“Everything’s fine. In fact, I’m excited. My uncle Tommy’s coming to visit us. He’s my father’s younger brother and lives in California. He’ll be here only one night, but I’m so looking forward to it.”
“That’s nice. Tell me about him,” he said, and I did. “Whoa. I hope you have that kind of enthusiasm if anyone asks you to tell them about me,” he commented when I had finished.
“We’ll see. You’re a story that’s just being started,” I said, and he laughed.
Ahead of us loomed the trees that lined the Foxworth property. They seemed to be sentinels standing guard over the memories. Could my father really rip down all the destruction and rebuild an entirely new house, driving the ghosts away? I knew it was going to be a great deal more than what he called “putting lipstick on a pig.” Whatever the design, the house would surely be totally different from Foxworth Hall. It would probably be something modern. And then there would be changes in the landscaping. Dad had already mentioned some things like a swimming pool, maybe a tennis court, and a much bigger driveway. No one who was old enough to remember the original Foxworth mansion or even the second one would think of it if they came to the new house.
“Any hints about what’s going to be replacing Foxworth?” Kane asked, as if he could read my thoughts.
“My father’s meeting with the architect and the owner today.”
“I bet it will be spectacular.”
“Yes,” I said. “I hope it will.”
We parked and gathered up our picnic stuff. He had a blanket. I couldn’t help looking back at the cleaned-up foundation as I walked alongside Kane into the woods and to the lake. I was sure the Foxworth children had never been able to take this walk.
Dad was right. It was a beautiful day for a picnic, with just a slightly cool breeze coming off the water. The sky was a deep blue, making the puffy clouds look whiter. There seemed to be no wind at all up there to move them along. They looked pasted against the light blue background. Maybe they were asleep, I thought, and smiled to myself, recalling how I used to assign meanings to their different shapes. Some looked like animals, some like mountains and hills. Once I thought a dark cloud looked like a witch. Sometimes I would give one a name and be excited if I saw the same shape again. It was as if it was coming back just for me.
“Why are you smiling?” Kane asked.
“I was just thinking of something I used to do when I was little. I would give clouds names, identify them as things.”
“I do that once in a while, even now,” he said.
I smirked.
“I do,” he insisted. “Even Kane Hill gets bored sometimes.”
“I wasn’t bored. I was imaginative,” I said. “When you’re young and alone, your imagination has no boundaries.”
He looked at me oddly for a moment.
“What?”
“What I like about you is every time I’m with you, it’s like unwrapping a surprise gift,” he said. “How about over there?” He pointed to an open area not more than a dozen feet from the edge of the lake. “Looks flat enough.”
“Okay.”
He spread out the blanket, smoothed it down, and helped lay out our picnic lunch. “I have a confession to make,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve never been on a picnic. I’ve been on a safari in Africa, but that was like having a hotel moving around with us, and the tents were pretty elaborate. All the food was prepared for us, but we saw some incredible things and took great pictures.”
“I haven’t been on a picnic since . . . since I was very young.”
He nodded and poured us both some apple juice out of the thermos. Then he took off his jacket, folded it, and laid it down for me to use as a pillow.
“Thanks,” I said, and lay back.
“I didn’t tell any of my friends I was doing this.”
“Embarrassed?”
“No. Just want to start having some secrets,” he said with that impish little smile of his.
“You can rest your head on me, if you want. I’m soft in some places.”
“I’d say you’re soft in all places,” he said, shifting quickly to do it. We both stared up at the sky silently. I felt his hand reach for mine, and when he grasped it, I grasped his, too. “Can you feel it?” he asked.
“What?”
“The earth moving?”
I laughed and then thought about it. Was I imagining it? “I think I can. I never felt it or even thought about it until now.”
“When you’re with someone you really want to be with, like I am with you right now, everything you’ve seen before, every color, every shape, anything, really, looks different. Looks . . .”
“Looks what?”
“Brand new,” he said.
I smiled and sat up again so I could lean toward him and run my fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes. “What happened?” I asked him.
He opened his eyes and looked at me quizzically. “Happened?”
“You and I have known each other a long time, but suddenly this.”
He started to shrug and then stopped. “You changed,” he said.
“What? I changed? Why? How?”
“Or I should say I changed.”
“To what? From what?”
“From being frivolous to being . . . older, more serious. And when that happened to me, I wasn’t just drawn to you by your good looks. You seemed to be there already. It was like you would understand,” he said. I waited for him to say more, but he just shook his head. “I guess I’m not making any sense.”
“You are. And I’m glad,” I said.
He sat up, turned, and kissed me, softly but long. I lay back, and he sprawled beside me. We kissed again. His lips were on my hair, my eyes, my cheeks, down to my neck.
I was kissing him, too, each kiss a little longer, a little more demanding.
“Kristin,” he whispered. I was sure he could see the yes in my eyes, the yes that was echoing through every part of me.
