. Suddenly rough hands seized me by the shoulders and shook me awake! Jolted, startled, I stared with frightened eyes at a woman I hardly recognized as my mother. She glared at me and demanded in an angry voice, "Where is your brother?"
Taken aback that she could speak and look as she did, so out of control, I cringed from her attack, then rolled my head to look at the bed three feet from the one I was in. Empty. Oh, he had stayed too long.
Should I lie? Protect him, and say he was in the attic? No, this was our mother who loved us; she'd understand. "Chris went to look over the rooms on this floor."
Honesty was the best policy, wasn't it? And we never lied to our mother, or to each other. Only to the grandmother, and then only when necessary.
"Damn, damn, damn!" she swore, reddened by a new flood of temper that was now directed at me. Most certainly her precious older son, whom she favored above all, would never betray her without my devilish influence. She shook me until I felt like a rag doll, and my eyes were loose and rolling.
"Just for this, I will never, for any reason, or any special occasion, allow you and Christopher out of this room again! You both gave me your word--and you broke it! How can I trust either one of you now? And I thought I could. I thought you loved me, that you would never betray me!"
My eyes widened more. Had we betrayed her? I was shocked too that she could act the way she was-- it seemed to me she was betraying us.
"Momma, we haven't done anything bad. We were very quiet in the chest. People came and went all around us, but nobody knew we were there. We were quiet. No one knows we're here. And you can't say you won't let us out again. You've got to let us out of here! You can't keep us locked up and hidden away forever."
She stared at me in an odd, harassed way, without answering. I thought she might slap me, but no, she released her hold on my shoulders and spun around to leave. The flaring chiffon panels of her couturier gown seemed like wild fluttering wings, wafting sweet, flowery perfume that went ill with her fierce demeanor.
Just as she was about to leave the room,
apparently going to hunt up Chris herself, the door opened, and my brother stole quietly inside. He eased to the door, then turned and looked in my direction. His lips parted to speak. That's when he saw our mother and the strangest expression came over his face.
For some reason, his eyes didn't light up as they customarily did when he saw our mother.
Moving swiftly and with strong purpose, Momma reached his side. Her hand lifted and she delivered a hard, stinging slap against his cheek! Then, before he could recover from the shock of that, her left hand lifted, and the opposite cheek felt the strength of her anger!
Now Chris's pale and stunned face wore two large red splotches.
"If you ever do anything like this again, Christopher Foxworth, I will myself whip not only you, but Cathy, as well." What color Chris had left in his unnaturally pale face drained away, leaving those red slap marks on his wan cheeks like smeary handprints of blood.
I felt my own blood drain down into my feet; a stinging sensation began behind my ears as my strength grew small, and I stared at that woman who seemed a stranger now, like some woman we didn't know, and one I didn't care to know. Was that our mother who usually spoke to us only with kindness and love? Was that the mother who was so
understanding of our misery from such a long, long confinement? Was the house already doing "things" to her--making her different? It came then in a rush. . . yes, all the little things totaled up.. . she was changing. She didn't come as often as she used to, not every day, most certainly not twice a day as she had in the beginning. And, oh, I was scared, like everything trusted and dependable was tom from beneath our feet--and only toys, games, and other gifts were left.
She must have seen something in Chris's stunned expression, something that made her hot anger disappear. She drew him into her open arms and covered his wan, splotched, moustached face with quick little kisses that sought to take away the harm she'd done. Kiss, kiss, kiss, finger his hair, stroke his cheek, draw his head against her soft, swelling breasts, and let him drown in the sensuality of being cuddled close to that creamy flesh that must excite even a youth of his tender years.
"I'm sorry, darling," she whispered, tears in her eyes and in her voice, "forgive me, please forgive me. Don't look so frightened. How can you be afraid of me? I didn't mean it about the whippings. I love you. You know that. I would never whip you or Cathy. Have I ever? I'm not myself, because I have everything going my way now--our way. You just can't do anything to spoil it for all of us. And that's the only reason I slapped you."
She cupped his face between her palms and kissed him full on lips that were puckered from the tight squeeze of her hands. And those diamonds, those emeralds kept flashing, flashing. . . signal lights, meaning something. And I sat and watched, and wondered, and felt . . . felt, oh, I didn't know how I felt, except confused and bewildered, and very, very young. And the world all about us was wise, and old, so old.
Of course he forgave her, just as I did. And of course we had to know what was going her way, and our way.
"Please, Momma, tell us what it is--please."
"Another time," she said, in a terrible hurry to get back to th
e party before she was missed. More kisses for the both of us. And it came to me then, I had never felt my cheek against the softness of her breast.
"Another time, perhaps tomorrow, and I'll tell you everything," she said, hurriedly giving us more kisses, and saying more soothing words to take away our anxieties. She leaned over me to kiss Carrie, and then went over to Cory to kiss his cheek too.
"You have forgiven me, Christopher?"
"Yes, Momma. I understand, Momma. We should have stayed in this room. I should never have gone exploring."
She smiled and said "Merry Christmas, and I'll be seeing you soon." And then out the door she went, closing and locking it behind her.
Our first Christmas Day upstairs was over. The clock down the hall had struck one. We had a room full of gifts, a TV set, the chess game we'd asked for, one red and one blue tricycle, new clothes that were heavy and warm, plus many sweet things to eat, and Chris and I had been to a magnificent party--in a way. Yet, something new had come into our lives, a facet of our mother's character we had never experienced before. For just a brief moment or two, Momma seemed exactly like our grandmother!
In the dark, on one bed, with Carrie on one side of me, and Chris on the other, he and I lay holding each other. He smelled different than I did. My head was on his boyish chest and he was losing weight. I could hear his heart throbbing along with the faint music still drifting to our ears. He had his hand in my hair, curling a tendril over and over around his fingers.