvania, and I was
  twelve years old. Two state troopers were in the driveway, with a white
  car parked ... and swiftly they were striding to interrupt a birthday
  party to tell us all that Daddy was dead. Killed in an accident on
  Greenfield Highway.
  "Chris! Chris!" I screamed, terrified he might have gone.
 "I'm here. I'm coming. I knew you'd need me."

  In that dim and lonely hour that comes before dawn, Chris and I arrived
  at the hospital. In one of those sterile waiting rooms we sat down to
  wait and find out if Julian would survive the accident and the surgery.
  Finally, around noon, after hours in the recovery room, they brought him
  down.
  They had him laid out on what they called a "fracture bed"--a torturous
  looking device that strung up his right leg which wore a cast from his
  toes to his hip. His left arm was broken, and in a cast, and strung up
  in a peculiar way too. His pale face was lacerated and bruised. His lips,
  usually so full and red, were as pale as his skin. But all of that was
  nothing compared to his head! I shivered to look! His head had been
  shaved and small holes drilled for metal calipers to be hooked in to pull
  his head up and backward! A leather collar lined with fleece was fastened
  about his neck. A broken neck! Plus a leg fracture, and a compound
  fracture of his forearm-to say nothing of the internal injuries that had
  kept him on the operating table three hours!
 I cried out, "Will he live?"
  "He is on the critical list, Mrs. Marquet," they answered so calmly. "If
  he has other close relatives, we suggest you contact them."

               271
  Chris made the call to Madame Marisha, for I was deathly afraid he'd pass
  away any moment, and I might miss the only chance to tell him I loved
  him. And if that happened, I'd be cursed and haunted all through the rest
  of my life.

  Days passed. Julian flitted in and out of consciousness. He stared at me
  with eyes lackluster, unfocused. He spoke but his voice came so thick,
  heavy and unintelligible I couldn't understand. I forgave him for all the
  little sins, and the big ones too, as you are apt to when death is around
  the corner. I rented a room in the hospital next to his where I could
  catch naps, but I never had a full night's rest. I had to be there when
  he came to, where he could see and know me, so I could plead with him to
  fight, to live, and, most of all, say all the words I'd so stingily kept
  from his ears. "Julian," I whispered, my voice, hoarse from saying it so
  often, "please don't die!"
  Our dancing friends and musicians flocked to the hospital to offer what
  consolation they could. His room filled with flowers from hundreds of
  fans. Madame Marisha flew up from South Carolina and stalked into the
  room wearing a dreary black dress. She gazed down on the unconscious face
  of her only child without any expression of grief. "Better he die now,"
  she said flatly, "than to wake up and find himself a cripple for life."
  "How dare you say that?" I flared, ready to strike her. "He's alive-and
  he's not doomed. His spinal cord wasn't injured! He'll walk again, and
  dance again too!"
  Then came the pity and disbelief to shimmer her jet eyes-and then she was
  in tears. She who'd boasted she never cried, never showed grief, wept in
  my arms. "Say it again, that he'll dance-oh, don't lie, he's got to dance
  again!"
  Five horrible days came and went before Julian could focus his eyes
  enough to really see. Unable to turn his head, he rolled his eyes my way.
  ~4m.lt
  "Hello, dreamer. I thought you were never going to wake up," I said.
 He smiled, a thin ironic smile. "No such luck, Cathy

               Z72
 love." His eyes flicked downward to his strung-up leg. "I'd rather be dead
 than like this."
  I got up and went to his fracture bed that was made with two wide strips
  of rough canvas slipped over strong rods, and a mattress was beneath this
  that could be lowered enough to allow a bedpan to be placed in position.
  It was a hard, unyielding bed to lie on, yet I stretched beside him very
  carefully, and curled my fingers into his tangle of uncombed hair-what
  he had left. My free hand stroked his chest. "Jule, you're not paralyzed.
  Your spinal cord was not severed, crushed, or even bruised. It's just in
  shock, so to speak."
  He had an uninjured arm that could have reached to hold me, but it stayed
  straight at his side. "You're lying," he said bitterly. "I can't feel one
  damn thing from my waist down. Not your hand on my chest either. Now get
  the hell out of here! You don't love me! You wait until you think I'm
  ready to kick off, and then you come with your sweet words! I don't want
  or need your pity-so get the hell out, and stay out!"
  I left his bed and reached for my purse. Crying, even as he cried and
  stared at the ceiling. "Damn you for wrecking our apartment!" I stormed
  when I could talk. "You tore up my clothes!" I rampaged, angry now, and
  wanting to slap his face that was already bruised and swollen. "Damn you
  for breaking all our beautiful things! You knew how painstakingly we
  chose all those lamps, the accessories that cost a fortune - You know we
  wanted to leave them as heirlooms for our children. Now we've got nothing
  left to leave anyone!"
  He grinned, satisfied. "Yeah, nothing left for nobody." He yawned, as if
  dismissing me, but I was unwilling to be dismissed. "Got no kids, thank
  God. Never gonna have any. You can get a divorce. Marry some son of a
  bitch and make his life miserable too."
  "Julian," I said with such heavy sadness. "Have I made your life
  miserable?"
  He blinked, as if not wanting to answer that, but I asked him again, and
  again, until I forced him to say, "Not altogether miserable-we had a few
  moments."
 "Only a few?"

               273
  "Well ... maybe more than a few. But you don't have to stay on and take
  care of an invalid. Get the hell out while you can. I'm no good, you know
  that. I've been unfaithful to you time and again."
 "If you are again, I'll cut your heart out!"
  "Go 'way, Cathy. I'm tired." He sounded sleepy from the many sedatives
  they fed into him and shot into him. "Kids are not good for people like
  us anyway."
 :,'P 0 le like us ... T'
  ~re'l , Yea people like us."
 "How are we different?"
  He mockingly, sleepily laughed, bitterly too. "We're not real. We don't
  belong to the human race."
 "What are we then?"
  "Dancing dolls, that's all. Dancing fools, afraid to be real people and
  live in the real world. That's why we prefer fantasy. Didn't you know?"
 "No, I didn't know. I always thought we were real."
  "It wasn't me who ruined your things, it was Yolanda. I watched, though."
  I felt sick, scared he was telling the truth. Was I only a dancing doll?
  Couldn't I make my way in the real world, outside the theater? Wasn't 1,
  after all, any better at coping than Momma?
  "Julian ... I do love you, honest I do. I used to think I loved someone
  else, because it seemed so unnatural to go from one love to another. When
  I was a little girl, I used to believe love came only once in a lifetime,
  and that was the best kind. I thought once you loved one person, you
  never could love another. But I was wrong."
  "Get out and leave me alone. I don't want to hear what you've got to say,
  not now. Now I don't give a damn."
  'Ibars coursed my face and dropped down on him. He closed his eyes and
  refused to see, or listen. I leaned to kiss his lips, and they stayed
  tight, hard, unresponding. Next he spat, "Stop! You sicken me!"
  "I love you, Julian," I sobbed, "and I'm sorry if I realized it too late,
  and said it too late-but don't let it be too late. I'm expecting your
  baby, the fourteenth in

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 a long line of dancers ... and that baby is a lot to five for, even if you
 don't love me anymore. Don't close your eyes and pretend not to hear,
 because you are going to be a father, whether or not you want to be."
  He rolled his dark, shining eyes my way, and I saw why they shone, for they
  were full of tears. Tears of self-pity, or tears of frustration, I didn't
  know. But he spoke more kindly, and there was a tone of love in his voice.
  "I advise you to get rid of it, Cathy. Fourteen isno luckier a number than
  thirteen."

  In the room next door, Chris held me in his arms all through the night.
  I woke up early in the morning. Yolanda had been thrown from the car in
  that accident, and today she would be buried. Cautiously I eased from the
  fold of Chris's arms, and I arranged his nodding head more comfortably
  before I stole away to take a peek into Julian's room. He had a night nurse
  on duty, and she was sound asleep beside his bed. I stood in the doorway
  and watched him in the dim, greenish light from the lamp covered by a green
  towel. He was asleep, deeply asleep. The intravenous tube that led to his
  arm ran under the sheet and into his vein. For some reason I fixed my eyes
  upon that bottle with the pale yellow liquid that seemed more water than
  anything else, so quickly it was being depleted. I ran back to shake Chris
  awake. "Chris," I said, as he tried to pull himself together, "isn't that
  IV supposed to just trickle into his arm? It's running out very
  quickly--too quickly, I think."
  Hardly were the words out of my mouth when Chris was up and running toward
  Julian's room. He snapped on the ceiling light as he entered, then wakened
  the sleeping nurse. "Damn you for falling asleep! You were in here to watch
  him!" By the time he had that said, he'd puffed back the covers and there
  was Julian's casted arm with the opening for the needle-and the needle was
  still inserted, and taped in position-but the tube had been cut! "Oh, God,"
  sighed Chris, "an air bubble must have reached his heart."

               275
  I stared at the shiny scissors held so loosely in Julian's slack right
  hand. "He cut the tube himself," I whispered, "he cut the tube himself,
  and now he's dead, dead, dead. . . ."
  "Where did he get the scissors?" snapped Chris, while the nurse began to
  tremble. They were her small embroidery scissors she used to cut her
  crochet thread. "They must have fallen out of my pocket," she said
  weakly. "I swear I don't remember losing them--or maybe he took them when
  I was leaning over. . . ."
  "It's all right," I said dully. "If he hadn't done it this way, it would
  have been another. I should have known and warned you. There was no life
  for him if he could never dance again. No life at all."

  Julian was buried next to his father. On the headstone, I made sure
  Madame Marisha agreed to the name I added: Julian Marquet Rosencoff,
  beloved husband of Catherine, and thirteenth in a long line of Russian
  male ballet stars. Maybe it was ostentatious and gave away my own failure
  to love him enough while he lived, but I had to let him have it the way
  he wanted--or as I thought he wanted.
  Chris, Paul, Carrie and I paused at the foot of Georges's grave too, and
  I bowed my head to show respect to Julian's father. Respect I should have
  given him too. Graveyards with their marble saints, angels, all so
  sweetly smiling, so pious or sober-how I hated them! They patronized we
  who lived; we who were made of fragile tissue and blood, who could grieve
  and cry while they would stand there for centuries, smiling piously down
  on all. And I was right back where I'd started.

  "Catherine," said Paul when we were all seated in the long black
  limousine, "your room is still as it was, all yours. Come home and live
  with Carrie and me until your baby is born. Chris will be there too,
  doing his internship at Clairmont Hospital."
 I stared over at Chris who was seated on the

               276
 jumpseat, knowing he'd won a much better position in a very important
 hospital-and he was interning in a small, unimportant one. "Duke is so far
 away, Cathy," he said with his eyes avoiding mine. "It was bad enough
 traveling when I was in college and med school ... so if you don't mind,
 let me be somewhere near so I can be here the day my nephew or niece
 arrives in the world."
  Madame Marisha jolted so her head almost struck the ceiling of the car.
  "You carry Julian's child?" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me before?
  How wonderful! " She glowed, so the sadness dropped from her like a
  gloomy cloak. "Now Julian's not dead at aff-for he will father a son, who
  will be exactly like him!"
  "It may be a girl, Madame," Paul said softly, while he reached for my
  hand. "I know you long for a boy like your son, but I long for a little
  girl like Cathy and Carrie ... but if it's a boy, I won't object."
  "Object?" cried Madame. "God in his infinite wisdom and mercy will send
  to Catherine the exact duplicate of Julian! And he will dance, and he
  will reach the fame that was waiting just around the comer for the son
  of my Georges!"

  Midnight found me all alone on the back veranda, rocking back and forth
  in Paul's favorite chair. My head was full of thoughts for the future.
  Thoughts of the past conflicted and nearly drowned me. The floorboards
  squeaked faintly; they were old and had known grief like mine before;
  they sympathized. The stars and moon were out; even a few fireffies came
  to bob about in the garden darkness.
  The door behind me opened and closed quietly. I didn't look to see who
  it was, for I knew. I was good at sensing people, even in the dark. He
  sat in the chair next to mine, and rocked his chair in the same rhythm
  asl rocked.
  "Cathy," he said softly. "I hate to see you sitting there with that lost
  and drained expression. Don't think all the good things in your life have
  passed you by and nothing is left. You're still very young, very
  beautiful,

               277
 and after your baby is born, you can quickly whip yourself back into
 shape, and dance until you feel you're ready to retire and teach."
  I didn't turn my head. Dance again? How could I dance when Julian lay in
  the ground? All I had was the baby. I would make the baby the center of
  my fife. I would teach my child to dance, and he or she would reach the
  fame that should have been Julian's and mine. Everything that Momma
  failed to give us I would bestow on my child. Never would my child be
  neglected. When my child reached for me, I would be there. When my child
  cried out for Momma, he wouldn't have to make do with only an older
  sister. No ... I'd be like Momma was when she had Daddy. That was what
  hurt the most, that she could change from someone loving and kind into
  what she was, a monster. Never, never would I treat my child as she'd
  treated hers!
  "Good night, Paul," I said as I stood to go. "Don't stay out here too
  long. You have to get up early, and you looked tired at dinner."
 "Catherine ... T'
 "Not now. Later. I need time."
  Slowly I ascended the back stairs, thinking of the baby in my womb, how
  I had to be careful and not eat junk food; I had to drink plenty of milk,
  take vitamins, and think happy thoughts ... not vengeful ones. Every day
  from now on I would play ballet music. Inside me my baby would hear, and
  even before he or she was born a small living soul would be indoctrinated
  to the dance. I smiled, thinking of all the pretty tutus I could buy for
  my little girl. I smiled even more to think of a boy like his father with
  a wild tumble of dark curls. Julian Janus Marquet would be his name.
  Janus for looking both ways, ahead and behind.
  I passed Chris who was ready to come down the stairs. He touched me. I
  shivered, knowing what he wanted. He didn't have to say the words. I knew
  them backward and forward, inside and out, upside down, or right side up;
  I knew them ... as I knew him.
  Though I tried diligently to think only of the innocent child growing
  within me, still my thoughts would steal

               278
 to my mother, filling me with hate, filling me with unwanted plans for
 revenge. For somehow she had caused Julian's death too. If we'd never been
 locked away in the first place and needed to escape and run, then I would
 never have loved Chris, or Paul, and perhaps Julian and I would have met
 inevitably in New York. Then I could have loved him as he needed and wanted
 to be loved. I could have gone to him "virgin pure, brand new."
  And would that have made any difference, I asked over and over.... Yes!
  Yes! I convinced myself it would have made all the difference!

 Interlude for Three

 As my baby grew within me, I began to find the identity I had lost, for the
 ballet kept the real me always in an embryo state, enclosed by my desire to
 dance and succeed. I was now standing firmly on the ground with the fantasy
 of glamorous life pushed to the background. Not that I didn't still crave
 the stage and the applause now and then. Oh, I had my sorrowful moments-but
 I had one sure way to shut them out. I turned my thoughts on my mother, on
 what she'd done to us. Another death on your record, Momma!

 Dear Mrs. Winslow,
  Are you still running away from me? Don't you know yet you can never run
  fast enough or far enough? Someday I will catch up, and we will meet
  again. Perhaps this time you will suffer as you made me suffer, and,
  hopefully, thrice the amount.

               279
   My husband has just died as the result of a car accident, just as your
   husband died many years ago. I am expecting his baby, but I won't do
   anything as desperate as you did. I will find a way to support him or
   her, even if I have triplets--or quadruplets!

  I mailed that letter off, addressed to her home in Greenglenna, but the
  newspapers later informed me she was in Japan. Japan! Wow, she did get
  about.
  I was turning into a woman I'd never seen before. Mrrors showed I wasn't
  slim and supple anymore. That terrified me. I saw my breasts become
  rounder, fuller, as my middle swelled outward. I hated to move less than
  gracefully, but my hands loved to caress the swell of my baby's small
  rump.
  One day I realized I was luckier than most widows, I had two men needing
  me. Men who let me know in subtle ways they were ready to take Julian's
  place. And I had Carrie, Carrie who considered me a model by which she
  could mold her own life. Dear, sweet little Carrie who was now sixteen,
  and had never had a date, or a boyfriend, or been to a prom. Not that she
  couldn't have, if she'd forget her smallness. Chris persuaded his friends
  to date a younger sister who was dying on the vine for want of romance.
  She complained to me: "Chris doesn't have to make dates for you! That
  college student, he doesn't want me. He just comes to worm in closer to
  you." I laughed at how ridiculous that was. Nobody would want me in the
  condition I was, pregnant, a widow, and too old for a college boy.
  Carrie heard this, but sulked near the window. "Since you came back, Dr.
  Paul doesn't take me out to the movies and to dinner like he used to."
  "I used to pretend he wasn't my guardian, but my sweetheart, and that
  made me feel good inside, because all the ladies look at him, Cathy. He
  is handsome, even if he is old. "
  I sighed, for to me Paul would never be old. He was wonderfully young
  looking for his age of forty-eight. I took Carrie in my arms and consoled
  her, saying love was waiting for her just around the comer. "He'll be

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 young too, Carrie, near your own age. And once he sees you, and really knows
 what you are, he won't have to be coerced, he'll be more than willing to
 love you." Quietly she got up and entered her own room, not convinced by
 anything I'd said.
  Madame Marisha came often to check on my condition, and filled me with
  authoritative advice. "Now you keep up your practicing; play the ballet
  music to fill Julian's baby with love for beauty before he is born; inside
  you he'll know the dance is waiting for him." She glanced down at my feet
  that had finally healed. "How do those toes feel now?"
  "Fine," I answered dully, though they ached when it rained.
  Henny was there to wait on me hand and foot when Carrie wasn't around. She
  was growing old amazingly fast. I worried about her. She diligently tried
  to keep to the rigid diet both her "doctor-sons" insisted on, but she ate
  what she wanted to, never counting calories or cholesterol.

  The long days of grief sped by more quickly because I had Julian's baby,
  part of him to keep with me. Soon Christmas was upon us, and I was so large
  I didn't feel I should show myself. Chris insisted, along with Paul, that
  it would be good therapy to go shopping.
  I bought an antique gold locket to send to Madame Zolta, and inside I put
  two small photos of Julian and 1, in our Romeo and Juliet costumes.
 Shortly after Christmas her thank-you note arrived.

 Dear Catherine, my own luv,
   Yours is the best gift of all. I grieve for your
 beautiful dancing husband. I grieve for you most
 of all if you decide not to dance again just because
 you are to become mother! Long ago you would
 have been a prima ballerina if your husband had
 shown less arrogance and more respect for those
 in authority. Keep in shape, do exercises, bring
 your baby with you and we will all live together in

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 my place until you find new danseur to luv. Life
 offers many chances, not just one. Come back.

  Her note put a wistful smile on my face. She even spelled love "luv."
  "What is it that makes you smile like that?" asked Paul, laying aside the
  medical journal that must have held only a part of his interest.
  Awkwardly I leaned forward to hand the note to him. He read it, then held
  out his arms, inviting me to come and cuddle on his lap and in his arms.
  Eagerly I accepted his invitation, I was hungry for affection. Life
  seemed to me nothing without a man.
  "You could go on with your career," he said softly. "Though I pray to God
  you won't go back to New York and leave me again."
  "Once upon a time," I began, "there was a beautiful set of blond parents
  who gave life to four children who should never have been. And they
  adored them beyond reason. Then one day the father was killed, and the
  mother changed, and forgot all about the love, affection and attention
  those four children so desperately needed. So, now that another beautiful
  husband is dead, I will not have my child feel neglected, or fatherless,
  or unwanted and unnecessary. When my child cries, I'll be there. I'll be
  there always to make my child feel secure, and very loved, and I'll read
  to him, and sing to him, and he'll never feel left out, or betrayed-as
  Chris felt betrayed by the one he loved most."
  "He? You sound as if you know." His iridescent eyes looked sad. "And are
  you going to be both mother and father to this child? Are you going to
  close the gates to any man who might want to share your life? Catherine,
  I hope you're not going to be one of those women who lets herself go sour
  because life doesn't always fulfill her wishes."
  I leaned my head backward to stare into his eyes. "You don't still love
  me, do you?"
 "Don't IT'
 "That's no answer."
 "I didn't think I needed to answer. I thought you

               282
 could tell. I thought too, from the way you look at me, that you would turn
 to me again. I love you, Catherine.... Since the day you first came up my
 veranda steps, I've loved you. I love the way you talk, the way you smile,
 the way you walk-that is, before you became pregnant and started leaning
 backward and holding to your back-does it hurt that much?"
  "Oh," I said in disgust, "why did you have to stop saying all those sweet
  words to ask if my back hurts? Of course it bothers me. I'm not used to
  carrying an extra nineteen pounds in front-go on with what you were saying
  before you remembered you're a doctor."
  He slowly lowered his lips to brush mine, just lightly, before passion came
  and he pressed them hard with his own. My arms found their way around his
  neck and ardently I returned kiss for kiss.
  The front door opened and then banged shut. I pulled quickly away from Paul
  and tried to stand up before Chris came into the room--but I wasn't quick
  enough. He strode in, his overcoat covering his white intern suit. He
  carried a bag with a quart of pistachio ice cream that I had expressed a
  desire for at dinner. "I thought you were on duty tonight," I said too
  quickly to hide my distress and surprise. He thrust the ice cream into my
  hands and looked at me coldly.
  "I am on duty. But it's a dull night, so I thought I could take a few
  minutes off to drive and get you the dessert you seemed to want so much."
  He flicked his glance to Paul. "I'm sorry I arrived at the wrong time. Go
  on with what you were doing." He spun on his heel and left the room, then
  slammed the front door a second time.
  "Cathy," said Paul who got up to take the ice cream from me. "We have to do
  something about Chris. What he wants can never be. I've tried to talk to
  him about it, but he won't listen. He closes his ears and walks away. You
  must make him understand that he's ruining his fife by refusing to let any
  other girl into his heart." He went on into the kitchen, coming back in a
  few minutes with two sherbet dishes of the green ice cream I didn't want
  now.

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  He was right. Something did have to be done about Chris-but what? I
  couldn't hurt him; I couldn't hurt Paul. I was like a battlefield wanting
  both sides to win.
  "Catherine," said Paul softly, as if he'd been watching my reaction, "you
  don't owe me if you don't love me. Cut Chris off, make it clear that he
  has to let go and find someone else. Anyone else but you . . ."
  "I find it so difficult to tell him that," I said in a low voice, ashamed
  to admit I didn't want Chris to find anyone else. I wanted him with me
  always-just the nearness of him., the confidence he gave me-nothing else.
  I was trying to balance my time between Chris and Paul, to give each of
  them enough, but not too much. I watched the jealousy between them grow,
  and felt it was none of my fault---only Momma's! As everything wrong in
  my life was her fault.

  It was a cold February night when I felt my first contraction. I gasped
  from the sharp pain-I had known it would hurt, but not so much! I glanced
  at the clock-4wo in the morning of St. Valentine's Day. Oh, how
  marvelous, my baby would be born on what would have been our sixth
  wedding anniversary! "Julian," I cried out, as if he could hear me, "you
  are about to become a father!"
  I got up and dressed as speedily as I could before I crossed the hall to
  rap on Paul's door. He mumbled something in way of a question. "Paul,"
  I called, "I think I just had my first contraction."
  "Tbank God!" he cried from the other side, instantly wide awake. "Are you
  all set to go?"
 "Of course. I've been ready for a month."
  "I'll call your doctor, then alert Chris--you sit down and take it easy!"
 "Would it be all right if I came in?"
  He swung open the door, wearing only his trousers. His chest was bare.
  "You're the calmest mother-to-be I've ever seen," he said as he helped
  me sit. He raced next to swipe at his face with an electric razor, then
  he was running to put on a shirt and tie. "Had any more contractions?"
  It was on the tip of my tongue to say no,

               284
 when another seized me. I doubled over. "Fifteen minutes since the last,"
 I gasped. He looked pale as he pulled on his jacket, then came to help me
 up. "Okay, I'll put you in the car first, then go for your suitcase. Keep
 calm, don't worry, this baby will have three doctors doing their very best
 . . ."
 "To get in each other's way," I concluded.
  "To see you have the best medical attention possible," he corrected, then
  he bellowed toward the kitchen. "Henny, I'm taking Catherine to the
  hospital! Tell Carrie when she wakes up. Then call Madame Marisha and put
  on that tape we made for her."
  We'd thought of everything. When Paul opened the front door after he'd
  backed his car out, I heard behind me the tape playing for Madame M., my
  own voice speaking "Madame," I'd taped weeks ago, "your grandchild is on
  the way."
  It seemed forever before the hospital loomed up ahead. Under a protective
  canopy at the emergency entrance, a solitary intern paced restlessly back
  and forth. Chris, who said "Thank God you're here! I was picturing all
  sorts of calamities," even as he assisted me out, while someone else
  rushed up with a wheelchair, and without any of the preliminaries other
  patients had to endure, I was snug in bed in no time at all-and gasping
  from another contraction.
  Three hours later, my son was bom. Chris and Paul were there, both of
  them with tears in their eyes, but it was Chris who picked up my son,
  still with the cord attached, messy and bloody. He put him upon my belly
  and held him there while another doctor did what he had to. "Cathy ...
  can you see him?"
  "He's beautiful," I breathed in awe, seeing all the dark, curling hair,
  the perfect little red body. With a fierce anger so like his father's he
  waved his tiny fists and flailed his thin legs, screaming at all the
  indignities inflicted upon him--and all the fight that came so suddenly
  to shine in his eyes, and put him center stage, so to speak.
  "His name is Julian Janus Marquet, but I'm going to call him Jory."

               285
  Both Chris and Paul heard my thin whisper. I was so tired, so sleepy.
  "Why would you call him Jory?" asked Paul, but it wasn't me who had the
  strength to answer. It was Chris who understood my reasoning.
  "If he had been blond, she would have named him Cory-but the J will stand
  for Julian, and the rest for Cory."
  Our eyes met and I smiled. How wonderful to be understood, and never have
  to explain.

 286
  PART
 FOUR
 y Sweet Smaft Prince

 If ever a cnild was born into a palace of adoring worshipers, it was my
 Jory with his blue-black curls, his pale creamy skin, and his dark, dark
 blue eyes. He was Julian all over, and to him could give the lavish
 affection I'd been unable to give his father.

 From the very first Jory seemed to know I was his mother. He seemed to
 know my voice, my touch, even the sound of my footsteps. Yet he had almost
 as great a love for Carrie whe ran home every night straight from Paul's
 offict c gratne, = x ier arms and play with hut for nour.

 "We shoula fina our own place," said Chris, who wanted to establish
 himself firmly as Jory's father. In Paul's home, this wasn't possible.

 I didn't know what to say to that. I loved Paul's big house, and being
 with him and Henny. I wanted Jory to hav~ the garden paths where I could
 push him in his carriage and he'd be surrounded by beauty. And in no way
 could Chris and I give him as much. Chris didn't know about my sky-high
 debts.

 Upstairs Paul had made a nursery, completely refurbished with crib,
 playpen, bassinet and dozens of soft plushy stuffed animals a baby could
 enjoy without harming himself. There were times when both Paul and Chris
 would rush home with the same toy. They'd look at each other, and both
 would force a smile to hide the embarrassment. Then I had to rush forward
 and exclaim, "Two men with the same idea." And one

289
                                     would have to be taken back ... but never, never did I let either one know
 whose gift it was that I returned.
  Carrie graduated from high school the June she was seventeen. She didn't
  want college; she was very much contented to be Paul's private secretary.
  Her small fingers could fly over the typewriter keyboard; she took
  dictation with remarkable speed and accuracy-but still she kept wishing
  for someone to love her, despite her small size.
  lb see her unhappy made me furious with my mother-again! I began to dwell
  on what I would do when I had my chance. Now I was free, no husband to
  hold me back-make her pay, as Carrie was paying!
  Each day she saw Paul and Chris battling for my attention, each desiring
  me, each beginning to look at the other with enmity. I had to settle
  something that should have been settled a long time ago. If only Julian
  hadn't put himself in the way, I would now be Paul's wife, and Jory would
  be Paul's son, and yet, and yet ... I loved Jory for who he was, and on
  second thought I was glad I'd had Julian for a while. I was no longer a
  sweet, innocent virgin--4wo men had taught me well. I would have the
  knowledge to hold my own when it came time to steal my mother's husband
  away from her. I'd be like she'd been with Daddy. I'd cast Bart Winslow
  shy glances, meaningful long, long looks. I'd reach to caress his
  cheek.... And my biggest asset of all was I looked like her, but I was
  years younger! How could he resist? I'd put on a few pounds to make
  myself curvier-like her.
  Christmas came and Jory, less than a year old, sat amidst his presents,
  wide-eyed and bewildered, not knowing what to do, or which toy to pick
  up first. Snap, snap, snap went the click of three cameras. But Paul had
  the movie camera, not Chris, Carrie or 1.
  "Lullabye and good night," sang Carrie softly to my son, rocking him to
  sleep on Christmas night, ". . . may heaven's sweet charms hold you safe
  in its arms."
  I couldn't help but cry to see her there, like a child herself, but so
  longing to have a child of her own. Chris came up behind me and put his
  arms around my waist

               290
 as I leaned back against him. "I should run for a camera," he whispered,
 "they look so sweet together, but I don't want to break the spell. Carrie
 is so much like you, Cathy, except in size."
  One little word, "except." One little word that kept Carrie from ever
  feeling really happy.
  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Quickly I jerked from Chris's arms and
  went in to tuck my small son into his crib. I sensed Paul in the doorway
  now that Chris had gone on to his room. "Cathy," whispered Carrie so Jory
  wouldn't awaken, "do you think I'll ever have a baby?"
 "Yes, of course you will."
  "I don't think I will," she said, and then ambled away, leaving me to
  stare after her.
  Paul came into the nursery, kissed Jory good night, then turned as if to
  take me in his arms. "No," I said in a small voice, "not while Chris is
  in the house." He nodded stiffly, then said good night, and I went to lie
  awake until almost dawn-wondering how I could solve the dilemma I was in.
  Jory seemed quite happy with his situation; he wasn't spoiled; he didn't
  whine and cry or make unnecessary demands, he just accepted. He could sit
  for minutes staring from one to the other of us, as if sizing us up, and
  our relationship to him. He had the patience of Chris; the quiet
  sweetness of Cory, and only occasionally the brashness of his father-and
  his mother. But nothing at all about Jory reminded me of Carrie; he
  smiled so much more than she. Nevertheless, when Carrie strolled through
  Paul's gardens with Jory in her arms, she pointed out the differences
  between this tree and that. Incessantly explaining. She forced Jory to
  imitate speech sooner than he would have otherwise.
  "Regard this oak leaf," said Carrie one day after Jory had learned to
  walk, and spring breezes stirred the air. "Each tree leaf has its own
  shape, texture and smell. All flowers open up easily for a bee to enter,
  except the rose. But daisies don't smell as pretty as roses, so the bees
  fly right on by, and head for the roses that are so stingy with their
  nectar, and hold their heads

               291
 high on tall stems." She pointed to a rose, then glanced at me. Next she
 was showing Jory the daisies and the pansies.
  "Now, if I were a bee, you could bet I'd go straight for the violets and
  pansies too, even though they don't stand as tall." She lifted her eyes
  to meet mine and said in a strange, tight small voice, "You are like a
  rose, Cathy. All the bees come to you, and they don't even see me down
  so low. Please don't get married again before I have my chance. Please
  don't be around if ever some man looks my way.... Don't you smile at him,
  please."

  Oh, how fast the years go when you have a baby to fill all the hours. All
  of us took snapshots like crazy: Jory's first smile; his first tooth; his
  first crawl from me to Chris, and then over to Paul, and to Carrie.
  Paul began his courtship that was to last two years; the same two years
  Chris interned in the Clairmont Hospital. They couldn't hurt each other
  when each loved and respected the other. They couldn't even speak of the
  barrier between them, except through me.
  "It's this town," said Chris. "I think Carrie would fare better in
  another city. All of us together."
  It was twilight in the gardens, our favorite time there. Paul was off
  making his rounds in three hospitals, and Carrie was entertaining Jory
  before she put him to bed. Henny rattled pots and pans to let us know she
  was still up-and still busy.
  Chris had completed his two years of internship, and had started on his
  residency which would take another three years. When he told me he was
  considering another hospital, far more famous, to further his training,
  I felt a deep shock. He was leaving me!
  "I'm sorry, Cathy, the Mayo Clinic has accepted me, and that's an honor.
  I'll only be there nine months, and then back here to complete my
  training. Why don't you and Jory come with me?" His eyes were very bright
  and lambent. "Carrie can stay to keep Paul company."
 "Chris! You know I can't do that!"

               292
  "You are going to stay on here after I'm gone?" he asked bitterly:
  "If Julian's insurance company would pay off, I could afford a house of
  my own, and start my own dance school. But they keep insisting his death
  was suicide. I know that policy has a two-year suicide clause, and we
  paid on it since the day we married--so it was not in effect when he
  died. Yet, they won't pay."
 "What you need is a good attorney."
  My heart jumped. "Yes. Yes I do. Chris, go on to the Mayo Clinic without
  me. I'll make out fine, and I swear not to marr y anyone until you are
  back and give your approval. Worry about finding someone yourself. After
  all, I'm not the only woman who resembles our mother. "
  He flared. "Why the hell do you put it like that? It's you, not her! It's
  everything about you that's not like her that makes me need and want you
  so!
  "Chris, I want a man I can sleep with, who will hold me when I feel
  afraid, and kiss me, and make me believe I am not evil or unworthy." My
  voice broke as tears came. "I wanted to show Momma what I could do, and
  be the best prima baflerina, but now that Julian's gone all I want to do
  is cry when I hear ballet music. I miss him so, Chris." I put my head on
  his chest and sobbed. "I could have been nicer to him-then he wouldn't
  have struck out in anger. He needed me and I failed him. You don't need
  me. You're stronger than he was. Paul doesn't really need me either, or
  he would insist on marrying me right away, . "
  "We could live together, and, andAnd here he
 faltered as his face turned red.
  I finished for him, "No! Can't you see it just wouldn't work?"
  "No, I guess it wouldn't work for you," he said stiffly. "But I'm a fool;
  I've always been a fool, wanting the impossible. I'm even fool enough to
  want us locked up again, the way we were-with me the only male available
  to you!"
 "You don't mean that!"

               293
  He seized me in his arms. "Don't I? God help me but I do mean it! You
  belonged to me then, and in its own peculiar way our life together made me
  better than I would have been ... and you made me want you, Cathy. You
  could have made me hate you, instead you made me love you."
  I shook my head, denying this; I'd only done what came naturally from
  watching my mother with men. I stared at him, trembling as h~ released me.
  I stumbled as I turned to run toward the house. Before me Paul loomed up!
  Startled I faltered guiltily and stared at him as he turned abruptly and
  strode in the opposite direction. Oh! He'd been watching and listening! I
  pivoted about, then raced back to where Chris had his head resting against
  the trunk of the oldest oak. "See what you've done!" I cried out. "Forget
  me, Chris! I'm not the one and only woman alive!"
  He appeared blind as he turned his head and he said, "You are for me the
  only woman alive."

