In an eerie sort of way, Christopher’s diary was gradually taking over my everyday thoughts. Was there something magical about this book, something supernatural just like Foxworth itself in people’s eyes? For a long moment, I wondered if it would actually change me in some dramatic way.

I had the strong impression that my father suspected that or feared it. Maybe, just maybe, he already knew what I was about to discover when I continued reading the diary, and that was why he didn’t want me to do it.

If my mother were alive, would she let me read it? One thing my father could have said that might have stopped me would be “Your mother wouldn’t want you to read that,” but he didn’t say it. He would never use my mother or the memory of her to get me to do something.

It took all my self-control to finish my schoolwork and go to sleep without turning another page of Christopher’s diary, but it was the first thing on my mind in the morning, and I knew that when I arrived at school, I was behaving differently from the get-go. First, I didn’t want to have any homework to do after school, so instead of wasting my time in study hall, at lunch, and between periods, I attacked every assignment and ignored my friends, who were full of gossip from the weekend. Second, I wanted the school day to end as quickly as possible, and when Kane or Lana or any of the girls invited me to do something after school, I turned them all down, claiming I had some important household chores. Most shrugged, some smirked, but only Kane gave me a knowing look and a small smile.

“I hope there’s not another man involved,” he whispered after the last class of the day ended and we all started out of the room.

I just smiled back at him. You see, there really was another man with whom I was involved—Christopher Dollanganger—but I wasn’t about to mention it or even hint at it. I just couldn’t outright deny Kane’s half-facetious accusation, and because of that, his curiosity brightened. I even thought he might follow me home to be sure that was where I was going. I wondered how he would react if he knew the truth, relieved that it was only someone in a diary or spooked that I would be so drawn to it?

I couldn’t blame him for either reaction.

I could tell that my father had been home, which was unusual on a workday. My first thought was that he might have decided to get the diary away from me. He might have been thinking about it all day. Panicked, I hurried up to my room. It was there where I had left it, but it looked like it had been picked up and placed differently. Had he thought of doing that but changed his mind out of fear of how I would react? Of course, there were parents who forbade their children to read something or view something. They believed that they were doing it to protect their children, but it had been some time now since my father had treated me like a young, impressionable girl.

Oh, he issued standard warnings about driving carefully, not staying out too late, avoiding bad influences, but he did it almost mechanically, as if it was something he had to do but didn’t believe was as necessary with me as it would be for other girls my age. He had confidence in me that came from our mutual pain, the loss of my mother. We trusted each other in ways I could see my friends’ parents didn’t trust them. Because of how his father’s death had only sped up his already quickened maturity, it occurred to me that Christopher’s mother might have had the same sort of attitude toward him that my father had toward me.

Was I deliberately looking for these resemblances between us, or were they simply there and too obvious to deny?

I held the diary reverently in my hands. It was as if it could give me psychic powers. Now I felt sure of what had occurred. Sometime today, at some moment, maybe because of something someone said or something Dad remembered, he had come home to dispose of this book. When it came to doing it, he retreated, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come for it again. I made up my mind to hide it well from now on. I didn’t like keeping secrets from my father, not now, not ever, but this had become too important to me. I would see it through to the end. It was a promise I had made to Christopher and a promise I would keep.

I sat on my bed and opened the diary.

What happened to us next, I knew was coming. Oh, it was obvious that Cathy would go into a deep depression. She didn’t care about anything, not her schoolwork, how she dressed and looked, or even how the twins were getting along. Whenever she was home, she was in a sulk, sleeping more than ever, and practically bursting out in hysterical tears every time Daddy’s name was brought up or she saw something of his.

Momma depended mostly on me to get her to snap out of it. She tried to comfort her occasionally, telling her the expected things like we should be grateful for the years we had Daddy. Nothing comforted Cathy. I wasn’t all that much help, either. I was hurting just as deeply as she was, and I was full of the same rage that this had happened. In all my dreams, my father was out there in the audience looking up proudly while I accepted my diplomas from high school and from college. Now those dreams had evaporated or burst like bubbles.

But something else was going on, something I anticipated simply by looking at the growing pile of bills on Momma’s desk. She had no job. Our neighbors had been helping, bringing us food from time to time, but something deeper and darker was surrounding our devastated family. I was afraid even to dream of college and medical school. The twins were crying and complaining more, and Cathy’s rage against the injustice of our father’s unexpected death and the God who had taken him from us boiled over nightly. Momma looked like she was sinking in the quicksand of one tragic thing after another.

In the beginning, whenever I tried to have a serious conversation about our situation, she would start to tear up and wave me off. I felt like I was making everything more painful by asking realistic questions. There was nothing to do but wait until she was ready.

The time came when she finally was.

One night, while the twins were occupied with themselves, she pulled Cathy and me aside and told us how dire things were.

Incredibly, Daddy had not kept up a life insurance policy. There would be no money coming from that sort of thing. All of the possessions we had that were bought on time would be reclaimed. We couldn’t keep up the payments. With every sentence she uttered, it felt as if the roof was falling lower and lower and would soon bury us.

I wondered why she was so busy every night writing letters. Surely, she was asking someone in the family somewhere for help, or maybe she was applying for a job. Even I was shocked by her next revelation.

“I have been writing to my mother,” she said, “asking her to help us.”

Neither Cathy nor I could speak for a moment. All my life, I had wondered about our grandparents, our family. Neither Daddy nor Momma wanted to talk about them. They never mentioned them and always avoided answering questions, so I stopped asking.

“She has agreed to our living in their house in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Momma said. Her face was suddenly bright with the happiness and hope we hadn’t seen since Daddy’s death. “We’re not just going to live with two elderly people who need us to care for them or anything. My parents are rich, very rich, as rich as some kings and queens.”

She went on to describe the house, and then she almost casually dropped the news that froze me in my shoes, news that Cathy couldn’t quite comprehend.

We were going to leave that night on a train.

The reality of what she was saying took hold as she continued to describe how she had grown up in a big house with servants and how our lives would be wonderful again. Now Cathy began to cry and complain about leaving her friends.

“What friends? You’ve been ignoring them for weeks anyway,” I told her. She looked at me as if I was betraying her for not complaining about this as hard as she was, but the cold truth was staring us in the face. We had no income; we were in debt. We could even be evicted!

Cathy grew coldly quiet again, until Momma described how little we could take with us. She wanted us to take no more than two suitcases for all four of us. Cathy began to wail about all the toys and dolls she would be leaving behind. Momma promised she would have far more when we were living with her parents.

But we hadn’t reached the worst fact of all yet. I could see it in Momma’s face. She had one more thing to tell us. She tried to make it seem less frightening and astounding than it

was by beginning with “There is, however, one small thing.”

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