Dollenganger 02 Petals On the Wind (22 page)

I sighed, he sighed, and the wind and flowers sighed too. I think those marble statues sighed along as well, in their lack of understanding the human condition. "Paul, when did you see Julia last? Doesn't she have any chance at all for a full recovery?" I began to cry.
He gathered me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. "Don't cry for her, my beautiful
Catherine. It's all over for Julia now; she is finally at peace. The year we became lovers, she died less than a month after we started. Quietly she just slipped away. I remember at the time you looked at me as if you sensed something was wrong. It wasn't that I felt less for you that made me stand back and look at myself. It was a blend of painful guilt and sorrow that someone as sweet and lovely as Julia, my childhood sweetheart, had to leave life without once experiencing all the wonderful, beautiful things it had to give." He cupped my face between his palms, and tenderly kissed away my tears. "Now smile and say the words I see in your eyes, say you love me. When you brought Julian home with you, I thought it was over between us, but now I can tell it will never be over. You've given me the best you have within you, and I'll know that even when you're off thousands of miles, dancing with younger and handsomer men . . . you'll be faithful to me, as be faithful to you. We'll make it work, because two people who are sincerely in love can always overcome obstacles no matter what they are."
Oh . . . how could I tell him now? "Julia's dead?" I asked, quivering, deep in shock, hating myself and Amanda! "Amanda lied to me. . . . She knew Julia was dead, and yet she flew to New York to tell me a lie? Paul, what kind of woman is she?"
He held me so tight I felt my ribs ache, but I clung just as fast to him, knowing this was the last time I could. I kissed him wild and passionately, knowing I'd never feel his lips again on mine He laughed jubilantly, sensing all the love and passion I had for him, and in a happy, lighter voice he said, "Yes, my sister knew when Julia died; she was at her funeral. Though she didn't speak to me. Now please stop crying. Let me dry your tears." He used his handkerchief to touch to my cheeks and the corners of my eyes, then held it so I could blow my nose.
I'd acted the child, the impulsive, impatient child Chris had warned me not to be--and I had betrayed Paul who trusted me. "I still don't understand Amanda," I said in a mournful wail, still putting off that moment of truth I didn't know if I could face. He held me and stroked my back, my hair, as I clung with my arms about his waist, staring up into his face.
"Sweetheart, Catherine, why do you look and act so strange?" he said in his voice that had gone back to normal. "Nothing my sister said should rob us of taking what joy we can from life. Amanda wants to drive me out of Clairmont. She wants to take over this house so she can leave it to her son, so she does her best to ruin my reputation. She's very active socially and fills the ears of her friends with lies about me. And if there were women before Julia drowned my son, that was lesson enough for me to change my ways. There was no other woman until
you!
I've even heard it rumored that Amanda has spread it about that I made you pregnant and your D & C was actually an abortion. You see what a spiteful woman can do-- anything!"
Now it was too late, too late. He asked me again to stop crying. "Amanda," I said stiffly, my control about to break. "She said that D & C was the same as an abortion. She said you kept the embryo, one with two heads. I've seen that thing in your office in a bottle. Paul, how could you keep it? Why didn't you have it buried? A monster baby! It isn't fair--it isn't-- why, why?"
He groaned and wiped his hand over his eyes, to quickly deny everything. "I could kill her for telling you that! A lie, Catherine, all a lie!"
"Was it a lie? It could have been mine, you know that. For God's sake, Chris doesn't know--he didn't lie to me too, did he?"
He sounded frantic as he denied everything, and sought once more to embrace me, but I jumped backward, and thrust forth both arms to ward him off. "There
is
a bottle in your office with a baby like that inside! I saw it! Paul, how could you?
You,
of all people, to save something like
that!"
"No!" he flared immediately. "That thing was given to me years ago when I was in med school--a joke, really--med students play all sorts of jokes you'd find gruesome, and I'm telling you the truth, Catherine, you
didn't
abort." Then he stopped abruptly, just as I did, with my thoughts reeling. I'd betrayed myself!
I began to cry.
Chris, Chris, there was a baby, there was a monster just like we feared.
