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He wheeled about and ran!
Ran for the path to take him back to
Winnerrow, calling back, "No! No! I don't want to hear more! I don't want to hear--so don't tell me! Never tell me!"
I tried to catch up, but he had much longer legs, and my little heels dug into the mushy earth and slowed me. I headed back up the trail, to visit again the cabin that stunned me with its bleakness. There on the wall was the pale place where Pa's tiger poster used to hang, and underneath, when Tom and I were babies, our cradle had sat. I stared at the cast-iron stove covered with rust where it wasn't green with fungus, and gazed with tears in my eyes at the primitive wooden chairs fashioned long ago by some dead Casteel. The rungs were loose, some were missing, and all the little things we'd done to pretty this place were gone. Logan had seen all of this! I cried then, long and bitterly, for all I'd never had, and all I might still lose. In the silence of the cabin the wind began to howl and shriek, and the rain came down. Only then did I get up from the floor to make my wet way back to Winnerrow, which was no home at all.
Cal was on the porch of the Setterton home, pacing back and forth. "Where have you been that you come back wet, torn, and so dirty?"
"Logan and I visited my mother's grave . ." I whispered hoarsely as I sat wearily on the top step, not caring that it was still raining.
"I thought you were with him." He sat beside me, as heedless of the rain as I; he bowed his head into his hands. "I've been with Kitty all day, and I'm beat. She won't eat. They're putting intravenous tubes in her arm, and beginning the radiation treatments tomorrow. She didn't go to a doctor as she told you she had. That lump has been growing steadily for two or three years. Heaven, Kitty would rather die than lose what represents her femininity to her."
"What can I do to help?" I whispered.
"Stay with me. Don't leave me. I'm a weak man, Heaven, I've told you that before. When I saw you walking with Logan Stonewall, it made me feel old. I should have known that youth would call to its own, and I'm the old fool caught in my own trap."
He tried to sit beside me. I jumped up, a wild panic in my heart. He didn't love me, not as Logan did. He only needed me to replace Kitty.
"Heaven!" he cried. "Are you turning away from me too? Please, I need you now!"
"You don't love me!" I cried. "You love her! You always have! Even when she was cruel to me, you made excuses for her!"
Wearily he turned, his shoulders sagging as he headed for the front door of the Setterton home. "You're right about some things, Heaven. I don't know what I want. I want Kitty to live, and I want her to die and get off my back. I want you, and I know it's wrong. I should never, never have let her talk me into taking you into our home!"
Bang!
Always doors were being slammed in my face.
Twenty-one Without A Miracle
. A WEEK PASSED. EVERY DAY I TENDED TO KITTY IN THE hospital. I hadn't seen Logan since the day he ran from me and left me in the rain, and I knew that in just one more week he'd be returning to college. Many a time I strolled by Stonewall Pharmacy, hoping to catch a glimpse of hini;'even as I tried to convince myself he'd be better off without someone like me. And I'd be better off without someone who'd never forgive me for not being perfect. Too flawed, Logan must have been thinking--too much like Fanny. If Cal noticed I was miserable from not seeing Logan anymore, he didn't say anything.
Hours spent in the hospital at Kitty's bedside made all the days seem exceptionally long. Cal sat on one side, I on the other. He held her hand most of the time, while I kept my hands folded on my lap. As I sat there, almost feeling her suffering as my own, I pondered the complexities of life. At one time I would have rejoiced to see Kitty helpless and unable to deliver slaps and insulting words to take away my self-esteem. Now I was full of compassion, willing to do almost anything to ease her pain, when there was little enough I could do to make her comfortable. Still, I tried, thinking I was redeeming myself, forgetting, as I struggled to find myself worthy and clean again, just what Kitty had done to make me hate her.
There were nurses to give her medications, but I was the one who gave her baths. She gave me signs to hint she'd rather have me do for her all the pampering things the nurses didn't have time for, such as smoothing lotion all over her body, or brushing and styling her hair as she wanted. Often as I teased, then smoothed with a pick, I thought I could have truly loved her if she'd given me half a chance. I made up her face twice a day, dabbed on her favorite perfume, painted her nails, and all the time she watched me with those strange pale eyes. "When I die ya gotta marry Cal," she whispered once.
I looked up, startled, and started to question, but she closed her eyes again, and when she did that, she wouldn't speak even if she were still awake. Oh, God, please let her get well, please! I prayed over and over. I loved Cal and needed him as a father. I couldn't love him in the way he wanted me to.
Other times, as I tended to her needs, I rambled on and on, talking as much to myself as to her; talking about her family and their great concern for her welfare (even though they didn't have any), trying to lift her spirits and give her hope as well as courage to fight the thing that was controlling her life now. Often her eyes were shiny with tears. Other times those dull seawater eyes riveted on me without expression. I sensed something in Kitty was changing, for better or for worse, I couldn't tell.
"Don't look at me like that, Mother," I said with a kind of nerv
ous resentment. I was afraid Maisie might have visited and told her tales of seeing some touch or small bit of affection between Cal and me. But it wasn't my fault, Kitty, not really, I wanted to say as I pulled on her pretty new gown and arranged her arms so she didn't appear so lifeless.
No sooner had I finished with Kitty than her mother came in, scowling disapprovingly, her large, strong arms folded as shields across her fake swelling bosom, her scowl deep and menacing. "She'd look betta widout all that paint on," she grumbled, giving me another sour look. "She's done taught ya rotten ways, ain't she? Done made ya inta what she is. Gave ya all her own faults, ain't she? An I licked her many a time t'take t'evil out of her. Neva did. Neva could. She's got it in her yet, festerin, killin her . . . an t'Lord in t'end always wins, don't he?"
"If you mean we all have to die, yes, Mrs. Setterton, that's true. But a good Christian like you should believe in life after death--"
"Are ya mockin me, girl? Are ya?" In her eyes I saw some of Kitty's meanness shining forth. My indignation rose. "Kitty likes to look pretty, Mrs. Setterton."
"Pretty?" she queried, staring down at Kitty as if seeing an abomination. "Don't she have no color gowns but pink?"
"She likes pink."
"Jus goes t'show she's got no taste. Redheads like her don't wear pink. Done tole her that all her life, an still she wears it."
"Everyone should wear whatever color they like. It's her choice," I insisted.
