He went down to it and dipped his hand in. “Freezing,” he said. “And I was going to suggest we go skinny-dipping.”
I didn’t respond. He looked out at the water and turned back to me.
“It must have been quite beautiful here once, when that dock was good and the borders weren’t so overgrown. It has a natural spring feeding it. I bet it was even good to drink. It’s kind of serene, even now with all this overgrowth around it. I actually like it. It’s more like undisturbed nature, don’t you think?”
As if it had heard Kane’s remark, a crow seemed to come out of nowhere and perched on a dead branch floating on the water. It seemed to be staring at us as if it was wondering why we had come.
“Hey, crow!” Kane called to it, breaking the tension.
The bird lifted its wings as if to reply. We both laughed. And then it flew off into the woods.
“Be nice to go rowing on this lake,” he said. “Even now.”
“Maybe the new owner will clean it up and make it attractive again.”
He walked back and sat next to me. “I’ve been here before,” he revealed in the tone of a confession. “But I never thought of it this way.”
“When were you here?”
“I came up here a few times with the guys on Halloween.”
“I thought so when you said you had never been to Foxworth in the daytime.”
“It was stupid. There really wasn’t anything scary about the place. If anything, it looked pathetic to me, a shell of something. Everyone tried to scare everyone else, jumping out of shadows and moaning.”
“So why did you want to come here today?”
“Oh, I didn’t in particular. I just wanted an excuse to be with you.”
“You could have just come out and said it. We could have gone somewhere else.”
“It’s really not that bad.” He leaned toward me and looked at me closely.
“What?”
“Your eyes are the color of the sky today. It’s like you’re one with the world, at least here.”
“Am I?” I looked at the water. Did I have a special connection with Foxworth now? Would it burrow deep into my heart and be forever a part of me?
“You’re a very pretty girl, Kristin. You don’t notice me watching you most of the day, I’m sure, but sometimes I catch you looking almost . . .”
“Almost what?”
“Angelic. Like you’re somewhere else, somewhere beautiful and alone, someone really undiscovered as if you were lost in time . . . like this lake.”
“I don’t feel particularly angelic, but I’ll admit there are many times when I feel lost in time.”
He smiled, and then he kissed me, softly, keeping his lips against mine just a little longer, like someone sipping the last drops of honey. When we parted, he kept his face close, his eyes locked on mine. “I’m smart enough to know you’re special, Kristin,” he said, and then he kissed me again.
This time, I really kissed him back, as if there would be a magic carpet taking us away from all that was sad and dark in this world, taking us someplace warm and comfortable, a place where we could breathe happiness and never know sorrow, a place I was sure Christopher Dollanganger and his sister Cathy had hungered to be in.
“Now I’m sorry I’m having a party Friday. Who needs anyone else there?”
“I don’t know if my father would let me go to your house knowing your parents weren’t home.”
“So we wouldn’t tell.”
“You wouldn’t tell!” My eyes widened, even flamed. “I have a special relationship with my father. It’s based on honesty.”
“Ouch,” he said, holding up his hands. “Maybe you are Sandra Dee.”
I punched him again, and he exaggerated the blow and fell off the boulder.
“Killed at Foxworth!” he cried. “And by a distant cousin. How appropriate. Oh, woe is me.”
“Get up, you idiot.”
I stood up, and he scurried to his feet. “Your wish is my command,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me again. Then he took my hand. “You know why I really like you, Kristin?”
“You want me to help you with math,” I said, and he laughed.
“Man, you are easy to fall in love with.”
I stopped and looked at him. Was that true? And if it was, why? What made someone easy to love? What made it so easy for Corrine to fall in love with her half-uncle? What made it so easy for my father to fall head over heels in love with my mother? Was there something magical that happened? Was that happening to me, too? “Why?” I asked him.
I thought he would make a joke, but he looked very serious. I could see he was thinking carefully. “There are other pretty girls in school. I’ve gone out with one or two, but even though none of them is prettier than you, that’s not the only reason. You’re . . . naked,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t mean without clothes. I mean there’s nothing false and deceptive about you. Like your father, I guess, you say what you mean, and I bet the only time you hold back or fudge it a little is when it might hurt someone who can’t defend him- or herself.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“But even that isn’t all of it.”
“So what else is there?”
“There’s a mystery in you. I feel there’s more to you than anyone knows, maybe even your own father. I don’t know if I’ll ever know it, but I’m intrigued. Most of all, you make me feel comfortable with myself. I think I could tell you anything,” he added. “I once read that true love means no secrets, because the people in love are unafraid of each other.”
I squinted suspiciously. “Since when have you become so poetic, Kane Hill?”
“Since I realized how much I like you,” he replied, and then he shrugged.
I didn’t say anything. He reached for my hand, and we walked back in silence, soaking in the delicious special moments we had created for ourselves, both afraid that any words spoken would shatter them and bring us back to reality. Was it because we were here? Because we went to this lake? I wondered if the Dollanganger children had ever once looked upon this place and seen it as something magical. I would know, I thought. Christopher would surely reveal it.
