We got out of the truck, and I followed Dad and Uncle Tommy as we walked around the site, with Dad pausing to describe what was going to be built. Of course, he spoke in much greater detail than Uncle Tommy needed in order to understand what was going to replace the second Foxworth mansion, but Uncle Tommy didn’t complain. He kept his soft, l
oving smile, glancing at me with that twinkle in his eyes occasionally. The truth was, I was listening harder to my father’s descriptions than my uncle was. One thing I picked up on was that there was not going to be an attic. There would be the usually necessary crawl spaces for utilities but nothing like what had been there before.
“There are other, smaller buildings for storage facilities and equipment,” Dad continued, and then he began to lay out the general plan for the landscaping, pool, tennis court, and gardens.
“One of your Hollywood rich guys is going to hear about this and come out to see it and make an offer on it, for sure, not that the new owner is going to want to sell. Even if they make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Uncle Tommy laughed and then leaned in to me to whisper, “I never saw him as excited about anything.”
Afterward, Dad drove us around to show Uncle Tommy some of the other changes in the immediate area. Again, he had a high note of pride in his voice. I didn’t think I had realized before just how much my father loved where we lived. Once in a while, as we rode along and he bragged to Uncle Tommy about things, he would mention my mother and how surprised and pleased she would be. He had to show Uncle Tommy my school and then, of course, his office building.
I knew that despite how much fun he made of what Uncle Tommy did and where he lived, Dad was proud of him, too, and wanted to show him off. We went to Charley’s Diner, where he knew some of his buddies would be, and he introduced Uncle Tommy to those who had never met him.
“I gotta tell you,” Uncle Tommy said when we finally got into a booth to order lunch, “there really are many countries in this country. Your father’s not wrong. However, I think I’ll stay where I am.”
“You couldn’t be approved for citizenship here, anyway,” Dad told him, and they went on to talk about their grandparents and stories they’d been told.
When we returned home, Uncle Tommy had to make a few phone calls. I went to my room and put some finishing touches on my homework, read a few chapters of history, and then relaxed. Uncle Tommy was taking us out to dinner. I thought he would just go down to watch some television with my father, but instead, he knocked on my bedroom door.
“Hey,” he said. “Busy?”
I put down my history book. “No, just tinkering,” I said.
He came in and looked around my room. “I thought teenagers were supposed to be messy.”
“Not with a father who was in the navy,” I said, and he laughed.
“Don’t let him fool you. He was like that before he entered the navy.” He sat at the foot of my bed. “So my brother says you’ve been reading some sort of diary discovered at the Foxworth foundation.”
“Christopher’s diary, yes.”
“Christopher? One of the children who was locked up in the house for years?”
“Yes. What’s Dad been telling you about it?”
“He’s worried you’re getting too involved in some very messy things, terrible things done to children who were betrayed by people who should have loved and protected them. I told him you were too smart to be harmed by such stories and that worse things were being made and shown on the screen these days, but he’s feeling like . . . well, things are tougher, because there’s only him, and he’s always worried he’s not doing what a parent should do.”
“It’s not going to hurt me to read someone’s diary, Uncle Tommy, even someone who was imprisoned with his brother and sisters. I want to understand what happened, and not only because they were distant cousins of my mother and me.”
He nodded. “I can’t blame you for being curious.”
I didn’t want to tell him that it had gone way beyond curiosity. Then he would worry along with my father.
“It was always a fascinating tale for people here,” he added.
“You once spoke with someone who knew more about what really happened there, didn’t you?”
“Someone who wanted to pitch it to Hollywood. He said he knew the truth, but you have to remember that it was third-hand information. I don’t doubt there were some pretty nutty people living in that original mansion, cruel, in fact, but what actually did happen has been so distorted and exaggerated it’s beyond reality, probably. What’s the diary like?”
“I think it’s honest. I’m only about halfway through it. It’s like taking bitter medicine sometimes. But I can handle it,” I added firmly.
He nodded. “I’m sure it is.”
“What do you really know?”
“Really know? I wouldn’t say I really know anything. As I said, I was told some things by . . .”
“Someone who was friendly with a servant. Dad told me that.”