Heaven (Casteel 1)

Kitty laughed again.

"Now ya hurry up an say all yer good-byes, Heaven," said Kitty, assuming an air of authority and looking with distaste at the contents of the cabin again, as if to make sure Pa saw how little she thought of his home and his money-making abilities. "Say good-bye to yer fatha, an we'll set off. Gotta get home soon as possible."

I could only stand there, not looking at Pa, not wanting to look at Pa.

It was Kitty who was holding up our leavetaking. Kitty who addressed Pa, not me. "I keep my house spick an span, everythin in its place. An everythin's got its place, believe ya me. Not like this shack of yers."

Pa leaned back against a wall, pulled out a smoke, and lit it. Kitty turned to me. "Kin't stand dirt an messiness. An yer pa done said ya knew how t'cook. I pray t'God he didn't tell us no lie."

"I can cook," I answered in a small voice. "But I've never made anything complicated." An edge of panic was in my voice as I realized this woman might expect fancy meals when all I really knew how to make well were fluffy biscuits and tasty lard gravy.

Pa wore an odd look, half sad, half full of satisfaction, as he looked from me back to Kitty and Cal Dennison. "Ya done made the right choice," he said solemnly, then turned to smother either a sob or laughter.

That it could be laughter put fears in me I hadn't felt before. I sobbed, my tears beginning to flow fast. I sailed right on by Pa, saying nothing. Nor did he speak to me.

At the door I turned and looked back. Something sweet and sour was in my throat; it hurt me to leave this shabby house that had known my first steps, and Tom's and Fanny's, and it hurt too much to think of Keith and Our Jane.

"0, Lord, give me my day in the future," I whispered before I turned and headed for the steps.

The late-winter sun shone hot on my head as I strode toward the nice-looking white car with the red seats. Pa drifted out to the porch, his hunting hounds back again, as if he'd rented them out and reclaimed them so they could crowd about his legs. Cats and kittens perched on the roof, on lidded rain barrels, peered out from under the porch, and the pigs were rooting with snorts and grunts. Chickens roamed at will, a rooster chasing a hen with obvious intent on reproducing himself. I stared in amazement. Where had they come from? Were they really there? Was I seeing them only in my imagination? I rubbed at my eyes that were smeary with tears. It had been ever so long since I saw the hounds, the cats, the pigs and chickens. Had Pa brought them all here in his pickup truck, planning to stay awhile and take care of his father?

The sky was full of those stringy long clouds slowly forming into fat billowing ones that painted pictures of happiness and fulfillment up ahead.

Cal and Kitty Dennison got into their car, using the front seat, and telling me I could have the back one all for myself. Stiff, anxious, I twisted about to stare back at what I knew so well, and once believed I'd want to forget as quickly as possible.

Say good-bye to poverty and growling stomachs that were never really satisfied.

Say good-bye to the old smelly outhouse, the belching kitchen stov

e, the worn and tattered bed pallets on the floor.

Say good-bye to all the miseries, as well as all the beauty of the hills: the wild berries, the flaming leaves of autumn, the babbling brook and freshwater streams where trout jumped, and fishing with Tom and Logan.

Say good-bye to memories of Keith and Our Jane and Tom and Fanny.

Say good-bye to all the laughter and all the tears. Going to a better place, a richer place, a happier place. No reason to cry--why was I crying?

Up there on the porch Pa wasn't crying, just staring off into space with the blank look still on his face.

Cal turned the key and gunned the motor, and away we sped, causing Kitty to squeal and fall backward on the seat. "Slow down, ya damn fool!" she cried. "I know it were horrible, an t'stink will cling t'us fer weeks, but we got us a daughter, an that's what we came fer."

A shiver rippled down my spine.

It was all right. All right.

Going away to a better life, a better place, I kept repeating.

Yet all I thought about was what Pa had done. Sold his children for five hundred dollars apiece. I hadn't seen the papers signed in this last transaction, or heard the sale price. -Pa's soul would rot in hell. Not for one moment did I doubt that.

From what I'd heard between Kitty and her husband, they were heading for Winnerrow, where I'd always wanted to live in some pretty painted house not so far from Stonewall Pharmacy. There I would finish high school, go on to college. And I'd see Fanny often, see Grandpa when he went to church.

But what was this?

Why was Cal taking the right turn and heading his car past Winnerrow? I swallowed over another of those burning throat lumps.

"Didn't Pa say you were from the valley?" I asked in a low, scared voice.

"Sure, kid," said Kitty, twisting about in the front seat and smiling back at me. "I was born an raised in that crummy town of Winnerrow," she went on in a voice turned more country, her dialect all hillbilly and slurry. "Couldn't wait t'get away from there. Ran off one day when I were thirteen with a truck driver, we wed up, an then I found out he was already married, but not until years lata. Made me sick, made me hate men, most, men; then I met up with my sweet Cal. Loved him on first sight. We've been married five years, an we wouldn't have been down this way at all cept we had t'get away from all t'stink of havin our house redecorated inside an out. Fresh paint makes me vomit. Get so sick of bad odors, perm lotions an such. Gonna have white wall-t'-wall in every room. All white-on-white wallpaper, gonna be so pretty, so cleanlookin. Cal, now, he done said it's gonna be sterile, like a hospital, but it won't be, ya jus wait an see. Gonna pretty it up with all my thins. Won't it be pretty when all my beautiful thins are put in there fer color contrast, ain't it gonna be, Cal?"