Heaven (Casteel Series #1) Read online

  fighting strength, only a woman after all, a sobbing bereaved mother on her knees asking God why a baby had to be cursed by his father's sins.

  Poor little thing, I kept thinking as I washed away all the blood and froth of birth from the pitiful tiny body that lay so limp and still. I didn't even have to be careful to keep its half-head above water, but I did just the same. I dressed it in clothes that both Our Jane and Keith had worn, maybe Fanny, Tom, and me as well.

  Sarah finally fell flat on her face on the soiled bed, gripping the mattress in her clawing fingers, crying as I'd never known her to cry before.

  I didn't even notice Granny until I was finished with the dead baby. Not until I looked at her two or three times did I realize that she wasn't knitting, crocheting, darning, braiding, weaving, or even rocking. She was just sitting very still with her eyes half closed. On her thin white lips was a faint smile. It scared me, that funny happy smile; she should be looking sad and mournful.

  "Granny . . ." I whispered fearfully, laying down the stillborn child all dressed and clean, "are you all right?"

  I touched her. She fell to one side. I felt her face, and she was already turning cold, her flesh hardening.

  Granny was dead!

  Shocked info-death by the birth of a monster baby, or by years and years of struggling to endure a life of hardships! I cried out, and felt an awful blow to my own heart. I knelt by her rocking chair to hold her close. "Granny, when you get to heaven, please tell my mother I'm really trying hard to be like her. Tell her that, will you, please?"

  A scraping sound moved our way, drifting in from the porch. "What ya doing with my Annie?"

  asked Grandpa, coming back from the river where he'd gone to avoid knowing what men never wanted to know—only fitting for men to disappear until birthing was over. The way of the men of the hills, to flee from women's screams of suffering, and pretend to themselves they never suffered at all.

  I looked up, my face streaked with tears, not knowing how to tell him. "Grandpa . . ."

  His faded blue eyes widened as he stared at Grandma. "Annie . . . yer all right, ain't ya? Git up, Annie . . . why don't ya git up?" And of course he had to know when her eyes were staring backward into her head. He stumbled forward, all his agility fleeing as if his life had flown the moment he knew his better half was dead.

  On his knees he took Granny from my arms and cuddled her against his heart. "Oh, Annie, Annie," he sobbed, "been so long since I said I loved ya . . . kin ya hear me, Annie, kin ya? Meant t'do betta by ya.

  Had me t'best intentions. Neva knew it'd turn out this way . . . Annie."

  It was awful to see his suffering, his terrible grief to lose a good and faithful wife who'd been with him since he was fourteen years old. How strange to know I'd never see him and Grandma cuddled up together on their bed pallet, with her long white hair spread out to pillow his face.

  It took both Torn and me to pry Granny's body from Grandpa's arms, and all the time Sarah just lay on her back, tears gone now as she stared blankly at a wall.

  We all cried at the funeral, even Fanny, all but Sarah, who stood frozen as stiff and empty-eyed as any cigar-store Indian.

  Pa wasn't even there.

  Dead drunk down at Shirley's Place, 1 had to presume, when his last child and his only mother were buried. Reverend Wayland Wise was there with his poker-faced wife, Rosalynn, to say the words for an old woman whom everybody had liked, if not respected.

  Not one of ours would go into the ground

  without a proper funeral, with all the right words said to see this old woman and this stillborn child into heaven.

  "And the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," intoned the Reverend. He tilted his face toward the sun. "Lord God, hear my prayer. Accept this beloved wife, mother, grandmother and true believer, along with this tiny new soul, into heaven—ffing WIDE your pearly gates, THROW EM OPEN!

  Gather in this Christian woman, Lord, this child, Lord, for she was honest, plain, true to her faith, and the child is innocent, pure, and blameless!"

  We trudged home in single file, still crying.

  The people of the mountains were there to

  grieve with us, to suffer the departure of Annie Brandywine Casteel, one of their own, and with us they trooped back to the house, and sat with us, and sang with us, and prayed with us for hours on end.

  And when it was done, they brought out the moonshine, the guitars and banjos and fiddles, and they struck up a lively tune as the hill women brought out the treats to serve.

