Casteel 1 - Heaven (43 page)

Astonishment and anger widened my eyes before my shame and guilt made me blush. She saw and smiled cruelly. “Don't warm see ya agin, not evaya hide when ya see me comin!”

Trembling, I spread my hands wide. “I have to keep visiting Kitty. She needs me now.”

“Ya hear me, scumbag! Come no more t'my place!” And out of the room she stormed, having come and looked at Kitty without one word of sympathy or encouragement or compassion. Had she come just to let me know what she thought of me?

Kitty was staring at the door, an unhappy pale fire in her eyes.

Tears coursed a crooked way down my cheeks as I turned again to Kitty, arranging her bedjacket so she looked neat, before I fiddled again with her hair. "You look lovely, Kitty. Don't believe what you just heard. Your mother is a strange woman. Maisie was showing me the family photograph albums, and you

look a great deal like your mother when she was your age. . . except you are prettier, and no doubt all your life she's been jealous of you." (Why was I being so kind, why, when she'd been so cruel? Perhaps because Reva Setterton might have done many of the things to Kitty that Kitty had done to me.)

“Git out now,” Kitty managed when I was through with her.

“Mother!”

“Not yer motha.” Some terrible pain fleeted through her eyes, the agony of frustration so horrible I had to duck my head and hide my pity. "Always wanted t'be a motha, more than anythin else wanted my own baby.

Ya were right when ya told me what ya did. Ain't fit t'be a motha. Neva was. Ain't fit t'live."

“Kitty!”

“Leave me be!” she cried weakly. “Got t'right t'die in peacean when t'time comes, I'll know what t'do.”

“No, you don't have the right to die! Not when you have a husband who loves you! You've got to live! You have Cal, and he needs you. All you have to do is will your body to fight back. Kitty, please do that for Cal. Please. He loves you. He always has.”

“Git out!” she yelled with a bit more strength. “Go t'him! Take kerr of him when I'm gone. Soon I will be! He's yers now. My gift t'ya! Only took him fer my man cause he had somethin about him that made me think of Lukelike Luke coulda been if he'd been brought up by some nice family in t'city.” She sobbed low in her throat, a hoarse, raw sound that tore at my heart. “When first I saw him afta he came an sat at my table, I squinted my eyes an pretended he were Luke. All t'time I been married thim, I could only let him take me when I played my pretend gamean made him Luke.”

Oh, Kitty, you fool, you fool! “But Cal's a wonderful man! Pa's no good!” The pale fire flared hotter. "Heard that all my

life bout myself, an I'm not bad, I'm not! I'm not!" I couldn't take any more. I went out into the

fresh September air. What kind of trick did love play on common

sense? Why one man when there were thousands to choose from? Yet here was I, hoping to find Logan. Almost wild to find him and have him tell me he understood and forgave me. But when I passed Stonewall Pharmacy, Logan wasn't to be seen. In the drizzling rain I stood in the shadow of a huge elm and

stared across the street at the windows of the apartment over the corner store. Was he up there looking down at me? Then I saw his mother at one of the windows just before she pulled the cord and closed the draperies, shutting me out. I knew she'd like to keep me forever out of her son's life. And she was right, right, right . . .

I walked toward Brown Street, to the only motel in town. The two rooms Cal had rented were both empty. After I'd refreshed myself and put on dry clothes, I went out into the rain again and walked all the way back to the hospital, where I found Cal sitting dejectedly on a waiting-​room sofa, staring moodily at a magazine held loosely in his hand. He glanced up when I came in.

“Any change?” I asked.

“No,” he answered gruffly. “Where have you been?” “I was hoping I'd see Logan.”

“Did you see him?” he asked dryly. “No . . .” He reached for my hand and held it firmly.

"What do we do, and how do we live with something like this? It could last six months, a year, longer. Heaven, I thought her parents were a solution. They're not. They're withdrawing their financial support. It's

you and I or no one, until she's well, or gone . . .“ ”Then it's you and I," I said, sitting down to

hold his hand in mine. “I can go to work.” He didn't say anything. We continued to sit, our

hands joined, as he stared at the wall. For two weeks we lived in that motel. I didn't

see Logan. I was sure he'd gone back to college by now, without even saying good-​bye to me. School started, and that told me only too clearly I might never again enter a classroom and college was only a dream cloud drifting off into the sunset. And the job I'd thought would be so easy to find when I could type ninety words a minute didn't materialize.

