Seeds of Yesterday (Dollanganger 4)

"Momma, remember the night when Bart beat up Victor Wade? He carried me home naked--and he took me up to Joel's room. He held me so Joel could look me over, and that old man spat on me, cursed me. I couldn't tell you then. The two of them scare me when they get together. Alone, Bart might straighten out. With Joel there to influence him, he could be dangerous."

She was soon on the plane and we were on the ground watching her fly away again.

She flew toward morning. We drove home toward night.

This couldn't go on any longer. To save Jory, Chris, the twins and myself, we had to leave, even if it meant we'd never see Bart again.

Garden in the Sky

. Poor Cindy, I was thinking, how would she fare in Hollywood? I sighed, then began to look around for the twins. They sat solemnly in their sandbox with the rainbowed canopy overhead, although in early September the weather was steadily cooling off. They sat without shoveling sand into pretty buckets, not building sand castles. Not doing anything. "Just listening to the wind blow," said Deirdre.

"Don't like the wind," added Darren. Before I could speak. Chris was striding toward us, and soon I was telling him, "Cindy just called from Hollywood. She says she has lots of friends there already. I don't know if she does or not. But she does have plenty of money. Already I've called one of my friends who will check on her.

"It's better so," he said with a troubled sigh. "It seems nothing can work out for Cindy here. She can't get along with Bart, and now she's started on Joel as well. In fact, she seems to think Joel is worse than Bart."

"He is, Chris! Don't you know that by now?" He grew impatient with me, just when I thought I had him convinced. "You're prejudiced because he is Malcolm's son, and that's all it is. For a while when Cindy was berating him, too, the two of you almost convinced me, but Joel is not doing one thing to influence Bart. Bart, from all I hear, is a full-blooded young stud, having the time of his life, only you don't know that. And Joel can't have much longer to live. That cancer is devouring him day by day, even if he does maintain his weight. He can't possibly hold on more than a month or two more."

I wasn't distressed. I didn't even feel guilty or ashamed at that moment, I told myself with sincerity, that Joel was getting out of life exactly what he deserved. "How do you know he's ill with cancer?" I asked.

"He told me that's why he came back to die on home ground, so to speak. He wants to be buried in the family cemetery. "

"Chris, like Cindy said, he does look better now than when he came."

"Because he's well fed and well housed. He lived in poverty at that monastery. You see him in one way, I see him in another. He confides in me, Catherine, and tells me how hard he's tried to win you to his side. Tears come into his eyes. 'And she's so much like her dear mother, my dear sister' he'll, say over and over again."

Not for one minute, after witnessing Joel in that chapel, would I ever believe in that evil old man Even when I told Chris about the chapel incident in great detail, he didn't think it so terrible until I mentioned what had been taught to the twins.

"You heard that? Actually heard those babies say they were Devil's issue?" Disbelief was clear in his blue eyes.

"Does it ring a familiar bell? Do you see Cory and Carrie on their knees by their beds, praying for God to forgive them for being born Devil's spawn? Even when they didn't know what that meant? Does anyone know more than you and I what harm can be done from ideas like that planted in such young minds? Chris, we have to leave soon! Not after Joel dies, but soon as possible!"

He said exactly what I'd feared he would. We had to think of Jory, who needed special quarters

, special equipment. "He'll have to have an elevator. Doors will have to be enlarged. The halls must be wide. And there is another consideration--Jory may marry Toni. He asked me what I thought about it, wanting to know if I believed he had a chance of making Toni happy. I said yes, of course he could. I can see the love between them growing day by day. I like the way she treats him, as if she doesn't see the wheelchair, or what he can't do--only what he can.

"And Cathy, it wasn't love between Toni and Bart. It was infatuation, glands calling to glands--or call it whatever you will, but it wasn't love. Not our kind of everlasting love."

"No . ." I breathed, "not the kind that lasts forever . . ."

Two days later Chris called from

Charlottesville, telling me he'd found a house.

"Exactly how many rooms?"

"Eleven. It's going to seem small after Foxworth Hall. But the rooms are large, airy, cheerful. It has four baths and a powder room, five bedrooms, a guest room and another bath over the garage, and also on the second floor is a huge room we can convert into a studio for Jory, and one of the extra bedrooms can be my home office. You're going to love this house."

I doubted that, he'd found it too quickly, even though that's what I'd asked him to do. He sounded so happy, and that gave me happy expectations. He laughed, then explained more. `It's beautiful, Cathy, really just the kind of house I've always heard you say you wanted. Not too big, not too small, with plenty of privacy. Three acres with flowerbeds everywhere."

It was settled.

As soon as we could pack our bags and many personal possessions accumulated over the years we'd lived in Foxworth Hall, we would move out.

I felt sad in some ways as I sauntered through the grand rooms that I'd gradually made cozy with my own decorating ideas. Bart had complained more than once that I was changing what should never change. But even he, once he'd seen the improvements that made this a home rather than a museum, had finally agreed to let me have my way.

Chris came to me Friday evening, looking at me with soft eyes. "So, my beautiful, hold on for just a few more days and let me drive back to

Charlottesville and check out that house more thoroughly before we sign the contract bid. I've found a nice apartment we can rent until we can close on the house. Also, I have a few things to clear up at the lab, so I can take off several days and help get us settled. As I was telling you on the phone, I think two weeks of work, after the closing, and our new home will be ready for all of us--ramps, elevator and all."