Carrie pouted and then for some reason brightened. "You know, Cathy, the day the man came to put in the new oven he was young and good looking, and when he saw me with Jory he asked if that was my son. That made me giggle, and he smiled too. His name was Theodore Alexander Rockingham, but he asked me to call him Alex." Here she paused and looked at me fearfully, with hope trembling her all over. "Cathy, he asked me for a date."
"Did you accept?"
"Why not?"
"I don't know him well enough. He said he's going to college and works part-time doing electrical work to help pay his tuition. He says he's going to be an electrical engineer or maybe a minister. . . . He hasn't decided yet which one." She gave me a small smile of both pride and embarrassment. "Cathy, he didn't seem to notice how little I am."
The way she said that made me smile too. "Carrie-- you're blushing! You tell me one moment you don't know this fella very well, and then you come up with all sorts of pertinent facts. Let's invite him to dinner. Then I can find out if he's good enough for my sister."
"But, but . ." she stammered, her small face flushed red. "Alex asked me to go home with him to Maryland for a weekend. He told his parents about me . . . but Cathy, I'm not ready to meet his parents!" Her blue eyes were full of panic. That's when I realized that Carrie must have seen this young man many, many times while I was teaching my ballet classes.
"Look, darling, invite Alex here to dinner and let him fly home alone. I think I should know him better before you go off with him alone."
She gave me the strangest long look, then lowered her eyes to the floor. "Will you be here if he comes to dinner?"
"Why, of course I will." Only then did it dawn on me. Oh, God! I drew her into my arms. "Look, sweetheart, I'll ask Paul to come up this weekend, so when Alex sees I go for older men he won't even glance my way. Besides, you saw him first and he saw you first. He won't want an older woman with a child."
Happily she threw her thin arms about my neck. "Cathy, I love you! And Alex can fix toasters, steam irons. Alex can fix anything!"
One week later Alex and Paul were at our dinner table. Alex was a nice-looking young man of twenty- three who complimented my cooking. I was quick to point out that Carrie had prepared most of the meal. "No," she denied modestly, "Cathy did most of it. I only stuffed the chicken, made the dressing, mashed the potatoes, made the hot rolls and the lemon meringue pie--Cathy did the rest." Suddenly I felt I'd done nothing but set the table. Paul winked to show he understood.
When Alex took Carrie to the movies and Jory was snug in bed with his favorite stuffed toys, Paul and I settled down before the fire like an old married couple.
"Have you seen your mother yet?" he asked.
"They're here, my mother and her husband," I said quietly. "Staying in Foxworth Hall. The local newspaper is full of their comings and goings. It seems my dear, stone-eyed grandmother has suffered a slight stroke, so the Bartholomew Winslows will now make their home with her--that is, until she is dead."
Paul didn't say anything for the longest time. We sat before the fire and watched the red coals burn down to gray ashes. "I like what you've done with this house," he said finally "It's very cozy."
He got up then and came to sit close by my side on the sofa. Tenderly he drew me into his arms. He just held me, with our eyes locked. "Where do I fit in?" he whispered. "Or don't I fit anywhere now?"
My arms tightened about him. I'd never stopped loving him, even when Julian was my husband. It seemed there wasn't any one man who could give me everything.
"I want to make love with you, Catherine, before Carrie comes back."
Quickly we shed our clothes. Our passion for each other had not lessened in all the years since we'd first met in this most intimate way. It didn't seem wrong. Not when he could murmer, "Oh, Catherine, if there is one thing I wish for, it is to have you as mine all my life through, and when I die, let it be after such as this, with you in my arms, your arms about me, and you will be looking at me as you are now."
"How beautiful and poetic," I said. "But you won't be fifty-two until September. I know you'll live to be eighty or ninety. And when you are, I pray passion will still rule both of us as it does now."
He shook his head. "I don't want to live to eighty unless you're with me and still love me. When you don't love me, let my time on earth be over." I didn't know what to say. But my arms spoke for me, drawing him closer so I could kiss him again and again. Then the phone was ringing. Lazily I reached for it--then bolted straight up in the bed.
"Hello, my lady Cath-er-ine!" It was Chris. "Henny had a friend over when I called Paul, and her friend gave me your phone number. Cathy, what the hell are you doing in Virginia? I know Paul is with you--and I hope to God he can persuade you not to do whatever it is you've got on your mind!"
"Paul is much more understanding than you are. And you are the one who should know best why I'm here!"
He made some noise of disgust. "I do understand, that's the worst of it. But you'll be hurt, I know that. And there's Momma. I don't want you to hurt her more than she already hurts, and you know she does. But more than anything I don't want you to be hurt again, and you will be. You're always running from me, Cathy, and you can't ever run far enough or fast enough, because I'll be right at your heels, loving you. Whenever anything good happens to me I sense you by my side, clinging to my hand, loving me as I love you, but refusing to recognize it because you think it's sin. If it is a sin, then hell would be heaven with you."
I felt a terrible sense of panic, as I hastily said good-bye and hung up, then turned to cuddle close to Paul, hoping he wouldn't know why I trembled.
In the dead of night, with Paul deeply asleep in the tiny third bedroom, I woke suddenly. I thought I heard the mountains calling out, Devil's spawn! The wind through the hills whistled and shrieked and added its voice to call me unholy, wicked, evil and everything else the grandmother had named us.
I got up and padded over to the windows to stare at the shadowy, dark peaks in the distance. The same mountain peaks I'd gazed on so often from the attic windows. And yes, just like Cory, I could hear the wind blowing and howling like a wolf searching for me, wanting to blow me away too, just as it had blown Cory and made him into only dry dust.
Quickly I ran to Carrie's room and crouched by her bed, wanting to protect her. For it seemed to me, in my nightmarish state, it was more likely the wind would take her before it got me.
Carrie's Bittersweet Romance
. Carrie was twenty now, I was twenty-seven, and this November Chris would be thirty. That seemed an impossible age for him to be. But when I looked at my Jory it hit me hard how quickly time moves as you get older.