I was overcome with rage about that. I have no other way to explain it right now. I shot forward and seized her and accused her again of risking everything and wanting him. I told her she could never be anyone else’s but mine, and I was determined to make her see that. I admit to losing complete control of myself. I shoved her down on the mattress. She struggled, fought for a little while, and then suddenly, she gave up. She returned my kiss and opened herself to me. I knew that because we were both virgins, it wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t be the wonderful experience it was meant to be for all those who were truly in love, but I could not stop what I had started. She cried, but she clung to me as if she was afraid I would retreat. She dug her fingers into me, and I pushed on and into her.
We’re damned, I thought almost immediately afterward.
Our dreadful grandmother was right.
We’re the devil’s spawn.
Kane lowered the diary slowly. He didn’t look at me immediately. He stared ahead. We were both so quiet we could hear the heat in the pipes and the sound of a car horn way in the distance. It sounded desperate, like a lost goose calling for its flock.
Both of us had liked and admired the young Christopher who was telling us their story. Despite how frustrated we were by the way he tolerated and believed his mother, we respected his efforts to keep himself and his siblings safe. He was, after all, thinking only about their future. From the beginning, he understood how desperate a situation they were in. He loved his father, but he was angry at him for leaving them lost and vulnerable, so much so that they had to tolerate their tortured incarceration in that great house. Cathy’s skepticism had so far proven to be more accurate than Christopher’s unyielding love for his mother.
Even though Kane looked as shocked as I was at what he had just read, I doubted that he would deny having anticipated it. I could shout at him now, if that was what would make me feel better. I co
uld scream that I had told him so, that when he came upon that blank page, we should have done what I suggested. We should have stopped and left the rest of it buried, but I didn’t, because I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to know just as much as he wanted to know.
Neither of us felt like talking about it immediately. He finally turned to me. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “We should have brought something to drink up with us.”
I looked at my watch. “We could have some lunch now, anyway.”
He nodded. Neither of us would admit that we weren’t that hungry, but both of us needed the break. He rose to start after me.
“Leave it up here,” I said, nodding at the diary in his hands.
He put it on the chair, and we left the attic.
We descended silently. I think neither of us knew quite how to begin this conversation. I talked instead about what to eat, and we both decided I’d make some toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches. He watched me start by neatly cutting the tomato the way my father had taught me years ago, and then Kane went out to the living room and stood there the whole time looking out the window at the street and the trees. He didn’t turn when he heard me come to tell him our sandwiches were ready. He continued staring ahead.
“My father looks forward to winter. He’s a good skier. My sister’s a good skier. I can ski passably well, but I’m not crazy about it. My mother likes going to ski lodges and sitting by the fireplaces drinking her Cosmopolitans. She has the best ski lodge fashions, all that white fur stuff and those fancy soft leather winter boots that hardly ever see any snow. My father took us on our first family ski trip when I was just six. He had a ski pro teach me on the children’s slope. In those days, my sister and I shared a room. Separate beds, of course, but the same room. She would complain about it, but my father saw no reason to spend money on another room for a six-year-old.”
“Did you want to be in the same room with your sister?”
He turned quickly. I thought he was going to say something nasty, but he looked like he was giving my question deep thought. “I wasn’t afraid of being alone or anything like that. Maybe in those days, I was closer to her than I am now. I mean, when you’re six, you’d hate to hug your sister, but at this age, when we hug, I’m well aware of how beautiful she is. Whatever . . . you’ve got me questioning my own feelings.”
“Me?”
“Christopher, then. You ever go skiing?” he asked, eager to change the topic. I wasn’t going to oppose it. These thoughts felt too heavy right now.
“No. When my father looks to recreate, he favors swimming in the ocean. We used to take long weekends in Virginia Beach, I remember, but we haven’t done that since . . . for a long time. He says he gets enough exercise at work.”
“I’m sure he does,” Kane said.
“Sandwiches are ready.”
He followed me into the kitchen. I poured us both some chocolate milk, and we sat across from each other at the kitchenette table and ate.
“What did you do to make this so good?”
“I put a little avocado in it. My father does that, and he uses real butter.”
“Do you think he’d mind if I moved in?” he asked, smiling.
“Probably not, as long as you did KP duty.”
“I keep forgetting he was in the navy.”
“Yes. He doesn’t have any tattoos.”
Kane laughed. “Neither does my father. He used to ask my sister and me if we knew any college graduates with tattoos. It was his way of telling us never to get one.”