Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

“If you want me to get back, I can—”

“Dad, just have a good time, will you? I’ll be on my own most of the time very soon.”

He nodded, and we finished breakfast.

I told him I’d take care of all the cleaning up so he could get going.

“I hope Laura’s ready,” he muttered. “Been a while since I waited on a woman to get herself ready.”

“You’ve waited for me,” I said, and immediately regretted it. “But I know you’re as patient as a Venus flytrap.”

“I’m afraid she knows that, too,” he said. “All right if I take your car?”

“Sure. I’ve got my own chauffeur now.”

So does Laura Osterhouse, I wanted to add, but I didn’t. There it was again, that nugget of jealousy bouncing beneath my breasts. I tried to shut it down quickly, smiled, and gave him a hug, wishing him a good trip and a nice time.

“And if you worry about me just once . . .” I warned.

He held up his hands. “Keep that shark out of my water,” he said, and walked off.

When I heard the door close behind him, I couldn’t stop my eyes from tearing up.

It was all happening quickly, the future. Most of the time, people talked about how sad parents were to see their children grow up and away from them. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but unlike my friends, I wasn’t eager to rush into adulthood and get away from everything that tied me to my life as it was now. There was that inevitable conflict of emotions coming on graduation day. We’d party and congratulate one another on cutting the ties that bound us to parental authority and all the rules that made us feel too young. But sometime during that celebrating, we were all sure to pause and feel not only a little sadness about putting away our childhood but also a little more fear than we’d be willing to admit or show. Nevertheless, it would all be there. I was simply anticipating it sooner than my friends, probably because of what I had already lost when my mother died, and where the future would take both my father and me, on different paths to different places.

I was in such deep thought about it that I didn’t realize how much time had gone by until the phone rang. It was Kane.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“You can come now,” I said.

“I’m on my way,” he replied.

I hung up and gazed toward the attic, where I knew Christopher Dollanganger was waiting to finish his story. What would happen after that or because of it was actually somewhat terrifying for all the reasons I had conjured up along the way.

Somehow, despite what my father believed, I was convinced that Foxworth would not be gone.

Not ever.

* * *

Kane was here in record time.

“We’re going to have all day,” I said, revealing my father’s plans as we walked up to my room. “No need to rush along.”

“Okay. I’ve put aside all my other important appointments,” he kidded.

I thought it was time to tell him about the house. I got out the diary but held on to it and sat on my bed.

“What’s up?”

“There’s another mystery at work here,” I began.

He joined me on the bed. “Really? What?”

“It’s about the new house my father is building. Apparently, the man who hired him is not the man who’s going to live there. The title to the property is under a trust or something, and the one who is really involved in this turns out to be who we believe was Corrine Dollanganger’s psychiatrist when she was taken to that clinic after the fire she caused in the original mansion.”

“Your father told you all this?”