Into the Woods by V. C. Andrews Page A

innocence. The world could be a very cruel and hard place, and the more you came to realize that, the more you cherished a true friend. What better or truer friend would I have than she was, I thought, and hoped she now felt the same about me. I was old enough now to hear her fears and concerns. She no longer had to be worried that I would suffer childish nightmares. I would address each problem alongside her, and together we would go on.
She had no hesitation about answering any question I asked about her younger days.
"Did you love anyone as much as you loved Daddy?" I wondered.
"Oh. I had some terrible crushes on boys and had my heart shattered like an eggshell when I learned they didn't feel anywhere near as much toward me as I did toward them. No." she concluded after a little more thought. "I know it's assumed or accepted that we all fall in love early and then try to find it again in someone who might resemble or remind us of that first love, but I can honestly say your father was very, very special."
She smiled that soft, deep smile to herself again as we drove on monotonously dawn the
superhighway, cars whizzing by with other people mesmerized by their own speed and thoughts, all of them looking to me like entrapped creatures in moving metal cages.
"Your father had so many wonderful qualities, but what was truly wonderful was how balanced they were. He had a great sense of humor, but boy he could turn serious on a dime. He was strong but so romantic and gentle. You know what most women suffer when they many?" she said suddenly, turning to me.
I shook my head, having no idea but fascinated with the topic.
"They suffer from gross expectation. They either don't want to face their husbands' limitations and admit them to themselves, or they honestly don't see them and so they are continually frustrated and disappointed. They marry and suddenly discover the men they have married are not the men they thought they had married. Sometimes it's not their fault, of course. They are deceived by promises. But I think most of the time they deceive themselves.
'Your father and I never lied to each other. Grace. That was the secret. No matter what the consequences, we told each other the truth, and that became the glue that cemented us forever."
She swallowed hard. "Forever," she muttered. "That was the only deception we permitted."
I turned and glared at the highway, which seemed liquefied now, a flow of macadam, lines going on and on. When will the ache stop? Will it ever stop?
"We'll be all right." Mommy chanted. She nodded at the windshield as if we had an audience along the way. "We'll be all right."
She dropped her right hand and reached for mine. We held hands for miles and miles, and then we talked about where we would stop and what we would have for dinner. Thinking about tomorrow was the only escape from today.
Finally we decided to pull in for the night. We always tried to find a motel that looked well maintained. Mommy believed that usually if the owner cared about how his property appeared to people passing by, he cared about how it appeared inside as well.
We had been in motels many times before, and when I was very young we would treat each like another magical adventure. One of our favorite games was trying to imagine who had been in our room before us.
We would lie awake for a while and make up stories about our room's invented former inhabitants. Almost by instinct, perhaps to protect ourselves from the darkness and the troubled thoughts it would bring, we did it this night.
"Two young women were just here. They're on an adventure before starting college," Mommy began.
"They want to see as much of America as they can and hope to have many interesting experiences."
We had two double beds with a small television mounted on the wall in front of us, but we didn't bother turning it on. We created our own pictures, our own stories, after we were snug in our beds. We were able to leave the screened windows open to get some