Why wasn't he happy to see his mother free from that place? She was living nearby, and he'd always wanted to visit her. Didn't he love his own mother? Or was he afraid she might go crazy any moment? Did he think Bart might have inherited her madness?--or her insanity might infect Bart like a physical disease? And why didn't my mother like her? I looked from one to the other, wanting answers to my unspoken questions, and so afraid I might learn Paul wasn't Bart's father at all.
When Dad lifted his head I could see his drawn face, the deep lines that etched from his nose to his mouth. Lines I'd never seen before.
"I cannot in good conscience call you Mother again," he said dully. "If you helped buy the land my home sits on, I thank you. Tomorrow I'll see that a For Sale sign is put up, and we'll move far away if you refuse to move first. I will not allow you to turn my sons away from their parents."
"Their parent," she corrected.
"The only parents they have," he said in return. "I should have known you'd come here. I've called your doctor and he told me you'd been released, but he didn't say when, or where you went."
"Where else do I have to go?" she cried pitifully, wringing her bejeweled hands like pale limp rags. It was as if she reached out and touched him then, even as she restrained herself from reaching for him Each word she said, each look she gave him, said she loved him--even I could tell.
"Christopher," she pleaded, "I have no friends, no family, no home--and nowhere to go but to you and yours. All I have left is you and Cathy and the sons she bore--my grandsons. Would you take them from me too? Each night I pray on my knees that you and Cathy will forgive me and take me back and love me as you once did."
He seemed made of steel, so unreachable, but I was on the verge of crying.
"My son, my beloved son, take me back and say you love me again. And if you cannot do that, then just let me live where I can see my grandsons now and then."
She paused then, waiting for him to respond. When he refused, she went on: "I hoped you could be lenient if I stayed over here and never let her know who I was. But I've seen her, heard her voice; heard yours too. I hide behind the wall and listen. My heart throbs. My chest aches with longing. Tears fill my eyes from holding back my voice that wants to cry out and let you know I'm sorry! So terribly sorry!"
Still he didn't say anything. He wore his detached, professional look.
"Christopher, I would gladly give ten years of my life to undo the wrong I've done! I'd give another ten years just to sit at your table and feel welcomed by my own grandchildren!"
Tears were in her eyes, in mine too. My heart cried for my father's mother even as I wondered why he and Mom hated her.
"Christopher, Christopher, don't you understand why I wear these rags? I cover my face, my hair, my figure, so she won't know! But all the time I keep hoping, praying that sooner or later both of you can forgive me enough to let me become a member of your family again! Please, please, accept me as your mother again! If you do, perhaps then she can too!"
How could he sit there and not feel the same pity for her that I did? Why wasn't he crying like I was?
"Cathy will never forgive you," he said tonelessly.
Strangely, she cried out happily, "Then you will? Please say it--you forgive me!"
I trembled as I waited for him to speak.
"Mother, how can I say I forgive you? By saying that I would betray Cathy, and I can never betray her. Together we stand and together we will fall, still believing we did right, while you stand guilty and alone. Nothing you say or do can undo death. And every day that you stay here sees Bart more and more deranged. Do you realize he is threatening our adopted daughter Cindy?"
"No!" she cried, shaking her head so the veils swung violently. "Bart would not hurt his sister."
"Wouldn't he? He hacked
off her hair with a knife, Mrs. Winslow. And he's threatened his mother as well."
"NO!" she yelled more passionately than before. "Bart loves his mother! I give Bart treats because you are too busy with your professional life to give him all the attention he needs. Just as his mother is too busy with her life to care if he has enough love. But I cater to his needs. I try to take the place of the peers he doesn't have. I do everything I can to make him happy. And if feeding him treats and giving him gifts makes him feel better, what harm can I do? Besides, once a child has all the sweets he can eat, soon he loses the taste for them. I know. Once I was like Bart, loving ice cream, candy, cookies and other sweets . . . and now I cannot tolerate them at all."
Dad got up and motioned to me. I stood and moved to his side as he looked at his mother with pity. "It's a terrible shame you came too late to try to redeem your actions. Once I would have been touched by any sweet word you said. Now your very presence shows how little you care if we are deeply hurt again, as we will be if you stay."
"Please, Christopher," she begged. "I have no other family, and no others who care if I live or die. Don't deny me your love when to do so will kill the very best part of you, the part that makes you what you are. You've never been like Cathy. Always you could hold onto some of your love--hold fast to it now, Christopher. Hold so fast and so true, you can eventually help Cathy to find a little love for me too!" She sobbed and weakened. "Or if not love, help her find forgiveness, for I admit that I could have served my children better."
Now Dad was touched, but not for long. "I have to think of Bart's welfare first. He's never had much confidence in himself. Your tales have disturbed him so much he has nightmares. Leave him alone. Leave us alone! Go away, stay away, we don't belong to you anymore. Years ago we gave you chance after chance to prove you loved us. Even when we ran you could have answered the judge's summons and spared us the pain of knowing we weren't loved enough for you to even appear and show some interest in our futures.
"So get out of our lives! Make another life for yourself with the riches you sacrificed us to get. Let Cathy and me live the lives we've worked so hard to achieve."
I was baffled--what was he talking about? What had his mother done to her two sons,
Christopher and Paul--and what did my mother have to do in their youthful lives?
She rose too, standing tall and straight. Then, slowly, slowly, she removed the veil that covered her head and face. I gasped. My dad gasped. Never before had I seen a woman who could look so ugly and so beautiful at the same time. Her scars looked as if a cat had scratched her face. Her jowls sagged with age; her pretty blonde hair was streaked with gray. I'd been terribly curious to see up close what she hid under her veil--now I wished I hadn't.