Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

"I'm too old to learn," she whispered, backing off.

"No, you're not," said Jory, reaching for her hand as if he'd show her the way, but she pulled back, glanced at me, reddened, then fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief. "Do you have a little boy I can play with?" questioned my son, concerned to see her tears, as if having a son would make up for not knowing how to dance.

"No," she said in a quivering weak whisper, "I don't have any children."

That's when I moved in to say in a cold, harsh voice, "Some women don't deserve to have children." I paid for my roll of stamps and dropped them in my purse. "Some women like you, Mrs. Winslow, would rather have money than the bother of children who might get in the way of good times. Time itself will sooner or later let you know if you made the right decision."

She turned her back and shivered again as if all her furs couldn't keep her warm enough. Then she strode from the post office and headed toward a chauffeur- driven, black limousine. Like a queen she rode off, head held high, leaving Jory to ask, "Mommy, why don't you like that pretty lady? I like her a lot. She's like you, only not so pretty." I didn't comment, though it was on the tip of my tongue to say something so ugly he would never forget it.

In the twilight of that evening I sat near the windows, staring toward Foxworth Hall and

wondering what Bart and my mother were doing. My hands were on my abdomen which was still flat, but soon it would be swelling with the child that might be started. One missed period didn't prove anything-- except I wanted Bart's baby, and little things made me feel sure there was a baby. I let depression come and take me. He wouldn't leave her and her money to marry me and I'd have another fatherless child. What a fool to start all of this--but I'd always been a fool.

And then I saw a man slipping through the woods, coming to me, and I laughed, made confident again. He loved me! He did . . . and as soon as I knew for certain, I would tell him he was to be a father.

Then the wind came in with Bart and blew the vase of roses from the table. I stood and stared down at the crystal pieces and the petals scattered about. Why was the wind always trying to tell me something? Something I didn't want to hear!

Stacking the Deck

. "Cathy, you told me there was no need for precautions!"

"There was no need. I want your baby."

"You want my baby? What the hell do you think I can do, marry you?"

"No. I did my own assuming. I presumed you'd have your fun with me and when it was over you'd go back to your wife and find yourself another playmate. And I'd have just what I set out to get--your baby. Now I can leave. So kiss me off, Bart, as just another of your little extramarital dalliances."

He looked furious. We were in my living room, while a fierce blizzard raged outside. Snow heaped in mounds window-high, and I was before the fireplace, knitting a baby bunting before I began a bootie. I was getting ready to slip a stitch then knit two together when Bart seized my knitting from my hands and hurled it away. "It's unraveling!" I cried in dismay.

"What the hell are you trying to do to me, Cathy? You know I can't marry you! I never lied and said I would. You're playing a game with me." He choked and covered his face with his hands, then took them down and pleaded, "I love you. God help me but I do. I want you near me always, and I want my child too. What kind of game are you playing now?"

"Just a woman's game. The only game she can play and be sure of winning."

"Look," he said, trying to regain his control of the situation, "explain what you mean, don't double talk. Nothing has to change because my wife is back. You'll always have a place in my life--"

"In your life? Don't you mean more correctly, on the fringes of your life?"

For the first time I heard humility in his voice. "Cathy, be reasonable. I love you, and I love my wife too. Sometimes I can't separate you from her. She came back different, as I told you, and now she is like she was when we first met. Maybe a more youthful figure and face has given her back some confidence she lost, and because of it she can be sweeter. Whatever the cause, I'm grateful. Even when I disliked her, I loved her. When she was hateful, I'd try and strike back by going to other women, but still I loved her. The one big issue we fight over is her

unwillingness to have a child, even an adopted one. Of course she's too old to have one now. Please, Cathy, stay! Don't leave! Don't take my child away so I will never know what happens to him, or to her . . . or to you."

I laid it out flat. "All right, I will stay on one condition. If you divorce her and marry me, only then will you have the child you always wanted. Otherwise, I'm taking myself, and that means your child too, far away. Maybe I'll write to let you know if you have a son or a daughter, and maybe I won't. Either way, once I leave, you are out of my life for good." I thought, look at him, acting a

s if that codicil weren't in the will forbidding his wife to have children. Protecting her! Just like Chris, when all along he had to know. He'd drawn up the will. He had to know.

Before the fireplace he stood with his arm up on the mantel, then he rested his forehead on that and stared down at the fire. His free hand was behind his back and clenched into a fist. His confused thoughts were so deep they reached out and touched me with pity. He turned then to face me, staring deep into my eyes. "My God," he said, shocked by his discovery. "You planned this all along, didn't you? You came here to accomplish what you have, but why? Why should you choose me to hurt? What have I ever done to you, Cathy, but love you? True, it started with sex, and sex only was what I wanted it to stay. But it has grown into something much more than that. I like being with you, just sitting and talking, or walking in the woods. I feel comfortable with you. I like the way you wait on me, and touch my cheek when you pass, and rumple my hair and kiss my neck, and the sweet, shy way you wake up and smile when you see me beside you. I like the clever games you play, keeping me always guessing, and always amused. I feel I have ten women in one, so now I feel I can't live without you. But I can't abandon my wife and marry you. She needs me!"

"You should have been an actor, Bart. Your words move me to tears."

"Damn you for taking this so lightly!" he bellowed. "You've got me on a rack and you're twisting the screws! Don't make me hate you and ruin the best months of my life!"

With that he stormed out of my cottage, and I was left alone, ruefully regretting that always I talked too much, for I would stay as long as he needed me.

Emma, Jory and I thought it a wonderful idea to make an excursion to Richmond and do some Christmas shopping. Jory had never seen Santa Claus that he could remember, and most fearfully he approached the red-suited, white-bearded man who held out his arms to encourage him. Tentatively he perched on Santa's knee in Thalhimers Department Store, and stared disbelievingly into twinkling blue eyes while I snapped pictures from every angle, even crawling to get what I wanted.

Next we visited a dress shop I'd heard about where I handed to them a sketch I'd drawn from memory. I selected the exact shade of dark green velvet, and then the lighter green chiffon for the skirt. "And make the straps of the velvet bodice shoestrings of rhinestones-- and remember, the floating panels must reach the hem."

While Jory and Emma watched a Walt Disney movie, I had my hair cut and styled differently. Not just trimmed, as was my habit, but really cut shorter than I'd ever worn it. It was a style that flattered me, as it should, for it had flattered my mother when she wore her hair this way, fifteen years ago.