Heaven (Casteel 1)

"Kitty BIGMOUTH. Kitty LOUDMOUTH. Kitty who yells NO every night to her husband so I have to hear it. What's wrong with you, Kitty? Have you lost your sexual appetite now that you're growing old?"

She didn't hear me. She was distracted by what I held in my arms. "What t'hell ya got there? Caught ya, didn't I? Lyin there on yer side, like I ain't done tole ya one million times not t'do nasty stuff like that!"

She snatched the doll from my arms, quickly turned on all the lights in my room, and stared down at the doll. I jumped up to rescue my doll.

"It's her! HER!" she screamed, hurling my irreplaceable heirloom doll at the wall. "Luke's damned angel!"

I scurried to pick up the doll, almost tripping because I forgot I was wearing high-heeled sandals. Oh, thank God she wasn't broken, only her bridal veil had fallen off.

"GIVE ME THAT THIN!" ordered Kitty, striding to take the doll from me. She was again distracted by my dress, her eyes raking down my length to see my nylons, my silver sandals. "Where ya get that dress, them shoes?"

"I decorate cakes and sell them to neighbors for twenty dollars apiece!" I lied with flair, so angry that she would sling my doll at the wall and try to ruin the most precious thing I owned.

"Don't ya lie t'me, an say stupid thins like that! An give me that doll."

"NO! I will not give

you this doll."

She glared at me, dumbfounded that I would

answer her back, and in her own tough tone of voice she said, "Ya kin't say no t'me, hill scum, an hope t'get by wid it."

"I just said no, Kitty, and I am getting by with it. You can't buffalo me anymore. I'm not afraid of you now. I'm older, bigger, stronger--and tougher. I'm not weak from lack of nourishing strength, so I do have that to thank you for, but don't you ever dare lay a hand on this doll again."

"What would ya do iffen I did?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice.

The cruelty in her eyes stunned me so much I was speechless. She hadn't changed. All this time when I'd lived apparently in peace, she'd been brewing some kind of hatred inside her. Now it was out, spewing forth from her pale gimlet eyes.

"What's t'matta, hill scum, kin't ya hear?" "Yeah, I hear you."

"What did ya say?"

"I said, Kitty, YEAH, I hear you."

"WHAT?" Louder now, more demanding.

Aggressively, no longer willing to play humble and helpless, I held my head high and proud, flaring back: "You're not my mother, Kitty Setterton Dennison! I don't have to call you Mother. Kitty is good enough. I've tried hard to love you, and forget all the awful things you've done to me, but I'm not trying anymore. You can't be human and nice for but a little while, can you? And I was stupid enough to plan a party, just to please you, and give you a reason for having all that china and crystal . . . but the storm is on, and so are you, because you just don't know how to act like a mother. Now it's ugly, mean time again. I can see it in your watery eyes that glow in the darkness of this room. No wonder God didn't allow you to have children, Kitty Dennison. God knew better."

A lightning flash lit up Kitty's pale face gone dead white as the lights flickered on and off. She spoke in short gasps. "I come home t'fix myself up fer t'partyan what do I find but a lyin, tricky, nastyminded bit of hill-scum filth who don't appreciate anythin I've done."

"I do appreciate all the good things that you've done, that's what this party is all about, but you take away my good feelings when you hit out at me. You try to destroy what belongs to me, while I do all I can to protect what belongs to you. You've done enough harm to me to last a lifetime, Kitty Dennison! I haven't done anything to deserve your punishment. Everybody sleeps on theif 'Wes, on their stomachs-- and no one thinks it is sinful but you. Who told you the right and wrong positions for sleeping? God?"

"YA DON'T TALK T'ME LIKE THAT WHEN YER IN MY HOUSE!" Kitty screamed, livid with rage. "Saw ya, I did. Breakin my rules, ya were. Ya knows ya ain't supposed t'sleep on yer side huggin anything . . . an ya went an done it anyway. YA DID!"

"And what is so bad about sleeping on my side? Tell me! I'm dying to know! It must be tied up somehow to your childhood, and what was done to you!" My tone was as hard as hers, aggressive too.

"Smartmouth, ain't ya?" she fired back. "Think yer betta than me, cause ya gets A's in school. Spend my good money dressin ya up, an what fer? What ya plannin on doin? Ya ain't got no talents. Kin't half cook. Don't know nothin bout cleanin house, keepin thins lookin pretty--but ya think yer betta than me cause I didn't go no higher than t'fifth grade. Cal done told ya all bout me, ain't he?"

"Cal's told me nothing of the kind, and if you didn't finish school I'm sure it was because you couldn't wait to sleep with some man, and run off with the first one who asked you to marry him--like all hill-scum girls do. Even if you did grow up in Winnerrow, you're not one whit better than any scumbag hill-crud girl."

It was Kitty's fault, not mine, that Cal was beginning to look at rue in ways that made me uneasy, forgetting he was supposed to be my father, my champion. Kitty's fault. My rage grew by leaps and bounds that she would steal from me the one man who'd given me what I needed most--a real father. Yet it was she who found her voice first.

"HE TOLE YA! I KNOW HE DID, DIDN'T HE?" she screamed, high and shrill. "Ya done talked about me t'my own husband, tole him lies, made him so he don't love me like he used ta!"

"We don't talk about you. That's too boring. We try to pretend you don't exist, that's all."

Then I threw on more fuel, thinking that I'd already started the blaze, so I might as well heap on all the rotten wood I had been saving since the day I came. Not one harsh word she'd said had been forgotten or forgiven, not one slap, one bloody nose or black eye . . . all had been stored to explode now.