“How can I let you do that?”
“We’ll hide and watch. We’ll be careful. Please,” she pleaded.
Momma looked at me. I knew she was hoping I would disagree with Cathy or help her explain why it wasn’t possible, but I was just as tired of being confined and seeing nothing beautiful and fun. She read it in my face, thought for a moment, and then pulled us aside so the twins wouldn’t hear us.
“Okay. I know a place where you can hide and watch. Just the two of you. The twins wouldn’t be able to contain themselves, and they would give us all away. Promise not to tell them, and promise to wait until they are fast asleep.”
We did, and she promised to come get us and take us to where we could watch the party unseen. I thought Cathy would be ecstatic about it, but the moment Momma left, she took on a long face.
“What?”
“She won’t come back. It will be like our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Something will prevent her.”
“Give her a chance,” I said, but in my heart, I bore the same skepticism. Momma was good at making promises and then finding explanations for why they were broken. But that was something I thought I would never tell Cathy.
Fortunately, this time, I didn’t have to consider it. Momma showed up looking more beautiful than ever. She looked like a princess, a movie star, in her formal gown, which showed more cleavage than I expected, especially in this house with our grandmother. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Even when I was younger, but not too young to appreciate a naked woman, I wasn’t as moved, even when she had paraded nude in front of us. Maybe it was because it was so long since I had seen her so bright, the crests of her breasts so crimson with excitement, her eyes as dazzling as her diamond and emerald earrings, that I found myself so taken. It was easy for me to imagine how my father had been so smitten with her beauty and impervious to any suspicions of incest. I could feel my own sexuality stirring, and I was admittedly ashamed. How could I have these thoughts and feelings about my own mother?
Kane paused and looked at me with a strange expression of guilt on his face. In fact, he seemed to cringe in the chair.
“What?” I asked. “Why did you stop reading?”
I expected him to go into his theory of the Oedipus complex again, but he surprised me. “I remember when I first had a similar feeling.”
“What similar feeling?”
“Feelings about my mother. I’ve never told anyone. I’ve read about it, of course. I don’t have an Oedipus complex,” he added firmly. “The jury’s still out on whether that even exists.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at him.
“I was just a little more than twelve. For the previous year or so, my mother had become very careful about undressing in front of me or appearing undressed where I could see. She always closed her door, but one time, she didn’t, and . . .”
“You saw her naked?”
“Worse. She and my father were on the verge.”
“Oh.”
“I couldn’t help becoming aroused. Sometimes you just can’t help it,” he quickly added. “It just happens, especially for boys. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“It never happened again,” he said. He looked angry now.
“I’m sure it’s quite normal, especially at that age, when you were just . . .”
“Breaking out,” he said. Then he smiled, which gave me an instant sense of relief. “And not just with pimples.” His expression changed again, returned to a cross between anger and guilt. He looked around the attic and nodded to himself.
“What?” I asked. What was he thinking now?
“This is our special place now, Kristin, our attic of secrets, right?”
“Of course. We both took blood oaths.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am, too. I was the first to demand that, Kane. And I would never repeat anything we say to each other up here, especially because of the diary.”
He nodded, looking satisfied. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I’ve never been so honest with anyone else, even my parents or my sister.”