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We went to bed early, because we got up early. And the longer you could stay asleep, the shorter were the days.
She looked so vibrantly healthy, so unbelievably happy, while we wilted and felt half-sick from the oppressive heat of this room.
What right did she have to be enjoying herself when we were locked away, and kept from doing the youthful things that were our right?
It was a cozy, homey scene, the three of them in her chair, with Chris perched on the arm, his face close to his mother’s. Then I had to go and spoil it all, as was my hateful way.
I see again the shadows in the attic that blended so well with the shadows in my mind, and I hear again the unspoken, unanswered questions of Why? When? How much longer?
Why was it I never realized when I was able to run wild and free that I was experiencing happiness? Why did I think back then, that happiness was always just ahead in the future, when I would be an adult, able to make my own decisions, go my own way, be my own person?
Cathy, let’s not waste one minute! Let’s prepare ourselves for the day we get out. If you don’t set your goals firmly in mind, and strive always to reach them, then you never do.
Run, run, run for the stairs. Fly, fly, fly down the steep and narrow wooden steps, daring fate to make you fall. Break a leg, a neck, put you in a coffin dead. Make everybody sorry then; make them cry for the dancer I should have been.
Dancing to beautiful music took me out of myself, and made me forget momentarily that life was passing us by.
He would never let anyone force him to do anything that didn’t fit his image of himself, and in a way I liked him for being what he was, strong, resolute, determined to be his own person, even if his kind of person had long ago gone out of style.
Before I accepted his diamond engagement ring, I’d sit him down to play games, and if I won time and again, I’d smile, shake my head, and tell him to take his ring back to the store.
And as I did this, I grew older. Ten years I aged in ten minutes. I glanced over at Chris as he sat down to eat his lunch, and saw that he, too, had changed.
“The Bible says there is a time for everything,” whispered Chris so as not to awaken the twins, “a time to be born, a time to plant, a time to harvest, a time to die, and so on, and this is our time to sacrifice. Later on will come our time to live and enjoy.”
And all the while we heard the wind blowing through the hills. It scraped the skeleton tree branches, and squeaked the house, and whispered of death and dying, and in the cracks and crevices it howled, moaned, sobbed, and sought in all ways to make us aware we weren’t safe.
“Does fresh air and sunshine come in capsules?” I asked, perching on a nearby bed, and glaring hard at a mother who refused to see what was wrong.
How beautiful we’d be in our magnificent clothes, with our stylish manners, and soft, eloquent voices that told the world we were somebodies . . . somebodies who were special . . . loved, wanted, needed somebodies.
I should learn at some time in my life how to act my age, and hold onto my poise, and not be a stick of dynamite always ready to explode.
I sighed, though, for I would so much like to be the eternal optimist, like him. Deep down I thought life was sure to always put me between Scylla and Charibdis, and give to me always Hobson’s Choice.
I had to learn to smile and never frown, and not be the genuine clairvoyant I was.
And, oh, I was scared, like everything trusted and dependable was torn from beneath our feet—and only toys, games, and other gifts were left.
I believe, though I’m not sure, once you are an adult, and come back to the home of your parents to live, for some odd reason, you’re reduced to being a child again, and dependent.
Momma! Her blond hair flowed as silken, streaming ribbons, writhing forward on the floor to snare us both like snakes! Slithering coils of her hair twined up and around our legs, to creep nearer our throats . . . trying to strangle us into silence . . . no threat to her inheritance then!
I was sunken deep in dreams, in nightmarish dreams. I ran wild into the dark, and into a pool of blood I fell.
For hours on end we slept. Asleep you don’t feel pain or hunger, or loneliness, or bitterness. In sleep you can drown in false euphoria, and when you awaken, you just don’t care about anything.
Your trouble is, Cathy, you have too many talents; you want to be everything, and that’s not possible.”
We didn’t do very much but walk and run on the ground, and swim for a short while, but I feel more alive and more hopeful.”
I lay and stared up at the ceiling that was my dancing floor, and I mulled life and love over and over. And from every book I’d ever read, I took one wise bead of philosophy and strung them all into a rosary to believe in for the rest of my life.
And only too plainly could you see we had not a gourmet mouse, but a gourmand who wanted what was in both pockets at the same time.
RATATOUILLE
And though I wanted to deny her, keep her from ever really being close again, I faltered, filling with hope, wanting so much to love her again, and trust her again.
“So, you have come back bearing peace offerings, like you always do when you know you have done wrong. Why do you keep thinking your stupid gifts can make up for what we’ve lost, and what we are constantly losing?
“I love you,” was his reply. “I make myself keep on loving you, despite what you do. I’ve got to love you. We all have to love you, and believe in you, and think you are looking out for our best interests. But look at us, Momma, and really see us.
You come to us smiling, and dangle before our eyes and our ears bright hopes for the future, but nothing ever materializes.
I felt sorry for her, and I felt betrayed by my own compassion.
Hadn’t she told us from the very beginning that our grandfather was taking his last breath . . . years and years of his breathing his last breath? Should I yell out, Momma, we just don’t believe you anymore?
And what do you do? You attack me viciously, unjustly! Making me feel so guilty, and so ashamed, when all along I have done the best I could, and yet you won’t believe!”
What good were pretty clothes when no one ever saw them? I wanted things that didn’t come wrapped in fancy paper, and tied around with satin ribbons, and put in a box from an expensive store. I wanted all the things money couldn’t buy.
Why didn’t he know, as I did, that we weren’t as real to her now as once we’d been? We were another of those unpleasant subjects that people don’t like to talk about, like mice in the attic.
I lay on my back and stared up at that unseeing, uncaring sky. I doubted God lived up there; I doubted heaven was up there, too. God and heaven were down there on the ground, in the gardens, in the forests, in the parks, on the seashores, on the lakes, and riding the highways, going somewhere!
I had grown older, and had lost enthusiasm for childish delights. I wanted what every teen-ager wants—freedom to develop into a woman, freedom to have full control over my life!
Well, keep on hiding from yourself, and you’ll find all those truths turn into acid to eat up your insides!”
Hadn’t we already cried an ocean of tears? And they hadn’t helped. Hadn’t we already said a zillion prayers and waited for deliverance that never came? And if tears didn’t work, and prayers weren’t heard, how were we to reach God and make him do something?
We were, as she had told us she had learned to be with her father, her dutiful, obedient, and passive children. And, what’s more, she liked us this way. We were again, her sweet, her loving, her private “darlings.”
our dead father—our blond and blue-eyed Grecian god father
Sups weird
And I didn’t know if I should speak, or stay silent. At least when you were silent, you didn’t make any new enemies.
“And when I fall in love,” I began, “I will build a mountain to touch the sky. Then, my lover and I will have the best of both worlds, reality firmly under our feet, while we have our heads in the clouds with all our illusions still intact.
It seemed in all the fairy tales I’d read, the damsels in distress always had long, long blond hair. Had any brunette ever been locked away in a turret—if an attic could be considered a turret?
Nature’s voices were the only ones to reach us in the attic, and so seldom did nature speak in friendly, soft tones.
Death wasn’t the only thing that took away someone you loved and needed; I knew that now.
It was the eyes. The secret of love was in the eyes, the way one person looked at another, the way eyes communicated and spoke when the lips never moved.
Singing happy songs for several hours had convinced us all that sun, love, home and happiness were just around the bend, and our long days of traveling through a deep dark forest were almost over.
