Secrets of Foxworth (32 page)

“She could,” Dad confirmed. “And you were and probably still are.”

They were quiet a moment, and then Uncle Tommy said what my father often said after he took a long look at me. “She's getting to look more and more like her, Burt.”

“I know.”

“What a lucky break. She could have ended up with your mug.”

“She could have,” Dad said. “Get your bag, and get settled in the guest room,” he told him. “I'll take you for a ride and show you the site of my newest project.”

I looked up sharply. He was going to take Uncle Tommy to Foxworth?

“Yeah, you mentioned something about that on the phone. Sounds really big.”

“It is.”

“Okay. The princess is coming along, isn't she?” he asked, looking at me. I looked at Dad.

“No way you or I could stop her,” Dad said. He looked around and saw what I had done in the kitchen
while they had been talking. “Nice job,” he said. “I just have a call to make, Tommy.”

“Great. I'll unpack what I need and be ready.”

He went out to his car and returned with his bag. Then he followed me up to go to the guest room.

“How's he been?” he asked when we were far enough away for my father not to hear.

“He keeps very busy,” I said. “He's all right. I wish he would relax more, get out more, but . . .”

“But he's who he is. And you? Happy?”

“Yes, Uncle Tommy, and more so because you're visiting,” I told him.

He hugged me, and I went to my room to change my shoes and put on something a little warmer. It was more overcast today, and the breeze coming out of the north suggested that our short Indian summer was, as my father would say, having heart failure. I was down and ready before both of them, which I knew didn't surprise my father.

We all squeezed into Black Beauty.

“I can't believe you still have this truck, Burt. I was going to call you because something like it was needed on a movie set. If it was a horse,” he told me, “your father would have had it out to stud with a female truck to create another.”

“Very funny. The only thing you've kept is your goofy sense of humor.”

“Selling big right now.”

“Which is why I never go to the movies,” Dad countered.

I didn't think I could be more comfortable than
sitting between them, I thought, and wished we could all be together more, but my father never wanted to make the trip to California. He kidded Uncle Tommy by telling him it was like leaving the country.

They teased each other all the way up to Foxworth, and then Dad began to explain the project and why it was going to be the biggest construction job he had ever had. When we pulled up to the cleared-out area, I watched Uncle Tommy's reaction.

“Wow. You'd never know what it had been,” he said. He turned to me. “I was here once or twice when you were a little girl, a very little girl.”

We got out of the truck, and I followed Dad and Uncle Tommy as we walked around the site, with Dad pausing to describe what was going to be built. Of course, he spoke in much greater detail than Uncle Tommy needed in order to understand what was going to replace the second Foxworth mansion, but Uncle Tommy didn't complain. He kept his soft, loving smile, glancing at me with that twinkle in his eyes occasionally. The truth was, I was listening harder to my father's descriptions than my uncle was. One thing I picked up on was that there was not going to be an attic. There would be the usually necessary crawl spaces for utilities but nothing like what had been there before.

“There are other, smaller buildings for storage facilities and equipment,” Dad continued, and then he began to lay out the general plan for the landscaping, pool, tennis court, and gardens.

“One of your Hollywood rich guys is going to hear about this and come out to see it and make an offer on
it, for sure, not that the new owner is going to want to sell. Even if they make him an offer he can't refuse.”

Uncle Tommy laughed and then leaned in to me to whisper, “I never saw him as excited about anything.”

Afterward, Dad drove us around to show Uncle Tommy some of the other changes in the immediate area. Again, he had a high note of pride in his voice. I didn't think I had realized before just how much my father loved where we lived. Once in a while, as we rode along and he bragged to Uncle Tommy about things, he would mention my mother and how surprised and pleased she would be. He had to show Uncle Tommy my school and then, of course, his office building.

I knew that despite how much fun he made of what Uncle Tommy did and where he lived, Dad was proud of him, too, and wanted to show him off. We went to Charley's Diner, where he knew some of his buddies would be, and he introduced Uncle Tommy to those who had never met him.

“I gotta tell you,” Uncle Tommy said when we finally got into a booth to order lunch, “there really are many countries in this country. Your father's not wrong. However, I think I'll stay where I am.”

“You couldn't be approved for citizenship here, anyway,” Dad told him, and they went on to talk about their grandparents and stories they'd been told.

When we returned home, Uncle Tommy had to make a few phone calls. I went to my room and put some finishing touches on my homework, read a few
chapters of history, and then relaxed. Uncle Tommy was taking us out to dinner. I thought he would just go down to watch some television with my father, but instead, he knocked on my bedroom door.

“Hey,” he said. “Busy?”

I put down my history book. “No, just tinkering,” I said.

He came in and looked around my room. “I thought teenagers were supposed to be messy.”

“Not with a father who was in the navy,” I said, and he laughed.

“Don't let him fool you. He was like that before he entered the navy.” He sat at the foot of my bed. “So my brother says you've been reading some sort of diary discovered at the Foxworth foundation.”

“Christopher's diary, yes.”

“Christopher? One of the children who was locked up in the house for years?”

“Yes. What's Dad been telling you about it?”

“He's worried you're getting too involved in some very messy things, terrible things done to children who were betrayed by people who should have loved and protected them. I told him you were too smart to be harmed by such stories and that worse things were being made and shown on the screen these days, but he's feeling like . . . well, things are tougher, because there's only him, and he's always worried he's not doing what a parent should do.”

“It's not going to hurt me to read someone's diary, Uncle Tommy, even someone who was imprisoned
with his brother and sisters. I want to understand what happened, and not only because they were distant cousins of my mother and me.”

He nodded. “I can't blame you for being curious.”

I didn't want to tell him that it had gone way beyond curiosity. Then he would worry along with my father.

