Dollenganger 01 Flowers In the Attic Read Online Free PDF Page A

but I wanted four. Even four didn't seem enough. Look around, there's a thirty year mortgage on this house. Nothing here is really ours: not this furniture, not the cars, not the appliances in the kitchen or laundry room--not one single thing is fully paid for."
Did we look frightened? Scared? She paused as her face flushed deeply red, and her eyes moved around the lovely room that set off her beauty so well. Her delicate brows screwed into an anxious frown. "Though your father would chastise me a lit- tle, still he wanted them, too. He indulged me, because he loved me, and I believe I convinced him finally that luxuries were absolute necessities, and he gave in, for we had a way, the two of us, of indulging our desires too much. It was just another of the things we had in common"
Her expression collapsed into one of forlorn reminiscence before she continued on in her stranger's voice. "Now all our beautiful things will be taken away. The legal term is repossession. That's what they do when you don't have enough money to finish paying for what you've bought. Take that sofa, for example. Three years ago it cost eight hundred dollars. And we've paid all but one hundred, but still they're going to take it. We'll lose all that we've paid on everything, and that's still legal. Not only will we lose this furniture and the house, but also the cars--in fact, everything but our clothes and your toys. They're going to allow me to keep my wedding band, and I've hidden away my engagement diamond--so please don't mention I ever had an engagement ring to anyone who might come to check."
Who "they" were, not one of us asked. It didn't occur to me to ask. Not then. And later it just didn't seem to matter.
Christopher's eyes met mine. I floundered in the desire to understand, and struggled not to drown in the understanding. Already I was sinking, drowning in the adult world of death and debts. My brother reached out and took my hand, then squeezed my fingers in a gesture of unusual brotherly reassurance.
Was I a windowpane, so easy to read, that even he, my arch- tormentor, would seek to comfort me? I tried to smile, to prove to him how adult I was, and in this way gloss over that trembling and weak thing I was cringing into because "they" were going to take everything. I didn't want any other little girl living in my pretty peppermint pink room, sleeping in my bed, playing with the things I cherished--my miniature dolls in their shadowbox frames, and my sterlingsilver music box with the pink ballerina--would they take those, too?
Momma watched the exchange between my brother and me very closely. She spoke again with a bit of her former sweet self showing. "Don't look so heartbroken. It's not really as bad as I've made it seem. You must forgive me if I was thoughtless and forgot how young you still are. I've told you the bad news first, and saved the best for the last. Now hold your breath! You are not going to believe what I have to tell you--for my parents are rich! Not middle-class rich, or upper-class rich, but very, very rich! Filthy, unbelievably, sinfully rich! They live in a fine big house in Virginia--such a house as you've never seen before. I know, I was born there, and grew up there, and when you see that house, this one will seem like a shack in comparison. And didn't I say we are going to live with them--my mother, and my father?"
She offered this straw of cheer with a weak and nervously fluttering smile that did not succeed in releasing me from doubts which her demeanor and her information had pitched me into. I didn't like the way her eyes skipped guiltily away when I tried to catch them. I thought she was hiding something
But she was my mother.
And Daddy was gone.
I picked up Carrie and sat her on my lap, pressing her small, warm body close against mine I smoothed back the damp golden curls that fell over her rounded forehead. Her eyelids drooped, and her full rosebud lips pouted. I glanced at Cory, crouching against