Secret Whispers

  Mrs. Dobson, anticipating our arrival, was at the door even before we got out of the car. Our limousine driver grabbed my suitcases, and we started up the steps. I imagined Daddy wanted to get me settled in first and then would take Lucille home.

  “Welcome home, Miss Semantha,” Mrs. Dobson said. She reached for my carry-on bag.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Dobson,” I said, keeping it. Ever since she had come to work for us, she had pampered me. My father swore he hadn’t given her any special instructions regarding my needs. She was more like a sweet grandmother to me now.

  “Oh, but you must be tired, Miss. All that traveling and excitement were surely enough to wear you down.”

  “It’s nothing, Mrs. Dobson. Really, I’m fine.”

  “She’s still young enough to handle this short a trip,” Lucille said almost curtly. “We didn’t exactly travel in what you would call steerage.”

  Mrs. Dobson glanced at her without speaking.

  Daddy took my suitcases from the driver. “I’ll take it from here, Jeff. Thanks.”

  “Very good, Mr. Heaven-stone.”

  He turned and headed back to the limousine. I looked at Lucille. Why were they sending the limousine away?

  We entered the house.

  “Should I prepare something to eat, Mr. Heaven-stone?” Mrs. Dobson asked.

  “We ate on the plane. Thank you, Mrs. Dobson,” he said, and then turned to Lucille.

  “I’ll just get her set and come down. Pour me a scotch and soda, will you?”

  “Of course. Welcome home, Semantha,” she told me, and went into the den.

  “Oh, I can do that, Mr. Heaven-stone,” Mrs. Dobson said, reaching for the suitcase.

  “They’re not too heavy?”

  “Hardly,” she said. “I’ve carried heavier up steeper hills than this beautiful stairway.”

  It wasn’t like Daddy to let her carry suitcases, but he gave in quickly.

  “I’ll take one,” I said sharply.

  “Okay,” Daddy said. “After you settle in, come to the den. We’ll talk and catch up. Unless you are too tired.”

  “Oh, no, Daddy. I’m fine.”

  “Good. See you soon,” he said, and hurried after Lucille.

  Mrs. Dobson and I began to go up the stairway.

  “How was your graduation ceremony?” Mrs. Dobson asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Despite what you just told your father, I imagine you are tired,” she said, hearing the tenseness in my voice.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” I said. It had been so long since Daddy and I had had any sort of face-to-face conversation, I was eager to get back downstairs.

  Mrs. Dobson, however, had gotten to know me well over the years. She looked at me closely when we turned at the top and started toward my bedroom.

  “I imagine there are a few surprises for you here now,” she said.

  I paused and turned to her. “Yes, there are.”

  She nodded, and we went to my bedroom. No matter how short or long the interval between my being here and somewhere else, I always felt a little numb when I first set foot in my bedroom again. Daddy tried to make changes for me after the date rape. He had replaced the carpeting with a darker color, bought new bedding and comforters, and redone the curtains and had the walls repainted, but when I looked at my room, I always saw the old room, the room in which Cassie had arranged for my pregnancy. It made it hard to take that initial step, but of course, I did. Daddy’s words resonated: “We must face our demons here.”

  “I can unpack everything for you, Miss Semantha. Go ahead and shower and change if you want. I’m sure you want to join your father and Mrs. Bennet.”

  “Is she here often?” I asked.

  Mrs. Dobson paused. I knew it was against her nature to gossip, but my question apparently struck a deeper vein in her thinking. In fact, she looked surprised by it.

  “Maybe you should let your father tell you, Miss Semantha.”

  “Tell me what? If she’s here often? I don’t care. I just wondered why—”

  “Miss Semantha, Mrs. Bennet’s moved into the Heaven-stone house,” she blurted. She put her hand over her mouth as if the words had escaped.

  “Moved in? When?”

  “About two weeks ago. Oh, dear me, dear me. I really wish your father had been the one to tell you this. I’m not sure he’ll like it that I’m the one telling you. Maybe they’re preparing to do just that right now. Oh, dear.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Dobson,” I said, squeezing her hand gently and leaning in to whisper. “When they do, I’ll act as if it is the first time I’m hearing it.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Here we are like two conspirators in Buckingham Palace,” she quipped.

  “Do you like her moving in, Mrs. Dobson?”

  “Oh, it’s not my place to have an opinion about such a thing, Miss Semantha.”

  “Nevertheless, I’m sure you do have an opinion,” I said.

  She glanced at me, but she didn’t respond. It would be cruel to force an opinion about it out of her, I thought, and went to take a quick shower and change. When I looked at myself in the mirror just before going downstairs, I saw Cassie behind me.

  She didn’t have to say a word.

  We were sisters. From the look on her face, I knew exactly what she was thinking.

  Lucille Bennet might have moved in, but she would never take our mother’s place.

  Not if we had anything to say about it, and with Cassie always beside me, I was sure we would.

  Facing Demons

  I HEARD DADDY and Lucille’s laughter as I walked toward the den. They were standing beside each other, hovering over the bar. Then they kissed. I stepped back out, not wanting them to see I had walked in on them. I waited a moment and then walked in. They both turned as I entered.