My father watched us approach and stepped away from the work to greet us. “So?”
“It must have been very beautiful here once, Mr. Masterwood.”
“Probably,” Dad said reluctantly. “Someone will make it beautiful again once the corpse is gone. I’ll be done here in about an hour, Kristin. We’re still going to Charley’s Diner?” he asked, looking at Kane and perhaps thinking we had made other plans.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Okay. Be careful, now,” he warned Kane. “You’ve got precious cargo aboard.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, sir.”
“I do have to tell you,” Dad said. “You’ll realize it when you’re a father.”
Kane gave him his famous shrug and a smile. Dad nodded at me and returned to his work.
“I like your father,” Kane said as we walked to his car. He looked back at him. “You can just feel he suffers no fools.”
I looked at Kane, surprised at the quote he used. “ ‘Suffers no fools’?”
“Actually, it’s my father who says that all the time. Occasionally, I listen to him when he tells me stuff,” he added, and gave me that smile that made me want to kiss him again.
And again.
Which we did when he dropped me off at my house.
“I really enjoyed spending time with you at Fox Hell,” he said.
“You think places get stained forever by the events that happen there?” I asked.
He grimaced like I was getting too heavy about it. But then he shrugged. “You mean like the Dallas Book Depository because of the Kennedy assassination? Sure. I don’t know how well Ford’s Theatre did after Lincoln was shot there, but I don’t imagine it was a selling point.”
“Seems wrong to punish nature for what happened at
Foxworth. It’s beautiful if you don’t know what happened there.”
“You sound like you’d like to be the one building a new house.”
“Just curious,” I said.
“Get curious about me. I’d like the attention,” he said.
“Like you lack any,” I replied, and got out of the car.
He watched me walk to the house, that teasing grin on his face. “None of it mattered before,” he shouted after me.
I smiled at him and watched him back out, much more carefully this time. He waved, and I waved back, and then when he was gone, I went into my house and up to my bedroom.
I knew my father wouldn’t be home as quickly as he had indicted. He would stop working, but he’d have a lot to do with locking down the machinery for the night. Knowing I was going out for dinner, I should have turned myself directly to my homework, but just having been on the Foxworth grounds caused me to want to be back into Christopher’s diary and his thoughts. It was as if I was touching him, all of them, more now. I even imagined what they all sounded like.
The door opened and my mother walked in looking like she had doubled her thirty-three years in a day. My heart sank. Something terrible had happened or would be happening, I thought. I wanted to hold the twins back, but they exploded with shouts and whines, complaining about being kept locked up, blaming us for being mean to them. Looking like it pained her to do so, Momma put both of them on her lap and almost in a whisper asked them to calm down. She forced a smile and asked how it really had been. The twins were relentless, especially Carrie, who only became more demanding and shrill, slapping at Momma and then leaping off her lap to slap at me for keeping them locked up so long. I would never say they weren’t spoiled, but I couldn’t blame her or Cory for being so upset. They felt betrayed.
Suddenly, our grandmother appeared, looking taller, larger, and meaner than she had, demanding that Momma shut up the twins. “Discipline them now!” she cried.
To both Cathy’s and my surprise, the twins turned on her without fear. Carrie was even louder, and Cory was backing up her every syllable with loud syllables of his own.
I never expected what our grandmother did next. She seized Carrie’s hair and literally lifted her off her feet. My sister howled in pain, and when Grandmother Olivia dropped her, Cory kicked her and attempted to punch her. Unlike anything I had ever imagined an adult doing when confronting a child this small, our grandmother swung at him and slapped him so hard he fell on his side and then, probably still stinging with pain, crawled beside his wailing twin, both now hugging each other. I looked at Momma to see what she would do. She just looked down, appearing even more defeated.
I’ll never forget the way Cathy looked at me then. She was like someone who had just realized that the last bit of hope for saving herself, for saving us, had passed, and we were about to descend into a pit of hell darker than we could ever begin to imagine. We both turned to Momma, hoping she would end this. However, when she threatened to take us out of the house, our grandmother just smiled and dared her to do it. Momma seemed to crumble. I wanted to go to her and tell her to do it, but I held back, not wanting to burden her any further. Little did I know what would happen next.
Grandmother Olivia ordered our mother to take off her blouse. Momma pleaded, begged not to have to do it, but our grandmother was unmerciful and relentless. Slowly, Momma stood up and unbuttoned her blouse. She wasn’t wearing her bra or slip, and at first, I thought that was what our grandmother wanted to demonstrate, but I felt my heart stop and start. Momma’s back from the neck down was crisscrossed with welts, some having bled into crusty red. I looked at Cathy and the twins. They were literally holding their breath at the sight. I saw tears in all their eyes. My whole body stiffened. I clenched my fists. Why did they do this to her? This kind of punishment was medieval.
My grandmother, looking more superior than ever, told us the welts went down to our mother’s feet. She sounded proud of it. There were thirty-three lashes representing her age and fifteen extra to represent the years she had lived with our father in sin. Our grandfather had ordered our grandmother to do it, and Momma had submitted to the punishment. Still gloating, our grandmother told us that we would be punished if we didn’t follow her rules. She shoved the door key into Momma’s hands and walked out, her shoulders hoisted, making her look like a giant hawk.
