"Good riddance to rubbish," he said
indifferently.
Standing, I threw him a look of pity. "Before you condemn Cindy so harshly, Bart, think about yourself. Has she done any worse than you have?"
He began to use his computer without replying. I slammed the door behind me.
Three days later I was helping Cindy finish her packing. We'd been shopping, so she had more than enough casual clothes, six pairs of new shoes and two new swimsuits. She kissed Jory goodbye, then lingered wih the twins cuddled in her arms. "Dear little babies," she crooned, "I'll be back. I'll sneak in and out and won't let Bart even see me. Jory, you should get away from here, too. Momma, you and Daddy go with him " Reluctantly she put the twins back in their play pen and came to hug and kiss me. I was already crying. I was losing my daughter. I knew from the way she looked at me that nothing between us would ever be quite the same again.
Still she came to me and hugged me. "Daddy's going to drive me to the airport," she said as she bowed her head on my shoulder. "You can come, too, if you don't cry and feel sorry for me, because I'm happier than any lark to be free of this damned house. And take me seriously for once--get Jory and yourselves free of this house. It's an evil house, and now I hate its spirit just as much as once I loved its beauty."
We drove to the airport without Cindy bidding Bart or Joel farewell.
Without another word to me, her remote expression told me everything. She was warmer with Chris, kissing him goodbye. She only waved to me as she raced toward her departure gate. "Don't hang around and wait for my plane to take off. I'm boarding it gladly."
"You will write?" Chris asked.
"Naturally, when I can find time."
"Cindy," I called despite myself, wanting to protect her again, "write at least once a week. We care about what happens to you. We'll be here to do what we can when you need us. And sooner or later, Bart will find what he's looking for. He'll change. I'll see to it that he changes. I'll do anything I have to so we can be a family again."
"He won't find his soul, Momma," she called back coolly, backing away even farther. "He was born without one."
Before her plane left the ground, my tears stopped flowing and my determination hardened into concrete. Indeed, before I died, I was going to see my family united, made whole and healthy--if it took the rest of my life.
Chris made attempts to pull me out of my depression as he drove me back to what had to be called "home." "How's the nurse making out?"
My concern for Cindy had kept me so involved that I'd paid little attention to the beautiful, darkhaired nurse Chris had recently hired to live in and help with the twins and Jory. She'd been in the house a few days and I'd hardly said more than six words to her.
"What does Jory think of Toni?" he asked. "I took considerable pains looking for just the right one. In my opinion, she's a real find."
"I don't think he's even looked at her, Chris. He stays so busy with his painting and the babies. They're just beginning to crawl without so much effort. Why, yesterday I saw Cory--I mean Darren--pick up a bug from the grass and try to put it in his mouth. It was Toni who ran to prevent that. I don't recall Jory even looking at her."
"He will, sooner or later. And Cathy, you've got to stop thinking of his twins as Cory and Carrie. If Jory hears you call them Cory or Carrie he'll be angry. They are not our twins--they are Jory's."
Chris said nothing more during the long drive back to Foxworth Hall, not even when he turned into our long drive and then drove slowly into the garage.
"What's going on in, this crazy house?" Jory asked as soon as I stepped onto the terrace, where he was seated on an athletic mat put on the flagstones. The twins were with him, playing happily in the sunshine. "Shortly after you left to drive Cindy to the airport, a crew of construction workers arrived and knocked and banged away in that downstairs room Joel likes to pray in. I didn't see Bart, and I didn't want to talk to Joel. And then there's something else--"
"I don't understand . . ."
"It's that damned nurse you and Dad hired, Mom. She's gorgeous and she's good at her job-- when I can get hold of her. I've been calling for ten minutes and she hasn't responded. The twins are dripping wet, and she didn't bring out enough diapers so I can change them again. I can't go in the house and get more without leaving them alone. They scream now when I try to put them in the slings. They want to be on their own. Especially Deirdre."
I diapered the twins myself and put them down for naps, then went in search of the newest member in our household.
To my astonishment I found her in the new swimming pool with Bart, both of them laughing, splashing water at one another.
"Hi, Mother!" called Bart, looking tan and healthy, and happier than I'd seen him since the days when he had believed himself in love with Melodie. "Toni plays a super game of tennis. It's great having her here. We were both so hot after all that exercise that we decided to cool off in the pool."
The look in my eyes was read clearly by Antonia Winters. Immediately she clambered out of the pool and began to dry off. She toweled her dark curly hair dry, then wrapped her red bikini with the same white towel. "Bart has asked me to call him by his first n
ame. You won't mind if I do that, will you, Mrs. Sheffield?"
I looked her over appraisingly, wondering if she was truly responsible enough to take care of Jory and the twins. I liked her dark hair that sprang
immediately into soft waves and curls to frame her face becomingly without makeup. She was about five eight and had as many voluptuous curves as Cindy, curves that Bart had despised on his sister. But from the way he was looking at the nurse, he approved of her figure very much.
"Toni," I began with control, "Jory, who I hired you to help, tried to call you to bring more diapers for the twins. He was out on the terrace with his children, and you should have been with him, not Bart. We hired you expecting you'd see that neither Jory or his children would be neglected."