“Her name is Mrs. Chapman, and she’ll be here to see you soon. Don’t worry about eating too much anymore,” she added, nodding at the big piece of chocolate fudge cake. “We’re not hiding anything from Daddy any longer.
“I want you to be happy,” she added, “as happy as I am.”
She spent the rest of the night working on the baby clothes Daddy and Mother had bought for the Asa they had thought was coming. In the morning, she wanted to bring my breakfast up to me as well, but I insisted on going downstairs.
“Well, you do need to exercise,” she said. “But I want you to be extra careful on the stairway. In fact, always call me before you go up or down, okay?”
Suddenly, now that my pregnancy was out in the open, she was going to be a real mother hen. It should have made me feel better to know she cared so much, but I knew what she was really worrying about was the baby, not me.
“Look, Semantha, I’m not going to be looking over your shoulder every minute of the day, but there are many things you should avoid and should not do. Don’t dare sneak any of Daddy’s alcohol or drink any wine with dinner anymore.”
“I wish I never had,” I said.
“Before you take anything for anything, check with me. No aspirin. Aspirin can cause bleeding and you remember how Mother hemorrhaged. I don’t want you drinking coffee until after Asa’s born. Caffeine might cause a child to contract diabetes. Be careful when and if you go outside. Avoid insect bites.”
“I would even if I weren’t pregnant, Cassie.”
“More so now,” she emphasized. “Don’t go scavenging for food. You’ll eat the wrong things. Just eat what I give you. If you’re still hungry, tell me. Stay away from the microwave. You probably didn’t notice, but I took away your electric blanket. You wouldn’t use it now, anyway, but you have on cold, rainy days. I don’t want you near the cleaning products anymore, and no more long, hot baths.”
“All this came out of the books you read?”
“Yes, and they’re all written by experts.”
“It only makes me feel like more of a prisoner, thank you.”
“It’s for Asa’s sake. Think only of him now,” she said.
“I thought you were thinking of me, too.”
“Of course, I am. If you’re unhealthy, he’s going to be.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Forget about it, Cassie. I’m tired.”
“Then go to bed. Always lie down when you’re tired.”
“How often should I breathe?” I asked under my breath. If she heard me, she ignored it.
My rage at Cassie didn’t subside over the next few weeks, no matter how much she pampered me. At times, just to see her work harder, I pretended to be in some sort of pain or greater fatigue. I flew into my own little tantrums, rejecting the food she made, complaining about the taste, and forcing her to make me something different. She blamed it on my pregnancy, claiming my emotional ups and downs were typical of a pregnant woman.
Nevertheless, it did my heart good to hear her running up and down the stairs. I could see that the effort to please me, to make sure I was comfortable and well, was taking a toll on her. She looked more tired at times than I was, and if she hadn’t cared about her appearance before, she looked as if she wanted to destroy it deliberately now. Her hair was straggly. She didn’t change clothes for days. I thought she neglected bathing as well and told her she smelled and it was nauseating.
Almost daily now, I said and did everything I could to upset her, but nothing stopped her, and she rarely permitted herself to lose her temper or even show any anger for fear it would upset me. After all, as she told me often during the past days, stress was unhealthy for a pregnant woman.
What did upset me and give me great stress was to see that Daddy wasn’t in any way forgiving me. He rarely smiled at me, and if I did catch him looking at me, it was always with a face full of disappointment and sadness. It made my heart ache. Where was the miracle Cassie had sworn she would create when it came to him? Not only did that never happen, but one night, I overheard her talking to him in the living room when they both thought I was sleeping upstairs. I was about to join them when I heard Cassie apologizing for not telling him about me sooner.
“Please don’t be angry at me,” she pleaded. “I didn’t keep her secret to protect her, Daddy. I did it to protect you, to protect our family.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s just that I’m so deeply disappointed in her.”
“Don’t you think I am, too? All these years, I tried to be a big sister to her, tried to educate her about boys and sex, tried to guide and protect her. I feel just as betrayed as you do. Thank God Mother’s not here to see this.”
The hot tears were streaming down my cheeks.
And when Daddy said, “Yes, thank God. She would have killed herself over what Semantha has done for sure,” I turned and ran up the stairs. I threw myself onto my bed and started to cry, and then I stopped.
A strange new feeling came over me. It was as if all the sadness turned hard and filled me with a new and more satisfying emotion.
I was filled with hate, hate for my sister. All I could dream of that night was getting my revenge and getting Daddy to see the truth and love me again.
Little did I know that the way to get all that accomplished lay waiting for me where it had been ever since Mother’s death.
And in a real sense, it was as if Mother herself brought me to it.
Downfall
WHEN I SAW Cassie’s Mrs. Chapman, my supposed midwife, I thought for sure that she was another phony like Dr. Samuels. First, she looked about as old as Grandmother Heavenstone had on the day she died, and second, she was more interested in seeing the house than she was in seeing me. Instead of asking questions about my pregnancy, she asked one question after another about paintings, vases, furniture and appliances. It was as if she was really a real-estate agent and not a midwife. If Cassie saw my skepticism, she ignored it.
