“You emptied them into her drink.”
I could see her face clearly now. She looked different, not angry, not sad. She looked like someone who was hearing voices and not hearing me.
“Cassie!” I cried.
She lowered her head a little and looked at me. “Mother was in terrible pain,” she said. “She had failed Daddy, failed the Heavenstones. She wasn’t getting any better, and she would never get any better, a
nd she would never bring Asa into the world. She wanted to sleep, to sleep forever and ever.”
“No!” I screamed, cringing. Tears were streaming down my face, tears for my mother, for my father, and for me. “You did a terrible, terrible thing!”
She shook her head and smiled that smile of damn Cassie self-confidence again. “No, I didn’t.”
“You know you did. Deep inside you, you know you did, otherwise you would have buried these, buried the evidence. Maybe you hoped they would be found. You hate yourself, Cassie Heavenstone. You’ll always hate yourself. Daddy will hate you forever!” I added, much louder.
That wiped the smile off her face. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He can’t. I love him too much, and everything I do is all for him. He can’t ever hate me. He loves me.”
“Not anymore,” I said. “Not after he sees this.”
Now anger rose to the surface of her face.“Give me those pills and that pill bottle. Do it now, Semantha,” she ordered holding out her hand.
I shook my head.“He’s got to know everything, Cassie. You’ve got to tell him everything, even how I got pregnant. Everything. I’m going to call him,” I said, and started to the left of her.
She blocked me and seized my arm. I formed a fist around the pills and the bottle.
“Give it to me!” she demanded, and started to pry my fingers open, digging her nails into my palms. We struggled, but she was stronger than I was. She managed to get my fingers up. I pulled back as hard as I could, and she grasped the pill bottle, but she was pulling hard in the opposite direction, and when I let go, she went backward and flew off the top step. I saw her hit the edge of a step with the back of her neck and then flip over twice before slamming onto the floor below.
I froze in disbelief. It had all happened so quickly that there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Blood trickled out of the corners of her mouth and began to zigzag down her chin.
“Cassie!” I screamed, and hurried down to her.
Her eyes were open, and she was looking up. They seemed to glaze over as I watched. Her mouth opened just a little more, and I thought I heard her whisper, “He loves me.”
In a panic, I hurried to my room to call Daddy. He was out of the office, but his secretary located him quickly for me and transferred me to his cell phone.
“What is it, Semantha?” he asked. The tone of his voice had not softened when he spoke to me all these weeks, and it had that sharpness in it now as well.
“It’s Cassie,” I said. “She’s fallen down the attic steps, and she’s hurt badly.”
“What? Did you call for an ambulance?”
“No, not yet.”
“Okay. I’ll call,” he said, and hung up before I could tell him anything else.
I returned to Cassie’s side. First, I picked up as many of the emptied pill capsules as I could find, and then I found the bottle itself. I put the capsules back into it and sat beside her, holding her hand. It grew cooler and cooler in mine. I don’t know how long I was sitting there with her until Daddy arrived. He came right behind the ambulance. The paramedics flew up the stairs behind him, and one of them lifted me out of the way gently.
Daddy waited while the other checked Cassie and then looked up and shook his head.
“Oh, my God, no! No!” Daddy screamed. “Not my Cassie! She can’t be dead! Give her CPR! Do something!”
Whether they did it to calm him or they really believed it would help, I do not know, but they tried. The one who had helped me told Daddy they had to call the police. He barely nodded. Then he grabbed my left arm and pulled me toward my bedroom.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said. “How could she fall down this stairway?”
From the tone of his voice, I understood he was blaming me even before he heard anything. The day he had learned I was pregnant, he had swept me off the pedestal on which every father sees his daughter. I was the fallen angel who had cracked his shattered heart even more, and nothing I could do would ever mend it. Because of that, he would never have any trouble seeing me as being at fault or believing I was the cause of more trouble, more pain. Yes, I could be evil. I could lie. I could do illegal things. He wasn’t an objective parent. He had been moved from one who could never see or believe his child was evil to one who could see little else. Forever and ever, I would be guilty until proven innocent, and not the vice versa it was for almost all parents and their children.