"Call me Cathy," I said as I sat up and reached for my own robe. "I'm not sleeping. Just lying here thinking, and I appreciate another woman to talk to."
She began to pace the floor of my large bedroom. "I've got to speak to a woman, someone who can understand more readily than a man, so that's why I'm here."
"Sit down. I'm ready to listen." Tentatively she perched on a love seat, twisting a tress of her dark hair over and over, sometimes pulling it in between her lips.
"I'm terribly upset . . . Cathy. Bart's told me some very disturbing facts today. He mentioned that you already know about us, that he loves me and I love him I think you have caught us a few times in one room or another in rather intimate moments. And I thank you for pretending not to notice, so I wouldn't feel embarrassed. I've got all kinds of notions that most people think are obsolete."
She gave me a nervous smile, seeking my understanding. "The moment I looked at Bart I fell in love. There's something so magnetic about his dark eyes, so mystical and compelling. And then tonight he took me into his office, sat down behind his desk and like a cold and distant stranger told me a long story about himself, as if he were talking about someone else, someone he didn't like. I felt like a business client whose every reaction was being judged. I didn't know just what he thought I'd reveal. It occurred to me he expected me to appear shocked or disgusted, and at the same time his eyes were so beseeching.
"He loves you, Cathy . . . loves you almost to the point of obsession," she said, making me sit up straighter, stunned with her crazy notion. don't even think he realizes how much he adores you. He thinks he hates you because of your relationship with your brother." She flushed and lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry I have to even mention this, but I'm trying to be open."
"Go on," I urged.
"Because Bart feels he should hate you for that, he tries to. Still, something in you, in him, keeps him from ever really deciding which emotion will reign, love or hatred. He wants a woman like you, only he doesn't know that." She paused, looked up to meet my wide and interested eyes. "Cathy, I told him what I honestly thought, that he was looking for a woman like his mother. He went pale, almost dead white. He appeared totally shocked at the idea."
She paused to watch my reaction. "Toni, you have to be wrong. Bart doesn't want a woman like me, but the exact opposite."
"Cathy, I've studied psychology, and Bart does protest too much about you, so while I listened, I tried to keep an open mind. Bart impounded also the fact that he's never been mentally stable, and that any day he could lose his mind and, with it, his inheritance. Why, it's as if he wants me to hate him, to cut all ties and run away. . . so I am going to run," she sobbed, her hands covering her face so that her tears trickled between her long, elegant fingers. "As much as I love him and I thought he loved me, I can't continue to love and sleep with a man who has so little faith in my integrity--and worse than that, in his own."
Quickly I was on my feet and striding to comfort her. "Don't go, please, Toni, stay. Give Bart another chance. Give him time to think this through. Bart has always been inclined to act on impulse. He also has that old great-uncle who whispers in his ears, telling him you love him for his money alone. It's not Bart who is crazy, but Joel, who tells Bart what he should look for in a future wife."
Hopefully she stared at me, trying to check her flow of tears. I went on, determined to help Bart escape the childhood sense of being unworthy and the adult influence of Joel. "Toni, the twins adore you, and there's only so much I can do. Stay to help with Jory and help me keep him entertained. He needs professional help to maintain physical progress, too. And keep in mind that Bart is unpredictable, sometimes unreasonable, but he loves you. He's told me several times how much he loves and admires you. He's testing your love for him by telling you what is the truth. He was unstable mentally when he was a child, but there were good reasons that caused his mental disturbance. Hold fast to your belief in him and you can save him from himself and his greatuncle."
Toni stayed.
Life went on as usual.
Deirdre, before her first birthday, was walking anywhere she chose to go, or we'd allow. Small and dainty, her golden curls bobbing, she charmed us all with her incessant babbling, which soon turned into simple words, leading the way for Darren to follow. Once she heard herself speak, she couldn't stop. Although Darren was slower to walk, he was not slower to investigate dark, dim places that scared his twin sister. He was the incessant explorer, the one who had to pick everything up and examine it, so I was forced to put expensive and delicate objets d'art on shelves he couldn't reach.
A letter came from Cindy stating that she was homesick for her family and wanted to come home and spend Thanksgiving through Christmas, but she was invited to a fabulous New Year's Eve party and would fly back to attend that.
I gave the letter to Jory to read. Smiling, he looked up. "Have you told her about Bart and his love affair with Toni?"
"No," I said, for I was going to let her see and find out for herself. Of course, before she'd left last summer, Toni had been with us only two days, but at that time Cindy had been so discontented she hadn't paid attention to what she thought was just more hired help.
The day came when we were expecting Cindy home for the holidays, a bitterly cold day. Chris and I were at the airport when she came through the gate, dressed in bright crimson, looking so beautiful all the people in the airport turned to stare her way. "Mom! Dad!" she cried happily, flinging herself first into my arms and then into Chris's. "I'm so happy to see you. And before you warn me, I promise to do and say nothing that will upset the applecart named Bart. This Christmas I'm going to be the perfect sweet little angel he wants me to be ... and no doubt even then he'll find something to criticize, but I won't care." Then she was asking about Jory, about the twins, and had we heard from Melodie? And how was the new nurse working out? And was our chef the same? Was Trevor still as sweet as ever?
Somehow or other, Cindy gave me the feeling we were, after all, a real family . . . and that was enough to make me very happy. Once she was in the grand foyer, Toni and Bart, with Jory holding the twins on his lap, were all waiting to sing out greetings. Only Joel hung back and refused to welcome our daughter home. Bart shook her hand in a warm fashion, and that gave me such relief and pleasure. Cindy laughed. "Someday, brother Bart, you are going to be really overjoyed to see me, and maybe then you can allow your chaste lips to kiss my unholy cheek.
He flushed and glanced uneasily at Toni. "I've got a confession, Toni. In the past, Cindy and I haven't always gotten along."
"To say the least," said Cindy. "But rest easy, Bart, I'm not here to make trouble. I didn't bring a boyfriend. I'm going to behave myself. I've come because I love my family and can't stand being away during the holidays."
The holiday
s that year couldn't have been better, unless we could have turned back the clock and made Jory whole again, and restored Melodie to him.
In a matter of a few days, Cindy and Toni became close friends. Toni went shopping with us as Jory took care of the twins with the help of a maid. Time flew as it never did when Cindy wasn't around. The four years' difference between her age and Toni's didn't matter. Generously Cindy loaned Toni one of her prettiest dresses for that Christmas Eve trip into Charlottesville where she could dance with one of the doctor's sons she'd met the year before. Jory went as well but sat looking unhappy while Bart danced with Toni.
"Mom," whispered Cindy when she came back to our table, "I think Bart has changed. He's a much warmer person now. Why, I'm even beginning to think he's human."
Smiling, I nodded, but still I couldn't help thinking of Joel and the way he and Bart spent so much time in that small room they'd converted into a chapel. Why? There were churches all around.
New Year's Eve came and Bart and Toni decided to fly to New York with Cindy and celebrate there. Leaving Chris, Jory and I to do the best we could without them. We used this opportunity to invite a few of Chris's colleagues to our home, along with their spouses, knowing that Joel would report this to Bart when he came back. Still I didn't care.
I bumped into Joel that night as I left the nursery. Smiling, I met his eyes. "Well, Joel, it seems my son won't be as dependent on you once he marries Toni."
"He'll never marry her," said Joel in his harsh, forecasting way. "He's like all young men in love, a fool who can't see the truth. She wants his money, not him, and he'll soon find that out."