  October came, the time for Chris's departure. To see him pack, to know he
  was going, to say good-bye as if I didn't care when he came back made me
  deathly ill while I smiled.
  I cried in the rose arbor. It would be easier now. I wouldn't have to keep
  putting Paul off so Chris wouldn't be hurt. No longer would I have to weigh
  each smile and balance it off against what I'd given the other. Now I had
  a clear, straight path to Paul~---but something got in my eyes. The vision
  of my mother as she stepped off the plane with her husband on the step
  behind her. She was coming back to Greenglenna! I clipped out the newsphoto
  and the caption and put that in my scrapbook. Perhaps if she'd stayed away,
  I would have married Paul then and there. As it was, I did something
  entirely unplanned.

  Madame Marisha was "getting along" and needed an assistant, so I went to
  convince her I should be the one to keep her school running-if ever, well,
  you could never tell....

               294
  "I don't intend to die," she snapped. Then begrudgingly she nodded, her
  ebony eyes suspicious. "Yes, I suppose you would think of me as old, though
  I never do. But don't you try and take over, and try to run me. I am still
  the boss here, and will be until I am in my grave!"
  By the time November rolled around I realized working with Madame M. was
  impossible. She had fixed ideas about everything, while I had a few ideas
  of my own. But I needed money, I needed a place of my own. I wasn't ready
  to marry Paul, and if I stayed there, that's just what would happen. I had
  spent enough years plotting and planning. It was time to make my move. T'he
  first pawn to play would be Mr. Attorney at Law. It wouldn't work if I
  stayed with Paul, and though he objected, saying it was an unnecessary
  expense, I explained I had to have a chance to be my own person, and in my
  own home to find out what I really wanted. He gave me a puzzled look, then
  a more shrewd one. "All right, Catherine, do what you must. You will
  anyway.f)
  "It's only because Chris insisted that I not marry again until Carrie had
  her chance, and Chris objects to my staying here with you ... when he isn't
  here. . . .
 My ending was lame, and oh, such a lie!
  "I understand," he said with a wry smile. "Since the day Julian died, it
  has been very clear that I am in competition with your brother for your
  affection. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he won't let me. I try
  to talk to you about it, and you won't let me. So go live in your own home,
  and be your own person, and find your own self, and when you feel grown up
  enough to act adult, come back to me."

 295
 Opening Gambit

 As soon as I was installed in a small, rented cottage, halfway between
 Clairmont and Greenglenna, I sat down to draft a blackmail letter to my
 mother. I was deeply in debt, with one child, but I had Carrie too. The
 enormous bills Julian had run up in New York stores were still unpaid;
 there was also his hospital bill, his funeral bill, plus my own hospital
 bills made when Jory was born. Credit cards just didn't solve everything.
 Not for one moment was I going to accept more from Paul. He'd done enough.
 I needed to prove I was better than Momma, more able, smarter ... and what
 did I do but write her a letter, as she'd written to her mother after
 Daddy died. Why not ask for just one paltry million? Why not? She owed us!
 It was ours too! With that money I could pay off all the debts I owed, pay
 back Paul and do something to make Carrie happier. And if I felt some
 shame to do the same thing she'd done-in a way-I rationalized it away by
 thinking it was her own fault! She'd asked for it! Jory was not going to
 live his life in need, when she had so much!
  Finally, after many futile attempts, I came up with what I believed the
  perfect letter of extortion:

 Dear Mrs. Winslow:
   Once upon a Gladstone, Pennsylvania time, there lived a man and wife who
   had four children everyone referred to as the Dresden dolls. Now one of
   those dolls lies in a lonely grave and another of those dolls fails to
   grow to the height that should have been hers if she'd have been given
   sunlight and fresh air, and the love that a

               296
 mother owed her when she needed it most.
   Now the ballerina doll has a small son of her own, and not much money. I
   know, Mrs. Winslow, you don't have much compassion for children who might
   cast a shadow over your sunny days, so I will come directly to the
   point..The ballerina doll demands payment of one million dollars-if you
   are to keep any of your millions-or billions. You may send that amount to
   the post office box I name, and be assured, Mrs. Winslow, that if you fail
   to do so, the ears of Mr. Bartholomew Winslow, Attorney at Law, will be
   filled with horror tales I'm sure you'd rather he not hear.

          Cordially yours, the ballerina doll,
           Catherine Dollanganger Marquet

  Each day I waited for a check to come in the mail. Each day I was
  disappointed. I wrote another letter, then another, and another. Each day
  for seven days I mailed off a letter to her, with a fierce anger growing in
  my heart. What was one measly million to her who had so many? I wasn't
  asking for too much. Part of that money belonged to us anyway.
  Then, after fruitless months of waiting while Christmas and the New Year
  came and went, I decided I'd waited long enough. She was going to ignore
  me. I looked up a number in the Greenglenna telephone book, and in no time
  at all I had an appointment to see Bartholomew Winslow, Attorney at Law.
  It was February and Jory was three. He was to spend the afternoon with
  Henny and Carrie as 1, dressed in my very best with my hair becomingly
  styled, sauntered into the posh office to gaze upon my mother's husband. At
  last I was looking at him up close-and this time he had his eyes open.
  Slowly he rose to his feet, wearing a bemused expression-as if he'd seen me
  before and couldn't quite remember where. I thought back to the night I had
  stolen to Momma's grand suite of rooms in Foxworth Hall and found Bart
  Winslow asleep in the

               297
 chair. He'd had a big dark mustache then, and I had dared to kiss him while
 he dozed. Believing as I did that he was fully asleep ... and he hadn't
 been! He'd seen me and thought me part of his dream. Because of one stolen
 kiss that Chris was to hear about later, the repercussions had led Chris and
 I down a path we'd determined never to follow. Now we were paying the
 price-and it was her fault that Chris was now living apart from me, trying
 to deny what she'd started. I could not accept Paul as my husband until I
 had made her pay-and not just in money.
  He smiled at me then, my mother's ruggedly handsome husband, and I saw for
  the first time the dazz ling charisma of him. A light of recognition came
  into his dark brown eyes. "As I live and breathe, if it isn't Miss
  Catherine Dahl, the lovely ballerina who takes my breath away even before
  she dances. I'm enchanted you have need of a lawyer and you chose me,
  though I cannot possibly imagine why you are here. "
  "You've seen me dance?" I asked, stunned to hear he had. If he had seen me,
  then Momma must have too! Oh, and I never knewl Never knew! I glowed, I
  dimmed, saddened, became confused. Somewhere deep within me, despite all
  the hate on top, I still felt some of the love I'd had for her when I was
  young and trusting.
  "My wife is a ballet buff," he went on. "Actually, I didn't care much for
  it when she first started dragging me to every one of your performances.
  But soon I learned to enjoy it, especially when you and your husband were
  featured in the lead roles. In fact, my wife seemed to have no interest in
  ballet at all unless you and your husband were featured. I used to fear she
  had a crush on your husband-he looks a little like me." He took my hand and
  lifted it to his lips, flashing his eyes upward and smiling with the easy
  charm of a man who knew what he was, a ladies' man used to putting notches
  on his belt. "You are even more beautiful off stage than on. But what are
  you doing in this part of the country?"

               298
 "I live here."
  He pulled out a chair for me, sat me down so close he could watch my legs
  when I crossed them. He perched on the edge of his desk to offer me a
  cigarette, which I refused. He lit one for himself, then asked, "You're
  on vacation? Visiting your husband's mother?"
  I realized he didn't know about Julian. "Mr. Winslow, my husband died
  from injuries sustained in an auto accident more than three years ag"dn't
  you hear about it?"
  He appeared shocked and a bit embarrassed. "No, I didn't hear. I'm very
  sorry. Please accept my belated condolences." He sighed and ground out
  his halfsmoked cigarette. "The two of you were sensational on stage-it's
  a terrible pity. I've seen my wife cry she was so impressed."
  Yeah! I'll bet she was impressed. I shrugged off more questions and came
  directly to the object of my visit by handing him Julian's insurance
  policy. "He took out this policy shortly after we were married and now
  they won't pay because they think he cut the intravenous tube that was
  feeding him. But, as you can see, after two years the suicide clause is
  no longer in effect. "
  He sat down to read it carefully, and then looked up at me again. "I'll
  see what I can do. Are you in immediate need of this money?"
  "Who isn't in need of money, Mr. Winslow, unless they are millionaires?"
  I smiled and tilted my head in the manner of my mother. "I have hundreds
  of bflls and I have a small son to support."
  He asked the age of my son; I told him, He appeared puzzled and
  confounded in more ways than one as I looked at him with sleepy,
  half-closed eyes, my head tilted backward and slightly to one side, in
  a mannerism that was my mother's way of looking at a man. I was only
  fifteen when I'd kissed him. He was far more handsome now. His mature
  face was long and lean, his bones too prominent, but in a very virile,
  mascuflne way he was strikingly good looking. Something about him
  suggested an exaggerated sensuality. And no

               299
 wonder my mother hadn't sent a check. Probably all my blackmail letters
 were still following her from place to place.
  Bart Winslow asked a dozen or more questions, then he said he'd see what
  he could do. "I'm a pretty good lawyer once my wife allows me to stay
  home and get my hand into a practice."
 "Your wife is very rich, isn't she?"
  This appeared to annoy him. "I suppose you could say she is," he answered
  stiffly, letting me know he didn't like discussing the subject.
  I stood to leave. "I'll bet your rich wife leads you around like a pet
  poodle on a jeweled leash, Mr. Winslow. That's the way rich women are.
  They don't know the least thing about working for a living, and I wonder
  if you do."
  "Well, by God," he said, jumping off the desk and standing with feet wide
  apart, "why did you come if you feel that way? Go to another attorney,
  Miss Dahl. I don't want a client who insults me and has no regard for my
  abilities."
  "No, Mr. Winslow, I want you. I want you to prove you know your business
  as you claim to. Maybe, in a way, you can then prove something to
  yourself as well-4hat you aren't after all, just a rich woman's bought
  little plaything."
  "You have the face of an angel, Miss Dahl, but a bitch's tongue! I'll see
  your husband's insurance firm pays off. I'll petition them to appear in
  court, and threaten to sue. 'Ibn to one they'll settle within ten days."
  "Good," I said. "Let me know, for as soon as I have the money, I'm
  moving."
  "Where?" he asked, striding forward to take hold of my arm.
  I laughed, looking up into his face and using the ways a woman had to
  make a man interested, "I'll let you know where I go, in case you want
  to keep in touch. "

  In ten days, true to his word, Bartholomew Winslow came by the dance
  school to hand me the check for

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 one hundred thousand dollars, "Your fee?" I asked, waving off the girls
 and boys who came running to surround me. I was wearing a tight practice
 outfit, and he was all eyes.
  "Dinner at eight, next Thesday night. Wear blue to match your eyes, and
  we'll discuss the fee then," he said, then turned to leave, not even
  waiting for my answer.
  When he was gone, I turned around and looked at the children doing their
  warm-up positions, and somewhere above I hovered, looking down, and
  feeling scorn for the pitiful thing I was that innocence should admire
  me so much. I felt sad for them, for me.
  "Who was that man who came to give you check?" Madame Marisha asked me
  when class was over.
  "An attorney I hired to force Julian's insurance company to pay off-and
  they did."
  "Ah," she said, falling into her old swivel desk chair, 14now you have
  money and can pay off bills-I suppose you will quit working for me and
  go off somewhere, yah?"
  "I'm not sure just what I plan to do yet. But you must admit, Madame, you
  and I don't get along very well, do we?"
  "You have too many ideas I don't like. You think you know more than me!
  You think now that you work here few months, you can go away and start
  new school of your own!" She smiled evilly to see my start of surprise,
  revealing the truth she only guessed at. "So ... you think me stupid too!
  You'll look all your life before you find another as smart as me. I read
  your mind, Catherine. You don't like me, never have, never will ... yet
  you come to work for me to learn the business, right again? I don't care.
  Dancing schools come and dancing schools go, but the Rosencoff School of
  Ballet go on forever! Once I thought I'd leave it to Julian, but he's
  dead, then I thought when I die, I'd leave it to you-but I won't if you
  take your son away so I can't teach him!"
  "Madame, that is your choice, but I am taking Jory away.

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  "Why? You think you can teach him as well as I canTI
  "I don't know for certain, but I think I can. My son may not choose to
  be a dancer," I continued, ignoring her hard stony eyes. "If he does
  decide one day, I think I will make an able teacher--as good as any."
  "If he choose to dance!" Words like cannonshot. "What other choice does
  Julian's son have but to dance? It is in his bones, in his brain--and
  most of all in his blood and in his heart! He dances--or he dies!"
  I got up to leave. It was in my heart to be kind to her, to let her share
  in Jory's fife ... but the meanness in her hard eyes changed my mind. She
  would take my son and make of him what she'd made of Julian, someone who
  could never find fulfillment because life offered to him but one choice.
  "I didn't expect to say this today, Madame, but you force me. You made
  Julian believe if he couldn't dance, then life held nothing. He would
  have recovered from that broken neck and his internal injuries, except
  you said he would never dance agair~--and he overheard you. He wasn't
  sleeping. So, he chose to die! The very fact that he could move the arm
  that wasn't strapped down, enough to steal the scissors from that nurse's
  pocket, proved he was already recovering but all he could see was a bleak
  desert where the ballet didn't exist! Well, Madame ... you are not doing
  that to my son! My son will have the chance to choose for himself what
  kind of life he wants--and I hope to God it is not the ballet!"
  "You fool!" she spat at me, jumping up to pace back and forth in front
  of her old, beat-up desk, "there is nothing better than adulation from
  your fans, the sound of thundering applause, the feel of roses in your
  arms! And soon enough you will find that out for yourself! You think to
  take my husband's grandson away, and hide him from the stage? Jory will
  dance, and before I die I will live to see him on stage--doing what he
  must--or he too wiU die!
 "You wanna play 'mommy,"' she sneered, curling

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 her lip scornfully, "and 'wifey, to that big handsome doctor too, perhaps?
 And make another child for him, yah? Well ... to hell with you, Catherine,
 if that is all you want out of life. " She broke then, and sobs came from
 deep down in her depths, to make her voice when she spoke again harsh and
 husky, when before it had been high and shrill. "Yess, go on ... marry
 that big doctor you've had a yen for since you came starry-eyed and fresh
 faced as a kid to me-and ruin his fife tool"
 "Ruin his life too?" I repeated dully.
  She spun about. "You got something eating at you, Catherine! Something
  gnawing at your guts. Something so bitter it simmers in your eyes and
  grits your teeth together! I know your kind. You ruin everyone who
  touches your life and God help the next man who loves you as much as my
  son did!"
  Unexpectedly, some enigmatic, invisible cloak dropped down to wrap me in
  my mother's cool, detached poise. Never before had I felt so untouchable.
  "Thank you for enlightening me, Madame. Good-bye and good luck. You won't
  be seeing me again, or Jory.
 I turned and left. Left for good.

  Tuesday night Bart Winslow showed up at my cottage door. He was dressed
  in his best, and I was wearing blue; he smiled, pleased I'd obeyed. He
  took me to a Chinese restaurant where we ate with chopsticks, and
  everything was black or red.
  "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, with the exception
  of my wife," he said while I read my fortune cookie slip. "Beware of
  impulsive actions. "
  "Most men don't mention their wives when they take another woman out---2'
  He interrupted: "I am not an ordinary man. I'm just letting you know, you
  are not the most beautiful woman I know."
  I smiled at him sweetly, closely watching his eyes. I saw I irritated
  him, charmed him, but most of all intrigued him, and when we danced, I
  also learned I excited him. "What is beauty without brains?" I asked,

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 my lips brushing his ear as I stood on tiptoes. "What is beauty that is
 growing old, and overweight, and no challenge at all?"
  "You are the damndest female I've ever known!" His dark eyes flashed.
  "How dare you imply my wife is stupid, old and fat? She looks very young
  for her age!"
  "So do you," I said with a small mocking laugh. His face reddened. "But
  don't worry, Mr. Attorney ... I'm not competing with her-I don't want a
  pet poodle."
  "Lady," he said coldly, "you won't have one, not in me. I'm leaving soon
  to set up my offices in Virginia. My wife's mother isn't well and needs
  some attendants. As soon as you've settled your account with me, you can
  say good-bye to a man who obviously brings out the worst in you."
 "You haven't mentioned your fee."
 "I haven't decided yet."

  Now I knew where I was going-back to Virginia to live somewhere near
  Foxworth Hall.
 Now I could begin the real revenge.
  "But Cathy," wailed Carrie tearfully, very upset because we were leaving
  Paul and Henny. "I don't want to leave! I love Dr. Paul and Henny! You
  go anywhere you want to, but leave me here! Can't you see Dr. Paul
  doesn't want us to go? Don't you care when you hurt him? You're always
  hurting him! I don't want to!"
  "I care very much about Dr. Paul, Carrie, and I don't want to hurt him.
  However, there are certain things I must do, and I must do now. And
  Carrie, you belong with me and Jory. Paul needs his chance to find a wife
  without so many dependents. Don't you see, we are an encumbrance to him?"
  She backed off and glared at me. "Cathy, he wants you for his wife!"
 "He hasn't said so in a long, long time
  "That's because you got your mind set on going and doing something else.
  He told me he wants you to have what you want, He loves you too much. If
  I were him,

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 I'd make you stay, and wouldn't care what you wanted!" She sobbed then,
 and ran from me to slam her bedroom door.
  I went to Paul and told him where I was going and why. His happy
  expression turned sad, and then his eyes went vague. "Yes, I suspected
  all along you would feel it necessary to go back there and confront your
  mother face to face. I've seen you making your plans and I hoped you'd
  ask me to go with
 YOU."
  "It's something I have to do myself," I said, holding to both his hands
  now. "Understand, please understand I still love you and always will."
  "I understand," he said simply. "I wish you luck, my Catherine. I wish
  you happiness. I wish all your days are bright and sunny and you get what
  you wantwhether or not I am included in your plans. When you need me, if
  you ever need me, I'll be here, waiting to do what I can. Every minute
  I'll be loving you and missing you.... Just remember, when you want me
  I'll be there."
  I didn't deserve him. He was much too fine for the likes of me.
  I didn't want Chris or Carrie to know what part of Virginia I was headed
  for. Chris wrote to me once or twice a week and I responded letter for
  letter-but not one word did I tell him ... he'd find out when he saw the
  change of address.

  The month was May, and the day after Carrie's twentieth birthday party,
  celebrated without Chris there, Carrie, Jory and I set off in my car,
  backing out of Paul's driveway where we had come to say good-bye. Paul
  waved and when I looked in the rear-view mirror I saw him reach in his
  breast pocket for his handkerchief. He touched the tears in the corners
  of his eyes even as he kept on waving.
  Henny stared after us. I thought I saw written in her expressive brown
  eyes. Fool, fool, fool to go away and leave good mant
 Nothing proved more what a fool I was than the

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 sunny day I set out for the mountains of Virginia with my small sister and
 son in the front seat next to me. But I had to do it-compelled by my own
 nature to seek the revenge in the place of our incarceration.

 The Siren CaR of the Mowitains

 At the last moment I decided I couldn't risk seeing Bart Winslow even long
 enough to pay his fee, so I dropped a check for two hundred dollars in a
 mailbox and considered that enough-whether or not it was.
  With Carrie beside me and Jory on her lap I headed straight for the Blue
  Ridge Mountains. Carrie was very excited now that we were on our way, her
  big blue eyes wide as she commented on everything we passed. "Oh, I love to
  travel!" she said happily. When Jory grew sleepy, she carefully made a bed
  for him on the back seat and sat with him to be sure he didn't roll off and
  fall to the floor. "He's so beautiful, Cathy. I am going to have at least
  six children, or maybe even more. I want half to look just like Jory, and
  half like you and Chris, and two or three like Paul."
  " I love you, Carrie, and I pity you too. You're planning on a dozen
  children, not just six."
  "Don't worry," she said, settling back to take a nap herself. "Nobody is
  gonna want me, so I won't ever have any children but yours to love."
  "That's not true. I've got the feeling, once we are in our new home, Miss
  Carrie Dollanganger Sheffield is going to have a love of her own. I'll even
  bet you five dollars-is it a bet?" She smiled, but she refused to take on
  the bet.
 As I drove on northwest and the night began to

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 descend Carrie grew very quiet. She stared out the windows and then back
 at me, and her large blue eyes held a look of fear. "Cathy, are we going
 back dwre?"
  "No, not exactly." That's all I'd say until we'd found a hotel and
  settled in for the night.
  The first thing in the morning a real estate woman I'd contacted in
  advance came to drive us in her car to took over the "properties for
  sale. " She was a large, mannish woman and all business. "What you need
  is something compact, utilitarian and not too expensive. In this
  neighborhood all the houses run into big money. But there are a few small
  houses that the rich people used to use for guest homes, or they housed
  their servants in some. There's one that's very pretty with a nice flower
  garden."
  She showed us that five-room cottage first and immediately I was won
  over. I think Carrie was too, but I'd warned her to show no signs of
  approval. I picked at small details to lead the agent astray. "The
  chimney looks like it won't work."
 "It's a fine chimney, a good draft."
 "The furnac"oes it use oil or gas?"
  "Natural gas was installed five years ago and the bath has been
  remodeled, the kitchen too. A couple used to live here who worked for the
  Foxworths on the hill, but they sold out and went down to Florida. But
  you can tell they loved this house."
  Of course they had. Only a house that had been very beloved would have
  all the nice little details that made it exceptional. I bought it and
  signed all the papers without a lawyer, though I'd read up on the subject
  and insisted on having the deed checked.
  "We'll have a wall oven put in with a glass door," I said to Carrie who
  loved to cook-4hank God, for I'd hardly have the time. "And we'll repaint
  the whole interior of the house ourselves and save the money."
  Already I was finding out that one hundred thousand, after paying all the
  accounts I had to settle and putting the down payment on the cottage, was
  not going to last long. But I hadn't gone into this venture blindfolded.
  While Carrie stayed with Jory in a motel, 1
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 visited the ballet instructor who was selling her school and retiring. She
 was blond and very small, and nearing seventy. She seemed pleased to see
 me as we shook hands and settled on the amount she wanted. "I've seen you
 and your husband dance and really, Miss Dahl, though I'm delighted you
 want my school, it's a shame you are retiring at such an early age. I
 couldn't have given up performing at twenty-seven, neverl"
  She wasn't me. She didn't have my past or my kind of childhood. When she
  saw my determination to go through with the deal, she gave me the fist
  of her students. "Most of these children belong to the wealthy people who
  live around here, and I don't think any of them seriously intend to
  become professional dancers. They come to please their parents who like
  to see them looking pretty in little tutus during the recitals. I have
  failed to turn out one gifted performer."
  All three bedrooms in our cottage were very small, but the living room
  was L-shaped and of reasonable proportions, with a "lace sided by
  bookcases. The short part of the L could be used as a dining room. Carrie
  and I set to with paint brushes and in one week we had painted every room
  a soft green. With the white woodwork it looked delicious. The space
  opened up and everything seemed larger. Carrie, of course, would have to
  have red and purple accessories for "her" room.
  In three weeks we had both settled into a new routine, with me teaching
  the ballet school located over the local pharmacy and Carrie doing the
  housework and most of the cooking while she looked out for Jory. As often
  as possible I took Jory with me to class, not only to relieve Carrie of
  the responsibility, but also to have him near me. I was remembering
  Madame Marisha's talk of letting him look and listen and get the feel of
  the dance.
  I sat one Saturday morning in early June staring out the windows at the
  blue-misted mountains that never changed. The Foxworth mansion was still
  the same. I could have turned back the clock to 1957 and on this night
  taken Jory and Carrie by the hand and followed

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 those meandering trails from the train depot. It would have been the same
 as when Momma led her four children up to their prison of hope and
 despair, then left them to be tortured, whipped and starved. I went over
 and over everything that had happened: the wooden key we'd made to escape
 our prison room, the money we'd stolen from our mother's grand bedroom,
 that night when we found a large book of sexual pleasures in the
 nightstand drawer. Maybe if we'd never seen that book ... maybe then
 things would have turned out differently.
  "What are you thinking of?" asked Carrie. "Are you thinking we should go
  back to visit Dr. Paul and Henny-I hope that's what you're thinking."
  "Really, Carrie, you know I can't do that. It's recital time and the
  little girls and boys in my class will be rehearsing every day. It's the
  recitals the parents pay to see. Without them they have nothing to boast
  of to their friends. But maybe we could ask Paul and Hermy to visit us."
  Carrie pouted and then for some reason brightened. "You know, Cathy, the
  day the man came to put in the new oven he was young and good looking,
  and when he saw me with Jory he asked if that was my son. That made me
  giggle, and he smiled too. His name was Theodore Alexander Rockingham,
  but he asked me to call him Alex. " Here she paused and looked at me
  fearfully, with hope trembling her all over. "Cathy, he asked me for a
  date."
 "Did you accept?"
 "No."
 "Why not?"
  "I don't know him well enough. He said he's going to college and works
  part-time doing electrical work to help pay his tuition. He says he's
  going to be an electrical engineer or maybe a minister.... He hasn't
  decided yet which one." She gave me a small smile of both pride and
  embarrassment. "Cathy, he didn't seem to notice bow little I am."
  The way she said that made me smile too. "Carrieyou're blushing! You tell
  me one moment you don't
 know this fella very well, and then you come up with all sorts of
 pertinent facts. Let's invite him to dinner. Then I can find out if he's
 good enough for my sister."
  "But, but ... 11 she stammered, her small face flushed red. "Alex asked
  me to go home with him to Maryland for a weekend. He told his parents
  about me ... but Cathy, I'm not ready to meet his parentsl" Her blue eyes
  were full of panic. That's when I realized that Carrie must have seen
  this young man many, many times while I was teaching my ballet classes.
  "Look, darling, invite Alex here to dinner and let him fly home alone.
  I think I should know him better before you go off with him alone."
  She gave me the strangest long look, then lowered her eyes to the floor.
  "Will you be here if he comes to dinner?"
  "Why, of course I will." Only then did it dawn on me. Oh, Godl I drew her
  into my arms. "Look, sweetheart, I'll ask Paul to come up this weekend,
  so when Alex sees I go for older men he won't even glance my way.
  Besides, you saw him first and he saw you first. He won't want an older
  woman with a child."
  Happily she threw her thin arms about my neck. "Cathy, I love you! And
  Alex can fix toasters, steam irons. Alex can fix anythingl"

  One week later Alex and Paul were at our dinner table. Alex was a
  nice-looking young man of twentythree who complimented my cooking. I was
  quick to point out that Carrie had prepared most of the meal. "No," she
  denied modestly, "Cathy did most of it. I only stuffed the chicken, made
  the dressing, mashed the potatoes, made the hot rolls and the lemon
  meringue pie--Cathy did the rest." Suddenly I felt I'd done nothing but
  set the table. Paul winked to show he understood.
  When Alex took Carrie to the movies and Jory was snug in bed with his
  favorite stuffed toys, Paul and I settled down before the fire like an
  old married couple.
 "Have you seen your mother yet?" he asked.

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  "They're here, my mother and her husband," I said quietly. "Staying in
  Foxworth Hall. The local newspaper is full of their comings and goings.
  It seems my dear, stone-eyed grandmother has suffered a slight stroke,
  so the Bartholomew Winslows will now make their home with her-that is,
  until she is dead."
  Paul didn't say anything for the longest time. We sat before the fire and
  watched the red coals bum down to gray ashes. "I like what you've done
  with this house," he said finally. "It's very cozy."
  He got up then and came to sit close by my side on the sofa. 'Ibnderly
  he drew me into his arms. He just held me, with our eyes locked. "Where
  do I fit in?" he whispered. "Or don't I fit anywhere now?"
  My arms tightened about him. I'd never stopped loving him, even when
  Julian was my husband. It seemed there wasn't any one man who could give
  me everything.
  "I want to make love with you, Catherine, before Carrie comes back."
  Quickly we shed our clothes. Our passion for each other had not lessened
  in all the years since we'd first met in this most intimate way. It
  didn't seem wrong. Not when he could murmer, "Oh, Catherine, if there is
  one thing I wish for, it is to have you as mine all my life through, and
  when I die, let it be after such as this, with you in my arms, your arms
  about me, and you will be looking at me as you are now."
  "How beautiful and poetic," I said. "But you won't be fifty-two until
  September. I know you'll live to be eighty or ninety. And when you are,
  I pray passion will still rule both of us as it does now."
  He shook his head. "I don't want to live to eighty unless you're with me
  and still love me. When you don't love me, let my time on earth be over."
  I didn't know what to say. But my arms spoke for me, drawing him closer
  so I could kiss him again and again. Then the phone was ringing. Lazily
  I reached for it-then bolted straight up in the bed.
 "Hello, m. y lady Cath-er-ine! " It was Chris. "Henny

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 had a friend over when I called Paul, and her friend gave me your phone
 number. Cathy, what the hell are you doing in Virginia? I know Paul is
 with you-and I hope to God he can persuade you not to do whatever it is
 you've got on your mind!"
  "Paul is much more understanding than you are. And you are the one who
  should know best why I'm here!"
  He made some noise of disgust. "I do understand, that's the worst of it.
  But you'll be hurt, I know that. And there's Momma. I don't want you to
  hurt her more than she already hurts, and you know she does. But more
  than anything I don't want you to be hurt again, and you will be. You're
  always running from me, Cathy, and you can't ever run far enough or fast
  enough, because I'll be right at your heels, loving you. Whenever
  anything good happens to me I sense you by my side, clinging to my hand,
  loving me as I love you, but refusing to recognize it because you think
  it's sin. If it is a sin, then hell would be heaven with you."
  I felt a terrible sense of panic, as I hastily said good-bye and hung up,
  then turned to cuddle close to Paul, hoping he wouldn't know why I
  trembled.

  In the dead of night, with Paul deeply asleep in the tiny third bedroom,
  I woke suddenly. I thought I heard the mountains calling out, Devd's
  spawnt The wind through the hills whistled and shrieked and added its
  voice to call me unholy, wicked, evil and everything else the grandmother
  had named us.
  I got up and padded over to the windows to stare at the shadowy, dark
  peaks in the distance. The same mountain peaks I'd gazed on so often from
  the attic windows. And yes, just like Cory, I could hear the wind blowing
  and howling like a wolf searching for me, wanting to blow me away too,
  just as it had blown Cory and made him into only dry dust.
  Quickly I ran to Carrie's room and crouched by her bed, wanting to
  protect her. For it seemed to me, in my nightmarish state, it was more
  likely the wind would take her before it got me.

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 CwTie:s Bittersweet Romance

 Carrie was twenty now, I was twenty-seven, and this November Chris would
 be thirty. That seemed an impossible age for him to be. But when I looked
 at my Jory it hit me hard how quickly time moves as you get older.
  Time that had once moved so slowly speeded up, for our Carrie was in love
  with Alex! It sparkled from her blue eyes and danced her tiny feet around
  the room as she dusted, ran the vacuum, washed the dishes or planned
  menus for the next day. "Isn't he handsome, Cathy?" she asked and I
  agreed, though honestly he was just an average, nice-looking boy of five
  eight or nine with light brown hair that ruffled up easily and gave him
  a shaggy-dog appearance that was somehow appealing, for he was so neat
  in other ways. Ms eyes were turquoise and his expression that of someone
  who has never once had an ugly, unkind thought.
  Carrie thrilled to hear the phone ring. She bubbled with excitement for
  so often the call was for her. She wrote Alex long, passionate love
  poems, then gave them to me to read and stored them away without mailing
  them off to the one who should read them.
  I was happy for her and for myself too, for my ballet school was
  progressing nicely and any day Chris would be coming home! "Carrie, can
  you believe it? Chris's extended course is almost up!" She laughed and
  came running to me, as she had when she was a little girl, and in my
  outstretched arms she flung herself. "I knowl" she cried. "Soon we will
  be a whole family again! Like

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 we used to be. Cathy, if I have a little boy with blond hair and blue
 eyes, guess who I'll name him after." I didn't have to guess, I knew. Her
 firstborn, blond, blue-eyed son would be called Cory.
  Carrie in love was pure enchantment to watch. She stopped talking of her
  small size and even began to feel she wasn't inadequate. For the first
  time in her young life she began to use makeup. Her hair was naturally
  wavy, like mine, but she had it cut shoulder length and there it curled
  upward in a wild tumble.
  "Look, Cathy!" she cried when she came home from the beauty parlor with
  her new, smarter hair style. "Now my head doesn't look so big, does it?
  And have you noticed how much taller I've grown?"
  I laughed. She was wearing shoes with three-inch heels and two inches of
  platform! But she was right. The shorter hair did make her head look
  smaller.
  Her youth, her loveliness, her joy all touched me so much my heart ached
  in the awful apprehension that something might happen to spoil it for
  her.
  "Oh, Cathy," said Carrie, "I would want to die if Alex didn't love mel
  I want to make him the best possible wife. I'll keep his house so clean
  dust motes won't dance in the sunlight. Every night he'll eat the gourmet
  meals I prepare--never frozen TV junk. I'll make my own clothes and his
  and our children's. I'll save him loads of money in lots of ways. He
  doesn't say much; he just sits and looks at me in that special, soft way.
  So, I take what I can from that and not what words he says-for he hardly
  says any."
  I laughed and hugged her close. Oh, I did so long for her to be happy.
  "Men don't talk as freely about love as women do, Carrie. Some like to
  tease you, and that's a pretty good indication you've got their interest,
  and it can grow into something larger. And the way you find out how much
  they care is by looking into the eyes-eyes never learn how to he."
  It was easy to see that Alex was enchanted with Carrie. He was still
  working part-time as an electrician for a local appliance store while he
  took summer courses at the university, but he spent every spare

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 minute with Carrie. I suspected he either had asked or was about to ask
 her to marry him.
  I woke suddenly a week later to see Carrie sitting before the bedroom
  windows and staring off toward the shadowy mountains. Carrie who never
  had insomnia as I often did. Carrie who could sleep through thunder-
  storms, a tornado, telephone shrills a foot from her ears and a fire
  across the street. So naturally I was alarmed to see her there. I got up
  and went to her.
 "Darling, are you all right? Why aren't you asleep?"
  "I wanted to be with you near," she whispered, her eyes still riveted on
  the distant mountains, dark and mysterious in the night. They were all
  around us, boxing us in like they used to do. "Alex asked me to marry him
  tonight." She told me this in a flat, dull tone and I cried out, "How
  wonderful! I'm so happy for you, Carrie, and for him!"
  "He told me something, Cathy. He's decided he wants to be a minister."
  Pain and sorrow were in her voice, and I didn't understand at all.
  "Don't you want to be a minister's wife?" I asked, while I was so
  frightened underneath. She seemed so remote.
  "Ministers expect people to be perfect," she said in that deadly, scary
  tone, "especially their wives. I remember all the things the grandmother
  used to say about us. About us being Devil's issue and evil and sinful.
  I didn't used to understand what she meant, but I remember the words. And
  she was always saying we were wicked, unholy children who should never
  have been born. Should we have been born, Cathy?"
  I choked, overwhelmingly frightened, and swallowed over the lump that
  rose in my throat. "Carrie, if God hadn't wanted us to be born He
  wouldn't have given us life in the first place."
  "But ... Cathy, Alex wants a perfect woman-and I'm not perfect."
  "Nobody is, Carrie. Absolutely nobody. Only the dead are perfect."
  "Alex is perfect. He has never done even one bad thing.

