"We'll finish this tomorrow. There's so much more, but don't worry. Dolly will be safe and get home to her mother after she has some more adventures. Okay?"
Mary Margaret barely nodded.
Great-uncle Richard stood up, fixed her blanket around her and then kissed her again, this time on the cheek. He turned off the music box and turned off the lamp. He stood there for a long moment looking down at her and then he left the room.
The rain that had been threatening all day suddenly began in a light drizzle, but I couldn't move. My legs felt frozen and cramped and my chest ached from holding my breath for so long. Just as I was about to work my way out from behind the hedges, the lamp went on again and Mary Margaret pushed the blanket away from her. She was wearing a nightdress that barely reached the top of her thighs. I was mesmerized. I couldn't move an inch even though the raindrops were thickening and falling faster.
She rose from the bed and went to the closet. I saw her pull off the nightdress and then put on her own clothes. After she was dressed, she turned off the lamp and left the bedroom. I hovered in the shadows, close to the cottage to keep out of the rain, and then I crouched even lower when I heard the cottage door open and close. Moments later, Mary Margaret crossed the grounds quickly. She had an umbrella and headed toward the front of the house. A few seconds later, I saw the Endfields' limousine pull away with Boggs driving.
I waited another thirty seconds or so and then I rose to leave, feeling as if my legs had turned to lead. With ponderous but quick steps, I hurried back to the rear entrance of the house and went inside. I could feel my blood settle, the chill ease up, but my heart was still racing and my throat felt as if there was a scream caught in it. After a deep breath, the feeling disappeared. I started down the hall toward my room.
My robe was soaked and so was my hair. I fetched a clean, dry nightgown, returned to the bathroom and dried myself with a towel. Gradually, the chill left me entirely and I went back to my bedroom. I gazed out the window. The cottage was completely dark now. The rain was falling harder and faster, beating a frantic tattoo on my small window. It matched the rhythm of my heart. I closed the curtain and retreated to my bed, anxious to get under the covers. Shivers came from thoughts now and not cold air.
How strange, sad and frightening it was. I could only imagine how long it had been going on. After what I had seen, could I ever look at my Great-uncle Richard the same way? Would he take one look at me and know that I had spied on him and Mary Margaret? And what about her? Would she know as well? Did he force her to do this or did she want to do it? Perhaps he paid her something extra.
The rain continued to lash against the house. Staccato beats on the walls and the roof were like drums marching me toward the nightmares that eagerly awaited entrance into my world of dreams as soon as I had closed my eyes. I was afraid to fall asleep.
What kind of place had I been sent to? Yes, these people were rich and highly respected. They socialized with royalty and dwelled in the corridors of power and prestige. They dressed correctly, spoke perfectly, and made it seem as if everything they did and was done for them had complete balance.
But they lived in a house with a dark history. They had restored and modernized it, yet they had brought their own ghosts to dwell alongside the ones that were supposedly trapped inside these walls. A river of pain flowed through these richly designed and decorated rooms.
Despite what they said and how they lived, my Great-uncle Richard and my Great-aunt Leonora had obviously been unable to accept their tragic loss. Now that I was in my warm bed and I could think, I was less and less frightened by it all. Pity and irony replaced the terror I had experienced in the shadows outside those cottage windows. Through their seemingly perfect English lives, they tried to build a wall around themselves to shut away their pain and lock away their secrets. It wasn't working; it probably never worked and never would.
Truth was as powerful and as insistent as water. It would seep in every small opening, and every attempt to plug up the holes in their hearts would fail, for another hole would simply form until all these castle walls would crumble and the truth would flood and wash away the false faces. There wasn't a false face in the world that could successfully hide what the false heart did know. Reading Shakespeare had taught me that.
All my great-aunt and great-uncle had to do was admit to their pain. Great-uncle Richard was trying desperately to ignore the pain with his secret cottage, but one day it would surely collapse around him and that would be even worse, so I did feel pity for them.
The irony came from realizing how desperately some parents held on to their children and the memories whereas mine had tried to deny my very existence. If Great-uncle Richard's daughter could appear before him now, how his heart would burst with joy. What would my father's heart do when I appeared? Would it squirm and shrink in his chest, close up like a fist?
Funny, I thought, how even though the scene in the cottage was terribly bizarre, I couldn't help but be jealous. I never had a father sit on my bed and read to me. I never had a father fix my blanket and kiss my cheek and wish me sweet dreams. I never had a father who gave me a feeling of security and love, who protected me from the demons that danced outside my windows. For a moment I almost wished I was Mary Margaret, pretending, but feeling the love I longed to feel.
What would be my first words to my real father? Should I ask him how he intended to make it up to me? Should I ask him to compensate for all those long and lonely nights, the deep holes of emptiness in which I dwelled? Should I hate him or should I love him?
Maybe I should drag him to the cottage of dreams and force him to read me a bedtime story. In my heart of hearts, I believed my Great-uncle Richard, perhaps more than anyone, would understand why I wanted to do that. He wouldn't laugh or condemn me for it. He might even send Boggs in that limousine to pick up my father and bring him here.
"You've got a daughter you denied all these years?" he would say in astonishment. "Why? Why were you given the opportunity to have her and deny her while I, who was thankful for my own daughter, was denied her? Why?"
Where were the answers to all these questions? Should I even bother to look for them or should I go on like so many people I knew now and pretend there were no questions? Did I even have a choice?
Some time ago, a beautiful young woman threw herself impulsively, recklessly into the arms of a handsome, intelligent black man who had somehow captured her heart. They were too passionate to care about anything but their own need to feel more alive. He planted his seed in her and she gave birth to me as much out of defiance as anything, I imagine. Their love was not the lasting kind. They parted because they weren't willing to make the bigger sacrifices and I, I was forgotten along with the passion.
Years later, I would appear before them and I would try to understand what it was that made me.
Was it Fate punishing them?
Was it love emerging despite them?
Was it some carefree, wandering spark of life that drifted into my name?
Today, I had looked at the man who made me and he was still a stranger.
Tomorrow, I would look at him again.
My ears were filled with the sound of that music box. I closed my eyes and imagined my father's lips on my cheek. I heard him say, "I won't let you be afraid again."
And knowing I could dream that dream, I wasn't afraid of sleep.
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