He had drawn away when first I brought up "her." He adored his goddess of all female perfection, but then he was embracing me again, and his cheek was on my hair, his voice tight with thick emotion, "Sometimes I am not the eternal cockeyed optimist you call me. Sometimes I am just as doubting of what she does as you are. But I think back to the time before we came here, and I feel I have to trust her, and believe in her, and be like Daddy was. Remember how he used to say, Tor everything that seems strange, there is a good reason? And everything always works out for the best.' That's what I make myself believe--she has good reasons for keeping us here, and not sneaking us out to some boarding school. She knows what she's doing, and Cathy, I love her so much. I just can't help it. No matter what she does, I feel I will go right on loving her."
He loved her more than me, I thought bitterly.
Our mother now came and went with no
regularity. Once, a whole week passed with no visit. When she finally arrived she told us her father was very ill. I was overjoyed to hear the news.
"Is he getting worse?" I asked, feeling a little pang of guilt. I knew it was wrong to wish him dead, but his death meant our salvation.
"Yes," she said solemnly, "much worse. Any day now, Cathy, any day. You wouldn't believe his pallor, his pain; soon as he goes, you'll be free."
Oh, good-golly, to think I was so evil as to want that old man to die this very second! God forgive me. But it wasn't right for us to be shut up all the time; we needed to be outside, in the warm sunlight, and we did get so lonesome, seeing no new people.
"It could be any hour," said Momma, and got up to leave.
"Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for t' carry me home . . ." was the tune 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.
"If you get there before I do . . ."
And Momma was at the door, tired looking as she poked only her face in. "He's passed the crisis . . . he's going to recover-- this time." The door closed, and we were alone, with dashed hopes.
I tucked the twins into bed that night for seldom did Momma show up to do this. I was the one who kissed their cheeks and heard their prayers. And Chris did his share, too. They loved us, it was easy to read in their big, shadowed blue eyes. After they fell asleep, we went to the calendar to make an "X" through another day. August had come again. We had now lived in this prison a full year.
PART TWO
.
Until the day break,
and the shadows flee away. The Song of Solomon 2:17
Growing Up, Growing Wiser
. Another year passed, much as the first did. Mother came less and less frequently, but always with the promises that kept us hoping, kept us believing our deliverance was only a few weeks away. The last thing we did each night was to mark off that day with a big red X.
We now had three calendars with big red X's. The first one was only half-bloodied with red, the second one X'd all the way through, and now a third over half filled with X's. And the dying grandfather, now sixtyeight, always about to breathe his last breath, lived on, and on, and on while we waited in limbo. It seemed he'd live to be sixty-nine.
On Thursdays, the servants of Foxworth Hall went into town, and that was when Chris and I stole out onto the black roof, to lie on a steep slope, soaking up the sunlight, and airing under the moon and stars. Though it was high and dangerous, it was the real outdoors, where we could feel fresh air on our thirsting skins.
In a place where two wings met and formed a corner, we could brace our feet against a sturdy chimney and feel quite safe. Our positioning on the roof hid us from anyone who might be on the ground.
Because the grandmother's wrath had not yet materialized, Chris and I had grown careless. We were not always modest in the bedroom, nor were we always fully dressed. It was difficult to live, day in, day out, and always keep the intimate places of our bodies secret from the other sex.
And to be perfectly honest, none of us cared very much who saw what.
We should have cared.
We should have been careful.
We should have kept the memory of Momma's bloody welted back sharply before us, and never, never have forgotten. But the day she'd been whipped seemed so long, long ago. An eternity ago.
Here I was a teen-ager, and I'd never seen myself naked all over, for the mirror on the medicine cabinet door was placed too high for good viewing. I'd never seen a naked woman, or even a picture of one, and paintings and marble statues didn't show details. So I awaited a time when I had the bedroom to myself, and before the dresser mirror I stripped off everything, and then I stared, preened, and admired. Incredible the changes hormones brought about! Certainly I was much prettier than when I came here, even my face, my hair, my legs--much less that curvy body. From side to side I twisted, keeping my eyes glued to my reflection as I performed ballet positions.
A rippling sensation on the back of my neck gave me the awareness that someone was near, and watching. I whirled about suddenly to catch Chris standing in the deep shadows of the closet. Silently he'd come from the attic. How long had he been there? Had he seen all the silly, immodest things I'd done? Oh, God, I hoped not!
He stood as one frozen. A queer look glazed his blue eyes, as if he'd never seen me before without my clothes on--and he had, many a time. Perhaps when the twins were there, sun- bathing with us, he kept his thoughts brotherly and pure, and didn't really stare.
His eyes lowered from my flushed face down to my breasts, then lower, and lower, and down to my feet before they traveled upward ever so slowly.