               315
  "How would you know? Would he tell you if he had?"
  Her lovely young face was darkly shadowed. Falteringly she explained. "It
  seems Alex and I have known each other for a long, long time, and until
  recently he didn't tell me much about himself. I've talked my head off
  to him, but I've never told him about our past, except how we became
  wards of Dr. Paul's after our parents died in an auto accident. And
  that's a lie, Cathy. We aren't orphans. We still have a mother who is
  alive."
  "Lies are not deadly sins, Carrie. Everyone tells little lies now and
  then."
  "Alex doesn't. Alex has always felt drawn toward God and religion. When
  he was younger he wanted to become a Catholic so he could be a priest.
  He grew older and teamed priests have to live lives of celibacy, so he
  decided against being a priest. He wants a wife and children. He told me
  he's never had sex with anyone because he's been looking all his adult
  fife for just the right girl to marry---somebody perfect, like me.
  Somebody godly, like him. And Cath-eee, " she wailed pitifully, "Im not
  perfect! I'm bad! Like the grandmother was always telling us, I'm evil
  and unholy too! I have ugly thoughts! I hated those mean little girls who
  put me on the roof and said I was like an owl! I wished them all to diel
  And Sissy 'Ibwers, I hated her more than any other! And Cathy, did you
  know Sissy Towers drowned when she was twelve? I never wrote and told
  you, but I felt it was my fault for hating her so much! I hated Julian
  too for taking you away from Paul, and he died too! You see bow it is;
  how can I tell Al" all of that and then tell him our mother married her
  halfuncle too? He'd hate me, Cathy. He wouldn't want me then, I know he
  wouldn't. He'd think I would give birth to deformed children, like me-and
  I love him so much!"
  I knelt by the side of her chair and held her close as a mother would.
  I didn't know what to say, and how to say it. I longed for Chris and his
  support, and for Paul who always knew how to say everything just right.
  And remembering this I took his words, said to me, and 1
               316
 repeated them to Carrie, even as I felt a terrible wrath against the
 grandmother who'd implanted all these crazy notions in the head of a
 five-year-old child. "Darling, darling, I don't know how to say everything
 right, but I'm going to try. I want you to understand that what is black
 to one person is white to another. And nothing in this world is so perfect
 that it is pure white, or so bad it is pure black. Everything concerning
 human beings comes in shades of gray, Carrie. None of us is perfect,
 without flaws. I've had the same doubts about myself as you have."
  Her teary eyes widened to hear this, as if she considered me, of all
  people, perfect. "It was our doctor Paul who set me straight, Carrie. He
  told me long ago, if a sin was committed when our parents married and
  conceived children, it was their sin and not ours. He said God didn't
  intend to make us pay the price for what our parents did. And they
  weren't that closely related, Carrie. Do you know in ancient Egypt the
  pharaoh would only allow his sons and daughters to marry a brother or
  sister? So you see, society makes the rules; and never forget, our
  parents had four children and not one of us is a freak--so God didn't
  punish them, or us."
  She glued her huge blue eyes to my face, desperately wanting to believe.
  And never, never should I have mentioned "freak."
  "Cathy, maybe God did punish me. I don't grow; that is punishment."
  I laughed shakily and drew her closer. "Look around you, Carrie. Many
  other people are smaller than you. You aren't a midget or a dwarf, you
  know that. Even if you were, which you aren't, still you would have to
  accept it and make the best of it, just as many do who consider
  themselves too tall, or too fat, or too thin, or too something. You have
  a beautiful face, sensational hair, a lovely complexion, an adorable
  figure with everything where it should be. You have a beautiful singing
  voice, and you've got a brilliant mind; look at how fast you can type and
  how well you take shorthand and keep Paul's books, and you can cook twice
  as well as I can. You are also a much better housekeeper than 1
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 am, and look at the dresses you sew. They took better than anything I see
 in a store. When you add all that up, Carrie, how can you think you aren't
 good enough for Alex or any other man!"
  "But, Cathy," she wailed, stubbornly unappeased by what I'd said, "you
  don't know him like I do. We went by an X-rated movie theater and he said
  anybody who did any of those things was evil and perverted! And you and
  Dr. Paul told me sex and making babies was a natural, loving part of
  living-and I'm bad, Cathy. Once I did something very wicked."
  I stared at her, taken by surprise. With whom? It was as if she read my
  mind, for she shook her head while tears streamed down her cheeks. "No
  ... I've never had . . . had ... intercourse, not with anybody. But I did
  other things that were wicked, Alex would think so, and I should have
  known it was evil."
 "What did you do, darling, that was so terrible?"
  She gulped and bowed her head in shame. "It was Julian. One day when I
  was visiting and you weren't home he wanted to do ... do something with
  me. He said it would be fun and wasn't real sex, the kind that made
  babies--so I did what he wanted, and he kissed me and said next to you
  he loved me best. I didn't know it was wicked just to do what I did."
  I swallowed over the huge, aching lump in my throat, smoothed her silken
  hair from her fevered forehead and wiped away her tears. "Don't cry and
  feel ashamed, darling. There are all kinds of love and ways to express
  love. You love Dr. Paul and Jory and Chris in three different ways, and
  me in another-and if Julian convinced you to do something you feet was
  wicked, that was his sin, not yours. And mine too, for I should have told
  you what he might want. He promised me never to touch you or do anything
  sexual with you, and I believed him. But if you did it, don't be ashamed
  any longer--and Alex doesn't have to know. Nobody will tell him."
  Very slowly her head lifted, and the moon that suddenly came into view
  from behind dark clouds shone in her eyes full of self-torture. "But I'll
  know."

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 She began to sob, wild, hysterical sobs. "That's not the worst thing,
 Cathy," she screamed, "I liked doing what I did! I liked him wanting me
 to do it-I tried not to let my face show I was feeling any pleasure for
 God might have been watching. So you see why Alex won't understand? He'd
 hate me, he would, I know he would! And even if he never knows, I'll still
 hate myself for doing it and liking it!"
  "Please stop crying. What you did isn't that bad, really. Forget our
  grandmother who kept talking about our evil blood. She's a bigoted,
  narrow-minded hypocrite who can't tell right from wrong. She did all
  kinds of horrible things in the name of righteousness and nothing at all
  in the name of love. You're not bad, Carrie. You wanted Julian to love
  you, and if what you did gave him pleasure and you pleasure, then that's
  normal too. People are made to feel sensual pleasure, made to enjuy sex.
  Julian was wrong and he shouldn't have asked you, but that was his sin,
  not yours."
  "I remember lots of things you don't think I do," she whispered. "I
  remember the funny way Cory and I used to talk to each other, so you and
  Chris couldn't understand. We knew we were the Devil's issue. We heard
  the grandmother. We talked about it. We knew we were locked up because
  we weren't good enough to be out in the world with people better than
  us."
  "Stop!" I cried. "Don't remember! Forget! We did get out, didn't we? We
  were four children not responsible for the actions of our parents. That
  hateful old woman tried to steal our confidence and our pride in
  ourselve"on't let her succeed! Look at Chris, aren't you proud of him?
  Weren't you proud of me when I was on stage dancing? And one day, after
  you and Alex are married, he will change his mind about what is perverted
  and what isn't-for I did. Alex will grow up and stop being overly
  righteous. He doesn't know yet the pleasures love can give."
  Carrie pulled from my arms and went to stare out of the windows at the
  dark and distant mountains, and at the quarter moon that sailed as an
  uptilted Viking ship through the black seas of night. "Alex won't
  change,"

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 she said dully. "He's gonna be a minister. Religious people think
 everything is bad, just like grandmother. When he told me he was going to
 give up the idea of being an electrical engineer, I knew it was all over
 between us.-
  "Everybody changes! Look at the world about us, Carrie. Look at the
  magazines and the movies that decent people go to and enjoy, and the
  stage plays with everyone naked, and the kind of books being published.
  I don't know if it's for the better, but I do know people aren't static.
  We all change from day to day. Maybe twenty years from now our children
  will look back to our time and be shocked, and maybe they will look back
  and smile and call us innocents. Nobody knows how the world will
  change--so if the world can change, so can one man named Alex."
  "Alex won't change. He hates today's lack of morals, hates the kinds of
  books being published, the movies that are dirty and the magazines with
  couples doing wicked things. I don't think he even approves of the kind
  of dancing you used to do with Julian."
  I wanted to yell out, To hell with Alex and his prudery! Yet I couldn't
  slander the only man Carrie had found to love. "Carrie, sweetheart, go
  to bed. Go to sleep and remember in the morning that the world is full
  of all sorts of men who would be delighted to love someone as pretty,
  sweet and domestically oriented as you are. Think of what Chris tells us
  always, 'things always happen for the best.' And if it doesn't work out
  for you and Alex, then it will work out for you and someone else."
  She threw me a quick glance of deepest despair. "How was it for the best
  when God made Cory die?"
 Dear Lord, how to answer a question like that?
  "Was it for the best when Daddy was killed on the highway?"
 "You don't remember that day."
 "Yes I do. I've got a good memory."
  "Carrie, absolutely no one is perfect, not me, not you, not Chris, not
  Alex. Not anybody."
 "I know," she said, crawling into her bed like a good

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 little girl obeying her mother. "People do bad things and God sees them and
 punishes them later on. Sometimes he uses a grandmother with her whip, like
 she beat you and Chris. I'm not dumb, Cathy. I know you and Chris look at
 each other in the way Alex and I look at each other. I think you and Dr.
 Paul were lovers too-and maybe that's why Julian died, to punish you. But
 you're the kind of woman men like and I'm not. I don't dance; I don't know
 how to make everybody love me. Only my family loves me, and Alex. And when
 I tell Alex he won't love me or want me."
 "You won't tell him!" I ordered sternly.
  She lay with her eyes fixed on the ceiling until finally she drifted off to
  sleep. Then I was the one left to lie awake, hurting inside, still
  astonished by the effect one old woman had on the lives of so many. I hated
  Momma for taking us to Foxworth Hall. She'd known what her mother was like
  and still she took us there. She'd known her mother and father better than
  anyone and still she married a second time and left us alone, so she had
  the fun and we had the torture. And it was us who were still suffering
  while she had the fun!
  Fun that would soon be over, for I was here and Bart was here, and sooner
  or later we would meet. Though how he had managed to avoid me so far I
  wasn't to learn until later.
  I comforted myself with the thoughts of how Momma would be suffering soon
  too, like we had suffered. Pain for pain, she'd learn how we had felt when
  she was left alone and unloved. She wouldn't be able to cope ... not again.
  One more blow would be her undoing. Somehow I knew that--perhaps because I
  was so much like her.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" I asked Carrie a few days later. "You
  haven't been eating wefl. Where has your appetite 9'1
  She said quietly, her face expressionless. "I'm just fine. I just don't
  feel like eating much. Don't take Jory with you today to your dance studio.
  Let me keep him all day. I miss him when he goes away with you."

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  I felt uneasy about leaving her all day with Jory who could be a handful,
  and Carrie didn't look like she was feeling well. "Carrie, be honest with
  me, please. If you feel unwell, let me take you to a doctor."
  "It's my time of the month," she said with her eyes downcast, "I just
  feel crampy in my middle three or four days before it starts."
  Only the blues of the month--and when you were her age you did feel more
  cramps than at mine. I kissed my small son good-bye while he set up a
  terrible wail, wanting to go with me and watch the dancers.
  "Wanna hear the music, Mommy," objected Jory who knew very well what he
  wanted and what he didn't. "Wanna watch the dancers!"
  "We'll go for a walk in the park. I'll push you in the swing and we'll
  play in the sandbox," said Carrie hastily, picking up my son and holding
  him close. "Stay with me, Jory. I love you so much and I never see enough
  of you.... Don't you love your aunt Carrie?"
  He smiled and threw his arms about her neck, for yes, Jory loved
  everyone.

  It was a terribly long day. Several times I called to check on Carrie to
  see if she was all right. "I'm fine, Cathy. Jory and I had a wonderful
  time in the park. I'm going to lie down now and take a nap-so don't call
  and wake me up again."
  Four o'clock came, and my last class of the day, when my six- and
  seven-year-olds moved on out into the center of the studio. While the
  music played I counted, "Un, deux, plies, un, deux, plies, and now, un,
  deux, tendu, close up, un, deux, tendu, close up." And on and on I
  instructed, when suddenly I felt that prickly rise of my neck hackles to
  inform me that someone was staring at me intently. I whirled about to see
  a man standing far to the rear of the studio. Bart Winslow-my mother's
  husband!
  The minute he saw I recognized him he came striding toward me. "You do
  look sensational in purple tights, Miss Dahl. May I have a moment of your
  time?"
 "I'm busy!" I snapped, annoyed that he could ask

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 when I had twelve little dancers I couldn't take my eyes off of. "My day
 will be over at five. If you care to you can sit over there and wait."
  "Miss Dahl, I've had one devil of a time finding you, and you've been
  right here under my nose all the time."
  "Mr. Winslow," I said coolly, "if I didn't mail you an adequate fee you
  could have written a letter and it would have been forwarded to me."
  He knitted his dark, thick brows together. "I'm not here about the
  fee-though you didn't pay me the price I had in mind." Smiling and
  assured, he slipped a hand inside his jacket and pulled from the breast
  pocket a letter. I gasped to see my own handwriting and all the postmarks
  and cancellation marks on that letter that had followed my mother all
  about Europe! "I see you recognize this letter," he said with his keen
  brown eyes watching my every flicker of expression.
  "Look, Mr. Winslow," I said, very much in a state of flurry, "my sister
  isn't feeling well today and she's taking care of my son who is hardly
  more than a baby. And you can see I've got my hands full here. Can we
  talk about this some other time?"
  "At your convenience, Miss Dahl, any time." He bowed and then handed me
  a small business card. "Make it as soon as possible. I've many questions
  to ask you-arld don't try skipping out. This time I'm keeping close tabs
  on you. You don't think one dinner date was enough, do you?"
  It upset me so much to see him with that letter that the moment he was
  gone I dismissed my class and went into my office. There I sat down to
  pore over my green ledger, totaling the figures and seeing I was still
  in the red. Forty students I'd been assured when I bought out this
  school, but I hadn't been told most of them went away during the summers
  and didn't return until fall. All the spoiled little rich kids in the
  winter and the middle-class children in the summer who could only come
  once or twice a week. No matter how I stretched the money I earned it
  didn't cover all my costs of redecorating and installing new mirrors
  behind the long barre.

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  I glanced then at my watch, saw it was almost six o'clock, then changed
  into my street clothes and ran the two blocks to my small house. Carrie
  should have been in the kitchen preparing dinner while Jory played in the
  fenced-in yard. But I didn't see Jory, nor was Carrie in the kitchen!
  "Carrie," I called, "I'm home-where are you and Jory hiding?"
 "In here," she responded in a thin whisper.
  All the way I ran to find her still in bed. Weakly she explained Jory was
  staying with the next-door neighbor. "Cathy ... I don't really feel very
  good. I've thrown up four or five times; I can't remember how many . and
  I'm so crampy. I feel funny, real funny.
  I put my hand to her head and found it strangely cold, though the day was
  very warm. "I'm going to call a doctor." No sooner were the words out of my
  mouth than I had to laugh bitterly at myself. There wasn't a doctor in this
  town who made house calls. I ran back to Carrie and stuck a thermometer in
  her mouth, then gasped to read the figures.
  "Carrie, I'm going to get Jory and then I'm driving you to the nearest
  hospital. You have a temperature of one hundred and three point six!"
  Listlessly she nodded, then drifted off to sleep. I rushed next door to
  check on my son who was happily playing with a little girl a month older
  than he was. "Look, Mrs. Marquet," said Mrs. Townsend, a sweet, motherly
  woman in her early forties who was taking care of her granddaughter, "if
  Carrie is sick, let me keep Jory until you come home. I do hope Carrie
  isn't seriously ill. She's such a dear little thing. But I've noticed she's
  been looking pale and miserable for a day or so."
  I'd noticed the same thing and had tied it all to her romance with Alex
  that was going awry.
 How wrong I was!

  The very next day I called Paul. "Catherine, what's wrong?" he said when he
  heard the panic in my voice.

               324
  I spilled it all out, how Carrie was sick and in the hospital where they
  had already made several tests, and still they didn't know what was wrong
  with her. "Paul, she looks dreadful! And she's losing weight fast,
  unbelievably fast! She's vomiting, can't keep any food down and has
  diarrhea too. She keeps calling for you and Chris too."
  "I'll have another doctor fill in for me here and fly right up there,"
  he said without hesitation. "But wait before you try and get in touch
  with Chris. The symptoms you name are so common to a number of minor
  ailments."
  I took him at his word and didn't try and contact Chris who was enjoying
  a two-week tour of the West Coast before he came home and continued his
  residency. In three hours Paul was with me in the hospital room staring
  down at Carrie. She smiled weakly to see him there and held out her thin
  arms. "Hello," she whispered thinly, "I'll bet you didn't think you'd see
  me in an ole hospital bed, did you?"
  Immediately he took her in his arms and began to ask questions. What were
  her first signs that something was wrong?
  "About a week ago, I started feeling very tired. I didn't tell Cathy
  'cause she worries so much about me anyway. Then I had headaches and I
  felt sleepy all the time, and I got big bruises and didn't know how I got
  them. Then I combed my hair and lots and lots of it came out, and then
  I just started throwing up ... and other things that other doctors have
  already asked me and I told them." Her thin, whispering voice drifted
  off. "I wish I could see Chris," she mumbled before her eyes closed and
  she was asleep.
  Paul had already seen Carrie's chart and talked to her doctors. Now he
  turned to me with that blank expression that put dread in my heart ...
  it was so fraught with meaning. "Maybe you ought to send for Chris. "
 "Paul! Do you mean ... T'
  "No, I don't mean that. But if she wants him, he should be here with
  her."

               325
  I was in the hall, waiting for the doctors to do certain tests on Carrie.
  They had chased me from the room. As I paced back and forth before the
  closed door to her room, I sensed him before I saw him. I whirled about,
  catching my breath to see Chris striding down the long corridor, bypassing
  nurses carrying bedpans and trays of medicines who gaped to see him in all
  his splendid glory.
  Time rolled backward and I saw Daddy, Daddy as I best remembered him,
  dressed in white tennis clothes. I couldn't speak when Chris took me in his
  arms and bowed his tanned face down into my hair. I heard the thud of his
  heart beating strong and regular. I sobbed, so near a deluge of tears, "It
  didn't take you long to get here." His face was in my hair and his voice
  was husky. "Cathy," he asked, raising his head and looking me directly in
  the eyes, "what is wrong with Carrie?"
  His question stunned me-for he should know! "Can't you guess? It's that
  damned arsenic, I know it is! What else could it be? She was fine until a
  week ago, then all of a sudden she's sick. " I broke then and sobbed, "She
  wants to see you." But before I led him to Carrie's small room, I put in
  his hand a note I'd found in the diary she'd started the day she met Alex.
  "Chris, Carrie knew for a long time something was going wrong, but she kept
  it to herself. Read this and tell me what you think." While he read, my
  eyes stayed glued to his face.

 Dear Cathy and Chris,
  Sometimes I think you two are my real parents, but then I remember my real
  momma and daddy, and she seems like a dream that never was, and I can't
  picture Daddy unless I have his photograph in my hand-though I can picture
  Cory just like he was.
  I've been hiding something. So if I don't write this you are going to
  blame yourselves. For a long time I've felt I was going to die soon, and
  I don't care anymore, like I used to. I can't be a

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 minister's wife. I wouldn't have lived this long if you two, and Jory, and
 Dr. Paul and Henny hadn't loved me so much. Without all of you to hold me
 here, I would have gone on to Cory a long time ago. Everybody has somebody
 special to love, except me. Everybody has something special to do, except
 me. I've always known I'd never get married. I knew I was fooling myself
 about having children, for my hips are too narrow, and I think too I'm too
 small to make a good wife. I'd never be anybody special, like you, Cathy,
 who can dance and have babies and everything else. I can't be a doctor like
 Chris, so I'd just be nothing much, just somebody to get in the way and
 worry everybody because I'm unhappy-
  So, right now, before you read on further, promise in your heart you won't
  let the doctors do anything to make me live on. Just let me die, and don't
  cry. Don't feel sad and miss me after I'm buried. Nothing has been right,
  or felt right since Cory went away and left me. What I regret most is I
  won't be around to watch Jory dance on stage like Julian used to. Now I
  have to confess the truth, I loved Julian, the same as I love Alex. Julian
  never thought I was too little, and he was the only one who made me feel a
  normal woman, for a short time. Though it was sinful, even when you say it
  was not, I know it was, Cathy.
  Last week I started thinking about the grandmother and what she used to say
  to us all the time about being the Devil's spawn. The more I thought about
  it, the more I knew she was right-4 shouldn't have been born! I am evil!
  When Cory died because of the arsenic on the sugared doughnuts the
  grandmother gave us, I should have died too! You didn't think I knew, did
  you? You thought all the time I was sitting on the floor, in the corner, I
  couldn't hear and didn't take notice, but I was seeing and hearing, but I
  didn't believe, back then. Now I believe.

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   Thank you, Cathy, for being like my mother and the best sister alive. And
   thank you, Chris, for being my substitute father and my second best
   brother, and thank you, Dr. Paul, for loving me even though I didn't grow.
   Thank all of you for never being ashamed to be seen with me, and tell
   Henny I love her. I think maybe God won't want me either, until I grow
   taller, and then I think about Alex, who thinks God loves everybody, even
   when they aren't so tall.

  She'd signed that letter in a huge scrawl to make up for her small size.
  "Oh, dear God!" cried Chris. "Cathy, what does this mean?"
  Only then could I open my purse and take from it something I'd found hidden
  away in the dark, far end of the closet in Carrie's room. His blue eyes
  grew wide and the color seemed to fade as he read the name of the rat
  poison bottle, then saw the package of sugared doughnuts with only one
  left. One left. It had been bitten into just once. Tears began to course
  down his cheeks, then he was really sobbing on my shoulder. "Oh, God ...
  she put that arsenic on the doughnuts, didn't she, so she could die in the
  same way Cory did?"
  I broke free from his clutching arms and backed a few feet away, feeling I
  was drained of all blood. "Chris! Read that letter over again! Didn't you
  notice what she wrote, how she didn't believe, and 'Now I believe.' Why
  wouldn't she believe back then, and believe now? Something happened!
  Something happened to make her believe that our mother could poison us!"
  He shook his head in a bewildered fashion, the tears still eking from his
  eyes. "But if she knew all along, how could anything more happen to
  convince her, when overhearing us talking and seeing Nfickey die didn't?"
  "How can I tell you?" I cried out desperately. "But the doughnuts have been
  liberally coated Nvith arsenic! Paul had them tested. Carrie ate those,
  knowing they would kill her. Can't you see this is another murder our
  mother committed?"

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  "She isn't dead yet!" Chris cried. "We'll save her! We won't let her die.
  We'll talk to her, tell her she has to hold on!"
  I ran to hold him, fearing it was too late and desperately hoping it
  wasn't. Even as we clung together, made parents again by our common
  suffering, Paul came from Carrie's room. The solemn expression on his drawn
  face told me everything.
  "Chris," said Paul calmly, "how wonderful to see you again. I'm sorry the
  circumstances are so sad."
 "There's hope, isn't there?" cried Chris.
  "There's always hope. We are doing what we can. You look so tan and
  vibrant. Hurry in to see your sister and pass along some of that vitality
  to her. Catherine and I have said all we can think of to try to make her
  fight back and gain her will to live. But she has given up. Alex is in
  there on his knees by her bed, praying for her to live, but Carrie has her
  head turned toward the windows. I don't think she realizes what is said or
  what is done. She's gone off somewhere out of our reach."
  Paul and I trailed along behind Chris who ran to Carrie. She lay thin as a
  rail beneath a pile of heavy covers, when it was still summer. It just
  didn't seem possible she could age so quickly! All the firm, ripe, rosy
  roundness of youth had fled, leaving her small face gaunt and hollow. Her
  eyes were deep pits to make her cheekbones very prominent. She even seemed
  to have lost some of her height. Chris cried out to see her so. He leaned
  to gather her in his arms, called her name repeatedly, stroked her long
  hair. To his horror hundreds of the golden strands clung to his fingers
  when he drew them away. "Good God in heaven-what's being done for her?"
  When he brushed the hair from his fingers I hurried forward to pluck them
  from his hands, and in a plastic box I carefully laid them out. The
  electric static of the box kept them in place. An idiot notion, but I
  couldn't bear to see her beautiful hair swept up and thrown away. Her hair
  glinted on the pillows, on the bedspread, on the white lace of her
  bedjacket. As in a trance of nightmares unending I gathered up the long

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 hairs and arranged them neatly while Alex prayed on and on. Even as he was
 introduced to Chris he paused only long enough to nod.
  "Paul, answer me! What is being done to help Carrie?"
  "Everything we know how to do," answered Paul, his voice low and soft, the
  way people speak when death is near. "A team of good doctors are working
  around the clock to save her. But her red blood cells are being destroyed
  faster than we can replace them with transfusions."
  Three days and nights all of us lingered beside Carrie's bedside while my
  neighbor took care of Jory. Each of us who loved her prayed that she'd
  live. I called Henny and told her to go to church and have all her family
  and church members pray for Carrie too. She tapped over the line her signal
  for "Yes, Yes!"
  Flowers arrived daily to fill her room. I didn't look to see who sent them.
  I sat beside Chris or Paul, or between both, and held to their hands and
  silently prayed. I looked with distaste upon Alex, whom I believed
  responsible for much of what was wrong with Carrie. Finally I could keep my
  question to myself no longer; I got up and stalked Alex and backed him into
  a comer. "Alex, why would Carrie want to die during the happiest days of
  her life? What did she tell you and what did you say?"
  He turned his bewildered, unshaven, grief-stricken face to mine. "What did
  I say?" he asked, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. I repeated my
  question with an even harder edge to my voice. He shook his head as if to
  clear it, looking hurt and sleepy as he ran long fingers through the tumble
  of his uncombed brown curls. "Cathy, God knows I've done everything I can
  to convince her I love her! But she won't listen to me. She turns her face
  aside and says nothing. I asked her to marr y me and she said yes. She
  threw her arms about my neck and said yes over and over again. Then she
  said, 'Oh, Alex, I'm not nearly good enough for you.' And I laughed and
  said she was perfect, just exactly what I wanted. Where did I go wrong,
  Cathy? What did

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 I do to make her turn against me so now she won't even look my way?"
  Alex had the kind of sweet, pious face you expect to see carved only on
  marble saints. Yet, as he stood there, so humbled, so racked by grief and
  torn by love turned against him, I reached out and soothed him as best
  I could, for he did love Carrie. In his own way he loved her. "Alex, I'm
  sorry if I sounded harsh; forgive me for that. But did Carrie confess
  anything to you?"
  Again his eyes clouded. "I called and asked to see her a week ago and her
  voice sounded strange, as if something terrible had happened and she
  couldn't speak about it. I drove as fast as I could to be with her, but
  she wouldn't let me in. Cathy, I love her! She's told me she's too small
  and her head is too large, but in my eyes her proportions are just right.
  To me she was a dainty doll who didn't know she was beautiful. And if God
  lets her die I will never in this life find my credence again!" That's
  when he buried his face in his hands and began to cry.
  It was the fourth night after Chris arrived. I dozed beside Carrie. The
  others were trying to catch a catnap before they too were ill and Alex
  was napping in the hall on a cot when I heard Carrie call my name. I ran
  to her bed and knelt beside it, then reached for her small hand under the
  covers. It was only a bony hand now, with skin so translucent her veins
  and arteries could be seen.
  "Darling, I've been waiting for you to wake up," I whispered in a hoarse
  voice. "Alex is in the hall and Chris and Paul are napping in the
  doctor's quartersshall I call them in?"
  "No," she whispered. "I want to talk only to you. I'm gonna die, Cathy."
  She said it so calmly, as if it didn't matter, as if she accepted it and
  was glad. "No!" I objected strongly. "You are not going to die! I'm not
  going to let you die! I love you as my own child. Many people love and
  need you, Carrie! Alex loves you so much and he wants to marry you, and
  he won't be a minister now, Carrie; I've told him it makes you
  uncomfortable, He doesn't really care what his career

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 is, as long as you stay alive and love him. He doesn't care if you are
 small or if you have children. Let me call him in so he can tell you 0 .
 . ."
  "Nooo," she whispered thinly. "I've got something secret to tell you. Her
  voice was so faint it seemed to come from over hundreds of soft, rounded,
  little hills far, far away. "I saw a lady on the street." Her voice was
  so low I had to lean to hear. "She looked so much like Momma I had to run
  up. I caught hold of her hand. She snatched hers away and turned cold
  hard eyes on me. 'I don't know you' she said. Cathy, that was our mother!
  She looks like she used to almost, only a little older. She even had on
  the pearl necklace with the diamond butterfly clasp that I remember. And,
  Cathy, when your own mother doesn't want you-don't that mean nobody can
  want you? She looked at me and she knew who I was; I saw it in her eyes,
  and still she didn't want me because she knows I'm bad. That's why she
  said what she did-that she didn't have any children. She doesn't want you
  or Chris either, Cathy, and all mothers love and want their children
  unless they're evil, unholy children ... like us."
  "Oh, Carrie! Don't let her do this to you! It's the love of money that
  made her deny you ... not that you are bad or wicked or unholy. You
  haven't done anything evil! It's money that matters to her, Carrie, not
  us. But we don't need her. Not when you have Alex and Chris, Paul and me
  ... and Jory too, and Henny. ... Don't break our hearts, Carrie, hang on
  long enough to let the doctors help you. Don't give up. Jory wants his
  aunt back; every day he asks where you are. What am I going to tell
  him-that you didn't care enough to live?"
  "Jory don't need me," she said in the manner she'd spoken when she was
  a child. "Jory's got lots of people besides me to love and care for him
  ... but Cory, he's waiting for me, Cathy. I can see him right now. Look
  over there behind your shoulder; he's standing next to Daddy and they
  want me more than anyone here."
 "Carrie, don't!"
 "It's nice where I'm going, Cathy, flowers every-
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 where, and beautiful birds, and I can feel myself growing taller.... Look,
 I'm almost as tall as Momma, like I always wanted to be. And when I get
 there nobody's ever gonna say again I got eyes big and scary as an owl's.
 Nobody will ever call me 'dwarf' again, and tell me to use a stretching
 machine ... ,cause I'm just as tall as I want to be."
  Her weak and trembling voice faded away. Her eyes rolled heavenward and
  stayed open without blinking. Her lips stayed parted, as if she had
  something else to tell me. Dear God, she was dead!
  Momma had started all of this. Momma who got out of everything scot-free!
  Scar-free! And rich, rich, rich! All she had to do was shed a few tears of
  self-pity after she went home. That's when I screamed! I know I screamed.
  I wailed and wanted to rip the hair from my head and tear the skin from my
  face-for I looked too much like that woman who had to pay, pay, pay ... and
  then pay some more!

  On a hot August day we buried Carrie in the Sheffield family plot, a few
  miles outside the city limits of Clairmont. No rain this time. No snow on
  the ground. Now death had claimed every season but winter and left only
  that cold, blustery weather for me to rejoice in. We covered Carrie over
  with the crimson flowers she so loved, and purple ones too. The sun above
  was a rich saffron color, almost orange before it turned to vermilion as it
  sank to the horizon and turned the heavens rosy-red.
  My thoughts were like the dry leaves blowing in the strong wind of hate as
  I sat on and on and on, though the marble bench beneath me was hard and
  uncomfortable. I made those dry leaves, after I gathered them together and
  twisted them, into a cruel witch's stick, a thing to stir up a neglected
  brew of revenge!
  Out of the four Dresden dolls only two were left. And one would do nothing.
  He had taken an oath to do what he could to preserve life and keep alive
  even those who didn't deserve to live.
 I was loath to leave Carrie alone in the night, the first

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 one she'd spend in the ground. I had to spend this one night with her and
 comfort her in some unknown way. I threw a glance at where Julia and
 Scotty lay asleep too, near Paul's parents, and an older brother who had
 died even before Amanda was born. I wondered what we, the Foxworths, were
 doing in the Sheffield family plot? What meaning was there to any of this?
  If Alex hadn't come into Carrie's life when he did and given her love,
  would she have been better off? If Carrie hadn't spied Momma on the
  street and raced to catch up with her, happy enough to take hold of her
  hand and call her Momma, would that have made a difference? It must have
  made all the difference! It must have! Straight from her mother's denial
  she had gone to purchase rat poison because she didn't feel fit to live,
  not when even her mother could deny her. And the poison on her doughnuts
  hadn't been just a trace, but heavily laced-pure arsenic!
  Someone spoke my name softly. Someone reached with tenderness to lift me
  up by my elbows. With his arm about my waist, supporting me, he led me
  from the cemetery where I would have stayed until dawn to see the sun
  come up. "No, darling," said Chris. "Carrie doesn't need you now. But
  others do. Cathy, you must forget the past and your plans for revenge.
  I see the look on your face and read your mind. I'll share with you my
  secret for finding peace. I've tried to give it to you before but you
  refuse to listen. Now this time listen and believe! Do as I do and force
  yourself to forget everything that gives you pain, and remember only what
  gives you joy. It is the whole secret to happy living, Cathy. Forgetting
  and forgiving."
  Bitter, bleak eyes I turned upon him and scornfully I said, "You are
  indeed very good at forgiving, Christopher-but at forgetting, now that
  is another matter."
  He flushed as red as the dying sun. "Cathy, please! Isn't forgiving the
  better half? I only remember the sweeter part."
  "No! No!" But I clung to him as one who approaches hell holds tight to
  salvation.

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  Though I'm not sure, I thought I saw a woman dressed in black, with her
  head and face covered by a black veil, duck behind a tree as we approached
  the road and the parked car. Hiding so we wouldn't see her. But I caught a
  glimpse, enough to reveal the rope of lustrous pearls she wore. Pearls that
  were there for a thin white hand to lift and nervously, out of long habit,
  twist and untwist into a knot.
  Only one woman I knew did that-and she was the perfect one to wear black,
  and should run to hide! Forever hide!
 Color all her days black! Every last one!
  I'd see to it that all her remaining days on earth were black. Blacker than
  the tar put on my hair. Blacker than anything in that locked room and in
  the darkest shadows in the attic that had been given to us when we were
  fearful and young and needing so much to be loved enough. Blacker than the
  deepest pit in hell.
  I'd waited long enough to deliver what I must. Long enough. And even with
  Chris here to try and stop me-even he wouldn't be enough to prevent what I
  had to do!

