Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

“Hey,” he said. “How was the movie?”

“It was very good.”

“What was it?”

“Someone’s Watching. It was about these two teenagers about my age, a boy and a girl. The girl’s mother married the boy’s father, and they all lived together, only the father was a degenerate and started abusing his wife’s daughter, so she and her stepbrother ran away and camped out in an old, deserted hotel that wasn’t really deserted. The aged owner’s grandson lived in the building, a sort of recluse, not mentally deficient but socially. And he was big. Slowly, they get to know him. He comes to their defense when the stepfather hunts them down . . . sort of like Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird.” I rattled on out of nervousness.

“I remember that book and movie. It was one of your mother’s favorites,” he said.

All my life, I would be moving through my father’s minefields of cherished memories, I thought. I would mention something, do something, or just look like my mother for a moment, and it would happen. I didn’t regret it, but I couldn’t help feeling some of his great emotional pain when one of those memories burst out and confronted us both again with her unexpected death.

“Yes. We read it last year in English class,” I reminded him. Almost every time I held the book in my hands, he would smile, with the vision of my mother doing the same thing.

“She was always after me to do more reading.”

“Nothing to stop you now,” I said, and he smiled.

“I have to be there a little earlier tomorrow,” he said, looking eager to change the topic. “Seems crazy to be working on this before I’m halfway finished with the house, but we’re setting up the pool, doing the dig, running electric and plumbing.”

“I’ve never really looked at the plans,” I said.

“Oh. Right. There’s a set on my desk.” He nodded at it, and I went over to the desk and unrolled the bound plans. He remained seated, watching me as I perused them.

“Looks bigger than Foxworth Hall.”

“No, it’s about twelve thousand square feet smaller, but of course, there’s more patio. There’s no ballroom as such, but there is a rather big living room. Six bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms, and a den about the size of the one that was in Foxworth.”

“All the bedrooms are upstairs?”

“Maids’ are downstairs,” he said. “There’s a kitchen Charley would love to have in his diner.”

“How long is all this going to take?”

“I’ve put on more crew, but it’ll still be the best of a year and a half, with all the detail in the woodwork and landscaping.”

I realized I had done all I could to avoid talking about Kane and myself. “Kane’s sister and her boyfriend have invited us to dinner tomorrow night.”

“That so?”

“He’s her boyfriend from college. I haven’t met him yet, and I haven’t seen her for years, it seems.”

“I remember her vaguely. Nice girl, I think.”

“I’ll give you a full report.”

“Okay.”

He rose. “I’d better get to bed. I want to get as much done as we can before we break for Thanksgiving.”

We looked at each other. When two people knew each other as well as we did, they said a great deal in their silences.

“You ever wish you had a boy instead?” I asked. I could see the question came out of nowhere as far as he was concerned, but my implication was clear. Parents generally worry less about their sons’ romances.

“A boy?”

“So he could be there to help you with the actual work? You know how I am with a hammer or a screwdriver.”

“I can’t even imagine how bad my life would be without you standing there, Kristin.”