  “Well now, officially welcome home, Semantha,” Daddy said. He stepped forward to give me a kiss. “How about a drink? You’re old enough. What do you like?”

  “Just some white wine, maybe,” I said.

  “Very wise,” Lucille said, holding up her wineglass to show me that was what she was drinking.

  Daddy poured me a glass, and I sat on the ruby leather settee. I remembered when Mother had decided to buy new furniture for the den. It was always a major decision to replace anything in the Heaven-stone mansion, no matter how worn or damaged it might be. Daddy used to say it was like burying history when we changed anything.

  Lucille sat in what had always been Daddy’s favorite heavy-cushioned leather chair, and he remained standing beside her. They both looked at me for a moment with identical silly grins on their faces.

  “I suppose,” Daddy began, “you’re wondering why Lucille is still here.”

  I shrugged. “No.”

  She looked at him and smiled, and he took her hand and held it as he turned back to me. “Lucille has moved into Heaven-stone, Semantha. It was on a trial basis, and I do believe the trial is over and the verdict is in.”

  While he spoke, Lucille continued to look up at him with admiration. I remembered how Cassie would look at him that way. It always made me feel as if I weren’t paying enough attention to him or showing him enough respect and love.

  Suddenly, he put down his glass of scotch and reached into his jacket pocket to produce what was clearly a box holding a ring. I held my breath as he opened it to show Lucille.

  “Oh, Teddy!” she cried, putting her wine down and carefully plucking the ring out of the box. Even from where I was sitting, I could see it was a very large diamond. She slipped it on her finger. “Perfect fit.”

  He knelt to kiss her. Then he turned to me. “Well, Semantha, you witnessed it, the moment Lucille and I got engaged.”

  I saw he was waiting for me to say “Congratulations,” but it was as if Cassie had her hand over my mouth. I struggled to offer a smile.

  “Semantha?”

  “It’s a bit of a shock to her, I’m sure,” Lucille said. “And it’s
been a very long day.”

  “It should be your day,” Cassie whispered. “Not her day. You graduated!”

  I nodded, still speechless. I had known this woman less than twenty-four hours, and she was soon to be my stepmother, my father’s new wife. This was unfair. Why couldn’t it have waited until I had spent some time with her? Why hadn’t Daddy thought of that?

  Daddy started to turn a shade of crimson, which was a clear indication that he was becoming angry. Cassie would have said, “Here it comes! Hold your ears.”

  “You’re a young lady now. We brought you up to know the social graces. You could have the sense to offer us your congratulations, Semantha.”

  “I’m sorry. I was just about to, Daddy. I was taken by surprise. Congratulations, Mrs. Bennet. And you, too, Daddy,” I said, forcing a wider smile, but he still didn’t look satisfied by my reaction.

  I couldn’t help that it must have looked forced. I was second in line again! I had always been jealous of the affection Daddy had for Cassie. I had always known Cassie was his favorite, the more perfect daughter. After all of his discoveries about her and her death, I thought he would really get to know me, really look at me. We would finally get to be a real father and daughter.

  Just when I thought all of that would happen now, Daddy inserted Lucille Bennet between us. I recalled when he had first told me he was going on a date with her. It didn’t seem that long ago. How could he make such an important decision as marriage so quickly? Daddy was never impulsive. Was it simply because of his loneliness?

  And why couldn’t Daddy see what bothered me and understand? Weren’t fathers supposed to be able to understand their children more easily than anyone else? What did I have to do to get him to see my pain? Burst out in tears?

  “Please, call me Lucille, Semantha. I do hope you and I will be on a legitimate first-name basis. I’d like to be more your friend than just a stepmother.”

  “And you’ll be a lucky girl to have a friend with Lucille’s wisdom and experience,” Daddy said. “I hope you have the sense to appreciate it,” he added firmly, his eyes beady with angry authority. It was the same as his saying, You had better appreciate it, or else.

  “She will, Teddy. Give the girl a chance.”

  He relaxed but still shook his head and continued to look annoyed with me. I felt my eyes tearing and looked down as I sipped my wine.

  “Why don’t I leave you two for a little while to talk?” Lucille said, rising and putting her wineglass on the bar. “I’d like to take a hot bath and relax anyway, Teddy.”

  “You don’t have to go,” he told her. “We’re not going to keep secrets from each other ever, from this day forward,” he declared. From the way he looked at me, I could see that was a comment made more for my benefit than hers. It sounded more like a threat, too.

  She smiled and looked at me as someone who had just won a serious argument might.

  “I’m sure we won’t,” she said. “See you in a while. Good night, Semantha.”

  “Good night.”

  She walked out, and for a long moment, the silence that followed echoed in my ears.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Semantha,” Daddy began. “I was hoping another year of private school would have matured you. I realize you’ve been through quite a lot, but you can’t wallow in the misery of the past forever. Heaven-stones don’t give up, don’t surrender. Every one of them up on these walls either was heroic or had the grit to make a better life for his or her children. It’s in our blood.