 335
 Ell A
 I i--XRT
 FIVE
 The Time f6r Vengeance

 The untimely death of Carrie left a hole in the lives of all of us who
 loved tier. Now the little porcelain dolls were mine to cherish and keep.
 Chris went away to be a resident at the University of Virginia just so he
 wouldn't be too far from me.
  "Stay, Catherine," pleaded Paul when I told him I was going back to my
  place in the mountains to pick up my life as dance instructor. "Don't go
  and leave me alone again! Jory needs a father; I need a wife; he needs
  a man to emulate. I'm sick to death of having you to love only once in
  a while."
  "Later," I said with hard determination, backing off from his arms. "I'll
  come to you one day and we will be married, but I have some unfinished
  business to attend to first."

  Soon I was back into my routine of work, not far from where the Foxworths
  lived in their mansion. I settled down to scheming. Jory was a problem
  now that I didn't have Carrie. He grew tired at the dance school and
  wanted to play with children his own age. I enrolled him in a special
  preschool and hired a maid to help out with the housework and stay with
  Jory when I wasn't there. At night I went on the prowl, looking, of
  course, for one particular man. So far he had eluded me, but sooner or
  later fate would see that we met--God help you then, Momma!
  The local newspaper gave Bartholomew Winslow a big write-up when he
  opened his second law office in

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 Hillendale while his junior partner ran his first office in Greenglenna.
 Two offices, I thought. What money couldn't buy! I didn't plan on being
 so bold as to approach him directly; ours would be an "accidental"
 confrontation. Leaving Jory in the care of Emma Lindstrom, as he played
 in our fenced-in yard with two other children, I drove my car to the woods
 that weren't so far from Foxworth Hall.
  Bart Winslow was a celebrity of sorts, with all the details of his life
  explored, so I knew from the news story that it was his habit to jog a
  few miles each day before breakfast, Indeed, he would need a strong heart
  for what was coming up in his near future. For days on end I jogged
  myself, using dirt paths that twisted and turned, cluttered by dead, dry
  and crackling leaves. It was September and Carrie had been dead a month.
  Sad thoughts while I sniffed the pungent aroma of woodfires burning and
  heard the noise of wood being chopped. Sounds and smells Carrie should
  be enjoying-they'll pay, Carrie! I'll make them pay, and somehow I
  forgot, Bart Winslow didn't have anything to do with it. Not him, only
  her! How quickly time passed and I was getting nowhere! Where was he? I
  couldn't prowl the singles' bars; that was too commonplace and too
  obvious. When we met, and someday we had to, he'd say something that was
  a clich6, or I would, and that would be the beginning--or the ending I
  had in mind since the first time I laid eyes on Bartholomew Winslow
  dancing with my mother on Christmas night.
  As contrary as life would be, I didn't meet him jogging. One Saturday
  noon I sat in a sleazy cafe and suddenly Bart Winslow sauntered in the
  door! He glanced around, spied me seated by the windows and came toward
  me in his three-piece lawyer's suit that must have cost a fortune. With
  attach6 case in hand, he actually swaggered! His smile was wide, his
  lean, tanned face slightly sinister--or maybe it was me scaring myself.
  "We-ll," he drawled, "as I live and breathe, if it isn't Catherine Dahl,
  the very woman I've been hoping to

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 run into for months - " He set down his attachd case, sat across from me
 without my invitation, then leaned on his elbows to peer into my eyes with
 intense interest. "Where the hell have you hidden yourself?" he asked, using
 his foot to draw his case nearer and guard it.
  "I haven't hidden myself," I said, feeling nervous and hoping it wouldn't
  show.
  He laughed as his dark eyes scanned over my tight sweater and skirt and
  what he could see of my foot that nervously swung. Then his face grew
  solemn. "I read in the newspaper about your sister's death. I am very
  sorry. It always hurts to read of someone so young dying. If it's not too
  personal, may I ask what killed her? A disease? An accident?"
  My eyes opened wide. What killed her? Oh, I could write a book about that!
  "Why don't you ask your wife what killed my sister?" I said stiffly.
  He appeared startled, then shot out, "How can she know when she doesn't
  know you or your sister? Yet, I saw her with the clipping cut from the
  obituary page, and she was crying when I snatched it from her hand. I
  demanded an explanation; she got up and ran upstairs. She still refuses to
  answer my questions. Just who the hell are you, anyway?"
  I bit again into my ham, tomato and lettuce sandwich and chewed
  irritatingly slowly just to watch his vexation. "Why not ask her?" I said
  again.
  "I do hate people who answer questions with questions," he snapped, then
  motioned to a red-haired waitress who hovered nearby and gave her his order
  to have the same as 1. "Now," he said, scooting his chair forward. "Some
  time ago I came to your dance studio and showed you those blackmail letters
  you keep writing to my wife." He reached into his pocket and pulled out
  three I'd written years ago. From the dog-eared look of them, and the many
  stamps and cancellations, they had followed her about the world to end up
  again in my hands, with him almost shouting again, "Who the hell are you?"
 I smiled to charm him. My mother's smile. I tilted my

               341
 head as she did hers and fluttered one hand up to play with my simulated
 pearls. "Do you really have to ask--can't you guess?"
  "Don't play coy with me! Who are you really? What is your relationship
  to my wife? I know you look like her, same hair, same eyes, and even some
  of your mannerisms are the same. You must be some kind of relative ...
  T'
 "Yes. You could say that."
  "Then why haven't I met you before? A niece, cousin?" He had a strong
  animal magnetism that almost frightened me from playing the kind of game
  I had in mind. This was no adolescent boy who would be timidly impressed
  with a former ballerina. His dark appeal was strong, almost overwhelming
  me. Oh, what a wild lover he'd make. I could drown in his eyes and,
  making love with him, I'd be forever lost to any other man. He was too
  confidently masculine, too assured. He could smile and be at ease while
  I fidgeted and longed to escape before he led me down the trail I thought
  I'd wanted up until this very moment.
  "Come," he said, reaching to forcefully restrain my departure when I rose
  to go, "stop looking frightened and play the game you've had in mind for
  some time." He picked up the letters and held them before my eyes. I
  looked away, unhappy with myself. "Don't turn away your eyes. Five or six
  of your letters came while my wife and I were in Europe, and she'd see
  them and paled. She'd swallow nervously-as you are swallowing nervously
  now. Her hand would lift to play with her necklace, just as you are
  playing with your beads now. Twice I saw her write on the envelope,
  'Address unknown.' 'Then one day I collected the mail and I found these
  three letters you'd written to her. I opened them. I read them." He
  paused, leaned forward so his lips were only inches from mine. His voice
  came hard and cold and fully in control of any savagery he might feel.
  "What right have you to try and blackmail my wife?"
  I'm sure the color left my cheeks. I know I felt sick and weak and wanted
  to flee this place and him. 1

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 imagined I heard Chris's voice saying, Let the past rest in peace. Let it
 go, Cathy. God in his own way will eventually work the vengeance you want.
 In his own way, at his own speed He will take the responsibility from your
 shoulders.
  Here was my chance to spill it forth--all of it! Let him know just what
  kind of woman he'd married! Why couldn't my lips part and my tongue speak
  the truth? "Why don't you ask your wife who I am? Why come to me when she
  has all the answers?"
  He leaned back against the gaudy, bright orange, plastic-covered chair
  and took out a silver cigarette case with his monogram in diamonds. That
  just had to be a gift to him from my mother-it looked like her. He
  offered that case to me. I shook my head. He tapped the loose tobacco
  from one end and then lit the other with a silver lighter with diamonds
  too. All the while his dark, narrowed eyes held mine and, like a fly
  caught in a web of my own making, I waited to be pounced upon.
  "Each letter you write says you need desperately a million dollars," he
  said in a flat monotone, then blew smoke directly into my face. I coughed
  and fanned the air. All around the walls bore signs reading NO SMOKING.
  "Why do you need a million?"
  I watched the smoke; it circled and came directly to me, wreathed about
  my head and neck. "Look," I said, struggling to regain my control, "you
  know my husband died. I was expecting his child and I was inundated with
  bills I couldn't pay, and even after the insurance paid off, with some
  assistance from you, still I'm going under. My dance school is in the
  red. I have a child to support, and I need things for him, to save for
  his college education, and your wife has so many millions. I thought she
  could part with just one."
  His smile was faint, cynical. He blew smoke rings to make me dodge and
  cough again. "Why would an intelligent woman like you presume to think
  my wife would be so generous as to turn over one dime to a relative she
  doesn't even claim?"
 "Ask her why!"
 "I have asked her. I took your letters and pushed

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 them in her face and demanded to know what it was all about. A dozen times
 I've asked just who you are and how you are connected to her. Each time
 she says she doesn't know you, except as a ballerina she's seen dance.
 This time I want straight answers from you." To assure that I didn't turn
 my face and hide my eyes, he reached forward to firmly grip my chin so I
 couldn't turn my head. "Who the hell are you? How are you connected to my
 wife? Why should you think she would pay you blackmail money? Why should
 your letters send her running upstairs to take out a picture album she
 keeps locked in her desk drawer or in a safe? An album she quickly hides
 and locks away whenever I come into the room."
  "She took the album-the blue album with a gold eagle on the leather
  cover?" I whispered, shocked that she would do that.
  "Everywhere we go the blue album goes with her in one of her locked
  trunks." His dark eyes narrowed dangerously. "You described that blue and
  gold album exactly, though it's old and worn shabby now. While my wife
  looks in a picture album, my mother-in-law reads her Bible to rags.
  Sometimes I catch my wife crying over the photographs that blue album
  holds, which I presume are pictures of her first husband."
  I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I didn't want to know she cried!
  "Answer me, Cathy. Who are you?" I felt he would grip my chin and hold
  me there throughout eternity if I didn't speak up and say something, and
  for some stupid reason I lied. "Henrietta Beech was your wife's half-
  sister. You see, Malcolm Foxworth had an extramarital affair, and three
  children were the result. I am one. Your wife is my half-aunt."
  "Ahhh," he sighed, releasing my chin and leaning back in his chair, as
  if satisfied I was telling the truth. "Malcolm had an affair with
  Henrietta Beech who gave him three illegitimate children. What
  extraordinary information." He laughed mockingly. "I never thought the
  old devil had it in him, especially after that heart attack soon after
  my wife married the first time. Gives a

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 man inspiration to know that." He sobered then to give me a long and
 searching look. "Where is your mother now? I'd like to see and talk to her."
  "Dead," I said, hiding my hands under the table and keeping my fingers
  crossed like a superstitious, silly child. "She's been dead a long, long
  time."
  "Okay. I get the picture. Three young, illegitimate Foxworth children
  hoping to cash in on their bloodline by blackmailing my wife-right?"
  "Wrong! It was only me. Not my brother or my sister. I only want what is
  due us! At the time I wrote those letters I was in a desperate situation,
  and even now I'm not much better off. The hundred thousand the insurance
  paid didn't go very far. My husband had run up huge bills and we were
  behind in our rent and car payments; plus I owed hospital bills for him,
  the money for his funeral, and then the costs of having my baby. I could go
  on all night telling you my dance school's problems and how I was tricked
  into believing it was a profitable, going concern."
 "And it's not?"
  "Not when it consists of so many little rich girls who take off and go on
  vacations two or three times a year and aren't really serious about dancing
  anyway. All they want to do is look pretty and feel graceful. If I had one
  really good student it would be worth all my efforts. But I don't have one,
  not one."
  He drummed his strong fingertips on the tablecloth, looking deeply
  reflective. Next he had a cigarette lit again, not as if he truly enjoyed
  smoking, but more as if he had to have something to keep his restless
  fingers busy. He inhaled deeply, then looked me straight in the eyes. "I'm
  going to speak very frankly to you, Catherine Dahl. First, I don't know if
  you are lying or telling the truth, but you do look like a member of the
  Foxworth clan. Second, I don't like you trying to blackmail my wife. Third,
  I don't like to see her unhappy, so much so that she cries. Fourth, I
  happen to be very much in love with her, though there are times, I admit,
  I'd like to choke the past from her throat. She never speaks of it; she is
  full of secrets my ears will

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 never hear. And one great big secret I've never heard before is that
 Malcolm Neal Foxworth, the good, pious, saintly gentleman, had a love
 affair after he had heart trouble. Now before his heart trouble, I happen
 to know he had at least one, possibly, but no more."
  Oh! He knew more than 1. 1 had shot an arrow into the sky, not knowing
  it would hit a bulls-eye!
  Bart Winslow glanced about the cafe. Families were coming in to dine
  early, and I suppose he feared someone might recognize him and report
  back to his wife, my mother.
  "C'mon, Cathy, let's get out of here," he urged, getting to his feet and
  reaching to pull me on mine. "You can invite me to have a drink in your
  home, then we can sit and talk and you can tell me everything in more
  detail."
  Twilight came like a quickly dropped shade to the mountains--suddenly it
  was evening-and we'd been hours in that cafe. We were on the sidewalk
  when he held my cardigan sweater for my arms to fill the sleeves, though
  the air was so brisk I needed a jacket or coat.
 "Your home, where is it?"
  I told him and he looked disconcerted. "We'd better not go there ... too
  many people might see me go inside." (He didn't know then, of course, I
  had chosen that coliage mainly because it backed up to a wooded area, and
  there was plenty of privacy for a man to come and go on the sly.) "My
  face is in the newspapers so often," he continued, "I'm sure your
  neighbors would see me. Could you call your babysitter and have her stay
  on awhile longer?"
  I did just that, speaking first to Emma Lindstrom, and then to Jory,
  telling him to be a good boy until Mommy was home again.
  Bart's car was sleek and black, a Mercedes. It purred along like one of
  Julian's sleek luxury cars, so heavy it didn't rattle or clank, and
  firmly it gripped the curved mountain roads. "Where are you taking me,
  Mr. Winslow?"
 "To a place where we can talk and no one will see us

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 or hear us." He looked my way and grinned. "You've been studying my
 profile. How do I rate?"
  A hot rush of blood heated my face. Knowing I was blushing made me blush
  again, so then I felt damp. My life was full of handsome men, but this
  man was far different from any I had known. A rakish, bandit type of man
  who was filling me with alarm signals-go slow with this one! My
  intuitiveness warned as I studied his face and took note. Everything, his
  expensive, beautifully fitted suit, shouted that he should be as
  determined as I was in getting what he wanted, when he wanted.
  "Well-fl," I drawled to make a mockery of this, "your looks tell me to
  run fast and lock the door behind me!"
  Wickedly he grinned again, seemingly satisfied. "So, you find me "citing
  and a bit dangerous. Nice. 'Ib be handsome but boring would be worse than
  being ugly and charming, wouldn't it?"
  "I wouldn't know. If a man is charming and intelligent enough, I often
  forget how he actually looks and think he's handsome regardless."
 "Then you must be easily pleased."
  I shifted my eyes and sat up primly. "Truthfully, Mr. Winslow-"
 "Bart."
  "Truthfully, Bart, I am very difficult to please. I'm inclined to put men
  up on a pedestal and think of them as perfect. As soon as I find out they
  have feet of clay, I fall out of love, become indifferent."
  "Not many women know themselves so well," he mused. "Most go around never
  knowing what they are beneath their facade. At least I know where I
  stand-a sex symbol not on a pedestal."
  Nooo! I'd never put him on a pedestal. I knew him for what he was, a
  womanizer, a skirt-chaser, wind and fire, enough to drive a jealous wife
  crazy! Certainly my mother had never bought that sex manual to instruct
  him how to or when to and where to! He'd know everything. Abruptly he
  pulled his car to a stop, then

               347
 turned to meet my gaze. Even in the darkness the whites of his dark eyes
 shone. 'R)o virile, too vibrant for a man who should be showing signs of
 aging. He was eight years younger than my mother. That made him forty years
 old, a man's most attractive time, his most vulnerable time, his time to
 think youth would soon be over. He'd have to make his new conquests now,
 before the sweet and fleeting bird of youth had flown away and taken with it
 all the young and pretty girls that could have been his. And he must be
 tired of the wife he knew so well, though he professed to love her. Why then
 were his eyes gleaming, challenging me? Oh, Momma, wherever you are, you
 should be down on your knees praying! For rm not going to show you mercy, no
 more than you showed us!
  Yet as I sat there summing him up I realized he was no self-sacrificing,
  quiet man like Paul. This one wouldn't need seducing. He'd do that himself,
  staccato time. He'd stalk like a black panther until he had what he wanted,
  and then he'd walk out and leave me and it would be all over. He was not
  going to give up his chance to inherit millions and the pleasures millions
  gave for some chance mistress who came his way. Red lights were flashing
  behind my eyes ... go easy ... do it right, for there's danger if you do it
  wrong.
  As I measured him, he was measuring me in just about the same way. Did I
  remind him too much of his wife so there would be no real difference? Or
  was my likeness to her an advantage? After all, didn't men always fall over
  and over again for the same type?
  "Beautiful night," he said. "This is my favorite season. Fall is so
  passionate, even more than spring. Come walk with me, Cathy. This place
  puts me in a strange, melancholy mood, as if I've got to run fast to catch
  up with the best thing in my life, which up until now has always eluded
  me."
  "You sound poetic," I said as we left his car and he caught hold of my
  hand. We began to stroll, with him deftly guiding me-would you believe
  it-alongside a railroad track in the country! It seemed so familiar. Yet it
  couldn't be, could it? Not the same railroad track that

               348
 had taken us as children to Foxworth Hall fifteen years ago when I was
 twelve!
  "Bart, I don't know about you, but I've got the weirdest feeling that I
  have walked this path with you before, on some other night before this."
  "DdjA vu," he said. "I have that same feeling. As if once you and I were
  deeply in love, and we walked through those woods over there. We sat on
  that green bench beside these train tracks. I was compelled to bring you
  here, even when I didn't know where it was I was driving to."
  This forced me to stare up into his face to see if he could be serious.
  From his bemused and slightly discomforted look, I believe he was
  surprising himself. "I like to ponder all things considered impossible
  or implausible," I said. "I want everything impossible to become
  possible, and everything implausible to reverse and become reality. Then
  when everything is explainable I want new mysteries to confront me so I
  always have something inexplicable to think about."
 "You are a romantic."
 "Aren't you?"
 "I don't know. I used to be when I was a boy."
 "What made you change?"
  "You can't stay a boy with romantic notions when you go to law school and
  you are faced with the harsh realities of murder, rape, robbery,
  corruption. You have professors pounding dogmatic ideas into your head
  to drive out the romance. You go into law fresh and young, and you come
  out tough and hard, and you know every step of the way ahead you've got
  to fight and fight hard to be any good. Soon enough you learn you are not
  the best, and the competition is astounding.,,
  He turned to smile with a great deal of winsome charm. "I think, though,
  you and I have much in common, Catherine Dahl. I too had that need of the
  mysterious, the need to be confounded, and the need to have someone to
  worship. So I fell in love with an heiress to millions, but those
  millions she wanted to inherit got in my way. They put me off and scared
  me. 1

               349
 knew everyone would think I was marrying her just for her money. I think
 she thought it too, until I convinced her otherwise. I fell for her hard,
 before I knew who she was. In fact I used to think she was like you."
  "How could you think that?" I asked, all tight inside from hearing his
  revelations.
  "Because she was like you, Cathy, for a while. But then she inherited
  millions, and in great orgies of shopping she'd buy everything her heart
  desired. Soon there was nothing to wish for at all-but a baby. And she
  couldn't have a baby. You can't imagine all the time we spent in front
  of shops that sold infant clothes, toys and furniture. I married her
  knowing we couldn't have children and I thought I didn't care. Soon I
  began to care too much. Those infant shops held a fascination for me
  too."
  The faint path we followed led straight to the green bench stretched
  between two of the four rickety old green posts that supported a rusty
  tin roof. There we sat in the cold mountain air, with the moon bright,
  the stars flickering on and off; bugs were humming, just as my blood was
  singing.
  "This used to be a mail pick-up and drop-off station, Cathy." He lit
  another cigarette. "They don't run the trains by here anymore. The
  wealthy people who live nearby finally won their petition against the
  railroad company and put an end to trains that so inconsiderately blew
  their whistles at night and disturbed their rest. I was very fond of
  hearing the train whistles at night. But I was only twenty-seven, a
  bridegroom living in Foxworth Hall. I'd lie on my bed near my wife, with
  a swan overhead--can you believe that? She would sleep with her head on
  my shoulder or we'd hold hands all through the night. She took pills so
  she'd sleep soundly. Too soundly, for she never heard the beautiful music
  coming from overhead. It puzzled me so--and she said, when I told her,
  it was my imagination. Then one day it stopped, and I guessed she was
  right, it was only my imagination. When the music ended I missed it. I
  longed to hear it again. The music had given that old

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 dry house some enchantment. I used to fall asleep and dream of a lovely
 young girl who danced overhead. I thought I was dreaming of my wife when she
 was young. She told me that often, as a way of punishment, her parents would
 send her into the attic schoolroom and force her to stay there all day, even
 in the summers when the temperature up there must have been over a hundred
 degrees. And they sent her up there in the winters too-she said it was
 frigidly cold and her fingers would turn blue. She said she spent her time
 crouched on the floor near the window, crying because she was missing out on
 some fun thing her parents considered wicked. "
 "Did you ever go and take a look in the attic?"
  "No. I wanted to, but the double doors at the top of the stairs were always
  locked. And besides, all attics are alike; see one and you've seen them
  all." He flashed me a wicked smile. "And now that I've revealed so much
  about myself-tell me about you. Where were you born? Where did you go to
  school? What made you take up dancing-and why haven't you ever attended one
  of those balls the Foxworths, throw on Christmas night?"
  I sweated, though I was cold. "Why should I tell you everything about
  myself. Just because you sat there and revealed a little about yourself?
  You didn't tell me anything of real importance. Where were you born? What
  made you decide to become an attorney? How did you meet your wife? Was it
  in the summer, the winter, what year? Did you know she'd been married
  before, or did she tell you only after you were married?"
  "Nosy little thing, aren't you? What difference does it make where I was
  born. I haven't led an exciting life like you have. I was born in the
  nothing little town called Greenglenna, South Carolina. The Civil War ended
  the prosperous days of my ancestors, and we went steadily downhill, as did
  all the friends of the family. But it's an old story, told so many times.
  Then I married a Foxworth lady and prosperity reigned again

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 in the South. My wife took my ancestorial home and practically had it
 reconstructed, and refurbished, and spent more than if she had bought a
 new place. And what was I doing during all of this? A top grad from
 Harvard running around the world with his wife. I've done very little with
 my education; I've become a social butterfly. I've had a few court cases
 and I helped you with your difficulties. And, by the way, you never paid
 the fee I had in mind."
  "I mailed you a check for two hundred dollars!" I objected hotly. "If
  that wasn't enough, please don't tell me now; I don't have another two
  hundred to give away.11
  "Have I mentioned money? Money means little to me now that I have so much
  of it at my disposal. In your special case I had another kind of fee in
  mind."
  "Oh, come off it, Bart Winslow! You've brought me way out into the
  country. Now do you want to make love on the grass? Is it your lifelong
  ambition to make love to a former ballerina? I don't give sex away and
  I don't pay any bills that way. And what's so attractive about you, a lap
  dog for a pampered, spoiled, rich woman who can buy anything she
  wants-including a much younger husband! Why, it's a wonder she didn't put
  a ring through your nose to lead you around and make you sit up and beg!"
  He seized me then hard and ruthlessly, then pressed his lips down on mine
  with a savagery that hurt! I fought him off with my fists, battering his
  arms as I tried to twist my head from beneath his, but whichever way my
  head went, right or left, up or down, he kept his kiss, demanding my lips
  to separate and yield to his tongue! Then, realizing I couldn't escape
  the arms of steel he banded about me to mold my form to his, against my
  will, my arms stole up around his neck. My unruly fingers betrayed me and
  twined into his thick, dark hair, and that kiss lasted, and lasted, and
  lasted until both of us were hot and panting-and then he thrust me from
  him so cruelly I almost fell from the bench.

               352
  "Well, little Miss Muffet-what kind of lap dog do you call me now? Or are
  you Little Red Riding Hood who has just met the wolf?"
 "1hke me home!"
  "I'll take you hom"ut not until I've enjoyed a little more of what you
  just gave." He lunged again to seize me, but I was up and running,
  running for his car, running to seize my purse so that when he got there
  I held my manicuring scissors ready to stab with.
  He grinned, reached out and wrested them from me. "Ibey would deliver a
  nasty scratch," he mocked. "But I don't like scratches except on my back.
  When I let you out you can have your little two-inch scissors back
  again."
  In front of my cottage he handed me the scissors. "Now, do your worst.
  Cut out my eyes; stab me in the heart-you might as well. Your kiss has
  begun it, but I still demand my total payment."

 Tiger by the Tail

 Early on a Sunday morning a few days later I was warming up at the
 barre in my bedroom. My small son was earnestly trying to do as I did.
 It was sweet to watch him in the mirror I'd moved from the dresser over
 to the barre.
 "Am I dancing?" asked Jory.
 "Yes, Jory. You are dancing!"
 "Am I good?"
 "Yes, Jory. You are wonderful!"
  He laughed and hugged my legs and looked up into my face with that
  ecstatic rapture only the very young can express-all the wonder of
  being alive was in his

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 eyes, all the wonder of learning something new every day. "I love you,
 Mommy!" It was something we said to each other a dozen or more times each
 day. "Mary's got a daddy. Why don't I have a daddy?"
  That really hurt. "You did have a daddy, Jory, but he went away to
  heaven. And maybe someday Mommy will find you a new daddy."
  He smiled because he was pleased. Daddy's were big in his world, for all
  the children in the nursery school had one ... all but Jory.
  Just then I heard the front door bang. A familiar voice called my name.
  Chris! He strode through the small house as I hurried toward him in my
  blue tights, leotards and pointe shoes. Our eyes met and locked. Without
  a word he held out his arms and I ran unhesitatingly into them, and
  though he sought my lips to kiss he found only my cheek. Jory was pulling
  on his gray flannel trousers, eager to be swept up in strong, manly arms.
  "How's my Jory?" asked Chris after he kissed both round, rosy cheeks. My
  son's eyes were huge as they stared at him. "Uncle Chris, are you my
  daddy?"
  "No," he said gruffly, putting Jory again on his small feet, "but I sure
  wish I had a son like you." This made me shift around uncomfortably so
  he couldn't see my eyes, and then I asked what he was doing here when he
  should be attending his patients.
  "Got the weekend off, so I thought I'd spend it with you; that is, if
  you'll let me." I nodded weakly, thinking of someone else who was likely
  to come this weekend. "I was as good as a resident can be and was
  rewarded and given a weekend without duty." He gave me one of his most
  winning smiles. "Have you heard from Paul?" I asked. "He doesn't come as
  often as he used to, and he doesn't write much either."
  "He's away on another medical convention. I thought he always kept in
  touch with you."
  He put just a little stress on the "you." "Chris, I'm worried about Paul.
  It isn't like him not to answer every letter I write."

               354
  He laughed and fell into a chair, then lifted Jory up on his lap. "Maybe,
  dear sister, you have finally met a man who can get over loving you."
  Now I didn't know what to say or what to do with my legs and hands. I sat
  and stared down at the floor, feeling Chris's long, steady gaze trying to
  read my intentions. No sooner dia I thinv that than he was asking, "Cathy,
  what are you doing here in the mountains? What are you planning? Is it your
  scheme to take Bart Winslow from our mother?"
  My head jerked up. I met his narrowed blue eyes and felt the heat that
  sprang up from my heart. "Don't question me like I'm some ten-year-old
  without a brain. I do what I have to--just as you do."
  "Sure, you do. I didn't have to ask, I know. It doesn't take a crystal ball
  to read you. I know what makes you tick and how your thoughts range-but
  leave Bart Winslow alone! He'll never leave her for you! She's got the
  millions and all you have is youth. There are thousands of younger women he
  can choose from-why should he choose you?"
  I didn't say anything, just met his scowling look with my own confident
  smile, making him flush, then turn aside his face. I felt mean, cruel and
  ashamed. "Chris, let's not argue. Let's be friends and allies. You and I
  are all that's left out of four."
  His blue eyes grew soft as they studied me. "I was only trying, as I am
  always trying." He looked around, then back to me. "I share a room with
  another resident at the hospital. It would be nice if I could live here
  with you and Jory. It would be like it used to be, just us."
  What he said made me stiffen. "It would be a long drive for you every
  morning, and you couldn't be on immediate call."
  He sighed. "I know-but how about the weekends? Every other weekend I have
  off-duty time-would that bug you too much?"
  "Yes, it would bug me too much. I have a life of my own, Christopher."
 I watched him bite down on his lower lip before he

               355
 forced a smile. "Okay, have it your way ... do what you must, and I hope
 to God you won't be sorry."
  "Will you please drop the subject?" I smiled and went to him and hugged
  him close. "Be good. Thke me as I am, obstinate as Carrie. Now, what
  would you like for lunch?"
 "I haven't had breakfast yet."
  "Then we'll eat brunch-and that can do for two meals." From then on the
  day went swiftly. On Sunday morning he came to the table ready for the
  cheese omelet he favored. Jory, thank God, would eat anything. Despite
  myself I thought of Chris as a father to Jory. It seemed so right to have
  him at the table, like it used to be ... him and I playing at being
  parents. Doing the best we could, all we could, and we had been only
  children ourselves.
  We ambled through the woods after breakfast, using all the traits I
  followed when I jogged. Jory rode on Chris's shoulder. We looked at the
  world that was just outside Foxworth Hall, all the places we hadn't been
  able to see when we were on the roof or locked away. Together we stood
  and stared at that huge mansion. "Is Momma in there?" he asked in a tight
  thick voice.
  "No. I've heard she's down in Texas in one of those beauty spas for very
  wealthy women, trying to lose fifteen extra pounds."
 Alerted, he swiveled his head. "Who told you that?"
 "Who do you think?"
  He shook his head violently, then lifted Jory down and set him on his
  feet. "Damn you for playing with him, Cathy! I've seen him. He's
  dangerous-leave him alone. Go back to Paul and marry him if you must have
  a man in your life. Let our mother live out her life in peace. You don't
  believe for one moment, do you, that she doesn't suffer? Do you think she
  can be happy knowing what she did? All the money in the world can't give
  her back what she's lost-and that is us! Let that be enough revenge."
  "It isn't enough. I want to confront her in front of Bart with the truth.
  And you can stay one hundred years and get down on your knees and plead
  until your

               356
 tongue falls out-I will still go ahead and do what I must!"

  The time Chris stayed with me he slept in the room that had been
  Carrie's. We did very little talking, though his eyes followed my every
  movement. He looked drained, lost ... and, most of all, hurt. I wanted
  to tell him that when I'd finished what I had to do I'd go back to Paul
  and live a safe life with him, and Jory would have the father he needed,
  but I said nothing.
  Mountain nights were cold, even in September when the days were warm
  still. In that attic we'd nearly melted from the sweltering heat, and I
  guess this was on both our minds as we sat before the guttering log fire
  on the night before Chris had to leave. My son had been in bed for hours
  when I rose, yawned, stretched wide my arms, then glanced at tne clock
  on the mantel which read eleven. "It's time for bed, Chris. Especially
  for you who has to get up so early tomorrow."
  He followed me toward Jory's room without speaking and together we looked
  down on Jory, sleeping on his side, his dark curls damp and his face
  flushed. In his arms he cuddled a stuffed, plushy pony, much like the
  real one he said he had to have when he was four.
  "When he's sleeping he looks more like you than Julian," whispered Chris.
 Paul had said the same thing.
  "Good night, Christopher Doll," I said as we paused by the door of
  Carrie's room, "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."
  What I said made his face contort in pain. He turned from me, opened the
  door to Carrie's room, then swung back to face me. "That's the way we
  used to say good night when we slept in the same room," he said, then he
  turned and closed the door behind him.

  Chris was gone by the time I got up at seven o'clock. I cried a little.
  Jory stared at me with widened, surprised eyes. "Mommy ... ?" he asked
  fearfully.

               357
  "It's all right. Mommy just misses your uncle Chris. And Mommy is not
  going to work today." No, why should I? Only three students were due and
  I could teach them tomorrow when the class would be full.
  My plans were moving too slowly. To speed them up I asked Emma to come
  and stay with Jory while I jogged through the woods. "I won't be gone
  longer than an hour. Let him play outside until lunchtime, and by then
  I'll be back."
  Dressed in a bright blue jogging outfit trimmed with white, I set off
  down the dirt trails. This time I used a right fork I'd never tried
  before and into a denser pine forest I ran. The trail was faint and
  jaggedly crooked, so I had to keep a keen eye on the ground for tree
  roots that might trip me up. The mountain trees that grew between the
  pines were a brilliant blaze of fall colors, like fire against the
  emerald green of the pines, firs and spruces. And it was, as I'd told
  myself long ago, the year's last passionate love affair before it grew
  old and died from the frosty bite of winter.
  Someone was jogging behind me. I didn't turn to look. The crispy crackle
  of the dead leaves pleased my ears, so I ran faster, faster, letting the
  wind take my loose hair just as I let the beauty of the day take my
  grief, remorse, shame and guilt and make them transparent shadows that
  didn't hold up beneath the sun.
  "Cathy, hold up!" called a man's strong voice. "You run too fast!"
  It was Bart Winslow, of course. As it had to be sooner or later. Fate
  couldn't always outwit me, and my mother couldn't always win. I threw a
  glance over my shoulder, smiling to see him panting as he ran in his
  stylish jogging costume of maple-sugar tan, trimmed with bands of orange
  and yellow knit at the cuffs, neck and waistband. Two vertical lines of
  yellow and orange ran down the sides of the loose pants. Just what a
  local runner should wear when on the prowl.
  "Hello, Mr. Winslow," I called back as I speeded up. "A man who can't
  catch a woman is no man at aU!"
  He took the challenge and put more speed into his long legs and I really
  had to put out to keep ahead! 1

               358
 flew, my long hair bannering behind. Squirrels on the ground scrounging
 around for nuts had to scamper to get out of my way. I laughed with the
 power I felt, then threw out my arms and pirouetted, feeling I was on
 stage playing out the best role of my life. Then from nowhere a knobby
 tree root caught beneath the toe of my dirty sneaker and down I fell, flat
 on my face. Luckily, the dead leaves cushioned me.
  In a flash I was up and running again, but my fall had given Bart the
  chance to draw nearer. Panting, gasping, clearly indicating he didn't
  have nearly the stamina I had, despite the advantage of his longer legs,
  he cried out again, "Stop running, Cathy! Have mercy! This is killing me!
  There are other ways I can prove my manhood!"
  I had no mercy! It was catch me if you can, or else I'd never be taken.
  I shouted this back to him and ran on, rejoicing in my powerful dancer's
  legs, my supple, long muscles and all that ballet training had done to
  make me feel a blue streak of light.
  No sooner did this self-conceit flash through my mind than my stupid knee
  suddenly gave way and down I went again, on my face in the dead leaves.
  And this time I was hurt, really hurt. Had I broken a bone? Sprained an
  ankle, tom a ligament-again?
  In a few moments Bart was beside me, down on his knees, rolling me over
  so he could see my face before he asked with a great deal of concern,
  "Are you hurt? You look so pale-what's paining?"
  I wanted to say of course I was all right, for dancers knew how to fall,
  except when they didn't know they were going to fall--and why was my knee
  aching so badly? I stared down at it, feeling betrayed by a knee that was
  always the one to foul me up and hurt me in more than one way. "It was
  my stupid knee. If I bump my elbow on the shower door, my right knee
  hurts. When I have a headache, my knee hurts along with it to keep it
  company. Once I had a tooth filled, and the dentist was careless enough
  to let the drill slip and cut my gum, and my right knee shot right out
  and kicked him in the stomach."

