Cat (Wildflowers 4)

expressions on their faces were so different, the

hardness gone from Star, the smugness gone from

Jade, and the innocence gone from Misty. We were

doing what Doctor Marlowe had intended: we were

changing each other as we changed ourselves. Like

sisters related not through blood but through adversity

and turmoil, we gathered around each other and

warmed each other with our mutual pain and fear. Together, we would help each other kill the

demons. I was anxious to go on.

4

Their eyes were full of many new questions now, questions I was still answering myself. How could all that have happened to me and right under my mother's eyes, too? How is a garden prepared and cultivated to grow black flowers full of thorns and poison? That was where I had found myself planted.

They waited patiently for me to sit and gather my thoughts. I took a small breath and began.

"When I was very little nothing seemed as important to my mother as my being able to care for myself. I was only three when she insisted I dress myself. She taught me how to run my own bath and I was given the responsibility to undress, clean and dress myself without her help. She would put out the clothes I was to wear, but she didn't stand around to help me put them on. If I didn't put something on correctly, she sent me back to my room to do it right.

"Personal hygiene, being in charge of my own body, was the most important thing to her. It was more important than anything else, school, manners, anything.

"It was hard when I got sick. I remember times when I threw up and she made me undress myself, bathe and dress myself even though I was nauseous and had cramps. I cried out for her, but she would stand outside the door and give me directions, insisting that I learn to guard and protect myself. To be naked in front of anyone, even my parents, was to be avoided at all costs."

"That's sick," Jade said. "Why would she make her own child ashamed of herself?"

"My mother doesn't think of it that way," I explained "She thinks you should be ashamed only if someone else looks upon you. Your body is holy, precious, very private."

"No wonder your parents rarely had sex," Star muttered."

"My mother doesn't even go to the doctor because of the way she thinks," I revealed. "She's never had a gynecolog

ist examine her and she hates taking me to any doctors. Whenever I was sick, she would try all her old-fashioned remedies first and take me only if they failed."

"Not getting herself regular checkups is so stupid," Jade said. "She could get cancer or something she might have prevented."

"What does she do when she's so sick that her remedies don't help?" Misty asked.

"I don't remember her ever being very sick. She's had colds, but she's in good health, I guess, although lately, she occasionally loses her breath and has to sit for a while almost immediately after she begins to clean. She says it's because of all that's happened and in time, it will pass.

"Anyway, I grew up with her ideas rolling around in my head like marbles pounding every time someone saw an uncovered part of me. It was especially hard in physical education class, dressing in the locker room. I never ever took a shower in school, not even in parochial school where we had individual showers."

"What did you expect would happen if someone saw you naked?" Star asked.

"I don't know. It just . . . sent a chill through me when it happened. I even imagined my mother standing there looking upset."

"You're going to grow up like her, a weirdo," Star threatened.

"No, she won't," Doctor Marlowe insisted. She turned to Star. "None of you will be weird."

"You mean weirder, don't you?" Jade said. "It's already too late to stop weird."

They all laughed. I felt a little better, stronger. I can do this, I chanted, trying to encourage myself. I can. I must face the demons and destroy them or Star will be right.