No, not either of my grandmothers.  Mine didn't lock us in attics, but if they had the food in the those picnic baskets would have been amazing.  (And we would have been killed off straight away as we were neither compliant nor quiet when displeased, but enough about my family.)

This is about the grandmother from the Dollanganger series by VC Andrews.  @Maggie Mae has written a series of fabulous reviews of Flowers in the Attic and wondered in one of the comments what the bastions of evil were up to while the kids were lying on filthy mattresses and getting locked in trunks (paraphrasing.)  I thought it would be fun to fanwank.

To prepare I read the last chapter or so of Garden of Shadows which is book 5 in the series and is written from the POV of old concrete bosom herself.  I read it so you don't have to.   You're welcome.

Before we get started, a note on spoilers:  If you don't want to be spoiled about the crappy plot lines of 30+ year old books you should not be on the internet.  

So...if you're reading you know all about Chris, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie...the impossibly beautiful blonde haired/cerulean blue eyed children locked in the attic kept from the world because they are allegedly the devil's spawn having been born to their impossibly beautiful blonde haired/cerulean blue eyed mother Corrine and their impossibly handsome blonde haired/cerulean blue eyed father Christopher Sr. who just happens to be simultaneously their mother's half uncle and half brother. 

This is what happens when families lack appropriate boundaries - you can't explain their relationships without run on sentences.

You may have noticed they all have identical coloring.  According to VC Andrews this is the bestest most prettiest coloring so she uses it as a code for beauty.  Yes, we all know the stereotype and yes, it's true that there are many very attractive people with fair hair and blue eyes.   But I just wanted to make the point that there are just as many attractive people of all possible hair and eye color combinations and the blonde/blue thing is no guarantee of hotness.

Case in point:

The blonde aint always the sexy one, folks.

Back to the grandmother...

We know she spent her early mornings packing ever less appealing picnic hampers for her imprisoned grand kids, but when not putting cold soup in a thermos she was adhering to one the scariest version of fundyism to ever grace a best seller about incest.  She and her "servent" John Amos were so strict they make Steve and Terri look like Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy.

And that is not easy to do.

We learn in Garden of Shadows that when Corrine wrote her parents asking to return after the death of her husband-brother-uncle Chris Sr. it was John that orchestrated the plan:

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Page 367-368 paperback GoS: He gazed heavenward, as if silently communicating with the Lord.  His arms stretched out.  He seemed to embrace an invisible power.  Then, clenching his hands into fists, he grasped that power and struck his chest.  "Let Corrine and her children come," he declared.  "But hide those children away from the world forever.  End the lineage of sin now.  Do not let them remain in the world to infect others."

From the very beginning she had no intention of those kids ever leaving the attic alive.

She was completely under the sway of John Amos, except on few occasions where she defied him because her need for control over her husband over rode her submission to her spiritual...butler?

It was an unusual employer/employee dynamic.  Were it a sexual relationship it would not have been vanilla, if you catch my drift.

John Amos was all about hell and damnation and judgement ...and seemed to believe he had some kind of direct line to God.  (I can't believe God was happy about the kind of representation he was getting from this guy. ) To no one's surprise he saved his most intense interest and moral outrage for sins of a sexual nature, just what the grandmother needed to fuel her own particular brand of crazy.

All in all I think her days were pretty full.  She spent a great deal of time on her knees praying with John Amos to keep her heart hardened against her daughter and the late Chris Sr who she still loved and her grandchildren who she yearned to nurture and love.  

When she wasn't doing that she was running Foxworth business matters; money doesn't take care of itself.  At times she'd force her husband to watch her sit behind his desk and make business decisions knowing how it emasculated him but that in his weakened state after his stroke could do nothing to stop her.  It seems her inner sadist needed regular exercise.

And I'm sure she and John Amos had to regularly touch base on the logistics of not only how to hide the kids from her dying husband, but the most expedient ways of getting rid innocent children without upsetting those members of staff who might not be as pro-child murder as they.

Mind fucking empty headed Corrine couldn't have taken too much effort...but as she became more comfortable at home there was always the risk that she'd notice her daddy would do anything for her, including accept his grandchildren.  After all, that's why the grandmother couldn't allow him to know they exist.

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GoS page 369   I knew that once he knew there were children, especially girls, his heart would be captured once again.

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GoS page 370 Love shone in his eyes and I could see that in all these years his doting on Corrine had not died.  Oh, yes, I was right not to tell him about the children. He would have fallen under their spell, as he always fell under the spell of beauty.

I mean you can't really blame her.  The kids had the audacity to be born attractive, which we've learned is the only quality that matters in their world.  I mean if they didn't want to be locked away and eventually killed by their family they shouldn't go around being so good looking.  Everyone knows that.

So despite it being pretty easy to lie to kids and the vapid, keeping up the grandfather as bad cop charade had to take some effort.  

So why the plant?  Why the out of character act of kindness giving them a living plant for their attic garden? I've wondered since first reading ..it wasn't foreshadowing for a change of heart or even intermittent reward mindfuckery (we'll go deeper into that when we get to Momma)...so why the plant?

That book was written years before they retconned Olivia with backstory in GoS.  Was it some forgotten remnant of a plot line later edited out?  

I would love to know everyone's thoughts on why she did that because I'm drawing a blank.

So all of that would have kept her busy...and don't forget she had daily tasks like the rest of us.  Boiling tar to pour on a child's head, sneaking into rooms to catch people sharing a bathroom, powdering donuts with arsenic, reinforcing the concrete in her DD cups, giving people plants for no reason, freaking out in stairwells, speculating with the creepy butler on what sexual naughtiness is happening in the scenario you created to bring about that very thing ....you know, the same things we all have on our to do lists.

In all seriousness, the plot line of internal conflict where love and hate co-exist and a primal inclination to love and protect is over ridden by religious brainwashing, jealousy, and self loathing would be fascinating in the hands of a skilled writer.  As would exploring the very real phenomenon of how dysfunction and abuse infects generation after generation if no one breaks the cycle, and how very dangerous people can be if they don't have a proper baseline for normal behavior and empathy.