We didn’t go up to my bedroom for any examination. She felt my stomach and pulled a pressure cuff out of her satchel to take my blood pressure. Then she finally asked me questions about my pregnancy. When she started to recite what I should expect during the last weeks, I stopped her.
“Cassie has given me things to read about that. I know all that,” I said petulantly. I was still suspicious of her. In the back of my mind, I harbored the thought that Cassie probably believed she could deliver the baby herself, anyway. That damn self-confidence Mother had so admired in her was showing its face constantly these days. Often, I found her reading her books on birthing. She told me she just wanted to be sure everything went all right. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was trying to experience what I was experiencing, imagining it so hard and so well that she would have labor pains when I did.
For my part, I hoped she would. To my way of thinking, she deserved the pain more than I did, anyway. She should have been the one to throw up, not me. She should be the one waddling like some duck around the house, not me. And she should be the one gaining all this weight and looking like a stuffed hog, which was how I felt now. I hung a dress over my full-length mirror so I wouldn’t have to see myself every morning.
“We’ll deliver the baby in my bedroom,” Cassie told Mrs. Chapman, and then she brought her upstairs to see the room, as if that mattered. “I want the baby born in my bed,” she whispered.
Mrs. Chapman looked at her and shrugged at me.
“A bed’s a bed,” she said.
“Hardly,” Cassie told her. “Let’s go to my office now and discuss the finances.”
I didn’t follow them. I returned to the living room to wait. Nearly twenty minutes later, Mrs. Chapman emerged and stopped by the door of the living room.
“You’re getting close,” she said. “I’ll be by every other day about the same time. Your sister has my phone number. Do you have any questions?”
“How many babies
have you delivered?”
“Oh, too many to count,” she said. “Now, mind your sister,” she added, and left.
When Cassie returned to the living room, I told her I thought Mrs. Chapman was a phony.
“Why do you say that?”
“You call what she did an exam? I asked her how many babies she has delivered, and she gave me the dumb answer, too many to count.”
“It’s probably true.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Do you think I would risk Asa’s birth by bringing in a charlatan?”
I looked away. I didn’t want to tell her what I really thought, but I was very close to doing it.
“I don’t want to lose my baby,” she added.
“Your baby? I’m the one having the baby.”
“He will be my baby, Semantha. We’ve established that. I’m going to be a mother afterward, not you. You’ll be off being a teenager again, going to parties and dances, dating. I’ll be the one stuck in this house raising an infant.”
“You want that. You made this happen because you want that.”
She simply stared. She was wearing another one of Mother’s dresses and had once again brushed and kept her hair just like Mother had kept hers. I noticed she was wearing Mother’s jewelry, too.
“Why do you keep wearing her things? Why don’t you wear your own things?”
“You’re getting yourself upset,” she said. “What did I tell you about stress and pregnancy?”
“Well, why do you do it? And don’t tell me you don’t want to see it all go to waste or be given away. You have nice things to wear.”
“I’m not going to stand here and talk about such nonsense.” She turned to leave.
“It’s not nonsense!” I screamed. “I don’t want you wearing Mother’s things.”
There, I thought, I said it.
She turned very slowly and glared at me.“That’s a very unkind thing to say to me, Semantha. I’m doing everything to restore you in Daddy’s eyes.”
“No, you’re not. You’re making yourself look good and me look bad. I hear things.”
“I do what I have to do to get us through this.”
“Through this? You caused it. I think you’ve convinced yourself that it’s all my fault.”
“This discussion is over,” she said, and this time, she marched out. I heard her go up the stairs, and followed.
“I won’t stay in this house another minute if you don’t take off Mother’s clothes!” I screamed.
She paused on the stairway and looked down at me. Then she smiled.
“Okay, Semantha. We’ll cater to your tantrums. I’ll go and change into something of my own. Satisfied?”
“And take off her jewelry.”
“Fine,” she said, and continued up.
My heart was beating so hard I had to take hold of the banister to steady myself. The baby kicked and kicked. He hates when I’m upset, I thought. He can hear the shouting. I went to get myself a glass of cold water. As I stood in the kitchen drinking, I realized just how much I relished bossing Cassie. As long as I was pregnant and she had to be very careful with me, I could face her down. When I saw her come downstairs again in one of her own dresses and without Mother’s jewelry on, I enjoyed the sense of power, a sense I had never felt.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“No. I never thought it was right that you took Mother’s locket. I should have been given a chance to wear it sometimes, too.”
“You want it with my picture in it now?” she asked, smiling slyly.
“Yes. I’ll put my picture in it.”
“Fine,” she said, taking it off and handing it to me. “Here. Put your picture in it, but don’t lose my picture. It goes back in after … after you’ve had your turn. Now, are you satisfied?”
“Yes. Don’t put any of her things on again,” I added.
I could see the battle with herself in her face, the struggle to restrain herself and the urge to come at me as she usually would.