  “For a long time after all that happened, I was almost like you, so depressed and unhappy I could not enjoy anything or anyone. My footsteps echoed in this house and riled up the bad memories constantly. I didn’t give in, but I wasn’t making any progress, either. Oh, I don’t mean with our business. Our business is an animal in and of itself. It has its own life, and it will overcome every economic downturn and survive. If anything, we feed off it, and I don’t mean just on the income. I mean on the reputation, the history, the very essence of it. When I go to work, I’m energized, and I hope, if you don’t decide to do something in education, that you will find a comfortable place in our company. I know Perry wants you to work with him.

  “Now,” he continued, pacing a little, “although my relationship with Lucille comes as a bit of a surprise to you, I hope you will have the maturity to understand that she is responsible for something important being brought back to me. I can’t simply work, eat, and sleep, you know. I have to have a life, too. I want to travel, go to the theater, take pleasure in grand parties and dinners again. In short, I’m not ready to crawl into my grave, and Lucille, bless her soul, saw my needs and loved me for them immediately. She’s made the gray skies go away and driven the cobwebs out of my brain. I’m a happy man again, Semantha, and if I’m happy, you’ll be happier, too.

  “So, for the present, I’d like you to try to stop thinking only of yourself. Think about all of us, about our Heaven-stone heritage, and become a pillar of support. It won’t be easy for Lucille, either, you know. She has to adjust, to make sacrifices and compromises. It’s not easy for a woman to step into the shadows left by a previous wife, especially someone who was as wonderful as your mother was, but she’s more than willing to do it, and one of the priorities in her life, she has said, will be you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” Daddy said, pausing in front of me. He had his hands behind his back and was looking down at me. For a moment, he seemed even bigger and taller than he was in my eyes normally. “Lucille knows about the baby, of course, and now she knows how it came about.”

  “You told her about Cassie, what she had done?”

  “There can’t be such deep secrets between a man and a woman who are going to become one in marriage, Semantha. If and when you meet the man of your dreams, you must make sure he’s willing to open his heart and soul completely to you.” He paused again and looked at me. “Otherwise . . . otherwise, it’s not a marriage; it’s a civil union, a legal merging of two financial entities. It’s not a complete and solid thing built on a foundation of love, as I once had with your mother, God rest her soul.”

  He paused, took a deep breath, and returned to his chair. He looked at me while he finished his drink. It took a few moments for all he had said to sink in.

  “Are you saying she even knows what Cassie did to Mother, Daddy? I mean, with the sleeping pills?”

  “We were never certain she deliberately emptied all of that sleeping powder into your mother’s drink. She might have . . . prepared the powder for your mother that way because your mother wanted it that way, and then . . . then she was ashamed or feeling guilty, so she hid the bottle in the attic. She knew she would be blamed.”

  I stared at him, my mouth slightly open.

  “Don’t gape at me like that, Semantha. It’s not an attractive thing for a young woman to do.”

  “But what about what she did to me . . . the rape?”

  “That was very wrong, of course, but I understood her motives. She had a great desire to please me, greater than she should have had, but nevertheless, I don’t think she wanted to hurt either of us. She simply went overboard.”

  “No, Daddy. She threw me overboard. She didn’t go overboard.”

  “Whatever, Semantha. I don’t like us to dwell on it!” he practically shouted. He realized it and calmed. “It’s not doing either of us any good. In short, no, I did not tell Lucille about your mother and Cassie, and I insist that you never mention it to her. That’s a dark part of our past that would only depress her, and at the start of a new life for both of us, there’s no point in it. What good will it do, anyway, to bury Cassie any deeper than she already is buried?”

  I wanted to tell him that Cassie had not remained in her grave and maybe never would. In fact, she was standing right beside him now, looking at me and smiling. But I said nothing. I looked away. It was as if he had driven a nail of ice into my soft and already quite wounded heart. Denying what Cassie ha
d done, ignoring it, or searching for a new, more comforting interpretation diminished what had happened to me and to Mother. Daddy was still thinking more about Cassie than he was about us, and especially me now, even after all that had happened. But what was I to do about it? It made me sick even to talk about it, and I didn’t want to get him any angrier at me than he was already. I turned back to him.

  “When are you and Lucille getting married? Next week?” To me, it wasn’t a foolish question. Look at how quickly he had gotten engaged to her.

  His grouchy, old-crumpled-sock face softened into a new smile. “Oh, no, not next week. It’s not going to be something simple and quick. We’re planning a grand wedding that we will hold here on our grounds. She’s already begun a good deal of the work. She won’t do anything shoddy, that’s for sure. She says protocol requires eight weeks normally for the invitations, but we’re planning on taking the honeymoon suite on the Ecstasy Cruise the last week of August, so she’s agreed to what she says is the absolute minimum of six weeks. The invitations will go out in two days.”

  “Two days? So, you already have the invitations and the wedding list made up?”

  He smiled. “You’ll find that Lucille is like me in that regard. When there’s something to do, she goes at it body and soul until it is done and done well. She’s a woman of action and will be quite an asset to the Heaven-stone management. She basically ran her husband’s four car dealerships and after he died worked a very lucrative deal for herself in their sale. She’s not just the daughter of a bank president; she is as capable as a bank president. You’ll learn a great deal from her. And I mean about everything in life.”