Chasing endless summer, p.2
Chasing Endless Summer, page 2
Before I could ask him what he meant and build up my hope, I was forced back into Grandfather’s limousine and returned to Sutherland for my months of aversion therapy, which even included electric shock treatment. I couldn’t get to Nattie to help me. After Simon snuck in, I finally learned about Nattie. No one else would tell me anything. I couldn’t even mention her name. Simon revealed what he had overheard his parents, my uncle Martin and his wife, Holly, say about her. From Simon I learned that Nattie was paralyzed and couldn’t talk or make much more than unintelligible sounds.
When he told me that, I wasn’t going to believe him, but then he literally showed me the truth about my mother’s funeral and burial to prove he wasn’t making up anything. He snuck me out and to Grandfather’s inner office, where I saw the urn. I understood that Grandfather had my mother cremated and held a burial in what was a false grave he had created to fool my grandmother, who had wanted her in the family cemetery. It was his way to avoid another family crisis, which could become just as public.
Getting the answers to the two big questions—what Simon had meant at the grave site when he said she wasn’t down there, and what he knew about Natalie Gleeson—came only when I would cooperate with what he called quid pro quo. It was part of Simon’s plan to get me to permit him to do sexual things to me. Later he claimed that he was doing these things only to help Dr. Kirkwell perform her aversion therapy. He had been sent in to test me. Would I react to a male’s advances positively or not? He proudly called himself her intern.
I hadn’t spoken to him since that last day in the dark and somewhat hidden bedroom, when I drove him away from me before he could have his way. Now, whenever he and his parents came to Sutherland for dinner, I wouldn’t even look at him. It didn’t seem to bother him, or if it did, he would never show it. Simon had inherited all the Sutherland arrogance. He was brilliant and years ahead of others his age mentally and academically, and he was good-looking. I couldn’t take any of that away from him. But I didn’t have to like him or even consider him my cousin, no matter what his intellectual accomplishments were.
Simon was here often because he was in a special academic program; he didn’t have to attend school except when he had to take an exam. He was taking college-level classes called Advanced Placement even though he was only in the tenth grade. He had moved into the special program a year ago when his teachers realized they couldn’t keep up with him and his needs without ignoring everyone else in the class. At least, that was the way he described it.
I was not in a school, either. I was still being homeschooled by Dr. Kirkwell until I finished this school year and maybe would be able to see my father in Hawaii during the summer. I was told that he would decide then whether to keep me or send me back. I was awaiting his final okay to visit. It had been weeks since Dr. Kirkwell and my grandfather had agreed to send him my letter of apology, written the way, after Dr. Kirkwell’s treatment, I imagined my mother would write it. In the exercise, I had to pretend to be her.
However, my father was not someone who changed his mind easily or quickly. And he was rarely forgiving. He was a lot like Grandfather Sutherland that way—“cemented in his ideas,” as my mother would say. So many of her expressions and descriptions became mine. After all, I saw most of the world through her eyes when I was younger, actually right up to her death. And her expressions were all I had left of her now.
Simon didn’t knock on my door when he came up to tell me about Grandmother Judith; he simply opened it. I was just getting dressed, which brought a smile to his face. He had caught me in my bra and panties. I pressed my skirt against myself to shield me. Before I could complain, he made his announcement about Grandmother Judith. I listened and then, probably to show him that he couldn’t intimidate me, continued to dress as if he wasn’t there. I didn’t say a word, didn’t acknowledge he had said a thing. Despite what he had told me, I still wanted to treat him as if he was invisible.
“Your ignoring me is a mistake. You should realize by now that I’m your best friend here,” he said. He came the closest I’d heard him get to whining, which for Simon would be practically a sin.
I paused and looked at him.
“Best friend? You wanted to rape me, pretending you were doing something scientific or whatever Dr. Kirkwell calls it, and now you want me to think of you as my best friend?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that. I wasn’t going to rape you.”
