Heaven (Casteel Series #1) Read online

  Sliding to the floor, I waited for him to come out. The minute he turned off the water I was up and calling again. Tentatively he cracked open the door, still dripping water from his hair, with a towel swathed about his hips. "What's wrong?" he asked with great concern, drawing me into his arms and bowing his damp face into my hair as I clung to him for dear life. "Why are you acting so frightened?"

  I gushed it all out, Chuckles in the basement, how Kitty had used something to wrap about her middle and squeeze the life out of a harmless, helpless little creature.

  His face turned grim as he released me and reached for his robe, and, with me in tow, headed for the downstairs bathroom. In the doorway I waited, unable to look at poor Chuckles again. Kitty had disappeared. "There's nothing in the tub, Heaven," he said, coming back to me. "Clean as a whistle . . ."

  I looked myself. It was true. The dead hamster and her young were gone. Sparkling-clean tub. Still wearing nothing but a towel, I tagged behind Cal to visit the basement. Empty cage with a wide-open door.

  "What ya two doin down there?" called Kitty from above. "Heaven, now ya take yer shower, an hurry up. Don't wanna be late fer church."

  "What did you do with Chuckles?" I shrieked when I was in the back hall.

  "Ya mean that rat I killed? I threw it away. Did ya want t'save it? Cal," she said, turning to him and looking sweeter than sugar, "she's mad cause I killed a nasty ole rat in t'tub. An ya know I kin't put up with filth like rats in my house." Her deadly cold eyes riveted on me with warning.

  "Go on, Heaven," urged Cal. "I'll talk to Kitty."

  I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay and fight it out, make Cal see Kitty for what she was, a psycho who should be locked up. Yet I felt too weak and sick to do more than obey. I showered, shampooed, even fixed breakfast, as Kitty protested over and over again, growing more and more vehement, that she'd never seen a hamster, didn't even know what one looked like, would never go alone into the basement no time, no how.

  Her pale eyes swung to me. "Hate ya fer tryin t'turn my man against me! I'll go ta t'school authorities an tell em what ya did ta that poor lil critter—an tryin t'put t'blame on me. It were yers, weren't it? I'd neva do nothin so mean . . . ya did it jus t'blame me! Ya kin stay here until ya finish school—then get out! Ya kin go t'hell fer all I kerr."

  "Chuckles was pregnant, Kitty! Maybe that made her more than you could stand!"

  "Cal, would ya hear this girl lie? I neva saw no hamster—did ya?"

  Could Cal believe I could do anything so

  horrible? No, no, his eyes kept saying. Let it pass this time, please, please.

  Why didn't he look for evidence in the garbage can? Why didn't he come right out and accuse Kitty?

  Why, Cal, why?

  The nightmare continued in the church.

  "Amazing grace . . .

  How sweet the sound . . ."

  Everybody was singing reverently. How spaced out I felt standing beside Kitty, dressed in my best new clothes. We looked so fine, so respectably Christian and God-fearing, and all the time the memory of a dear little dead hamster was in my head.

  Who would believe me if I told?

  Kitty dropped her tithe in the passed plate; so did Cal. I stared at the plate, then at the bland face of the deacon who passed it. I refused to put in one penny. "Ya do it," whispered Kitty, giving me a sharp elbow nudge. "Ain't gonna have no friends of mine thinkin yer a heathen, an ungrateful fer all yer blessins."

  I stood up and walked out of the church,

  hearing behind me all sorts of murmurs. Kitty's insanity was coloring everything, making me stare at people and wonder what they were really like inside.

  Down the street I started walking fast, leaving Kitty and Cal still in the church. I hadn't gone two blocks before Cal's car was pulling up behind me, with Kitty leaning out to call, "C'mon, kid, don't be silly. Ya kin't go nowhere when ya ain't got more than two bucks—an that belongs ta t'Lord. Get in. Feelin betta, I am. Mind's clear as a bell, though all night an all mornin early it near gave me a fit."

  Was she trying to tell me she hadn't known what she was doing when she murdered Chuckles?

  Reluctantly I got into the car. Where could I go with only two dollars in my purse?

  All the way home from church I thought about what to do. She had felt she had to kill Chuckles.

