I still didn’t know whether Cassie was angry at me or simply not in the least concerned about how it would all affect my school life.
“What do you mean, it was an echo? I still don’t understand, Cassie.”
“Christmas trees, am I talking to myself? The foolish pregnancy, Semantha. That’s what’s led to this today and who knows what tomorrow.”
“Oh. Then Mother will feel even worse now.”
“She surely will. That’s why you had better listen to me and not go visiting her in the hospital. Even in the state she’s in, she’ll be able to read your obvious face easily, and you will have no choice but to blurt out everything, which might nail her to that hospital bed for weeks more.”
I started to sob softly.
“There’s no reason to cry now, Semantha. It’s over and done with. Can’t you try to act like a Heavenstone, at least make an effort? I told you I would handle this.”
I held my breath and nodded. She drove on in silence but wearing a strange smile all the way home.
When we arrived, I went directly up to my room. The fear and tension exhausted me, and I fell asleep for a while. I didn’t come out until I was hungry for lunch. I didn’t hear Cassie and thought that she might have changed her mind and returned to school after all, but when I was in the kitchen making a sandwich, I heard her come out of Daddy’s office.
I poked my head out of the kitchen doorway.
“I’m having a turkey and cheese sandwich. Do you want me to make you one?”
“Yes,” she said, surprising me. She usually wanted to do things for herself. “Do it on toast and cut it in fours like I do for Daddy.”
I saw that she was carrying some documents.
“What’s that?”
“Store business, things for the gala, that sort of thing. I’ve been studying it. Uncle Perry isn’t as successful for us as he makes out to be and Daddy pretends. He’s lucky I’m not the CEO. He’d be gone. I’ll be in the dining room. Bring a cranberry juice with the sandwich, and don’t forget napkins.”
Making something like a turkey and cheese sandwich isn’t a big, involved project, but because I was doing it for Cassie and knew how she could be, I made it as perfectly as possible. Not a piece of turkey or cheese stuck out, and I actually measured the quarters with a ruler. She had her face in a folder when I brought it to her and set it down. She glanced at it and nodded. Then I got my sandwich and sat across from her.
“Should we call Daddy and tell him anything?”
She lowered the file, picked up one of the sandwich quarters, and began eating without replying.
“I mean, I don’t think he can find out beforehand, but maybe I—”
“What did I tell you in the car, Semantha? Didn’t I tell you I would handle this?”
“I know. I just thought—”
“Don’t think right now. Just do what I say, and we’ll get through this … this incident.”
She continued reading and eating. I finished my sandwich, and when she was finished, I took her plate and glass into the kitchen. I heard her return to Daddy’s office. No one could keep herself busy the way Cassie could. On the contrary, despite how unpleasant school had become for me these past days, I realized I was going to be quite bored for a week. I didn’t know if my schoolwork would be sent home. I supposed the letter to Daddy said something about it. For now, all I could do was go up to my room to watch television.
Later in the afternoon, I heard our doorbell ringing and hurried out to see who it could be. Cassie was at the door greeting someone. I stood at the top of the stairs, waiting and listening. Moments later, she and a man wearing a cap that said “The Lock Jaw Company” came to the stairway. I stood back as they ascended.
Cassie said nothing to me as she showed him where to go. I followed.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
She ignored me and brought him to the door of what was to have been Asa’s nursery.
He looked at the doorknob and nodded. “I’ll have to replace all this.”
“Can you do it now?”
“Oh, sure.”