"No," said Paul again and again, "it's not yours, and even if it were, it wouldn't make any difference to me. I know you and Chris love each other in a special way. I've always known it, and I do understand."
"Once," I whispered through my sobs, "only once on one terrible night.
"I'm sorry it was terrible."
I stared up at him then, marveling that he could look at me with so much softness and so much respect, even knowing the full truth. "Paul," I asked
tremulously, timidly, "was it an unforgivable sin?"
"No . . . an understandable act of love, I'd call it."
He held me, he kissed me, he stroked my back and began telling me his plans for our wedding. ". . . and Chris will give you away, and Carrie will be your bridesmaid. Chris was very hesitant and wouldn't meet my eyes when I discussed this with him. He said he thought you weren't mature enough to handle a complicated marriage like ours will be. I know it's not going to be easy for you, or for me. You'll be touring the world, dancing with young, handsome men. However, I'm looking forward to accompanying you on a few of those tours. 'lb be the husband of a prima ballerina will be inspiring, exciting. Why, I could even be your company doctor. Surely dancers need doctors on occasion?"
I went dead inside. "Paul," I began dully, "I can't marry you." Then, quite out of context, I went on, "You know, wasn't it stupid of Momma to hide our birth certificates inside the linings of our two suitcases? She didn't do too good a job and the linings ripped and I found them. Without my birth certificate I couldn't have applied for a passport, and I also needed that certificate to prove I was of age to apply for a marriage license. You see, several days before our company flew to London Julian and I had blood tests and our marriage ceremony was just a simple one, with Madame Zolta and the company dancers there, and even as I said my marriage vows, and swore fidelity to Julian . . . I was thinking of you, and Chris, and hating myself, and knowing I was doing the wrong thing."
Paul didn't say anything. He reeled backward, then staggered over to fall upon a marble bench. For moments he just sat, and then his head drooped into his hands and hid his face.
I stood. He sat. He lost himself somewhere, while I waited for him to come back and rail at me. But his voice when it came was as soft as a whisper, "Come, sit beside me for a while. Hold my hand Give me time to realize it's all over between us." I did as he said and held his hand, while both of us stared up at the sky full of diamonds and dark clouds.
"I'll never hear your kind of music again without thinking of you. . . ."
"Paul, I'm sorry! I wish to God I'd have listened to my instinct that told me Amanda was lying. But the music was playing where I was too and you were far away, and Julian was there, pleading with me, telling me he loved and needed me, and I believed him, and convinced myself you didn't really love me. I can't bear to be without someone who loves me."
"I'm very happy he loves you," he said, then got up quickly and started for the house, his strides so long and fast I'd never catch up even if I ran. "Don't say another word! Leave me alone, Catherine! Don't follow me! You did the right thing--don't doubt that! I was an old fool, playing with a young one, and you don't have to tell me I should have known better--I already know that!"

Gone as deaf and stony as one of Paul's marble statues, I sat on the veranda and stared up at the night sky that was turning stormy and black with clouds. Julian came out to sit beside me and in his embrace I began to softly cry. "Why?" he asked. "You do love me a little, don't you? Your doctor can't be really hurt; he was very kind to me, and told me to come out and comfort you."

It was then that Henny came out to signal with her lightning-fast signs that her doctor-son was packing for a trip and I was to stay here. "What's she saying to you?" asked Julian with annoyance. "Damn, it's like hearing someone talk in a foreign tongue. I feel so left out."

"Stay here and wait!" I ordered, then jumped up to race into the house and fly up the back stairs, then on into Paul's room where he was flinging his clothes into an open suitcase on his bed. "Look," I cried in distress, "there's no reason why you have to leave! This is your home.
I'll
go. I'll take Carrie with me, so you need never see my face again!" He turned to give me a long and bitter look as he went on putting shirts in his bag.

"Cathy, you've taken the wife I expected to have, and now you want to take away my daughter. Carrie is like my own flesh and blood, and she wouldn't fit into your kind of life. Let her stay with me and Henny. Let me have something to call my own. I'll be back before you go . . . and you should know that Julian's father is very, very ill."

"Georges is ill?"