“I have some paperwork to do. Go upstairs and take a nap. Calm yourself down,” she ordered, and walked off to Daddy’s office.
I smiled and congratulated myself. My success gave me more courage and a burst of energy I had not felt for months. Drunk with my newfound power and filled with determination, I went upstairs and into Cassie’s room. I threw open her closet and began to take out each and every one of Mother’s dresses, skirts, and blouses. It was easy to tell which had been hers.
I’ll make sure she doesn’t wear Mother’s things again, I vowed. I formed small bundles with the garments and carried them one at a time to the stairway at the end of the corridor that led up to our attic. The light switch was on the right just inside the door. There were only naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling, but they illuminated the space well enough. I would put Mother’s things in an old armoire at the far right corner. The door had a key in the lock. I remembered the piece well, because I had been up there often when I was younger, pretending it was my own little house. In fact, some of my dolls were still set where I had placed them years ago. They were the witnesses today, watching my every move. I even spoke to them, the way I used to when I was a child.
“I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to stop it. Cassie is not our mother and never will be. It’s too painful for me to see her wearing Mother’s things.”
It took me three trips to get all of the clothes up and into the armoire. I was tired but still quite energized, so I returned to Cassie’s room and began gathering what I knew to be Mother’s jewelry as well. I could take it all up in one more trip. The armoire had some drawers in it. I pulled open the top drawer and paused. There was a pill bottle in it. How odd, I thought. All these years, there was a pill bottle in it. I didn’t remember it. How could I have missed it?
Slowly, I put the jewelry down on the floor and then took out the pill bottle and turned it in my hand to read the label. It was a prescription for sleeping pills Dr. Moffet had written for Mother.
Why was the pill bottle up there? It felt empty. Why keep it?
I opened it and looked inside. There were capsules. How strange, I thought. I emptied some into my palm and stared at what was there. They were all empty capsules. There was something familiar about them. I plucked one between my fingers and studied it a moment. The realization of what it was, what they all were, brought so much heat into my face I thought I might go up in flames.
They were Mother’s sleeping pills, emptied.
How … why empty them? Like another clap of thunder, the possibility ripped through my brain, and then, suddenly, it was as if a cold breeze caressed the back of my neck. Slowly, I turned and saw Cassie in the attic doorway. With the light behind her and the illumination weaker in the attic, she was in shadows. She didn’t move. She looked more like a ghost. I blinked to see if she would disappear, but she didn’t.
“What are you doing up here, Semantha?” she asked, still not moving in.
I started toward her slowly. “I was bringing up Mother’s clothing for storage,” I began, “and her jewelry, when I opened the top drawer in the armoire and found this.”
I held out the palm of my hand.
“So?”
“These are Mother’s sleeping pills, aren’t they?”
She didn’t answer.
“They’ve been emptied. Mother wouldn’t have emptied them to take them. She would have just taken them. Why are they hidden up here?”
She was still silent, but now I clearly envisioned the horrendous scene that was emerging in my mind.
“You emptied them into her drink.”
I could see her face clearly now. She looked different, not angry, not sad. She looked like someone who was hearing voices and not hearing me.
“Cassie!” I cried.
She lowered her head a little and looked at me. “Mother was in terrible pain,” she said. “She had failed Daddy, failed the Heavenstones. She wasn’t getting any better, and she would never get any better, a
nd she would never bring Asa into the world. She wanted to sleep, to sleep forever and ever.”
“No!” I screamed, cringing. Tears were streaming down my face, tears for my mother, for my father, and for me. “You did a terrible, terrible thing!”
She shook her head and smiled that smile of damn Cassie self-confidence again. “No, I didn’t.”
“You know you did. Deep inside you, you know you did, otherwise you would have buried these, buried the evidence. Maybe you hoped they would be found. You hate yourself, Cassie Heavenstone. You’ll always hate yourself. Daddy will hate you forever!” I added, much louder.
That wiped the smile off her face. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He can’t. I love him too much, and everything I do is all for him. He can’t ever hate me. He loves me.”
“Not anymore,” I said. “Not after he sees this.”
Now anger rose to the surface of her face.“Give me those pills and that pill bottle. Do it now, Semantha,” she ordered holding out her hand.
I shook my head.“He’s got to know everything, Cassie. You’ve got to tell him everything, even how I got pregnant. Everything. I’m going to call him,” I said, and started to the left of her.
She blocked me and seized my arm. I formed a fist around the pills and the bottle.
“Give it to me!” she demanded, and started to pry my fingers open, digging her nails into my palms. We struggled, but she was stronger than I was. She managed to get my fingers up. I pulled back as hard as I could, and she grasped the pill bottle, but she was pulling hard in the opposite direction, and when I let go, she went backward and flew off the top step. I saw her hit the edge of a step with the back of her neck and then flip over twice before slamming onto the floor below.
I froze in disbelief. It had all happened so quickly that there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Blood trickled out of the corners of her mouth and began to zigzag down her chin.
“Cassie!” I screamed, and hurried down to her.