Page 27

I sat back, pondering it all. Should I believe everything she had told me? I still wanted, needed, to read those letters, I thought. The woman who wrote the first one couldn't be all that bad, could she?

Geraldine called me to lunch and I sat and ate a ham and cheese sandwich. I knew it had too much mayonnaise on it, but I was afraid to criticize her. All I had to do was complain about eating too much fat and calories and she would accuse me of obsessing about my figure and being attractive.

Could I be attractive? I had seen many pictures of the woman I had believed was my grandmother when she was younger. She was a very pretty young woman. Did I resemble her in any way? Couldn't I be pretty, too?

"Our mother was very attractive though, wasn't she?" I asked. It was the first time I called her "Our mother." "Especially when she was younger."

"No. She distorted her good looks with all that makeup she wore."

"But she was pretty underneath."

Reluctantly, she agreed. To get her to say anything nice about our mother was like pulling teeth.

"Wasn't there ever a time that you liked her, loved her?" I asked.

"You won't stop talking about all this, will you?" she fired back at me.

"It's just natural for me to want to know," I said.

She thought a moment and sat back, nodding slightly. "Of course I loved her when I was a little girl. What did I know? I was never once disrespectful to her, even afterward, even when I had..."

"What?"

"Had to pretend you were some strange baby. She would come to the house and stand beside me and gaze at you in your crib and talk about you as if you were someone else's child. I was supposed to pretend and go along with the whole effort to keep her reputation lily white, and I never once spit the truth back at her. It was on the tip of my tongue to do so, but I didn't. I swallowed all that bitterness and anger.

"Once, I saw my father sitting in his office, looking weak and crumbled. He didn't know I was looking in on him, and I thought: she's done this to him She's taken a strong tower in the community and turned him into this shadow of himself. That was your real mother, a Delilah, a betrayer. You want to claim her? Go ahead, claim her and be damned with her," she said.

"I just want to know about it all," I moaned.

"Eat the apple, eat the fruit? The Lord said not to, but no, weak and foolish, we eat the fruit. We have to know the evil and then we suffer," she declared, and rose to take the dishes to the sink. It seemed to be more of an effort for her than ever.

"I can do that," I said.

"On crutches? You're sure to break something, but don't worry. As soon as you're able, I'll give you things to do. You'll make up for this," she threatened.

I sat there and watched her work. Did the bitterness she felt ever stop? Did she ever have a soft moment when she regretted the shape her life had taken? Was she ever sorry for all the hate and anger she threw back at our mother?

Not once, I realized, did she ever want to visit the grave site, not even to pay respects to her father. Surely, there were early memories she cherished. She couldn't want to bury everything.

My musings were interrupted by the sound of our doorbell. We both froze for a moment. Despite the legal agreement, we both lived with the fear of my father returning, defying the judge's decree. She wiped her hands on a dish towel.

"Probably one of those door-to-door solicitors trying to sell people something worthless," she decided. "I'll make short shrift of them."

Suddenly with real vigor and enthusiasm, she charged out to fulfill her mission. She actually liked being nasty to people, I thought. It reinforced her philosophy, her way of life, her conviction that most everyone and everything out there was horrid and deserved to be treated this way.

"We'd like to see Cathy," I heard Misty say, and I nearly forgot I had a cast on my leg.

I rose to my feet as quickly as I could and scooped the crutches under my arm.

"She can't see anyone," Mother told her.

"No," I screamed.

I had just stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway as she was closing the door on Misty and Star. I was sure they had heard me and caught a glimpse of me because both their faces looked shocked for that instant.

She locked the door.

"Let them come in," I cried. "Mother, please. You'll see how nice they are."