  Only crazy people did sadistic things like that. And how was I ever going to find a reasonable excuse for Chuckles' death when next I saw Mr. Taylor?

  "You can't tell him," said Cal when we had the chance to be alone, while Kitty was again sleeping to rid herself of a fresh assault of "cluster headaches."

  "You've got to make it seem that Chuckles died in childbirth . . ."

  "You're protecting her!" I cried angrily.

  "I believe you, but I also want you to finish high school. Can you do that if we go now to the authorities and try to have her committed? She'll fight us. We'll have to prove her insane, and you know as well as I do that Kitty shows her worst self only to you and me. Her `girls' think she's wonderful, generous, and self-sacrificing. Her minister adores her. We have to convince her to see a psychiatrist, for her own good. And, Heaven, we can play our own game until then, and in the meanwhile I'm putting away extra dollars so you'll have enough money to escape this hellhole."

  I stepped to the door, then said in a calm voice,

  "I'll help myself, in my own way, in my own time."

  He stood for a moment looking back, like a small boy who'd lost his way, before he closed another door, softly.

  seventeen

  SAVING GRACE

  .

  OUR LIVES IN CANDLEWICK TOOK AN

  UNEXPECTED TURN after Chuckles died. Mr.

  Taylor naively accepted my excuse about Chuckles dying in childbirth. One day passed, and in the cage I'd brought back there was another hamster, also pregnant (and little different from the one Kitty had killed), again named Chuckles. It hurt, really hurt, to see that one life more or less really didn't make any difference.

  I'm not going to love this one, I told myself. I'm going to be careful not to love anything while Kitty is still in my life.

  After this incident, as if the murder had done something to shame her spirit, Kitty slipped into a deep, prolonged silence, sitting for hours in her bedroom just staring into space and combing and brushing her hair, teasing it until she had it standing straight out like a wire brush; then she'd smooth it down again, and repeat and repeat the entire process until it was a wonder she had any hair left.

  She seemed to have undergone a drastic

  personality change. From loud and abrasive she became brooding and too quiet, reminding me somewhat of Sarah. Soon she stopped brushing her hair and doing her nails and face. She no longer cared how she looked. I watched her throw out the best of her lingerie, including dozens of expensive bras. She cried, then fell into a dark pit of reflection. I told myself she deserved whatever she was going through.

  For a week Kitty made excuses for not going to work, for staying in bed, staring at nothing. The more Kitty withdrew, the more Cal lost his abstract quality, forgot his moodiness, and took on a new, confident air. For the first time, he seemed in control of his life as Kitty gave up control in hers.

  Strange, so strange, I couldn't stop wondering about what was going on. Could it be guilt, shame, and humiliation, so Kitty didn't have the nerve to face another day? Oh, God, let her change- for the better—for the better, Lord, for the better.

  School ended, hot summer began.

  Temperatures soared over ninety, and still Kitty was like a walking zombie. On the last Monday in June, I went to find out why Kitty wasn't up and ready to rule over her beauty-salon domain. I stared at Kitty lying on the bed, refusing to look my way or respond to her name. She lay there as if paralyzed. Cal must have thought she was still sleeping when he got up.

  He came from the kitchen when I called to tell him Kitty was desperately ill. He called an ambulance and had her rushed
to the hospital.

  At the hospital she was given every test known to medical science. That first night at home, alone with Cal, was very uncomfortable. I more than suspected Cal desired me, and wanted to be my lover.

  I could see it in the way he looked at me, feel it in the long, uncomfortable silences that came suddenly between us. Our easy relationship had flown, leaving me feeling empty, lost. I held him off by setting a daily routine that wore both of us out, insisting we spend every second we could with Kitty in her private room in the hospital. Every day I was there doing what I could, but Kitty didn't improve, except that she did begin to say a few words. "Home," she kept whispering, "wanna go home."

  Not yet, said her doctors.

  Now the house was mine to do with as I

  pleased. I could throw out the hundreds of troublesome houseplants that were so much work, could put some of those gaudy ceramic pieces in the attic, but I did none of this. I carried on exactly as I'd been taught by Kitty, to cook, to clean, dust, and vacuum, even if it did wear me out. I knew I was redeeming my sinful acts with Cal by working slavishly. I blamed myself for making him desire me in a way that wasn't right. I was dirty, as Kitty had always said I was. The Casteel hill-scum filth coming out. And then, contrarily, I'd think, NO! I was my mother's child, half Bostonian—but—but—and then I'd lose the battle.

