Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

“I have a built-in lie detector. A buzzer goes off in my head, so don’t try to fool me.”

“Maybe I’ve fooled you already.”

He laughed. “You’re good, angel, you’re real good,” he said. “My father uses that line on my mother. It comes from some old Humphrey Bogart movie.”

“Too bad Christopher Dollanganger didn’t have that built-in buzzer of yours to know when he was being told the truth and when he wasn’t. I’m sure he and his brother and sisters wouldn’t have suffered so much.”

“I’ll have to catch up to see what you mean by suffering so much, but don’t tell me any more. I want to be objective and come to my own conclusions. I know that’s what you want, too, right?”

I nodded, and Kane made the turn into the school parking lot. Others were racing not to be late, the cooler air putting more energy into their strides, because, like Kane, most were underdressed. Even though they looked like they were on treadmills going five or six miles an hour and looked as comical as silent movie stars, some boys thought it was macho to freeze.

After Kane parked and shut off the engine, he sat there for a moment.

“What?” I asked, seeing that he was still in deep thought.

“Their mother brought them there, right?”

“Yes, you’ll read about how and why. So?”

“So maybe he rationalized a lot. Maybe he did know, Kristin.”

“Did know what?”

“Maybe he knew when he was being lied to but put up with it and lied to himself, and that’s what we’ll read. So your father could be at least half right.”

“Why would he lie to himself?”

“All of us are willing to forgive the ones we love, Kristin,” he replied, “even for their lies.”

That was a perceptive thing to say, I thought, but what was going on in Kane’s life that brought him to that conclusion, a conclusion he was willing to share? I was more impressed with him every time we were together. The sensitivity he revealed was a nice surprise. My father always said that getting to know someone, someone you cared very much to know, was like peeling an onion. It took time and patience. Sometimes you peeled away too much and regretted it. I didn’t think I would regret it when it came to Kane. At least, I hoped I wouldn’t.

I got out of the car, but I was still thinking about what he had said. All of us are willing to forgive the ones we love? Even for lies?

I hope so, I thought. I hope that in the end, my father will forgive me.

* * *

A big secret changes you in ways you don’t realize immediately, especially if you share that secret with someone and hope he or she is keeping it safe. The bigger the secret, the more vulnerable and in danger you feel. Sometimes it shows right on your face, like splattered egg yolk, especially a face like mine. Practically every moment outside of class, I expected someone to rush over to me and declare, “You have the diary? You know what really happened at the original Foxworth Hall?” Every time I heard one of my friends call my name, an electric chill would rush up my spine.

Everyone has little secrets. In our world, that was what made you more interesting. But this was very different. Anyone who found out what we had would surely pounce, and not just my classmates. Newspapers, radio, television people would haunt us. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing, nor would the doorbell. People would accuse us of always having had it and deliberately hoarding the truth because it was embarrassing for our family. My mother was a distant cousin of Malcolm Foxworth, so the children were distant cousins of mine. My father would feel terrible for calling me over that day to watch him open the locked metal box at the bottom of some debris in the remains of the restored Foxworth Hall. The restoration had used the same basement walls. My father thought the builders were just not very meticulous when it came to cleaning away the original debris. His colleagues would tease him about it. Some might even be nasty and make him angry. He would hate to go anywhere, except to work and right back home. Just going to the supermarket would become a big deal. I couldn’t even imagine what coming to my high school graduation would be like for him.

He might lose business. He might want to sell our house and move away.

I didn’t want to imagine any of it. It was like having a nightmare while awake. That’s what it was starting to feel like at school.

Physically, I was walking about with my books embraced tightly against my breasts, as if I were protecting something precious inside the covers, or perhaps really more inside me. Emotionally, I felt clogged, as if my feelings were twisted into figure-eight knots. The weight of our secret slowed my pace, no matter what I was doing. I could feel my eyes widen in expectation every time I was asked a question, no matter how innocent the question might seem. Had I revealed anything accidentally? Had I whetted anyone’s interest? Had Kane inadvertently given something away already, and others were testing me? I was taking on real paranoia. This was triggered especially when one of my close friends, Kyra Skewer, asked me about Kane picking me up every morning and taking me home after school.

“Does he hang out at your house, or do you go to his or what afterward?” she wanted to know. She asked in front of Suzette, Missy Meyer, and Theresa Flowman, and all four of them gave me their full attention, their ears perked up like extraterrestrial antennae.

“It varies with my mood,” I said cryptically.

“Huh?”

“Whatever,” I said. “It’s spontaneous.”

“You and your vocabulary,” Kyra complained. She had a grimace that made her look like she was being burned at the stake whenever she complained about anything.

“Spontaneous? Please. That’s not a hard word to define, Kyra.”