Chapter 3

Davina paced the floor in front of her window while she watched her aunt walk down the flower lined sidewalk to the car that awaited her.  A tall, slender man she knew to be Tillie’s driver pulled his body from where he was leaning against the car as he rushed to open the back door and help her slide onto the back seat. When he closed the door, he looked up at her window.  Was that a smirk of recognition on his face?  She wasn’t sure, but it was enough to make her back away quickly.

She’d tried to convince her aunt to help her get free of the institution, but to no avail. Believing that her brother’s child was where she needed to be to get the help required to heal her fragile mental state, her aunt’s visit had been to provide her with a few of her belongings to help make her more comfortable while in her new environment. Davina was tempted to accuse Tillie of knowing that Louella intended to keep her there permanently and the crooked doctor would see that it happened, but she knew better.  Tillie Mitchell, now the widow Tillie Ricci, hadn’t a mean bone in her body.  She didn’t have it in her to scheme to such lengths to do something as dastardly as lock Davina up under false pretenses.  No, this was all Louella’s doing. She and her disgusting lawyers.

What a fool she’d been.  For several years she’d watched Louella interact with her team of lawyers and heard the rumors that she was paying them with more than money. Because she knew her sister to be promiscuous to the point of earning the label of nymphomaniac in her eyes, she not only believed the rumors, but she confronted Louella about them. It earned her a slap so hard across the face that she carried the remnants of it for several days, along with a warning to mind her own business.

Louella was right, of course.  What she chose to do or not do with her body was her own business.  Davina just wished she’d see how bad her actions reflected upon the entire family.  Louella assured her that she didn’t give a fig what poor reflections she might be shedding on Davina and, since her aunts were both living in a world of their own that often missed the true happenings around them, she wasn’t worried about rumors or facts affecting them.

Davina wondered if she was still a virgin.  Losing the memories to a year of her life and hearing that, during that year, she kept close company with a man gave her cause to wonder.  After watching her sister flaunt and use her body since she was fifteen, Davina had intentionally held back from having relations with a man. She had it in her head that she was going to hold out for love. But, did she? If she spent the amount of time with this man that Louella claimed she did, they must have become quite close.   Were they close enough to become intimate? She just didn’t know.

She balled her slender hands into fists until her freshly manicured nails burrowed into her flesh. Why couldn’t she remember?  What could have possibly happened to rob her of an entire year’s worth of memories?  Memories that were vital for her freedom. Who was this man that Louella insisted she partnered with during this lost year? Where did she meet him and why had he suddenly disappeared? 

She stared at the box her aunt had left

on the club chair by her bed.  The photo of her parents that she kept on the nightstand was on top of the things piled into it.  She went to the bed, sat down near the chair, and pulled the framed photo from the box.  Tears rolled down her cheeks as she hugged it close to her chest.  She swore to herself that, if she ever got out of this mess, she’d make Louella pay.  In their twenty-two years of life, she’d always clung to the hope that, one day, her sister would allow the compassionate and loving side of her to show. No more.  She realized now that she’d been a fool to believe Louella could even possess such a side.  She was clearly the enemy and would be treated as such in the future.  Davina just needed to escape her prison and she’d set things straight. Louella’s crooked lawyers weren’t the only heavy hitters in town. She’d been referred to an excellent firm by Edward when he realized he wasn’t lawyer enough for her.  She just never got the chance to contact them before she was locked up. No matter. She’d find a way out and then her slutty sister would get her just desserts.

Davina began keeping a journal at the age of ten.  Each year she’d start fresh with a new one.  Her aunt had made sure to pack the journals from the last three years.  She pulled them out of the box and thumbed their smooth leather bindings. The year for each journal was written on the front.  She stared at the one for her year that she couldn’t remember.  It was one of the first things she’d searched for upon waking up and discovering she’d lost the memory of it. She’d found all of her other journals, so she assumed she hadn’t kept one.  Where did it come from? How did her aunt know where to find it?  So many questions with no answers.

She placed the empty box on the floor and positioned herself in the chair.  There was no better time than the present to read what happened in her lost year. With any luck, the journal would hold the key to who T. J. was and where he disappeared to.  Her fingers trembled with both fear and anticipation as she opened the nine-inch by twelve-inch, leather bound journal.

January 1.

I miss my parents.  Louella was so cruel to me during the holiday season. I bought her a beautiful watch and a silk scarf for Christmas.  She gave me a caged rat.  A rat! What made it worse was that it was a feral rat and not one from a pet shop. She’d had the gardener trap it for her.  She spreads her legs for him on a regular basis, so I’m not surprised he’d do something so vile upon her request.  Why does she hate me so? Aren’t siblings supposed to have some type of inherent love for each other? I can’t remember a time when she looked at me with anything but hate and disgust. My friend, Jennifer, calls her Satan’s spawn.  She might be right.  I like the name. It suits her.

I spent New Year’s Eve alone in my room.  Satan’s spawn had filled the house with her evil cronies who I detest to the point that I can’t be around them. I know that they had a drunken orgie. The stench of sex and stale booze hung in the air for hours while I waited for the staff to clean up her mess.  It was so bad that I had to eat my breakfast outside, so I didn’t have it tainted by the rotten air.  And so, the year begins.

