CATHY. Then keep it. Every time you are tempted to think of the love we dreamed we had with her, look at it.

CHRISTOPHER. We’ll go after dark. Just pack whatever you brought. I don’t think you want anything from this attic.

CATHY. Just one thing.

CHRISTOPHER. What?

CATHY [tearing off one of the fake flowers]. This.

Carrie moans and calls for Cory.

CHRISTOPHER. Go to her, Cathy. Tell her we’re leaving tonight and going to where there are real flowers and real sunlight, rain and clouds and birds.

CATHY. And we don’t have to make them up.

CHRISTOPHER. No, not anymore, not ever.

Cathy turns as the lights begin to dim.

Scene 9

Older Cathy walks into the spotlight the way she did at the play’s beginning.

OLDER CATHY. How strange it felt being outside. When we stepped out of that mansion through the rear entrance, I thought I was still dreaming, because I had dreamed about it so much. Despite what I had told Christopher, I couldn’t help but think about Momma.

The spotlight widens on her.

OLDER CATHY. Once she had four perfect children who were flowering in a garden of love. Now she had none. Once she had four children who thought she was perfect, and now she had children who would forever see her as evil, as imperfect as the Lucifer our Grandmother Olivia feared and despised. In my heart of hearts, I believed that she would grow old and feel terribly lonely. She would be trapped in an attic of her own making. Maybe then she would wish she had done everything differently. Her arms would ache to hold us again. She would pray for forgiveness. I had to believe that.

The spotlight closes slowly.

OLDER CATHY. When I looked at my brother’s face as we left, I saw how much he had aged, how much deeper his well of wisdom had gone. We were like Adam and Eve, once innocent but now facing the world beyond a childhood paradise. And like them, we were fearful. And like them, we knew we had only each other. Surely that gave Adam and Eve hope. That faith and what we had discovered in ourselves were all that really mattered when, like Adam and Eve, we left to discover who we really were.

The spot goes out.

More from this Series
Flowers In The Attic Book 1	Petals on the Wind Book 2
If There Be Thorns Book 3	Seeds of Yesterday Book 4

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The Silhouette Girl	Spindrift

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