Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (18 page)

Then there is me. I was in the strange stage where I was not pretty enough to be fitted for gowns, and not cute enough to parade around town in frilly lace dresses. I spent most days in my bedroom, away from my mother's prying eyes. I was happiest at my easel, transforming my creative expression into something beautiful, something that can be appreciated by others. But mother didn’t think it was appropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl to work on her art all day long. She had tried enrolling me in French language courses, cooking classes, and she had even entertained the idea of sending me to a polishing school this summer. My skin crawls at the thought. I overheard her complaining to my father one night.

"She is entirely unrefined, Todge! All she wants to do is paint her pictures all day long." Father replied, "She does show remarkable talent with a brush though, Philomena." "No, Todge,” Mother argued. “It simply won't do. She must fill up her time with more useful endeavors." Because learning French is clearly a much more useful endeavor.

Father often tried to persuade mother to allow me to follow my interests, explaining that I am an artistic spirit and should be allowed to freely express myself. She wasn't
buying it. I think what annoyed her the most was the fact that I was the only independent thinker of her children. My other sisters, lovely, they were, charming, of course, but not strong-minded. They did as mother said, and they were rewarded generously. I, on the other hand, earned her ire by putting my elbows on the dinner table and slurping my soup loudly, just to get her attention.

Tonight, my parents were having a dinner party, and by parents I mean my mother was throwing a party and my father was going along with the act. Among the prestigious guests were Alfred and Mary Talbert, who would be joined by their grown son Peter, from New York City. Peter was a twenty-four-year-old tax accountant who graduated from Princeton and had an eye for Antoinette. My mother's plan for my eldest sister to be
paired up with an eligible bachelor was well underway. I was invited to join everyone for dinner, but afterwards I was to retreat to my room. I was to keep conversation at dinner at a minimum, being quiet and polite to all. Under no circumstances was I to joke, laugh, or, God forbid, go for second helpings at dinner. I felt like I was prohibited from being myself, and any originality or personality inside of me was being squelched and starved like a hungry starling begging for crumbs. If I ever showed a side of me that didn't hold up to her high society standards, I would risk embarrassing her with my "odd" behavior. I would need to be at my best tonight. Mother had been preparing for this dinner for nearly a month now.

The guests began to arrive around eight o'clock, and staggered in over the course of the hour that followed. Lillian had braided my hair for the occasion, and Ragna had me dress in a hideous blue dress that went down to my ankles. I protested, but Ragna ignored me as usual. Throughout dinner, Father told his usual golf jokes that earned warm chuckles from around the room. I laughed once, but after catching the hot gaze of my mother, my face turned serious again.

The Talbots were utterly boring. Alfred had nostrils full of bushy nose hair, and when he laughed, he let out an obnoxious bellowing sound that hurt my ears. Meanwhile, Mary didn't say a word the entire evening. She just sipped on her hot tea, not paying attention to the dinner conversation at all. Mother, on the other hand, was
playing hostess and pretending as if she had prepared the meal before us herself, when in reality, Alois and Ragna had pulled out all the stops to make tonight's dinner happen.

The dinner seemed to be going well in my mother's eyes; the guests were enjoying themselves, the meal was delicious, and my father had not run out of jokes yet. Then the conversation took a turn for the worse. Eve Sandow cast her
gray gaze on me, during a lull in the conversation. "I'm quite glad to see you, dearie, I had heard you were in the hospital ill. What was the matter?" I stood stark still, unsure of what to say.

Do I tell her the truth? That my mother put me in the hospital because she is embarrassed of me? That my mother doesn’t have time for me, so she put me in here to get me out of her hair? That my mother
is a stone-cold bitch who needs to take her medication?

The silence had lingered too long after the question. Mother perked up, speaking in too sweet of a voice, "It's okay, dear, you can tell her."

I can? No I couldn't possibly. I would never hear the end of it. Next thing you know, I would be sent off to a boarding school in France, where my mother believed no one ever exhibited bad manners. I had to make something up. But the opportunity to speak my mind was entirely too delicious. I took the plunge.

"Mother is embarrassed of me. Little girls are to be seen and not heard in this house, and apparently she was hearing a little too much of me."

My mother stared at me wide-eyed and embarrassed.
Oh, no. Now I've done it. France, here I come. Catherine the idiot.

"I'm sorry, dear... what?" asked Mrs. Sandow, looking quite alarmed.

Mother replied, "Catherine just needed a rest. That is all."

A rest
.
So that's what we are calling it now?
”
If that's what you'd like to call seven nights and eight days in a gray room with chicken wire on the windows. I don't recall getting much rest at all.”

Mother rushed on, "I think it is time for Catherine to be off to bed now. Kitty, say good night."

“You know, Mother, just because I am different, doesn’t mean I’m crazy. Maybe you’re the crazy one.”

Her face turned an ugly shade of purple, as she excused herself from
the dining room table and followed me upstairs. The ear-lashing she gave me was nothing compared to the beating I received after everyone had gone home for the evening. I honestly think she just liked the pity that people poured on her when she put me in the hospital. Little did they know that she was the one who needed to be locked in a padded cell.

That would be the last of my mother's parties that I would attend. A month later I was sent to my grandmother's house to live in upstate Pennsylvania. Mother had grown tired of my rebellious nature, and couldn't exert any more effort into giving me the attention I desired. So I was sent to live with my father's mother, a woman who was my mother's polar opposite. She wasn't concerned with the finer things in life; she only troubled
herself with providing a warm and comfortable home, good food, and lots of laughter. Connections meant nothing to her. She didn't care for social occasions, or in her words "high-class showboating." Ernestine Westfeld, was country-raised, and she had no plans to venture into the big city. If we wanted to see her, we had drive to her little cottage in Gabbard's Bend. She refused to visit us at our townhouse, calling my parents’ new sophisticated lifestyle “frivolous and uppity.”

