Casteel 1 - Heaven (11 page)

“Thanks for giving me the lessons,” murmured Logan, looking dazed and terribly exhausted. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going into the school and wash up. If I went home looking like this, my mom would

faint.“ He smiled my way. ”Heaven, hang around, will you, until I'm back?"

“Sure.” I stared at all his bruises, and his black eye. “Thanks for defending my honor . . .”

“Why, he defended all our honors, dummy!” shrieked Fanny. Then, so help me, she ran to throw her arms about Logan and kissed him squarely on his swollen, bleeding lips.

I should have done that.

Logan walked off toward the school as Tom grabbed Fanny's arm, called Our Jane and Keith, and all of them headed for our trail. All alone in the schoolyard I waited for Logan to come out of the boys' rest room.

On the swing Our Jane had used I shoved myself higher and higher, hanging back and dangling so my hair would fan and almost sweep the ground. I hadn't felt so happy since before Granny died. I closed my eyes and flew ever higher on the swing.

“Hey . . . you up there in the sky, come on down so I can walk you home before dark, and we can talk.”

Logan looked somewhat cleaner, somewhat less damaged, as I dragged my feet and brought the swing to a stop. “You're not really hurt, are you?” I asked

with concern. “No, not really hurt.” His one eye peered at me.

“Do you really care if I am?” “Of course I care.”

“Why?”

“Well . . . I don't know why, except, well, you did call me your girl. Am I your girl, Logan?”

“If I said so, then you must be. Unless you have some objections.”

I was up now, and he had my hand, gently urging me toward the mountain trail that spiraled steeply up, up, up.

Winnerrow had only one main street, and all the others branched off from that. Even placed in the middle of town, the school backed up to the mountain range. There wasn't any way the town could escape the surrounding Willies. “You haven't answered,” urged Logan when we'd strolled on for fifteen minutes without speaking, only holding hands and glancing often at one another.

“Where'd you go last weekend?”

“My parents wanted to see the college where I'll be going. I wanted to call and tell you, but you have no telephone, and I didn't have time to walk to your place.”

There it was again. His parents didn't want him to see me, or he could have found time. I turned and put my arms about his waist and pressed my forehead against his dirty torn shirt. “I'm thrilled to be your girl, but I've got to warn you now, I don't intend to get married until I've had the chance to live and grow on my own, and to become somebody. I want my name to mean something after I'm dead.”

“Looking for immortality?” he teased, holding me closer and bowing his face into my hair.

“Something like that. You see, Logan, a psychiatrist came to our class one day and he said there are three kinds of people. One, those who serve others. Two, those who give to the world by producing those who serve others. Three, the last kind, those who can't be satisfied unless they achieve on their own, not by serving others but by their own merits and talents, producing, arid not through their children, either. I'm the third kind. There's a niche in this world meant for me and what innate talents I have . . . and I won't find it if I marry young.”

He cleared his throat. “Heaven, aren't you getting way ahead of this situation? I'm not asking you to be my wife, just my girl.”

I drew sharply away. "Then you don't really

want to marry me someday?“ His hand spread helplessly. ”Heaven, can we

predict the future and who we'll want when we're twenty, twenty-​five, or thirty? Take what I offer now, and let the future take care of itself."

“What are you offering now?” I asked suspiciously.

“Just me, my friendship. Just me, and the now- and-​then right to kiss you, hold your hand, touch your hair, and take you to the movies, and listen to your dreams because you listen to mine, and be silly once in a while, build a past we'll enjoy remembering that's all.” That was enough.

Hand in hand we continued to stroll, and it was sweet to reach the cabin near twilight that flattered the tiny house nestled on the hillside. He had only one good eye anyway, and I knew he couldn't truly see the shoddiness of how we lived until he went inside.

I turned and cupped his face between my palms. “Logan, would it be all right, and not too much like Fanny, if I kissed you just once for being so exactly what I want?”

“I think I could bear up.”

Slowly my arms slid up around his neckhow awful his eye looked now that we were inches apart

I closed my eyes and puckered my lips, and kissed that swollen eye, his cut cheek, and finally his lips. He was trembling by this time. So was I.

I was scared to say another word, so afraid realities would spoil the sweetness of what we had. “Good night, Logan. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Heaven,” he whispered, as if he'd lost his voice. “Sure has been a great day, sure has been . . .”

