"Live, Jory, that's all."
His eyes were soft now, full of tears that didn't fall. "What about you, Dad and Cindy? Weren't you planning to move to Hawaii?"
For weeks I hadn't thought of Hawaii. I stared blankly before me. How could we leave now that Jory was injured and Melodie was in such distress? We couldn't leave.
Foxworth Hall had trapped us again.
The Reluctant Wife
. Regretfully Chris and I neglected Cindy as we spent most of our time in the hospital with Jory. Cindy grew restless and bored in a hostile house with Joel, who gave her only disapproval, with Bart, who gave her only scorn, with Melodie, who had nothing to give to anyone.
"Momma," she wailed. "I'm not having a good time! It's been a terrible summer, the worst. I'm sorry Jory's in the hospital and he won't ever walk or dance again, and I want to do what I can for him, but what about me? They only allow him to have two visitors at a time and you and Daddy are always with him. Even when I do see him, half the time I don't know what to say, or what to do. And I don't know what to do with myself when I'm here, either. This house is so isolated from the rest of the world it's like living on the moon-- boring, boring. You tell me not to go into the village, not to have dates unless you know about them, and you're never here to ask when someone invites me. You tell me not to swim when Bart and Joel are around. You tell me not to do so many things . . . what is it that I can do?"
"Tell me what you want to do," I said with sympathy. She was sixteen and had expected this vacation to give her great pleasure. Now the mansion she'd admired so much in the beginning was proving, in some ways, to be as much a prison for her as the old one had been for us.
She came to sit cross-legged on the floor near my feet. "I don't want to hurt Jory's feelings by leaving, but I'm going crazy here. Melodie stays in her room all the time with her door locked and refuses to let me in.
Joel dries me up with his mean old eyes. Bart pretends he doesn't see me. Today a letter came from my friend Bary Boswell, and she's going to this marvelous summer camp just a few miles north of Boston, where there is a summer stock theater nearby. And there's swimming in the lake nearby, and sailing, and dances every Saturday, plus they teach all kinds of crafts. I like being with girls my own age, and I think that's just the kind of camp I'd enjoy. You can check into it and see that it has a good reputation, but let me go, please, before I go batty."
I'd so wanted all of us to have a close gettingto-know-you-all-over-again kind of summer, and here she was, wanting to leave, and I hadn't spent nearly enough time with her. Still, I easily understood. "I'll talk to your father about it tonight," I promised. "We want you to be happy, Cindy, you know that. I'm sorry if we've neglected you while we care for Jory. Let's talk now about you. What about boys you met at Bart's party, Cindy? What's going on between you and them?"
"Bart and Joel hide the keys to the cars so I can't drive off. And that's exactly what I would do, permission or not. I want to slip out a window, but they're all so high above the ground, and I'm afraid to jump and fall and hurt myself. But I think about boys all the time, that's what. I miss being with them, having dates and going to dances. I know what you're thinking, because Joel is always muttering about me being without morals . . . I'm trying hard to hang on to them, really I am. Yet I don't know how long I can keep myself a virgin. I tell myself that I'm going to be old-fashioned and hold out until I'm married, but I plan not to marry until I'm at least thirty. Then, when I'm out with a boy I really like, and he begins to apply pressure, I want to surrender. I like the sensations I feel leaping up and making my heart beat faster. My body wants it to happen. Momma, why can't I find the kind of strength you have? How do I find the real me? I'm caught in a world that doesn't really know what it wants, you tell me that all the time. So if the world doesn't know, how can I? I want to be what you want me to be, sweet and pure, while I want to be sexy. The two contradict each other. I want you and Daddy to always love me, so I try to be as sweet as you think I am--but I'm not that innocent, Momma. I want all the good-looking boys to be in love with me--but someday I'm not going to be able to hold back."
I smiled to see her troubled expression, her fearful glance to see if I'd be shocked. I guessed, too, that she was afraid she'd just ruined her chances to escape this house. My arms went around her. "Hang on to morality, Cindy. You're much too talented and too beautiful to give yourself away like a bit of worthless trash. Think highly of yourself, and others will as well."