“You made me undress in front of you. You told me that stupid lie about your wanting to become a specialist doctor for women.”
“It wasn’t totally a lie. It’s still a possibility.”
“Please. Spare me, Simon.”
“You’ll never forget me. Whenever you do have a boyfriend, you’ll think of me. Imprint,” he said, pointing to his temple. “Anything you do with any other boy will trigger the memory of what you did with me.”
“You mean what you did to me, not what I did with you.”
He laughed. “Same thing in the end, the memory end.”
“How can you sound so proud of it? I don’t think you ever feel bad about anything you do, do you, Simon?”
“What?”
“Now I know why I pity you.”
His smile faded. “You pity me? I’m not a prisoner of Sutherland,” he said, and then smiled again. “You have a great deal to learn about yourself and this family, and if you were smart, you’d realize I could help you. Be mature about it, and we’ll become friends.”
“Mature? Besides, now you want me to believe that you really want to be friends?”
He shrugged. “I have no problem with it.”
I sensed vulnerability. There was something desperate in the way he spoke. There weren’t many opportunities for me to take advantage of anyone, let alone Simon, the family genius.
“If you want me to trust you as I would a friend, then you have to be more truthful,” I said, folding my arms and glaring at him.
“About what? I told you everything.”
“Not everything. What did Grandfather really know was going on in that horrid bedroom? I’m not stupid,” I quickly followed, taking a step toward him. “I can sense things about him, too, sense what he’s thinking and feeling when he looks at me and talks to me, especially if you’re anywhere nearby at the time. We haven’t had a private conversation about any of it yet, but I can still tell he didn’t know exact details, and I don’t think he knew what you did.
“I never stopped thinking that he has no idea how cruel aversion therapy is, even though Mrs. Lawson made it a point to tell me that was exactly why he hired and paid so much to Dr. Kirkwell, an expert. People who are supposed to love each other, share the same blood like parents and their children, can be angry with each other, even say terrible things to each other, but eventually those happier memories return. Did I imagine the sign of love in Grandfather’s eyes when I was a little girl, a sign he couldn’t stop me from seeing because it had its birth in his heart? It’s time I heard the very truth, Simon. No sense lying,” I quickly warned.
There was that wry smile. “Okay. Truth. The only reason I told you that he knew about my helping Dr. Kirkwell and taking you to see the urn was so you wouldn’t mention it to him. I would get into trouble about the urn especially.”
“So, he didn’t know exactly what went on in that horrid bedroom?”
“Probably not in the detail you’re suggesting, although I wouldn’t swear to anything. He never shared anything about the treatment you were undergoing. I figured out most of it myself, researched it.
“I’m sorry about trying to deceive you,” he said. “Truthfully, I didn’t think much of what Dr. Kirkwell was doing. It’s another form of voodoo. Don’t ever tell anyone I said it,” he whispered, “but Grandfather can be exploited, too, if he’s not careful.”
His confession and apology surprised me, and his honest feelings about what had been done definitely made it more difficult to dislike him.
I relaxed and sat to put on my shoes as I envisioned Grandmother Judith. My best memories of her were from when I was a little girl, maybe five years old. I always thought she was a pretty woman who seemed particularly proud of her looks, especially her button nose. I couldn’t recall her not being dressed perfectly, with her hair styled and her makeup looking like it had been done by a cosmetician for movie stars. My mother took after her when it came to her appearance.
As if making an excuse for it, she once told me that she thought she had to dress perfectly and look like a model because she couldn’t remember her mother not appearing so. “It just seemed that was how women should be. My mother was more of an example for me than a mother,” she added, which took me a while to understand. From everything my mother had told me about her youth, it became clearer to me that Mrs. Lawson performed Grandmother Judith’s daily motherly duties, whether she was specifically assigned to do them or not.
