I shook my head. It made no sense. How could they not exist? They were standing right there in front of Mother, weren’t they? I pointed that out and said, “They eat and talk and walk.”
“So do insects,” Cassie said. “That’s what they are, merely insects.”
Like Mother, she had a way of pursing her lips after she was critical of someone or something. It was as if they both decided that they would say no more on the subject, not that they didn’t have more to say. They just didn’t want to waste another breath, and as Daddy would say, “When those two get that way, you can’t pry an additional word out of them with a crowbar.”
Both Cassie and Mother were very efficient. From the moment she rose in the morning to the moment she went to sleep, Mother had something to do. She hated wasting time, which was another reason she had so few friends. She told us that most of the women she knew loved wasting time, spending hours and hours at lunch, sipping coffee, pecking at their food like birds, and then shopping even if they had nothing for which to shop.
“Leisure,” Mother would say, “has not given these women opportunities to do something significant with their lives. On the contrary, it has taken those opportunities away. They are no longer important to their families, especially their children. They have nannies when the children are young and, of course, maids and cooks to clean and prepare the meals. They make sure their children are fully occupied with piano lessons or dancing lessons, and if they need help with schoolwork, they hire tutors. They don’t realize it, but they’ve replaced themselves.
“But perhaps they’re too selfish to care,” she concluded after thinking about her own words for a moment. “Their homes are simply … private hotels.”
Consequently, despite the size of our home, we had no maids or cooks, and neither Cassie nor I had a tutor. Even if Daddy complained mildly about my average grades, he couldn’t deny that I had the best tutor possible already with us: Cassie, who in my mind knew as much as, if not more than, my teachers did. Before Mother would agree to either piano or dancing lessons, we had to demonstrate to her that we wanted them very much ourselves first. Cassie didn’t want them, but I did. All of my friends were having lessons.
“I don’t know why you practice the piano and go to dance class, Semantha,” Cassie told me. “You’ll never be a pianist, and you’ll never dance in a professional show. It’s a waste of precious time.”
I didn’t reply. I tried not to contradict Cassie, but even my silence was defiant to her. She’d go, “Well? Well? Well?” until I had to say, “I guess you’re right.”
I did eventually stop taking my lessons. Neither Daddy nor Mother tried to get me to change my mind, especially when Cassie pointed out to them that I might better spend my time trying to improve my grades. The extra time didn’t make much difference, however.
Somehow, even though she had no piano or dance lessons, Cassie was always very busy. She loved organizing, whether it was her own clothing, groceries in the kitchen pantry, or Daddy’s magazines and newspapers. She inspected our house every day, looking for something out of place or some reason to rearrange things. For this, Daddy or Mother always paid her great compliments. They were both very proud of her.
Cassie was, of course, an excellent student. She just didn’t do anything else at school, because nothing else was really worth the time or more important than helping Mother look after the house and Daddy. As far as I could tell, that meant boyfriends and school dances weren’t important to her, either, whereas I couldn’t wait for them. It puzzled me that she could be so disinterested in these things. Although we were sisters, we were so unalike.
Someone merely had to look from her room to mine to see the vast differences between us. My clothes were often not hung up or put away neatly. I had papers, magazines, and dolls scattered like the end-of-fall leaves everywhere. Often, I’d forget and leave the remains of something I had eaten on the plate for a day or two, and I never made my bed as well as Cassie made hers. Mine always looked slept in, while hers looked unused. Our bathrooms were the same way. Mine had towels unfolded, often on the floor, the soap streaking the sink, shampoo bottles open and leaking in the shower, or washcloths crumpled on the vanity table. My mirror usually had spots on it because I stood too close to it when I brushed my teeth vigorously.
Across the hall in her suite, Cassie’s bathroom looked as if it had just been built and had yet to be used. Everything sparkled, and Mother never looked in on it without declaring how spic-and-span it was, loudly enough for me to hear, even through a closed door.
Once, when I was much older and thinking back on all of this, I decided that I was the way I had been simply because I didn’t want to be at all like Cassie. I deliberately did things that were opposite to what she did. It was important to me that everyone saw and knew that I was her sister, yes, but we were as unalike as any two unrelated strangers, and I wanted people to see that.
To her credit, Cassie didn’t try to make me into a carbon copy of her. I think she was happy that there were so many differences between us. She didn’t want to share a compliment or any praise, especially from Daddy, but, more important, she didn’t want anyone to believe that what she had accomplished and what she could do was so easy that even someone like me could accomplish it or do it. I sensed how little she respected me for who I was.
Does all of this mean I didn’t love her? Can you still love someone who frightens you? She was my sister. We were part of the same family and had the same loving parents. If something happened to her, I would certainly be unhappy about it. I thought.
And I hoped she felt the same way toward me, but did we love each other the way other sisters loved each other? Sometimes I thought we did, and often I thought we didn’t, but in time, I would learn that Cassie’s way of showing her love or feeling love was so different from mine, from everyone’s, that it was easily unseen and unfelt.
Maybe that was the tragedy of Cassie Heavenstone.
No one could ever see how she really was capable of loving someone else.
