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"Do I have your promise you will call me at work if things get rough here? Don't you allow her to do one more thing to you--do I have that promise?"
I nodded, and for a brief moment he held me tight against him, and I could hear the loud thumping of his heart. Then I glanced up and saw Kitty at the window staring out at us. Pulling away, I tried to pretend he'd only been comforting my wounded hand. . . .
"She's watching us, Cal."
"I don't care."
"I do. I can call you, but it takes time for you to drive home, and by that time she could peel the skin from my back."
For the longest time he stared at me, as if all along he'd not believed she was capable of that and now he did. The shock was still in his eyes when we put our gardening tools away and entered the house to find Kitty sound asleep in a chair.
Then came the nights. Eventually I didn't have to try not to listen, for eventually Cal stopped making any attempts to reason with Kitty, and stopped kissing her passionately, only pecks on her cheek, as if he no longer desired her. I felt his inner rage and frustration building, too. Along with mine.
Thanksgiving Day I roasted my first storebought turkey so Kitty could invite all her "girls" and brag about her cooking. "Weren't nothin fit," she said over and over again when they praised all her housekeeping and cooking skills. "An I've got so little time, too. Heaven helps some," she admitted generously as I waited on the table, "but ya knows how young gals are . . lazy, an interested in nothin but boys."
Christmas came with stingy gifts from Kitty, and expensive secret gifts from Cal. He and Kitty attended many a party, leaving me home to watch TV. It was only then that I learned that Kitty had a drinking problem. One drink started off a chain reaction so she'd have to drink more, more, more, and many a time Cal had to carry her in the door, undress her, and put her to bed, sometimes with my help.
It felt odd to undress a helpless woman with the help of her husband, an intimacy that left me feeling uneasy. Still, an unspoken but strong bond united Cal and me. Cal's eyes would meet mine . . . mine would meet his. He loved me, I knew he loved me . . . and at night when I snuggled down in my bed, I felt his protective presence guarding my sleep.
One fine Saturday in late February he and I celebrated my sixteenth birthday. For one year and more than one month I'd been living with him and Kitty. I knew Cal wasn't quite like a real father, nor quite like an uncle, nor quite like any man I'd ever known. He was someone who needed a friend and family to love as badly as I did, and he was settling for the closest, the most available female. He never scolded or criticized me, never spoke harshly to me as Kitty usually did.
We were friends, Cal and I. I knew I loved him. He gave me what I'd never had before, a man who loved me, who needed me, who understood me, and for him I would gladly have died.
He bought me nylons and high-heeled shoes for birthday gifts, and when Kitty wasn't home, I practiced wearing them. It was like learning to walk all over again on longer, newer legs. With nylons on, and high heels, I was very conscious of my legs, thinking they looked great, and unconsciously I'd stick them out so everyone could admire them. It made Cal laugh. Of course, I had to hide the shoes and nylons along with all my other new clothes down in the basement where Kitty never went alone.
Spring came quickly to Atlanta. Because of all the effort Cal and I had put into the yard, we had the most spectacular garden in Candlewick. A garden that Kitty couldn't enjoy because honeybees hovered over the flowers, and ants crawled on the ground, and inchworms swung from fine gossamer threads to catch in her hair. Once Kitty almost broke her neck brushing one from her shoulder, screaming all the while.
Kitty was afraid of dim places where spiders or roaches might hide. Ants on the ground sent her into panic; ants in the kitchen almost gave her heart attacks. A fly on her arm made her scream, and if a mosquito was in the bedroom she didn't sleep
a wink, only kept us all up, complaining about the buzzing of that "damned thin!"
Afraid of the dark, was Kitty. Afraid of worms, dirt, dust, germs, diseases, a thousand things that I never gave a thought to.
When Kitty grew too overbearing with her many demands, I escaped to my room, threw myself down, and reached for a book brought home from the school library . . and lost myself in the world of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Over and over I read those two books before I went to the library and hunted up a biography of the Bronte sisters.
Bit by bit I was edging back Kitty's parade of tiny ceramics with my treasured collection of books. I'd brought the doll up from the basement, and every day I took her out of the bottom dresser drawer and stared into her pretty face, determined one day to find my mother's parents.
Once in a while I even wore a few of my mother's clothes, but they were old, frail, and I decided it was better to leave them stretched out as flat as possible, and save them for the day when I went to Boston.
Tom wrote long letters, and Logan wrote now and then, hardly telling me anything. Still I kept writing to Fanny, even if she didn't respond. My world was so tight, so restricted, I began to feel strangely out of touch with everyone. . . everyone but Cal.
Yet in many ways my life had become easier. Housework that had terrified me once with all its complexities of instructions was no longer so overwhelming. I could have been born with a blender in one hand and a vacuum in the other. Electricity was part of my life now, and honestly, it seemed it always had been. Every day Cal seemed more and more my savior, my friend, my companion, and my confidant. He was my tutor, my father, my date to the movies and restaurants; he had to be now that the boys in the school had stopped asking me to dances and movies. How could I leave him alone when once he had said: "Heaven, if you have movie dates who will I go with? Kitty hates movies, and I enjoy them, and she hates the kind of restaurants I like. Please don't abandon me in favor of kids who won't appreciate you as I do . . . allow me to take you to the movies. You don't need them, do you?"
How guilty that question made me feel, as if I were betraying bim even to think about having a date. I tried many a time to think that Logan was as faithful to me as I was to him. . . and yet I couldn't help but wonder--was he? After a while I just stopped looking at boys, knowing better than to encourage them and perhaps alienate the only truly dependable friend I had.
To please Cal, I did as he wanted, went where he wanted, wore what he wanted, styled my hair to please him. And all the time my resentment against Kitty grew and grew. Because of her he was turning to me. He was wonderful, and yet it made me feel strange, guilty, especially when that odd burning look came into his eyes, as if he liked me so much-- perhaps too much.
My school chums began to look at me in odd ways. Did they know Cal took me out? "Ya got a boyfriend on t'outside?" asked Florence, my best chum. "Tell me bout him--do ya let him, ya know, go all t'way?"
"No!" I stormed. "Besides, there isn't anyone."
"There is too! Kin tell from yer blush!"
Had I blushed?
I went home to dust and vacuum, to water the hundreds of plants, to do endless chores, and all the time I thought about why I'd blushed. There was something exciting going on in my body, waking it up, sending unexpected thrills to my groin at the most unexpected moments. Once I glimpsed myself in the bathroom mirrtor, wearing nothing but a bikini bra and panties, and that alone sent a sexual thrill through me. It scared me and made me feel unwholesome that I could be thrilled just to see myself scantily clad. I'd never have the enormous bosom Kitty was so proud of, but what I had seemed more than adequate. My waist had slimmed down to a mere twenty-two inches, though it seemed I'd never grow any taller than five feet six and a half. Tall enough, I told myself. Plenty tall enough. I didn't want to be a giant like Kitty.
Months ahead of her dreaded thirty-seventh birthday, Kitty started staring at calendars, seeming so cursed by the onset of middle age that she sank into a state of deep depression. When Kitty was depressed, Cal and I had to mirror her feelings, or be accused of being insensitive and uncaring. He was wild with frustration from wanting her all the time, as she provoked and teased him and then yelled NO, NO, NO! "Nother time. . . tomorra night. . ."
