Daddy kept Gerad and the De Stagens working for us, and Heaven-stone was basically run the way it had been before Lucille’s death. Of course, some of the changes Lucille had envisioned and planned were not continued. To me, it was as if the grand old house released a deeply held breath. The faces on the ancestors in the corridor of portraits looked pleased. There was only one set of eyes that followed me with nervous interest, the eyes of Asa Heaven-stone.
A number of times, I thought I saw Cassie floating through rooms and hallways. I waited anxiously for her whispers, but they didn’t come. Just before summer, I learned I was finally pregnant. Ethan and Daddy took me out to celebrate, but they wouldn’t let me drink anything alcoholic. They became nervous Nellies, hovering over me, nagging me about lifting anything too heavy. When I reached my fourth month, both forbade me to drive. Daddy assigned the limousine to me, and the poor driver had to hang about waiting for me to want to go here or there.
Almost the day after my pregnancy was confirmed, work began on the nursery to be right beside our bedroom, just the way Lucille had suggested. Ethan and I moved to one of the guest bedrooms while the carpenters created an adjoining door. For as long as I could, I resisted learning whether I was going to give birth to a boy or a girl. My memories of Mother finding out she was having a boy and the joy that followed were too vivid. That joy had made the tragedy much greater, I thought, and I was fearful. Ethan finally talked me into it, using the choices for furniture and the color of the nursery walls as a reason.
I knew both of them were holding their breath, and when the doctor announced I was going to have a boy, it could have been New Year’s Eve. Someone might have thought I was giving birth to the new Messiah or at least some holy child. If the two of them had been nags before, they were now insane with protecting me. Daddy even thought aloud about hiring a nurse to be with me during the last trimester.
I was sure he was sending Uncle Perry to Heaven-stone more often just to keep an eye on me. He began to have lunch with me twice a week and to take my walks with me. All the while, I looked for signs of Cassie, but I didn’t even see her ghostlike image floating through rooms or hallways anymore. Sometimes I would burst into her bedroom and stand there looking at everything as if I expected to see some proof that she was there, but nothing ever changed.
One afternoon, while we were having lunch, Uncle Perry fixed his gaze on me with an intensity I recognized as the preface to some very serious comment or question. Cassie had used to call it his “tell” and claimed he was too obvious ever to be subtle or clever. I had told her he was refreshing because he wasn’t conniving, and of course she had thought that was a weakness.
“When you’re obvious, you’re vulnerable,” she had said. I packed it away with some of her other words of wisdom that, despite their value, were still annoying to me.
“I’m sure you know, Sam, that your father and your husband would rather pretend that there was nothing wrong with you during the weeks and even months before Lucille’s tragic death. You said and did things that recommended you for continued therapy. I’m happy to see that’s all changed, but I worry for you, and ironically, I’m now the Heaven-stone brother who refuses to bury his head in the sand.”
“You mean when I tried to see my daughter?”
“That and other things, Sam. How do you feel about not seeing or spending any time with her?”
“I understand why the Normans were so fearful. They’ve invested their love in her and she in them. It would be cruel to do anything to ruin that relationship.”
“Very good. I’m proud of you for saying that. Someday, maybe when she’s much older, they’ll tell her the truth, and then you two might meet.”
“I think so.”
“But something else obsessed you. I felt it often whenever I visited and you acted as if our conversations were being recorded or something, and certainly when you had a little breakdown of sorts and cut your hair and began dressing like Cassie. Is that over?”
I hesitated to answer. Was it?
“She’s not here anymore,” I finally admitted. “I don’t hear her voice.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “When she was alive, she was in your head far too much. She never let you be yourself.”
“She was afraid for Heaven-stone.”
“No, I think she was afraid for herself, afraid she was wrong about most things. When she engineered your first pregnancy, she was completing her mission to take you over completely. In her mind, you were having her baby, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And that’s why you went to the Normans’ home. You thought that was what Cassie would want.”
“Partly. I was curious, Uncle Perry. It’s only natural.”
“Is she gone now, Semantha?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
He nodded and then brightened and stood up. “Let’s take a ride.”
“A ride? Where to?”
“Just take a ride,” he said. “Trust me.”
He went out to his car and drove through the gate, neither of us talking. As we drove along, I realized where he was going. Suddenly, I did hear Cassie again.
“ No,” she was whispering. “ Turn back,” she was telling me. “ Tell him no.”
It took all my strength to defy her, but I did. I said nothing. Her whispers grew more and more frantic, and when we drove through the entrance to the cemetery, she was screaming. Uncle Perry looked at me a number of times. I saw how worried he was, but I held my breath.
Finally, I had to put my hands over my ears. He parked and quickly got out of the car to go around and open my door.
“Come on, Sam. You’ve got to.”
I let him guide me out and held on to his arm as we walked up the path until we reached Cassie’s grave. For a moment, the two of us stood there silently staring at the tombstone.
“Bury her again,” Uncle Perry said. “Go on, Sam. Do it.”
He let go of me. I stepped forward and then fell to my knees and spread my arms as I lowered myself to embrace the earth. The grass was cool against my cheek.
“Good-bye, Cassie,” I whispered. “I don’t hate you, but I don’t need you anymore.”
Her whispering stopped.
Uncle Perry helped me to my feet. I brushed off my clothes, and we started out.
Far off in the distance in the direction of Heaven-stone, the clouds began to part to reveal the bluest of blue sky.
And I felt like a child opening a gift and discovering she had been given herself.
Finally and forever.
Secret Whispers Page 32