Mother had made the mistake of inviting Grandma Westfeld to dinner once. She quickly learned the error of her ways when Grandma told Leland Cottilard that he really thought better of himself and than anyone else, and it was a good thing, because no one else gave a flying fadoodle
about his hideous clothing designs. Mother never invited her to dinner again, and that was Grandma’s deepest desire in the first place. She was perfectly happy living in the town she grew up in.

She lived there alone. Her husband had fled some years prior when my father was just a kid, unable to deal with Grandma's stubborn ways. Grandma Westfeld's house sat on an acre of farmland in the Scot Run Meadow in Gabbard's Bend. Her
house was a simple thatched roof cottage, like the kind you see in UK travel pamphlets. Grandma's first husband Toby had built it for her as a wedding present. While her love for Toby died after five years, her devotion to her little cottage was evergreen, surviving three husbands, four kids, and even a small grease fire in the kitchen back in '58.

After a heated conversation over the phone in which my mother
essentially begged my grandmother to let me live with her for a while, and my grandmother was told my mother exactly where she had gone wrong with me, I was packing my bags and getting ready to head to the country. Grandma eventually agreed to take me on, telling my mother that I simply needed something that she couldn't provide - love, warmth, and attention. Grandma was furious with my mother for putting me on medications and for dragging me to doctor after doctor, and making a spectacle of me at her dinner parties. In her opinion, my mother just wanted to silence me into submission. If only she knew about the hospital stays and medications. I will never forget Mother’s anger when my doctor said that there wasn’t anything seriously wrong with me, I was just depressed. Grandma Westfeld would wring mother’s neck if she knew about any of that.

I climbed into the backseat of the town car, as my father waited in the passenger seat. I sat quietly, waiting for my mother to exit the house, but she never came. "Kitty,” he said, “I think this will do you a lot of good. Grandma is really excited to see you." I nodded in agreement, though I didn't say a
word. I was hurt and embarrassed. When Reginald came out of the house with his coat on, my feelings were cemented. My mother was a cold, heartless woman.

The ride to my grandmother's house was long and quiet. When we arrived, it was already dusk. She was waiting for us in her rocking chair on the porch,
her powder blue bathrobe wrapped around her plump body. As our black town car pulled onto her dirt driveway, she scuttled towards us. My father exited the car through the passenger side door. He brushed off his navy blue suit jacket, and walked towards his mother giving her a polite kiss on the cheek. A conversation ensued, the contents of which were out of my earshot. As my father spoke calmly, Grandma Westfeld seemed mad. When the conversation finally came to a lull, I watched as my father reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a money clip loaded with large bills. He tried handing it to her, but she refused it, throwing it onto the snowy ground. She held her hands up, as if to say, your money is no good here. My father held the money clip in his hand as he opened my car door.

"Come now, Kitty. It's chilly out here. Grandma has a fire going inside," Father said, taking my
satchel off my shoulder. "Here, take this. I will send more whenever you need it."

I looked at my father's face, ruddy and frozen from the cold. But there was something more. He felt guilty for what he was doing. God forbid he ever stand up to Mother and say so. "Goodbye, Father. Tell Mother I love her," I said, as I made my way over to Grandma Westfeld who was happy to see me. A short,
round woman with a friendly face and warm eyes, my grandmother was the type of woman who immediately could light up a room and a heart with a smile.

"There's my gal! Come on in out of this cold. I hope you like chowder!"

I followed her inside the house. It was warm inside. Not just in temperature but in ambiance too.
Nothing like the house on Lombard Street. Smiling family pictures hung up on the wall, while the Patty Duke Show played on the little black and white television set that took center stage in her parlor.

I was escorted into a small bedroom just left of the kitchen, where fragrant aromas of corn chowder and freshly baked apple pie waited on the counter. The room was little, but it was cozy. A
bed with cotton linens and a knitted blanket awaited me, with a small empty desk on the opposite side of the room. A window overlooked a ravine in the back of the house, which I was told had a beautiful view in the daytime.

Grandma dropped my bags next to the closet in the far corner of the room, and then came over to inspect me. She grabbed me by my
shoulders, and looked into my face, then taking one finger to my chin.

"You remind me a lot of myself when I was a girl. I think we'll get along just fine. You clean up after yourself and show respect, and we'll have no trouble."

This would be a good change for me, I thought. A brand new start.

* * *

Winter led to spring which blossomed into summer and I was fully settled into my new life at Grandma’s house. She continued my home-schooling, but I could tell it was becoming a real struggle for her. She hated the math and science work I had to do. To lessen the burden on her, I would attend Steeplechase Academy in the fall, the same school Father went to as a boy. I’m really looking forward to making new friends in the fall. In the months since I left Philadelphia, I hadn’t heard from my mother at all. Father had visited me a few times, bringing me art supplies and money for Grandma, which she always turns away.

So far I am
enjoying my time here at Grandma Westfeld’s. She was really easy to get along with, as long as I finish my chores. Every day, I have to sweep and mop the kitchen after breakfast, wash the breakfast dishes, and make my bed. Once I was done, I had the day to myself until early evening, when I helped make dinner. She didn’t make me. It was something I genuinely enjoyed doing. In my free time, I took my sketch book and sat on the wooden bench by the brook behind Grandma’s house.

My sketch book was nearly full. Yesterday I drew a sparrow who was hopping around the grass, pecking and looking for nourishment. I didn’t know what I would sketch today. I would have to see where the afternoon took me.