I nodded. “Don’t worry, Momma,” I said, which brought her first real smile. She kissed my cheek and ros
e. I could see how reluctant she was to leave us. “We’ll keep the twins entertained and quiet.”
She looked at her mother, who only scowled back.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” our grandmother said. She practically pushed Momma out the door. We heard the lock snap shut.
“What was that?” Cathy asked. “Godzilla’s mother? She was huge and awful. How can she be our real grandmother?”
“Cool it,” I told her. “Don’t say those stupid things in front of the twins, or we’ll have a helluva time keeping them quiet. It will be hard enough as it is.”
“What did the old lady mean when she said ‘you and your half-uncle’? Who was Momma’s half-uncle?”
“Let’s not think about anything,” I said. “Let’s just get some sleep. It’s not that bad in here. Besides, what’s one or two nights?”
She looked hard at me, searching to see if I was just placating her or really believed what I had said. It was getting harder and harder for me to fool her. She shook her head, said her prayers, and curled up beside Carrie.
I lay on my back and looked up at the ceiling. The house was not completely quiet. We couldn’t hear anyone talking or moving about, but I could hear creaks and groans as if the mansion was trying to warn us: Get out. Get out while you still can.
As if I had made the train journey and the walk in the night with them, I felt my eyelids slowly closing. I put the diary under my pillow and turned off the side table lamp. Almost immediately, I saw Olivia Foxworth in my mind, towering above the twins, Cathy, and Christopher. How could a grandmother be so hard and mean to young children who were obviously exhausted and frightened, especially her own grandchildren? I tried to push her out of my mind, and when I finally did fall asleep, I woke once in the middle of the night, imagining her standing beside my bed, looking down at me, and saying, “Don’t you dare read another page!”
It took a while to fall asleep again, and then I did something I hadn’t done since I was a little girl. I overslept. Dad was knocking on my door and poked his head in.
“Kristin, are you sick?”
“What?” I sat up quickly and looked at the clock. “Oh.”
“You should have set your alarm,” he said.
“I haven’t done that for so long.”
“Um. Maybe you’re going to have to start again. I saw your light was on late,” he said, shaking his head. Then he backed out and closed the door.
I hopped out of bed. No matter what, even if I skipped breakfast, I was going to be late for school for the first time. Dad was waiting for me when I came down the stairway.
“I don’t want you driving fast, now, Kristin. You’re going to be late. I’ll write some excuse for you, say we had a problem at the house or something.”
“No need to lie, Dad. It’s my first time. I’ll get a warning, but I shouldn’t get any punishment. I’ll just tell the truth. I overslept.”
“Why did you stay up so late?” he asked. “I thought I saw your light on. It was that diary, right?”
“Yes,” I confessed.
He shook his head. “I’d like you to give it back to me, Kristin. I’ll keep it somewhere safe and return it to you later.”
“Why?”
“Look at what it’s doing to you now.”
“It’s not doing anything to me. I lost track of time. That’s all, Dad. It’s not a big deal. I’ll be more careful. Promise. I won’t be late again, ever.”
“I have to go to work,” he said. “Think about it. And remember, no fast driving. You get a ticket, you go to court here first, and the judge is merciless. You’ll lose your license in a heartbeat and have to go to months of traffic school.”
I watched him leave and then went to drink some orange juice and have a piece of toast. Right now, I had little appetite. As I ate my toast, I looked up and thought about the diary. I didn’t want even to consider it, but once again, I did. It was hard to believe that my father would go into my room and take it away from me, but it occurred to me after seeing his reaction this morning that he just might.
He had seen me intent when reading novels or even textbooks, so it wasn’t just that. There was something more here. I felt certain now. My father knew something that he had never told me, and seeing me reading the diary so intently resurrected that memory. He was surely afraid I would read about it. Perhaps he had made some sort of promise to my mother. Whatever, I thought he never believed I would find a way to discover what he knew. I was confident that this was what was bothering him now, and it wasn’t simply my oversleeping.
Rather than driving me away from the diary, it only stirred my curiosity about what I would read and learn. As far as I could remember, our family, even before my mother died, did not hoard secrets. Everything about my grandparents, uncle, and aunt was openly discussed. My parents were people who never hid anything from each other and, I thought, surely not from me.