The first real signs of winter came, and although I'd seen Tom twice, his visits were too short for us to really say all we needed to say. Always Buck Henry was waiting for him, glaring when he saw me, and forcing Tom to hurry, hurry. I went every day to visit Grandpa, hoping just once Pa would be there, but he never was. I tried time and again to see Fanny, but she wouldn't even come to the door anymore. A black maid responded to my demands. “Miss Louisa don't talk t'strangers,” was what she said every time, refusing to recognize I was her sister, not a stranger.

I hated the motel, the way people looked at Cal

and me, though he had his room and I had mine, and not since we'd come to Winnerrow had he made love to me. When we went to church, we drove to another town and prayed there, knowing by this time that the Reverend Wise wouldn't allow us in his.

One morning I woke up cold. The strong north wind was blowing leaves from the trees and fanning out the curtains as I got up and began to dress. A walk before breakfast was on my mind.

It was a cloudy, rainy day, with fog covering the hills. I stared upward toward our cabin; through the mists I saw snow on the mountain peaks. Snowing up there, raining down here . . . and here was where I'd longed to be so many times.

I heard footsteps following, making me walk faster; a tall figure came to walk beside me. I expected to see Cal, but it was Tom! Instantly my heart gladdened. “Thank God you're back again! I waited and waited last Saturday praying you'd show up. Tom, are you all right?”

He laughed as he turned to hug me, thinking all my concern for his welfare was silly and unnecessary. “I can stay a whole hour this time. I thought we could have breakfast together. Maybe Fanny will join us and it will be like old times, almost.”

“I've tried to visit Fanny, Tom, and she reftises to talk to me. A black maid comes to the door, so I never even see her, and she doesn't stroll the streets.”

“We gotta try,” said Tom, frowning. “I don't like what I'm hearing in whispers. Nobody sees Fanny anymore, not like they used to before you came. There was a time when Fanny was everywhere showing off her new clothes, and bragging about all the Wises give her. Now she doesn't even attend church on Sundays, or go to any of their social eventsand neither does Rosalynn Wise.”

“To avoid me, I suspect,” I guessed with some bitterness, “and Mrs. Wise stays home to see that Fanny stays in her room. Soon as I'm gone, Fanny will come out of hiding.”

At the restaurant that served truck drivers, we ate a hearty breakfast, laughing as we reminisced about all our poor meals when we lived in the Willies. “Have you decided yet which sister you want?” I asked when he insisted on picking up the check.

“Nope.” He threw me a small, shy grin. "Like em both. However, Buck Henry says if I marry Thalia, he'll send me on to college and leave Thalia the farm. If I select Laurie, I'll have to make it on my own . . . and so I've decided not to marry either, and

leave soon as I finish high school, and set out on my own.“ Until now his tone had been light; suddenly he was serious, his voice heavy. ”When you leave for Boston, how about taking me along?"

I reached for his hand, and laughed to think he'd say the very words I'd been hoping to hear. People in Boston wouldn't be as prejudiced as they were here; they'd see our true worth. There I could easily find a job, and then I could mail Cal money to help pay for Kitty's care. He had put the house in Candlewick up for sale, but even if he did sell it, that money wouldn't last if she didn't recover soon, or.. .

“Don't look like that, Heavenly. Everything will work out, you'll see.” Arms linked, we strolled on toward the nursing home to visit Grandpa.

“He ain't here,” said Sally Trench when she re- sponded to Tom's loud knocking. “Yer father done come an took him away.”

“Pa's been here!” cried Tom, seeming unbelievably happy. “Where did he take Grandpa?” Sally Trench didn't know. “Left about half an hour ago,” she informed us before she slammed the

door. cried excitedly. "If we hurry, maybe we can find

“Pa could still be in town, Heavenly!” Tom

him!"

“I don't want to see him, not ever!” I flared.

“Well, I do! He's the only one who can tell us where to find Keith and Our Jane.”

Both of us began to run. Winnerrow was an easy city to search, one main street with twelve side roads. As we ran we looked in store windows, questioned those we saw walking. The sixth man we asked had seen Pa. “Think he was goin t' t'hospital.”

Why would he go there? “You go on alone,” I said tonelessly when Tom insisted.