In that part of the day Granny used to call the gloaming I watched until Logan was out of sight, disappearing into darkness, before I turned away and entered the cabin that immediately depressed my soar- ing spirits. Sarah had stopped making any attempt to keep the cabin clean, or even tidy. Meals that had been adequate before had become haphazard affairs of bread and gravy without greens or vegetables, and seldom did we have chicken or ham anymore. Slab bacon was a memory food better not to think about. Our garden out back where Granny and I had spent so much time pulling weeds and planting seeds was ne- glected. Ripe vegetables were left to rot in or on the ground . No salt pork or ham was in the smokehouse to flavor our bean soup or collard greens, spinach, or turnips, now that Pa never came home. Our Jane was

in a finicky mood, refusing to eat or throwing up what she did, and Keith cried constantly because he never had enough to eat, and Fanny did nothing but complain.

“Somebody but me should do something!” I yelled, turning in circles. “Fanny, you go to the well and fill the bucket, and bring it in with water to the brim, not just a few cupfuls, which is your lazy way. Tom, go to the garden and pull up whatever is there we can eat. Our Jane, stop that wailing! Keith, entertain Our Jane so she'll stay quiet and I can think.”

“Don't ya give me orders!” screamed Fanny. “I don't have t'do nothin ya say! Jus cause ya had a boy fight fer ya don't mean yer queen of this hill!”

“Yes, you do have to obey Heaven,” backed Tom, who gave Fanny a shove toward the door. “Go to the spring and bring back really good water.”

“But it's dark out there!” wailed Fanny. “Ya know I'm skerred of-​edark!”

“Okay, I'll fetch the spring water, you pick the vegetables, and stop back-​talking . . . or I'll be the king of the hill and give yer bottom ten solid wacks!”

“Heaven,” Tom whispered from where he lay on his floor pallet that night looking at me with so much compassion, "someday, I kin feel in my bones,

it's all gonna turn out fine for all of us. Ma will go back t'how she was, an start cookin good meals again. She'll clean up t'house and you won't have so much to do. Pa will come home cured, an nicer to us than before. We'll grow up, graduate from high school, go t'college, be so smart we'll make piles of dough, an we'll ride around in big cars, live in mansions, have servants, an we'll sit an laugh at how tough we thought we had it, never suspecting all this was good fer us. Makes us determined, hardy, better kids than those who have it easythat's what Miss Deale says, anyway. The best often comes out of t'worst."

“Don't feel sorry for me. I know it's going to be better, someday.” I brushed away weak tears.

He crawled over to cuddle in the pallet beside me, his strong young arms feeling good, warm, safe. “I kin hunt up Pa, an you talk to Ma.”

“Ma,” I said the very next evening, hoping to cheer her with casual talk before I got down to serious matters, “only a few short hours ago I thought I had fallen in love.”

“Yer a damned fool if ya do,” muttered Sarah, glancing at my figure, which was definitely taking on a woman's shape. “Ya git offen this mountaingit far from here before ya let some man put his kid in ya,”

she warned. “Ya run fast an ya run far before ya become what I am.”

Distressed, I threw my arms about Sarah. “Ma, don't say things like that. Pa'll come home soon, and he'll bring all the food we need. He always comes home before we're really hungry.”

“Yeah, sure he does.” Sarah's expression turned ugly. “In the nick of time our dear Luke comes back from whorin an boozin, an he throws his bags on the table like he's bringin us solid gold. An that's all he does fer us, ain't it?”

“Ma . . .”

“I AIN'T YER MA!” yelled Sarah, red-​faced and looking ill. “Never was! Where's all t'brains ya think ya got? Kin't ya see ya don't look like me?”

She stood with bare feet braced wide, her long red hair in complete disarray, not washed since the baby was born dead, not combed or brushed either, nor had Sarah bathed in more than a month. “I'm gettin out of this hellhole, an if ya got any brains at all, ya'll run soon afta.”

“Ma, please don't go!” I cried out in desperation, trying to catch hold of her hands. "Even if you aren't my real ma, I love you, I do! I always have! Please don't go and leave us here alone! How

can we go to school and leave Grandpa? He doesn't walk as well as he did when Granny was alive. He can't chop wood anymore. He can hardly do anything. Please, Ma."

