Heaven

All the little evening sounds bounced back and forth, echoing across the valleys, singing with the wind through the canyons, through the summer leaves, whispering the tall grass that hadn't been cut in years.

  "It looks like rain . . ."

  Still I couldn't tell him.

  "Heaven, what are we doing here? Did we come just so you could kneel and cry, and forget the pleasures of being alive and in love?"

  "You're not listening, Logan. Or looking, or understanding. This is the grave of my real mother who died when I was born, died at the tender age of fourteen."

  "You've told me about that before," he said softly, kneeling beside me and placing his arm over my shoulder. "Does it still hurt so much? You didn't know her."

  "Yes, I do know her. There are times when I wake up and I feel as she must have felt. She's me, and I'm her. I love the hills, and I hate them. They give so much, and they rob you of so much. It's lonely here, and beautiful here. God blessed the land and cursed the people, so you end up feeling small and insignificant. I want to go, and I want to stay."

  "Then I'll make up your mind for you. We're going back to the valley, and in two years we'll be married."

  "You don't have to marry me, you know that."

  "I love you. I've always loved you. There's never been anyone but you. Isn't that reason enough?"

  Tears were streaking my face now, falling to make raindrops on the red rose. I glanced up at the storm clouds swiftly drawing closer, shuddered, and started to speak. He drew me against him. "Heaven, please don't say anything that will spoil what I feel for you. If what you're planning to say is going to hurt, don't say it, please don't say it!"

  And I went and said it, as I'd planned all along, to say it here, where she could hear.

  "I'm not what you think I am--"

  "You're all I want you to be," he said quickly.

  "I love you, Logan," I whispered with my head bowed low. "I guess ever since the day we met I've loved you, and yet I let another--"

  "I don't want to hear about it!" he flared hotly.

  Because he jumped to his feet, I jumped to mine, and then we faced each other. The wind snapped my long hair so it brushed his lips. "You know, don't you?"

  "What Maisie's been spreading around? No, I don't believe anything so ugly! I can't believe gossip! You're mine, and I love you . . . don't you try to convince me there's a reason I can't love you!"

  "But there is!" I cried desperately. "Candlewick wasn't the happy place I wanted you to believe when I wrote those letters. I lied about so much . . . and Cal was--"

  He wheeled about and ran!

  Ran for the path to take him back to

  Winnerrow, calling back, "No! No! I don't want to hear more! I don't want to hear--so don't tell me! Never tell me!"

  I tried to catch up, but he had much longer legs, and my little heels dug into the mushy earth and slowed me. I headed back up the trail, to visit again the cabin that stunned me with its bleakness. There on the wall was the pale place where Pa's tiger poster used to hang, and underneath, when Tom and I were babies, our cradle had sat. I stared at the cast-iron stove covered with rust where it wasn't green with fungus, and gazed with tears in my eyes at the primitive wooden chairs fashioned long ago by some dead Casteel. The rungs were loose, some were missing, and all the little things we'd done to pretty this place were gone. Logan had seen all of this! I cried then, long and bitterly, for all I'd never had, and all I might still lose. In the silence of the cabin the wind began to howl and shriek, and the rain came down. Only then did I get up from the floor to make my wet way back to Winnerrow, which was no home at all.

  Cal was on the porch of the Setterton home, pacing back and forth. "Where have you been that you come back wet, torn, and so dirty?"

  "Logan and I visited my mother's grave . ." I whispered hoarsely as I sat wearily on the top step, not caring that it was still raining.

  "I thought you were with him." He sat beside me, as heedless of the rain as I; he bowed his head into his hands. "I've been with Kitty all day, and I'm beat. She won't eat. They're putting intravenous tubes in her arm, and beginning the radiation treatments tomorrow. She didn't go to a doctor as she told you she had. That lump has been growing steadily for two or three years. Heaven, Kitty would rather die than lose what represents her femininity to her."

  "What can I do to help?" I whispered.

  "Stay with me. Don't leave me. I'm a weak man, Heaven, I've told you that before. When I saw you walking with Logan Stonewall, it made me feel old. I should have known that youth would call to its own, and I'm the old fool caught in my own trap."

  He tried to sit beside me. I jumped up, a wild panic in my heart. He didn't love me, not as Logan did. He only needed me to replace Kitty.

  "Heaven!" he cried. "Are you turning away from me too? Please, I need you now!"

  "You don't love me!" I cried. "You love her! You always have! Even when she was cruel to me, you made excuses for her!"

  Wearily he turned, his shoulders sagging as he headed for the front door of the Setterton home. "You're right about some things, Heaven. I don't know what I want. I want Kitty to live, and I want her to die and get off my back. I want you, and I know it's wrong. I should never, never have let her talk me into taking you into our home!"

