The Unwelcomed Child by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

was one of the first times I had heard him snap back at her so aggressively. “And if the service is very good, you should leave twenty percent.”
    “Ridiculous. There was nothing particularly good about the service anyway.”
    She pulled herself in and looked at the wall as if she couldn’t stand looking at the bill when the waiter brought it to us. Grandfather Prescott studied it and put down the cash. Grandmother Myra was against having credit cards. She said it only encouraged reckless spending, and the interest rate, should you forget to pay on time, was downright legalized theft.
    “Well, shall we go?”
    “You’ll have no argument from me,” Grandmother Myra said.
    “Thank you,” I told them.
    Grandmother Myra just sighed, but Grandfather Prescott nodded and smiled. “You’re very welcome, Elle.”
    I waited for them to get up. I thought that if they walked ahead of me, Grandmother Myra would not see me look at the young man. There was no way I could walk out and ignore him. As we passed their table, he leaned toward us and said, “Happy birthday.”
    I smiled at him but said nothing. Grandmother Myra hadn’t heard it. When we reached the door, I looked back. He was talking with his father again. I was disappointed. I wanted one more smile.
    My first thought as we walked out was, was that an evil thing to want? Was this the beginning?

3

    Something significant had happened when I reached my fifteenth birthday, and I don’t mean my grandparents breaking all their rules and taking me out to a restaurant for dinner. There was something more going on. I could feel it in the house, especially in the way my grandfather spoke to me and stood up for me at times. I knew from some of my reading that some Hispanic people celebrate the quinceañera to mark a girl’s fifteenth birthday, but there was nothing remotely Hispanic about my grandparents. I think Grandfather Prescott just took a longer look at me right before my fifteenth birthday or right after it and concluded that they should loosen the bonds that chained me so tightly. My little-girl days had ended.
    Finally, one night, I overheard a somewhat heated conversation about me going on in their bedroom. Their bedroom and what had been my mother’s were upstairs, but the house wasn’t insulated enough between rooms to keep all conversations and other sounds muted. At times, I could hear the murmur of their voices seemingly raining down on me through the ceiling, but if I was close to the stairway and their bedroom door was open, as I think it almost always was, I could hear their conversations more clearly, especially if one of them raised his or her voice.
    “You should ease up on her,” I heard my grandfather say with more volume and emphasis than he usually had when speaking to my grandmother. Immediately, I knew I was the “her” he referred to. I carefully took a few steps up on the stairway to listen better. The banister was just a little shaky, so I avoided putting any weight on it. So many places in this house creaked and moaned. If a house could get arthritis, this one would definitely qualify. Maybe it had been cleaned and scrubbed too much.
    I wasn’t formally forbidden to go upstairs. I was often sent up there to fetch something, and, of course, I was up there a number of times during the week to wash floors, windows, and bathroom fixtures. I polished furniture, made beds, changed the linen, and collected used towels and washcloths, returning with the ones washed and dried to stack them neatly in the bathroom closet. I also had to be sure the soap and toilet paper were replaced. I supposed if I had to go out and work for a living, I could easily get a job as a hotel chambermaid.
    I never was permitted to go into what had been my mother’s bedroom. That door was kept locked and the room never used. Maybe it was another one of their ways to keep the memory of her away. Even the windows in the room had their white curtains drawn tightly shut.