Momma went pale from shock.
I sat in my chair, with my lunch half-eaten. I felt sorry for her, and I felt betrayed by my own compassion. I closed the door, slammed it hard, just by thinking of those two weeks when we were starved. . . four days of eating nothing else but crackers and cheese, and three days without any food at all, and nothing but water to drink. And then the whippings, the tar in my hair, and, most of all, the way Chris had to slash his wrist to feed the twins his nourishing blood.
And Chris, what he was saying to her, and the hard determined way he said it, was mostly my doing.
I think she guessed this, for she shot me a stabbing glance, full of resentment.
"Say no more to me, Christopher--it's clear to see you are not yourself."
Jumping to my feet, I stepped over to his side. "Look at us, Momma! Observe our radiant, healthy complexions, just like yours. Look especially long on your two youngest. They don't look frail, do they? Their full cheeks don't look gaunt, do they? Their hair isn't dull, is it? Their eyes--they're not dark and hollowed out, are they? When you look, and register, do you see how much they've grown, how healthily they thrive? If you can't have pity for Christopher and me, have pity for them."
"Stop!" she yelled, jumping up from the bed where she'd sat to have us crowd cozily around, in our former way. She spun on her heel so she wouldn't have to see us. Choking sobs were in her voice that cried, "You have no right to talk to your mother in this manner. But for me you would all be starving in the streets." Her voice broke. She turned sideways, throwing Chris an appealing, woebegone look. "Haven't I done the best I could by you? Where did I go wrong? What do you lack? You knew how it would be until your grandfather died. You agreed to stay here until he did. And I've kept my word. You live in a warm, safe room. I bring to you the best of everything--books, toys, games, the best clothes that money can buy. You have good food to eat, a TV set." Fully she faced us now, spreading wide her hands in a supplicating gesture, appearing ready to fall down on her knees, pleading with her eyes at me now. "Listen to this-- your grandfather is so ill now he is confined to bed all day long. He isn't even allowed to sit in the wheelchair. His doctors say he can't last long, a few days or the maximum of a few weeks. The day he dies, I'll come up and unlock your door and lead you down the stairs. I'll have money enough then to send all four of you to college, and Chris to medical school, and you, Cathy, can continue on with your ballet lessons. I'll find for Cory the best of musical teachers, and for Carrie, I'll do anything she wants. Are you going to throw away all the years you've suffered and endured without waiting for rewards--just when you're on the verge of reaching your goal! Remember how you used to laugh and talk of what you'd do when you were blessed with more money than you knew how to spend? Recall all the plans we made. . . our house where we could all live together again. Don't throw everything away by becoming impatient just when we're due to win! Tell me I've had pleasure while you've suffered, and I'll agree that I have. But I'll make up for that by tenfold!"
Oh, I admit I was touched, and wanted so much to step away from disbelief. I hovered near, trusting her again, and quivered with the suspicious fear that she was lying. Hadn't she told us from the very beginning that our grandfather was taking his last breath. . . years and years of his breathing his last breath? Should I yell out, Momma, we just don't believe you anymore? I wanted to wound her, make her bleed as we had bled with our tears, isolation, and loneliness-- to say nothing of the punishments.
But Chris looked at me forbiddingly, making me ashamed. Could I be as chivalrous as he was? Would that I could open my mouth, ignore him, and shout all the grandmother had done to punish us for nothing. For some strange reason I stayed quiet. Maybe I was protecting the twins from knowing too much. Maybe I was waiting for Chris to tell her first.
He stood and gazed at her with soft compassion, forgetting the tar in my hair, and the weeks without food, and the dead mice he would make tasty with salt and pepper--and then the whippings. He was beside me, his arm brushing mine. He trembled with indecision, and in his eyes were tormented visions of hopes and despair as he watched our mother begin to cry.
The twins crept closer to cling to my skirt as Momma crumpled down on the nearest bed to sob and beat her fists into the pillow, just like a child.