Helplessly Tom spread his large, callused hands. His expression was miserable. “Heavenly, I've got to be honest. I've been lying to you all the time. In those letters, and those pictures I enclosed, those were only school friends named Thalia and Laurie. Buck Henry doesn't have any children but ones who're buried in a churchyard. That fine house belongs to Laurie's mother and father, six miles down the road. Buck Henry's house might once have been nice, but now it's rundown and needs repairing. He's a slave driver who works me twelve to fourteen hours a day.”

“You mean you lied? All those letters when I lived in Candlewickall lies?”

"All lies. Lies made up to make you feel good

about me.“ His eyes pleaded. ”I knew what you had to be thinking, and I didn't want you to worry, but now I have to say I hate that farm! Hate Buck Henry so much sometimes I feel if I don't escape I might kill him . . so please understand why I'm going to run away from him and find Pa. I have to do this."

To help Tom have what he wanted, to see Keith and Our Jane again, I'd do anything, even face the man I hated most in the world. “Hurry!” Tom kept urging, and soon we were both running toward the hospital.

“Maybe Cal will be with Kitty by this time,” I gasped breathlessly when we were in the hospital lobby looking around.

“Sure,” said a nurse when Tom asked about Luke Casteel, “he was here . . .”

“But where is he now?”

“Why, I don't know . . . been an hour ago since he asked the room number of Mrs. Dennison.”

Pa had come to see Kitty . . . or me?

Grasping my hand tighter, Tom began to pull me along.

All the nurses and attendants had grown to know me by this time, and they greeted me by name as I took over and led Tom toward an elevator that

would take us up to Kitty's room. I felt strange, almost numb, and so fearful of what I'd say and do when I saw Pa. Still, when I was in Kitty's room, and she was pale and weak-​looking, and Cal was kneeling by the side of her bed crying, it took me moments to adjust to the disappointment of not seeing Pa, and then I was again shocked to see how happy Kitty looked. She lay on the narrow bed, beaming at me, at Tom. Why?

“Yer pa done come t'see me,” she whispered in a frail voice I could hardly hear. “He asked bout ya, Heaven; he said he hoped t'see ya. Said he were sorry fer what he did in t'past, an hoped I'd fergive him. Ya know, neva thought in a million years I'd hear Luke Casteel soundCal, what way did he sound?”

“Humble,” Cal said in a hoarse voice.

“Yeah, that's it. He were humbled, sorry- soundin.” Her eyes were bright, as if she'd seen a miracle. And for days she hadn't spoken. “He looked at me, Heaven, an he neva did that before. When I loved him, an woulda died fer him, he neva saw me . . jus took me like I was a thin, an left. But he done changed, he has . . . an he's gone an left this here note fer ya.”

Hers was a feverish kind of happiness, frenzied, as if she had to hurry, hurry. For the first time I saw

she was dying, dying right before our eyes, maybe had been for months before we even came here, and both Cal and I had grown too accustomed to her erratic swings of moods to recognize they were manifestations of depression, of frustrations . . . and fearful secret anxieties about that lump. Her thin hand seemed gaunt, her nails long and witchy, as she handed me the envelope with my name on the outside. But her smile, for the first time, seemed warm, loving.

“Did I say thank ya fer all ya've been doin fer me, Heaven? Got me a daughta, at lastan ain't it some-​thin, though, ain't it, that Luke would come t'see me? Were ya t'one who sent fer himwere ya? Ya must have, cause he came in an he looked around, like he expected t'see ya. So go on, Heaven, go on, read what he says in his letta.”

“This is Tom, my brother,” I finally said.

“It's good to see you, Tom,” said Cal, standing up and shaking his hand.

“Why, yer like Luke when he was yer age!” Kitty cried with delight, her pale eyes glowing strangely. “All ya need is black hair and black eyes . . . an ya'd be jus like yer pa! Ya would, ya would!”

She was touching, this devil-​woman with her red hair and her long pink nails that had raked my skin

many a time. Images of how she used to be flashed in and out of my brain; my ears rang with all the insults she'd thrown my way without regard for my feelings; and here she was putting tears in my eyes when I should have been feeling glad God was delivering to her just what she deserved. Yet I was crying. I sat in the chair that Cal pulled out for me and, with tears streaming to wet my blouse, I opened the letter from Pa and began to silently read.

“Daughta, read it aloud,” whispered Kitty.

Again I glanced at her, sensing something different; then I began in a small voice: