That afternoon after returning from the NIR was probably the warmest celebration I had ever attended, for it was a celebration just about our own freedom. While it might seem ironic to celebrate freedom immediately after being forced to give away our most personal information like our very location to a large federal government, it was not every day that the most hated member of our family gets dragged away by the authorities. Cathy pranced around the first floor of the house like the graceful ballerina she was always meant to be with a huge smirk on her face. Not since we came to "the future" with her had Cathy finally felt at peace with her past since she thought that Corrine would be locked up for many years, but even though she knew Corrine would be released at any time, she took solace in the fact that Corrine probably could not find her way back to her family's home.
All that was left to do was shut off the robot Grandmother once and for all and leave it on the curb so that the garbage truck could take it away. However, Garland kept getting in the way of Cathy terminating the Grandmother's extra time in this world, all the while the head on top of the small refrigerator rambled on about the "Devil's Issue" and the sin that pervade this house. How unlikely would it be that while the Granddaughter you regarded as an abomination and abused all those years ago now had the chance to end your life, it would be up to your Great-Grandson, who must have been more of an abomination in her eyes, to save your life. Cathy knew she would have to dispose of the Grandmother if she were to reestablish complete peace in her life, but today she would celebrate one victory.
She skipped her way over to the couch where Chris was seated, wrapped her arms around his neck, and asked, "How about for this special day, I make Daddy's favorite, Apple Pie?"
"The same day his wife got dragged off by the police?" Chris responded, with an almost cynical tone.
I have seen the ways Cathy snapped at anyone who defended Corrine, and with the vulnerable position she had Chris in, I would be lying if I said I didn't fear for his safety, but instead of bursting out in anger, all Cathy did was say in a calm, sweet voice, "Christopher Doll, please never unite the memory of Daddy and that devil ever again. We will not fully cherish this moment if we are reminded of the most tragic moment in our lives."
"Okay," Chris replied, clearly confused by such a marital command, as Cathy herself was associating Corrine's arrest with our father's favorite pastry, but at least she did not hurt him.
Astonished by such a lowered bar, I was even more amazed by Cathy's quickness to finalize this new norm, she kissed Chris on the cheek, and said, "Thank you."
As Cathy danced her way back into the kitchen, she made a list in her mind and proceeded to pull the items on that list out of the pantry, that was until the doorbell went off, causing her to turn to face the living room, and say, "Who could that be? Chris, dear, get the door."
Chris III did as his mother asked him to while Cathy proceeded to dance to the island in the middle of the kitchen while carrying a pre-packaged pie crust and some sugar and flour, but her positive demeanor soon came crumbling down again when she heard her eldest son utter the words, "Grandma?"
All of the sudden we heard the sound of the items in her arms come crashing down onto the island counter, causing Christopher to race over to her to where he found her completely frozen in shock, nonresponsive to his fondling of her entire body and his voice asking, "Cathy, Cathy, are you okay?"
After a few seconds of her just staring endlessly into the living room, Cathy let out a whisper, asking, "Why? Why can't she leave?"
"Why can't she leave us ALONE?!" Cathy screamed as she rushed over to the door where it looked like she hoped to finally deal with the Corrine problem once and for all.
She was about to jump on Corrine, probably to send her falling back outside and onto the ground, luckily for Corrine, Christopher grabbed Cathy by her waist and pulled her off the floor, to which Corrine chuckled and snobbishly replied, "Comport yourself Catherine, it is not acceptable for a woman to blast into a tantrum when she does not get her way."
"Oh, and locking away your kids away and attempting to poison them is the mode?" Cathy fired back at her mother, playing her most powerful card right at the beginning of the game.
In order to continue the analogy, Cathy playing her cards so poorly opened the gate for Corrine to respond in, as I can only assume, the way all those who lost something in a failure of Cathy's that she could blame on her experience in the attic wished they could respond; "You know, the more you use that attack, the less value it has over time."
"Oh, I'll give you something to value; your face, especially after I punch YOUR TEETH OUT!" Cathy screamed, attempting to leap out of Chris' grasp while she flung her balled up fists in front of Corrine, attempting to land a punch.
Christopher had to pull Cathy even further back in order to keep her from striking their mother, and once they were at a safer distance he put her down and said to her, "Easy, darling, calm down, this is not the time and place for you to make a scene."
An indignant Cathy just stared at her husband as he did what he always did, make excuses for their mother, and she had enough of it; she replied, "Not the place? This is MY HOUSE! Our house! I want her out of OUR HOUSE! I want her out of OUR LIVES!"
"Mom, you can't kick her out, she just got out of jail," Leigh cried out as she came running down the stairs once she heard that her idol had returned after being imprisoned.
"Stay out of this girl, this is between me and her," Cathy screamed at her daughter as she pointed her right index finger at her in disappointment.
In the face of parental discipline, Leigh simply turned on the heels of her shoes to face Corrine, and defiantly asked, "So, tell me, Grandma, how you got out of jail?"
Completely aware that socializing with her daughter would only infuriate Cathy even more, Corrine rested her right palm on Leigh's left shoulder, and asked in response, "Do you remember that dapper-looking blond man at Foxworth Hall, Matthew Litman?"
"Do I, he hates this entire family with a rage of a California wildfire," Leigh replied with a slightly hysterical look in her face, making her look more like Cathy from all those years ago, especially when she would get frustrated and lash out at Corrine for her treatment of us.
"Well, remember the letter that one brought me last night?" Corrine asked, flapping the limp fingers of her right hand towards Carrie, emphasizing that she could not even put in the effort to stiffen her fingers when it came to acknowledging her youngest daughter.
With an absolutely disinterested look on her face, Leigh rolled her eyes, and responded, "To be honest, I don't remember much about last night, I was tripping balls for a while and then I so exhausted I went to sleep early."
"Well, in that letter Matthew advised me to report you parents to the police, but I guess he wasn't aware of the pitiful social decay that has come upon this state," Corrine added, sounding more and more like the Grandmother as she painted a licentious image of contemporary society.
Unsurprisingly, Leigh, the girl who had beat jock straps at their sole purpose of surrounding themselves in sheer amounts of male athlete's most delicate areas, was completely lost by Corrine's ultra-Puritan spin. This resulted in the master of lies to take a different approach with broader appeal, saying, "Anyhow, after looking into whether they were arrested, he discovered that I had been taken instead. Luckily, his gracious heart came in my time of need and he got me out of that filthy jail cell and he got the charges dropped."
All the while, Cathy stood back and listened while still being restrained by Chris, internalizing that her two biggest enemies were conspiring together against her and those she cared about, resulting in her blaring out, "I've always hated that brat, he's always had it out for this family. I don't even know why we send you kids to his school. But now, he just has to continue torturing us by releasing you back to us."
"You know, Cathy, sometimes your words can be very hurtful, it's as if you don't take into consideration whether your target is present," Corrine responded, unexpectedly unaware and unperturbed of how her response was received by her audience.
It was this sense of immunity and outright disregard for her past that Cathy disliked the most about our mother, and it was something that she would not let go unpunished. Cathy tried to release herself from Chris' grasp and lunge towards Corrine, while screaming, "Hurtful? Consideration? How dare you!"
Watching the caged animal trying to break out of her confines and struggling to strike a blow with her claws, Corrine took a slight step forward as if she was relishing her power in front of Cathy, and said, "I can see you still need time to put the past behind you, so, being as generous as I am, I will be leaving your home for the weekend."
"The weekend? Leave forever, God knows none of us will miss you," Cathy suggested as she tried to break free of Chris' grasp.
That was when Leigh pushed her way up to the front of the group and tried to remind her grandmother that someone in this family still supported her, crying, "I will, don't listen to her."
"Leigh! Please!" Chris strongly but quietly responded, all the while struggling to control Cathy from attacking their daughter now.
Indulging in Cathy's pain of losing influence over her home, Corrine explained to her granddaughter, "Don't worry, it's just for the weekend, then I'll be back and perhaps I'll be able to bring back some dignity to this family."
"Where will you be going?" Leigh asked out of curiosity.
"I'm going back to Pennsylvania, I'm needed there. Matthew says my talents and skills will be most appreciated there," Corrine responded, almost proud to return to the state of our previous, much more simple, life, or at least perceived simpleness.
It was then that a fourth generation entered, or should I say "rolled into," the conversation, when the Grandmother made her robotic body present and voiced her opinion, "What talents and skills? The only thing you've ever excelled at was at manipulating men. Well, it's not as if there was much manipulation that needed to take place in order to please those sinful beasts"
Dealing with annoyances similar to those that she bestowed upon Cathy, all Corrine could do was smile down towards the Grandmother's head, and responded with an obvious fake smile, "Don't fret, Mother, Matthew says that's one of the many qualities that I bring to the table."
Now that some time had passed for her to cool down and seeing how the Grandmother has gotten under her skin, Cathy calmly asked Corrine, "So, what will you be doing in Pennsylvania?"
Chucking at succeeding in dominating Cathy and controlling her reactions, Corrine gave a nonchalant response, "Oh, dear, I can't tell you right now, it will ruin the surprise. But, it might be a wonderful experience returning home. Perhaps I'll stop by and visit your father's grave."
"Don't bring Daddy into this!" Cathy screamed, energized by the mere mention of her beloved father in any way that did not bring her joy and tried to break out of Chris' embrace.
Eventually, Corrine grew bored of the angry Cathy attempting to attack her and retreated to the front door, all the while speaking to us with her back to us, "Listen, it's been fun to chat, but I've got a plane to catch."
She added before she turned around to face us "Oh, and don't forget to tune in and watch me on Television."
As Corrine closed the front door behind her, Leigh just stood there with an utterly confused look on her face, and asked, "Watch me on TV? Why would we do that when we could just stream it?"
"Maybe she's doing something you can only watch on Television?" Garland asked in response with a puzzled look, almost as if watching something solely on television was a foreign concept to him, astonishingly.
At the same time, Chris III rested the cup of his right hand on his chin, stroking it while he held onto that arm's elbow with his left hand, and asked, "Television? Pennsylvania? Momma, you're from Pennsylvania, right?"
"Yes, dear, born and raised, so were your father and your aunt and uncle, until that witch locked me up in this witch's attic," Cathy screamed, first stretching her left arm out and pointing with that index finger towards the other side of the door and then proceeding to point down towards the grandmother with the index finger at the end of her elongated right arm.
Chris III then proceeded to solve this arithmetic sequence, vocalizing every turn he made, "Okay, TV, Pennsylvania, homestate, Matthew. Okay, let's see, it's a Saturday...wait, Matthew, Pennsylvania, homestate...swing state!"
It was at that moment that something had clicked in his mind, Chris III's cerulean eyes lit up, and he said, "Um, I need to do a couple of searches, I'll be in my room."
He then bolted up the staircase and fled to his room, leaving the rest of us behind, to which Leigh responded to in her unfettered opinionated manner, "Doing research on the weekend, I'll never understand him."