"Oh, but you are heartless and ungrateful children," she wailed pitifully, "that you should do this to me, your own mother, the only person in this world who loves you! The only one who cares about you! I came so joyfully to you, so happy to be with you again, wanting to tell you my good news so you could rejoice with me. And what do you do? You attack me viciously, unjustly! Making me feel so guilty, and so ashamed, when all along I have done the best I could, and yet you won't believe!"
She was on our level now, crying, face down on the bed in the same way I would have done years ago, and Carrie would do this day.
Immediately, spontaneously, Chris and I were stricken contrite and sorry. Everything she said was only too true. She was the only person who loved us, who cared, and in her only lay our salvation, our lives, our futures, and our dreams. We ran to her, Chris and I, and threw our arms around her as best we could, pleading for forgiveness. The twins said nothing, only watched.
"Momma, please stop crying! We didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We're sorry, we really are. We'll stay. We believe you. The grandfather is almost dead--he has to die sometime, doesn't he?"
On and on she wept, inconsolable.
"Talk to us, Momma, please! Tell us your good news. We want to know, we want to be glad and rejoice with you. We said those things only because we were hurt when you left us and didn't tell us why. Momma, please, please, Momma."
Our pleas, our tears, our anguish finally reached her. She somehow managed to sit up, and she dabbed at her eyes with a white linen handkerchief with five inches of fine lace all around, and monogrammed with a big white C.
She shoved Chris and me aside, then brushed off our hands as if they burned, and she got to her feet. Now she refused to meet our eyes which begged, pleaded, cajoled.
"Open your gifts that I selected with such care," she said in a cold voice filled with choked sobs, "and the
n tell me whether or not you are thought about and loved. Tell me then that I didn't think of your needs, and think of your best interests, and try to cater to your every whim. Tell me then I am selfish and that I don't care."
Dark mascara streaked her cheeks. Her bright red lipstick was smeared. Her hair, customarily worn on her head like a perfect hat, was mussed and displaced. She had strolled into our room a vision of perfection and now she appeared a broken mannequin.
And why did I have to go and think she was like an actress, playing her part for all she was worth?
She looked at Chris, and ignored me. And the twins--they could have been in Timbuktu for all the concern she showed for their welfare, and their sensitivities.
"I have ordered a new set of encyclopedias for your upcoming birthday, Christopher," she choked out, still dabbing at her face and trying to take off the mascara smudges. "The very set you always wanted-- the best that is published, bound in genuine red leather, tooled in twenty-four-karat gold around all four sides, and hubbed-spined a full half-inch outward. I went directly to the publishing house, to order them for you especially. They'll bear your name, and the date, but they won't be mailed directly here, lest someone should see them." She swallowed heavily and put away her fancy handkerchief. "I thought and thought about a gift to please you the most, just like I have always given you the very best to educate yourself."
Chris appeared dumbfounded. The play of mixed emotions upon his face made his eyes look confused, bewildered, dazed, and sort of helpless. God, how he must have loved her, even after all she'd done.
My emotions were straightforward, with no indecision. I smoldered with rage. Now she was bringing up genuine, leather-bound, hubbed-spined, twenty-four-karat gold-tooled encyclopedias! Books like that must cost more than a thousand dollars-- maybe two or three thousand! Why wasn't she putting that money into our escape fund? I wanted to yell out like Carrie and protest, but something broken in Chris's blue eyes kept my mouth shut. He'd always wanted a set of genuine red- leather-bound
encyclopedias, and she'd already ordered them, and money was nothing to her now, and maybe, just maybe, the grandfather really would die today or tomorrow, and she wouldn't need to rent an apartment, or buy a house.
She sensed my doubts.
Momma raised her head regally high and turned toward the door. We had not opened our gifts, and she wasn't staying to watch our reactions. Why was I crying inside when I hated her? I didn't love her now. . . . I didn't.