Heaven (Casteel 1)

"Luke . . . what ya doin?" Grandpa asked in an odd voice.

Pa snatched his hand away.

Pa hadn't hit me! Hadn't hurt me! I kept thinking as I lay there marveling at the kindness of that hand on my shoulder and arm. Why, after all these years, had he touched me lovingly--why?

Grandpa's frail voice woke me near dawn. He was at the stove, heating water, giving me a few extra moments of sleep. I'd overslept, perhaps from worrying so late into the night.

"I saw ya, Luke! I won't have it. I won't! Ya leave that chile be. There's a whole town of women t'take once ya know it's safe, but right now ya don't need a woman, or a girl."

"She's mine!" Pa raged. "And I'm well now!" His face was red when I dared to take a peek. "Born of my seed . . . and I'll do what I damn well like with her. She's old enough, plenty old enough. Why, her ma wasn't but a little older when she married up with me."

Grandpa's voice turned to a thin wind from the north. "I remember a night when all the world went dark fer ya, an it'll go even darker if ya touch that girl. Get her away from here, out of temptation's reach. She's no more fer ya than the other one was."

Monday night Pa disappeared while I slept. He came back near dawn. I felt drugged when I woke up, heavy-hearted; dull-spirited, yet I got up to do what I always did, opening the iron stove door, shoving in more wood, putting on water to boil. Pa watched me closely, seeming to weigh my mood, or judge what I might do. When I looked again, Pa seemed reflective, as if trying to pull himself together, before he said in a strange, tight kind of voice, with better pronunciation than usual:

"You, my sweet young thing, are going to have a choice. A choice not many of us have." He moved so I had to look at him or be trapped in a corner. "Down in the valley are two childless couples who have seen you from time to time, and it seems they both admire you, so when I approached them, saying you needed new parents, both couples were eager to have you. Soon they'll be coming. I could sell you to the highest bidder, but I won't."

My eyes clashed with his defiantly, yet I could find nothing to say that would prevent him from doing what he wanted to do.

"This time, I'm allowing you to choose just which set of parents you want."

A certain kind of indifference fell like a cloak over me. Over and over again Grandpa's words echoed in my mind: "Get her away from here. . ." Even Grandpa didn't want me. As Fanny had shouted out, anyone, any place, would be better than here.

Any house!

Any parents!

Grandpa wanted me to go. There he sat whittling on a figure, as if a thousand grandchildren could be sold away, and still he'd just sit and whittle.

Thoughts of Logan Stonewall flitted like doomed moths to the candle of my burning despair. He wouldn't even meet my eyes. Wouldn't even turn his head to stare after me, as I'd hoped he would do. And even if his parents beside him had made him shy or embarrassed, still he could have managed a secret signal, but he hadn't made any. Why not? He'd trudged all the way up the mountainside. Had seeing inside the cabin shocked him to such an extent his feelings for me had changed?

I don't care, I said to myself over and over. Why should I care? He wouldn't believe me when I told the truth.

For the first time I truthfully believed maybe life would be better living with decent town folks. And when I was safely away from this place I'd find a way to search for those I loved.

"You better get dressed," Pa said after I'd wiped the table clean and put away the floor bed pallets. "They'll be coming soon."

I sucked in my breath, tried to meet his eyes, and failed. Better so, I told myself, better so. Without zest I looked through the boxes to find the best of what clothes I had. Before I put them on, I swept the cabin floor--and not once did Pa move his eyes from me.

I made the bed, just as if this were another ordinary day. Pa didn't move his eyes from whatever I did. He made me self-conscious. Made me nervous. Made me clumsy and slow when usually I felt graceful and swift. Made me feel so many emotions I grew confused, reeling with my long-lived hatred for him.

Two shiny new cars crawled into our dirt yard and parked one behind the other. A white car, a black car. The black one was long and luxurious-looking, the white one smaller, snazzier, with red seats.

I was wearing the only dress Fanny hadn't taken, a simple shiftlike garment that had once been blue and was now gray from years of washings. Underneath I had on one of the two pairs of underpants I owned. I needed to wear a bra now, but I didn't own one. Quickly I brushed my hair; then I remembered the suitcase. I had to take that suitcase with me!

Soon I had retrieved the cherished suitcase that held the treasures of my mother, and around it I wrapped several of Granny's handmade shawls.

Pa's dark eyes narrowed when he saw me with the suitcase that had been hers. Still, he didn't say a word to stop me from taking my mother's belongings. I would have died to save them from his destruction. Maybe he guessed that.

Twice Pa seemed to rip away his eyes from staring at my mouth. Was he seeing how much I looked like her, his dead angel? Inwardly I shivered. My own mother's lips, the doll mirrored--a doll in a wedding gown--a doll who looked no older than I did now.

Deep in my thoughts, I didn't hear the raps on the door. Didn't glimpse the two couples who came in until they were there, in the middle of our largest room. Ole Smokey coughed and spat out smoke. Pa shook hands, smiling, acting like a genial host. I looked around, trying to see something I'd forgotten.

Then came

the silence. The long, awful silence as four sets of eyes turned on me, the item up for sale. Eyes that swept over me from head to feet, took my measurements, studied my face, hands, body, while I was caught in a web of darkness so intense I could hardly see them at all.

Now I knew how Tom must have felt. Tom--I could feel him beside me, giving me strength, whispering his encouraging words. It'll be all right, Heavenly. . . don't it all work out in t'end, don't it?