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He smiled.
"I found the letters in your room. You've read them, I suppose."
"Only the first two," I said. "You had no right to take them."
"Only the first two? I see. Well, you know enough about yourself and her then. The other letters are full of apologies and promises and all that phoney stuff that was never to be. You didn't get the safe open, did you?" he asked suddenly, his eyebrows hoisted and poised.
"Yes, we did," I said.
"We did? Oh, you and your girlfriends, huh? Of course. So you know the rest then. You know your mother was really adopted, right?"
"Yes," I said.
"Do you know that I never knew it?" he asked. "That's right. They kept that from me. From me! They probably thought I might think again about marrying her or something. I wish I had
"Never marry for money and comfort, Cathy. In the end you might have some money, but you won't have the comfort you so cherished.
"It was you, you only who gave me any comfort," he said in a softer voice, a voice that sounded as if it was filled with tears and pain. "When she took you away from me ..." He paused as if he was all choked up and turned away for a moment. I saw his shoulders rise and fall.
He gathered himself and when he turned back to me, there was no longer even a trace of softness in his face.
"She had no right, no right. I was the only one who ever gave you any affection, who sympathized with you, who cared for you. I was the one who gave you toys, wanted you to have things. She stopped me all the time. She was jealous of our relationship from the start. She'd rather you were alone, suffering, crying, than have me. What kind of a mother was she to you?"
He paused again and smiled.
"Yes, Cathy, was. When you told me she was in the hospital, you had me for a little while, even though I knew she would hate to be in any hospital," he added.
For a moment he stared, and I stared as his words twisted and turned in my mind, tying
themselves in a knot. The smallest, slightest chill started at the base of my spine.
"She was a remarkably healthy woman. I think her meanness made it so. No disease, no germ dared to locate in her inhospitable body. You know how rare it was for her to even have a cold. In all the years we were married, she never went for a physical exam or any of the regular checkups most women have. I kept thinking some day she'll have cancer and she won't be able to stop it, but not her, not even cancer dared invade her skin and bones.
"I was convinced she'd outlive me, maybe even both of us, and she might have, too. You see that, don't you? You think she'd ever have let you have a normal relationship with anyone? You think you'd ever have a boyfriend or do any of the things you wanted to do?
"Remember, it was I who bought you that party dress. Remember?"
He paused again and looked over the room.
"You girls are something," he said. "Those pictures out there," he continued, nodding and laughing. "She's spinning in her grave. Right, Cathy?"
I couldn't talk now. My whole body felt frozen. I couldn't even feel my heart beating.
"So what would she do to protect herself, to keep up her health besides eat like a bird and clean this house for exercise? Just those herbal remedies, remember?"
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a bottle.
"This was one of her favorites." He looked at it and read, "Pycnogenol." He nodded at it. "I made fun of her all the time, but she was happy about it because that meant I wouldn't take it and she had more for herself."
"Why do you have it now?" I asked. My voice was so thin and small that I didn't recognize it when I spoke. It was as if someone else was in the room with us, asking the question.
"Oh, I didn't want it here any longer," he said. He paused and looked at me hard. "It's the real reason why I broke into the house that night. I didn't realize she had changed the locks on me. I had to break in when I thought you were all away."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why? I was afraid she might have finally convinced you to use this stuff, too, for one thing. For another, I didn't want anyone else to look at
it...closely. You might have noticed there were different kinds of pills in the bottle--though I doubt you would have guessed they were strychnine," he added. "It was sort of a game of Russian roulette I played with her, waiting for the day she would take the right pill. I had a half dozen in here, resembling her precious herbal wonder. I guess it's safe to say now that she did, right?
