It sounded like something I should appreciate, but it followed me all the way to the front door, the way something eerie and haunting might. He backed out, waved, and drove off. I gazed up at my bedroom window. In my wild imagination, I saw Christopher Dollanganger peering out between the curtains. The image disappeared as quickly as it had come, but a night that had begun with a warm, cozy feeling suddenly had a chill.
I didn’t hear the television when I entered. It was too early for my father to go to bed, and he wasn’t at the desk he used in the den for his paperwork at home.
“Dad?” I called. Either he hadn’t heard me or he was in the bathroom. Nevertheless, I went into the living room and saw him sitting in his chair, staring at the television. It wasn’t on. “Dad?”
He turned slowly. “Oh, Kristin. I didn’t hear you come in. Have a good time?”
“Yes. What’s happening? Why are you just sitting here practically in the dark?” I asked. He had turned on only a small lamp next to the sofa.
“Oh, I must have nodded off a little.”
“Aren’t you feeling well?” I asked, not hiding my nervousness.
Ever since my mother’s sudden illness and death, I would practically panic when my father complained about an ache, developed a cough and cold, or just looked exhausted. His health actually was very good. I couldn’t recall a time when he had missed work or even gone in late, but for that matter, I couldn’t recall my mother ever showing signs of any serious illness before she had her cerebral aneurism. Like most young children, I took it for granted that my parents would always be there, would live forever. Many nights I woke up crying for her. It took months for me to get past expecting her to be sitting where she always sat, standing where she stood in the kitchen, hearing her footsteps in the hallway or her voice somewhere in the house. I kept pushing the reality of her death away, thinking of it as only a bad dream.
For Christopher, Cathy, and even Corrine, the appearance of those policemen who had come to report their father’s fatal accident surely became the basis of nightmares that would follow them into every sleep, perhaps for the rest of their lives. Cory and Carrie were still young enough to fail to grasp the impact of the tragedy. Every day, just like I expected to see my mother miraculously appear, they expected to see their father come through that front door, calling for them, eager to embrace them, and maybe, even though they didn’t say it according to Christopher, they were hoping he would come and take them away from Foxworth Hall, too.
The younger you were, the longer it took for death to find its way completely inside you. But they all felt lost, vulnerable, and frightened, even Christopher, who portrayed himself as older and mature. No wonder they were so willing in the end to do what Corrine demanded. They could rage, throw tantrums, cry, and moan, but in the end, they would tolerate far more than ever, because they had only her now. Maybe Kane ascribed other motives to Christopher because he didn’t understand this, never having lost a parent.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” my father said, but he rose as if he had aged years in hours.
“You didn’t hurt yourself today?”
“Oh, no.”
“Something’s up,” I said. I reached back into myself, perhaps into that part of me that was my mother, to sound firm and demanding. “What is it, Dad?”
He looked at me and instantly knew he couldn’t get by with some lame excuse. He took a deep breath and tried anyway. “Things just got a little more complicated at the site, that’s all,” he said.
I stood my ground. “Why?”
“It’s probably nothing. I’m just a stickler for perfection, for everything I do being clean and straight.”
“Dad,” I said, and I put my hands on my hips, something he would do when he wanted to get to the bottom of things.
“It’s really nothing you’ll be interested in, Kristin.”
“Which means it is,” I said.
He sighed deeply and sat again. I came around and stood in front of him, my arms crossed over my breasts. He looked up at me and smiled.
“What?”
“You look just like her doing that. Whenever I tried to keep something from her, she would plant herself in front of me and fold her arms, practically singing, ‘I will not be moved.’ You even hold your head the same way.”
“And you told her what it was?”
“Always,” he said.
“So?”
“Okay. I had occasion to look at the paperwork on the property late this afternoon. Not the architecture or materials, none of that.”
“What, then?”
“The title, who owns it.”
“I don’t understand.” I sat on the sofa. “I thought Arthur Johnson owned it.”