Willow by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page B

father's family for nearly one hundred fifty years. It at least gave my adoptive mother reason to feel some superiority over her acquaintances who lived in more modern structures or whose homes didn't have the history ours did.
We had two stories with a large attic that ran nearly the entire length of the home. The house had one prominent gable and one on each side. Most of the windows had drip-mold crowns and were arched to protect them from water running down the face of the building. We had a one-story porch with flattened arch supports.
My adoptive mother was always frying to find a way to replace the pointed-arch front door because she thought it looked too devilish-- the entrance to hell, she called it But it was too much a part of the architecture, and despite her desire to change the feel of the house, she was afraid of looking foolish or losing its historical uniqueness.
We had five bedrooms, maid's quarters Amou had used and which Miles now used, a separate living room and den, a very large dining room with a table that could seat twelve comfortably, and, of course. Daddy's office.
I paused in the doorway. Although it was never set in stone or voiced with regal authority, it was understood that I was not to go playing or exploring in Daddy's office when he wasn't there. Even my A.M. rarely went in there when he wasn't occupying his desk. She never put it in so many words, but she gave the distinct impression that she felt the mental illnesses Daddy treated, the patients he occasionally saw in that office, could be infectious, as if paranoia or compulsive obsessions were spread through germs. I knew for a fact that she had never sat in any chair a patient had sat in and had never sat on the couch in that office.
If Daddy sensed her feelings, he didn't do anything to change them. I think he enjoyed having a place to go in his home where he could feel insulated. As I stood in the doorway and looked in at his large, dark cherry wood desk and his high-backed leather chair. I smiled, recalling my adoptive mother standing in this doorway and making some demand or another on him without crossing her imaginary line. I knew he deliberately spoke more softly than usual because she would keep asking him to repeat something and she would raise her voice. Frustrated, she would stomp away. Once. I was there quickly enough to see a tiny smile on his lips. He winked at me. and I felt as though he had passed a secret note for me to bury at the bottom of one of my dresser drawers.
About ten years ago. Daddy had a cabinetmaker construct new shelving over the left wall. Besides shelves, it had a row of small cabinets at the very top. He kept his books, papers, and reports on the shelves, in the middle of which stood a miniature grandfather clock, which was a gift from a very appreciative Englishman whose daughter Daddy had treated successfully at his clinic. On it the man had inscribed "To be ill is human, to heal divine." a play on Alexander Pope's famous line "To err is human, to forgive divine." The clock was gilded with precious jewels at each of the Roman numerals, Daddy used to say it had a distinctly English accent to its tick-tock and went tick-talk instead. Listening to it now brought a smile to my lips and helped me feel his presence in the room.
There was so much that would do that. however. The closet door was slightly open. and I could see one of his tweed sports jackets with the leather elbow patches. Daddy liked this very manly scented cologne, which, although he never smoked, had the aroma of some fine tobacco. When I walked in. I realized it still hung vividly in the air.
I moved slowly around the office, gazing as if for the first time at his plaques, his awards, and the pictures he had chosen to hang prominently. There were a number of framed photographs of him with important political people, even the governor of the state and a senator, but in a central location were two pictures of me. one when I was about five, all