So far Cory hadn't said a word, or uttered one cry, as was his silent and resolute way. But no one was going to hurt or threaten his twin sister--even if that "no one" stood close to six feet, and weighed in at close to 200 pounds! And Cory was very small for his age.
If Cory didn't like what was happening to Carrie, or the potential threat to himself, the grandmother didn't like what was happening to her either! She glared down at his small, defiant, angry face, which was tilted up to hers. She waited for him to cower, to take the scowl from his face, and the defiance from his blue eyes, but he stood determinedly before her, daring, challenging her to do her worst. H
er thin and colorless lips tightened into a fine, crooked pencil line.
Up came her hand--a huge, heavy hand, flashing with diamond rings. Cory didn't flinch, his only reaction to this very obvious threat was a deeper, more fierce scowl as his small hands knotted into fists raised in professional boxer technique.
Good-golly day! Did he think he could fight her-- and win?
I heard Momma call Cory's name, her voice so choked it was only a whisper.
Decided on her course of action now, the grandmother delivered against his round, defiant baby face a stinging slap so hard it sent him reeling! He stumbled backward, then fell to the floor, but was up in a flash, spinning around to consider a fresh assault against that huge mountain of hateful flesh. His indecision then was a pitiful thing. He faltered, reconsidered, and common sense won out over anger. He scampered over to where Carrie crouched, halfcrawling, half-running, and then flinging his arms about her, they knelt, holding one to the other, cheek pressed to cheek, and he added his siren howls to hers!
Beside me, Chris mumbled something that sounded like a prayer.
"Corrine, they are your children--shut them up! This instant!"
However, the buttercup twins, once started, were practically impossible to quiet. Reasoning never reached their ears. They heard only their own terror, and like mechanical toys, they had to run down from pure exhaustion.
When Daddy was alive and knew how to handle situations like this, he would pick them up as sacks of corn, one under each arm, and off he'd carry them to their room and order them sternly to shut up, or else they'd stay alone until they could, without TV, toys, without anything. Without an audience to witness their defiance, or hear their impressive wails, their screams seldom lasted more than a few minutes after the door closed on them. Then they would sulk out, quiet, meek and they would snuggle down on Daddy's lap and say in small voices, "We're sorry."
But Daddy was dead. There wasn't a distant bedroom where they could wind down. This one room was our mansion, and in here the twins held their captive audience painfully enthralled. They screamed until their faces went from pink to red, from red to magenta, and then on to purple. Their blue eyes went glassy and unfocused from their combined efforts. Oh, it was a grand show all right--and a foolhardy one!
Apparently, until now our grandmother had been held mesmerized by such a display. Then, whatever had held her motionless released its spell. She came alive. Purposefully, she strode over to the corner where the twins huddled. Down she reached to seize up ruthlessly, by their scruffs, two yelling children. Holding them stiff-armed away from her, as they kicked, hollered, and flailed their arms, trying ineffectively to inflict some injury on their tormentor, the twins were hauled up before our mother. Then down on the floor they were dropped like so much unwanted trash. In a loud, firm voice that punctuated through their yelling, she stated flatly, "I will whip you both until the blood runs from your skin if you don't stop that yelling this very instant!"
That inhuman quality, plus the cold force of this appalling threat, convinced the twins, as it did me, that she meant exactly what she said. In astonished and horrified belief, the twins stared up at her--and with open mouths they choked off their cries. They knew what blood was, and pain came with it. It hurt to see them handled so brutally, as if she didn't care if frail bones broke, or tender flesh was bruised. She towered above them, above all of us. Then, she pivoted about and fired at our mother: "Corrine, I will not have a scene so disgusting as this happen again! Obviously your children have been spoiled and indulged, and are in desperate need of lessons in discipline and obedience. No child who lives in this house will disobey, or scream, or show defiance. Hear that! They will speak when spoken to. They will jump to obey my voice. Now take off your blouse, daughter, and show those who disobey just how punishment is dealt out in this house!"
