Cindy's name wasn't mentioned, for obviously he'd never miss her. "Do you really like Joel that much, Bart? This morning he seemed to irk you with his monkish ways."
Clouds shadowed his already dark eyes, made grave his handsome face. "My uncle is helping me find myself, Mother, and if sometimes he annoys me, it's because I'm still so uncertain about my future. He can't help his habits formed over all those years living with monks who weren't allowed to speak, only pray out loud and sing at services. He's told me a bit about how it was, and it must have been very grim and lonely .. . yet he says he found peace there, and belief in God and everlasting life."
My arm dropped from his waist. He could have turned to Chris and found everything he needed-- peace, security, and the faith that had sustained Chris throughout life. Bart had blind eyes when it came to seeing the goodness in a man who'd tried so hard to make a son out of Bart.
But my relationship with my brother
condemned him, blinded Bart to anything but that.
Sadly I left Bart and climbed the stairs to find Chris on the balcony staring down at the workers in the yard. I joined him there, feeling the sun hot on my head. Silently we watched all that bustle of activity, while I prayed this house was finally going to give us something other than misery.
We napped for two hours, then ate a small dinner before all of us hurried back up to dress for the party. I went again out onto the balcony that gave Chris and me so much pleasure. Below me spread the birthday fairyland. The colors of the fading day filled the heavens with deep rose and violet, streaked it with magenta and orange, and sleepy birds flew like dark tears toward their nests. Cardinals were making their little beeping sounds, not chirps or cheeps but more like electronic, metallic bleeps. When Chris stepped up beside me, damp and fresh from his shower, we didn't speak or feel the need to; we just embraced, looking downward, before we finally turned away and went inside.
Bart, the child of my revenge, was coming into his own. I held fast to my hopes--wanting a party that turned out well and gave him the assurance he needed that he had friends and was well liked. I held off my fears and told myself over and over again that it was Bart's just due, and ours, too.
Maybe Bart would be satisfied tomorrow when the will was reread. Maybe, just maybe . . . I wanted the best for him, wanted fate to make up for so many things.
Behind me Chris moved in our dressing room, stepping into his tux trousers, stuffing in his shirttails, tying his own bow tie, then asking me to do it all over again. "Make the ends even." Gladly I retied it for him. He brushed his beautiful blond hair that was just a bit darker in back than it had been when he was forty. Each decade both darkened the blond and brought a touch more of silver in both our heads of hair. Easily I could keep mine colored, but Chris refused to do that. Fair hair had a lot to do with the w
ay I thought about myself. My face was still pretty. I was both mature and young looking.
Chris's reflection moved closer to my dressing table, hovering over my shoulders. His hands, so familiar to me now, moved to slip inside my bodice and cup my breasts before his lips pressed on my neck. "I love you. God, knows what I would do if I didn't have you."
Why was he always saying that?
As if he expected one day I'd leave or die before he did. "Darling, you'd live, that's what. You're important to society, I'm not."
"You're the one who keeps me going," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "Without you I wouldn't know how to continue on--but without me, you'd go on and probably marry again."
I saw his eyes, his blue eyes wistfully waiting.
"I've had three husbands and one lover, and that's enough for any one woman. If I am so unlucky as to lose you first, I'll sit day by day before a window, staring out and remembering how it used to be with you."
His eyes turned softer, meeting and locking with mine as I went on. "You look so beautiful, Chris. You'll make your sons envious."
"Beautiful? Isn't that an adjective used to describe females?"
"No. There's a difference between handsome and beautiful. Some men can look handsome, but not radiate inner beauty--like you do. You, my love, are beautiful--inside and out."
Again his blue eyes lit up. "Thank you very much. And may I say that I find you ten times as beautiful as you find me."
"My sons will be jealous when they behold the beauty of my Christopher Doll."
"Yes, of course," he answered with a wry grin. "Your sons see much to envy in me."
"Chris, you know Jory loves you. Someday Bart's going to find out he loves you, too."
"Someday my ship will come . . ." he sang lightly.
"It's his ship, too, Chris. Bart is at last coming into his own. And with that fortune in his control, rather than yours, he'll relax, find himself and turn to you as the best father he could have had."
Reflectively he smiled, a small smile of sadness. "To be honest, darling, I'll be happy when Bart has his money and I'm out of the picture. It's no easy chore handling all that money, though I could have hired a money manager to do it for me. As trustee, I guess I wanted to prove myself to Bart, that I'm more than just a doctor, since that never seemed enough for him."
What could I say? Nothing Chris did seemed to change the way Bart felt about him. Because of that one thing he couldn't change--he was my brother-- Bart would never accept him as his father.
"What are you thinking, my love, that's ugly, and making you frown?"
"Nothing much," I answered, then I stood. The silky white of my clinging Grecian-styled dress felt whispery and sensuous against my bare skin. My hair had a single long curl to drape over my shoulder, the rest of it piled high on the crown of my head. Holding it in place was a diamond hair clip, the only jewelry I wore but for my wedding rings.