"Yes. Perhaps you don't know that he's had kidney disease for several years, and has been on a dialysis machine for months. I don't think he'll live much longer. He's not my patient, but I stop in to visit him as often as I can, more or less to hear about you and Julian. Now will you please get out, Cathy, and not force me to say things I'd regret."
I cried face down on my bed until Henny came into my room.
Strong, motherly, dark hands patted my back. Henny's misting, liquid brown eyes spoke when her tongue couldn't. She talked to me with her gestures, and then took from her apron pocket a clipping from the local newspaper. An announcement of my marriage to Julian! "Henny," I wailed, "what am I going to do? I'm married to Julian, and I can't demand a divorce; he depends on me, believes in me!"
Henny shrugged her broad shoulders, expressing that people were as complex to her as they were to me. Then quickly she signaled, "Big sister always been big trouble maker. One man already hurt, no good hurting two. Doctor good man, strong man, will survive disappointment, but young dancing man might not. Wipe away tears, cry no more, put on big smile and go downstairs and take hand of new husband. For everything work out for the best. You see."
I did as Henny directed, and joined Julian in the living room, and there I told him about his father being in the hospital, and not expected to live. His pale face went even whiter. Nervously he chewed on his lower lip. "It's really that serious?"
It had been my opinion that Julian didn't care much for his father, so I was surprised to see his reaction. At that moment Paul came into the living room with his suitcase and offered to drive us to the hospital. "And remember, my house has plenty of rooms, and there is no reason at all why the two of you should even consider a hotel. Stay as long as you like. be back in a few days."
He backed his car out of the garage so Julian and I could join him on the front seat. Hardly a word was said until he let us out in front of the hospital, and sadly I hesitated before the steps, watching Paul drive away into the night.
They had Georges in a private room, and with him was Madame Marisha. When I saw Georges in the bed, I drew in my breath! Oh! To be like that! He was so thin he seemed already dead. His face had a grayish pallor, and every bone he had jutted forward to make jagged peaks beneath the thin skin Madame M. was crouched at his side, staring down into his gaunt face pleading with her eyes, commanding him to hold on and live! "My love, my love, my love," she crooned as to a baby, "do not go, do not leave me alone. We have so much to do yet, to experience yet. . . . Our son has to reach fame before you die. . . . Hold on, my love, hold on."
Only then did Madame Marisha glance up to see us there, and with her same old authority she snapped,
"Well, Julian. You did finally come!
And after all the cables I sent you! What did you do, tear them up and dance on, as if nothing matters?"
I blanched, very surprised, and looked from him to Madame. "My dear mother," he said coldly, "we were on tour, you know that. We had engagements and contracts, so my wife and I kept our
commitments."
"You heartless brute!" she snarled, then gestured for him to come closer. "Now you say something kind and loving to that man on the bed," she hissed in a whisper, "or so help me God
I'll make you wish you were never born!"
Julian had a great deal of trouble making the effort to approach the bed, so much so I had to give him a shove, while his mother sobbed into a handful of pink tissues. "Hello, Father," was all he could manage, along with, "I'm sorry you are so ill." Quickly he came back to me, and held me hard against him I felt his whole body trembling.
"See, my love, my sweetheart, my darling," crooned Madame Marisha again, once more bending above her husband and smoothing back his damp, dark hair. "Open your dear eyes and see who has flown thousands of miles to be at your side. Your own Julian and his wife. All the way from London they flew the moment they knew you were so sick. Open your eyes, my heart, see him again, see them together, such a beautiful pair of newlyweds--please open your eyes, please look."
On the bed the pale, thin wraith of a man slitted his dark eyes and they moved slowly, trying to focus on Julian and me. We were at the foot of his bed, but he didn't seem to see us. Madame got up to push us closer, and then held Julian there so he couldn't back off. Georges opened his eyes a bit wider and thinly smiled. "Ah, Julian," he sighed. "Thank you for coming. I have so much to say to you--things I should have said before. . . ." He faltered, stammered, "I should have--" and then he broke off. I waited for him to continue--and I waited. I saw his wide open eyes glaze and go blank and his head stayed so still. Madame screamed! A doctor and nurse came on the run, and shooed us out as they began to work over Georges.
