Echoes of Dollanganger by V.C. Andrews

about you? What goes on in your house?”
    â€œAs you can imagine, my father fixes quite a dinner. He has a sweet potato pudding to die for.”
    â€œJust the two of you?”
    â€œNo. My aunt Barbara, my father’s sister, has come occasionally and might come this time, but my father always invites his chief assistant, Todd Winston, and his wife and their two children, and Mrs. Osterhouse, who does his bookkeeping and would like to do more for him, and I don’t mean at work. She’s a widow who has been with him for a long time.”
    â€œAh. Do you like her?”
    â€œYes, she’s nice.”
    â€œNice enough to be a new mother?”
    â€œI’ll never have another mother, Kane. Even a saint couldn’t step into her shoes.”
    â€œYeah. I’m sorry I put it that way. What about your father? Any interest? Has he dated her?”
    â€œNo. He’s polite to her, but I think she tries too hard.”
    â€œLike Tina Kennedy when it comes to yours truly?”
    â€œNo, not quite as obvious as that,” I said, and he laughed. “But my father likes subtlety when it comes to women.”
    â€œHe’s not so subtle when it comes to you.”
    â€œNo,” I said, smiling, “and I’m not when it comes to him, either.”
    â€œI like your father. He seems comfortable in his own skin.”
    â€œHe never puts on airs, if that’s what you mean. I’m proud of him.”
    â€œYou should be.” He paused and added, “I think I’m more like him than I am like my own father.”
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œMy father’s always striving to do more, get bigger, and is quite obvious about it. That’s why he’s on edge so much. Everything’s got to come out just the way he planned. It’s always the bottom line, no matter what it is. He wants to make a profit on everything, even relationships. More than once, I’ve overheard my mother accuse him of marrying her for her family money.”
    â€œDo you think that’s true?”
    He gave me a look that said, “You have to ask?”
    â€œSo you’re not coming out just the way he planned, his bottom line for a son?” I asked.
    He smiled. “Not exactly.”
    â€œWhy not? You do well in school. They say you’re the best baseball pitcher the school’s ever had. You don’t get in trouble, and you’re passably good-looking.”
    â€œPassably?”
    â€œMaybe a little more,” I kidded.
    â€œI’m not as ambitious as he’d like, and he thinks I waste time on too many ‘unprofitable’ ventures. He never stops complaining about my enthusiasm when it comes to my future. He thinks I should be just as aggressive and ambitious as he was at my age. He never misses an opportunity to say it. His favorite expression is ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ ”
    â€œThat’s what most parents say.”
    â€œNot like he does. But from what my relatives say, he wasn’t always this intense. He’s like someone who wins the lottery and turns from Jekyll to Hyde. Don’t quote me, especially in front of my father or my mother, but money changes you and not always for the best.”
    â€œI fear Christopher might come to that same conclusion, even though that’s all they’re dreaming about in that attic, lots of money.”
    â€œWe’ll know soon enough,” Kane said, smiling, as he pulled into my driveway.
    Now that we were about to start, I really wasn’t sure how we were going to do this. Was he going to read it like a bedtime story? Were we going to stop to discuss things the way we might when we were studying a book in school? Was I just going to sit there andlisten the whole time, or was I supposed to take over and read to him?
    I headed for the kitchen first.
    â€œWhat are you doing? Let’s get started,” he said, practically leaping at the