"Name every bone in my body!" she shrilled back at him, and I was thinking, thinking: if she broke her bones and couldn't dance again, then she'd have to stay home with me all the time.
"Honestly, Chris, sometimes you act like I'm your slave! Look at me. I'm thirty-seven years old, and soon I'll be too old to dance at all. Let me feel useful, as you feel useful. I have to dance--just one more time."
"No," he repeated, but less firmly. "If I give in it won't be the last time. You'll want to do it again . . ." 186
"Chris, I'm not going to plead. There is not a student I have capable of playing the role--and I am going on whether or not you like it!" She threw me a glance, as if she worried more about what I thought than what he thought. I was happy, very happy . . . for she was going to fall! Deep inside of me I knew I could make her fall with my wishes. I'd sit in the audience and give her the evil eye; then she'd be my playmate. I'd teach her how to crawl around and sniff the ground like a dog or an Indian, and she'd be surprised at all that could
be found out from sniffing.
"I am not talking of a trifling injury, Catherine," said that hateful husband. "All your life you have given your joints a great deal of stress and disregarded the pain. It's time you started realizing that the good health of your family depends on your well-being."
I scowled at Dad, sorry he'd forgotten something and had to come back and hear too much. Mama didn't even seem surprised he'd forgotten his wallet again, and he was a doctor who was supposed to have a good memory. She gave him his wallet, which had been left beside his breakfast plate, and smiled at him crookedly. "You do this every day. You go out to the garage, start your car and then remember you don't have your wallet."
His smile was just as crooked as hers. "Yes, of course I do. It gives me the opportunity to come back and hear all the things you don't tell me." He stuffed the wallet in his hip pocket.
"Chris, I don't like to go against your wishes, but I can't allow a second-rate performance, and it's Jory's big chance to show off in his solo . . ."
"For once in your life, Catherine, listen to what I say. That knee has been x-rayed, you know the cartilage is broken, and you still complain of chronic pain. You haven't danced on stage for years. Chronic pain is one thing--acute pain another. Is that what you want?"
"Oh, you doctors!" she scoffed. "All of you have such dreary notions of how frail the human body is. My knee hurts, so what? All my dancers complain of aches and pains. When I was in South Carolina, the dancers complained, in New York they complained, in London . . . so what is pain to a dancer? Nothing, doctor, absolutely nothing I can't put up with."
"Cathy!"
"My knee has not hurt seriously in more than two full years. Have you heard me gripe about pain? No, you haven't!"
With that, Dad strode from the kitchen, through the utility room, and on into the garage.
In a flash she was running after him, and I was running after her--hoping to hear more of this argument--and hoping she'd win. Then I'd have her for my very own.
"Chris," she cried, throwing open the passenger door and slipping inside his car, where she threw her arms about his neck. "Don't go away angry. I love you, respect you, and vow on my word of honor that this will be the very last time I perform. I swear I will never, never dance on stage again. I know why I should stay home . . . I know . . ."
They kissed. Never saw people who liked to kiss so much. Then she was pulling away and looking softly into his eyes, stroking his cheek as she murmured: "This is my first chance to dance professionally with Julian's son, darling. Look at Jory, how much he resembles Julian. I've choreographed a special pas de deux in which I'm the mechanical doll and Jory is a mechanical soldier. It's the best thing I've ever done. I want you out in the audience watching, feeling proud of your wife and son. I don't want you sitting there worrying about my knee. Honestly, I've rehearsed, and it does not hurt!"
She stroked him and kissed him some more, and I could see he loved her more than anything, more than us, even more than himself. Fool! Damned fool to love any woman that much!
"All right," he said. "But this must be the last time. Your knee cannot take years and years of practice. Even in teaching you use that knee too much, so much so that other joints could become impaired."
I watched her turn from him and leave the car, her voice so sad when she spoke. "Years ago Madame Marisha told me there would be no life for me without dancing, and I denied this was so. Now I'm going to have the chance to find out."
Good!
Just the words he needed to hear to make him come up with a new idea. He leaned and called to her: "Cathy, what about that book you said you were going to write? This is a good time to start . . ." He gave me a long look, and I felt like a clear windowpane. "Bart, remember you are very loved. If you feel resentment about anyone, or anything, all you have to do is tell me, or tell your mother. We are willing to listen and do what we can to make you happy."
Happy? I'd be happy only when he was gone from her life. Happy only when I had her all to myself--and then I remembered that old man . . . two old men. Neither one of them wanted her to stay alive . . . neither one. I wanted to be like them, especially like Malcolm, so I pretended he was in the garage, waiting for Daddy to drive away, and I'd be alone. He liked it when I was alone, when I felt sad, lonely, mean, angry . . . and right now he was smiling.
No sooner had Momma and Jory driven away, shortly after Daddy left, then Emma was at me again, pestering me, hating me.
"Bart, can't you wipe that blood from your lip? Do you have to keep on biting down? Most people refrain from deliberately hurting themselves."
What did she know about being me? I didn't feel pain when I chewed on my lip. Liked to taste the blood.
"I'll tell you one thing, Bartholomew Scott Winslow Sheffield, if you were my little boy you'd feel the sting of my hand on your bottom. I believe you like to torment people and do every mean thing you can just to gain their attention. It doesn't take any psychiatrist with ten diplomas to know that!"
"SHUT UP!" I yelled.
"Don't you dare yell and tell me to shut up. I've had all I am going to take from you! You are responsible for all the terrible things going on in this house. You broke that expensive figurine your mother prized. I found it in the trashcan, wrapped in newspaper. You may sit there and scowl at me with your black ugly eyes, but I'm not afraid. You are the one who wrapped that wire around Clover and killed your brother's pet. You should be ashamed! You're a mean, hateful little boy, Bart Sheffield, and it's no wonder you don't have any friends, no wonder at all! And I'm going to save your parents thousands of dollars when I turn you over my knee and paddle your bottom until its black and blue. You won't sit comfortably for two weeks!"
She towered over me, making me feel small and helpless too. I wanted to be anybody but me, anybody who was strong.