What kind of a creature was she? She not only had punished her daughter viciously but was eager to show it as if it was an accomplishment.
There couldn’t be any of her genetics in me, or any of my grandfather’s, I thought. I detested every cell in her miserable body and hoped my grandfather was suffering in pain somewhere downstairs in his own private hell.
I felt my throat close so tightly that I panicked when I tried to swallow and couldn’t. Throwing down the diary, I rose and quickly went into my bathroom to drink some water from the faucet. My heart was thumping. A real whipping? Welts crusted with blood? To see your mother so tortured by her own mother and father had to be earth-shattering for those kids, especially the little ones. Did my mother know what kind of monsters the Foxworths were? Had she heard about this? Did my father know? How much worse was this going to get for those children if they would do such a thing to their own daughter?
A part of me wanted to throw the diary into our fireplace, but a greater part of me wanted to know more. It was as if I wanted to make myself angry and sick over it. I looked in the mirror and then splashed cold water on my face, because I looked like I had a fever, and I certainly didn’t want my father seeing me like this. He’d rip that diary out of my hands and tear it to pieces right in front of me.
I returned to my bedroom, approaching my bed slowly, as if I believed the diary lying on my blanket could leap up and bite me or something. I paced about, glancing at it every few seconds. It was going to disturb me, I thought. I wanted to continue, I then thought, immediately. I needed to continue, but maybe I should ration my reading. I knew I would have trouble sleeping tonight as it was.
For now, the easiest escape was my homework. When my father arrived and came up to see me, he found me at my desk, finishing up my math.
“Hey,” he said. “If you have a lot of work, I can whip up something fast instead of going to the diner.”
“No, I have it under control. You need to relax.”
He smiled. “And you know this how?”
“I saw how intensely you were working today. You can’t do it all in one day and get it behind you, Dad.”
“Yes, boss. I’ll grab a quick shower.” He started to turn and then stopped. “Oh.”
“What?”
“I won’t be getting away so fast, anyway. Herm brought the new property owner up to see me. Man by the name of Arthur Johnson. Only about forty but quite wealthy. He runs a hedge fund. He wants to make me his general contractor on his rebuilding. Seems he’s already had an architect working. The new structure won’t be as tall as Foxworth was, but it’ll be just as wide and deep. Something like a Greek revival. Nice man. No dickering on price, either. It will set me and Todd up for quite a while.” He paused, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “What’s wrong? You don’t seem happy about this.”
“I thought you didn’t like being there.”
“Not enough to turn down this kind of money. Besides, when I’m finished, there won’t be the slightest resemblance to what was there. Johnson is of the same mind. Has all sorts of ideas for the landscaping. It will look more plush than it ever looked. No restraint when it comes to flowers and bushes, the way it was most recently. There’ll be no resemblance to a monastery and no question that whoever lives there actually enjoys his wealth. With all the new business it might bring, I might have to put you to work this summer,” he added, half-joking.
I glanced toward my bed. The diary was back under my pillow, but it was as if I thought Christopher could hear my father speaking. Maybe my father was right. In a relatively short time, Christopher and his brother and sisters’ sto
ry, along with the story of the most recent inhabitant, would be buried and forgotten. The new building would be all that a new generation would see and know. Only the diary could keep the story of the Dollanganger children alive.
“We’ll head out in twenty,” my father said, and left.
I gazed at my homework. How could I concentrate now? My heart was thumping. I couldn’t help it. In the back of my mind, a frightening thought was blossoming like a dark flower.
It was as if the Foxworths could feel themselves disappearing. Once the building was gone and there was a new owner changing it all, they would fade away. They were desperate. They wouldn’t let go of us now.
Maybe not for a long time.
Maybe never.
I put it out of my mind and concentrated on what I would wear to dinner, even if it was only Charley’s Diner. I was still going with my father, and I wanted him to be proud of me, proud of how I dressed, how I looked. He wouldn’t harp on it; he wouldn’t even mention it, because he assumed I would dress properly. I knew how he shook his head and muttered to himself when he saw the way some of my friends and classmates looked when they went out with their parents, even to fancy restaurants.
My father and I didn’t go out to eat all that much, but I knew that whenever we did, especially when we went to Charley’s, he enjoyed it, not so much because he and I didn’t have to be in the kitchen as because it was his chance to meet some of his old friends and toss around stories and their form of gossip. Charley’s Diner was just that sort of hangout for many other men who were involved with the construction industry. I saw all the pickup trucks and construction vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived.
One part of Charley’s was like an old ’50s diner with its faux-leather red booths with pleated white centers and chrome edges and tables. There was a long counter with swivel stools and lots of Formica and chrome, but there were also a good dozen or so retro dinette sets, again with lots of chrome and Formica. The floor was a black and white checker, and although some of them didn’t work, there were miniature jukeboxes at the booths and on the counter. Consequently, there was always music but nothing anyone my age would appreciate.