Part 20 (1/2)

Troy will get over you. I'll be here to support him. I'll see to it that he recovers. And the best way to do that is through work. Once Troy accepts the fact that you love someone else and won't be marrying him, he'll make subst.i.tutes for your love. I'll do what I can to see he finds another girl he wants to marry.” It hurt so much to hear him say those things that I wanted to bay at the sun like a wolf did at the moon, like Sarah had once done when her last baby died. In my chest was a living pain. And beside me was the man who had started everything. ”What a detestable person you are, Tony Tatterton! By G.o.d, if I knew it wouldn't hurt Troy, I would tell him exactly what you did to my mother! And he'd hate you! You would lose the one person who is most valuable to you!” He threw me a pitiful look. ”Please . . .

remember, you would destroy him. Troy lives on faith and belief. He isn't like you or me, able to survive no matter what the circ.u.mstances.”

”Don't ever compare me to yourself again!” I yelled.

He didn't respond, only reached for another melon to slice.

”Promise, Heaven, promise to say nothing to Jill about any of this.”

I got up and stalked by Tony's chair without promising anything.

”All right!” Tony yelled, abruptly out of patience, jumping up and seizing my arm and whipping me about so I saw his usually pleasant and handsome face turned monstrous with anger. ”Go back to Troy! Go on! Destroy him! And when you're done with him, run to Jill and destroy her! And when you've finished off everyone in Farthy, run to your father and ruin his life! Ruin Tom's and f.a.n.n.y's, and don't leave out Our Jane and Keith! You want revenge, Heaven Leigh Casteel! I see it in your eyes, those incredible blue eyes that speak of a devil inside more than they speak of an angel!”

I slung my balled fist at him blindly, striking nothing as he released me so suddenly I fell off balance to the floor. Quickly I scrambled to my feet, to spurt ahead so fast he wasn't able to say another word before I was running up the stairs to the safety of my bed again. My crying place.

At one o'clock I was again in the cottage, and this time Troy was out of bed, looking a bit stronger as he smiled at me. ”Come,” he said, beckoning, ”I want you to see this train set-up that has just been finished, and then we'll eat.”

What he had to show me filled one huge corner of his workshop. It was a tiny stage-set with soft lights glowing, and hidden spots lit up the sets, and miniature trains picked up pa.s.sengers and let them off, only to pick them up again, repeatedly taking them around mountains steep and dangerous; I thought, as I watched the tiny Orient Express chuggity-chug, chuggity-chug, starting slowly, gaining speed, forever climbing, forever taking risks, daring everything only to reach the heights, only to descend much more quickly than it had ascended, that Troy was trying to tell me something through his tiny trains.

What was it that Troy tried to say with these three little trains that wove such intricate paths through different territory, yet always reached the same destination? Didn't the whole human race ride trains throughout life, reaching highs, sinking to lows, riding the plateau between extremities more often than they soared or fell. I chewed thoughtfully on my lower lip, pressed my forehead with my fingertips . . and stared at a little girl who had been added to the pa.s.sengers. A dark-haired little girl wearing a blue coat with matching blue shoes. She was enough like me to cause me to smile. For the trains that apparently led nowhere still gave the pa.s.sengers thrills. The little girl didn't get off the train at the destination, only an old woman wearing another blue coat with matching blue shoes. And eagerly I went back to the train depot, and saw again the little girl in her blue coat boarding another train . . .

Oh, but he was good at this toy making, giving it meaning, imparting without words his beliefs, and as I turned away from the trains, I felt the familiar fascination gather me into its arms. ”Troy, Troy!” I called. ”Where are you? We have a thousand plans to make!”

He was seated on one of the window seats again, his long legs pulled up, his skilled and graceful hands loosely locked below his knees--and all the windows were wide open and the cold, damp wind swept through his bedroom!

Alarmed, I ran to pull at his arm, trying to bring him out of the nowhere he had lost himself in. ”Troy!

Troy!” I yelled, shaking him, and still he gazed straight ahead without blinking. Even as I shook him, the wind gusted in so strong it blew a table lamp to the floor. I had to use all my strength to pull the windows down, and when I had them all closed, I ran to gather up blankets which I swatched about Troy's shoulders and legs; still he had not moved nor spoken. His face was pale and cold when I touched him, but soft, and that made me cry out in relief. He wasn't dead. Yet the pulse when I felt for it was so faint I hurried to his telephone and dialed Farthy. Over and over again the telephone rang and no one answered! I didn't know what kind of doctor I could call directly.

My fingers trembling, I picked up Troy's Yellow Pages and was thumbing through them when I heard him sneeze.

”Troy!” I cried, hurrying to his side. ”What are you doing, trying to kill yourself?”

His eyes were unfocused and blurry, his voice weak when he spoke my name. When he could see me, he seized me as a drowning man reaches for anything, and I was pulled hard against him so his face could bury deep into my hair. ”You came back.

Oh, G.o.d, I thought you'd never come back!” ”Of course I came back.” Kisses I rained on his face. ”Troy, I stayed here with you last night, don't you remember?” More kisses on his face, on his hands. ”Didn't I tell you I'd returned so we could marry?” I stroked his arms, his back, smoothed down his wild hair. ”I'm sorry I came back late, but I'm here now. We'll marry and build our own traditions, make every day a holiday . . .” And I stopped talking because he wasn't really listening.

The chilly room brought on fresh a.s.saults of sneezes, from both of us, then I was drawing him to the bed, so we could both snuggle under mounds of covers and wait for our s.h.i.+vering to end. Even as we lay there, wrapped tightly in each other's arms, the many clocks began all those subtle grinds and movements that would tell the chimes to toll.

