The sound of my name hours and hours later woke me, but not abruptly. For a few moments it was as if the sound was inside me, m some dream. echoing. I groaned. my eyelids fluttered and then I felt someone touch my shoulder and I opened my eyes to see Daddy.
"Cinnamon. What are you doing?" he asked. "What in the world is going on here?"
I stared at him. Was this a dream? He had been in this attic so rarely that the sight of him here was more like a phantom of my imagination.
When I was a little girl. I could look at him and think my daddy was the perfect daddy, so handsome and warm, so loving and full of magic. There was magic in those hazel eyes. They could twinkle and make sickness go away, aches and pains flee, colds disappear and most of all, sad moments pop like bubbles. I remember his laughter. It was more like a song and whenever he said my name, it sounded like poetry. But that all seemed so long ago, truly like a dream, a fantasy. The memories were challenged now, cross-examined and scrutinized through my older, far more critical and discerning eyes.
His smiles were not as warm and held as long as I had thought. His words were not as soft and as comforting as I had wished. His promises were often forgotten, words written in the snow, melted and erased by the first touch of probing sunlight. He was merely a man.
I sat up, grinding my eyes to pull back the veil of sleepiness. "Grandmother put a lock on my bedroom door." I said.
He stood up.
"I know. She told me about your not attending school today. Where were you? What did you do?"
"She put a lock on my bedroom door." I repeated, annoyed by the quivering in my voice.
"It's off," he said, "I unlocked it and took it off. Now, tell me where you were. What's going on with you?"
I looked up at him. The words were there, waiting to be born, launched at him like tiny knives. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because saying them, sending them at him would cut me to pieces as well. I could only tremble at the thought of what it would all be like afterward with all of the ugly truth spilled before us.
"Don't you feel well?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Well, why didn't you just tell Grandmother that?"
"She put a lock on my door," I muttered.
"I told you. I took it off," he said. "Where did you go?"
"Mammy's in a coma. Do you know that?" I snapped back at him. He closed his eyes and nodded.
"I know, That's where I've been since I left work. The doctor assures me she will recuperate. He thinks it's just a temporary thing. She could be very much better tomorrow,"
"Could she?"
"Yes. Now what did you do today. Cinnamon?"
"I had to be by myself today," I lied.
"We're all going through a very difficult time. Cinnamon. We've got to be strong, strong for Mommy," he said.
I couldn't look at him. I kept my eves fixed on the floor. I thought I could hear my spirits, the Demerest women, all laughing at him. I guess it made me smile.
"-Why are you laughing at what I'm saying?" he demanded. "Cinnamon, if you persist in this behavior, have to have you examined by a doctor, too." he threatened.
That really made me laugh and made him furious.
"Go to your room." he ordered. "and you had better be in school tomorrow and behave or I'll take the car away from you. I mean it."
"Who pays for the mortgage and for the food and for the as I waste..."
"What? You're not making any sense. Cinnamon. Go to bed," he ordered and turned away quickly.
I think he was actually afraid of me.
I sat there for a while, listening to the soft murmuring of the voices in the walls, the comforting rhythm of their words. A hundred years ago they came up here to escape from sadness too. I thought.