It’s the only soft and forgiving thing I can say about a sister who nearly destroyed me.
An Announcement
WHEN I WAS just fourteen years old, my world began to sink in and collapse like a punctured balloon. Whatever happiness I enjoyed slowly leaked out and disappeared. It took me a while to notice and realize it. I was just like someone who, gazing at his car one day, saw that he had a flat tire. When did that begin to happen? he might wonder. I knew when it had begun to happen for me.
One night at dinner a week after my birthday, Daddy put down his knife and fork, folded his hands, and cleared his throat. Cassie and I believed that whatever he was about to say had nothing whatsoever to do with his business or his finances. There was a rule at our table that none of that would be discussed at dinner. And that was true even if Daddy had something wonderful about the business to announce to us, such as a large increase in the profits of one of our stores or our stores beating out the famous chain stores nearby. Whatever the good business news was, he wouldn’t say a word about it until after dinner or maybe not until breakfast the following day. For some reason, breakfast was not as sacred a meal as dinner. Of course, dinner was more elegant, with our expensive china and silverware, linen napkins, and the imported tablecloth that Mother had bought on one of their European trips.
My responsibility was to set the table, light the candles in the gold candle holders, and after dinner put everything away or in the dishwasher and washing machine. Cassie helped Mother prepare the food, and I helped both of them serve it. Mother was an excellent cook, always coming up with new and interesting recipes, and Cassie was a quick study. She could replicate almost anything Mother had made a day after she had made it. Twice when Mother was sick with the flu, Cassie “leaped to the helm,” as Daddy would say, and created dinners that were as wonderful as what Mother made. Even I had to admit it, although Cassie was far more interested in Daddy’s opinion.
At the be
ginning of dinner, we were to lower our heads while Daddy recited a prayer, but Cassie never lowered her head. I knew both of my parents were aware of it, just as they were in church, but neither forced her to do it. It suggested to me that maybe they were as afraid of her as I was, which, of course, made no sense. How could parents be afraid of their own daughter?
“Your mother and I have an announcement to make,” Daddy began this particular evening, and then he stroked his perfectly trimmed and groomed rust-brown goatee. It was a gesture that was always followed by a very serious pronouncement. Another sign was the way his emerald-green eyes brightened. At forty-eight, he was by anyone’s measure still a very handsome man, with a perfectly proportioned straight nose and firm lips. He kept his hair a little longer than most businessmen his age, but it was always trim and neatly brushed. Even though he didn’t work outdoors, he had a robust complexion, and because he was six feet two inches tall with wide shoulders, he looked fit and strong. Mother always said that when he was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt instead of his suit, he looked like a lumberjack.
His father had named him Teddy after Teddy Roosevelt and, according to family history, made sure he understood that he had to be as courageous, as loyal to the truth and to what was right, and as strong in body and mind. He was fond of telling Daddy, “Charge up that hill! And no matter what, never surrender!”
Daddy’s pausing made what he was about to tell us even more important. I held my breath and glanced at Cassie, who sat with a smirk on her lips. She looked as if she knew what he was about to say and already did not approve.
“Your mother,” Daddy continued, reaching to his right to take her hand, “is pregnant.”
I know my mouth widened with surprise, and I was sure my eyes swelled, but Cassie’s smirk only grew deeper. She leaned slightly forward, folding her hands on the table the way Daddy folded his before a serious pronouncement.
“Is that wise at your age, Mother?” she asked very calmly. “You’re forty-two.”
“Women in their forties are having children. Your mother is in perfect health, Cassie, and Dr. Moffet is very optimistic about her having a healthy and successful pregnancy,” Daddy replied before Mother could.
“Of course, Dr. Moffet would say that. We’re good customers.”
Daddy sat back, displeased with her, which was very unusual to see.
“Doctors don’t have customers, Cassie. They have patients, and a good doctor is not motivated by profit the way a businessman should be.”
“Then there are no good doctors,” Cassie said.
Cassie never backed down from what she said or believed. When she was very little and she was reprimanded or forbidden to do something, she would hold her breath until her face reddened so that Mother would relent or to get Daddy to compromise. She once went two days without eating a morsel because she was in a sulk.
“I was hoping you girls would be as happy about this as we are,” Mother said, battling back the disappointment I could see she felt.
“I am,” I said, perhaps too quickly.
Cassie glared at me for a moment and then formed her smile mask. “Of course, we’re happy, but naturally, we’re worried, too, Mother.”
“Don’t be,” Mother said firmly. “I’ll be fine. It will all be fine.”
“We hope so,” Cassie said, but the way she said it made it clear that she was full of skepticism. She always managed to speak for me, saying “we” whenever she was going to offer an opinion about something that could have an effect on us both.
“In any case,” Daddy continued, “I would like both of you to take this into consideration and do whatever you can to make things easier for your mother during the next seven months. I know you both already do quite a lot, but …”
“Then you are already two months pregnant?” Cassie asked quickly.
“Yes, Cassie, I am.”
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” she followed sharply, her eyes narrowing. “There are so many ways to confirm a pregnancy earlier.”