"But Momma --how do I say no, and still keep the boys liking me?"
"There are a lot of boys who won't expect you to `give out,' Cindy, and that's the kind you want. Those who demand sex for one reason or another are more than likely to dump you quickly after they get what they want. There's something about men that makes them want to conquer every woman, especially an exceptional beauty like you. Remember, too, they talk amongst themselves and report on the most intimate details when they don't really love you."
"Momma! You make me feel that being a woman is a trap! I don't want them to trap me--I want to trap them! But I have to confess, I'm not good about resisting. Bart's made me feel so insecure about myself that I keep wanting the boys to convince me differently. But every time from this day forward, when some jerk gets me on the backseat and says he'll fall ill if I don't satisfy his lust, I won't feel sorry for him. I'll just think of you and Daddy and bash in his head--or give him the knee where it hurts worse."
She made me laugh, when I hadn't laughed in weeks. "All right, darling, I know in the end you'll do the right thing. So let's talk more about that summer camp so I can give your father all the details."
"You mean I haven't spoiled my chances?" she asked in a delighted way.
"Of course not. I think Chris will agree that you need a break from all this tragedy here."
Chris did agree, thinking as I did that a sixteenyear-old girl needed this special summer for fun. The moment Cindy knew, she had to visit Jory and spill it all out to him. "Now, just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I don't care, but I'm so damned bored, Jory. I'm going to write often and send you little gifts." She embraced him, kissed him, her tears falling to put beads on his clean-shaven face. "Nothing can take away what you are, Jory--that wonderful thing that makes you so special, and it doesn't live in your legs. I'd want you for my own if you weren't my brother."
"Sure you would," he said with some irony. "But thanks anyway."
Chris and I left Jory alone with his nurse long enough to drive Cindy to the nearest airport; where we kissed her goodbye and he handed her some "pin" money. She was delighted with the amount and had to kiss him again and again before she backed off, waving vigorously. "I'll write real letters," she promised, "not just postcards, and I'll send pictures. Thanks for everything, and don't forget to write often and tell me what's going on. In a way, living in Foxworth Hall is like being caught up in some deep, dark, mysterious novel, only it's too frightening when you're actually living the story."
On the way to the hospital to stay with Jory again, Chris told me of his plans. We couldn't move to Hawaii now and abandon Jory to the frail mercies of Bart and Joel, and Melodie wasn't able to care for herself, much less a husband in a back cast, even if she did hire a nurse. And neither Jory nor Melodie would be in any condition to make the long plane trip to Hawaii for many months.
"I won't know what to do with myself when Jory goes back to the Hall and has his own attendants, any more than Cindy knew how to keep herself occupied and happy. Jory won't need me every hour. I'm going to feel useless unless I do something meaningful, Cathy. I'm not an old man. I still have many good years ahead of me."
Sadly I turned my head to watch him as he kept his eyes on the traffic. He went on without turning to meet my eyes. "Medicine has always played a very important part in my life. That doesn't mean I'm breaking my promise to share more time with you and my family than I do professionally. Just remember what losing a career means to Jory . . ."
Sliding closer on the seat, I lowered my head to his shoulder, telling him in a choked voice to go ahead and do what he felt was right. ". . . but keep in mind a physician has to have an impeccable record, and someday there may be gossip about us."
He nodded, saying he'd already considered that fact. This time he was going into the research side of medicine. He wouldn't be meeting the public, who might recognize him as a Foxworth. He'd already thought enough on the subject. Already he was bored with staying home and contributing nothing. He had to do something important or lose the identity he felt he needed. I put on a bright smile even if my heart was sinking, for his dream of living in Hawaii had also been my dream.
With arms about each other, we entered the huge house that waited with its gaping jaws wide.
Melodie had sequestered herself in her room, Joel was in that little room without furniture, down on his knees praying while a single candle burned in the gloom. "Where is Bart?" asked Chris, looking around as if astonished that anyone would want to spend so many hours in such a dismal place.
Joel frowned, then faintly smiled, as if he had to remember to appear friendly. "Bart is off in some bar drinking himself under the table, as he put it."