  I was the guilty one.

  I was bringing this on myself. Just as Fanny couldn't help being what she was, I couldn't either.

  Of course I'd known for a long time about Cal's smoldering passion for me, a girl ten years younger than he, thrust at him in a thousand ways by Kitty herself. I didn't understand Kitty, probably never would, but since that horrible day when she burned my doll his need and desire had become ten times more intense. He didn't see other women, he didn't really have a wife, and certainly he was a normal man, needing release of some kind. If I kept rejecting him, would he turn from me and leave me totally alone? I both loved and feared him, wanted to please him and wanted to reject him.

  Now he could take me out more often in the evenings, with Kitty in the hospital, the object of every medical test an army of doctors could dream up, and still they could find nothing wrong with her. And she'd say nothing to give them any clue to her mysterious ailment.

  In a small hospital office, Kitty's team of doctors talked to Cal and me, seeking clues, and neither of us knew what to say.

  All the way home from the hospital Cal didn't say a word. Nor did I. I felt his pain and his frustration, his loneliness—but for me. Both of us from different backgrounds, struggling to live with our battle scars delivered by Kitty. In the garage he let me out, and I ran for the stairs, for the safety of my room, where I undressed, put on a pretty nightie, and wished I could lock the door. No locks in Kitty's house, except in the bathrooms. Uneasily I lay on my bed, frightened that he'd come up, talk to me, force me . . . and I'd hate him then! Hate him as much as I hated Pa!

  He did none of that.

  I heard his stereo downstairs playing his kind of music, not Kitty's. Spanish music . . . was he dancing by himself? Pity overwhelmed me, a sense of guilt, too. I got up, pulled on a robe, and tentatively headed for the stairs, leaving an unfinished novel on my night-stand. It was the music that drew me irresistibly down the stairs, I kept telling myself.

  Going nowhere in reality, poor Cal, marrying the first woman who appealed to him. Loving me was another mistake, I knew that. I pitied him, loved him, distrusted him. I felt choked with my own needs, my own guilts and fears.

  He wasn't dancing alone, though the music

  played on and on. He was just standing and staring down at the Oriental rug, not seeing it, either, I could tell by the glaze in his eyes. I drifted through the door and stood beside him. He didn't turn to speak, to give any kind of sign that he knew I was there; he just continued to stare as if he were looking into all the tomorrows with Kitty as his wife, useless to him, except as a burden to care for. And he was only twenty-seven.

  "What's that song you're playing?" I asked in a low, scared voice, forcing myself to touch his arm and give him comfort. He did better than just tell me, he sang the lyrics softly; and if I live to be two hundred and ten, I'll never forget the sweetness of that song and the way he looked at me when he sang the words about a stranger in paradise.

  He took my hand in his, staring down into my eyes, his luminous and deep in a way I hadn't seen them before, appearing lit by the moon and stars, and something else, and in my mind I saw him as Logan, the perfect soul mate who would love me all the days of my life, as I wanted and needed to be loved.

  I think the music got to me as much as his voice and his soft eyes, for somehow my arms stole up around his neck when I didn't send them there. I didn't willfully place one hand' on the back of his neck, my fingers curling into his hair, the other cupping his head to gently pull it down to where he could find my lips eagerly waiting for his kiss. No, it just happened.

  Not my fault, not his, either. Fault of the moonlight snared in his eyes, the music in the air, the sweetness of our lips meeting, all that made it happen.

  His hand cupped my head, treasured it, slid down my back, shaping it to fit his need, and then it was on my hip, hesitating there before he moved it to caress my buttocks, fleetingly, lightly, his hand darting to briefly touch my breasts, discovering me again, trying to wake me up as his lips found mine.

  I shoved him away.

  "Stop!" I slapped his face. Cried out "NO, NO!"

  and ran up the stairs, slamming my door behind me, wishing again it had a lock, wishing I had more of what came naturally to Fanny, and despising myself for even thinking that. For I loved him now.