               359
 "You're kidding."
  "I'm serious-don't you have anything peculiar about your physical
  makeup?"
  "Nothing I'm going to speak of." He smiled and the devil made his dark
  eyes sparkle, then he assisted me to my feet and felt my knee as if he
  knew what he was doing. "Seems a good, functional knee to me."
 "How would you know?"
  "My knees are functionally good, so I know one when I feel one-but if I
  could see the knee I could tell more."
 "Go home and look at your wife's functional knee."
  "Why are you being so hateful to me?" He narrowed his eyes. "Here I was,
  delighted to see you again, and you act so antagonistic."
  "Pain always makes me antagonistic-are you any different?"
  "I'm sweet and humble when I'm suffering, which isn't often. You get more
  attention that way-and remember vou threw down the challenge, not me."
  "You didn't have to accept it. You could have gone along your merry way
  and let me go along mine."
  "Now we're arguing," he said, disappointed. "You want to fight when I
  want to be friendly. Be nice to me. Say you're glad to see me. Tell me
  how much better looking I've grown since you saw me last, and how
  exciting you find me. Even if I don't run like the wind I have my own bag
  of tricks."
 "I'll bet you do."
  "My wife is still in that beauty spa and I've been all by my lonesome for
  long, long months, bored to death by living with an old lady who can't
  talk and can't walk, but manages to scowl every time she sees me. One
  evening I was just sitting before the fire, wishing someone around here
  would commit murder so I'd have an interesting case for a change. It's
  damn frustrating to be an attorney and be surrounded by nothing but
  happy, normal people with no suppressed emotions to erupt suddenly."
 "Congratulations, Bart! Before you stands someone

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 full of aggressive resentment and mean, hateful spite seeking revenge that
 will erupt-you can count on that!"
  He thought I was joking, playing a cat and mouse, man and woman game, and
  willingly he rose to that challenge too, not at all suspicious of my real
  purpose. He looked me over good, stripping off my sapphire jogging suit
  with the sensual eyes of a man starving for what I could give. "Why did
  you come to live up here near me?"
  I laughed. "Arrogant, aren't you? I came to take over a dance school."
  "Sure you did.... There's New York and your home town, wherever that is,
  and you come here-to enjoy the winter sports as well?" His eyes
  insinuated the kind of indoor winter sport he had in mind, if I didn't.
  "Yes, I do like all kinds of sports, inside and outside," I said
  innocently
  Confidently he chuckled, assuming as all conceited men do that already
  he'd scored a point in the only intimate game a man really wanted to play
  with women.
  "That old lady who can't talk, does she get around at all?" I asked.
  "A little. She's my wife's mother. She speaks but her words come out
  jumbled and unintelligible to anyone but my wife."
 "You leave her there all alone-is that safe?"
  "She's not alone. There's a private duty nurse there with her all the
  time, and a staff of servants." He frowned as if he didn't like my
  questions, but I persisted. "Why stay there at all then, wbv not go and
  have fun while the cat's away?"
  "You do have a shrewish way about you. Though I've never cared much for
  my mother-in-law, as she is now I feel sorry for her. And human nature
  being what it is, I don't trust servants to take proper care of her
  without a family member in the house to keep check on what's done to keep
  her comfortable. She's helpless and can't

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 rise from a chair without assistance, or get out of bed unless she's
 lifted out. So, until my wife is home again, I'm in charge to see that
 Mrs. Malcolm Foxworth is not abused or neglected or stolen from."
  An overwhelming curiosity came over me then. I wanted to know her first
  name, for I'd never heard it. "Do you call her Mrs. Foxworth?"
  He hadn't understood my interest in an old lady, and tried to turn the
  conversation elsewhere ' but I persisted. "Olivia, that's what I call
  her!" he said shortly. "When I was first married, I tried not to speak
  to her at all, to try to forget she existed. Now I use her first name;
  I think it pleases her, but I can't be sure. Her face is of stone, fixed
  in one expression-icy."
  I could picture her, unmoving but for her flintstone eyes of gray. He'd
  told me enough. Now I could make my plans--just as soon as I found out
  one more small thing. "Your wife, when is she due back?"
 "Why should you know?"
  "I too get lonely, Bart. I have only my small son after Emma, his
  babysitter, goes home. So ... I thought maybe some evening you might like
  to have dinner with us....
  "I'll come tonight," he said immediately, his dark eyes aglow.
  "Our schedule revolves around my son. We eat at five-thirty in the
  summer, but now that the days are shorter five is dinner time."
  "Great. Feed him at five and put him to bed. I'll be there at
  seven-thirty for cocktails. After dinner we can get to know each other
  better." He met my considering look with grave intensity, as a proper
  attorney should. Then, because of that look we held too long, simultane-
  ously we both broke into laughter.
  "And incidently, Mr. Winslow, if you cut through the woods back of your
  place, you can reach mine and no one will see you unless, of course, you
  make a big show of yourself."
  He put his palm up and nodded, as if we were both conspiring. "Discretion
  is the password, Miss Dahl."

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 The Spider and the Fly

 Exactly at seven-thirty the doorchimes sounded, punched by an impatient
 finger, forcing me to hurry lest he waken Jory who hadn't liked being put
 to bed at such an early hour.
  If I had taken pains to look my best, so had Bart. He strode in as if he
  already owned the place and me. He left behind a drift of shaving lotion
  with a piney forest scent, and every hair on his head was carefully in
  place, making me wonder if he had a thinning spot-which I'd find out for
  myself sooner or later. I took his coat and hung it in the hall closet,
  then sashayed over to the bar where I busied myself as he sat down before
  the log fire I had burning (nothing had been overlooked; I even had soft
  music playing). By this time I knew enough about men and the ways of
  pleasing them best. There wasn't a man alive who wasn't charmed by a
  lovely woman bustling about, eager to wait on him, pamper and wine and
  dine him. "Name your weakness, Bart."
 "Scotch. 11
 "On the rocks?"
 "Neat."
  He watched my every movement, which was deliberately graceful and deft.
  Then, turning my back I mixed a fruity drink for myself, lacing it
  lightly with vodka. And with my two little stemmed goblets on a silver
  tray, I seductively ambled his way, leaning to give him an enticing view
  of my braless bosom. I sat across from him and swung one leg over the
  other to allow the long slit of my rose-colored dress to open and expose
  one leg from silver sandal midway to the hip. He couldn't take

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 his eyes off it. "Sorry about the glasses," I said smoothly, well pleased
 with his expression, "I don't have room in this cottage to unpack
 everything I own. Most of my crystal is in storage and I have here only
 wine glasses and water goblets."
  "Scotch is scotch no matter how it's served. And what in the world is
  that thing you're sipping?" By this time he'd shifted his gaze to the low
  V of my gown.
  "Well, you take orange juice freshly squeezed, a dab of lemon juice too,
  a dash of vodka, bit of coconut oil, and drop in a cherry to dive after.
  I call it A Maiden's Delight."
  After a few minutes of conversation, we drifted to the dining table, not
  so far from the fireplace, to eat by candlelight. Every so often he'd
  drop his fork, or spoon, or I would, and both of us would go for it, then
  laugh to see who was fastest. I was, every time. He was much too
  distracted to spot a missing fork or spoon when a neckline opened up so
  obligingly.
  "This is delicious chicken," he said after demolishing five hours of hard
  labor in about ten minutes. "Usually I don't like chicken--where'd you
  learn to prepare this dish?"
  I told him the truth. "A Russian dancer taught me, she was on tour over
  here, and we liked each other, She and her husband stayed with Julian and
  me, and we'd cook together whenever we weren't dancing or shopping or
  touring. It took four chickens to feed four people. Now you know the
  nasty truth about dancers; when it comes to eating we are not in the
  least dainty. That is, after a performance. Before we go on we have to
  eat very lightly."
  He smiled and leaned across the small drop-leaf table. Candlelight was
  in his eyes, sparkling them devilishly. "Cathy, tell me honestly why you
  came to live in this hick town and why you've got your heart set on me
  for a lover."
  "You flatter yourself," I said in my most aloof manner, thinking I was
  very successful in appearing cool on the outside while inside I was a web
  of conflicting emotions. It was almost as if I had stage

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 fright and was in the wings waiting to go on. And this was the most
 important performance of my life.
  Then almost magically I felt I was on stage. I didn't have to think of
  how to act or what to say to charm him and make him forever mine. The
  script had been written a long time ago when I was fifteen and locked
  away upstairs. Yes, Momma, it's first act time. Expertly written by
  someone who knew him well from all the answers to her many questions. How
  could I fail?
  After dinner I challenged Bart to a game of chess, and he accepted. I
  hurried to bring out the chessboard as soon as the table was cleared and
  the dishes were stacked in the sink. We began to set up the two armies
  of medieval warriors. "Exactly what I came for," he said, darting me a
  hard look, "to play chess! I showered, shaved and put on my best suit--so
  I could play chess!" Then he smiled, devastatingly winsome. "If I
  win-what reward?"
 "A second game."
 "When I win the second game-what reward?"
  "If you win two games, then comes the playoff. And don't sit there and
  grin at me so smugly. I was taught this game by a master." Chris, of
  course.
 "After I win the playoff-what reward?" he insisted.
  "You can go home and fall asleep very satisfied with yourself. "
  Very deliberately he picked up the chessboard with its handcarved ivory
  chessmen and put it on top of the refrigerator. He caught my hand and
  drew me into the living room. "Put on the music, ballerina," he said
  softly, "and let's dance. No fancy footwork, just something easy and
  romantic."
  Popular music I could listen to only on the car radio to cheer up a long,
  lonely drive, but when it came to spending my money on records I bought
  classical or ballet. However, today I'd made a special purchase of "The
  Night Was Made for Love." And, as we danced in the dimness of the living
  room with only the fire for light, I was reminded of the dry and dusty
  attic and Chris.
 "Why are you crying, Cathy?" he asked softly, then

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 turned my head so his cheek was smeared by my tears. "I don't know," I
 sobbed. And I didn't. . . .
  "Of course you know," he said, rubbing his smooth cheek against mine as
  we danced on and on. "You are an intriguing combination, half child, half
  seductress, half angel. "
  I laughed short and bitterly. "That's what all men like to think about
  women. Little girls they have to take care of-when I know for a fact it
  is the male who is more boy than man."
  "Then say hello to the first grown-up man in your life."
  "You're not the first arrogant, opinionated man in my life!"
  "But I'll be the last. The most important one-the one you will never
  forget." Oh! Why did he have to say that? Chris was right. I was over my
  head with this one.
  "Cathy, did you really think you could blackmail my wife?"
  "No, but I gave it a try. I'm a fool. I expect too much, then I'm angry
  because nothing ever works out the way I want. When I was young and full
  of hopes and aspirations, I didn't know I would get hurt so often. I
  think I'll get tough and won't ache again, then my fragile shell
  shatters, and again, symbolically, my blood is spilled with the tears I
  shed. I pull myself back together again, go on, convince myself there is
  a reason for everything, and at some point in my life it will be
  disclosed. And when I have what I want, I hope to God it stays long
  enough to let me know I have it, and it won't hurt when it goes, for I
  don't expect it to stay, not now. I'm like a doughnut, always being
  punched out in the middle, and constantly I go around searching for the
  missing piece, and on and on it goes, never ending, only beginning. . .
  ."
  "You're not being honest with yourself," Bart said softly. "You know
  better than anyone where that missing piece is, or I wouldn't be here."
  His voice was so low and seductive I put my head on his shoulder as we
  went on dancing. "You're wrong, Bart, I don't know why you're here. I
  don't know how

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 to fill my days. When I'm teaching class and when I'm with my son, then I'm
 alive-but when he's in bed and I'm alone, I don't know what to do with
 myself. I know Jory needs a father, and when I think of his father I realize
 I've always managed to do the wrong thing. I've read my reviews that rave
 about the potential I had ... but in my personal life I've made only mis-
 takes, so what I accomplished professionally doesn't matter at all." I
 stopped moving my feet and sniffied, then tried to hide my face-but he
 tilted it upward, then dried my tears and held his handkerchief so I could
 blow my nose.
  Then came the silence. The long, long silence. Our eyes met and clung and
  my heart started a faster thumping. "Your problems are all so simple,
  Cathy," he began, "all you need is someone like me, who needs someone like
  you. If Jory needs a father, then I need a son. See how simply all
  complicated matters are solved?"
  Too simply, I thought, when he had a wife and I was discerning and cynical
  enough to know he couldn't possibly care for me enough. "You have a wife
  you love, " I said bitterly. I shoved him away. I didn't want to get him
  too easily, but only after long and difficult struggles against my mother,
  and she wasn't here to know.
  "Men are liars too," he said flatly, with some of the zest gone from his
  eyes. "I have a wife and occasionally we sleep together, but the fire has
  gone out. I don't know her. I don't think anyone knows her. She's a bundle
  of secrets, wound up tight, and she won't let me inside. It's gone on so
  long I don't care to be let in now. She can keep her secrets and her tears,
  and eat her way out of her anxieties and whatever it is that makes her wake
  up in the night and go and look in that damned blue album! Now she's
  overweight and she's written she's just had plastic surgery-face lift-and
  I won't know her when she comes back. As if I ever really knew her!"
  I panicked inside--he had to care! How could I break up a marriage that was
  already coming apart? I needed

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 to feel I'd accomplished this against overwhelming odds! "Go home!" I
 said, pushing at him. "Get out of my house! I don't know you well enough
 to even listen to your problems-and I don't believe you. I don't trust
 you!"
  He laughed, mocking me, aroused by my puny efforts to push him away. His
  libido was fired.... It flamed in his eyes as he grabbed my upper arms
  and drew me hard against him. "Now you come off it! Look at the way
  you're dressed. You had me come here for a reason. So here I am, ready
  to be seduced. You seduced me the first time I saw you-and for the life
  of me it seems I've known you much longer than I actually have. Nobody
  plays games with me, then calls it a draw. You win or I win, but if we
  go to bed together we might wake up in the morning and find out we've
  both won."
  Red lights flashed, Stop! Resist! Fight! I did none of those things. I
  beat on his chest with ineffectual small fists as he laughed and picked
  me up and threw me over his shoulder. With one hand he gripped both of
  my legs to keep them from kicking, and with the other he turned out the
  lamps. In the dark, with me still beating on his back, he carried me into
  my bedroom and threw me down on the coverlet. I scrambled to get up, but
  he came at me fast! There wasn't a chance to use the knee I had ready.
  He sensed my dancer's ability could defeat him so he lunged, caught me
  about the waist so we both tumbled to the floor! I opened my mouth to
  scream, He clamped his hand upon my open lips, then pinioned my arms with
  his iron strength and sat on the legs that tried to kick myself free.
  "Cathy, my lovely seductress, you went to such a lot of trouble. You
  seduced me long ago, ballerina. Until the week before Christmas you are
  mine, and then my wife will be home-and I won't need you."
  His hand eased away from my lips and I thought I would scream, but
  instead I bit out, "At least I didn't have to buy you with my father's
  millions!" That did it. He crushed his lips brutally hard down on mine
  before I realized what was happening. This wasn't the way 1

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 wanted it! I wanted to tempt him, set him on fire, make him chase me, and
 give in only after a long and arduous pursuit that my mother could watch and
 suffer through, knowing she could do nothing or I'd talk. And yet he was
 taking me heartlessly, more ruthless than Julian at his worst! Savagely he
 bore down on me. He squirmed and writhed to grind in, even as his hands
 ripped and tore off my clinging rose dress. All I had on then was pantyhose,
 and soon he had those pulled down so my silver slippers came off and stayed
 inside of them.
  With his lips still crushed brutally hard on mine, he carried my resisting
  hand to his zipper and squeezed until my knuckles cracked. It was either
  tug it down or have my fingers broken! How he managed to wiggle out of his
  clothes, even as he held me naked beneath him, I'll never know. When he was
  naked, but for his socks, I kept on wiggling, writhing, squirming, butting
  and trying to scratch or bite while he kissed, fondled and explored. I had
  my chance to scream several timesbut I too was breathing fast and hard, and
  jerking upward to force him off. But he took this as a welcoming arch of
  invitation. He entered, and had his too-quick satisfaction, then pulled out
  before I had any!
  "Get out of here." I screamed. "I'm calling the police! I'll have you
  thrown in jail, charged with assault and rape!"
  He laughed scornfully, chucked me under the chin playfully, then stood up
  to pull on his clothes. "Oh," he said, mocking me with an imitation of my
  own voice, "I am so frightened." Then his voice was deeply earnest. "You
  aren't happy, are you? It didn't work out the way you planned it, but don't
  you worry, tomorrow night I'll be back, and maybe then you can please me
  enough, so I'll feel like taking the time to please you."
  "I've got a gun!" (I didn't.) "And if you dare set foot in this house again
  you're a dead man! Not that you are a man. You are more brute than human!"
  "My wife often says the same thing," he said casually, zipping up his
  trousers shamelessly, without the decency to even turn his back. "But she
  likes it just the same, just as you did. Beef Wellington, you can

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 have that tomorrow night, plus a tossed salad and a chocolate mousse for
 dessert. If you make me fat, we can burn off the calories in the most
 pleasant way possible-and I don't mean jogging." He grinned, saluted me,
 put one foot behind the other to turn smartly, military fashion, then
 paused at the doorway as I sat up and clutched the remnants of my gown to
 my breasts. "Same time tomorrow night, and I'll stay the night-that is,
 if you treat me right."
  He left, and slammed the front door behind him. Damn him to hell! I began
  to cry, not from pity for myself. It was frustration so huge I could have
  torn him limb from limb! Beef Wellington! I'd lace it with arsenic!
  A small timid sound came from outside my door. "Mommy . . . I'm seared.
  Are you cryin', Mommy?"
  Hastily I pulled on a robe and called him in, then held him close in my
  arms. "Darling, darling, Mommy is all right. You had a bad dream. Mommy
  isn't crying ... see?" I brushed away the tears-for I'd get even.

  Three dozen red roses arrived while Jory and I were eating breakfast-the
  long-stemmed variety from the florist. A small white card read:

     I'm sending you a big bouquet of roses, One for every night you'll
     have my heart.

  No name. And what the devil was I supposed to do with three dozen roses
  in a matchbox house? I couldn't send them to a children's ward; the
  hospital was miles and miles away. Jory decided what to do with them.
  "Oh, Mommy, how pretty! Uncle Paul's roses!"
  For Jory I kept the roses instead of throwing them out, and in many vases
  I scattered them throughout the house. He was delighted, and when I took
  him with me to dancing school he told all my students roses were all over
  his home---even in the bathroom.
  After lunch I drove Jory to the nursery school he so loved. It was a
  Montessori school that was inspiring him to want to learn by appealing
  to his senses. Already he

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 could print his name, and he was only three! He was like Chris, I told
 myself, brilliant, handsome, talented-oh, my Jory had everything-but a
 father. From his bright blue eyes shone the quick intelligence of someone
 who would have a lifetime curiosity about everything. "Jory, I love you."
  "I know that, Mommy." He waved good-bye as I drove off.
  I was there to meet him when he came from his school, hig small face
  flushed and troubled. "Mommy," he said as soon as he was beside me in the
  car, "Johnny Stoneman, he said his mommy slapped him when he touched
  her-there. " And he shyly pointed at my breast. "You don't slap me when
  I touch you there."
  "But you don't touch me there, not since you were a little baby and Mommy
  nursed you for a short while."
  "Did you slap me then?" He looked so worried. "No, of course not. Babies
  are meant to suckle their mother's breasts-and I would never slap you for
  touching there-so if you want to try me, go ahead and touch." His small
  hand reached out tentatively while he watched my face to see if I'd be
  shocked. Oh, how fast the young learned all the taboos! And when he'd
  touched and God's lightning hadn't struck him down, he smiled, very
  relieved. "Oh, it's just a soft place." He'd made a pleasant discovery,
  and around my neck he threw his arms. "I love you too, Mommy. 'Cause you
  love me even when I'm bad."
  "I'll always love you, Jory. And if you're bad sometimes, I'll try and
  understand." Yes, I was not going to be like my grandmother-nor my
  mother. I was going to be the perfect mother, and someday he'd have a
  father too. How was it that little children, such young ones, would
  already be talking of sin and being slapped for only touching? Was it
  because it was too high here, too near God's eyes? So that everyone lived
  under his spell, living afraid, acting righteous, while they committed
  every sin in the book? Honor thy father and thy mother. Do unto others
  as thou wouldst have done unto you. An eye for an eye.
 Yes ... an eye for an eye-that's why I was here.

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  I stopped to buy stamps before I reached my cottage, and left Jory dozing
  on the front seat. He was in the post office, which was no larger than
  my living room, buying stamps too. Charmingly he smiled at me, as if
  nothing untoward had happened between us the night before. He even had
  the nerve to follow me to my car so he could ask how I liked the roses.
  "Not your kind of roses," I snapped, then got primly into my car and
  slammed the door in his face. I left him staring after me without a
  smile-in fact, he looked rather miserable.
  At five-thirty a special-delivery man brought a small package to our
  front door. It was certified so I had to sign for it. Inside a larger box
  was another box, and inside of that was a velvet jewelry case which I
  quickly opened while Jory watched, all eyes. On black velvet lay a single
  rose comprised of many diamonds. Also a card with a note that read,
  "Perhaps this kind of rose is more to your liking." I put the thing away
  as a trifle bought with her money, so it wasn't really from him-no more
  than the real roses.

  He had the nerve to come that night at seven-thirty just as he'd said he
  would. Nevertheless, I readily let him in, then led him silently to the
  dining table with no to-do about cocktails or other niceties. The table
  was set even more elaborately than the night before. I'd hauled out some
  boxes and done some unpacking, and on the table were niy best lace mats
  and covered silver serving dishes. Neither of us had as yet spoken. All
  his forgive-me roses I'd gathered together and they were in the box near
  his plate. On his empty plate was the jeweler's velvet container with the
  diamond rose brooch inside. I sat to watch his expression as he put the
  jewelry box aside, casually, and just as casually moved the flower box
  out of his way. He then took from his breast pocket a folded note that
  he handed to me. He'd written in a bold hand:

 I love you for reasons that have no beginning and no ending. I loved you
 even before I knew you, so that my love is without reason or design. Tell
 me to go and I will. But know first, if you turn me
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  away, I will remember all my life that love that
 should have been ours, and when I'm stretched
 out cold, I will but love you better after death.

  I glanced upward to meet his eyes squarely for the first time since he'd
  entered. "Your poetry, it somehow has a familiar ring, with a bit of
  strangeness."
  "I composed it only a few minutes ago--how could it sound familiar?" He
  reached for the domed silver lid, ostensibly hiding the Beef Wellington
  underneath. "I warned you I was an attorney, not a poet-so that accounts
  for the strangeness. Poetry was not my best subject in school."
  "Obviously." I was very interested in his expression. "Elizabeth Barrett
  Browning is sweet, but not your type.,,
  "I did my best," he said with a wicked grin, meeting my eyes and
  challenging me before his gaze lowered to stare at the huge platter that
  held one hot dog and a small dab of cold canned beans. The disbelief in
  his eyes, his utter offended shock gave me so much satisfaction I almost
  liked him.
  "You are now gazing upon Joty's favorite menu," I said, gloating. "It is
  exactly what he and I ate tonight for dinner, and since it was good
  enough for us, I thought it was good enough for you, so I saved some.
  Since I've already eaten, all of that is yours alone, and you may help
  yourself."
  Scowling, he flashed me a burning, hard look, then savagely bit down into
  the hot dog which I'm sure had grown cold as the beans. But he gobbled
  down everything and drank his glass of milk, and for dessert I handed him
  a box of animal crackers. First he stared at the box in another
  expression of dumbfounded amazement, then ripped it open, seized up a
  lion and snapped off the head in one bite.
  Only when he'd eaten every animal cracker and then picked up each crumb
  did he take the trouble to look at me with so much disapproval I should
  have shrunken to ant size. "I take it you are one of those despicable
  liberated women who refuses to do anything to please a man!"
               373
  "Wrong. I am liberated only with some men. Others I can worship, adore
  and wait on like a slave."
  "You made me do what I did!" he objected strongly"Do you think I planned
  it that way? I wanted us to find our relationship on an equal basis. Why
  did you wear that kind of dress?"
 "It's the kind all chauvinist men prefer!"
  "I am not a chauvinist--and I hate that kind of dress! "
  "You like what I've got on better?" I sat up straighter to give him a
  better view of the old nappy sweater I had on. With it I wore faded blue
  jeans, with dirty sneakers on my feet, and my hair was skinned back and
  fastened in a granny's knot. Deliberately I'd pulled long strands free
  so they hung loose about my face, slovenly fringes to make me look more
  appealing. And no makeup prettied my face. He was dressed to kill.
  "At least you look honest and ready to let me do the pursuing. If there
  is one thing I despise, it's women who come on strong, like you did last
  night. I expected better from you than that kind of sleazy dress that
  showed everything to take the thrill from discovering for myself." He
  knitted his brows and mumbled, "From a damned harlot's red dress to blue
  jeans. In the course of one day, she changes into a teenybopper."
  "It was rose-colored, not red! And besides, Bart, strong men like you
  always adore weak and passive stupid women, because basically you're meek
  yourself and afraid of an aggressive woman!"
  "I am not weak or meek or anything but a man who likes to feel a man, not
  to be used for your own purposes. And as for passive women I despise them
  as much as I do aggressive ones. I just don't like the feeling of being
  the victim of a huntress leading me into a trap. What the hell are you
  trying to do to me? Why dislike me so much? I sent you roses, diamonds,
  imitation poetry, and you can't even comb your hair and take the shine
  from your nose."
  "You are looking at the natural me, and now that you've seen, you ran
  leave." I got up and walked to the front door and swung it open. "We are
  wrong for each

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 other. Go back to your wife. She can have you, for I don't want you."
  He came quickly, as if to obey, then seized me in his arms and kicked the
  door closed. "I love you, God knows why I do, but it seems I've always
  loved you."
  I stared up in his face, disbelieving him, even as he took the pins from
  my hair and let it spill down. Out of long habit I tossed it about so it
  fluffed out and arranged itself, and smiling a little he tilted my face
  to his. "May I kiss your natural lips? They are very beautiful lips."
  Without waiting for permission he brushed his lips gently over mine.
  Oh-the shivery sensation of such a feathery kiss! Why didn't all men know
  that was the right way to start? What woman wanted to be eaten alive,
  choked by a thrusting tongue? Not me, I wanted to be played like a
  violin, strummed pianissimo, in largo timing, fingered into legato, and
  let it grow into crescendo. Deliciously I wanted to head toward the
  ecstatic heights that could only happen for me when the right words were
  spoken and the right kind of kisses given before his hands came into
  play. If he'd done for me only a little last night, this night he used
  all the skills he had. This time he took me to the stars where we both
  exploded, still holding tight to each other, and doomed to do it again,
  and then again.
  He was hairy all over. Julian had been hairless but for one thatch that
  grew in a thin line up to his navel. And Julian had never kissed my feet
  that smelled of roses from a long perfumed bath before I put on old work
  clothes. Toe by toe he mouthed before he started working upward. I felt
  the grandmother watching, blazing her hard, gray eyes to put us both in
  hell. I turned off my mind, shut her out, and gave in to my senses and
  to this man who was now treating me like a lover.
  But he didn't love me, I knew that. Bart was using me as a substitute for
  his wife, and when she came back I'd never see him again. I knew it, knew
  it, but still I took and I gave until we fell asleep in each other's
  arms.
 When I slept, I dreamed. Julian was in the silver

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 music box my father had given me when I was six. Round and round he spun,
 his face ever turning toward me, accusing me with his jet eyes, and then
 he grew a mustache and was Paul, who only looked sad. I ran fast to set
 him free from death in a music box turned into a coffin-and then it was
 Chris inside, his eyes closed, his hands folded one over the other on his
 chest ... dead, dead. Chris!
  I awoke to find Bart gone and my pillow wet with tears. Momma, why did
  you start this, why?
  Holding tight to my son's small hand I led him out into the cold morning
  air on my way to work. Faint and far away I heard someone calling my
  name, and with it came the scent of old-fashioned roses. Why don't you
  come, Paul, and save me from myself-why only call in your thoughts?
  Part one was done. Part two would begin when my mother knew I had Bart's
  child-and then there was the grandmother who had to pay as well. And when
  I looked I saw that the mountains curved upward into a satisfied smirk.
  At last I had responded to their call. Their vengeful, tormenting wail.

 The Grandmother, Revisited

 Foxworth Hall was at the end of a cul-de-sac, the largest and most
 impressive of many fine, large homes and the only one that sat high, high
 on the hillside, looking down on all the others like a castle. For days
 I went to stare at it, making my plans.
  Bart and I didn't have to sneak around furtively to meet. The houses
  where he lived were far apart and no one could see us when he came to me
  through the back door that opened out into a yard with a fence. In back

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 of that was a country lane, shrubbed, and made private by many trees.
 Sometimes we met in a distant town and our lovemaking in a motel room was
 wild, sweet, tender, erotic and altogether satisfying, and yet I froze when
 he told me at lunch, "She called this morning, Cathy. She'll be home before
 Christmas."
  "nat's nice," I said and went right on eating my salad and anticipating the
  Beef Wellington that would show up soon. He frowned and his fork loaded
  with salad hesitated on the way to his mouth. "It means we won't be able to
  see as much of each other. Aren't you sorry?"
 "We'll find ways."
 "If you aren't the damndest woman!"
  "Don't get so worked up over nothing. All women are monsters to men, and
  maybe to ourselves. We are our own worst enemies. You don't have to divorce
  her and give up your chance to inherit her fortune. Though she could
  outlive you and have the chance to buy another younger husband."
  "Sometimes you are just as bitchy as she is! She did not buy nw! I loved
  her! She loved mel I was crazy about her, as crazy for her as I am for you
  now. But she changed. When I met her she was sweet, charming, everything I
  wanted in a woman and wife, but she changed." He stabbed the salad fork
  toward his mouth and chewed viciously. "She's always been a mysterylike
  you."
  "Bart, my love," I said, "very soon all mystery walls will crumble."
  He went on, as if I hadn't inteffupted, "That father of hers, he too was a
  mystery; you'd look at him and see a fine old gentleman, but underneath was
  a heart of steel. I thought I was his only attorney, but he had six others,
  each of us assigned to different tasks. Mine was to make out his wills. He
  changed them dozens of times, putting this family member in, and writing
  another out, and adding codicils like a mad man, though he was sane enough
  right up until the very end. The last codicil was the worst."
 Of course, no children for him, ever. "Then you

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 really were a practicing lawyer?" He smiled bitterly, then answered, "Of
 course I was. And now I am again. A man needs something meaningful to do.
 How many times can anyone tour Europe before boredom sets in? You see the
 same old faces, doing the same old things, laughing at the same jokes. The
 Beautiful Peoplewhat a laugh! 'Ibo much money buys everything but health,
 so they have no dreams left to purchase, and no aspirations, so in the end
 they are only bored."
  "Why don't you divorce her and do something meaningful with your life?"
  "She loves me." That's the way he said it. Short. Sweet. He stayed
  because she loved him, forcing me to say, "You told me when we first met
  that you loved her, and then you say you don't-which is it?" He thought
  about it for a long time.
  "Honestly, ballerina, I'm ambivalent and resentful. I love her, I hate
  her. I thought she was what you seem to be now. So please, smother that
  bitchy side that reminds me of her and don't try and do to me what she
  did. You are putting a wall between us because you know something I
  don't. I doWt fall in love easily, and I wish I didn't love you."
  He seemed suddenly a small boy, wistful, as if his pet dog might betray
  him and life would never be good again. I was touched and dared to say,
  "Bart, I swear there will come a day when you know all my secrets and all
  of hers--but until that time comes say you love me, even if you don't
  mean it, for I can't enjoy being with you if I don't feel you love me
  just a little."
  "A little? It seems I've loved you all my life. Even when I kissed you
  the first time it seemed I'd kissed you before-why is that?"
 "Karma." I smiled at his baffled expression.