  The next day, when the sun was shining, I went again to the graveyard to stand with Tom and stare down at Granny's raw grave, and that tiny one barely a foot long. My heart was broken to see "Child Casteel" buried near my own mother. There wasn't a date put on her tombstone.

  "Don't look at it," whispered Tom. "Your mother's been dead so long, and it's Granny we're going to miss most. Didn't know until her chair was empty just how much she added t'our lives—did ya know?"

  "No," I whispered, shamefaced. "I just accepted her presence like she'd live forever. We're going to have to do more for Grandpa, he's so lost and alone-looking."

  "Yeah," agreed Tom, catching my hand and leading me away from a sorrowful place that did little to communicate love to us. "We gotta appreciate Grandpa while he's still with us, an not save our caring for his funeral day."

  A week later Pa came home looking sober and very grim. He pushed Sarah into a chair, pulled up a second one, and spoke in a strained voice while Tom and I paused outside the window to spy and eavesdrop. "Went t'see a doctor in the city, Sarah.

  That's where I been. He told me I was sick, real sick.

  Told me I was spreading my disease all over, and I'd have to stop what I was doing or I'd go insane before I die too young. Told me I can't have sexual relationships with any woman, not even my wife.

  Told me I needed shots to cure what I got, but we don't have that kind of money."

  "What ya got?" demanded Sarah in a cold, hard voice, not at all sympathetic.

  "Got syphilis in its first stages," Pa confessed in a hollow voice. "Wasn't yer fault ya lost that baby, was mine. An so I'll say this one time, and that's all.

  I'm sorry."

  "T'LAIE T'BE SORRY!" yelled Sarah. "T'late t'save my baby! Ya killed yer ma when ya killed my last little one! Hear that! YER MA IS DEAD"

  Even I, who hated him, was shocked at how

  Sarah yelled that out, for if Pa loved anyone but himself, it had been Granny. I heard him suck in his breath, kind of groan, and then he sat down heavily enough to make the chair crack. . and Sarah hadn't even finished punishing him.

  "Ya had t'play around, when I were here all t'time, jus yearnin fer ya t'need me. I HATE YA, LUKE CASTEEL! Hate ya even more fer neva lettin go a dead woman ya should have let alone anyway!"

  "Yer turning against me?" he said bitterly.

  "Now—when my ma is gone an I'm sick?"

  "YER DAMNED RIGHT!" she screamed, jumping up and beginning to throw his clothes into a cardboard carton. "Here's all yer rotten, stinkin clothes—NOW GIT! Git before ya make all of us as rotten sick as ya are! Neva want t'see ya agin! Not eva!"

  He stood up, seeming humbled, glancing

  around the cabin as if he'd never see it again, and I was scared, so darn scared. I trembled as Pa stopped by Grandpa's chair and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, Pa. Really sorry I wasn't here on her funeral day."

  Grandpa said nothing, only bowed his head

  lower, and the tears from his eyes fell slowly, slowly, to wet his knees.

  I watched silently as Pa again got into his old truck and sped off, kicking up dry dirt and scattering dead leaves, creating a whirl of dust and litter. He was gone, and he'd taken his dogs with him. Now we had only cats who hunted just for themselves.

  When I ran to tell Sarah that Pa had really gone and this time he'd taken his dogs, she cried out and sank slowly to the floor. I knelt beside her. "Ma, it's what you wanted, isn't
it? Ya drove him out. You said you hated him . . . why are you crying when it's too late?"

  "SHUT UP!" she roared in Pa's own ugly way.

  "Don't kerr! It's betta so, betta so!"

  Better so? Then why did she cry even more?

  Whom did I have to talk to now but Tom? Not Grandpa, whom I'd never loved as much as Granny, mainly because he was so content in his locked-in small world, and he didn't seem to need anyone but his wife, and she was gone.

  Still, I helped him to the table each morning when Sarah stayed in bed, and each evening, and said what I could to ease him along until he grew accustomed to being without a wife. "Your Annie has gone to heaven, Grandpa. She told me many a time to look out for you after she was gone, and I will. And think of this, Grandpa. Now she doesn't ache and pain anymore, and in paradise she can eat anything she wants, and not feel sick after every meal. I guess that's her reward . . isn't it, Grandpa?"

