If There Be Thorns (Dollanganger 3)

Appearing shocked, my stepdad put his hands to his face, while my mother railed on and one

"Christopher, stop cringing behind your hands. Show your face, and recognize what you made me do. You were there the night Bart was born--there with your pleading eyes telling me Paul wouldn't be enough, and it would be you in the end who won. If you hadn't been there, pleading with those damned blue eyes, I wouldn't have let the doctors talk me into signing those papers and allowing the sterilization! I would have borne another child even if it did kill me. But you were there, and I gave in--for your sake, damn it! For your sake!"

Sobbing, she fell to the floor and lay curled up on her side, her fingers working in the deep shag of the carpet. Her long blonde hair spread like a golden fan on the carpet and cushioned her cheek as she cried on and on, berating him and herself for what they were doing.

What were they doing?

She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms wide. Dad uncovered his face and stared at her, looking deeply wounded.

"You're right, Christopher! You are always right! There's only been one time when I was right, but that single time might have saved Cory's life." Sobbing, she jerked her head away from Dad, who knelt beside her and tried to pull her into his embrace. She hit at him, making me gasp.

"You were right again when you told me not to marry Julian! I'll bet you gloated when our marriage turned out to be a miserable failure. I'll bet you were delighted when Julian sat back and allowed Yolanda Lange to destroy everything we owned. Everything happened just the way you predicted, making you so happy. Then Bart suffocated in the fire that burned Foxworth Hall to the ground. Were you laughing inside then too?--glad to be rid of him? Did you think I'd run straight into your arms and forget about all I owed Paul? Did you doubt I loved Paul?" Her voice rose to a shrill shriek. "When Paul and I were lovers I never thought of him as too old, until you kept harping on his age. Perhaps I wouldn't have paid any attention to Amanda and what she said if you hadn't bugged me so much about marrying a man twentyfive years older."

I shrank into a tighter ball. Ashamed to stay and listen; afraid to get up and go now that I'd overheard so much. Mom was wound up, as if she'd saved this for a long time, ready to throw it into his face at the right opportunity--and here it was. He recoiled from the viciousness of her attack.

"Remember the afternoon I married Paul?" she yelled. "Remember? Think of the moment when you handed me the ring he put on my finger. You hesitated so long the minister had to urge you with a whisper. And all the time you were pleading with your eyes. I resisted you then, as I should have resisted you after he died. Did you wish for him to die soon so that you'd have YOUR chance? A self-fulfilling wish, Christopher Doll! YOU WIN! YOU ALWAYS WIN! YOU SIT BACK AND WAIT WHILE YOU DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MESS UP MY LIFE! WELL, HERE I AM! RIGHT WHERE YOU WANTED ME!--in your bed, acting as your wife. Are you enjoying yourself? ARE YOU?" She sobbed, then slapped his face hard.

He reeled backward but didn't say a word

. She hadn't finished with him even then. "Don't you realize I would never have gone to Bart in the first place if you hadn't always been hanging around, coming between Paul and me; making me ashamed of what Mamma had done to you, to me? I had to take Bart away from her then--it was the only way I could punish her for what she did to us. And now, after all Paul did for us, you won't even have the decent generosity to take in a poor little girl who will soon be an orphan. Even when I have paved the way legally so there won't be any investigation by the authorities. Still you want me for yourself, thinking two sons are enough to get in the way of our privacy, and another child might bring down our house of cheating cards."

"Cathy, please . . ." he moaned.

She hit at him with small, balled fists, then yelled again, "Perhaps you even told me it was all right for Paul to have sex just so he would have another heart attack!"

Then she sank back, panting, tears streaking her face while her watery blue eyes stared up at Dad, but he only stayed still, hunkered down on his heels as if frozen by all she'd said.

I wanted to cry, for him, for her, for Bart and for me. Though I didn't understand nearly enough.

My dad began to shiver uncontrollably, as if winter had come unexpectedly into our living room. Had Mom told the truth? Was he the one who was behind all the deaths in our lives? I was scared too, for I loved him.

"Great God, Catherine," he said at last, rising to his feet and heading toward their bedroom. "I'll pack my bags and move out before the hour is over, if that's what you want. And I hope you're satisfied. This time, you win!"

