"It was awful, Momma, so humiliating! To be carried like that, as if I were cattle! I cried all the way, pleading with Bart to call an ambulance in case Victor was seriously hurt . . . but he wouldn't listen. I begged him to put me down and let me cover myself, but he ordered me to shut up or else he'd do something terrible. Then he took me to--"
She cut off her words abruptly, staring before her as if mesmerized by fear.
"Where did he take you, Cindy?" I asked, feeling sick, as if her humiliation was mine, and so furious with Bart, feeling sorry for her shocking plight. At the same time I was so angry that she'd brought this upon herself by disobeying and disregarding everything I'd tried to teach her.
In a small, weak voice, with her head lowered so her long hair fell to hide her face, she finished, "Just home, Mom . . . just home."
There was more to it, but she refused to tell me anything else. I wanted to scold her, to chastise her, remind her again that she knew all about Bart and his fierce temper, but she was too traumatized to hear more.
I got up to leave her room. "I'm taking away all your privileges, Cindy. I'll send up a servant to take out your telephone so you can't call one of your boyfriends to help you escape. I've heard your side of the story now, and Bart just this morning told me his side. I don't agree with his method of punishing you or that boy. He was much too brutal, and for that, I apologize. However, it seems you are very free with your sexual favors. You can't deny that any longer, for I've seen you with my own eyes when that boy Lance was here. It hurts to know that you've heeded so little of what I've tried to teach you. I realize it's hard to be young and different from your peers, but still I was hoping you'd wait until you knew how to handle intimate relationships. I couldn't bear for an unknown man to lay a finger on me--much less take me totally--and you just met that boy, Cindy! A complete stranger who might have hurt you!"
Her pitiful pretty face lifted. "Momma, help me!"
"Haven't I done my best to help you all your life? Listen to me, Cindy, for once really listen. The best part of loving comes with learning to know a man, by allowing him to know you as a person before you begin to think about sex--you don't pick up the first man you meet!"
Bitterly she railed back. "Momma, all the books write about sex. They don't mention love. Most psychiatrists say there is no such thing as love. You've never explained to me exactly what love is. I don't even know if it really exists. I think that sex is as necessary at my age as water and food, and love is nothing but excitement; it's your blood heating up; your pulse racing, your heart pounding, your breath coming faster, heavier, and in the end it's only a natural need no worse than wanting to sleep. So despite you and your old- fashioned ideas, I give in when a boy I like wants to make out. Victor Wade wanted me . . . and I wanted him. Now, don't blaze your eyes at me that way! He didn't force me. Didn't rape me--I just let him! I wanted him to do what he did!"
Her blue eyes defied me as she jumped up and stared me in the eyes. "Now go on and call me a sinner like Bart did! Yell and scream and say I'll go to hell, but I don't believe you any more than I believe him! If so, ninety-nine percent of the world's population are sinners--including you and your brother!'
Stunned, deeply hurt, I turned and left.
The beautiful summer days dragged by while Cindy sulked in her room, angry at Bart, at me, even at Chris. She refused to eat at the table if Bart or Joel were there. She stopped showering two and three times a day and allowed her hair to become just as stringy and dull as Melodie's, as if proving to us she was now on her way to abandoning us as Melodie had, and it was Melodie's manner she tried to duplicate as much as possible. However, even in sullenness her eyes still sparked with fire, and she managed to look pretty even when she looked messy.
"You're not accomplishing anything but making yourself miserable," I said when I saw her quickly turn off the TV set she had in her bedroom, as if she wanted me to believe she didn't have a single pleasure left to enjoy when her room contained every luxury but the telephone, which I'd removed so she couldn't arrange secret dates with Victor Wade or anyone else.
She sat on the bed, staring at me resentfully. "You just let me go, Momma. You go and tell Bart to let me go and I'll never bother him again. I'll never come back to this house again! NEVER!"
"Where will you go and what will you do, Cindy?" I asked with concern, afraid she'd slip out one night and we'd never hear from her again. And I knew she didn't have enough money saved to see her through longer than two weeks.
"I'LL DO WHAT I HAVE TO!" she screamed, tears of self-pity streaking her pale face, which was already losing its rosy tan. "You and Daddy gave to me generously, so I won't have to sell my body if that's what you're thinking. Unless I just want to. Right this moment I feel like being everything Bart doesn't want me to be, and that would show him, really show him."
"Then you stay in this room until you feel like being everything I want you to be. When you can speak to me with respect, without yelling, and express to me some mature decisions on what you intend to do with your life, I'll help you escape this house."
"Momma!" she wailed. "Don't hate me! I can't help it if I like the boys and they like me! I'd like to save myself for that special Mister Right, but I've never met anyone that special. When I refuse to let them, they go straight from me to some other girl who doesn't refuse. How did you manage it, Momma? What did you do to keep a
ll those men loving you, and only you?"
All those men? I didn't know how to answer.
Instead, like other parents put on the spot, I avoided giving the straight answer I didn't have anyway. "Cindy, your father and I love you very much, you should know that. Jory loves you. And the twins smile just to see you come near them. Before you decide to do something rash, let's sit down with your father, with Jory, and then you have your say, and let us know what you want for yourself. And if it is at all reasonable, we will do what we can to see that you obtain your goals."
"You won't let Bart in on any of this?" she asked suspiciously.
"No, darling. Bart has proven he doesn't reason when it comes to you. Ever since the day you joined our family he's resented you, and at this late date there doesn't seem to be much any of us can do about that. As for Joel, I don't like him, either, and he has no place in our family discussion about your future."
Suddenly she flung her arms about my neck. "Oh, Momma, I'm so ashamed I said so many ugly things. I wanted to hurt you the other day because Bart had shamed me so much. Save me from Bart, Momma. Find a way, please, please."
After Chris, Jory, Cindy and I talked, we found a way to save Cindy not only from Bart but from herself. I tried to calm Bart, who wanted to punish her more drastically.
"She's only adding fuel to the fire already burning in the village," he shouted when I entered his office. "I try to lead a decent, God-fearing life--now don't you yell at me and say you've heard differently. I'll admit I was rolling in filth for a while, but things have changed. I didn't enjoy those women. Melodie was the only one who gave me anything that approached love."
I tried to keep the frown from my face. How easily he had turned away from her once he knew he had her loving him .
Looking around at all the valuables in his office, I wondered again if Bart didn't love things more than he loved people; I stared at the luxurious antique Orientals that he'd purchased at auctions, costing hundreds of thousands. His furniture put that in the White House to shame. He would be the wealthiest man in the world if he kept doubling his five hundred thousand a year every few months, the way he was somehow managing to do now. Even before he came fully "into his own" he'd have made his billion or so. He was clever, quick, brilliant. What a pity he couldn't be more to mankind than just another greedy, selfish millionaire.
"Leave now, Mother. You waste my time." He swiveled his chair around and stared out at the beautiful gardens now in full bloom. "Send Cindy away-- anywhere. Just get her out of my hair."
"Cindy told us last night she'd like to spend the remainder of the summer in a New England drama school. She had the name and address of the one she preferred. Chris called to check them out, and they seem reliable and have a good reputation. So she's leaving in three days."