Her brother, my uncle Martin, didn’t need a guardian. He lived in Grandfather Sutherland’s shadow, mimicking everything he did or said, and from what my mother had told me, he rarely came to Grandmother’s—his own mother’s—defense when Grandfather criticized her or denied her something.
Grandmother Judith did have a warm smile for me all the time, but she had a habit of looking at Grandfather Sutherland first or right after, as if she wanted to be sure it was all right. He did control who loved whom in this house and how they did it. According to my mother, Grandmother Judith busied herself with social and charitable events, almost as if she was searching for ways to avoid Grandfather. Despite her not coming to my rescue when I was locked away, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for and about her. I think my mother did, too, even though she was angry at her for not taking her side against Grandfather Sutherland’s more as well.
“It’s sad about Grandmother Judith. They were married a long time. Is Grandfather sad?” I asked Simon.
“Hardly.”
“What?”
“You heard Grandfather say often that he thinks sadness is weakness. You don’t get sad; you get mad.”
“That’s silly. You have to be sad when someone you love dies. If you don’t have love, it doesn’t matter how wealthy you are.”
Simon laughed as if I had said something childish. “I don’t think Grandfather ever loved Grandmother in the romantic sense you mean. He saw her as something that completed Sutherland.”
“Saw her as something? Something?”
“Exactly. She fit his image of what the mistress of Sutherland should be, much better than his own mother did. He thought Great-grandmother Abigail was too casual about how she dressed. Great-grandfather didn’t like many of her friends, and neither did Grandfather. They weren’t rich or important enough. She didn’t appreciate what it meant to be a Sutherland.”
“You mean she wasn’t arrogant enough, not enough of a snob.”
“I’m just telling you what I know.”
“Really? How do you know any of this? You weren’t even born.”
“You’ll see. Maybe.”
I grimaced in doubt, but it didn’t stop him.
“To make sure Grandmother Judith was okay, Grandfather checked off a list before he asked her to marry him.”
“Where are you coming up with these ideas? Who told you that?”
“You’ll see.”
“Stop saying that.”
He shrugged.
“What list, anyway? What was on it?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be curious. What did he really know?
“Her family background and status, her looks, her education, and her opinions, not that he really ever let her have any. He liked that his father was jealous of how perfectly Grandmother Judith fit, while his own wife, Abigail, was unfit to be the mistress of Sutherland in comparison. She didn’t have the same values, especially when it came to how she presented herself at social events. He called his mother giddy and silly, even labeled her embarrassing at times.
“My father says that our great-grandfather and grandfather were very competitive about everything, even wives. Great-grandfather competed for Grandmother’s attention right in front of Great-grandmother Abigail. He’d compliment her and not compliment his own wife. At Sutherland balls, he’d dance with Grandmother Judith and leave Great-grandmother Abigail standing on the sidelines.”
“So our great-grandfather didn’t love his own wife, either, or care about her feelings?”
“Her feelings? Remember, our great-grandfather Raymond Sutherland had an illegitimate child with a Black maid in this very house, practically right under our great-grandmother’s nose. You don’t do something like that to your wife if you love her. I told you about Prissy living in the room they locked you in. They gave you her old clothes.”
“The girl who aged into an old woman quickly.”
“She suffered from progeria. I think I gave you a pretty good description.”
“I hate to think about it. Oh,” I said, shaking myself as if ice water had dripped down my back. For months, I did wear her clothes.
Simon nodded. “Truth is, I don’t think anyone ever loved anyone in this house when Great-grandfather was in charge. I heard my father once say that to my mother—admit it, I mean. That’s the world our grandfather grew up in and was supposed to model his own life on.”
“A world without love?”
“Loyalty and success were more important to the Sutherlands and always were to Grandfather. They still are and always will be.”
“Then I don’t pity you as much as I pity him.”
“Don’t ever let him think that,” he warned, his eyes actually wide with fear, maybe because he thought I’d mention what he had said. “You don’t know him as well as I do. You could stumble right back into that locked room.”
