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As the grandmother predicted, the twins recovered. Not in nine days . . . in nineteen days. Only bed rest, aspirins, and fluids did the trick—no prescriptions from a doctor to help them back to health more quickly.
Didn’t he see our mother wasn’t the same anymore? Didn’t he notice she no longer came every day? Was he so gullible he believed everything she said, every excuse she made?
“Santa would never overlook children deliberately,” he said, “and besides, he knew you were here. I made sure he knew, for I sat down and wrote him one very long letter, and gave him our address, and I made out a list of things we wanted that was three feet long.” How funny, I thought. For the list of what all four of us wanted was so short and simple. We wanted outside. We wanted our freedom.
I was ashamed and full of contrition for everything mean and ugly I’d thought. That’s what came from wanting everything, and at once, and having no patience, and no faith.
We tried. She never tries.”
Secrets? And he said I was given to exaggerations! What was the matter with him? Didn’t he know that we were the secrets?
“I always thought when you were an adult you knew how to handle any situation. You were never in doubt as to what is wrong, and what is right. I never guessed adults floundered around, too, just like us.”
It made me feel sick, too. Momma was only a widow of eight months then. But, sometimes eight months can feel more like eight years, and, after all, of what value was the past when the present was so thrilling, and pleasing
Prettiness was more akin to coziness than grand, rich, and beautiful, plus huge.
In the dark, the little live Christmas tree, two feet tall, sparkled with tiny colored lights, like the tears I saw glistening in my brother’s eyes.
The TV shaped us, molded us, taught us how to spell and pronounce difficult words.
We learned love was just like a soap bubble, so shining and bright one day, and the next day it popped.
I floundered, wanting very much to be a grown woman, with all the curves she had, and yet I wasn’t prepared for the shock of such messiness—and once each month!
I don’t think anything about the human body and the way it functions is disgusting or revolting.
I knew it was wrong to wish him dead, but his death meant our salvation.
I hummed as I made the beds, and waited for the news to come that our grandfather was on his way to heaven if his gold counted, and to hell if the Devil couldn’t be bribed.
Whenever she looked at me, it was at some particular place. She didn’t see me as a whole person, but in sections that seemed to arouse her anger . . . and she would destroy whatever made her angry!
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.”
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.
“does money make the world go around, or is it love? Enough love bestowed on the twins, and I would have read six or seven or maybe eight inches gain in height, not only two.”
She looked at Chris, and ignored me. And the twins—they could have been in Timbuktu for all the concern she showed for their welfare, and their sensitivities.
So she had come and gone and left Carrie and Cory untouched, unkissed, unspoken to, and hardly glanced at. And I knew why. She couldn’t bear to look and see what gaining a fortune was costing the twins.
With gifts she paid us for all those long empty months when we were left in the care of the witch grandmother who would quite willingly see us dead and buried.
With games and toys and puzzles, she sought to buy us off, and beg our forgiveness for doing what she knew in her heart was wrong.
On the banjo it sounded right, as it should. God blessed Cory with magic fingers.
God blessed me with mean thoughts to take the joy from everything. 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. Had she noticed my hair cut so short on top? Had she seen how thin we were? Did she think we looked healthy with our pale, thin skins?
Why couldn’t he see that gifts were just a way of hiding the fact that she no longer cared about us? 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.
“Sometimes I hate Momma! And not only that, sometimes I hate you, too! Sometimes I hate everybody—most of all myself! Sometimes I wish I were dead, because I think we would all be better off dead than buried alive up here! Just like rotting, walking, talking vegetables!”
When I hurt, and I hurt often, I raced for the music, the costumes, the ballet shoes on which I could spin and twirl and dance away my troubles.
And that was the golden side of my suicide coin. But I had to turn it over, and see the tarnish. What if I didn’t die? Suppose I just fell, and the rose bushes cushioned my fall, and I only ended up crippled and scarred for the rest of my life?
And I was saved from death by my own ability to see both sides of the coin.
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! Hell was right here, where I was, shadowing me persistently, trying to do me in, and make me into what the grandmother thought I was—the Devil’s issue.
Candy. He spoke of candy. Was he still in the child’s world where candy stood for something sweet enough to hold back tears? 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!
“Every word I said is true. I only expressed what I feel inside—I let out what you keep hidden deep. Well, keep on hiding from yourself, and you’ll find all those truths turn into acid to eat up your insides!”
Cathy, I’m not blind or stupid. I know Momma takes care of herself first, and us next.”
We clung as one, our hearts throbbing loud against each other. Not crying, not laughing. 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?
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.
When Lily told Raymond the full truth, how she was virtually raped by that awful man, Raymond shouldn’t have accused her of seducing him! Nobody in their right mind would want to seduce a man with eight children.”
why is it all men think everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy—or just plain silly drivel?
maybe it won’t make a permanent scar; and I pray it doesn’t. It would be so nice if people could go through all of their life without ever cutting into the perfect envelope they’re born with.
“Momma’s got a new husband,” said Chris brightly, “and when you’re in love, you don’t see anyone’s happiness but your own.
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.
Sin had nothing at all to do with love, real love.
In a movie, you sit and watch a big screen, and you know you are only watching a story that someone wrote. I participated in my dreams. I was in the dreams, feeling, hurting, suffering, and I’m sorry to say, very seldom did I really enjoy them.
Women are more intuitive than men; it’s been proven.
Together, you and I, we’ll find a way. From this second on, I vow on my life, we depend only on ourselves . . . and your dreams.”
She came a generous two or three times a month, and each time she bore with her the gifts that gave her solace if they gave us none.
And on and on she chatted vivaciously, always true to her false facade, pretending we still mattered in her life.
She had the nerve to speak to us of parties, of concerts, of the theater, of movies, and going to balls and on trips with her “Bart.”