In one single graceful bound, she was on her feet and running after him. She caught hold of his arm and spun him around before she flung her arms about his waist and clung. "Chris!" she cried out, "I'm sorry! So sorry. I didn't mean a word I said. It was cruel, and I know it. I love you; I've always loved you; I lie, I cheat, I say anything I want to get my way. I'll put the blame on anyone. I can't bear it as my own. Don't look so hurt, so betrayed. You're right to deny me Nicole's daughter, for I do end up hurting everyone I love. I do destroy what I care about most. If I'd been the right kind of person I would have found the right words to say to Carrie, but I didn't say anything right to her then, and nothing right to Julian either."

She still clung to him while he stood like a tall stick of wood in her embrace, doing nothing to return all the passion she lavished with her words, her kisses, her embraces. She took one of his limp hands and tried to slap her face with it, and, failing, she slapped her own face with her free hand.

"Why don't you hit me, Chris? God knows I've given you reason enough tonight. And I don't have to have Cindy, not when I have you, and my sons . . ."

I could tell my stepdad felt impotent against all the anguish she displayed. Her histrionics had driven him into a corner and he wanted to stay there long enough to reason out his position. But she was at him, demanding of him, until she was yelling out again: "What's the matter now, Christopher Doll? There you stand, wooden, saying nothing, trying to judge me by your own ethics. Recognize the truth--that I don't have any ethics! You want to believe I am only an actress playing a role, like our mother played hers. Even now, after all these years, you can't tell when I'm acting and when I'm not. Do you know why?" Now her voice became nasty, cynical. "Since you have never bothered to analyze my pathetic case, I'll do it for you. Christopher, you are afraid to look at me honestly. You don't want to know what I am really like. If I'm not acting, and this side I'm showing you now is the real me--then you can't face up to being a fool. You would discover then you have based your great unselfish love on a woman who is ruthless, demanding and utterly selfish. Go on, see the truth! I'm not a divine goddess and never was, never will be! Chris, you've been a fool all your adult life, trying to make me into something I'm not--so that makes you a liar too. Doesn't it?" She laughed as he paled.

"Look at me, Christopher. Who do I remind you of?" She pulled back and looked at him in silence for a long time as she waited. When he refused to answer she said, "Come on, say it--I'm like her, right? This is the way she was that last night in Foxworth Hall when the guests were there swarming about the Christmas tree in the ballroom, and in the library she was screaming as I'm screaming now!-- yelling out how her father beat her and made her do what she did. What a pity you weren't there. So yell at me, Chris! Strike out and hit me! Scream as I'm screaming and show you're human!"

Slowly, slowly he was losing his temper. I was so afraid of what might happen next. I wanted to rush in and stop what was going on, for if he did raise his hand to strike her, I'd run to her defense. I'd never let him hit my mother.

Did she hear my silent pleas? She let go of him and slid down to the floor again. I was so confused to see them fighting, really going at it. And why was the name Foxworth Hall stirring up hidden fears I didn't want to come out into the light? And who was this her Mom kept screaming about? And where had Daddy Paul been at this time?--at this too distant time when Mom had not yet met his younger brother?--or so they'd told me. Did parents tell lies?

Foxworth Hall, why did that have such a familiar ring?

Once more he went down on his knees beside her, and this time with great tenderness he took her in his arms and she didn't fight him off. His quick kisses rained on her pale face, his lips trying to smother her words which kept coming anyway. "Chris, how can you keep on loving me when I'm such a bitch? How can you keep on understanding why I'm ugly so often? I know I'm as much a bitch as she is, only I would give my life to undo the harm she's done us."

Without a word he locked eyes with her until their breathing began to come in short pants. Between them that passion that was always just below the surface ignited, caught fire, and something electric tingled my skin too.

Lest I see too much, I silently crawled back to my room with the embarrassing vision of them rolling about on the floor still on my mind. Over and over again, turning, clutching at each other, both wild-- and the last thing I heard was a zipper being pulled. His or hers, I didn't know. Though I wondered about it. Did a woman ever pull down a man's fly zipper of her own free will--even a wife?

I ran into the garden. In the dark, near the great white wall, near a pale, nude statue of marble, I fell down on the ground and cried. Rodin's statue "The Kiss" was the first thing I saw when I looked up. Just a copy, but it told me a whole lot about adults and their feelings.

I'd been a child believing my parents' integrity was flawless, their love a brilliant, smooth ribbon of unbroken satin. Now it was tattered, stained and no longer shining Had they argued many times and I just hadn't heard? I tried to remember. It seemed to me that they'd never had such a terrible argument before, only brief conflicts that had been soon resolved.