Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth

Mrs. Simpson came to the living room.

“Boys or girls?” he asked us.

“Boys,” I said.

“Yes,” Cathy said. I knew she was hoping for that. She didn’t want to compete with another daughter.

“Amazing,” he told Mrs. Simpson, and then he looked at us and said, “We have one of each. And they’re perfect, as perfect as you two. Let me get washed up and changed, and I’ll take you to see your brother and sister.”

Cathy smirked.

“Have you thought of names yet?” Mrs. Simpson asked him.

I perked up at that. Never had I heard them discuss names. I had all sorts of good ideas for names, but they had never asked me.

“Cory and Carrie,” Daddy replied. “Everyone important to me has a name starting with C . . . Corrine, Cathy, Chris, and now Cory and Carrie.”

“We’ll all have the same initials,” Cathy said, which surprised me. She had thought of that so quickly. “You can’t give us anything with just our initials on it.”

Daddy laughed. “Don’t you worry about that. Your full name will be written on everything I give you.” He picked her up, kissed her, and spun her around and then headed to his bedroom to get ready.

“You two should eat something and get dressed,” Mrs. Simpson said.

“I don’t want to go,” Cathy said, pouting.

“Stop thinking about what you want, and start thinking about what’s good for Momma,” I told her. “Let’s eat breakfast.”

I seized her hand and pulled her into the kitchen, with her yelling that her arm was coming off.

Later, at the hospital, we saw our new brother and sister. I watched Cathy carefully. The resistance in her face melted away. Her eyes danced with delight. She glanced at me and then turned back to them. I was confident that her jealousy would wane and disappear.

I had come to a page with just a smudge on it. It looked like Christopher had started to write something and then stopped. Toward the bottom of the page was something that looked like a doodle. It had no shape or meaning that I could see. I turned it quickly, afraid that this was the end, that he had written no more.

When I saw the words, I breathed a sigh of relief. What a disappointment it would have been. For a moment, I was thinking that perhaps he stopped writing in the diary when they were brought to Foxworth. Nothing really would be learned, then. Of course, my father might be happy about that, but I’d be left wondering forever.

As if he knew I was reading it, he began by telling why there was this empty page.

I haven’t written in my diary for some time now. To be honest, I thought I never would again. I spent many days and nights thinking about whether it had become silly, even stupid, to do it. I don’t believe I’ll ever give it to someone to read. I might change my mind. There might someday be someone I would trust enough to expose all my thoughts and feelings about myself and my family. Right now, I doubt it, but I have decided to continue and catch my diary up to where I am now and what has happened since I last sat down to write.

I have plenty of time to do it. I’m upstairs in an attic in a mansion, and the door is shut for all of us Dollanganger children. I write mostly at night when the twins and Cathy are asleep. Sometimes I don’t put on any light but sit by the window and use the moonlight.

Actually, now I am very happy I started to do this. It helps me cope.

Nevertheless, it’s very difficult for me to write about these early years, with the four of us needing more and more of not only love but the things growing children require.

As Cathy grew, she became more interested in herself. She was always crying for new clothes or new shoes, complaining whenever any of the girls in her class had something she didn’t have.

I never came right out and said it, but it was Momma’s fault. She had turned Cathy into this little replica of herself, spending hours and hours on beauty tips, fussing with hair, modeling new clothes, craving more jewelry. She let Cathy wear earrings when she was eleven, and although Momma didn’t know it, Cathy and some of the other girls in her class were already into lipstick and sometimes toying with eye shadow and mascara. Of course, Daddy knew nothing of that, and even if Momma knew, I didn’t think she would make as big a deal of it.

“Cathy’s growing up too fast,” I might tell her.

She would look at me askance. “My problem,” she told me, “was I didn’t grow up fast enough, Christopher. Innocence is not an advantage for a woman in this world.”

I will have to admit that I didn’t think all that much about it. I helped with whatever chores were necessary when it came to the twins, but Cathy had moved into that role smoothly as the years passed. By the time the twins were four, Cathy was as good at feeding them, bathing them, and putting them to sleep as Momma was. Cathy would be the one to read them bedtime stories and keep them occupied by playing games with them. In fact, I will admit here that Momma took advantage of Cathy, leaving her to do what she should have been doing just so she could go off with some of her girlfriends or shop. She told us she had to do that; she had to look more for bargains because Daddy was struggling to keep a home with four children.

And a wife who wasn’t cutting back, I thought but again never said.

Still, despite the strain all this put on our family, I wouldn’t say we were unhappy. No matter how difficult things had become for him, Daddy never came home without a broad smile on his face, bathing himself in the laughter and kisses his children had for him. Momma was always ready to celebrate something, always eager to dress up and go somewhere.