  There was something I had to do before my mother came home. One day when
  I had no classes and Jory was in his special school I slipped over to
  Foxworth Hall, using all the hidden ways. At the back door I used the old
  wooden key that Chris had fashioned so long ago. It was Thursday. All the
  servants would be in

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 town. Since Bart had told me in detail his routine, that also told me a
 lot of the grandmother's daily life. I knew at this time the nurse would
 be napping, as my grandmother had her rest time in the afternoon too.
 She'd be in the same little room beyond the library, the same room that
 had confined our grandfather during his last days, while upstairs we four
 children waited for him to pass on to his rewards, and death would set us
 free.
  I strolled through all those rich, grand rooms and hungrily stared at all
  the fine furnishings and saw again the dual winding staircases in the
  front foyer large enough to be used as a ballroom. Where the curving
  staircases met was a balcony on the second floor, and from that rose
  another flight of stairs, straight up to the attic. I saw, the massive
  chest where Chris and I had hidden inside to watch a Christmas party
  going on below. So long ago, and yet my clock of time turned swiftly
  backward. I was twelve again and scared, afraid this mammoth house would
  swallow me down if I moved or spoke above a whisper. I was awed again by
  the three giant crystal chandeliers suspended from a ceiling some forty
  feet above the floor. And because it was a dance floor of mosaic tiles,
  I automatically had to dance just a little to see how it felt.
  I ambled on, taking my time, admiring the paintings, the marble busts,
  the huge lamps, the fabulous wall hangings that only the super-rich, who
  could be so stingy in small ways, could buy. Imagine my grandmother
  buying bolts of gray taffeta just to save a few dollars, when they bought
  the best to furnish their rooms and they had millions!
  The library was easy to find. Lessons learned at an early age and under
  miserable conditions could never be forgotten. Oh, such a library!
  Clairmont didn't have a library with so many fine books! Bart's
  photograph was on the ponderous desk that had been my grandfather's. Many
  things were there to indicate that Bart often used this room for his
  study, and to keep his mother-in-law company. His brown house-slippers
  were beneath a comfortable-looking chair near the

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 immense stone fireplace with a mantel twenty feet long. French doors
 opened onto a terrace facing a formal garden with a fountain to spray
 water into a bird bath formed by a rock garden of steps, with the water
 trickling down into a pool. A nice, sunny place for an invalid to sit,
 protected from the wind.
  At last I'd seen enough to satisfy my curiosity, harbored for years, and
  I sought out the heavy door at the far end of the library. Beyond that
  closed door was the witch-grandmother. Visions of her flashed through my
  mind. I saw her again as she'd been the first night we came, towering
  above us, her thick body strong, powerful, her cruel, hard eyes that
  swept over us all and showed no sympathy, no compassion for fatherless
  children who had lost so much, and she couldn't even smile to welcome us
  or touch the pretty round cheeks of the twins who had been so appealing
  at age five.
  The second night flashed, when the grandmother ordered our mother to show
  us her naked back striped with red and bleeding welts. Even before we'd
  seen that horror she'd picked Carrie up by the hair and Cory had hurled
  himself against her, trying to inflict some pain with his small white
  shoe that kicked her leg and his small sharp teeth that bit-and with one
  powerful slap she'd sent him reeling. All because he had to defend his
  beloved twin who had screamed and screamed. Again I saw myself before the
  miffor in the bedroom without a stitch on, and her punishment had been
  so harsh, so heartless, trying to take from me what I admired the most,
  my hair. A whole day Chris had spent trying to take the tar from my hair
  and save it from the shears. Then no food or milk for two whole weeks!
  Yes! She deserved to see me again! Just as I'd vowed the day she whipped
  me that there would come a day in the future when she would be the
  helpless one and I would be the one to wield the whip and keep the food
  from her lips!
  Ah, the sweet irony of it-that she would gloat to see her husband dead,
  and now she was in his bed and even more helpless-and alone! I took off
  my heavy winter coat, sat down to tug off my boots, and then I put on

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 the white satin pointes. My leotards were white and sheer enough to let
 the pink of my skin show through. I unbound my hair so it fell in a
 luxuriant, golden cascade of rippling waves down my back. Now she would
 see and envy the hair the tar hadn't ruined after all.
 Get ready, Grandmother! Here I come!
  Very quietly I stole to her door. Then carefully I eased it open. She was
  on the high, high hospital bed, her eyes half-closed. The sun through the
  windows fell upon her pink and shining scalp, clearly revealing how
  nearly bald she was. And oh, how old she looked! So gaunt, so much
  smaller. Where was the giantess I used to know? Why wasn't she wearing
  a gray taffeta dress to whisper threats? Why did she have to look so
  pitiful?
  I hardened my heart, closed out mercy, for she'd never had any for us.
  Apparently she was on the verge of sleep, but as the door opened slowly,
  slowly her eyes widened. Then her eyes bulged. She recognized me. Her
  thin, shriveled lips quivered. She was afraid! Glory hallelujah! My time
  had come! Still, I paused in the open doorway, appalled. I had come for
  revenge and time had robbed me! Why wasn't she the monster I recalled?
  I wanted her that way, not what she was now, an old, sick woman with her
  hair so scant most of her scalp showed, and the hair left was pulled to
  the top of her head and fastened up there by a pink satin ribbon bow. The
  bow gave her a ghoulish-girlish look, and even bunched together as they
  were, the thin wisps were no wider than my small finger-just a tuft like
  a worn-out, bleached brush for watercolor painting.
  Once she'd stood six feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds and
  her huge breasts had been mountains of concrete. Now those breasts hung
  like old socks to reach her puffy abdomen. Her arms were withered old dry
  sticks, her hands corded, her fingers gnarled. Yet, as I stared and she
  stared in complete silence as a small clock ticked relentlessly on, her
  old despicable personality flared hot to let me know her outrage. She
  tried to speak to order me out. Devil's issue, she'd scream if she could,
  get out of my house! Devil's spawn, out, out, out! But she couldn't say
  it, any of it.

               381
  While I could greet her pleasantly, "Good afternoon, dear Grandmother.
  How very nice to see you again. Remember me? I'm Cathy, one of the
  grandchildren you helped hide away, and each day you brought us food in
  a picnic basket--every day by six-thirty you were there, with your gallon
  thermos of milk, and your quart thermos of lukewarm soup-and canned soup
  at that. Why couldn't you have brought us hot soup at least once? Did you
  deliberately heat that soup to only warm? I stepped inside and closed the
  door behind me. And only then did she see the willow switch I'd hidden
  behind my back.
  Casually I tapped the switch on my palm. "Grandmother," I said softly,
  "remember the day you whipped our mother? How you forced her to strip in
  front of her father, and then you whipped her, and she was an adult-a
  shameless, wicked, evil deed, don't you agree?"
  Her terrified gray eyes fixed on the switch. A terrible struggle was
  going on in her brain--and I was glad, so glad Bart had told me she
  wasn't senile. Pale, watery, gray eyes, red-rimmed and crinkled all about
  with deep crow's feet, like cuts that never bled. Thin, crooked lips now
  shrunken to only a tiny buttonhole and puckered about by a radiating
  sunburst of deep lines, etching beneath her long hooked nose a spiderweb
  design of crosshatch lines. And, believe it or not, to the high and
  severe neckline of that yellow cotton jacket was fastened the diamond
  brooch! Never had I seen her without the brooch pinned to the neckline
  of her gray taffeta dresses with the white crocheted collars.
  "Grandmother," I chanted, "remember the twins? The dear little
  five-year-olds you enticed into this house, and not once while they were
  here did you ever speak their names-or any of our names. Cory's dead, and
  you know that-but did my mother tell you about Carrie? Carrie is dead
  too. She didn't grow very tall because she was robbed of sunlight and
  fresh air in the years when she needed it most. Robbed too of love and
  security and given trauma instead of happiness. Chris and I went onto the
  roof to sit and sun ourselves, but

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 the twins were afraid of the high roof. Did you know we went out there and
 we'd stay for hours and hours ... no, you didn't know, did you?"
  She moved a bit, as if trying to shrink into the thin mattress. I gloated
  to see her fear, rejoiced that she could move a little. Her eyes now were
  as mine used to be, windowpanes to reveal all her terrified emotions-and
  she couldn't cry out for help! At my mercy. "Remember the second night,
  dearest, loving Grandmother? You lifted Carrie up by her hair, and you
  must have known that hurt, yet you did it. Then you sent Cory spinning
  with one blow, and that hurt too, and he was only trying to protect his
  sister. Poor Carrie, how she grieved for Cory. She never got over his
  death, never stopped missing him. She met a nice boy named Alex. They
  fell in love and were going to be married when she found out he was going
  to be a minister. That shook Carrie up. You see, you made us all deeply
  fearful of religious people. The day Alex said he was going to be a
  minister Carrie went into a despairing depression. She had learned the
  lesson you taught very well. You taught us that no one can ever be
  perfect enough to please God. Something dormant came to life the day
  Carrie was weakened by shock, depression and the lack of the spirit to
  go on. Now listen to what she did-because of you! Because you impressed
  on her young brain that she was born evil and she'd be wicked no matter
  how much she sought to be good! She believed you! Cory was dead. She knew
  he had died from the arsenic put on sugared doughnuts.... So when she
  felt she could no longer put up with life and all the people who expected
  perfection, she bought rat poison! She bought a package of twelve
  doughnuts and coated them with that rat poison full of arsenic! She ate
  all but one-and that had a bite mark. Now ... shrink into your mattress
  and try and run from the guilt that is yours! You and my mother killed
  her as much as you killed Cory! I despise you, old woman!"
  I didn't tell her I hated my mother more. The grandmother had never loved
  us, so anything she did was to be expected. But our mother who had borne
  us,

               383
 who had cared for us, who had loved us well when Daddy lived-that was
 another story--an unbearable horror story! And her time would come!
  "Yes, Grandmother, Carrie is dead now too, because she wanted to die in
  the same way Cory had and be with him in heaven."
  Her eyes squinched and a small shudder rippled the covers. I gloated.
  I brought from behind my back the box containing a long length of
  Carrie's hair that had taken me hours to arrange and brush into one long,
  shimmering switch of molten gold. At one end it was tied with a red satin
  bow, and at the other, a bow of purple satin. "Look old woman, this is
  Carrie's hair, some of it. I have another box full of loose, tangled
  strands, for I can't bear to part with a piece of it. I saved it to keep
  not only for Chris and myself, but to show you and our mother ... for the
  two of you killed Carrie as surely as you killed Cory!"
  Oh, I was near mad with hate. Revenge blazed my eyes, my temper, and
  shook my hands. I could see Carrie as she lay near death, turning old,
  withered, bony until she was only a little skeleton covered by loose,
  pale skin, so translucent all her veins showedand the remains had to be
  sealed quickly in a box of pretty metal to shut away the stench of decay.
  I stepped nearer the bed and dangled the bright hair with its gay ribbons
  before her wide and frightened eyes. "Isn't this beautiful hair, old
  woman? Was yours ever so beautiful, so bountiful? Nol I know it wasn't!
  Nothing about you could ever have been pretty, nothing! Not even when you
  were young! That's why you were so jealous of your husband's stepmother."
  I laughed to see her flinch. "Yes, dear Grandmother, I know a lot more
  about you now than I did. Your son-in-law has told me all the family
  secrets my mother told him. Your husband Malcolm was in love with his
  father's younger wife, ten times more beautiful and sweeter than you ever
  were! So when Alicia had a son, you suspected that child was your own
  husband's, and that's why you hated our father, and why you sent for

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 him, deceiving him into believing he'd found a good home. And you educated
 him and gave him the best of everything so he'd have a taste of the good,
 rich life and be more hurt and disappointed later on, when you threw him out
 and left him nothing in your wills. But my father fooled you instead, didn't
 he? He stole your only daughter, whom you hated too, because her father
 loved her more than he loved you. And half-uncle married half-niece. Yet how
 wrong you were about Malcolm and Alicia, for my father's mother despised
 Malcolm! She fought him off time and again-and the baby she had was not your
 husband's son! Though he would have been, if Malcolm had had his way!"
  Blankly she stared at me, as if the past was of no importance to her now.
  Only the present mattered, and the switch in my hand. "I'm going to tell
  you something now, old woman, that you need to know. There was never a
  better man born than my father, or a more honorable woman than his mother.
  But don't lie there and think I've inherited any of Alicia's or my father's
  godly traits-for I am like you! Heartless! I never forget, never forgive!
  I hate for you killing Cory and Carrie! I hate you for making of me what I
  am!" I screamed this, out of control, forgetful of the nurse napping down
  the hall. I wanted to feed her arsenic by the handfuls and sit to watch her
  die and rot before my eyes, like Carrie had. I pirouetted around the room
  to release my frustrations, lashing my legs, showing off my fine young
  body, and then I drew up short and snapped in her face, "All those years
  you locked us up, you never said our names, never looked at Chris because
  he was our father all over again-and your husband too, when he was young,
  and before you made him evil too. You blame everything wrong with human
  beings on their evil souls, and ignore the truth. Money is the god who
  rules in this house! It's money that's always made the worst things happen!
  You were married for your money and you knew it! And greed brought us here,
  and greed locked us up and stole three years and four months from our
  lives, and put us at your mercy and you didn't have any, not even for your

               385
 grandchildren, the only grandchildren you'd ever have, and we never
 touched you, did we? Though we tried in the beginning, remember?" I jumped
 up on the bed and lashed at her with the length of Carrie's golden hair.
 A soft whip that didn't hurt, though she cringed from the touch. Then I
 tossed Carrie's precious hair to her bedside table and snapped the switch
 before her eyes. I danced and whirled on her bed, over her frozen body,
 displaying my fine agility as my long hair flared in a golden circle.
  "Remember how you punished our mother before we grew to hate her too? I
  owe you for that," I said, legs apart and straddling her covered body.
  "From your neck down to your heels, I owe you that, plus the whip lashes
  you gave Chris and me, I owe you that too. And all the other things, each
  one of them is etched in my memory. Didn't I tell you there would come
  a day when I held the switch in my hand, and there would be food in the
  kitchen you'd never eat? Well ... that day is here, Grandmother."
  The sunken gray eyes in her gaunt face sparkled hate, malicious and
  strong. Daring me to strike her-daring me!
  "What shall I do first," I said as if to myself, "shall it be the switch,
  or the hot tar in your hair? Where did you get the tar, old woman? I
  always wondered where you got it. Did you plan it way in advance and wait
  for an excuse to use it? I'm going to confess something now you don't
  know. Chris never cut off all my hair, only the front part to fool you
  into thinking I was baldheaded. Beneath that towel I wrapped on my head
  was all the long hair he saved. Yes, old woman, love saved my hair from
  being cut off. He loved me enough to work for hours and hours to save
  what hair he could-more love than you've ever known, and from a brother."
  Deep in her throat she made a strangling sound, and how I wished she
  could speak!
  "Grandmother darling," I taunted, hands on my hips as I leaned to look
  down on her, "why don't you tell me where to get the tar? I haven't been
  able to find any. No

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 road construction going on anywhere near --- so I guess
 I'll have to use hot wax. You could have used melted
 wax, for it would have done the job just as well. Didn't
 you think of melting a few of your candies?" I smiled,
 menacingly, I hoped. "Oh, dear Grandmother, what
 fun you and I are going to have! And nobody will
 know, for you can't talk and you can't write, all you can
 do is lie there and suffer."
  I didn't like myself or what I was saying or what I was feeling. My
  conscience hovered near the ceiling, looking down with shame at this
  released fury that was me in white tights. Aghast, I was up there feeling
  pity for this old woman who'd suffered through two strokesbut on the bed
  was another kind of me. A vicious, mean, vindictive Foxworth, with blue
  eyes as cold as hers used to be as I stared her down, and then suddenly,
  cruelly I bent; I yanked down the sheet and blanket that covered her and
  she was exposed. Her garment was like a hospital jacket that was slit and
  tied down the back, for there was no front opening. Just a plain yellow
  cotton thing with that incongruous diamond brooch at the throat. o doubt
  they would attach that brooch to hei 42arments.
  Naked. She had to be stripped, as Momma was, as Chris had been, as I had
  been too. She had to suffer through the humiliation of being without
  clothes while contemptuous eyes made her shrivel even smaller. Relentlessly
  I seized hold of the hem of her stingy, cheap cotton garment and without
  compunction I yanked it upward to her armpits. In rumpled, unironed folds
  it half-hid her face, and carefully I pulled back the cloth that could hide
  from me any expression she might manage to reveal. Then I stared down at
  her body, expressing scorn and revulsion as she had expressed it with her
  hard eyes and knife-slashed lips when I was a child of fourteen and she had
  caught me looking at myself in the mirror, admiring the beauty of a figure
  I'd never seen before nude.
  The body in its youth is a beautiful thing ... a joy to behold, the sweet
  young curves, the smooth unblemished skin, firm and taut flesh, but oh, to
  grow old!

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 Those twin hills of concrete were flabby loose udders that sagged to her
 waist, and the nipples were at the very bottom, large brown, mottled and
 bumpy. The blue veins of her breasts stood up like thin ropes covered by
 a translucent sheath. The pasty whiteness of her skin was dimpled,
 furrowed, creased by stretch marks from childbirth, and a long scar from
 navel to her almost hairless mound of Venus showed she'd either had a
 hysterectomy or a caesarean section. It was an old scar, pale and shinier
 than the doughy, white, wrinkled skin around it. Her thin, long legs were
 gnarled old branches of a tired tree. I sighed-would I someday look like
 this?
  Without pity or an attempt to be gentle I rolled her over and yanked her
  back into the center of the bed. And all the while I was babbling on of
  how Chris and I had joked she either nailed on her clothes or glued them
  in and never, of course, did she take off her underclothes unless she was
  in a closet with the light out. Her back showed fewer ravages than her
  front, though her buttocks were flat, flabby and too white.
  "I'm going to whip you now, Grandmother," I said tonelessly, my heart
  gone out of this now. "I promised a long time ago I was going to do this
  if ever I had the chance and so I will do it!" And closing my eyes and,
  asking God to forgive me for what I was about to do, I lifted my arm high
  and then brought down that willow switch as hard as I could, and flat on
  her bare buttocks!
  She shuddered. Some noise came from her throat. Then she seemed to sink
  into unconsciousness. She relaxed so much she released her bladder. I
  began to cry. Terrible sobs from me as I ran to the adjoining bath to
  find a washcloth and soap, and back I hurried with toilet tissue to clean
  her. Then I washed her and put salve on the awful welt I'd made.
  I turned her over on the bed, straightened out her gown so she was
  covered modestly, neatly, and only then did I check to see if she was
  alive or dead. Her gray eyes were open and staring at me without expres-
  sion as tears streaked my face. Next, slowly, as I sobbed on, her eyes
  began to gleam in unspoken triumph!

               388
 Mutely she called me coward! I knew you couldn't be anything but a soft
 weakling! No spine, no starch! Kill me. Go on, kill me! I dare you, do it,
 do it, go on!
  Down from the bed I jumped, and I ran fast into the
 library and on into the parlor I'd seen. In a frenzy of
 anger I grabbed up the first candelabra I saw and
 dashed back to her-but I didn't have matches! Back
 a ain to the library where I rummaged through the
 ( ?esk Bart used. He smoked; he'd have matches or a
 cigarette lighter. I found a book of matches from a local
 disco.
  The candles were ivory colored, dignified, like this house. I%rror was
  in her iron eyes now. She wanted that bit of tufted hair tied with a pink
  ribbon. I lit a candle and watched it flame, then I held it angled over
  her head so the melting wax dribbled down drop by drop onto her hair and
  her scalp. Maybe six or seven drops fell before I could stand no more.
  She was right. I was a coward, I couldn't do to her what she'd done to
  us. I was a Foxworth twice over, and yet God had changed the mold so I
  didn't fit.
  I blew out the ivory candle, replaced it in the candelabra, then left.
  No sooner was I in the ballroom than I remembered I'd forgotten the
  precious length of Carrie's hair. I raced back to get it. I found the
  grandmother lying as I'd left her, only her head was turned and two huge
  glistening tears were in her eyes that stared at the switch of Carrie's
  beautiful hair. Ahh! Now I had my pound of flesh!

  Bart spent more time at my small home than at his huge one. He plied me
  with gifts, as he did my son. He ate his breakfast, lunch and dinner with
  us on the days he didn't spend in his office, which I privately believed
  was more a facade for appearing useful than a functioning law office. My
  dancing school suffered from his attention, but it didn't matter. I was
  now a kept woman. Paid to be his mistress.
  Jory was delighted with the little leather boots Bart gave him. "Are you
  my daddy?" asked my son who

               389
 would be four in February. "No, but I sure wish I was and I could be."
  As soon as Jory was out in the yard, tromping around and staring down at
  his feet that fascinated him now that they sported cowboy boots, Bart
  turned to me and flung himself wearily down in a chair. "You'd never
  guess what happened over at our place. Some sadistic idiot put wax in my
  mother-in-law's hair. And there's a long welt on her buttocks that won't
  heal. The nurse can't explain it. I've questioned Olivia, and asked if
  it was anyone she knew, one of the servants, and she blinked her eyes
  twice, meaning no. Once is for yes. I'm mad as hell about it! It must
  have been one of the servants, yet I can't understand why one would be
  so cruel as to torment a helpless old woman who can't move to defend
  herself. She refuses to identify anyone I name. I promised Corrine I'd
  take good care of her, and now her bottom is such a raw mess she has to
  lie on her stomach two to four hours each day, and she is turned during
  the night."
  "Oh," I breathed, feeling a bit sick. "How awfulwhy won't it heal?"
  "Her circulation is bad. It would have to be, wouldn't it, since she
  can't move about normally?" He smiled then, brilliantly, like the sun
  coming out after a storm. "Don't concern yourself, darling. It's my prob-
  lem, not yours--and, of course, hers." He held out his arms and I went
  quickly into them to snuggle in his lap, and he kissed fervently before
  he carried me into my bedroom. He laid me down and began to undress. "I
  could wring the neck of the fiend who did that to her!"

  We lay entwined after our lovemaking, listening to the wind blending with
  Jory's shrill laughter, racing after the toy poodle Bart had given him.
  A few snow flurries were beginning to fall. I knew I had to get up soon
  so Jory wouldn't run in and catch us, just to tell us it was snowing. He
  couldn't remember other snows, and barely would the ground be
  sugar-coated than he'd want to make a snowman. Sighing first, I kissed
  Bart,

               390
 then reluctantly pulled from his embrace. I turned my back to pull on bikini
 panties as he propped up on an elbow and watched. "You've got a lovely
 behind," he said. I said thanks. "What about my front?" He said it wasn't
 bad. I threw a shoe at him.
 "Cathy, why don't you say you love me?"
  I whirled about, startled. "Have you ever said it to me and meant it?" I
  snapped on a tiny bra.
  "How do you know I don't mean it?" he asked with anger.
  "Let me tell you how I know. When you love, you want that person with you
  all of the time. When you avoid the subject of divorce, that alone is an
  indication of how much you care for me and just where I belong in your
  life."
  "Cathy, you've been hurt, haven't you? I don't want to hurt you more. You
  play games with me. I've always known that. What does it matter if it is
  only sex and not love? And tell me how to know where one ends and the other
  begins?"
  His teasing words were a knife in my heart, for 3omehow, without meaning to
  let it happen, I'd fallen madly, idiotically in love with him.

  According to Bart's enthusiastic report, his long gone wife came home from
  her rejuvenation trip looking smashingly young and beautiful. "She's lost
  twenty pounds. I swear, that face lift has done wonders! She looks
  sensational, and damn it, so unbelievably like you!"
  It was easy to see how impressed he was with his new, younger-looking wife,
  and if he was only trying to take the wind from my too confident sails, I
  didn't let it show. Then he was telling me I was just as necessary to him
  as before in a tone that said I was not. "Cathy, while she was in 'Ibxas
  she changed. She's like she used to be, the sweet, loving woman I married."
  Men! How gullible they were! Of course my mother was sweeter and nicer to
  him now-now that she knew he had a mistress who was very accessible, and
  that the

               391
 other woman was her own daughter. She'd have to
 know, for it was whispered all about now --- everyone
 knew.
  "So, why are you here with me when your wife is back and so like me? Why
  don't you put your clothes on and say good-bye and never come back? Say
  it was sweet while it lasted, but it's all over now, and I'll say thank
  you for a wonderful time before I kiss you farewell."
  "Well-fl," he drawled, pulling me hard against his naked body. "I didn't
  say she was that sensational looking. And then again, there is something
  special about you. I can't name it. I can't understand it. But I don't
  know if I can live without you now." He said it seriously, truth in his
  dark eyes.
 I'd won, won!

  Quite by accident my mother and I met in the post office one day. She saw
  me and shivered. Her lovely head lifted higher as she turned it slightly
  away, pretending she didn't know me. She would deny me as she'd denied
  Carrie, even though it was so obvious that we were mother and daughter
  and not strangers. I wasn't Carrie. So I treated her as she treated me,
  indifferently, as if she were nobody special and never would be again.
  Yet, as I waited impatiently for my roll of stamps, I saw my mother dart
  her eyes to follow the restless prowl of my young son who had to stare
  at everything and everyone. He was handsome, graceful, a charming boy who
  drew the eyes of everyone who had to stop and admire him and pat his
  head. Jory moved with innate style, unstudied and relaxed, at ease
  wherever he was, because he thought the whole world was his, and he was
  loved by everyone. He turned to catch my mother's long stare and he
  smiled. "Hello," he greeted. "You're pretty-like my mommy."
  Oh, the things children say! What innocent knowledge they had, to see so
  readily what others instinctively refused to acknowledge. He stepped
  closer to reach out and tentatively touch her fur coat. "My mommy's got
  a fur coat. My mommy is a dancer. Do you dance?"

               392
  She sighed, I held my breath. See, Momma, there is the grandson your arms
  will never hold. You'll never hear him say your name ... never!
  "No," she whispered, "I'm not a dancer." Tears filmed her eyes.
 "My mommy can teach you how."
 "I'm too old to learn," she whispered, backing off.
  "No, you're not," said Jory, reaching for her hand as if he'd show her the
  way, but she pulled back, glanced at me, reddened, then fumbled in her
  purse for a handkerchief. "Do you have a little boy I can play with?"
  questioned my son, concerned to see her tears, as if having a son would
  make up for not knowing how to dance.
  "No," she said in a quivering weak whisper, "I don't have any children."
  That's when I moved in to say in a cold, harsh voice, "Some women don't
  deserve to have children." I paid for my roll of stamps and dropped them in
  my purse. "Some women like you, Mrs. Winslow, would rather have money than
  the bother of children who might get in the way of good times. Time itself
  will sooner or later let you know if you made the right decision."
  She turned her back and shivered again as if all her furs couldn't keep her
  warm enough. Then she strode from the post office and headed toward a
  chauffeurdriven, black limousine. Like a queen she rode off, head held
  high, leaving Jory to ask, "Mommy, why don't you like that pretty lady? I
  like her a lot. She's like you, only not so pretty." I didn't comment,
  though it was on the tip of my tongue to say something so ugly he would
  never forget it.

  In the twilight of that evening I sat near the windows, staring toward
  Foxworth Hall and wondering what Bart and my mother were doing. My hands
  were on my abdomen which was still flat, but soon it would be swelling with
  the child that might be started. One missed period didn't prove
  anything-except I wanted Bart's baby, and little things made me feel sure
  there was a baby. I let depression come and take me. He

               393
 wouldn't leave her and her money to marry me and I'd have another
 fatherless child. What a fool to start all of this-but I'd always been a
 fool.
  And then I saw a man slipping through the woods, coming to me, and I
  laughed, made confident again. He loved me! He did ... and as soon as I
  knew for certain, I would tell him he was to be a father.
  Then the wind came in with Bart and blew the vase of roses from the
  table. I stood and stared down at the crystal pieces and the petals
  scattered about. Why was the wind always trying to tell me something?
  Something I didn't want to hear!

 Stacking the Deck

 "Cathy, you told me there was no need for precautions!"
 "There was no need. I want your baby."
  " You want my baby? What the hell do you think I can do, marry you?"
  "No. I did my own assuming. I presumed you'd have your fun with me and
  when it was over you'd go back to your wife and find yourself another
  playmate. And I'd have just what I set out to get-your baby. Now I can
  leave. So kiss me off, Bart, as just another of your little extramarital
  dalliances."
  He looked furious. We were in my living room, while a fierce blizzard
  raged outside. Snow heaped in mounds window-high, and I was before the
  fireplace, knitting a baby bunting before I began a bootie. I was getting
  ready to slip a stitch then knit two together when Bart seized my
  knitting from my hands and hurled it away. "It's unraveling!" I cried in
  dismay.
 "What the hell are you trying to do to me, Cathy?

               394
 You know I can't marry you! I never lied and said I would. You're playing
 a game with me." He choked and covered his face with his hands, then took
 them down and pleaded, "I love you. God help me but I do. I want you near
 me always, and I want my child too. What kind of game are you playing
 now?"
  "Just a woman's game. The only game she can play and be sure of winning,"
  "Look," he said, trying to regain his control of the situation, "explain
  what you mean, don't double talk. Nothing has to change because my wife
  is back. You'll always have a place in my life-"
  "In your life? Don't you mean more correctly, on the fringes of your
  life?"
  For the first time I heard humility in his voice. "Cathy, be reasonable.
  I love you, and I love my wife too. Sometimes I can't separate you from
  her. She came back different, as I told you, and now she is like she was
  when we first met. Maybe a more youthful figure and face has given her
  back some confidence she lost, and because of it she can be sweeter.
  Whatever the cause, I'm grateful. Even when I disliked her, I loved her.
  When she was hateful, I'd try and strike back by going to other women,
  but still I loved her. The one big issue we fight over is her
  unwillingness to have a child, even an adopted one. Of course she's too
  old to have one now. Please, Cathy, stay! Don't leave! Don't take my
  child away so I will never know what happens to him, or to her ... or to
  you."
  I laid it out flat. "All right, I will stay on one condition. If you
  divorce her and marry me, only then will you have the child you always
  wanted. Otherwise, I'm taking myself, and that means your child too, far
  away. Maybe I'll write to let you know if you have a son or a daughter,
  and maybe I won't. Either way, once I leave, you are out of my life for
  good." I thought, look at him, acting as if that codicil weren't in the
  will forbidding his wife to have children. Protecting her! Just like
  Chris, when all along he had to know. He'd drawn up the will. He had to
  know.
 Before the fireplace he stood with his arm up on the

               395
 mantel, then he rested his forehead on that and stared down at the fire.
 His free hand was behind his back and clenched into a fist. His confused
 thoughts were so deep they reached out and touched me with pity. He turned
 then to face me, staring deep into my eyes. "My God," he said, shocked by
 his discovery. "You planned this all along, didn't you? You came here to
 accomplish what you have, but why? Why should you choose me to hurt? What
 have I ever done to you, Cathy, but love you? True, it started with sex,
 and sex only was what I wanted it to stay. But it has grown into something
 much more than that. I like being with you, just sitting and talking, or
 walking in the woods. I feel comfortable with you. I like the way you wait
 on me, and touch my cheek when you pass, and rumple my hair and kiss my
 neck, and the sweet, shy way you wake up and smile when you see me beside
 you. I like the clever games you play, keeping me always guessing, and
 always amused. I feel I have ten women in one, so now I feel I can't live
 without you. But I can't abandon my wife and marry you. She needs me!"
  "You should have been an actor, Bart. Your words move me to tears."
  "Damn you for taking this so lightly!" he bellowed. "You've got me on a
  rack and you're twisting the screws! Don't make me hate you and ruin the
  best months of my life!"
  With that he stormed out of my cottage, and I was left alone, ruefully
  regretting that always I talked too much, for I would stay as long as he
  needed me.

  Emma, Jory and I thought it a wonderful idea to make an excursion to
  Richmond and do some Christmas shopping. Jory had never seen Santa Claus
  that he could remember, and most fearfully he approached the red-suited,
  white-bearded man who held out his arms to encourage him. Tentatively he
  perched on Santa's knee in Thalhimers Department Store, and stared
  disbelievingly into twinkling blue eyes while I snapped pictures from
  every angle, even crawling to get what I wanted.

               396
  Next we visited a dress shop I'd heard about where I handed to them a
  sketch I'd drawn from memory. I selected the exact shade of dark green
  velvet, and then the lighter green chiffon for the skirt. "And make the
  straps of the velvet bodice shoestrings of rhinestonesand remember, the
  floating panels must reach the hem. "
  While Jory and Emma watched a Walt Disney movie, I had my hair cut and
  styled differently. Not just trimmed, as was my habit, but really cut
  shorter than I'd ever worn it. It was a style that flattered me, as it
  should, for it had flattered my mother when she wore her hair this way,
  fifteen years ago.
  "Oh, Mommy!" cried Jory, distress in his voice. "You've lost your hair!" He
  began to cry. "Put your long hair back on-you don't look like my mommy
  now!"
  No, that was the purpose. I didn't want to look like me this Christmas-not
  this special Christmas when I had to duplicate exactly what my mother had
  been when first I saw her dancing with Bart. Now, at long last, my
  chance-in a gown the same as hers, with her hair style, her younger face,
  I would confront my mother in her own home, on my terms. Woman to woman-and
  let the best one win! She'd be forty-eight, with a recent face lift--still
  I knew she was very beautiful. But she couldn't compete with her daughter
  who was twenty-one years younger! I laughed when I looked in the mirror
  after slipping on the new green gown. Oh, yes, I'd made myself into what
  she was-the kind of woman men just couldn't resist. I had her power, her
  beauty-and ten times more brains-how could she win?
  Three days before Christmas I called Chris and asked if he'd like to go
  with me to Richmond. I'd forgotten a few necessary items the little local
  shops didn't have. "Cathy," he said sternly, his voice cold and hostile,
  "when you give up Bart Winslow you will see me again, but until you do, I
  don't care to be near you!"
  "All right!" I flared. "Stay where you are! You can miss out on your
  revenge, but I am not going to miss

               397
 out on mine! Good-bye, Christopher Doll, and I hope all the bedbugs bite!"
 I hung up!
  I didn't teach ballet class as often as I used to, but at recital times
  I was always there. My little dancers delighted in dressing up, and
  showing off before their parents, grandparents and friends. They looked
  adorable in their costumes for The Nutcracker. Even Jory had two minor
  roles to play, a snowflake and a sugarplum.
  In my opinion there was no more magical way to spend at least one
  Christmas Eve than as a family attending a performance of The Nutcracker.
  And it was a thousand times more wonderful when one of those gifted,
  small, graceful children was your own small son, fifty-two days short of
  being four years old. The sweet babyness of him dancing on stage with so
  much passion drew applause time and again from the audience who stood up
  to cheer his solo performance that I'd choreographed especially for him.
  And best of all, I'd made Bart swear he'd force my mother to attend that
  recita"nd they were there; I checked by peeking through the curtains,
  front row center, Mr. and Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow. He looked happy; she
  looked grim. So I did have some control over Bart. It showed up in a huge
  bouquet of roses for the dance instructor, and a huge box for the solo
  performing snowflake.
  "What can it be?" asked Jory, his face flushed, his happiness rebounding
  from the sky. "Can I open it now?"
  "Sure, soon as we're home, and tomorrow morning Santa will leave a
  hundred gifts for you."
 6'WhyT1
 "Because he loves you."
 "Why?" asked Jory.
  "Because he couldn't help but love you-that's why."
 "Oh."
  Before five in the morning Jory was up, playing with the electric train
  Bart had sent him. All over the living room floor were the splendid
  wrappings from hundreds

               398
 of gifts from Paul, Henny, Chris, Bart, and Santa Claus. Emma gave him a box
 of homemade cookies that he polished off between ripping open the packages.
 "Gee, Mommy," he cried, "I thought it would be lonely without my uncles, but
 I'm not lonely. I'm having fun."
  He wasn't lonely, but I was. I wanted Bart with me, not over there with
  her. I waited for him to make up some excuse to drive to the drug store and
  slip over to see me and Jory. But all I saw of Bart on Christmas morning
  was the two-inch wide diamond bracelet he enclosed in a box with two dozen
  red roses. His card read, "I love you, Ballerina."

