“If I had a penny for every girl your age who said that and got pregnant, I’d be richer than Daddy.”
I said nothing more. When we arrived home, she had me keep very still. I looked in and saw Daddy asleep on the sofa. It was so strange to me. No matter how drunk he had gotten on his wine, I still couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to be upstairs with Mother. I started to go into the living room, but Cassie seized my arm.
“Don’t disturb him. It took me quite a while to get him relaxed. He might look at your face and immediately see what happened tonight. Just go to sleep, Semantha.”
I continued to look at Daddy. Her fingers grew tighter on my arm until I pulled it away and hurried to the stairs. When she couldn’t see me, I rubbed my arm. She remained downstairs with Daddy, so I went to see Mother. Although the room was dark, I saw she wasn’t sleeping. In fact, she was sitting up. The moment I opened the door, she called, “Teddy? Is that you? Did you hear him?”
How could I tell her Daddy had fallen asleep downstairs and wasn’t coming up? Hear him? Hear who?
“No, Mother. It’s Semantha. How are you?”
She didn’t reply. I walked in farther and saw she had her eyes closed even though she was sitting up. I waited, but she didn’t open them. I didn’t want to wake her, so I slipped out quietly and closed the door softly.
As I was approaching my room, I heard my phone ringing and ran the rest of the way and practically lunged at my phone. It was Kent. I held my breath.
“He doesn’t have any serious spine injury, just the concussion. The head wound wasn’t serious,” Kent said. “We were all lucky.”
When he said
that, I thought about Cassie again saying the same thing but for different reasons.
“Eddie’s lucky there were no witnesses,” Kent continued. “It will surely be considered the old man’s fault. But you were right. Eddie would have had plenty of time to see him back out if he hadn’t been doing other things.”
“I know.”
“You won’t say anything, will you? You might be asked by some lawyer.”
I was silent.
“If you did, no one would talk to you in our school again.”
“What about what’s right, Kent?”
“What about it? The insurance companies will pay anyway, so there’s no sense hurting Eddie any more than he’s hurt.”
“Eddie’s hurt? Noel is in the hospital, and the elderly man is going to be hurt, too, because of all this.”
Kent was silent. “I’ve got to go,” he finally said. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No, I’m attending my father’s gala store opening in Lexington.”
“Whatever,” Kent said, and hung up.
I held the receiver a moment longer and thought, Cassie was right. Kent Pearson wasn’t good enough for a Heavenstone. The second I thought that, however, I felt guilty. No one should be considered better than someone else because of his or her family’s wealth and history. I told myself that, but I kept hearing Cassie’s warnings and arguments about why we had to remain special.
I didn’t think I could fall asleep. The accident replayed itself in my mind. I was afraid I would have terrible nightmares, but my eyelids had other ideas. They slammed shut almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, and as Daddy might say, they were as tightly closed as the vault in the First National Bank.
I overslept. It was nearly eleven when Cassie shook me.
“You should get up, Semantha. Lucky for you, Daddy wasn’t a hundred percent himself this morning.”
I sat up quickly. “Did you tell him everything?”
“Of course. You want him to find out about it from some stranger? He wanted me to wake you earlier to be sure you were all right, but I assured him you were. I promised him you would call him after lunch, which looks like it will be your breakfast.”
I scrubbed my face with my dry palms and shook my head. “It all seems like a dream, a nightmare.”
“Someone was watching over you, all right. Most likely, it was the spirit of one of our ancestors. Maybe even Asa.”