  Poor Grandpa . he couldn't speak. Tears

  streaked from his pale, tired eyes. When he had eaten a little, I helped him back to the rocker Granny had used, the one with the best cushions to make it more bearable for painful hips and joints. "Ain't nobody to call me Toby no more," he said in the saddest way.

  "I'll call you Toby," I said quickly.

  "So will I," volunteered Tom.

  Grandpa said more after Granny died than I'd heard him say since I was born.

  "Oh, God, life's gettin dreary!" cried Fanny. "If somebody else dies, I'm takin off!"

  Sarah looked up, stared at Fanny for the longest time before she disappeared into the second room, where I heard the bedsprings squeal in protest as she threw herself down and cried again.

  For when Granny's spirit left our cabin, all the love that held us together seemed to go with her.

  six

  The End Of

  Road

  .

  FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE GRANNY

  HAD GIVEN IT TO ME, when everyone was fast asleep I tiptoed to that secret place where I had hidden my mother's suitcase. I pulled it out from under all the old boxes full of junk and carefully, while sitting behind Ole Smokey so Fanny couldn't wake up and see, I took out the doll.

  The magical-beautiful bride doll that

  represented to me my mother.

  I held that long, hard bundle for a long time, thinking back to the winter's night when Granny had given it to me. I'd been in and out of the suitcase a dozen times to fondle this or that, but I'd not unwrapped the doll since. Many a time I'd wanted to stare at the pretty face surrounded by all that lovely pale hair, but I'd feared doing so would make me feel sick inside for a mother who must have deserved better than she got. Granny's frail voice came as a whispery ghost to echo in my ears:

  "Go on, chile. Ain't it time ya looked good t'see what's inside? Been awonderin many a year why ya don't want t'play with it, an wear t'fancy clothes."

  I felt her thin white hair whispering across my face, felt the cold winter winds blowing as I took out the fancy bride doll and unwrapped her. In the glow of the fire I stared at her face. How lovely she was in her marvelous white lace gown and veil, with tiny buttons that fastened right up to the chin, with white filmy stockings, white satin-and-lace shoes that could be taken off and put back on. She wore a blue satin garter, for something blue, and held a tiny white-and-gold Bible with silk orange blossoms and white satin ribbons dangling, for something new.

  Even her underwear was exquisitely made, a tiny bra to cup small hard breasts, and defiantly there was a cleft where most dolls remained neutered between the thighs.

  Why was this doll made differently, more

  realistically?

  It was part of the mystery of my mother, the doll and what it had to signify in her life. Someday I'd find out. I kissed her small face and saw the cornflower-blue eyes up so close there were faint specks of green and gray and violet—like my own eyes! My very own eyes!

  In the morning, while Fanny was visiting a friend, and Tom was out showing Keith and Our Jane how to fish with more skill, I remembered when Granny told me how Pa had wanted to chop up everything my mother had left behind, so she'd taken the suitcase and its contents and hidden them away.

  Now I'd lost Granny. My best connection to the past.

  Pa would never talk to me the way she had. Grandpa no doubt hadn't even taken notice of the girl his son called angel.

  "Oh," I sighed as Tom came in. "Look, Tom, here is a doll that Granny said belonged to my real mother. A bride doll made to look like her when she was only a girl the same as me. See what's written on her bare foot." I held it so he could see, once I had her decently dressed again, but for stockings and shoes.

  A Tatterton Original Portrait Doll

  Issue, One.

  "Put her stockins an shoes on, an hide her quick," whispered Tom. "Fanny's comin with Our Jane and Keith, an that's your face if ever I saw it. No good lettin Fanny ruin somethin so beautiful."

  "You're not surprised?"

  "Sure, but I found it long ago, and put it back like Granny told me to do. . . . Now quick, before Fanny comes in."

  As fast as I could I pulled on the stockings, stuffed on the shoes, and rewrapped the suitcase in the filthy old quilt, and in the nick of time hid it again, only then brushing away the tears from my cheeks.

  "Still cryin fer Granny?" asked Fanny, who could display grieving emotions one second and be laughing the next. "She's betta off, she is, than sittin in here all day an doin nothin but hurtin an complainin.