  If ever there was a woman who dressed more carefully than I did that night
  it must have been Marie Antoinette. Emma complained it was taking me forev-
  er. I painted my face as if a camera was going to shoot me close up for a
  magazine cover. Emma styled my hair as my mother had worn hers long ago.
  "Wave it back softly from the face, Emma, then catch it high at the crown
  with a cluster of curls, and make sure a few hang long enough to brush my
  shoulders."
  When she finished, I gasped to see I was almost an exact duplicate of what
  my mother had been when I was twelve! My high cheekbones were emphasized
  just as hers had been with this hair style. As in a dream I never truly
  expected to happen I stepped into the green gown with the velvet bodice and
  chiffon skirt. This was the type of gown that never went out of fashion. I
  spun around before the mirror, getting the feel of being my mother with her
  power to control men, while Emma stood back and flattered me with
  compliments.
  Even my perfume was the same. Musky with an Oriental garden scent. My
  slippers were straps of silver with four-inch heels. My silver evening bag
  matched. All I needed now was the emerald and diamond jewelry she had worn.
  Soon I'd have that too. Surely fate wouldn't let her be wearing green
  tonight. At some point in my life fate had to be on my side. I figured it
  was due tonight.

               399
  Thnight I'd deliver the surprises and the slaps. She would feel the pain
  of losing! What a pity Chris wouldn't come and enjoy the ending of a
  long, long play, started the day our father was killed on the highway.
  I threw myself one more admiring glance, picked up the far stole Bart had
  given me, gathered up my faltering courage, took a last peek at Jory who
  was curled up on his side and looking angelic. I leaned over to tenderly
  kiss his round, rosy cheek. "I love you, Jory," I whispered.
  He partially awakened from a hazy dream and stared up at me as if I were
  part of that dream. "Oh, Mommy, you look so pretty!" His dark blue eyes
  shone with childish wonder as he asked quite seriously, "Are you going
  to a party to get me a new daddy?"
  I smiled and again kissed him and said yes, in a way I was. "Thank you,
  darling, for thinking I look pretty. Now go back to sleep and dream of
  happy things, and tomorrow we'll build a snowman."
 "Bring a daddy to help."

  On the table by the front door was a note from Paul. "Henny is very ill.
  It's a pity you can't give up your plans to visit her before it is too
  late. I wish you good luck, Catherine." With a sigh I put that note aside
  and picked up the note Henny had enclosed with Paul's ,iritten on festive
  red paper, with the letters made rooked because of painful arthritic
  knuckles.

 Dear Fairy-Child,
   Henny is old; Renny is tired; Henny is glad
 own son is by her side, but unhappy because other children far away.
   I tell you now, before I go on to better place,
 the simple secret of living happy. All you need do is say good-bye to
 yesterday's loves, and hello to the new. Look around and see who needs
 you most and you won't go wrong. Forget who needed you yesterday.
   You write and say you have new baby inside

               400
 you made by husband of your mother. Rejoice in child, even if mother's
 husband will stay married to her. Forgive your mother, even if once she did
 evil. Nobody all bad, and a lot of the good in her children must have come
 from her. When you can forgive and forget the past, peace and love will come
 again to you, and this time it will stay.
   And if you never in this world see Henny again, remember that Henny loved
   you well, as her own daughter, just as I loved your angel-sister whom I
   expect to meet again soon.
                  Soon to be in heaven,
                           Henny

  I put the note down with a heavy feeling of sadness ii my chest, then
  shrugged my shoulders. What had to b( done would be done. A long time ago
  I'd set my feet on this path, and I'd follow it, come what may.
  How strange the wind wasn't blowing when I stepped out the door and turned
  to wave to Emma who was spending the night with Jory. With boots covering
  my silver slippers, I headed for my car. How hushed it was, like nature was
  holding back in suspense as it focused on me.
  Soft as eiderdown snow began to drift down. I glanced up at the gray,
  leaden sky, so much like the grandmother's eyes. Resolved again, I turned
  the key in the ignition and headed toward Foxworth Hall, though I wasn't an
  invited guest. I'd stormed at Bart for that. "Why didn't you insist and
  force her to invite me?"
  "Really, Cathy, isn't that a bit too much to ask? Can I insult my wife by
  asking my mistress to her party? I may be a fool, Cathy, but I am not that
  cruel."

  That first Christmas of imprisonment when I was twelve I'd lain with my
  head on Chris's boyish chest, wistfully wishing to be grown up, with curves
  as shapely as my mother's, with a face as beautiful as hers, wearing
  clothes as stunning as hers. And most of all I'd wished to be in control of
  my life.
 Some Christmas wishes did come true.

               401
 Revelations

 Just a little after ten o'clock I used the wooden key Chris had carved so
 many years ago to slip unseen through a back door into Foxworth Hall.
 Already many guests were there and more were still arriving. The orchestra
 was playing a Christmas carol and faintly it drifted up to me. Music so
 sweetly haunting I was taken back to my childhood. Only this time I was
 alone in alien territory with no one to back me up as I stole quietly up
 the back stairs, keeping to the shadows, ready to hide quickly if
 necessary. I wended my solitary way to the grand central rotunda to stand
 near the cabinet where Chris and I had hidden to look down on another
 Christmas party. I gazed downward to spy upon Bart Winslow standing beside
 his wife who was wearing bright red lam6. His strong voice was hearty as
 he greeted his arriving guests warmly, shaking hands, kissing cheeks,
 acting the genial host in true fashion. My mother seemed somehow secondary
 to him, hardly needed at all in this huge mansion that was soon to be
 hers.
  Smiling bitterly to myself, I stole on to my mother's grand suite of
  rooms. It took me back in time! Oh, golly-lolly! I used my little-girl
  exclamation of delight, of surprise, of dismay or frustration, though I
  had better and more accurate words at my disposal now. Tonight I had no
  frustrations, only a lilting sense of justification. Whatever happened,
  she had brought it upon herself. Look, I thought, there was the splendid
  swan bed, %till there, with the little swan bed across the foot. I
  glanced around, seeing it was all the same, but for the brocade fabric
  on the walls--that was different.

               402
 Now it was a soft plum color, and not strawberry pink. There was a brass
 valet to hold a man's suit ready, and unwTinkled, until he put it on. That
 was new. I hurried on into my mother's dressing room. On my knees, I pulled
 out a special bottom drawer to feel around for the tiny button that had to
 be pushed in a certain combination of numbers to trigger the complicated
 lock. And would you believe it--she still used her birthday numbers of
 month, day and year! My! She was a trusting soul.
  In no time at all I had the huge velvet tray on the floor before me, so I
  could help myself to the emeralds and diamonds she had worn to that
  Christmas party when first Chris and I beheld Bartholomew Winslow. How we'd
  loved her then, and how we'd resented him. We had been still in the shadow
  of our grief for our father, and hadn't wanted Momma to marry againnot ever
  again.
  As in a dream I donned the emerald and diamond jewelry that went so well
  with my green velvet and chiffon gown. I glanced in the mirror to see if I
  looked as she had way back then. I was a few years younger, but yes, I did
  look like her. Not exactly, but almostand enough to convince-for were two
  leaves from the same tree ever duplicates? I replaced the jewelry tray, put
  back the drawer, leaving everything as it had been. Except now I wore
  several hundred thousand dollars worth of gems I didn't own. One more look
  at my watch. Ten-thirty. Too soon. At twelve I wanted to make my grand
  entrance, like Cinderella in reverse.
  With utmost caution, I crept stealthily along the long halls to the
  northern wing, and found that end room with the door locked. The wooden key
  still fitted. But my heart didn't seem to fit my chest. It beat too fast,
  too fierce, too loud and my pulse raced too excitedly. I had to keep calm,
  self-possessed, do everything right and not be intimidated by this awesome
  house that had done its best to destroy us.
  When I stepped into that room with the two double beds, I stepped back into
  childhood. The gold-colored, quilted satin spreads were still on the beds,
  precisely

               403
 made without a wrinkle. The ten-inch TV was still in the comer. The doll
 house with its porcelain people and antique made-to-scale furniture waited
 for Carrie's hands to bring it to life again. The old rocker that Chris
 had brought down from the attic, still there. Why, it was as if in here
 time stood still and we'd never left!
  Even hell was still on the walls, gruesomely represented by three
  reproductions of masterpieces. Oh, God! I hadn't known this room would
  make me feel so--so shredded inside. I couldn't afford to cry. That would
  make my mascara run. Yet I wanted to cry. All about me flitted the ghosts
  of Cory and Carrie, just five years old, laughing, crying, wanting
  outside, the sunlight, and all they could do was push tiny trucks to
  make-believe San Francisco or Los Angeles. There used to be train tracks
  that ran all over the room and under the furniture. Oh, where did the
  train tracks go-the coal cars, the engines? I pulled a tissue from my
  tiny evening bag and held it to the corner of one eye and then the other.
  I leaned to peer into the doll house. The porcelain maids were still
  cooking in the kitchen; the butler still stood near the front door to
  welcome the guests arriving in a coach pulled by two horses-and lo, when
  I looked in the nursery, the cradle was there! The missing cradle! For
  weeks we'd hunted to find it, fearful all the time the grandmother would
  notice it missing and punish Carrie-and there it was, just where it
  should be! But the baby wasn't in it, not were the parents in the front
  parlor. Mr. and Mrs. Parkins and baby Clara were now mine and never would
  they reside in this doll house again.
  Had the grandmother herself stolen the cradle, so she could then see it
  missing, and ask Carrie where it was, and when it couldn't be produced,
  she'd have good reason to punish Carrie? And Cory as well, for he would
  automatically, without fear for himself, run to protect his twin sister.
  It was like her to do something mean and cruel like that. But if she had,
  why had she stayed her hand, and not played out her role to the end? I
  laughed bitterly to myself. She had played out her role to the end-not
  just a whipping, but something

               404
 better, something worse. Poison. Arsenic on four sugared doughnuts.
  I jumped then. It seemed I heard a child laugh. My imagination, of
  course. And then, when I should have known better, I headed for the
  closet and the high and narrow door at the very back end and the steep
  and narrow dark stairs. A million times I'd ascended these stairs. A
  million times in the dark, without a candle, or a flashlight. Up into the
  dark, eerie, gigantic attic, and only when I was there did I feel around
  for the place where Chris and I had hidden our candles and matches.
  Still there. Time did stand still in this place. We'd had several candle
  holders, all of pewter with small handles to grasp. Holders we'd found
  in an old trunk along with boxes and boxes of short, stubby, clumsily
  made candles. We'd always presumed them to be homemade candles, for they
  had smelled so rank and old when they burned.
  My breath caught! Oh! It was the same! The paper flowers still dangled
  down, mobiles to sway in the drafts, and the giant flowers were still on
  the walls. Only all the colors had faded to indistinct gray--ghost
  flowers. The sparkling gem centers we'd glued on had loosened, and now
  only a few daisies had sequins, or gleaming stones, for centers. Carrie's
  purple worm was there only now he too was a nothing color. Cory's
  epileptic snail didn't appear a bright, lopsided beach ball now, it was
  more a tepid, half-rotten squashy orange. The BEwmm signs Chris and I had
  painted in red were still on the walls, and the swings still dangled down
  from the attic rafters. Over near the record player was the barre Chris
  had fashioned, then nailed to the wall so I could practice my ballet
  positions. Even my outgrown costumes hung limply from nails, dozens of
  them with matching leotards and worn out pointe shoes, all faded and
  dusty, rotten smelling.
  As in an unhappy dream I was committed to, I drifted aimlessly toward the
  distant schoolroom, with the candelight flickering. Ghosts were
  unsettled, memories and specters followed me as things began to wake up,
  yawn and whisper. No, I told myself, it was only the

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 floating panels of my long chiffon wings ... that was all. The spotted
 rocking-horse loomed up, scary and threatening, and my hand rose to my
 throat as I held back a scream. The rusty red wagon seemed to move by
 unseen hands pushing it, so my eyes took flight to the blackboard where
 I'd printed my enigmatic farewell message to those who came in the future.
 How was I to know it would be me?
 We lived in the attic,
 Christopher, Cory, Carrie and me-
 Now there are only three.
  Behind the small desk that had been Cory's I scrunched down, and tried
  to fit my legs under. I wanted to put myself into a deep reverie that
  would call up Cory's spirit that would tell me where he lay.
  As I sat there waiting, the wind outside began to blow, picking up
  strength so it howled and hurled the snow slantwise. Another blizzard was
  on, full force. With the storm came the drafts to blow out my candle! The
  darkness shrieked, and I had to run to get out! Run fast ... run, run,
  run before I became one of them!
  The next hour had been choreographed to the smallest detail. As the big
  grandfather clock began to strike twelve, I positioned myself in the
  center of the second-floor balcony. I did nothing spectacular to pull all
  eyes my way, just stood there with my flesh warmed by the flashing
  jewels. In her crimson dress of lamd, so high in front it reached her
  throat that was encircled with a lavish choker of diamonds, my mother
  slightly turned. I saw the backless gown made up for the severity in
  front, so a hint of her buttock cleavage showed. Her blond hair was
  styled shorter than I'd ever seen it, and fluffed out around her face in
  a flattering way. From this distance she looked very young and lovely,
  and nowhere near her actual age. Ahh ... the last stroke of twelve
  sounded ...
  Some sixth sense must have warned her, for she turned her head slowly to
  look my way. I began my descent. She froze in shock. Her eyes grew wide
  and

               406
 dark as her hand that held a cocktail glass trembled so much a bit of the
 liquid sloshed out and fell to the floor. Because she stared, Bart followed
 the direction of her gaze. He gawked as if at an apparition. Now that both
 host and hostess were mesmerized, each guest had to look where no doubt they
 expected to see Santa Claus, and it was only me. Only me as once my mother
 had been years ago, wearing the same gown, and before many, I was sure, of
 those very same people who were here that other Christmas when I was twelve.
 I even recognized a few, older, but I knew them! Oh, the joy to have them
 here!
  This was my moment of triumph! Moving as only a ballerina can, I meant to
  play my role to the utmost of my dramatic ability. As the guests stared
  upward, clearly caught in thrall by time moved backward, I gloated to see
  my mother blanch. Then I rejoiced to see Bart's eyes widen more as they
  jumped from me, to her, then back to me. Slowly, in a dead silence, for the
  music had stopped, I descended the left side of the dual winding
  staircases, thinking I was Caraboose, the wicked fairy who put upon Aurora
  the curse of death. Then I made myself the Lilac Fairy to steal away
  Aurora's prince while she slept her sleep of one hundred years. (It was
  clever of me not to think of myself as my mother's daughter, and how soon
  I would destroy her. Very clever to make of this a stage production, when
  I was dealing with reality, and not fantasy and the blood that could be
  spilled.)
  Gracefully I trailed my sparkling fingers along the rosewood railing,
  feeling my green chiffon wings fluttering and floating as step by step, and
  second by second, I neared the place where my mother and Bart were standing
  very close together. She was trembling all over, but managing to hold onto
  her poise. I thought I glimpsed a flicker of panic in the blue of her
  Dresden eyes. I kindly bestowed on her my most gracious smile while
  standing on the second step from the bottom. In this way I gave myself the
  height I needed to be taller than anyone else. All had to look up to me
  wearing four-inch silver heels on platform soles like Carrie's, so

               407
 as to be on an even height with my mother when we met eye to eye. The
 better to see her dismay. Her discomfort. Her utter collapse!
  "Merry Christmas!" I called to one and all in a loud clear voice. It
  resounded like a heralding trumpet to attract others from different
  rooms, and they came in by the dozens, as if drawn more by the total
  silence but for my voice. "Mr. Winslow," I called invitingly, "come dance
  with me, just as you danced with my mother fifteen years ago, when I was
  twelve and hiding above, and she wore a gown just like the one I have on
  now." Bart was visibly jolted. Stunned shock made his dark eyes blacken,
  but he refused to move from my mother's side!
  He forced me to do what I did next. As everyone stood there and waited,
  held in breathless suspense, expecting more explosive revelations, I gave
  them what they wanted.
  "I'd like to introduce myself." My voice was highpitched so it would
  carry well. "I am Catherine Leigh Foxworth, the firstborn daughter of
  Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow, whom most of you must remember was first
  married to my father, Christopher Foxworth. Remember too that he was my
  mother's half-uncle, the younger brother of Malcolm Neal Foxworth who
  disinherited his only daughter, his sole remaining heir, because she had
  the unholy temerity to wed his half-brother! What is more, I also have
  an older brother, named Christopher too--he's a doctor now. Once I had
  a younger brother and sister, twins seven years younger than 1-but Cory
  and Carrie are dead now-for they were-" I stopped short for some reason,
  then went on. "That Christmas party fifteen years ago, Chris and I were
  hiding in the chest on the balcony, while the twins slept in the end room
  of the northern wing. Our playground was the attic, and never, never did
  we go downstairs. We were attic mice, unwanted and unloved once money
  came into the picture." And I would have screamed it all out, every last
  detail, but Bart came striding over to me.
  "Bravo, Cathy!" he cried. "You play your part to perfection!
  Congratulations." He put his arm about my
               408
 shoulders, charmingly smiled at me, then turned to the guests who appeared
 not to know what to think, or whom to believe, much less how to react.
 "Ladies, gentlemen," he said, "let me introduce to you Catherine Dahl, whom
 many of you must have seen on stage when she danced with her husband, Julian
 Marquet. And as you have just witnessed, she is also an actress of merit.
 Cathy here is a distant relative of my wife, and if you can see any
 resemblance, that explains it. In fact, Mrs. Julian Marquet is one of our
 neighbors now, you may know that. Since her resemblance to my wife is so
 remarkable, we cooked up this little farce between us, and did what we could
 to enliven and make different this party with our little joke."
  He ruthlessly pinched my upper arm, before he caught my hand, put his arm
  about my waist and asked me to dance. "Come now, Cathy, certainly you want
  to show off your dancing ability after that fine dramatic performance." As
  the music began to play, he forcefully made me dance! I turned my head to
  see my mother sagging against a friend, her face so pale her makeup stood
  out like livid blotches. Even so, she couldn't take her eyes from me in the
  arms of her husband.
  "You brazen little bitch!" Bart hissed at me. "How dare you come in here
  and pull such a stunt? I thought I loved you. I despise catty women with
  long claws. I won't have you ruining my wife! You little idiot, whatever
  made you tell so many lies?"
  "You are the idiot, Bart," I said calmly, though I was panicked inside-what
  if he refused to believe? "Look at me. How would I know she wore a gown
  like this, if I hadn't seen her with it on? How would I know you went with
  her to see her bedroom with the swan bed, if my brother, Chris, hadn't
  hidden and heard and seen everything the two of you did up on the
  second-floor rotunda."
  He met my eyes, and he looked so strange, so distant and strange.
  "Yes, Bart darling, I am your wife's daughter, and I know if your law firm
  finds out your wife had four children born from the union of her first
  marriage, then you and she lose everything. All that money. All your
               409
 investments. Everything you have bought will be taken back. Oh, the pity
 of that makes me want to cry."
  We danced on, his cheek inches from mine. A smile was fixed to his lips.
  "That gown you're wearing, how the hell did you find out she had one
  exactly like that the first time I came to this house to a party?"
  I laughed with fake merriment. "Dear Bart, you are so stupid. How do you
  think I know? I saw her in this gown. She came to our room and showed us
  how pretty she looked, and I was so envious of all her curves and the way
  Chris looked at her with so much admiration. She wore her hair as I am
  wearing mine now. These jewels were taken from her safe in the dressing
  room table drawer."
  "You're lying," he said, but doubt was in his voice now.
  "I know the combination," I went on softly, "she used her birthday
  numbers. She told me that when I was twelve. She is my mother. She did
  keep us locked in that room, waiting for her father to die, so she could
  inherit. And you know why she had to keep us a big, dark secret. You
  wrote the will, didn't you? Think back to a certain night when you fell
  asleep in her grand suite of rooms, and you dreamed a young girl wearing
  a short blue nightie stole in and kissed you. You weren't dreaming, Bart.
  That kiss was from me. I was fifteen then, and had snuck into your room
  to steal money~ remember how you used to miss cash? You and she thought
  the servants were stealing, but it was Chris, and one time it was me ...
  who didn't find anything because you were there to scafe me away."
  "Nooo," he said with a sigh. "No! She wouldn't do that to her own
  children!"
  "Wouldn't she? She did. That big chest up there near the balcony
  balustrade has a backing of wire mesh screening. Chris and I could see
  just fine. We saw the caterers fixing crepes and waiters in red and black
  and a fountain spraying champagne, and there were two huge silver punch
  bowls. Chris and I could smell everything so delicious and we drooled to
  have a taste of what was down there. Our meals were so boring, and always
  cold

               410
 or lukewarm. The twins hardly ate anything. Were you there the
 Thanksgiving Day dinner when she got up and down so much? Do you want to
 know why? She was preparing a tray of food to take up to us whenever the
 butler John was out of his pantry."
 He shook his head, his eyes dazed.
  "Yes, Bart, the woman you married had four children she hid away for
  three years and almost five months. Our playground was in the attic. Have
  you ever played in an attic in the summertime? In the winter? Do you
  think it was pleasant? Can you imagine how we felt, waiting year after
  year for an old man to die so our lives could begin? Do you know the
  trauma we suffered knowing she cared more for the money than she did for
  us, her own children? And the twins, they didn't grow. They stayed so
  small, grew so large-eyed and haunted looking, and she'd come and never
  look at them! She pretended not to notice their ill health!"
  "Cathy, please! If you are lying, stop! Don't make me hate her!"
  "Why not hate her? She deserves it," I went on as my mother went to lean
  against a wall, and looked sick enough to throw up. "Once I lay on the
  swan bed, with the little swan bed across the foot. You had a book in
  your nightstand drawer about sex, disguised under a dustjacket that read
  How to Create and Design Your Own Needlepoint or something like that."
  "How to Create Your Own Needlepoint Designs, " he corrected, looking sick
  and as pale as my mother, though he kept on smiling, hatefully smiling.
  "You are making all of this up," he said in an odd tone that showed no
  sincerity. "You hate her because you want me, and connive to deceive me
  and destroy her. "
  I smiled and lightly brushed his cheek with my lips. "Then let me
  convince you more. Our grandmother always wore gray taffeta with
  hand-crocheted collars, and never without a diamond brooch with seventeen
  stones pinned at her throat. Very early each morning, before six-thirty,
  she brought us food and milk in a

               411
 picnic hamper. At first she fed us rather well, but gradually, as her
 resentment grew, our meals grew worse and worse until we were fed mostly
 sandwiches of peanut butter and jelly and occasionally fried chicken and
 potato salad. She gave us a long list of rules to live by, including one
 that forbade us from opening the draperies to let in light. Year after
 year we lived in a dim room without sunlight. If only you knew how dreary
 life is, shut away, without fight, feeling neglected, unwanted, unloved,
 Then there was another rule very hard to abide by. We were not supposed
 to even look at each other-especially one of the opposite sex."
  "Oh, God!" he exclaimed, then sighed heavily. "That sounds like her. You
  say it was more than three years you were locked up there?"
  "Three years and almost five months, and if that seems a long time to
  you, how do you think it was for small children of five, and one of
  twelve, and the other of fourteen? Back then, five minutes passed like
  five hours, and days were like months, and months were like years."
  Doubt fought clearly with his legal mind that saw all the ramifications,
  if my tale were true. "Cathy, be honest, totally honest. You had two
  brothers and one sister-and all that time, when I was here too, you were
  living locked up?"
  "In the beginning, we believed in her, every word she said, for we loved
  her, trusted her-she was our only hope, and our salvation. And we wanted
  her to inherit all that money from her father. We agreed to stay up there
  until the grandfather died, although when our mother explained how we
  were to live in Foxworth Hall she failed to mention we were to be hidden
  away. At first we thought it would only be for a day or so, but it went
  on and on. We filled our time by playing games-and we prayed a lot, slept
  a lot. We grew thin, half-sick, malnourished, and suffered through two
  weeks of starvation while you and our mother traveled throughout Europe
  on your honeymoon. And then you went to Vermont to visit your sister,
  where our mother

               412
 bought a two-pound box of maple-sugar candy. But by then we'd already been
 eating doughnuts with arsenic laced in the powdered sugar."
  He gave me a hard, fierce look of terrible anger. "Yes, she did buy a box
  of that kind of candy in Vermont. But Cathy! whatever else you may say, I
  can never believe my wife would deliberately set out to poison her own
  children!" His scornful eyes raked over me, then back to my face. "Yes, you
  do look like her! You could be her daughter, I admit that! But to say
  Corrine would kill her own children, I can't believe that! "
  I shoved him awa3* forcefully, and whirled about. "Listen everyone!" I
  yelled out. "I am the daughter of Corrine Foxworth Winslow! She did lock
  her four children in the end room of the northern wing. Our grandmother was
  in on the scheme and gave us the attic for our playroom. We decorated it
  with paper flowers, to make it pretty for our little twins, all so our
  mother could inherit. Our mother told us we had to hide, for if we didn't
  our grandfather would never have her written into his will. All of you know
  how he despised her for marrying his half-brother. Our mother persuaded us
  to come and live upstairs, and be as quiet as attic mice; we went, trusting
  and believing she would keep her word and let us out the day her father
  died. But she didn't! She didn't! She let us suffer up there for nine
  months after he was dead and buriedl"
  I had more to spill out. But my mother shrilled out in a loud voice,
  "Stop!" She stumbled forward; her arms outstretched as if she were blind.
  "You lie!" she screamed. "I've never seen you before! Get out of my house!
  Get out this instant before I call the police and have you thrown out! Now
  you get out, and you stay out!"
  Everyone was staring at her now, not me. She, the ultra-poised and arrogant
  had lost control, was trembling, her face livid, wanting to scratch the
  eyes from my face! I don't think a soul there believed her then, not when
  they could see I was her very image-and I knew too many truths.

               413
  Bart left my side and went to his wife to whisper something in her ear.
  He put his arms consolingly around her, and kissed her cheek. She clung
  to him helplessly, with pale, shaky hands of desperation, beseeching his
  help with great teary eyes of cerulean blue-like mine, like Chris's, like
  the twins' blue eyes.
  "Thank you again, Cathy, for a fine performance. Come into the library
  with me and I'll pay you your fee." He scanned over the guests clustered
  around and quietly he said, "I'm sorry, but my wife has been ill, and
  this little joke was ill-timed on my part. I should have known better
  than to plan such a show. So, if you will please forgive us, do go on
  with the party; enjoy yourselves; eat, drink and be merry; and stay as
  long as you like, Miss Catherine Dahl may have some more surprises in
  store for you."
 How I hated him then!
  As the guests milled about and whispered and looked from me to him, he
  picked up my mother and carried her toward the library. She was heavier
  than she used to be, but in his arms she seemed a feather. Bart glanced
  over his shoulder at me, gestured with his head that I was to follow,
  which I did.
  I wanted Chris here with me, as he should be. It shouldn't be Jeft up to
  me to confront her with the truth. I was strangely alone, defensive, as
  if in the end Bart would believe her and not me, no matter what I said,
  no matter what proof I gave him. And I had plenty of proof. I could
  describe to him the flowers in the attic, the snail, the worm, the
  cryptic message I'd written on the blackboard, and, most of all, I could
  show him the wooden key.
  Bart reached the library and carefully put my mother into one of the
  leather chairs. He snapped an order my way. "Cathy, will you please close
  the door behind
 you:9
  Only then did I see who else was in the library! My grandmother was
  seated in the same wheelchair her husband had used. Ordinarily you can't
  tell one wheelchair from another, but this one was custommade and much
  finer. She wore a gray-blue robe over

               414
 her hospital jacket, and a lap robe covered her legs. The chair was placed
 near the fireplace so she could benefit from the heat of a roaring log fire.
 Her bald head shone as she turned it my way. Her flintstone gray eyes glowed
 maliciously.
  A nurse was in the room with her. I didn't take the time to look at her
  face.
  "Mrs. Mallory," said Bart, "will you please leave the room and leave Mrs.
  Foxworth here." It wasn't a request, but an order.
  "Yes, sir," said the nurse who quickly got up and scuttled to leave as fast
  as possible. "You just ring for me when Mrs. Foxworth wants to be put to
  bed, sir," she said at the door and then disappeared.
  Bart seemed on the verge of exploding as he stalked the room, and what
  wrath he felt now seemed directed not only at me, but also at his wife.
  "All right," he said as soon as the nurse was gone, "let's have done with
  it, all of it. Corrine, I've always suspected you had a secret, a big
  secret. It occurred to me many times you didn't truly love me, but it never
  once crossed my mind you might have four children you hid away in the
  attic. Why? Why couldn't you have come to me and told me the truth?" He
  roared this, all control gone. "How could you be so selfishly heartless, so
  brutally cruel as to lock away your four children and then try and kill
  them with arsenic?"
  Sagging limply in a brown leather chair, my mother closed her eyes. She
  seemed bloodless as she asked in a dull voice. "So, you are going to
  believe her and not me. You know I could never poison anyone, no matter
  what I had to gain. And you know that I don't have any children!"
  I was stunned to know Bart believed me and not her, and then I guessed he
  didn't truly believe me, but was using a lawyer's trick, attacking and
  hoping to take her off guard, and maybe get to the truth. But that would
  never work, not with her. She'd trained herself over too many years for
  anyone to take her by surprise.
  I strode forward to glare down at her, and in the harshest of voices I
  spoke. "Why don't you tell Bart

               415
 about Cory, Momma? Go on, tell him how you and your mother came in the
 night and wrapped him in a green blanket and told us you were taking him
 to a hospital. Tell him how you came back the next day and told us he died
 from pneumonia. Lies! All lies! Chris sneaked downstairs and overheard
 that butler, John Amos Jackson, telling a maid of how the grandmother
 carried arsenic up to the attic to kill the little mice. We were the
 little mice who ate those sugared doughnuts, Mother! And we proved those
 doughnuts were poisoned. Remember Cory's little pet mouse that you used
 to ignore? He was fed only a bit of sugared doughnut and he died! Now sit
 there and cry, and deny who I am, and who Chris is, and who Cory and
 Carrie used to be!"
  "I have never seen you before in my life," she said strongly, bolting
  upright and staring me straight in the eyes, "except when I went to the
  ballet in New York."
  Bart narrowed his eyes, weighing her, then me. Then he looked at his wife
  again and his eyes grew even more slotlike and cunning. "Cathy," he said,
  still looking at her, "you are making very serious allegations against
  my wife. You accuse her of murder, premeditated murder. If you are proven
  right, she will face a jury trial for murder-is that what you want?"
  "I want justice, that is all. No, I don't want to see her in prison or
  put in an electric chair-if they still do that in this state."
  "She is lying," whispered my mother, "lying, lying, lying."
  I had come prepared for accusations like this and calmly I pulled from
  my tiny purse duplicates of four birth certificates. I handed them to
  Bart who took them over to a lamp and bent to study them. Cruelly and
  with great satisfaction I smiled at my mother. "Dear mother, you were
  very foolish to sew those birth certificates in the lining of our old
  suitcases. Without them I wouldn't have had any proof at all to show your
  husband and, no doubt, he would go on believing you-for I am an actress
  and accustomed to putting on a good show.

