When Dad worried about something, the wrinkles in his forehead would deepen. I knew it was a nervous habit, but his ears would quirk, too. In fact, he was one of the few people I knew who could actually move their ears at will.

“I have muscles everywhere,” he would tell me.

I complimented him again on the meat loaf, and he went into one of his familiar stories about his days as a short-order cook, which usually led to a story about his time in the navy. Eventually, that would lead to him describing how Mom enjoyed his cooking on weekends so she could have time off.

“Nevertheless, she’d always find something to do for me and not herself,” he said. “Selfishness just wasn’t in her vocabulary. We used to argue about who loved who more. Finally, I told her I was bigger. There was more of me, so there was more love in me. She just shook her head, smiled, and walked off. That was how she was. I don’t think I had one real argument with that woman. Why . . .” He stopped himself.

“What’s the matter, Dad?” I asked.

“I gotta get to some paperwork on an estimate I promised someone tomorrow,” he said. I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. This happened often. He would realize how much he was talking about Mom and how that was only going to make him and me suffer the pain of our loss more. Neither of us ever said such a thing to the other, but it was out there, hovering between us like words caught in our throats.

I cleared the table and cleaned up the kitchen. When I looked for him, I saw him at his desk, just staring down at whatever paperwork he was making for himself. He wasn’t reading it or writing anything. He was still lost in his memories. I didn’t say anything. Quietly, I returned to my room and the diary, which to me had become a gold mine of memories. I hoped only that what I came up with at the end would help me in my own life.

I should have realized there was something going on when Daddy began staying home more and more to take care of Momma during the last weeks of her pregnancy. Why wasn’t he needed more at work? Was he just drawing from his vacation time?

Momma was more irritable than ever, impatient, complaining that Dr. Bloom had her delivery date wrong. He wanted her to move around, but she resisted, some days lying in bed most of the day. I told her that wasn’t good, that everything I had read about pregnancy indicated she should keep active.

She even snapped at me. “You’re not carrying this weight, Christopher. Go find thirty pounds and tie it around your waist and then tell me how it feels and let me see how active you are,” she said.

I agreed that she was too heavy, but every time I commented about the candy Daddy brought home for her or the bowls of ice cream she ate, she glared at me. Then she would just start crying.

“It will come off quickly,” Daddy assured her. He looked at me to be sure I didn’t contradict him.

Finally, one night just before dinner, our neighbor Bertha Simpson came over to prepare the meal for Cathy and me. I knew something was happening, but Momma and Daddy’s bedroom door had been closed for hours. Suddenly, it opened, and he practically carried her out, warning us to be good.

“Her water broke?” I asked as they made it to the front door. He nodded, and they left.

“What water? How can water break? You can’t break water,” Cathy said. “That’s stupid.”

Mrs. Simpson looked as interested as Cathy when I explained what that meant. “I never saw a little boy as young as you know so much,” she said. She shook her head as if that meant I was into witchcraft or something.

“Christopher is not a little boy. He’s a genius,” Cathy piped up. No matter how jealous she might be of me or how angry about something I had said or done, she never failed to defend me if anyone outside of our family dared criticize me or chastise me. I couldn’t ask for a better watchdog or bodyguard.

I tried to keep Cathy occupied after dinner. Although serious complications with baby deliveries were not as common as they used to be, I couldn’t help being a little worried as the hours went by. Maybe one or both of the twins had died. I didn’t even want to think about Momma dying, and whenever Cathy asked me why it was taking so long to push two tiny babies into the world, I acted as if it was supposed to. I told her it takes double the time, which seemed to quiet her for a while. I kept her watching television until her eyes began to close and I knew she wouldn’t fight going to bed. Mrs. Simpson wanted to

help me get her to sleep, but I told her I didn’t need her help. She looked at me oddly and followed me to Cathy’s room.

“I don’t think you should be doing that,” she said when I began to undress Cathy, who was almost comatose by now.

“I’m just getting her pajamas on her.”

She stood back with her arms folded and didn’t leave the room until Cathy was under the covers and asleep.

“I’ll be going to bed myself,” I said. “You don’t have to stay, Mrs. Simpson.”

“Of course I have to stay,” she said. “Would I leave two young children alone at night?”

“There isn’t anything you can do that I can’t do for myself and Cathy,” I told her, then shrugged and left her standing in the hallway.

I was up almost all night, waiting to hear Daddy come home or for the phone to ring, but he didn’t, and it didn’t. Finally, just before dawn, I fell asleep. I woke with surprise and washed my face before I hurried out. The house was so quiet. Cathy, grinding the sleep out of her eyes, ventured into the hallway. She was still in her pajamas.

“Did Momma bring the babies home?” she asked.

“She wouldn’t bring them home so quickly,” I said, but I was very concerned.

She followed me into the living room. I could hear Mrs. Simpson working in the kitchen. Cathy and I looked at each other, and then the front door opened and Daddy came in. He looked like he had slept in his clothes, but his face was beaming.

“Twins, all right,” he announced.

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