Some errant wind managed to come in and tinkle the crystal prisms of his dinette chandelier. ”It's all right, darling, darling,” I crooned, smoothing his dark, rumpled hair. ”I came upon you just now during one of your . . what do I call them?

Trances, would that be the right word?”

His arms tightened so much my ribs began to ache dully. ”Heaven,” he breathed; ”thank G.o.d you are here. His voice broke and he sobbed, gently pus.h.i.+ng me from him. ”However much I am grateful, I can't pretend any longer that I can live with you. Or marry you. Your absence gave me the chance to think over what we were doing; your presence deludes me into thinking I'm a normal man, with normal expectations. But I'm not, I am not! I'll never be! I'm warped and unable to change. I didn't think you'd come back, once you got out into the real world and discovered you'd been asleep. This isn't a real house, Heaven.

Not one lived in by real people. We're all fakes, Heaven, Tony, Jillian, me; even the servants learn the rules and play the game.”

An ache that had begun when I entered thickened and grew. ”What rules, Troy? What game?” Laughing in a way that chilled my blood, he rolled over, holding me still, rolled again and again until we fell to the floor, and he ripped off my clothes wildly, and his warm kisses soon turned hot. ”I hope we both made a baby,” he cried when it was over, and he turned away and began to pick up the pieces of my torn garments. ”I hope I didn't hurt you. I never want to hurt you. But I'd like to leave behind something real, made of my flesh and blood.” Then, crus.h.i.+ng me to him, he began to sob--deep, harsh, terrible sobs. I held him, caressed him, kissed him a thousand times before we both fell onto the bed and covered ourselves from the harsh cold.

As I lay there beside him and heard him choke back his sobs and Whatever anguish he suffered, I realized Troy was far too complex for me ever to understand. I'd just love him as he was, and maybe one day when he woke up from a dreamless sleep he'd smile before dawn and throughout the day thoughts of dying young would be forgotten.

And I slept. From time to time I woke up slightly, enough to feel air moving around me.

Enough to feel warm arms embracing me.

Then it was another day, and I was in my own room and there was a note on my night table. A short note from Troy.

I didn't like notes. I'd not known one yet that came unposted that hadn't brought sad news. .

My own true love, You found me in the wind last night, just sitting, just trying to figure out what my life is all about.

We can't marry. And yet last night I took you and did my best to make you conceive. Forgive me for my selfishness. Go to Jillian. She'll tell you the truth.

Make her tell you. She will if you push her hard enough, and call her Grandmother, and force her to abandon her disguise.

The love I have for you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I thank you for loving and giving me so much, even knowing all my weaknesses.

And my greatest flaw has been my overwhelming love and devotion to my brother. 1 have been blind, deliberately blind.

Jillian came and told me everything. To save you I have to accept what could have saved your mother. For Jillian had to admit that Tony was wild with his infatuation to possess your mother. I know now, after you have goaded me into thinking backward, that she hated him, and he was the one she ran from. Heaven, you are Tony's daughter, and my own niece!

I'm going away until I can learn to live without you. Even if you weren't Tony's daughter, and my niece, I'd ruin your life. 1 don't know how to live complacently and accept each day as it comes. I have to make every day meaningful and important, for each day I live seems always the last one.

He signed that note with a huge TLT.

This morning brought back sharply the horrible day I'd bitten into an apple, then wandered into the room 392 where Sarah had left Pa a note saying she was leaving him and never coming back. In leaving Pa, she left all of us to fend for ourselves. Here I was again having to fend for myself in a house that no longer wanted me.

The unbearable pain of my shattered love turned into fury! That fury gave me racing legs. I went to Jillian's rooms and banged on her door, shouting her name, demanding to be let in, when it was only nine o'clock and Jillian always slept until noon or even later.

But Jillian was out of bed, exquisitely dressed, as if ready to go out but for adding the jacket to her dressy, pale suit. Her hair was pulled softly back from her face, and I'd never seen it that way before. She looked older, and at the same time, lovelier, or more correctly, less like a haunted, life-sized doll. ”Troy has gone away,” I said accusingly, glaring at Jillian. ”What did you say to make him decide to go?”

She didn't reply, only turned to pick up her suit jacket and put it on, then, slowly she turned to stare at me. What she saw on my face made her eyes widen in alarm. Her blue, startled eyes flicked as if to find refuge in Tony's arms. Again came that bewildering, brilliant happiness that lit up her eyes. ”Troy's gone! Really gone?” she whispered, her joy so great I felt sickened.

Unexpectedly Tony came into Jillian's rooms without knocking. He ignored her and addressed me.

”How is Troy this morning? What did you tell him?” ”Me? I told him nothing! It was your wife who felt he had to know the truth, the ugly truth!” Jillian's radiance died. Her eyes went blank.

Whirling about, Tony's fire blue eyes lashed at his wife. ”What did you tell him? What could you tell him? Your daughter never confided anything to the mother she despised!”

Jillian stood in her lovely suit in unwrinkled perfection, seeming about to open her mouth and scream. ”Did my mother come to you, Jillian, and tell you why she had to run? Did she, did she?”

”Go away. Leave me alone.”

I persisted. ”What made my mother run from this house? You've never adequately explained. Was it a five-year-old boy? Or was it your husband? Did my mother come to you with tales of her stepfather's s.e.xual advances? Did you pretend you didn't know what she was talking about?”

Her pale hands pulled at her loosely fitting rings, on and off, on and off. I'd never seen her wear rings before. Mindlessly she dropped three rings into an ashtray. The small clatter of the rings striking crystal caused her eyes to widen. ”I don't know what you're talking about.”

”Grandmother . . .” and I said this clearly, sharply, causing her to shudder as she went dead white. ”Was Tony the reason my mother ran from this house?”