During this our mother had risen. She seemed to shrink smaller into her high-heeled shoes as she turned waxen white. "No!" she breathed, "that is not necessary now. See, the twins have stopped crying . . . they are obeying now."
The old woman's face grew very grim. "Corrine, are you heedless enough to disobey? When I tell you to do something, you will do it without question! And immediately! Look at what you have raised. Weak, spoiled, unruly children, all four! They think they can scream and get what they want. Screams will not avail them here. They might as well know there is no mercy for those who disobey and break my rules. You should know that, Corrine. Did I ever show you mercy? Even before you betrayed us, did I ever let your pretty face and beguiling ways stay my ready hand? Oh, I remember when your father loved you well, and he would turn against me in defense of you. But those days are over. You proved to him you are just what I always said you were--a deceitful, lying bit of trash!"
She turned those hard, flintstone eyes on Chris and me. "Yes, you and your half-uncle did make exceedingly beautiful children, I readily admit that, though they should never have been born. But they also appear soft, useless nothings!" Her mean eyes raked over our mother scornfully, as if we had caught all these demeaning faults from her. But she had not yet finished.
"Corrine, definitely your children need an object lesson. When they observe what has happened to their mother, then they will have no doubt as to what can happen to them."
I saw my mother straighten and stiffen her spine, facing up bravely to the large, raw-boned woman who topped her by at least four inches, and was many, many pounds heavier.
"If you are cruel to my children," began Momma in a voice that quavered, "I will take them out of this house tonight, and you will never see them, or me, again!" This she stated defiantly, lifting her beautiful face and staring with some determined fierceness at that hulking woman who was her mother!
A small smile, tight and cold, met Momma's challenge. No, it was not a smile, it was a sneer. "Take them away tonight--now! Take yourself away, Corrine! If I never see your children again, or hear from you again, do you think I care?"
Our mother's Dresden blues clashed with those steely tones while we children watched. Inside I was screaming with joy. Momma was going to take us out of here. We were leaving!
Good-bye, room! Good-bye, attic! Good-bye, all those millions I don't want anyway!
But, as I watched, as I waited for Momma to spin on her heel and head for the closet, for our suitcases, I saw instead something that was noble and fine in our mother crumble. Her eyes lowered in defeat and slowly her head bowed to hide her expression.
Shaken and trembling myself, I watched the grandmother's sneer become a large, cruel smile of victory. Momma! Momma! Momma! My soul was screaming Don't let her do this to you!
"Now, Corrine, take off that blouse."
Slowly, reluctantly, her face as white as death, Momma pivoted around, presenting her back just as a violent shudder shivered down her spine. Stiffly her arms lifted. With great difficulty each button of her white blouse was unfastened. Carefully, she eased down the blouse to expose her back.
Under the blouse she didn't wear a slip, or a bra, and it was easy enough to see why. I heard Chris pull in his breath. And Carrie and Cory must have looked, for their whimpers reached my ears. Now I knew why Momma, usually so graceful, had walked stiffly into our room, with eyes red from weeping.
Her back was striped with long, angry red welts from her neck on down to the waistband of her blue skirt. Some of the puffier welts were crusted over with dried blood. There was barely an inch of uncut, unmarred skin between the hideous whip marks.
Unfeeling, uncaring, disregarding our sensitivities, or those of our mother, new instructions issued from our grandmother: "Take a good long look, children. Know that those whip marks go all the way down to your mother's feet. Thirty-three lashes, one for each year of her life. And fifteen extra lashes for each year she lived in sin with your father. Your grandfather ordered this punishment, but I was the one who applied the whip. Your mother's crimes are against God, and the moral principles society lives by. Hers was an unholy marriage, a sacrilege! A marriage that was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. And, as if that wasn't enough, they had to have children--four of them! Children spawned from the Devil! Evil from the moment of conception!"