Was I ready? Was it my time? I wondered. Could I feel this special with any other boy? Should I “cross the Rio Grande”? The resistance that was in me, which came from fear and from an uncertainty about what was right and what was wrong when you were with someone for whom you felt deep affection, was weakening. Perhaps he sensed that. He was moving quickly, finding his way under my clothes, touching me as if he were pushing invisible buttons on my body, softening it, molding it. My breathing quickened. I felt captured, but willingly. It was going to happen. I knew it, and I didn’t resist, which only drove him to be more intense.
“I want you,” he said. “So much.”
Were those the magic words, the keys to the kingdom?
“Don’t you want me, too?”
The yes in my body reached my lips, but just before I was going to utter it, I imagined I saw a teenage boy standing just a few feet away, looking down at us with an almost scientific detachment.
Christopher, I thought, would look at us this way, and my body tightened when the boy didn’t avert his glance or even smile.
“I want to. I do, but I’m not ready yet,” I whispered. “Please understand.”
He paused, and I supposed the way I was looking past us caught his interest and attention. He turned fearfully, wondering if someone was there, perhaps even my father. I could feel the passion recede like an outgoing tide. He sat back, brushed back his hair, and took a breath. “I don’t know if I can keep myself from being any different when I’m with you, Kristin,” he said.
“That’s not a bad thing,” I whispered. “If we give it time.”
He nodded and smiled. “Well, no harm done,” he said, working on as quick a recovery as he could make. “It’s made me ravenous in another way. I’m starving.” He turned on his iPod and Bluetooth speaker. He looked in the direction I had been looking again. “Did you see something that frightened you?”
“No,” I said quickly, sat up, and began to unwrap our sandwiches.
“Thought you might have seen one of those famous Dollanganger ghosts,” he joked.
I looked at him. “What if I did? Would you want us to leave?”
“Not if you weren’t afraid,” he replied. “Whatever you wanted to do, I would do,” he added.
Would he? Did passion and affection bring trust along? I wondered. Was I willing to risk it to find out? He saw how deeply I was thinking.
“What?”
I looked up at him. Not yet, I told myself. It wasn’t just me.
It was Christopher, too, that I was risking.
I shook my head and handed him his sandwich. He narrowed his eyes for a moment and then smiled and looked out at the water.
This was still a special place, I thought, maybe especially for me.
After we ate, we walked around the lake and talked, both of us revealing more and more of ourselves. Once in a while, we stopped and kissed. As we came around to our blanket, he asked me again if my family knew what really had happened here when the children were imprisoned.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “At least, not yet.”
He smiled quizzically but seemed to understand, to know not to ask any other questions about Foxworth.
Afterward, we drove for a while aimlessly. It was as if we both wanted to prolong the day. At my house, I saw that my father wasn’t home yet, but I didn’t invite Kane in.
Someone else was waiting upstairs in my room. I even imagined him looking out from between the curtains. He knew where I had been.
I thought I might be able to get in a dozen pages before my father came home.
For a while, I thought we no longer could keep track of time. Days floated into each other as if the clock had become gigantic, and seconds and minutes were so small they were no longer noticed. The leaves were changing to the yellows, browns, and reds that told us fall was here. It seemed to happen overnight. Never before had that had such a stunning effect on the four of us, more so on Cathy than on the twins and me.
“We’ve been here two months!” she whispered, mostly to herself, as we stood by the window. “Two months!”
I could feel the tension building in her and knew that if I didn’t do something, say something, immediately, she might burst into hysterical screaming. I had to keep her busy, I thought, get her distracted.
Suddenly, she laughed. Cory and Carrie looked at her, confused, and then at me. What was so funny?
“What?” I asked.
“I used to think being in history class was boring, but I would sure like to be there being bored now.” She fixed her eyes on me. They looked like they were ready to launch darts.
“I understand,” I said. “What we have to do is stop wasting time.”
“Stop wasting time? What do you think we’ve been doing? What do you call all this?” she cried, raising her voice a little more. She was on the verge, I thought. I had to think.
“I meant we should be preparing ourselves for when we get out of here.”
“Get out of here?”
“Sure. Look, tomorrow I’m adding a barre to the area we’ve decorated. You’ll start practicing your ballet again. Daily,” I insisted.
“I will not. I’ll look like a fool if I practice without a costume, dancing in an attic.”
“ ‘Look like a fool’? To whom? That’s stupid.”
“Stupid. I’m stupid? Of course I’m stupid. You’re the one who was born with all the brains in this family. You’re the genius.”
“Cathy?”
“No!” she screamed, and ran out of the attic and down the stairs.
The twins were shocked, and Carrie started to cry.
“Cathy sick?” Cory said.
“No, no. No one’s sick,” I told them. “C’mon, let’s go cheer her up.”
I held out my hands, and they took them and followed me. I saw how frightened they were. We were so close to breaking, shattering like frozen Dresden dolls, I thought. Downstairs, Cathy was facedown on the bed, sobbing.
“Let’s give her something to make her happy again,” Cory said. She heard him but didn’t stop her sobs. Cory poked her, and she turned to look at him. “Here, Cathy,” he said, and handed her his Peter Rabbit storybook. “You don’t have to read it to me,” he added.
