Page 48 of Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger 1)
moaned, sobbed, and sought in all ways to make us
aware we weren't safe.
We read so much aloud, sang so much, both Chris
and I grew hoarse and half-sick ourselves from
fatigue. We prayed every night, down on our knees,
asking God to make our twins well again. "Please,
God, give them back to us the way they were." A day came when the coughing eased, and
sleepless eyelids drooped, and eventually closed in
peaceful sleep. The cold, bony hands of death had
reached for our little ones, and was reluctant to let go,
for so tortuously, slowly, the twins drifted back to
health. When they were "well" they were not the same
robust, lively pair. Cory, who had said little before,
now said even less. Carrie, who had adored the sound
of her own constant chatter, now became almost as truculent as Cory. And now that I had the quiet I so often longed for, I wanted back the bird-like chitchat that rattled on incessantly to dolls, trucks, trains, boats, pillows, plants, shoes, dresses, underpants,
toys, puzzles, and games.
I checked her tongue, and it seemed pale, and
white. Fearfully, I straightened to gaze down on two
small faces side by side on one pillow. Why had I
wanted them to grow up and act their proper ages?
This long illness had brought about instant age. It put
dark circles under their large blue eyes, and stole their
healthy color. The high temperatures and the
coughing had left them with a wise look, a sometimes
sly look of the old, the tired, the ones who just lay and
didn't care if the sun came up, or if it went down, and
stayed down. They scared me; their haunted faces
took me into dreams of death.
And all the while the wind kept blowing. Eventually they left their beds and walked about
slowly. Legs once so plump and rosy and able to hop,
