Knowing that and writing it will help me sleep better tonight.

Christopher’s words resurrected old memories. I had often wondered why my parents didn’t have another child. I never asked my mother about it, but I did ask my father once, and all he said was a cryptic “It wasn’t in the cards.”

I imagined Christopher being here with me right now and my turning to him to ask him to explain what my father had meant.

He’d surely shrug as if there was no mystery, but I had heard my father say that when I was just ten. I wouldn’t shrug. Maybe I was more like Cathy

than like him.

“There must have been some physiological reason your mother didn’t have another child,” he would tell me. “Men and women usually don’t feel comfortable talking about it, because one or the other was unable to make it work. Understand?”

Yes, I understood. I understood years later but never brought it up again for exactly the reason my imaginary Christopher was citing. If there was one thing I would never want to do, it was make my father feel uncomfortable about anything, least of all himself.

Still, after reading some of what went on between Christopher and Cathy and anticipating how their lives were about to change when the twins were born, I couldn’t help wondering what my life would have been like if I had a younger sister or brother, or even an older sister or brother.

Cathy was obviously afraid that her parents wouldn’t have enough love for that many children and that she would suffer the most. Reading between Christopher’s comments, I realized she must have felt inferior even at that young age, inferior in the sense that she could see or feel that her mother loved her brother more and that her father held her brother in higher esteem. Both depended on him. She was still too young to be anything more than someone who needed care.

What is our capacity to love? I wondered. Does a mother who has six or even ten children love each of them equally or as much as someone who had only one child? Was that even possible? Was Cathy really so wrong to be afraid and upset?

“Hello, up there!” I heard Dad shout. I looked at the clock and leaped out of bed. It was way past time for me to set the table. When I appeared at the top of the stairs, he looked up at me and just shook his head, walking off. I hurried down.

“Sorry,” I called, and headed to the dining room to unfold the tablecloth.

“Don’t you have any homework for Monday?” Dad asked when I came into the kitchen to get the dishes and silverware. “Something else to read or do?”

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t have that much. I always stay a little ahead, Dad. You know that.”

“Um,” he said. He looked at me. “I want to remind you that what you’re reading doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth. Kids lie occasionally, or they exaggerate. Maybe he was too young to understand it all.”

“I know that, Dad. Don’t worry. I’m not gullible. The meat loaf smells good,” I said, eager to change the subject.

He didn’t say anything. I set the table and returned to the kitchen to prepare a small dinner salad.

“Seems I recall your mentioning seeing some boy,” Dad practically mumbled.

“I’ve gone to a few things with Kane Hill. Nothing formal. Just met at the mall or at the movies.”

“Still looking him over.”

“Something like that,” I said. “But it’s not like buying a new pair of shoes,” I added, and he laughed.

“I’ve done some work for Stan Hill. He has about ten car dealerships. Don’t know much about the family. Is he a nice boy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s Saturday night. Nothing for you to do socially? No parties, no meeting friends?”

“I wasn’t in the mood,” I offered.

He had his chin down and his eyes up when he looked at me. “Is this a female thing?”

I smiled. “Not exactly, but I don’t know any boys who would use not being in the mood as an excuse, claiming it’s a male thing, so maybe it is only a female thing.”

He nodded. “What’s a bigger mystery than a woman?” he asked.

“A man?”

“Please. We’re so obvious it’s pathetic,” he told me, and continued to work on dinner.

Tags: V.C. Andrews
Source: readsnovelonline.net