Heaven (Casteel 1)

I wiped away tears and tried to gain control of my emotions. I tried to tell myself it wasn't so bad, not really, to lose Our Jane and Keith if they were to have so many fine things--oranges to eat, and toys to play with--and a doctor to make Our Jane well.

Then I was flying toward the door and the porch so I could call out breathlessly, just as the black car prepared to drive off, "And be sure to send them both to good schools--please!"

The lady rolled down a window and waved. "Please don't worry, darling," she called. "I'll write you from time to time and let you know how they are, but there won't be a return address. And I'll send you photographs." And up went the window again, smothering Our Jane's loud, anguished wails, and those of Keith.

Pa didn't even bother to enter the cabin again to find out what his children thought about the "Christmas gift" he'd just given.

He ran, as if from me and my accusing eyes; me and all the angry words I had ready to scream in his face. He jumped into his old truck and drove off, leaving me to think he'd soon throw away his thousand dollars on whores, booze, and gambling. And in bed tonight he wouldn't give one single thought to Our Jane, to Keith, to any of us.

Like a flock of chickens paralyzed by strange events beyond our understanding, we huddled, with Grandpa sitting quietly and whittling as if nothing untoward had happened, and then we met eyes. Soon even Fanny began to cry. She wrapped her arms about me and sobbed. "They'll be all right, won't they? People do love all little children, even those not their own, don't they?"

"Yes, of course they do," I said, trying to choke back fresh tears and save my anguish for later, when I was alone. "And we'll see them again. If the lady writes long letters we'll hear how they are, and one day Our Jane and Keith can write themselves, and won't that be wonderful . . . won't it be . . .

wonderful." I broke anew, tears flooding down my face before I could manage to ask a very important question. "Tom, did you notice their license plates?"

"Sure did," he answered in a gruff, hoarse voice. "Maryland. But I didn't have time to catch the last three numbers. First were nine-seven-two. Remember that." Tom always noticed things like that. I never did.

Now the little ones I'd worried about were gone. No wailing in the night and in the morning. No wet beds and quilts, not so much washing to do, plenty of room in the brass bed now.

How empty the small cabin, how sad all the hours, minutes, and seconds after Our Jane and Keith went away. And maybe in the long run they would be better off--especially since those people appeared so rich--but what about us? Love, wasn't that worth anything? Wasn't blood the tie that bound, not money?

"Grandpa," I said in my constantly hoarse voice, "we got room for you in the bed now."

"Not proper or healthy t'put t'old in with t'young,"

Grandpa mumbled again and again, his gnarled hands quivering as if with some ancient ague. His faded old eyes pleaded with me to understand. "Luke's a good boy, chile, he is. He meant well. Though ya don't know it. He wanted t'help, that's all. Now, don't ya go thinkin bad about yer pa, when he did all he knew what t'do."

"Grandpa, you'd say good things about him no matter what he did, cause he's your son, the only one you've got left. But from this day forward, he's not my father! I'm not calling him Pa from now on. He's Luke Casteel, an ugly, mean liar, and someday he's going to pay for all the suffering he's put us through! I hate him, Grandpa, hate his guts! Hate him so much I feel sick inside!"

His poor old withered face went dead white, when already it was pale and sickly, crosshatched with a million wrinkles, and he really wasn't that old. "T'Good Book says t'honor thy motha an thy fatha . . . ya remember that, Heaven girl."

"Why doesn't the Good Book say honor thy children, Grandpa, why doesn't it?"

Another storm blew in, and turned into a blizzard. Snow banked as high as the top of our windows, covering the porch. Ice sheeting prevented us from looking through the wavy cheap glass even when Tom went out to shovel some of the snow away. Luckily, Pa had brought enough food to see us through another few days.

Heartbreak ruled the cabin without the cheerful chirping of Our Jane and the sweet quiet of Keith. I forgot all about the trouble Our Jane had been, forgot the plaintive wails, the tempestuous stomach that was so difficult to please. I remembered only the tender young body, the sweetness of the back of her neck where her curls turned damp when she slept. Two angels they'd appeared when they cuddled in the bed and closed their eyes; I remembered Keith and how he liked to be rocked to sleep, wanting to hear bedtime stories I'd read a thousand times or more. I remembered his sweet good-night kisses, his strong legs; I heard his small voice saying his prayers, saw him next to Our Jane, both on their knees, their small feet bare, pink toes curled; they never had the proper kind of pretty nightclothes. I sobbed, felt sicker, meaner, angrier, and everything I remembered formed steel bullets that sooner or later would gun down the man who'd taken so much from me.

Poor Grandpa forgot how to talk. Now he was as silent as he'd been when Granny was alive, and he didn't whittle, didn't fiddle, only stared into space and rocked to, fro, to, fro. Once in a great while he'd mumble some prayer that was never answered.

We all said prayers that were never answered.

In my sleep I dreamed of Our Jane and Keith waking up to a fantasy of what I believed the merriest of all Christmas mornings. I saw them in pretty red flannel nightclothes playing in an elegant living room where a magnificent Christmas tree spread over all the new toys and new clothes underneath. Laughing with the silent merriment of dreams, my youngest brother and sister raced about ripping open all their gifts, riding in miniature cars, Our Jane small enough to crawl inside the dollhouse; and long colorful stockings were full of oranges, apples, candy and chewing gum, and boxes of cookies; and finally came a meal served on a long table with a white tablecloth, sparkling with crystal and gleaming with silver. A huge golden-brown turkey arrived on a silver platter, surrounded by all the things we'd eaten that time in the restaurant, and there was pumpkin pie straight from one of the glossy magazines

I'd seen. Oh, the things my dreams gave to Our Jane and Keith.

Without Keith and Our Jane to distract me, I heard more from Fanny, who continually grouched about not being the child chosen to go with those rich people in their fine clothes and long car.

"It coulda been me an not Our Jane that rich lady wanted," she said for the hundredth time, "if I'd have had time t'wash my hair an take a bath. Ya used all t'hot wata on them, Heaven! Selfish, ya are! Them rich folks didn't like me cause I looked messy--why didn't Pa tell us t'get ready?"

"Fanny!" I exclaimed, quite out of patience. "What's wrong with you? To go away with strangers you don't even know. Why, only God above knows what will happen to--" And then I broke and started to cry.

Tom came to comfort me. "It's gonna be all right. They truly did look rich and nice. A lawyer has to be intelligent. And think of this, wouldn't it have been terrible if Pa had sold them to folks as poor as we are?"

As was to be expected, Grandpa took his son's side. "Luke only does what he thinks is best--and ya hold yer tongue, girl, when next ya see him, or he might do somethin awful t'ya. This ain't no fittin' place fer kids nohow. Betta off they'll be. Stop cryin, an accept what can't be changed. That's what life is about, standing firm against t'wind."

I should have known that Grandpa, like Granny, wouldn't be any help when it came to Pa. Always she'd had excuses to explain her son's brutal behavior. A good man--at heart. Underneath all that cruelty, a frustrated gentleman who couldn't find the right way.

A monster only a parent could love, was my opinion.