She stopped sobbing. Carrie handed her crayons to her. Cathy took them and looked at me. I sat on the bed and watched her sew up the rips in her heart. She wiped away her tears and embraced our brother and sister.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll be all right. Thank you, Cory. Thank you, Carrie.”
She kissed them and smiled, and they turned to occupy themselves with other toys and books. I waited for a moment and then reached for her, and she took my hand.
“It’s going to be all right,” I said. “I promise.”
She nodded. She was quiet again, but she didn’t believe me, and despite all I could do to convince myself, I wasn’t confident about it, either.
I heard my father enter the house, and I closed the diary and shoved it under my pillow. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw that I had been crying. How odd, I thought. I didn’t even realize it. It was almost like . . . almost like anything Cathy did now, any feeling she had, I did and felt, too. I felt possessed.
When I heard my father’s footsteps on the stairs, I rushed into the bathroom and washed my face. He knocked on my open bedroom door.
“Hey,” he said when I stepped out of the bathroom. “How was your picnic?”
“It was fun, and you were right. It was a perfect day for it. Is the new owner going to do something about the lake, clean it up, fix the dock? It’s so beautiful, but it could be even more beautiful.”
“All of the above,” my father said. “This is going to be the biggest project I’ve ever done. We’ll be doubling the help. I’ll have an architect’s rendition to show you in about two weeks. I’ll get cleaned up and then think about dinner. You don’t have a date, do you?”
“No, you have my full attention,” I said.
He tilted his head. “Oh?”
“It’s fine, Dad. We had a good time. I told him I wanted to get all my homework done tonight so I can spend more time with Uncle Tommy and you.”
He nodded. “It’s pretty soon to be telling him what he can and can’t do, isn’t it?”
“It’s never too soon to tell a man what he can and can’t do,” I said, and he looked like he was having the best laugh of the day, even the week.
As always, I set the table and helped with anything he let me do when he made a dinner for us. I thought he was going to grill me about my growing relationship with Kane, but he didn’t ask a single question. Instead, he talked about his new project. I could see that this one excited him more than anything else he had done, and not simply because it was the most expensive and largest residence he had ever worked on. He liked the owner and the architect. While we ate, he described the new mansion in detail, pointing out what he thought was brilliant about the design.
“They were very educated about the views up there,” he said. “They want to create some water effects, too. You know, little ponds and fountains and a Pebble Tec pool with a hot tub. I love the suggestion for the outside tile, and oh, the landscaping they’re planning, fantastic. It creates this almost magical approach to the property. Not simply straight in but curved, with hedges and interesting lighting. There’ll be nothing like it around here.” He leaned toward me. “Kane’s father is going to be quite jealous.”
“More like his mother might be, from what I understand.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. Ever since my mother died, he seemed always to try to avoid referring to the mothers of kids my age.
“You’re like a little boy with a new Lego set,” I told him. “I guess it’s true.”
“What’s true?”
“Men turn everything into toys.”
He stared at me for a moment and then smiled. “Your mother used to accuse me of that,” he said. “I guess as long as I have you,
I’ll have her.”
“Then you always will,” I said.
“Right. Like you’re not going off to college, where you’ll meet your Prince Charming and move to some other state or continent.”
He was joking, but I sensed that this was a real fear for him. Was that true for the fathers of all daughters, or was it especially true for mine? I couldn’t imagine not missing him as much as he would miss me, although he was convinced that whoever I fell in love with would replace him.
I had read through the part of the diary about Christopher Sr.’s death so quickly that I really didn’t digest how traumatic it must have been for Cathy. Reading between the lines Christopher Jr. wrote, it seemed to me she obviously was fonder of her father than of her mother. It was natural for her to be angry at the world because of her father’s death alone, but afterward, to be imprisoned in the home of grandparents who didn’t want her, who didn’t even want her to exist, had to sharpen her rage. Christopher hadn’t said it yet, but I was sure that deep in his heart of hearts, he was terribly disappointed in their mother for being so oblivious to their economic condition after the death of their father and for putting them where they were now.
I cleaned up the dinner dishes and pots and pans and then went up to do my homework. Every once in a while, I paused and looked at the diary. Was I rushing my work so I could get back to it? If my grades suffered because of the diary, my father would have another reason to criticize me for reading it, I thought, and I tried hard to concentrate on my math, science, and history assignments. By the time I finished, it was late. My father had already stopped by to say good night.
Nevertheless, after I prepared for bed, I slipped the diary out from under the pillow, promising myself I would read only a few pages. There was another way I was getting to be like the Dollanganger children, I thought. I was lying to myself when I told myself I could limit what I read, even for an hour, as long as I was in the same room with this diary. It had become a magical door through which I passed to enter the Foxworth attic.
Cathy had no idea I had done it, but one afternoon soon after, when Momma was about to leave, I slipped her a note: “Momma, you have to do me a great favor. You have to get Cathy her ballet costumes, the leotards, toe shoes, and matching tutus. Quickly.”