Forbidden 1: Forbidden Sister by V. C. Andrews

Author:V. C. Andrews [Andrews, V. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1439155054
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2013-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

14

I didn’t sleep much Sunday night. No one from school called me over the weekend. I hadn’t told Chastity or Richard about Mama’s health problem. Richard had finally overcome his shyness and wanted to do something with me over the weekend, but I made excuses, telling him we had relatives visiting. It wasn’t a good time for me to develop a relationship with anyone new, anyway. As nice as he was, I didn’t have any warm emotions to spare, and I didn’t want to drag him into my difficulties. Chastity had remained aloof, and I continued to avoid her, especially now. Once she got wind of all of this, I was sure she would pounce, hoping that I needed her more than she needed me.

Maybe I did, but I wouldn’t admit that to anyone, especially myself. I knew that Aunt Lucy had called one more time to offer her services. Mama mentioned it as casually as she could, hoping that I had somehow changed my mind.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

I knew she hadn’t told any of her family in France about what was happening. All weekend, I toyed with the idea of calling Uncle Alain, but then I thought that if she hadn’t done it, she wouldn’t want me to do it. Maybe it would alarm people unnecessarily. On Sunday night, she went through some of the details for things she was leaving for me to do around the house and with some of our accounts. None of it was very critical, but I could see that it helped her to think of other things, and she was deliberately looking for activities that would keep me busy, too. Before she went up to bed, she pinned a list of important telephone numbers on the wall in the kitchen.

I was sure neither of us slept much. I played a little game with myself, a game Papa had taught me when I was very young. He told me that it was guaranteed to keep you from being afraid. As soon as something terrible began to come into your mind, you were supposed to count backward from one hundred, and with each number, you were supposed to think of one happy thought, one happy memory, or one thing you loved, such as chocolate marshmallow ice cream. The effort at association eventually exhausted you, and the creeping nightmares ran out of steam. He told me that these were the sort of mental games soldiers freezing on guard duty or captured soldiers might play.

I don’t think Papa ever gave up on the idea that there was always some sort of a war going on, whether with real bombs in Bosnia, the Middle East, or Asia or in everyday life. One way or another, we were always in training, always thinking about defenses, and always planting our flags of victory on some hill, whether the hill was real or in our imaginations.

I was sure that Mama would be the first to admit that she was in a battle.

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