Chapter 8 two households, unalike in dignity
two households, unalike in dignity
Dolly Beckett
I was around six the first time I realized the Darlings lived different lives than we did.
We were all on what Mama called “the fancy side of town,” but Grampa Darling…
He had an estate. His manor house was three times as big as ours even without counting the two outbuildings where guests and staff stayed.
It would have taken up an entire city block, but it was outside town, a sprawling place with hundreds of acres, fields of horses, and a full dozen staff members running it.
I loved going to Grampa Darling’s.
The place was always alive, bustling with his huge family and their friends.
There were always uncles and aunts, cousins, and siblings of all ages milling around.
Not just Darlings, either. Members of all the founding families—Faulkner’s elite—congregated there.
Nannies brought kids to swim. Men smoked cigars and dangled poles into the catfish pond or golfed on the nine holes beyond.
The ladies who lunched swapped recipes and then gossiped later about whatever wife Grampa Darling had at the time.
They sat in the shade of umbrellas and watched us in the pool, sipped cocktails and bounced each other’s babies on their knees.
There was always noise, activity, some event happening or being planned.
My parents weren’t yet divorced, but they were chilly toward each other already. As an only child, I could feel the loneliness in our house like a tangible thing, as if the walls had absorbed my parents’ disappointments and disillusionment. Sometimes, I’d try to make it come to life.
I danced down the empty hallways of our dark, quiet house, pretending to be a princess in a musty old castle, abandoned and forgotten by the rest of the world.
I loved ballet, and with grim determination, I attempted to become a ballerina despite what became more obvious with each passing year—I would never have the body for it.
Still, it gave me an excuse and a world to disappear into.
It was no wonder I loved going to the Darlings’ and being absorbed into the chaos and activity of their enormous family.
There were always various Darling kids over there, so one day when I was about six, Mama dropped me with the nanny over there when our babysitter cancelled and she had an appointment.
We were playing in the downstairs hallway when Preston knocked over a decorative ceramic vase.
His eyes widened, and he looked at me like I’d tell on him.
I was a year older, so I took charge. We threw the pieces away, but when Preston heard his dad walking in, he grabbed my hand.
“Quick,” he whispered. “We’ll get in trouble. Hide!”
We ran upstairs, and then up another flight to the attic, where we hid under a bed. I don’t know how long we were there before his dad found us. I remember the look of pure, cold fury in his eyes when he grabbed Preston’s arm and dragged him out.
“Men don’t run away,” he snarled at Preston. “They stand up and take responsibility for their actions.”
“Yes, sir,” Preston said, his little voice shaking.
“Ten licks for breaking the vase,” Mr. Darling said. “Ten for hiding like a coward instead of facing your punishment like a man.”
I heard the clink of his belt, and I peeked out from under the bed.
Preston stood stock still, his whole body tense, while his father looped the belt, holding both ends.
He gripped Preston’s shoulder with his other hand and began to deal out the lashes.
I cringed at each one, tears filling my eyes and then pouring down my cheeks.
I knew I should help. I was older, and he was my friend, and I should protect him.
But I was too scared to even move, terrified that Mr. Darling would find out I was there and whip me, too.
The worst my parents even did was a few swats with their hand.
I knew the belt must hurt worse. I could see the muscles in Mr. Darling’s arm bulge with the force of the blows he was dealing out one by one.
It seemed to go on forever. Preston didn’t cry, but I bit down on my chubby little fist so I didn’t sob out loud.
It was the first time I ever cried quiet, the first time I cried for somebody else.
I closed my eyes and promised that I would be good from here on out, that I’d do the right thing every time, and that I’d never run away and hide again.
When he was done, Mr. Darling marched Preston out to apologize to his grandmother for breaking her vase.
A while later, Preston came back and lifted the edge of the bed skirt.
He saw me under there and slid back in beside me, and we just lay there not saying anything for a long time, just staring up at the filmy layer of fabric on the bottom of the box spring.
Finally, he turned his head to see me. “Are you crying?”
“Not anymore,” I said. “Are you?”
He wriggled out from under the bed and held out a hand to pull me out. We sat cross-legged on the floor staring at each other. His face was still dry.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He nodded.
“But you didn’t cry,” I said, trying to figure out how much something could hurt without making you cry. In my little mind, it didn’t make sense.
“Dad’s teaching me to be a man,” Preston said. “Men don’t cry.”
“But if it hurts, you can’t help it,” I said.
“I get ten extra licks if I cry,” he said. “And the more there are, the more it hurts at the end.”
We went outside after that, though I felt funny and emptier than my big house where no one spoke unless we had to.
We climbed up to the treehouse, which was the main attraction at Grampa Darling’s estate.
It was a huge deck up in an old oak, supported by stilts instead of the tree itself, and finished out with sleek wooden walls and real windows.
It could fit at least twelve kids for sleepovers or six teenagers when the older kids hung out.
Getting invited to a tree house sleepover was the highlight of our year for the entirety of elementary school.
We climbed up the ladder and through the trap door, and Preston wanted to know if I wanted to play house.
We needed a baby, so we got his little sister to stand below the ladder.
Preston told me to take off my clothes, and then he laid on top of me and we rubbed on each other.
It felt good, but he told me I was the girl, so I had to pretend to cry.
When his sister whined for us, we had to stop and get dressed and go play with her.
That started our sexual play that lasted for a few more years—longer than it should have.
After that day, we played house almost every time I came over.
The oldest boy and girl were the mama and daddy, which usually meant me and Devlin, even though Preston always argued about it because his dad was older than Devlin’s, and in the Darling hierarchy, that made him better somehow.
I didn’t understand. I was just happy to be there.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was only popular because I was the mayor’s daughter and in the Darlings’ circle.
Otherwise, I saw how chubby girls were treated at school, even in second and third grade.
By fourth grade, I already had boobs and definitely should have stopped that kind of play, but we didn’t.
Not until Walker Delacroix—my best friend’s stepcousin and the bad boy my mother had already warned me to stay away from—busted us one day when he was sneaking a girl and a six-pack into the tree house to have his own fun.
I hung out with some of his cousins, including Preston, but seeing as how he was five years older than me, and his younger brother was five years younger, I didn’t know his immediate family.
But he and his girl thought our innocent little game was the funniest thing in the world, and they told everyone in all our families.
When my parents caught wind of it, I wasn’t allowed to play unsupervised at Grampa Darling’s anymore.