Heaven (Casteel 1)

I have no idea how to help you find Keith and Our Jane. Keep on writing, please. I still haven't met anyone I like nearly as much as I do Heaven Leigh Casteel.

And until I see you again, I'm not even going to look.

My love as always, Logan

.

I cried again I was so happy.

Shortly after Logan's letter came I turned fifteen. I knew better now than to call attention to myself and didn't say a word to Kitty or Cal, but somehow Cal knew and gave me an incredible gift--a brand-new typewriter!

"It will help with your homework." His smile was wide, so pleased with my overwhelmed response. "Take typing in school. It never hurts to know how to type."

That typewriter, as much as I loved it, wasn't the biggest thrill of my fifteenth birthday. Oh, no. It was the huge card that came in the mail, bright with pretty flowers, sweet with a verse, and thick with a silk scarf and a letter from Logan.

Still, I longed to hear from Tom. He had my address now; why wasn't he writing?

In a whole school of girls I managed to make two good friends who repeatedly invited me to visit their homes. Neither one understood why I always had to refuse. Then, to my dismay, discouraged or put off, they began, bit by bit, to drift away. How could I tell anyone that Kitty flatly denied me friends who might take time away from the housework I had to do every day? The boys who asked me for dates I had to reject too, though not altogether for the same reasons. It was Logan I wanted to date, not them. I was saving myself for Logan and not once did I question that he was doing the same thing.

The house I slaved to keep clean and tidy never stayed that way-when Kitty could come in to devastate ten hours of work with her careless habits. The plants I watered and dusted and fertilized withered from too much care, and then Kitty yelled at me for being stupid. "Any damn fool kin keep a plant living . . . any damn fool!"

She found her water-spotted silk plants and slapped me for being an idiot hill-scum girl who didn't have brains. "Yer thinkin bout boys, kin see it in yer eyes!" she yelled when she caught me idling one afternoon when she came home unexpectedly. "Don't ya sit in t'livin room when we ain't home! TV is off limits fer ya when yer alone! Ya stay busy, ya hear?"

I was up early every day to prepare breakfast for Kitty and Cal. She seldom came home for the evening meal before seven or eight o'clock, and by that time Cal and I had eaten. For some reason this didn't annoy her.

Almost with relief she fell into a kitchen chair and broodingly stared at her plate until I dished up the food she wolfed down in mere seconds, without appreciation for all the trouble I took to learn her favorite dishes.

Before I could go to bed I had to put the kitchen in order, check all the rooms to see that everything was in its proper place and no magazines or newspapers cluttered the tabletops or lay on the floor. In the morning I hurried to make my bed before Kitty came in to check, then rushed downstairs to begin breakfast. Before I left for school, I washed clothes while I made the beds, put the dirty dishes in the washer, wiped up all fingerprints, smudges, spills, and such, and only when I had the door locked behind me did I begin to feel free.

Now I was well fed and my clothes were warm and adequate, and yet there were times when I thought longingly of home and forgot the hunger, the awful cold, the deprivations that should have scarred me forever. I missed Tom so much it hurt. I ached for Our Jane and Keith, for Grandpa and even Fanny. Logan's letters helped me not to miss him so much.

I was riding the school bus now that it was raining every day and Kitty didn't want to buy me a raincoat or boots. "Soon it'll be summer," she said, as if there'd be no spring to mention, and that made me homesick again. Spring was a season of miracles in the mountains, when life got better and the

wildflowers came out to coat the hills with beauty Candlewick would never know. In school I studied with much more determination than other students, on a mad hurry-hurry schedule to get back home and dig into housework.

The many TVs were a constant temptation calling to me. It was lonely in the empty house, and despite Kitty's warning never to turn on a TV when I was alone, I soon was a soap-opera addict. I dreamed about the characters at night. Why, they had even more problems than the Casteels, though none were financial, and all of ours had been related to money problems--or so it seemed now.

Day after day I checked the mailbox waiting for Logan's letters that came regularly, always

anticipating that long-awaited letter from Tom that didn't show up. One day, out of pure frustration from not hearing from Tom, I wrote to Miss Deale, explaining how we'd been sold and pleading with her to help me find my brothers and sister.

The weeks passed, and still no letter came from Tom. The letter I'd written to Miss Deale came back stamped Addressee Unknown.

Then Logan stopped writing! My first thought was he had another girl

. Sick at heart, I stopped writing to him. Every day that passed without hearing from Logan made me think that nobody loved me enough to last long enough to do me any good, except Cal. Cal was my savior, the only friend I had in the world, and more and more I depended on him. The quiet house came alive when he came in the door and the television was snapped on and housework could be forgotten. I began to long for him as the hour of six drew near and my dinner was almost ready to serve. I took pains to set the table prettily, to plan menus I knew he'd enjoy. I spent hours and hours preparing his favorite dishes, not caring anymore if Kitty grew fat from the pasta dishes he preferred and I liked, too. When the clock on the mantel struck six, my ears keened to hear the sound of his car in the drive. I ran to take his coat when he came in the back door, loving the ceremony of his greeting that was the same each day:

"Hi there, Heaven. What's new?"

His smiles brightened my life; his small jokes gave me laughter. I began to see him as bigger than life, and forgot all his weaknesses when it came to Kitty. Best of all, he listened, really listened, when I talked to him. I saw him as the kind of father I'd always wanted, always needed, the one who not only loved me, but also appreciated what I was. He understood, never criticized, and always, no matter what, he was on my side. Though with Kitty that never helped much.

"I write and write, and Fanny never answers, Cal. Five letters I've written to her since I've been here, and not even a postcard in return. Would you treat your sister like that?"

"No," he said with a sad smile, "but then, my family members never write to me, so I don't write to them--not since I married Kitty, who doesn't want any competition for my affections."

"And Tom doesn't write, even though Logan gave him this address."

"Maybe Buck Henry doesn't give him the time to write letters, or prevents him from mailing the ones he might write."