Heaven (Casteel 1)

"But you said Kitty was a wonderful cook before!"

"I know, and she is, if you like her breakfast menu. . . that's what she cooks best, and country food that I don't like:"

That very day I began to fall in love with city life and city ways that were far, far different from mountain ways, or even valley life.

We were barely in the door when Kitty came home from her nighttime ceramic class, irritable as she stared at us. "What ya two do all day?"

"We went shopping for the new furniture," Cal said casually.

She narrowed her eyes. "What store?"

He told her, and her scowl came. "How much?"

When he named a figure, she clasped her longnailed hand to her forehead, seeming appalled. "Cal, ya damn fool--ya should buy her only cheap stuff! She don't know good from bad! Now, ya send that all back if it comes when I'm gone. If I'm here, I'll send it back!"

My heart sank.

"You will not send it back, Kitty," he said, turning to head for the stairs, "even if you are here. And you might as well know I ordered the best mattress, the best pillows and bed linens, and even a pretty coverlet with a dust ruffle to match the curtains."

Kitty screamed: "YER TEN TIMES A DAMNED FOOL!"

"All right, I'm a damned fool who will pay for everything with my own money, not yours. Good night, Heaven. Come, Kitty, you sound tired--after all, it was your idea that we drive to Winnerrow and find ourselves a daughter. Did you think she'd sleep on the floor?"

I could hardly contain myself when the furniture arrived two days later. Cal was there to direct where things should go. He expressed a desire to have the room wallpapered. "I hate so much white, but she never asks me what color I'd like."

"It's fine, Cal. I love the furniture." Together, when the deliverymen had gone, he and I made the bed with the pretty new flowered sheets, and then we spread on the blankets, and topped everything off with the pretty quilted coverlet.

"You do like blue?" he asked. "I get so damned tired of hot pink."

"I love blue."

"Cornflower blue, like your eyes." He stood in the middle of my small room, now prettier than I could have imagined, and seemed too big and too masculine for all the dainty things he'd chosen. I turned in circles and stared at accessories I hadn't known he'd ordered. A set of heavy brass duck bookends for the books I'd stuffed in the broom closet with my clothes. A desk blotter, pencil cup, and pen and pencil set, and a small desk lamp, and framed pictures for the wall. Tears came to my eyes, he'd bought so much.

I sobbed, "Thank you," and that's all I could manage before I lost my voice and cried all the tears I'd saved up through the years, flat on my face on that narrow twin bed that was so pretty, and Cal sat awkwardly on the side of the bed and waited for me to finish. He cleared his throat. "I've got to get back to work, Heaven, but before I go, I have another surprise. I'll lay it here on your desk, and you can enjoy it after I'm gone."

The sound of his feet departing made me turn over and sit up, and once more I called out, "Thank you for everything." I heard his car drive off, and I was still sitting on the bed . . . and only then did I look at the desk.

A letter lay on the dark blue of the desk blotter . . . a single letter.

I don't even remember how I got there and when I sat, except I did sit, and I stared for the longest time at my name written on that envelope. Miss Heaven Leigh Casteel. In the upper left-hand corner was Logan's name and address. Logan!

He hadn't- forgotten me! He did care enough to write! For the first time I used a letter opener. What nice handwriting Logan had, not as scrawly as the way Tom wrote, or as precisely perfect as Pa's small script.

.

Dear Heaven,

You just can't know how much I've worried about you. Thank God you wrote, so now I can go to sleep knowing you're all right.

I miss you so much it hurts. When the sky is bright and blue, I can almost see your eyes, but that only makes me miss you more.

To be honest, my mom tried to keep your letter hidden so I'd never read it, but one day I found it stashed in her desk when I was hunting for stamps, and for the first time in my life, I was really

disappointed in my own mother. We fought, and I made her admit she'd hidden your letter from me. Now she admits she was wrong, and has asked me, and you, to forgive her.

I see Fanny often, and she's fine, looking great. She's a terrible showoff, and to be honest again, I think that Reverend Wise may have his hands fuller than he thought.

Fanny says she wasn't sold! She says your father gave all his children away to save them from starving. I hate to believe either one of you, yet you've never lied to me before, and it's you I do believe. I haven't seen your father--but I have seen Tom. He came into the store and asked if I had your address so he can write. Your grandfather is living in a rest home in Winnerrow.