We formed a pitiful group in the hall outside his room, and in only a short while the gray-haired doctor came out to say he was sorry, all had been done that could be done. It was over. "It is better so," he added. "Death can be a good friend to those in extreme pain. I wondered how he held on so long. . . ."
I stared and stared at Julian, for we could have come back sooner. But Julian made his eyes blank and refused to speak. "He was your father!" screamed Madame as tears streaked her cheeks. "For two weeks he suffered, waiting to see you before he could let himself die and escape the hell of living on!"
Julian whirled, his pale skin flamed with bright red fury, as he lashed out at his mother, "Madame Mother, just what
did
my father give me? All I was to him was an extension of himself! All he was to me was a dance instructor! Work, dance, that's all he ever said! He never discussed what I wanted besides the dance; he didn't give a damn what else I wanted, or what else I needed! I wanted him to love me for myself; I wanted him to see me as his son, not just as a dancer. I loved him; I wanted him to see I loved him, and say he loved me in return . . . but he never did! And try as I would to dance perfectly, he never gave me a compliment-- for I didn't do anything nearly as well as he could have done it when he was my age! So, that is what I was to him, somebody to step into his shoes and carry on his name! But, damn him, and you, I've got my own legal name . . . Julian Marquet, not Georges Rosencoff, and his name will not live on and steal from me what fame I achieve!"
I held Julian in my arms that night,
understanding him as I hadn't before. When he broke and cried, I cried along with him, for a father he'd professed to despise, when underneath he loved him. And I thought of Georges, and how sad it was that he tried, too late, to say what he should have years and years ago.
So we'd come from a honeymoon where we had achieved a certain amount of fame and publicity, and given many, many hours of hard work, only to attend the funeral of a father who wouldn't live to know about his son's accomplishments. All the glory of London now seemed shrouded in funeral mists.
Madame Marisha held out her arms to me when the graveside ceremony was over. She held me in her thin arms, as she might have once held Julian, and in a sort of hypnotic trance we rocked back and forth, both of us crying. "Be good to my son, Catherine," she sobbed and sniffled "Have patience with him when he acts wild. His has not been an easy life, for much of what he says is true. Always he felt himself in competition with his father, and never could he surpass his father's abilities. Now I will tell you something. My Julian has a love for you that is almost holy. He thinks you are the best thing that has ever happened in his life, and to him you are without flaw. If you have flaws, hide them. He won't understand. A hundred times he's been in then out of love, all within the space of a few months. For years you frustrated him So now that he's your husband, give to him generously all the love that's been denied, for I am not a demonstrative woman I have always wanted to be, but somehow I could never humble myself to touch first. Touch him often, Catherine. Take his hand when he would pull from you and go off and sulk alone. Understand why he's moody, and love him three times as much. That way you will bring out the best in him, for he does have admirable qualities. He has to, for he is Georges's son."
She kissed me, and said good-bye for a while, and made me swear to come with Julian often on visits. "Fit me in the corners of your life," she said with sadness making her face long and hollow eyed. But when I promised, and turned to look, Julian was glaring hard at the both of us.
Chris came home for his Easter vacation, and less than eagerly he greeted Julian. I noticed Julian glaring at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
No sooner were Chris and I alone when he bellowed, "You married
him?
Why couldn't you wait? How could you be so intuitive when we were locked away and so damned dumb now that we're out! I was wrong not wanting you to marry Paul only because he is so much older. And I admit it, I was jealous, and didn't want you to marry anyone. I had a dream of you and me . . . someday. Well . . . you know what I dreamed. But if it had to be a choice between Paul and Julian, then it should have been Paul! He's the one who took us in, and fed and clothed us, and gave us the best of everything. I don't like Julian. He'll destroy you."
He hesitated, turning his back so I couldn't see his face. He was twenty-one and beginning to take on the virile strength of a man. In him I could see so much of our father--and our mother. And when I wanted to, I could take things and twist them to suit my purpose, and so I thought he was more like Momma in some ways than like Daddy. I started to say this, and then I too floundered, for I couldn't. He wasn't anything at all like our mother!
