Small thing? It was like telling passengers on the Titanic that there were no more life jackets.
Momma had been written out of her father’s will. The reality was that whether we were here or there, we were just as poor.
“Did Daddy know this, Momma?” I asked her. I was thinking about all the times he had sat with me and described the great things we were going to do and have, the trips, the expensive clothes, the college educations, all of it. Was he anticipating inheritance?
“Yes,” she said. “He knew I was disinherited, but he kidded me about it and said I had ‘fallen from grace.’ How foolish I was. I laughed, too, back then. I never dreamed we’d be . . . in this situation.”
How foolish she was? What about Daddy? What were all those plans? Just the ramblings of a dreamer? While he was dreaming, our bills were accumulating. Why didn’t he think about all possibilities, the most obvious being that something could happen to him and we would be in desperate trouble?
It was as if my rose-colored glasses were being shattered. Did both my parents live in fantasies? Daddy had permitted Momma to buy all these things. Even if they were on payment plans, they still had to be paid for, and there was all that accumulating interest. Where was the father I had seen, the one who was moving up the ladder and would be a highly paid executive? And now this, trapped into going to live with grandparents who didn’t care enough about their own daughter to keep up with what was happening in her life. They never called, they never wrote, and they certainly had never visited us or invited us to visit them in all these years. She wasn’t just disinherited; she was disowned. She no longer existed in their eyes. I didn’t know why. At the moment, that didn’t matter. We were leaving, and we would have to live with them.
“So why are we going there, Momma?” I asked. “They don’t sound like they really want us, especially if your own father cut you out of his will.”
“I am confident,” she said, pulling her shoulders up with pride, “that I can win back his love and have him put me back in his will. I once told you, I think, that I lost my two brothers, who died in accidents, so I’m the only one left. He’s too proud to let his money not follow his blood. You’ll see. We’ll be fine. We’ll be more than fine. We’ll be very rich, too, someday soon. He’s not a well man. He’s been in and out of hospitals and now has a full-time nurse.”
“So that’s why we’re leaving so quickly, tonight,” I said. “You’re afraid he’ll die before . . .”
“Before I win back his love? Yes, Christopher. You’re so bright. You understand. Thank goodness I have you,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead.
I looked at Cathy. She seemed even angrier now. I knew it was because I was understanding and seeing things from Momma’s point of view and not hers. I knew that in her mind, it was some sort of betrayal.
“There is one final little detail,” Momma continued. “Your real name is Foxworth, not Dollanganger. Dollanganger was a name your father chose for us. It comes from some ancestor.”
“What?” Cathy practically pounced. “Why would he want to change an easy-to-spell name?”
“It’s all very complicated,” she said, falling back into her chair. “I haven’t time to explain every little detail. We have so much to do quickly. Let’s just get on with it. We can think about other things later.”
“You’ve gone over everything carefully, right, Momma? We have no choice anymore, correct?” I asked. “You’ve spoken to Daddy’s attorney?”
I looked at Cathy when I asked the questions so she would listen carefully and see why I was willing to go along with what our mother wanted.
“Everything, Christopher, twice and again just in case. Trying to find another way has nearly exhausted me. Trust me,” she said. She started to cry, telling us how she had tried to think of every possible solution, how disgusted she was with herself for not being able to simply take up the reins and take care of us herself. Through her tears, she again described how much we could have if she succeeded in getting back into her father’s good graces.
“My mother assures me he will probably only last a few more months,” she said, to drive home how important it was for us to get started immediately. Cathy began to complain again about all she was leaving behind.
I seized her hand. “Enough!” I said. “Let’s get to packing.”
I looked at Momma. She was smiling at me through her tears. I was truly her little man. I was no longer just a son and a brother. I was the father we had lost.
I set the diary down for a moment.
Their real name was Foxworth, and Dollanganger was an assumed name? This would explain some of the confusion with the way the stories about them were told over the years. But how could Corrine be Malcolm and Olivia’s daughter and her husband be a Foxworth, too? How closely were they related? The point was, they were related. That part of the rumor was accurate, then.
Were they close enough to be considered incestuous? Was that why my father said Malcolm Foxworth was unforgiving? Vicious and hateful? It certainly might explain why Corrine was written out of her father’s will and disowned by both her parents.
These poor children, I thought. They were caught in the middle of it all, and so was this new widow with no means of supporting them. What else could she do but throw herself on the mercy of her parents? How did people who had the most reason to love each other grow to despise each other so much? Surely, Malcolm Foxworth and Olivia Foxworth weren’t that cruel. Surely, once they saw their grandchildren, they would soften. Uncle Tommy’s source of information had to be wrong. How could their grandfather enjoy them suffering so much, locked up in an attic?
I heard Dad come home and instantly, almost instinctively, slipped the diary under my pillow. He was moving through the house. Once again, I had lost track of time and not done anything to prepare for our dinner. I hurried out of the room, but he was standing at the base of the stairway looking up.
“Working on your homework?” he asked.
I think I’d rather have a tooth pulled than lie to my father. I saw the concern in his face and told myself that if I didn’t lie, he would be more upset. “Yes. Sorry. Intense math. Pasta night, right?” I started down the stairs. I tried to avoid his eyes, which I knew was a mistake.
He didn’t say anything, but he was hurt. “How was school today?” he asked instead. He always made some reference to it, but lately, he was too occupied with so many other things to ask standard questions.
“Great. Oh. I have a party Friday night. Kane’s house.”
“Okay,” he said. “We might have some celebrating to do this week, too.”