               416
  "It's a pity he doesn't know you are an even better actress. Cringe away,
  Momma, but I have the proof!" I laughed wildly, near tears as I saw them
  begin to glisten in her eyes, for once I had loved her so well, and under
  all the hatred and animosity I felt for her, a little light of innate
  love still waxed and waned, and it hurt, oh, it did hurt to make her cry.
  Yet she deserved it, she did, I kept telling myself she did!
  "You know something else, Momma, Carrie told me how she met you on the
  street and you denied her, and shortly afterwards she became so ill she
  died-so you helped kill her too! And without the birth certificates you
  could have escaped all retribution, for that courthouse in Gladstone,
  Pennsylvania, burned down ten years ago. See how kind fate would have
  been to you, Mother? But you never did anything well. Why didn't you bum
  them? Why did you save them ... ? That was very thoughtless of you,
  dearest loving Mother, to save the evidence; but then you were always
  careless, always thoughtless, always extravagant about everything. You
  thought if you killed your four children you could have others-but your
  father tricked you, didn't he?"
  "Cathy! Sit down and let me handle this!" ordered Bart. "My wife has just
  undergone surgery and IT not have you threaten her health. Now sit before
  Ipush you down!"
 I sat.
 He glanced at my mother, then at her mother.
  "Corrine, if you have ever cared forme, loved me even a little-is any of
  what this woman says true? Is she your daughter?"
 Very weakly my mother answered, Yes."
  I sighed. I thought I heard the whole house sigh, and Bart along with it.
  I lifted my eyes to see my grandmother staring at me in the oddest way.
  "Yes," she continued flatly, her dull eyes fixed on Bart. "I couldn't
  tell you, Bart. I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn't want
  me if I came with four children and no money, and I loved and wanted you
  so much. I racked my brains trying to figure out a

               417
 solution so I could keep you, my children and the money too." She sat up
 and made a ramrod of her spine as her head lifted regally high. "And I did
 figure out a solution! I did! It took me weeks and weeks of scheming, but
 I did figure a way!"
  "Corrine," said Bart with ice in his voice as he towered above her,
  "murder is never a solution to anything! All you had to do was tell me,
  and I would have thought of a way to save your children and your
  inheritance."
  "But don't you see," she cried out excitedly, "I figured out a way all
  by myself! I wanted you; I wanted my children and the money too. I
  thought my father owed me that money!" She laughed hysterically, begin-
  ning to lose control again, as if hell was at her heels and she had to
  speak fast to escape its bum. "Everyone thought I was stupid, a blond
  with a pretty face and figure but no brains. Well, I fooled you, Mother,"
  she threw out at that old woman in the chair. And at a portrait on the
  wall she screamed, "And I fooled you too, Malcolm Foxworth!" Then at me
  she flared her eyes, "And you too, Catherine. You thought you had it so
  tough up there, locked away, missing out on schooldays and friends, but
  you don't realize how good you had it compared to what my father did to
  me! You, you and your accusations, always at me, when could I let you
  out? When down below my father was ordering me to do this, do that, for
  if you don't you won't inherit one penny and I'll tell your lover about
  your four children too!"
  I gasped. Then jumped to my feet. "He knew about us? The grandfather
  knew?"
  Again she laughed, hard, diamond-brittle laughter. "Yes, he knew, but I
  didn't tell him! The day Chris and I ran away from this horrible house
  he hired detectives to follow and keep tabs on us. Then, when my husband
  was killed in that accident, I was persuaded by my lawyer to seek their
  help. How my father rejoiced! Don't you see, Cathy," she said so fast her
  words piled one on the other, "he wanted me and my children in his house
  and under his thumb! He had it planned along

               418
 with my mother, to deceive me and let me think he didn't know you were
 hidden upstairs. But he knew all the time! It was his plan to keep you
 locked up for the rest of your livesl"
  I gasped and stared at her. I doubted her too; how could I trust anything
  she said now after she'd done so much? "The grandmother, she went along
  with his plan?" I asked, feeling a numbing sensation creeping up from my
  toes.
  "Her?" said Momma, tossing her mother a hard look of contempt. "She'd do
  anything he said, for she hated me; she's always hated me; he loved me
  too much when I was a girl, and cared nothing at all about his sons whom
  she favored more. And after we were here, snared in his trap, he gloated
  to have his half-brother's children captured as animals in a cage, to
  keep locked up until they were dead. So, while you were up there, playing
  your games and decorating the attic, he kept at me, day in, day out.
  'They should never have been bom, should theyT he'd slyly say, and
  cunningly suggest you would all be better off dead than kept prisoners
  until you grew old, or sickened and died. I didn't truly believe he meant
  this at first. I thought it was only another of his ways to torture me.
  Each day he'd say you were wicked, flawed, evil children who should be
  destroyed. I'd cry, plead, go down on my knees and beg, and he'd laugh.
  One evening he raged at me. 'You fool,' he said. 'Were you idiot enough
  to think I could ever forgive you for sleeping with your half-uncle-the
  ultimate sin against God? Bearing his childrenT And on and on he'd rave,
  screaming sometimes. Then he'd lash out with his walking cane, striking
  whatever he could reach. My mother would sit nearby and smirk with
  pleasure. Yet, he didn't let me know he knew you were up there for
  several weeks ... and by that time, I was trapped." She pleaded with me
  to believe, to have mercy. "Can't you see how it was? I didn't know which
  way to turn! I didn't have any money, and I kept thinking his terrible
  temper tantrums would kill him, so I provoked him so he would die-but he
  kept on living, and berating me and my

               419
 children. And every time I went into your room, you'd be pleading to be
 let out. Especially you, Cathyespecially you.
  "And what else did he do to make you keep us prisoners?" I asked
  sarcastically, "except scream and rail and hit you with his cane? It
  couldn't have been very hard, for he was very frail, and we never saw any
  marks on you after the first whipping. You were free to come and go as
  you wanted. You could have worked out some plan to slip us outside
  unknown to him. You wanted his money, and you didn't care what you had
  to do to get it! You wanted that money more than you wanted your four
  children!"
  Before my very eyes her delicate and lovely restored face took on the
  aged look of her mother. She seemed to shrivel and grow haggard with the
  countless years she had yet to live with her regrets. Her gaze took wild
  flight, seeking some safe refuge in which to forever hide, not only from
  me, but from the fury she saw in her husband's eyes.
  "Cathy," pleaded my mother, "I know you hate me, but--2'
 "Yes, Mother, I do hate you."
 "You wouldn't if you understood-"
  I laughed, hard and bitterly. "Dearest Mother, there is not one thing you
  could tell me to make me understand."
  "Corrine," said Bart, his tone sterile, as if his heart had been removed.
  "Your daughter is right. You can sit there and cry, and talk about your
  father forcing you to poison your children-but how can I believe when I
  can't remember him even giving you a hard glance? He looked at you with
  love and pride. You did come and go as you chose. Your father lavished
  money on you, so you could buy new clothes and everything else you
  wanted. Now you come up with some ridiculous tale of how you were
  tortured by him, and forced by him to kill your hidden children. God, you
  sicken me!"
  Her eyes took on a glassy stare; her pale and elegant hands trembled as
  the) unfolded and fluttered up from ner lap to her throat, and there they
  fingered over and

               420
 over again the diamond choker that must be keeping her gown from falling
 off. "Bart, please, I'm not lying.... I admit I've lied to you in the past,
 and deceived you about my children-but I'm not lying now. Why can't you
 believe me?"
  Bart stood with his feet spread apart, as a sailor would to brace himself
  on a rocky sea. FEs hands were behind his back and clenched into fists.
  "What kind of man do you think I am--or was?" he asked bitterly. "You could
  have told me anything then, and I would have understood. I loved you,
  Corrine. I would have done anything legally possible to thwart your father
  and help you gain his fortune, and at the same time keep your children
  alive, free to live normal lives. I'm not a monster, Corrine, and I didn't
  marry you for your money. I would have married you if you were penniless!"
  "You couldn't outwit my father!" she cried, jumping up and beginning to
  pace the floor.
  In that shiny crimson dress my mother appeared a bright lick of flame, a
  color that made her eyes dark purple as they darted from one to the other
  of us. Then, finally, when I couldn't stand to watch her as she was,
  broken, wild, with all her queenly poise gone, her eyes came to rest on her
  mother-that old woman who slumped in the wheelchair, as if without bones.
  Her gnarled fingers worked weakly at the afghan, but her gray zealot's eyes
  burned with a strong, mean fire. I watched as the eyes of mother and
  daughter clashed. Those gray eyes that never changed, never softened with
  old age or fear of the hell that must be lying in wait for her.
  And, to my surprise, from this confrontation my mother rose straight and
  tall, the winner in this battle of wills. She began to speak in a
  dispassionate way, as if discussing someone else. It was like hearing a
  woman talk who knew she was killing herself with each razored word, and yet
  she didn't care, not anymore-for I was the winner, after all, and to me,
  her most severe judge, she turned to appeal. "All right, Cathy. I knew
  sooner or later I would have to face up to you. I knew it

               421
 would be you who would force the truth from me. It has always been your way
 to look through me, and guess I wasn't always what I wanted you to believe
 I was. Christopher loved me, trusted me. But you never would. Yet in the
 beginning, at the time your father was killed, I was trying to do the best
 I could by you. I told you what I believed to be the truth, when I asked you
 to come and live here hidden away until I won back my father's favor. I
 didn't truly think it would take more than one day, or possibly two."
  I sat as frozen, staring at her. Her eyes pleaded mutely, have mercy,
  Cathy, believe me! I speak the truth.
  She turned from me, and in great distress she appealed to Bart and spoke of
  their first meeting in a friend's home. "I didn't want to love you, Bart,
  and involve you in the mess I was in. I wanted to tell you about my
  children and the threat my father posed to them, but just when I would he'd
  worsen and appear ready to die, so I'd put it off and keep quiet. I prayed
  that when eventually I did tell you, you'd understand. It was stupid of me,
  for a secret kept too long becomes impossible to explain. You wanted to
  marry me. My father kept saying no. My children pleaded every day to be let
  out. Even though I knew they had every right to complain, I began to resent
  them, the way they kept harassing me, making me feel guilty and ashamed
  when I was trying to do the best I could for them. And it was Cathy, always
  it was Cathy, no matter how many gifts I gave her, who kept at it the
  most." She threw me another of her long, tormented looks, as if I'd
  tortured her beyond endurance.
  "Cathy," she whispered then, her watery, drowning look of anguish
  brightening a little, as once more she turned to me. "I did do the best I
  could! I told my parents all of you did have hidden afflictions, especially
  Cory. They wanted to think God had punished my children, so they believed
  easily. And Cory was always having one cold after another, and his allergy.
  Can't you see what I tried to do, make all of you just a little sick, so I
  could rush you one by one to the hospital,

               422
 then report back to my mother you died. I used a minute bit of arsenic,
 but not enough to kill you! All I wanted to do was make you a little bit
 sick, just enough to get you out!"
  I was appalled by her stupidity to scheme in such a dangerous way. Then
  I guessed it was all a lie, just an excuse to satisfy Bart who was
  staring at her in the oddest way. I smiled at her then, while inside I
  was hurting so badly I could cry. "Momma," I said softly, interrupting
  her pleas, "have you forgotten your father was dead before the sugared
  doughnuts started coming? You didn't have to trick him in his grave."
  She darted her tormented eyes to the grandmother who had a stem,
  forbidding look fixed on her daughter.
  "Yes!" cried Momma, "I knew that! But for that codicil I would never have
  needed the arsenic! But my father let our butler John in on our secret,
  and he was alive to see that I followed through and kept you upstairs
  until each one of you was dead! And if he didn't, then my mother was to
  see he didn't inherit the fifty thousand dollars promised to him. Then
  there was my mother, who wanted John to inherit everything!"
  A terrible silence came while I tried to digest this. The grandfather
  knew all the time and had wanted to keep us prisoners for life? And as
  if that weren't enough punishment, he then tried to force her to kill us?
  Oh, he must have been even more evil than I thought! Not human at all!
  Then, as I watched her and took note of her anxiously waiting blue eyes,
  her hands busily trying to twist an invisible rope of pearls, I knew she
  was lying. I glanced at the grandmother and saw her frown as she tried
  to speak. Fierce indignation was in her eyes, as if she would deny all
  my mother had said. But she hated Momma. She would want me to believe the
  worst--oh, God, how was I to find out the truth?
  I glanced at Bart who stood before the fire, his dark eyes gazing at his
  wife as if he'd never seen her before, and what he was seeing now
  appalled him.
  "Momma," I began in a flat voice, "what did you really do with Cory's
  body? We have looked in all the cemeteries around here and checked their
  records, and

               423
 not one little boy of eight years died in that last week of October, 1960.
 "
  She swallowed first, then wrung her hands, flashing all the diamonds and
  other jewels. "I didn't know what to do with him," she whispered. "He
  died before I could reach the hospital. Suddenly he stopped breathing,
  and when I looked in the back seat I knew he was dead." She sobbed with
  the memory. "I hated myself then. I knew I could be charged with murder,
  and I hadn't meant to kill him! Only make him a little sick! So I threw
  his body in a deep ravine and covered him over with dead leaves, sticks
  and stones. . . ." Her huge desperate eyes pleaded with me to believe.
  I too had to swallow, thinking of Cory in a deep dark ravine, left to
  decay there. "No, Momma, you didn't do that." My soft voice seemed to cut
  through the frozen atmosphere of the huge library. "I visited the end
  room of the northern wing before I came down here." I paused for better
  effect and made my next words more dramatic. "Before I came down the
  stairs to confront you I first used stairs that lead directly to the
  attic, then the hidden little stairway in the closet of our prison. Chris
  and I always suspected there was another way into the attic, and
  correctly we reasoned there had to be a door hidden behind the giant
  heavy armoires we couldn't shove out of the way no matter how hard we
  pushed. Momma ... I found a small room we'd never seen before. There was
  a very peculiar odor in that room, like something dead and rotten."
  For a moment she couldn't move. Her expression went totally blank. She
  stared at me with vacant eyes and then her mouth and her hands began to
  work, but she couldn't speak. She tried, but she couldn't speak. Bart
  started to say something, but she put her hands up to her ears to shut
  out anything anyone would say.
  Suddenly the library door opened. I whirled in a fury.
  My mother turned as in a nightmare to see why I kept staring. Chris
  pulled up short and gazed at her. She jumped then, as if terribly
  startled, then put up both her hands in a gesture that seemed to ward him
  off.

               424
 Was she seeing a ghost of our father? "Chris ... T' she asked. "Chris, I
 didn't mean to do it, really I didn't! Don't look at me like that, Chris!
 I loved them! I didn't want to give them the arsenic-but my father made
 me! He told me they should never have been born! He tried to tell me they
 were so evil they deserved to die, and that was the only way I could make
 amends for the sin I'd committed when I married you!" T~ars streamed her
 cheeks as she went on, though Chris kept shaking his head. "I loved my
 children! Our children! But what could I do? I only meant to make them a
 little sick-just enough to save them, that's all, that's all.... Chris,
 don't look at me like that! You know I wouldn't ever kill our children!"
  His eyes turned icy blue as he stared at her. "Then you did deliberately
  feed us arsenic?" he asked. "I never fully believed it once we were free
  of this house and had time to think about it. But you did do it!"
  She screamed then. In all my life I'd never heard such a scream as that
  one that rose and fell hysterically. Screams that sounded like the howls
  of the insane! On her heel she whirled about, still screaming, as she
  raced for a door I hadn't even known was there, and through it she ran
  and disappeared.
  "Cathy," said Chris, tearing his eyes from the door and scanning the
  library to take note of Bart and the grandmother, "I've come to fetch
  you. I've had bad news. We have to go back to Clairmont immediately!"
  Before I could answer Bart spoke up, "Are you Cathy's older brother,
  Chris?"
  "Yes, of course. I came for Cathy. She's needed someplace else." He
  stretched out his hand as I drifted toward him.
  "Wait a minute," said Bart. "I need to ask you a few questions. I've got
  to know the full truth. Was that woman in the red dress your mother?"
  First Chris looked at me. I nodded to tell him Bart knew, and only then
  did Chris meet Bart's eyes with some hostility. "Yes, she is my mother
  and Cathy's mother, and once the mother of twins named Cory and Carrie.

               425
  "And she kept all four of you locked up in one room for more than three
  years?" asked Bart, as if he still didn't want to believe.
  "Yes, three years and four months and sixteen days. And when she took
  Cory away one night she came back later and told us he died of pneumonia.
  And if you want more details, you will have to wait, for there are others
  we have to think about now. Come, Cathy," he said, reaching for my hand
  again. "We've got to hurry!" He looked then at the grandmother and gave
  her a wry smile. "Merry Christmas, Grandmother. I had hoped never to see
  you again, but now that I have I see time has worked its own revenge."
  He turned again to me. "Hurry, Cathy, where is your coat? I have Jory and
  Mrs. Lindstrom out in my car."
  "Why?" I asked. Sudden panic filled me. What was the matter?
  "No!" objected Bart. "Cathy can't leave! She's expecting my child and I
  want her here with me!"
  Bart came to take me in his arms and tenderly he gazed with love at my
  face. "You have lifted the blinders from my eyes, Cathy. You were right.
  Certainly I was meant for better things than this. Perhaps I can still
  redeem my existence by doing something useful for a change."
  I threw the grandmother a look of triumph and avoided looking directly
  at Chris, and with Bart's arm about my shoulders we left the library and
  the grandmother and strode through all the other rooms until we reached
  the grand foyer.
  Bedlam had broken loose! Everyone was screaming, running, searching to
  find a wife or a husband. Smoke! I smelled smoke.
  "My God, the house is on fire!" Bart cried. He shoved me toward Chris.
  "Take her outside and keep her safe! I've got to find my wife!" He looked
  wildly about, calling, "Corrine, Corrine, where are you?"
  The milling throng were all headed for the same exit. From the stairs
  above black smoke billowed down. Women fell and people stepped over them.
  The merry guests of the party were hell-bent now on getting out,

               426
 and woe to those who didn't have the strength to fight their way to the
 door. Frantically I tried to follow Bart with my eyes. I saw him pick up
 a telephone, no doubt to call the fire department, and then he was racing
 up the right side of the dual staircase and into the very heart of the
 fire! "No!" I screamed. "Bart--don't go up there! You'll be killed!
 Bart-don't! Come back!"
  I think he must have heard me, for he hesitated midway up and smiled back
  at me as I was frantically waving. He mouthed the words I love you-and
  then pointed toward the east. I didn't understand what he meant. But
  Chris took it that he was telling us of another way out.
  Coughing and choking, Chris and I sped through another parlor, and
  finally I had the chance to see the grand dining room-but it was full of
  smoke too! "Look," cried Chris, pulling me on, "there are French
  doors-the fools, there must be a dozen or more exits on the first floor,
  and everyone rushes for the front door!"
  We made it outside and finally over to the car I recognized as Chris',
  and there Emma held Jory in her arms as she stared at the great house
  that was burning. Chris reached inside and pulled out a car robe to throw
  over my shoulders, and then he held to me as I leaned against him and
  sobbed for Bart-where was he? Why didn't he come out?
  I heard the wail of fire engines winding around the hills, screaming in
  the night that was already wild with the wind and the snow. The snow that
  fell above the house on fire was speckled red dots that sizzled as they
  met the flames. Jory put out his arms, wanting me, and I held him close
  as Chris put his arms about me and held us both. "Don't worry, Cathy,"
  he tried to comfort, "Bart must know all the ways to get out."
  Then I saw my mother in her red flame dress, being restrained by two men.
  She screamed on and on, crying out her husband's name-and then that of
  the grandmother. "My mother! She's in there! She can't move!"
  Bart was on the front steps when he heard her voice. He whirled about and
  sped back into the house. Oh,

               427
 my God! He was going back to save the grandmother who didn't deserve to
 live! Risking his life--doing what he had to to prove, after all, he
 wasn't just a lap dog.
  This was the fire of my childhood nightmares! This was what I'd always
  feared more than anything! This was the reason I'd insisted we make the
  rope ladder of torn-up sheets so we could escape and reach the
  ground-just in case.
  It was more than horrible to watch that mammoth house bum when once I
  would have been glad to see it go. The wind blew relentlessly and whipped
  the flames higher, higher until they lit up the night and fired the
  heavens. How easily old wood burned along with the antique furnishings,
  the priceless heirlooms that could never be replaced. If anything
  survived, despite what those heroic firemen did who raced about like
  crazy, connecting up hoses that squirted forth foam, it would be a
  miracle! Someone screamed, "People are trapped inside! Get them out!" I
  think it was me. 'ne firemen worked with superhuman speed and agility to
  get them out while I cried wild and frantic. "Bart! I didn't want to kill
  you! I only wanted you to love me, that's all. Bart, don't die, please
  don't die!" My mother heard and she came running to where Chris was
  holding me tight in his arms.
  "You!" she screamed, her distraught expression that of the insane, "You
  think Bart loved you? That he would marry you? You are a fool! You
  betrayed me! As you've always betrayed me, and now Bart will die because
  of you!"
  "No, Mother," said Chris who tightened his arms about me, and his tone
  was that of ice, "it wasn't Cathy who cried out to remind your husband
  your mother was still inside. You did that. You must have seen he
  couldn't go back in that house and live. Perhaps you would rather see
  your husband dead than married to your daughter."
  She stared at him. Her hands worked nervously. Her cerulean blue eyes
  were darkly shadowed by the pools of black mascara. And as I watched and
  Chris watched something in her eyes broke--some minute thing that

               428
 had lent clarity and intelligence to the eyes dissolved and she seemed to
 shrink. "Christopher my son, my love, I'm your mother. Don't you love me
 anymore, Christopher? Why? Don't I bring you everything you need and ask
 for? New encyclopedias, games and clothes? What is it you lack? Tell me, so
 I can go out and buy it for you, please tell me what you want. I'll do
 anything, bring you anything to make up for what you're losing. A
 thousandfold over you will be rewarded when my father dies, and he will die
 any day, any hour, any second, I know! I swear you won't have to be up here
 much longer! No, not much longer, not much longer, not much longer." And on
 and on until I could have screamed. Instead I put my hands over my ears and
 pressed my face against Chris's broad chest.
  He made some signal to one of the ambulance drivers, and warily they
  approached our mother who saw them, shrieked and then tried to run. I saw
  her stumble and fall, her heel caught in the long hem of her flaming red,
  glittering gown, and on the snow she fell flat, kicking, screaming and
  pounding her fists.
  They took her away in a straightjacket, still screaming of how I had
  betrayed her, while Chris and I clung to one another and watched with wide
  eyes. We felt like children again, helpless with the fresh grief and shame
  we bore. I followed him about while he did what he could for those who had
  been burned. I only got in his way, but I couldn't let him out of my sight.
  The body of Bart Winslow was found on the floor of the library with the
  skeletal grandmother still clutched in his arms-both suffocated by the
  smoke and not the flames. I stumbled over to fold down the green blanket
  and stared into his face to convince myself death had come again into my
  life. Again and again it kept coming! I kissed him, cried on his unyielding
  chest. I raised my head and he was looking straight at me-and through
  me-gone on to where I could never reach him and confess that I had loved
  him from the start-fifteen years ago.
  "Cathy, please," said Chris, tugging me away. I sobbed when Bart's hand
  slipped from my grasp. "We

               429
 have to go! There's no reason for us to stay on now that it is all over."
 All over, all over-it was all over.
  My eyes followed the ambulance with Bart's body inside, and my
  grandmother too. I didn't grieve for her-for she had got out of life what
  she put in.
  I turned to Chris and cried again in his arms, for who would live long
  enough to let me keep the love I had to have? Who?

  Hours and hours passed while Chris pleaded with me to leave this place
  that had brought us nothing but unhappiness and sorrow. Why hadn't I
  remembered that? Sadly I leaned to pick bits and pieces of craft paper
  that once had been orange and purple, and other pieces of our attic
  decorations blew on the wind, tom petals, jagged leaves, ripped from
  their stems.
  It was dawn before the fire was brought under control. By that time the
  mammoth greatness that had once been Foxworth Hall was only a smoldering
  ruin. The eight chimneys still stood on the sturdy brick foundation, and,
  oddly enough, the dual winding staircases that curved up into nowhere
  still remained.
  Chris was eager to depart, but I had to sit and watch until the last wisp
  of smoke was blown away and became part of the wind called nevermore. It
  was my salute, the final one to Bartholomew Winslow whom I'd first seen
  at the age of twelve. On first sight I'd given my heart to him. So much
  so that I had to have Paul grow a mustache so he'd look more like Bart.
  And I'd married Julian because his eyes were dark, dark like Bart's....
  Oh, God, how could I live with the knowledge I had killed the one man I'd
  loved best?
  "Please, please Cathy, the grandmother is gone and I can't say I'm sorry,
  though I am about Bart. It must have been our mother who started the
  fire. From what the police say, it began in that attic room at the top
  of the stairs. "
  His voice came to me as from a far distance, for I was locked up in a
  shell of my own making. I shook my head and tried to clear it. Who was
  I? Who was that

               430
 man next to me-who was the little boy in the back seat asleep in the arms
 of an older woman?
  "What's the matter with you, Cathy?" Chris said impatiently. "Listen,
  Henny had a massive stroke tonight! In trying to help her Paul suffered
  a heart attack! He needs us! Are you going to sit here all day too and
  grieve for a man you should have left alone, and let the one man who has
  done the most for us die?"
  The grandmother had said a few things so right. I was evil, born unholy.
  Everything was my fault! All my fault! If I'd never come, if I'd never
  come, on and on I kept saying this to myself as I cried bitter tears for
  the loss of Bart.

 Reaping the Harvest

 It was autumn again, that passionate month of October. The trees this year
 were ablaze from the touch of early frost. I was on the back veranda of
 Paul's big white house, shelling peas and watching Bart's small son chase
 after his older half-brother Jory. We'd named Bart's son after him,
 thinking it only right, but his last name was Sheffield, not Winslow. I
 was now Paul's wife.
  In a few months Jory would be seven years old, and though at first he'd
  been a bit jealous he was now delighted to have a younger brother to
  share his life-someone he could boss, instruct and patronize. However
  young, Bart was not the kind to take orders. He was his own person, right
  from the beginning.
  "Catherine," called Paul's weak voice. I put the bowl of green peas
  quickly aside and hurried to his bedroom on the first floor. He was able
  to sit up in a chair for a few hours a day now, though on our wedding
  day, he'd

               431
 been in bed. On our wedding night he'd slept in my arms, and that was all.
  Paul had lost a great deal of weight; he looked gaunt. All his youth and
  vitality, held on to so valiantly, had disappeared almost overnight. Yet
  he'd never moved me more than when he smiled at me and held out his arms.
  "I just called to see if you'd come. I ordered you to get out of this house
  for a change."
  "You're talking too much," I cautioned. "You know you aren't supposed to
  talk but a little." This was a sore point with him, to only listen and not
  join in, but he tried to accept it. His next words took me by complete
  surprise. I could only stare at him, mouth agape and eyes wide. "Paul, you
  don't mean that!"
  Solemnly he nodded, his still beautiful iridescent eyes holding mine.
  "Catherine, my love, it's been almost three years that you have been a
  slave to me, doing your best to make my last days happy. But I'm never
  going to get well. I could live on like this for years and years, like your
  grandfather did, while you grow older and older, and miss out on the best
  years of your life."
  "I'm not missing out on anything," I said with a sob in my throat.
  He smiled at me gently and held out his arms, and gladly I went to cuddle
  on his lap, though his arms about me no longer felt strong. He kissed me,
  and I held my breath. Oh, to be loved again ... but I wouldn't let him, I
  wouldn't!
  "Think about it, my darling. Your children need a father, the kind of
  father I can't be now."
  "It's my fauft!" I cried. "If I had married you years ago, instead of
  Julian, I could have kept you well, and forced you not to work so hard and
  drive yourself night and day. Paul, if we three hadn't come into your life,
  you wouldn't have had to earn so much money, enough to send Chris through
  college and me to ballet classes. . . . "
  He put his hand over my mouth, and told me but for us, he would have died
  years ago from overwork. "Three years, Catherine," he said again. "And when
  you think about it, you will realize you are very much a

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 prisoner, just as when you were in Fbxworth Hall, waiting for your
 grandfather to die. I don't want you and Chris to grow to hate me ... so
 think about it, and talk to him about it-and then decide."
  "Paul, Chris is a doctor! You know he wouldn't agree!"
  "Time is running out, Catherine, not only for me, but for you and Chris
  too. Soon Jory will be seven years old. He will be remembering everything
  more clearly. He will know Chris is his uncle, but if you leave now and
  forget about me, he will consider Chris his stepfather, not his uncle."
 I sobbed. "No! Chris would never agree."
  "Catherine, listen to me. It wouldn't be evil! You are now unable to have
  more children. Though I was terribly sorry you had such a difficult time
  giving birth to your last son, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I'm
  impotent; I'm not a real husband, and soon you will be a widow again. And
  Chris has waited for so long. Can't you think about him, and forget the
  sin?"

  And so, like Momma, we'd written our scripts too, Chris and 1. And maybe
  ours were no better than hers, though I'd never plotted to kill anyone,
  nor had I meant to drive her over the brink of insanity so the rest of
  her life she'd live in a "convalescent" home. And the irony of ironies,
  when all that she'd inherited from her father had been taken away, it had
  reverted to her mother. The grandmother's will had been read and her
  entire fortune, plus the remains of Foxworth Hall, now belonged to a
  woman who could only sit in a mental institution and stare at four walls.
  Oh, Momma, if only you could have looked into the future when first you
  considered taking your four children back to Foxworth Hall! Cursed with
  millions-and unable to spend a cent. Nor would one penny come to us. When
  our mother died, it would be distributed to different charities.

  In the spring of the following year we sat near the river water where
  Julia had led Scotty, then held him

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 under so he drowned in the shallow, greenish water where my own two small
 sons sailed small boats and waded in water that only reached their ankles.
  "Chris," I began falteringly, embarrassed, and yet happy too, "Paul made
  love to me last night for the first time. We were both so happy, we cried.
  It was safe enough, wasn't it?"
  He bowed his head to hide his expression, and the sun blazed his golden
  hair. "I'm happy for the both of you. Yes, sex is safe enough now, as long
  as you don't work him up to a great pitch of excitement."
  "We took it easy. " After four severe heart attacks, it had to be easy sex.
 "Good."
  Jory shrieked out then he'd caught a fish. Was it too small? Would he have
  to throw back another? "Yes," called Chris, "that's just a baby. We don't
  eat baby fish, only the big ones."
  "Come," I called, "let's head for home and dinner." They came running and
  laughing, my two sons, both so much alike they appeared whole brothers, and
  not halfs. And as yet we hadn't told them any different. Jory hadn't asked,
  and Bart was too young to question. But when they did, we would tell them
  the truth, as difficult as it was.
  "We've got two daddies," cried Jory, flinging himself into Chris's arms as
  I picked up Bart. "Nobody at school but me has two daddies and they don't
  understand when I tell them ... but maybe I don't tell it right."
  "lvm sure you don't tell it right," said Chris with a small smile.
  In Chris's new blue car we drove home to the big white house that had given
  us so much. As we had the first time we came, we saw a man on the front
  veranda with his white shoes propped up on the balustrade. As Chris took my
  sons into the house I went over to Paul and smiled to see him dozing with
  a pleased smile upon his face. The newspaper he'd been reading had slipped
  from his slack hand to fan on the veranda floor. "I'll go in and bathe the
  boys," whispered Chris, "and you can

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 pick up the newspapers before the wind blows them onto our neighbors'
 lawns."
  As quietly as you can try to pick up papers and fold them neatly, somehow
  they will crackle and rustle, and soon Paul half-opened his eyes and smiled
  at me. "Hi," he said sleepily. "Did you have a good day? Catch anything?"
  "T'wo small fish bit on Jory's line, but he had to throw them back. What
  were you dreaming before you woke?" I asked, leaning to kiss him. "You
  looked so happy-was it a sexy dream?"
  Again he smiled, sort of wistfully. "I was dreaming of Julia," he said.
  "She had Scotty with her, and they were both smiling at me. You know, she
  very seldom smiled at me after we married."
  "Poor Julia," I said, kissing him again. "She missed out on so much. I
  promise my smiles will make up for all she didn't give."
  "They already have." He reached to touch my cheek and stroked my hair. "It
  was my lucky day when you climbed my veranda steps on that Sunday. . . . "
  "That damned Sunday," I corrected. He smiled. "Give me ten minutes more
  before you call me in to dinner. I'd like to get hold of that bus driver
  and tell him no Sundays are damned when you are on the bus."
  I went in to help Chris with the boys, and while he buttoned up Jory's pj's
  I helped Bart Scott Winslow Sheffield with his yellow pajamas. We ate
  early, so we could dine with our children.
  Soon the ten minutes were up and again I went to waken Paul. Three times I
  said his name softly and stroked his cheek gently, then blew in his ear.
  Still he slept on. I started to say his name again, and louder, when he
  made some small sound that sounded like my name. I looked, already
  trembling and afraid. Just the strangeness of the way he said that filled
  me with a terrible dread.
  "Chris," I called weakly, "come quick and look at Paul."
  He must have been in the hall, sent by Emma to see what was taking us so
  long, for he stepped out of the

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 door immediately, then ran to Paul's side. He seized up his hand and felt
 for his pulse, and then in another second he was pulling his head back and
 holding his nose and breathing into his mouth. When that didn't work he
 struck him several times very hard on his chest. I ran into the house and
 called an ambulance.
  But, of course, none of it did any good. Our benefactor, our savior, my
  husband was dead. Chris put his arm about my shoulder and drew me to his
  chest. "He's gone, Cathy, the way I would like to go, in my sleep,
  feeling well and happy. It's a good way for a good man to die, with no
  pain and no suffering--so don't look like that, it's not your fault!"

  Nothing was ever my fault. Behind me lay a trail of dead men. But I
  wasn't responsible for the death of even one, was I? No, of course not.
  It was a wonder Chris had the nerve to climb in the car and sit beside
  me, heading his car west. Behind us, we trailed a U-Haul with all our
  worldly goods inside. Going west like the pioneers to seek a new future
  and find different kinds of lives. Paul had left everything he owned to
  me, including his family home. Though his will had stated, if I decided
  to sell, he wanted Amanda to have the final bid.
  So at last Paul's sister had their ancestorial home she had always wanted
  and schemed to get-but I made sure it was at a steep price.
  Chris and I rented a home in California until we could have a
  custom-designed ranchhouse built to our specifications, with four
  bedrooms and two and a half baths. Plus we had another bath and bedroom
  for our maid, Emma Lindstrom. My sons call my brother Daddy. They both
  know they have other fathers who went on to heaven before they were born.
  So far, they don't realize Chris is only their uncle. A long time ago
  Jory forgot that. Maybe children too forget when they want to, and ask
  no questions that would be embarrassing to answer.
  At least once a year we travel east to visit friends, including Madame
  Marisha and Madame Zolta. Both

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 make a great to-do about the dancing abilities of Jory, and both try with
 fervent zeal to make Bart a dancer too. But so far, he doesn't have the
 inclination to be anything but a doctor. We visit all the graves of our
 beloved ones, and put flowers there. Always red and purple ones for Carrie,
 and roses of any color for Paul and Henny. We have even sought out our
 father's grave in Gladstone, and paid our respects to him too with flowers.
 And Julian is never overlooked, or Georges.
 Last of all, we visit Momma.
  She lives in a huge place that tries unsuccessfully to look homey. Usually
  she screams when she sees me. Then she jumps up and tries to tear the hair
  from my head. When she is restrained, she turns the hatred upon herself,
  trying time after time to mutilate her face, and free herself forever of
  any resemblance to me. Just as if she no longer looked in the mirrors that
  would tell her we no longer look alike. Remorse has made of her something
  terrible to see. And once she'd been so very beautiful. Her doctors allow
  only Chris to visit with her an hour or so, while I wait outside with my
  two sons. He reports back that if she recovers, she won't be faced with a
  murder charge, for both Chris and I have disclaimed there ever was a fourth
  child named Cory. She doesn't fully trust Chris, sensing he is under my
  evil influence, and if she lets go her facade of being insane, she will end
  up with a death penalty. So year after year passes as she clings to her
  calculated fallacy as a way to escape also the future with no one who
  really cares for her. Or perhaps, more truly, she seeks to torment me
  through Chris and the pity he insists on feeling for her. She is the one
  issue that keeps our relationship from being perfect.
  So, the dreams of perfection, of fame, of fortune, of undying, ever-abiding
  love without one single flaw, like the toys and games of yesteryears, and
  all other youthful fantasies I have outgrown, I have put away.
  Often I look at Chris, and wonder just what it is he sees in me. What is it
  that binds him to me in such a permanent way? I wonder too why he isn't
  afraid for his future and the length of it, since I am better at keeping

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 pets alive than husbands. But he comes home jauntily, wearing a happy grin,
 as he strides into my welcoming arms that respond quickly to his greeting,
 "Come greet me with kisses if you love me."
  His medical practice is large, but not too large, so he has time to work in
  our four acres of gardens with the marble statues we brought along from
  Paul's gardens. As much as possible we have duplicated what he had, except
  for the Spanish moss that clings, and clings, and then kills.
  Emma Lindstrom, our cook, our housekeeper, friend, lives with us as Henny
  lived with Paul. She never asks questions. She has no family but us, and to
  us she is faithful, and our business is our own.
  Pragmatic, blithe, the eternal, cockeyed optimist, Chris sings when he
  works in the gardens. When he shaves in the mornings he hums some ballet
  tune, feeling no trepidations, no regrets, as if long, long ago he had been
  the man who danced in the shadows of the attic and had never, never let me
  see his face. Did he know all along that just as he had won over me in all
  other games it would be him in the end?
 Why hadn't I known?
 Who had shut my eyes?
  It must have been Momma who told me once, "Marry a man with dark, dark
  eyes, Cathy. Dark eyes feel so terribly intense about everything." What a
  laugh! As if blue eyes lacked some profound steadfastness; she should have
  known better.
  I should know better too. It worries me because I went yesterday into our
  attic. In a little alcove to the side, I found two single-size beds, long
  enough for two small boys to grow into men.
  Oh, my God! I thought, who did this? I would never lock away my two sons,
  even if Jory did remember one day that Chris was not his stepfather but his
  uncle. I wouldn't even if he did tell Bart, our youngest. I could face the
  shame, the embarrassment, and the publicity that would ruin Chris
  professionally. Yet ... yet, today I bought a picnic hamper, the kind with
  the double lids that open up from the center; the very same

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 kind of hamper the grandmother had used to bring us food.
  So, I go uneasily to bed and lie there awake, fearing the worst in
  myself, and struggling to keep firm hold of the best. It seems, as I turn
  over, and snuggle closer to the man I love, that I can hear the cold wind
  blowing from the blue-misted mountains so far away.
  It's the past that I can never forget, that shadows all my days, and
  hides furtively in the corners when Chris is home. I do make an effort
  to be like he is, always optimistic, when I am not at all the kind who
  can forget the tarnish on the reverse side of the brightest coin.
  But ... I am not like her! I may look like her, but inside I am
  honorable! I am stronger, more determined. The best in me will win out
  in the end. I know it will. It has to sometimes ... doesn't it?

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