“You don’t think he would do that again now, do you?”
“We can’t be sure that he wouldn’t. I don’t think either of us has yet heard a word of regret about what was done to you, whether he knew all the details or not, right? Remember, Mrs. Lawson has his ear. I’m beginning to think she whispers into it even when he’s asleep. She’s very protective. No one dares criticize Grandfather within a mile of her. It’s almost like she’s waiting for you to screw up.”
I could see he was enjoying frightening me.
“You make it sound like the floors of the mansion are really thin ice.”
“They are, which is why what you have to do, Caroline, is consider me as more of a guide than anything else and follow my directions.”
“Guide? Guiding what? I was just joking about the floor.”
“Guiding you through this family, especially saying and doing the right things. You’re just settling in. You’ve been here with your parents, but you haven’t even seen this entire mansion. You don’t know the secret places where the bodies are buried.”
“Bodies?”
“Do you want my help or not?”
“Is there another quid pro quo?”
“As I said, I’m just trying to be a friend.”
I studied him for a moment. He did look sincere. Did I want him for a friend now? Why was it so important to him?
“You don’t have any friends, do you? I mean, you don’t attend classes in school. Where would you meet someone, Simon?”
He simply stared at me. As Daddy would say, I had hit a raw nerve.
I rose. “I’m going downstairs. We should be thinking only about Grandmother Judith right now. And you were sent up to get me, weren’t you?”
He followed me out and to the top of the stairway. The dark brown carpeted steps and thick mahogany banister wound down like a curling snake. Even the large wooden balls sitting atop the end of the railings below looked like raised snake heads. So much of this mansion seemed threatening, looming above and around me to remind me I was in the Sutherland world. Corridors echoed your footsteps. The house marked you, followed you. It still felt like it creeped up on me whenever I stopped to think about the family’s past, the walls narrowing, the lights dimming, and the floor undulating under my feet. Because of how carefully Daddy would go up and down the eighteen steps at our house, I was always careful when I descended these thirty-two. How did you make a mansion fortified with angry ancestral spirits feel like a home, or at least feel safe?
Before I could take my first step, Simon seized my elbow. I turned to him.
“What?”
“You don’t have any friends, either, Caroline. We’re more alike than you think.”
“There’s a big difference between us, Simon.”
“You’re female and I’m male?” he joked.
“No. A lot more than that.”
“What, then?”
“I want to go home. I’ll always want to go home,” I said, and continued downstairs.
CHAPTER ONE
The day after I was permitted to leave the bleak bedroom, Grandfather sent Mrs. Lawson out with me to buy new clothes. I had been told that everything I had owned before I was brought here, even things like dolls, books, and games, had been given to charities. Anyone would think that my grandfather had wanted to erase my previous existence just as he wanted to erase the memory of his daughter, my mother. Mrs. Lawson had told me that I would be reborn. She said that it was the only way Grandfather would accept me back as a Sutherland. It had nothing to do with Grandfather’s spiritual beliefs. Mommy had told me that he believed religion was a refuge for failures. He didn’t abide by church teachings. Nothing I had been doing or anything my mother had done was a sin to him, unless you could call defying him or damaging the Sutherland reputation evil.
I would almost have been happier if Mrs. Lawson had bought me nothing when she took me shopping. Practically everything fashionable for a girl my age, everything on display at the best department stores, was unacceptable to her. She bought me what she could stomach and then took me to one of her favorite thrift shops to find me the rest of my wardrobe. Some of the clothes and shoes were easily a decade old. When I protested, she warned me the way she warned me about anything, warned me the way Simon just had implied things were: “Do what I say, or I’ll tell your grandfather you haven’t changed a bit, and he’ll put you right back in that bedroom.” I couldn’t even look down the dark hallway, where, at the end of it, the double doors hovered in my mind like some cloud full of thunder and lightning. I was still waking up at night when one slammed shut in a dream.
