“Why would she do that?”
“She said Mother was in too much pain having lost your Asa and wanted to sleep forever.”
“My God,” Uncle Perry said.
“She said that?”
“Yes. She came up to the attic just after I found those, and then she told me, and then she tried to get the pill bottle from me, and we struggled … and …” I started to cry again. “And she … fell backward … when I let go.”
We could hear a police siren in the distance.
“Excuse me, Mr. Heavenstone,” one of the paramedics said, coming to the doorway. “We can’t move your daughter until the police arrive. Your younger daughter will have to speak to them.”
Daddy said nothing. He barely nodded. The paramedic returned to Cassie’s body.
“Are you pregnant, Semantha?” Uncle Perry asked, just realizing.
“Yes, Uncle Perry.”
“She got herself in trouble,” Daddy told him. “Cassie was helping to keep it quiet.”
“That’s not what happened, Daddy,” I said. “I never got myself in trouble.”
“What? What are you saying now?”
I began to tell him, but before I could finish the whole story, the police arrived. However, what I had told him of it so far was enough to drain all the blood from his face and weaken his knees so much that Uncle Perry had to hold him up to face the police. They told me to stay in my room while they went to talk to the paramedics.
In the end, it was Uncle Perry who was more concerned about the Heavenstone reputation. He came back to me before the police did.
“Don’t tell them about the pills and your mother,” he said. “That will turn this into a circus. The tabloids will have a field day with us. Just tell them you were both bringing things up for storage, and she lost her footing and fell backward.”
“I’m not good at not telling the truth, Uncle Perry. Cassie will tell you that—” I stopped myself. The realization that Cassie was gone forever still hadn’t set in.
“Do the best you can,” Uncle Perry said. “Your father and I will handle it from then on. Don’t worry.”
When the police came in to speak with me, I told them Cassie and I had been taking things up to the attic, and when I had taken some clothes from her arms too quickly, she had lost her footing and fallen backward. I thought I saw doubt in their faces, but Uncle Perry stepped in quickly and told them I was too upset to talk too much, and as they could readily see, I was pregnant. Maybe because of who we were or maybe because they really didn’t see any reason to continue, they left me alone and continued to work on getting Cassie’s body out to the ambulance.
I literally fell over on my side on the bed and closed my eyes. Sleep was truly an escape. Later that day, Daddy and Uncle Perry came into my room and sat beside my bed to hear the rest of the story. They barely spoke or asked a question. Daddy told Uncle Perry to call Porter Andrew Hall and tell him to come directly to our house immediately. I re
mained in my room. Uncle Perry brought me something to drink and a little to eat and told me to rest. He said he and Daddy would be back up to see me as soon as they had met with Porter.
When they did return, it was apparent that Porter had confessed to everything. Daddy was devastated, but he was finally more concerned about me than himself. Despite all that had happened and all he had learned, he was able to hold himself together and get busy on what had to be done about Cassie. Since there was no longer a reason to try to keep my pregnancy hidden, Daddy had his secretary, Mrs. Hingen, come stay with me while he and Uncle Perry went off to speak to the police. Uncle Perry said he would get started on the funeral arrangements.
For the first time in a long time, my father and my uncle were behaving like real brothers. Later, Daddy would tell me that nothing cements a family tighter than family tragedy. That’s when they are reminded that their blood shares mortality and lives only as long as they do and their children do.
Late in the evening, Daddy came into my room. I was in bed but hadn’t been able to fall asleep for very long. I’d doze off and then wake up and be awake for long periods of time until I dozed off again. Anyone who’s been through so traumatic an event would say he or she wondered if it had all been a dream. Every once in a while, I’d listen hard for Cassie’s footsteps to confirm it had been a nightmare and nothing more, but those footsteps never came.
When I woke after one of my short dozes, I saw Daddy sitting in the shadows carved by the moonlight flowing through my sheer cotton curtains. The sight of him sitting so still startled me. I sat up slowly.
“Daddy?”
“How are you?” he asked softly.
“I’m okay. I have trouble sleeping.”
“I don’t expect to sleep at all,” he said. “I’m sitting here wondering how I let all this get by me, wondering why I was so blind, deaf, and dumb. She always seemed so perfect to me, or maybe I wanted her to be perfect. I suppose most parents are blind to their children’s faults or want to be. It’s just that I always thought of myself as … wiser, I guess. I believed my own publicity.”
“I should have told you more, talked to you more. It’s mostly my fault.”