  Loved him so deeply, so much, it hurt to think of my hand striking his beloved face. A tease, the boys in Winnerrow would call me, or much worse.

  Cal, I'm sorry, I wanted to scream out. I wanted to go to him in his room, but I was held back by all the words Kitty had said to make me feel foul, unclean, unwholesome.

  Again, some powerful force pulled me to the top of the stairs. I looked down. He was still there, glued like a statue to the floor in the living room, the same music still playing. I drifted down the stairs, caught up in some romantic notion of sacrificing myself to please him. He didn't turn or speak when I reached his side. My hand slid into his tentatively, tightened around his fingers. He failed to respond. I whispered, "I'm sorry I slapped you."

  "Don't be. I deserved it."

  "You sound so bitter."

  "I'm just a fool standing here and thinking of my life, and all the stupid things I've done—and the dumbest of all was to allow myself to think you loved me. But you don't love me. You just want a father. I could hate Luke as much as you do for failing you when you needed him; then maybe you wouldn't be needing of a father so much."

  Again my arms went around him. I tilted my head backward, closed my eyes, and waited for his kiss.. . and this time I wasn't going to run. It was wrong and I knew it, but I owed him so much, more than I could ever repay. I wasn't going to tease him, then scream no, as Kitty had been doing for years. I loved him. I needed him.

  Not even when he swept me up and carried me into his room and laid me on his bed and began doing all those frightening wrong things did I realize what I'd started, and it was too late to stop him this time.

  His face was smeary with bliss, his eyes glazed, his actions making the bedsprings creak, and I was bounced, my breasts jiggling with the pure animal force of his lovemaking. So this was what it was all about. This thrusting in and out, this hot, searing pain that came and went—and if my conscious mind was shocked and didn't know how to respond, my unconscious physical side had innate knowledge, moving beneath his thrusts as if in other lives I'd done this ten thousand times with other men I'd loved. And when it was over, and he was curled up on his side holding me clutched tight in his embrace, I lay stunned with what I'd allowed him and myself to do.

  Tears were on my cheeks, streaming down to wet the pillow. Ki
tty had burned the best of me when she burned my doll in the fire.

  She'd left only the dark side of the angel who went to the hills and died there.

  He woke me up in the night with small kisses on my face, on my bared breasts, and asked his question. NO, NO, NO, I could almost hear Kitty yelling, as she'd screamed at him so many times when he must have asked her the same thing. I nodded and reached for him, and again we joined as one. When we finished I, again, lay stunned and sickened by my actions, by my too-enthusiastic response. Hill scum! I could hear Kitty shouting. Trashy no-good Casteel, I heard all of Winnerrow shouting. Just what we expected from a Casteel, a no-good scumbag Casteel.

  The days and nights swiftly passed and I

  couldn't stop what had begun. Cal overrode all my objections, saying I was being silly to feel guilt or shame when Kitty was getting what she deserved, and I was doing no worse than many girls my age, and he loved me, really loved me, not like some rawboned boy who'd only use me. Nothing he said took away the shame, or the knowledge that what I was doing with him was wrong, totally wrong.

  He had two weeks alone with me that seemed to make him very happy, as I pretended to have let go of my shame and guilt. Then one morning Cal drove off early to bring Kitty home. I had the house sparkling and filled with flowers. She lay on her bed blankly staring at all I'd done to make the house pretty, and she showed no signs of recognizing where she was. Home was where she'd said she wanted to be

  . . . perhaps just so she could pound on the floor overhead with a walking cane, and demand our attention. Oh, how I learned to hate the sound of that cane pounding on the floor that was the living-room ceiling.

  Once every week one of Kitty's beauty-salon operators came and shampooed and set her red hair, gave her a manicure and a pedicure. I suspected Kitty was the best-looking invalid in town. At times I was touched by Kitty's helplessness, lying in her pretty pink nightclothes, her hair long and thick, and beautifully groomed. Her "girls" seemed devoted to Kitty, coming often to sit, chat, and laugh while I served them treats I made on Kitty's best china, then raced about trying to keep the house clean, be a companion to Cal, and also keep his books and, using Kitty's checkbook, pay household bills.