Chris was strong . . . she was weak. He was noble, she was without any honor at all. "Chris . . . don't make it harder for me. Let's be friends again. Julian is hot-headed and arrogant and a lot of things that irritate on the surface, but underneath he's a little boy."
"But you don't love him," he said without meeting my eyes.
In a few hours Julian and I would be leaving. I asked Carrie if she would like to come and live in New York with us, but I had lost her trust; I had betrayed her too many times already and she let me know it. "You go on back to New York, Cathy, where it snows all the time, and muggers get you in the park, and killers get you in the subway--but
you leave me here!
I used to want to be with you,
now I don't care!
You went and married that ole Julian with the black eyes when you could have been Dr. Paul's wife, and my real mother.
I'll marry him!
You think he won't want me 'cause I'm too little--but he will. You think he's too old for me, but I won't be able to get anybody else, so he'll feel sorry and marry me, and we'll have six children--you
just wait and see!"
"Carrie--"
"Shut up! I don't like you now!
Go away! Stay away! Dance until you die! Chris and me don't want you! Nobody here wants you!"
Those screamed words hurt! My Carrie, yelling at me to go away, when I'd been like a mother to her most of her life. Then I looked over to where Chris was standing before the pink sweetheart roses, his shoulders sagging, and in his eyes, oh, those blue, blue eyes . . . that look would always follow me. Never, never was his love going to set me free to love anyone without reservations as long as he kept loving me.
Just an hour before we had to leave for the airport Paul's car turned into the drive. He smiled at me as he always smiled, as if nothing between us had changed. He had some tale to tell Julian of a medical convention that had kept him away, and he was terribly sad and sorry to hear his father had died. He shook hands with Chris, then slapped him heartily on the back, the way men so commonly showed affection to one another. He greeted Henny, kissed Carrie and gave her a little box of candy, and only then did he look at me.
"Hello, Cathy."
That told me so much. I was no longer Catherine, a woman he could love as an equal, I had been moved back to only a daughter. "And, Cathy, you can't take Carrie with you to New York. She belongs with me and Henny so she can see her brother from time to time, and I'd hate for her to change schools too."
"I wouldn't leave you for nothing," said Carrie staunchly. Julian went upstairs to finish packing his things, and I dared to follow Paul out into the garden, despite the forbidding look Chris gave me. He was down on his knees, still wearing a good suit, pulling up a few weeds someone had overlooked. He got up quickly when he heard my steps and brushed the grass from his trousers, then he stared off into space as if the last thing he wanted to do was to look at me.
"Paul . . this would have been our wedding day."
"Would it? I'd forgotten."
"You haven't forgotten," I said, drawing closer, "'The first day of spring, a fresh start' you said. I'm so sorry I spoiled everything. I was a fool to have believed Amanda. I was a double fool not to have waited to talk to you first before I married Julian."
"Let's not talk about it anymore," he said with a heavy sigh. "It's all over now, and finished." Voluntarily he stepped close enough to draw me into his arms. "Cathy, I went away to be alone. I needed that time to think. When you lost faith in me, you turned impulsively, but truthfully, to the man who has loved you for a number of years. Any fool with eyes could see that. And if you can be honest with yourself, you have been in love with Julian almost as long as he's loved you. I believe you put your love for him on a shelf because you thought you owed me. . . ."
"Stop saying that! I love you, not him I'll always love you!"
"You're all mixed up, Cathy. . . . You want me, you want him, you want security, you want adventure. You think you can have everything, and you can't. I told you a long time ago April wasn't meant for September. We did and said a lot of things to convince ourselves that the years between us didn't matter, but they do matter. And it isn't only the years, it's the space that would separate us. You'd be somewhere dancing and I'd be here, rooted and tied down but for a few weeks a year. I'm a doctor first and a husband second--sooner or later you'd find that out and you'd turn to Julian eventually anyway." He smiled, and tenderly kissed away the tears I always had to shed, and he told me fate always dealt out the right cards. "And we'll still see each other--it isn't as if we're forever lost to one another--and I have my memories of how wonderfully sweet and exciting it was between us."