  Bang!

  Always doors were being slammed in my face.

  Twenty-one Without A Miracle

  . A WEEK PASSED. EVERY DAY I TENDED TO KITTY IN THE hospital. I hadn't seen Logan since the day he ran from me and left me in the rain, and I knew that in just one more week he'd be returning to college. Many a time I strolled by Stonewall Pharmacy, hoping to catch a glimpse of hini;'even as I tried to convince myself he'd be better off without someone like me. And I'd be better off without someone who'd never forgive me for not being perfect. Too flawed, Logan must have been thinking--too much like Fanny. If Cal noticed I was miserable from not seeing Logan anymore, he didn't say anything.

  Hours spent in the hospital at Kitty's bedside made all the days seem exceptionally long. Cal sat on one side, I on the other. He held her hand most of the time, while I kept my hands folded on my lap. As I sat there, almost feeling her suffering as my own, I pondered the complexities of life. At one time I would have rejoiced to see Kitty helpless and unable to deliver slaps and insulting words to take away my self-esteem. Now I was full of compassion, willing to do almost anything to ease her pain, when there was little enough I could do to make her comfortable. Still, I tried, thinking I was redeeming myself, forgetting, as I struggled to find myself worthy and clean again, just what Kitty had done to make me hate her.

  There were nurses to give her medications, but I was the one who gave her baths. She gave me signs to hint she'd rather have me do for her all the pampering things the nurses didn't have time for, such as smoothing lotion all over her body, or brushing and styling her hair as she wanted. Often as I teased, then smoothed with a pick, I thought I could have truly loved her if she'd given me half a chance. I made up her face twice a day, dabbed on her favorite perfume, painted her nails, and all the time she watched me with those strange pale eyes. "When I die ya gotta marry Cal," she whispered once.

  I looked up, startled, and started to question, but she closed her eyes again, and when she did that, she wouldn't speak even if she were still awake. Oh, God, please let her get well, please! I prayed over and over. I loved Cal and needed him as a father. I couldn't love him in the way he wanted me to.

  Other times, as I tended to her needs, I rambled on and on, talking as much to myself as to her; talking about her family and their great concern for her welfare (even though they didn't have any), trying to lift her spirits and give her hope as well as courage to fight the thing that was controlling her life now. Often her eyes were shiny with tears. Other times those dull seawater eyes riveted on me without expression. I sensed something in Kitty was changing, for better or for worse, I couldn't tell.

  "Don't look at me like that, Mother," I said with a kind of nerv
ous resentment. I was afraid Maisie might have visited and told her tales of seeing some touch or small bit of affection between Cal and me. But it wasn't my fault, Kitty, not really, I wanted to say as I pulled on her pretty new gown and arranged her arms so she didn't appear so lifeless.

  No sooner had I finished with Kitty than her mother came in, scowling disapprovingly, her large, strong arms folded as shields across her fake swelling bosom, her scowl deep and menacing. "She'd look betta widout all that paint on," she grumbled, giving me another sour look. "She's done taught ya rotten ways, ain't she? Done made ya inta what she is. Gave ya all her own faults, ain't she? An I licked her many a time t'take t'evil out of her. Neva did. Neva could. She's got it in her yet, festerin, killin her . . . an t'Lord in t'end always wins, don't he?"

  "If you mean we all have to die, yes, Mrs. Setterton, that's true. But a good Christian like you should believe in life after death--"

  "Are ya mockin me, girl? Are ya?" In her eyes I saw some of Kitty's meanness shining forth. My indignation rose. "Kitty likes to look pretty, Mrs. Setterton."

  "Pretty?" she queried, staring down at Kitty as if seeing an abomination. "Don't she have no color gowns but pink?"

  "She likes pink."

  "Jus goes t'show she's got no taste. Redheads like her don't wear pink. Done tole her that all her life, an still she wears it."

  "Everyone should wear whatever color they like. It's her choice," I insisted.

  "Ya don't have t'make her look like a clown, do ya?"

  "No, I paint her face so she looks like a movie star."

  "A whore is more like it!" Reva Setterton stated flatly before she turned her stony eyes on me. "Know what ya are now. Maisie done tole me. That man of hers, knew he couldn't have been no good or he wouldn't have wanted her. She's no good, neva was even when she were a baby--an neitha are ya! I don't want ya in my house! Don't ya show up there agin, hill-scum filth! Take yerself ta t'motel on Brown Street, where all yer kind of trash hangs out. I've made her man move all yer stuff out along with his."

  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 eva--ya 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 peace--an 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 Luke--like 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 marriedt'him, I could only let him take me when I played my pretend game--an 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 events--and 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.. .