I suddenly felt as if the table had been spun around, and Cassie was the mother and Mother was the daughter. When Mother didn’t answer, Cassie continued, “Why didn’t you let us know you were both thinking of having another child?”
Mother looked at Daddy. They both seemed flustered.
“We weren’t … it wasn’t something we were sure we … what difference does that make?” Daddy shouted. “We’re telling you how things are now.”
“Obviously,” Cassie replied. “But why didn’t you decide to do this years ago?”
“The truth is, Cassie, I’ve been trying to get pregnant for some time now. I’ve been to see fertility doctors and specialists, and finally, something has worked,” Mother told her softly. She smiled. “With the two of you young adult women now, things will actually be much easier. You can help me take good care of the new baby, be like two little nannies. When you’re able and free, of course,” she added.
“Why shouldn’t we be able and free?” Cassie retorted.
“Oh, you both will have your own busy lives, I’m sure. Actually, I’m not worried about it. It’s a good time for me. I look forward to it,” Mother added. She smiled at Daddy and took his hand again. “Of course, we’re hoping … we’ll soon know whether or not … if …”
“If it’s a boy,” Daddy said, smiling. He turned to Mother, and they looked at each other as if they were alone and both twenty years younger.
“We’ve already decided we will name him Asa. Nothing would please your father more,” she told us.
They continued to look at each other with such love and gratitude that it brought tears to my eyes. I glanced at Cassie. She looked as if she would set the house on fire. She jerked her eyes toward me and I looked down quickly. Later, she told me our parents had no idea what they were getting themselves into, what they were getting us all into.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why do you say that?”
“This world we’re in will be turned topsy-turvy,” she said, “so get ready to stand on your head.”
Then she marched off to her room and shut the door.
Which reminded me of Cassie’s Third Commandment: Don’t ever do anything to make her unhappy.
However, Cassie wasn’t wrong. No matter what I thought about her and what I think about her now, she really wasn’t wrong very often. Our house and our lives did start to change, but I didn’t think they went topsy-turvy. On the contrary, to me, it was as if a brand-new sunlight was streaming in through our windows, lighting up the dullest corners, brightening colors, and making furniture and artifacts sparkle. I think Mother thought that, too, because she went about the grand house as if she were seeing it for the first time. During the next two months, she changed the arrangement of some furniture and worked harder at polishing and vacuuming and having Cassie and me polish and vacuum. She had window cleaners and rug cleaners, painters doing touch-ups. She bought new lamps and even some new kitchen appliances, and took more interest in our landscaping.
“Why is all of this suddenly so important? She acts as if the new Messiah is coming,” Cassie muttered.
I nodded, not because I, too, saw it as being over the top but because I saw it as wonderful. Cassie looked at my face and added, “She’s being ridiculous, behaving like some newlywed. If all of these things had to be done, why weren’t they done for us as well?”
“Maybe they were,” I dared to suggest. She pursed her lips and pulled back her head. “I mean, right before you were born and then right before I was.”
“Nothing was changed then, Semantha. Daddy used to think this house was as sacred as a church. You know how he feels about our family’s history. Most of it is exactly as it has been for nearly eighty years. No new bride, no matter how she was supposedly loved, would dare interfere with that. We are the Heavenstones!” she declared, as if that explained everything.
“Oh,” I said.
Of course, I thought then, Why is Daddy permit
ting her to do all of this now? But I didn’t dare ask. I didn’t have to ask. Cassie was prepared to give me an explanation.
“Men,” she continued in one of her loud whispers, “can suddenly become boys so easily and quickly that it would make your head spin. Their wisdom evaporates,” she added with such confidence. It was as if she really was older than our parents, growing up so quickly that she had passed them by years ago. “They get so infatuated with their women that they’ll fall over themselves trying to please them. Women are stronger when it comes to that sort of thing,” she said, nodding. “You don’t see as many making fools of themselves when they’re older. There are some who do, of course, but not as often as men.”
How do you know all this? I wanted to ask her. You never go out on a date. You’ve never had a boyfriend or, as far as I know, even had a crush on a boy. Did you learn it all from books? I didn’t ask these questions, because I was sure she would see it as some disagreement, and I didn’t want to do anything that would bring unhappiness into our home right now. Even I, who didn’t know half as much as Cassie knew about the emotional and physical changes a woman goes through when she is pregnant, could see that Mother was often on the verge of tears for what looked to be no real reason whatsoever.
“We simply have to hope Daddy comes to his senses and reins in this wastefulness and unnecessary expense,” Cassie concluded, but everything went contrary to what she hoped, especially when Mother and Daddy were told there was no questions about it: she was going to have a boy.
When they came home that day, it was as if they had won the biggest lottery. Daddy was practically floating, and Mother’s face was so radiant she really did look twenty years younger. They talked about having a party to celebrate but agreed to be cautious and wait.
However, they now decided they were going to renovate one of the upstairs bedrooms to create Asa’s nursery. Not only were carpenters, electricians, and plumbers brought in, but Mother decided, with Daddy’s approval, of course, to hire an interior decorator.