“It was always a fascinating tale for people here,” he added.

“You once spoke with someone who knew more about what really happened there, didn't you?”

“Someone who wanted to pitch it to Hollywood. He said he knew the truth, but you have to remember that it was third-hand information. I don't doubt there were some pretty nutty people living in that original mansion, cruel, in fact, but what actually did happen has been so distorted and exaggerated it's beyond reality, probably. What's the diary like?”

“I think it's honest. I'm only about halfway through it. It's like taking bitter medicine sometimes. But I can handle it,” I added firmly.

He nodded. “I'm sure it is.”

“What do you really know?”

“Really know? I wouldn't say I really know anything. As I said, I was told some things by . . .”

“Someone who was friendly with a servant. Dad told me that.”

“Oh, he did. Well, what we can be sure of was that the kids were kept up there for years,” he added. “That's true. Whether someone deliberately was poisoning them or they just happened to ingest some
rat poison is unknown. The only thing I can tell you is that this servant came to believe that their grandmother had told their grandfather that they were there, and he had insisted on their being kept locked away. This servant did not like their mother at all and believed she went along with everything knowing those kids would not be freed so easily. But that's just this man's opinion about it. I guess the point is, what difference does it make now, Kristin? Actually, don't you have better things to read?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I need to read this to the end.”

He nodded. “Okay. But don't ask him any more questions about it. He feels like he . . .”

“Would be betraying my mother, who never wanted to talk about it?”

“Exactly.”

I looked away. “Somehow I believe she would want me to read it, but it would probably have been our secret.”

He stood up, smiling. “Maybe. Everyone has a few. Look, if you get confused or too deep into it and need to talk to someone, call me. Will you?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Who knows? Maybe there
is
a movie in it.” He held up his hands instantly. “Just kidding. Although kidnapping people and holding them hostage for some reason is always a Hollywood possibility.”

“I'm sure Christopher didn't write his diary for that purpose,” I said. “Do you know if he's still alive or where he would be today?”

“No,” he said quickly.

“Could you find out for me? Ask a detective to locate him?”

“I live in the make-believe world, Kristin. The only detectives I know are Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. Get a crush on some boy, and forget about all that,” he advised. “That's what I do whenever I confront something unpleasant. I fall in love . . . for five minutes,” he added, and laughed. Then he hugged me. “Let's have a great dinner and work on getting your father to let you come see me in Hollywood.”

“That,” I said, “frightens him the most.”

He laughed and kissed me again and went out.

I stood there in silence for a moment, and then I whispered, “Don't worry, Christopher, I won't leave you.” Almost the way someone would swear on a Bible, I had to touch the diary after saying that, and then I went to shower and dress for dinner.

Nothing was mentioned about Foxworth or the diary after that. Uncle Tommy worked on getting my father to let me go to Hollywood during one of my school vacations. I could see how hard it was for Dad to be apart from me for even a short time. He had been just like this when I had gone to visit Aunt Barbara. I dreaded how terribly traumatic it would be for both of us when it came time for me to leave for college.

Reluctantly, though, he promised to think about it. He even vaguely suggested that he might go, too. The rest of the evening was given over to their memories and talking about Aunt Barbara. Plans were vaguely
made for a real get-together in the near future, maybe to celebrate Aunt Barbara's next birthday. Dad said he would relent and go to New York for that, and Uncle Tommy often traveled to New York on business.

I had driven us to the restaurant and drove us home. Both of them had had a bit to drink, and I thought they were funny, especially my father, who was fighting not to appear even slightly drunk. He didn't have to tell me—I knew he was like this only because he was with his brother and they had not seen each other for so long. The love they had for each other was palpable. At times, it brought tears to my eyes. I could only imagine my mother sitting there beside me, smiling.

Breakfast was quick the following morning. I had to get to school, and Uncle Tommy was off to make a flight. All three of us refused to say good-bye. It was reduced to a simple “See you soon.”

Kisses and hugs, Uncle Tommy's whispers of how proud of me he was, and his offer always to be there for me followed me out to my car and traveled with me all the way to school. I tried to keep my tears buried under my eyelids, but some escaped. I sat in my car in the parking lot to catch my breath and get my eyes to look less bloodshot. Kane saw me and lifted his hands to ask why I was just sitting there. I got out and went to him quickly.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing. Just hold my hand for as long as you can.”

“Ask me something hard to do,” he said, and we walked into the school.

I did my best to concentrate on my work and participate in conversations with Kane and my girlfriends, but anyone probably could see that I was preoccupied.

I knew that the mood in our home would be darker when I returned from school, but my father did everything he could to push it away. He made his special meat loaf for us and talked incessantly about the job. It was smart. Get busy, I thought. Get so busy you don't realize why you were even sad for a while. And then push back into hope and dreams as soon as you can.

I did.

And I didn't even read any more of Christopher's diary until the following night, when my father had gone to bed and I had done all my homework, spoken to Kane, and gotten under my blanket. Then I reached back for the diary and whispered, “I'm still here, Christopher. Still listening.”

Fall came rushing down around us, a cold season unlike any I could remember, perhaps because we were trapped in such a cold place. Without a stove or even an electric heater in the attic, we could sometimes see our own breath. Momma was afraid of bringing an electric heater, afraid of fires, and there was no way to have a stove without a chimney. Her solution was to bring us heavy underwear.

It was getting more difficult to find new ways to amuse the twins. I came up with hide-and-
seek, and that became our main distraction. The attic actually provided many hiding places. The twins loved the game, but one day, Carrie became bored and despondent. She could be very moody, and she just decided to go back down to the small bedroom. When all of us were in it, it was claustrophobic. We needed the attic.