  Anywhere but here is a betta place."

  My doll made up for so much. Made up, I

  thought at the time, for Sarah's meanness, for Pa's illness, for the fact that I hadn't seen Logan for a week. Where was he? Why didn't he wait to walk me home anymore? Why hadn't he come to say he was sorry about Granny? Why didn't he and his parents go to church anymore? What kind of devotion was he showing now that he'd kissed me?

  Then I guessed. His parents had to know about Pa's disease, and they didn't want their one and only son coming to see hill scum like me. I wasn't good enough, even if I didn't have syphilis.

  Putaway thoughts. Better to think about the doll, and the secret of why my mother, at such a late age, would want a doll made to look like herself.

  Nothing short of death would keep us from church, and proudly we trudged onward, wearing our old rags, the best we had, with Sarah leading the way now that Pa had the truck and didn't come to drive us there. I held Grandpa's large, bony hand in mine, and actually pulled him along, just as I had to tug on Our Jane, who held with her other hand to Keith.

  Every head in the church turned to stare our way, as if one family with so much trouble had to be unworthy sinners.

  They were singing as we entered, singing in their glorious voices that had so much practice when they attended church three times a week, and we only went on Sundays.

  "Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

  Let me hide myself in thee . ."

  Hide, how appropriate that word was. We should all run away and hide until Pa was well again, and Sarah could laugh once more, and Our Jane stopped crying for a granny who'd gone away and didn't give her hugs anymore. But there was no place to hide.

  Then, the next day, Logan showed up by my

  locker, smiling at me with his eyes even when his lips stayed in a straight line. "Did you miss me the week I was gone? I wanted to tell you my grandmother was sick and we'd be flying to see her, but there wasn't time before the plane left."

  I stared at him with huge wistful eyes. "How is your grandmother now?"

  "Fine. She had a small stroke, but seemed to feel much better when we left."

  "That's nice," I said in a choked way.

  "What did I say wrong? Something, I can tell!

  Heaven, haven't we sworn to always be honest with one another? Why are you crying?"

  My head bowed and then I was telling him

  about Granny, and he said all the right words to console me. I cried awhile on his shoulde
r, and with his arm still about my shoulder we headed up the trail toward home. "And what about the baby your stepmother was expecting?" asked Logan, appearing happy that Tom and Fanny stayed out of sight with Our Jane and Keith.

  "It was stillborn," I answered stiffly. "Granny died the same day . . . guess all of us went kind of numb, losing two, and on the same day."

  "Oh, Heaven, no wonder you looked so funny when I said my grandmother recovered. I'm sorry, so damned sorry. Someday, I hope, someone will tell me the right words to say at moments like this. Right now I feel inadequate . . except I know I'd have loved your granny just as much as you did."

  Yes, Logan would have loved Granny, even if she would have embarrassed his parents. As Grandpa would still embarrass them, if ever . . .

  The next day Miss Deale beckoned me to stay after class for a few minutes. "You go for Our Jane and Keith," I whispered to Tom before I stepped up to her desk. I was eager to meet with Logan, and anxious to avoid a teacher who could sometimes ask too many questions I didn't know if I should answer.

  She looked at me for long moments first, as if she saw changes in my eyes as Logan had. I knew my eyes were shadowed underneath, knew I was losing weight, but what else could she be seeing? "How are things going with you now?" she asked, staring directly into my eyes as if to keep me from lying.

  "Fine, just fine."

  "Heaven, I heard about your grandmother, and I'm so very sorry you had to lose someone you loved so much. I see you in church often, so I know you have the same kind of faith your grandmother did, and you do believe we all have eternal souls."

  "I want to believe that . . . I do . . ."

  "Everyone does," she said softly, laying her hand on mine. I sighed heavily and tried not to cry.

  And without meaning to be a tattletale and show lack of family loyalty, I had to speak when I didn't know what others might have already told her. "Granny died, I guess, from heart failure," I said before my tears came. "Sarah had a baby that was stillborn and sexless, and Pa's gone, but other than that, we're all just fine."

  "Sexless . . . Heaven, all babies are one sex or the other."