If There Be Thorns (Dollanganger 3)

"Chris, I don't care what you say. It is not necessary for you to visit her again this summer. Enough is enough. You've done what you can to help her and you can't. So forget her and concentrate on us, your family."

I peeked around a bush. Both my parents were in the prettiest part of the garden, where the larger trees grew. Momma was on her knees, mulching the ground around the roses. Green thumb she had, and he did too.

"Cathy, must you stay a child forever?" he asked. "Can't you ever learn to forgive and forget? Perhaps you can pretend she doesn't exist, but I can't. 1 keep thinking we are the only family she has left." He pulled her to her feet, then put his hand over her mouth when it opened to interrupt. "All right, hold onto your hatred, but I'm a doctor sworn to do what I can for those in distress. Mental illnesses can be more devastating than physical ailments. I want to see her recover. I want her to leave that place--so don't glare at me and tell me again that she was never insane, that she was only pretending. She'd have to be crazy to do what she did. And for all we know the twins might never have grown tall anyway. Like Bart. He's not of normal height for a boy his age."

Oh, wasn't I?

"Cathy, how can I feel good about myself, or anything, if I neglect my own mother?"

"All right!" stormed Momma. "Go on and visit her! Jory, Bart, Cindy and I will stay on with Madame Marisha. Or we could fly on to New York so I can visit with some old friends until you're ready to join us again." She gave him a crooked smile. "That is, if you still want to join us."

"Where else would I go but to you? Who cares if I live or die but you and our children? Cathy, think about this--the day I turn my back on my mother will also be the day I turn my back on all women, including you."

She fell into his arms then and did all that mushy loving stuff I hated to see. I backed away, still on my hands and knees, wondering about what Momma had said, and why she hated his mother so much. I felt a little sick in my stomach. What if my grandmother next door really was my stepfather's mother, truly crazy, loving me only because she had to. What if John Amos was telling the truth?

It was so hard to figure out. Was Corrine Malcolm's real daughter like John Amos had told me?--was she the one who had "tempted" John Amos? Or was that Malcolm who hated someone pretty and half-naked. Sometimes I got confused after reading Malcolm's book; he'd skip back to his childhood and write about his memories even after he was grown up, like his c

hildhood was more important than his adult life. How odd. I couldn't wait to grow up.

I heard them again, coming at me. Quickly I crawled under the nearest hedges.

"I love you, Chris, as much as you love me. Sometimes I think we both love too much. I wake up at night if you're not there. I want you not to be a doctor, but a man who stays home every night. I want my sons to grow up, but each day brings them nearer to learning our secret, and I'm so afraid they'll hate us and won't understand."

"They'll understand," he said. How could he know I would understand when I wasn't good at understanding even simple things, much less something so bad it woke Momma up at night.

"Cathy, have we been bad parents? Haven't we done the best we could? After living with us from their childhood, how can they help but understand? We'll tell them how it was, give them all the facts, so they will see it as we lived it. In so doing, they'll wonder, as I often wonder, how we survived without losing our minds."

John Amos was right. They had to be sinning or they wouldn't be so afraid we wouldn't understand. And what secret? Whatever were they hiding?

I stayed under the hedges long after my parents went into the house. I had favorite caves I'd made deep in the hedges, and when I was inside them I felt like some small woodsy animal, scared of everything human that would kill me if possible.

Malcolm was on my mind, him and his brain that was so wise and cunning. I thought of John Amos, who was teaching me about God, the Bible and sinning. It wasn't until I thought of Apple and my grandmother that I felt good. Not real good, only a little good.

Fell on the ground and began to sniff around, trying to find something I'd buried last week, or a month ago. Looked in the little fish pond Daddy wanted us to have so we could watch how baby fish were born. I'd seen itty-bitty fish come out of eggs, and the parents swam like crazy to gobble down their children!

"Jory! Bart!" called Momma from the open kitchen door. "Dinnertime!"

I peered into the water. There was my face, all funny looking, with jagged edges, hair up in points, not curly and pretty like Jory's. Something dark red was on my face--ugly face that didn't belong in a pretty garden where the little birds came to bathe in a fancy bath. I was bleeding tears. I dipped my hands in the fish water and washed my face. Then sat back to think. That's when I saw the blood on my leg--lots of blood that was drying in a big dark clot on my knee. Didn't really matter because it didn't hurt too much.

Wonder how it got there? I retraced my crawl with my eyes. That board with the rusty nail--had I driven that in my knee? I crawled over to the board and felt the blood sticky on its end. Daddy called nail holes in skin "punctures," and I guess I had one. "Now it's very important that a puncture bleeds freely," he explained. Mine wasn't bleeding freely.

I put my finger in the puncture and stirred up the blood so it would run. Freaky people like me could do awful things like that, while sissy people like Momma would look sick. Blood in my wound felt hot and thick, just like that pudding stuff Apple had made and I had squeezed through my fingers because it not only made him more mine, but it felt good too.

Maybe I wasn't so freaky after all, for all of a sudden I was beginning to feel real pain. Mean pain.

"BART!" bellowed Daddy from the back veranda. "You get in this house instantly! Unless you want a spanking!"

When they were in the dining room they couldn't see me sneak in the family room sliding door, and that's just what I did. In the bathroom I washed my hands, put on my PJs to hide my bad knee and, quiet and meek, joined my family at the table.

"Well, it's about time," said Momma, who looked pretty.

"Bart, why do you insist on causing trouble every time we sit down to eat?" asked Daddy. I hung my head, not feeling sorry, just not feeling well. Knee was really throbbing with pain, and what John Amos said about God punishing those who disobeyed must be right. I was being judged, and a knee puncture was my own hellfire.

Next day I was back in the garden, hiding in one of my special places. All day I sat there and enjoyed my pain, which meant I was normal, not a freak. I was being punished like all other sinners who'd always felt pain. Wanted to miss dinner. Had to go and see Apple. Couldn't remember if I'd been over there or not. Drank a little water from the fishpond. Lap, lap, lap, like a cat.

Momma had been packing all day, smiling even early this morning when she put my clothes in a suitcase first. "Bart, try to be a good boy today for a change. Come to your meals on time and then Daddy won't have to spank you before bedtime. He doesn't like punishing you, but he does have to have a way to discipline you. And do try to eat more. You won't enjoy Disneyland if you feel sick."

Sunset changed the blue sky to pretty colors. Jory ran outdoors to watch the colors he said were like music. Jory could also "feel" colors; they made him glad, sad, lonely and "mystical." Momma was another one who could "feel" colors. Now that I was getting the knack of feeling pain, maybe soon I'd learn to feel colors too.