“Tom kin chop t'wood,” she said with deadly calm, as if she'd decided to leave, no matter what happened to us.

“But Tom has to go to school, and it takes more than one to chop enough wood and kindling to last through the entire winter, and Pa is gone.”

“Ya'll get by. Don't we always?” “Ma, you can't just up and leave!” "I kin do anythin I damn well pleasewill

serve Luke right!“ Fanny heard and came running. ”Ma, take me

with you, please, please!" Sarah shoved Fanny away, backed off to stare

at us all with calm indifference. Who was this dead- faced woman who didn't care? She wasn't the mother I'd always known. “Good night,” she said at the curtain that was her bedroom door. “Yer Pa'll come when ya need him. Don't he always?”

Maybe it was the fruit in the middle of the table that tickled my nostrils and made me come awake.

Why, look at all that food stacked there. Where

had it come from, when last night our cupboard had been bare? I picked up an apple and bit it as I went to call Sarah and tell her that Pa had come home during the night and brought us food. In the doorway, holding back the flimsy curtain, I froze, my teeth deep into the red apple, my eyes wide and shocked . . . no Sarah. Just a rumpled bed with a note left on the mattress.

During the night while we slept, Sarah must have slipped out into the dark, leaving a note we were supposed to pass on to Pa when he returnedif ever he returned.

I shook Tom awake to show him the note. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, and read it over three times before comprehension dawned. He choked, tried not to cry. He and I were both fourteen now. Birthdays came and went without parties or any kind of celebrations to mark our years.

“What y'all doin up so early?” grumbled Fanny, grouchy as she always was when she came out of sleep and found her bones stiff from hard floorboards and not enough padding between her skeleton and the floor. “I don't smell no biscuits bakin, no bacon fryin . . . see no gravy in t'pan.”

“Ma's gone,” I said in a small voice.

“Ma wouldn't do that,” said Fanny, sitting up and looking around. “She's in t'outhouse.”

“Ma don't leave notes to Pa when she does that,” Tom reasoned. “All her things are gonewhat little she had.”

“But t'food, t'food, I see food on t'table!” screeched Fanny, jumping up and running to grab a banana. “Bet ya Pa came back an brought all this here stuff . . . an he an Ma are out somewhere fightin.”

When I gave it more thought, it seemed very likely that Pa had slipped into the cabin at night, left the food, then drove off without a word to anyone; and perhaps finding the food there, and knowing Pa hadn't bothered to stay or even greet her, had given Sarah the final motivation to leave, thinking now we had food to provide for us until he came back again.

How oddly Our Jane and Keith took the absence of Sarah, as if they'd always lived on unstable ground and Sarah had never given either one enough loving attention to make any difference. Both came running to me, staring up into my face. “Hey-​lee,” cried Our Jane, “ya ain't goin nowhere, are ya?”

How fearful those big aqua eyes. How beautiful the small doll face that looked up into mine. I tousled her reddish blond hair. "No, darling, I'm staying.

Keith, come closer so I can give you a big hug. We're going to have fried apples and sausage for breakfast today, with our biscuits . . . and see, Pa brought us margarine. Someday we're going to eat real butter, aren't we, Tom?"

“Well, I sure hope so,” he said as he picked up the package of oleo. “But I'm glad right now we have this. Hey, do you really think Pa came in the night, like Santa Claus, and left all this stuff?”

“Who else would?”

He agreed. As hateful and mean as Pa was, he did try to see that we were kept fed, and as warm as possible.

Now life got down to basics. Sarah had run out and Granny was dead.

Grandpa couldn't do anything but sit and stare, and whittle. I went to his rocker where he'd slept bent over and miserable-​looking all night, took his hand, and helped him to stand. “Tom, see that Grandpa visits the outhouse while I fix breakfast, and after he's eaten, give him more wood to whittle, for durn if I can stand seeing him doing nothing at all.”

I guess that breakfast on such a heartrending day made it somewhat easier, when we had hot sausages to eat and fried apples and taters, and

biscuits with what had to taste as good as butter. “Wish we had a cow,” said Tom, who worried

about none of us drinking enough milk. “Wish Pa hadn't gambled away our last one.”

“Ya could steal one,” contributed Fanny, who knew all about stealing. “Skeeter Burl's got t'one that used t'be ours. Pa don't have no right to gamble away our cow so steal it back, Tom.”