She stopped reading and closed her eyes. She was able to envision the large rat in a cage, but she wasn’t sure if it was simply because she’d just read about it or if her memories were returning.  Encouraged, she read on.

January 2.

 Jeffery Montana of Arthurs, Montana, and Smith law firm visited the house today.  Louella is cooking up some evil scheme with them, although I can’t imagine what.  They don’t come to the house together. One day it’s wrinkly old Jeffrey Montana who looks like he could do with the aid of a walker to help him get around, then it’s that disgustingly snobbish and flabby Derek Arthurs.  Another day, the overly slender, almost emaciated looking Oliver Smith shows up.  I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling by announcing that they’d have more privacy for their ‘meeting’ in her bedroom. I know what she’s doing with them behind closed doors.  I just don’t understand her reasoning or how she could possibly bring herself to perform such a revolting act.  Are they paying her?  Is she turning tricks?  She has to be.  My sister may be ugly on the inside, but her outside is beautiful. She could have any guy she wanted.  I just don’t get it.

She set the journal onto the bed and walked over to the mirror. She and Louella were identical twins. The only way to tell them apart was by making them stand back to back and comparing their heights.  Louella stood an even five-feet-four inches in bare feet. Davina fell short by one fourth of an inch.

They both had large almond shaped eyes that sparkled like blue sapphires in the sun when they laughed.  Their brows were naturally perfect, but, with their mother’s influence about keeping up appearances ingrained in them, they tended to them anyway. Their noses were considered desirable noses with a straight bridge and just enough bulbous over the nostrils to make them cute. They were centered perfectly on their oval faces, with well-formed lips positioned just below them. They were beautiful women to look at.  She knew this, but she never capitalized on it.  Not like Louella had.

Davina never dated handsome men, like Louella did. Her boyfriends weren’t ugly, but they always fell short of the god-like ones that Louella brought home.  This was intentional on Davina’s part.  It started when they came of dating age in high school. If she tried to date one of the schools popular, hot jocks, Louella would either steal him away by spreading her legs and opening her wallet or she’d do something underhanded to embarrass Davina and make the guy break up with her.  Davina quickly learned that, if she wanted to be left alone to date at all, the guy had to be someone that Louella felt inferior and undeserving of their beauty.  Fortunately for Davina, her wicked sister was unable to see the beauty beneath the flesh, so Davina’s dating years were actually spent with average looking guys with a kind heart and a good sense of humor. This, in her opinion, beat out hunky every time.

She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “The jokes on you, Spawn of Satan.”

Sitting back down in the chair, she picked up her journal and continued to read.

January 3.

I had the strangest thing happen today.  I went for a walk in the vineyard to get away from this house of horrors for a while. It’s something I do more and more since mom and dad died.  I find it gives me peace in my heart and makes me feel them close again.  Dad loved the vineyard so much.  When I walk down the rows and rows of vines, I remember how he would take me with him as he tended to them.  Louella never came. She had no interest.  I’m not sure how much interest I actually had in the process of tending to the grape vines, but I loved being with and watching my father. So, whenever the opportunity arose to join him, I did so willingly and happily.

I normally go to the end of the vineyard and turn around, but today was different.  The afternoon sun hung low in the sky; a beautiful shade of burnt orange.  I stopped to admire it as it settled behind the tree line to the forest that borders our land. I was just about to turn around when I saw a couple standing on the edge of the forest.  This was curious since the forest is state land and there are no homes for miles in that direction, but what made it doubly so was the fact that the couple looked remarkably like my mother and father.  Had I not seen them in their coffins, I would have thought it was them.  I ran toward them and they just stood still, statue-like.  I was so emotionally charged that I didn’t pay close attention to the ground and I tripped in a hole and slammed to the ground. I hit my head on a rather large rock and I think I lost consciousness for a bit; although I couldn’t say exactly how long.  When I sat up and searched for them, they were gone and so was the sun.  I twisted my ankle pretty badly, so getting home was a challenge, but I made it. Louella was sitting on the veranda having a glass of wine.  I didn’t expect her to give me a lick of help, so she shocked me when she did. She even listened with genuine interest when I told her how I happened to fall.  Maybe there’s hope for her after all.

January 4.

I could kick myself for being stupid enough to confide in Louella that I thought I saw my parents on the forest’s edge.  She took me to the emergency room to have my ankle and head looked at.  While I was being treated, I heard her speaking in soft tones to a doctor about her concern for my mental health. If I’m not careful, she’ll find cause to have me committed.  From now on, my lips are sealed, and my bags are packed.  I’m moving out as soon as I can find a suitable place to live.  The farther I am from my sister, the better.

She scowled.  Did she move out of their family home? Did she give in to Louella in that way? It was something her sister pushed for as part of her ploy to gain control of the entire estate. She couldn’t believe she’d let her have her way like that. Things must have been getting really bad for that to happen.

Her brows burrowed even closer together. If she’d moved out, then why was she back some when Louella had her committed? Nothing made sense.