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Daddy looked up sharply, surprised at my tone. I could almost read his thoughts. You sounded just like your sister just now.
“ Well, I don’t imagine you’ll see him too often now, anyway,” Lucille said. “If there is one thing I’d advise young women today, it’s not to rush into romantic relationships. That was my mistake.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Lucille,” Uncle Perry told her. I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Uncle Perry always had that way about him, balancing what he really thought with what he had to say and therefore never sounding completely sincere. Cassie hated it.
“Maybe,” she said, “but I still give any young women I know that advice, even William’s nieces, who still talk to me more than they talked to him.”
“They’re lucky to have you as a mentor,” Daddy told her.
“He’s drooling over her. We have a lot of work to do,” Cassie whispered.
When we returned to campus, I looked for Ethan in the crowd of relatives and close friends that was gathering. I didn’t see him, but I still had high hopes. I went backstage to get my cap and gown and listen to last-minute instructions from Mrs. Hathaway. It wasn’t going to be a long ceremony. There were only thirty-four of us graduating, and that included some early graduates as well. The speaker was Helen Fleming, a graduate of the class of 1995 who was now a New York State senator.
My eyes panned the audience as we marched down the aisle to take our seats on the stage. Ethan was still nowhere in sight, so my expectations dwindled, and even though this was supposed to be a very happy day for me, I felt a thick cloud of disappointment drift over me. I barely listened to any of the speakers and nearly didn’t hear my name called when it was time to go up and get my diploma. Mrs. Hathaway held my hand a little longer than she had held the hands of the others.
“You can be very, very proud of yourself, Semantha,” she said. “You overcame a great many obstacles to get to this place. Good luck, dear.”
“Thank you,” I said, and looked out at Daddy, Uncle Perry, and Lucille. Uncle Perry was waving. Daddy looked lost in thought, and Lucille looked pleased and kept whispering something in his ear. Daddy finally nodded and smiled at me as I walked around to return to my seat. Only Uncle Perry snapped a picture.
Afterward, I introduced the three of them to some of my teachers, and then Lucille reminded Daddy of the time. With one more desperate search of the crowd, I looked for Ethan but didn’t see him. If he had been there, he would have come over, I thought.
“Forget about him,” Cassie said. “We’ll find someone worthy of a Heaven-stone.”
“So, how does it feel?” Uncle Perry asked when we were all in the limousine heading for the airport. He reached for my hand and gently squeezed it.
“Not much different,” I said.
It was true. It was almost as if someone else had been on that stage. I didn’t have any girlfriends to hug and cry with. Other than my times with Ethan, there were no great memories, nothing about the school to cherish and tell my children about in years to come. Now my years at Collier and even these past weeks felt more like a dream. Soon I would wake up and find myself back in my own bed at home.
Maybe it had all been a long, bad dream. Maybe when I woke up, I’d hear Mother coming down the hallway to wake me up and Cassie complaining that she was babying me too much.
“If she’s late for school, it’s her own fault,” Cassie would say.
And Mother would respond, “That’s why I’m here. To make sure she’s not, and you should be, too, Cassie. We have to look after each other in this world.”
“There’s a limit to that, Mother. She’ll become too dependent on us and weak.”
“Nonsense,” Mother would tell her with a short but soft laugh. “A Heaven-stone can never be too weak, remember?”
“She’s not a Heaven-stone yet,” Cassie would reply and leave it at that, whatever it meant.
I could hear them bantering so clearly. It really was as if no time had passed.
Oh, please, please let it be true, I prayed.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Cassie muttered in my ear. “Open your eyes and look at Daddy and his Lucille. We have no time for dreaming.”
Cassie was right. They were behaving like two teenagers, giggling and whispering and sitting so tightly against each other that they could surely feel the blood moving in each other’s veins. I looked at Uncle Perry to see what he thought of them. He smiled and shook his head. Then he leaned over to whisper in the ear Cassie favored.
“Your dad’s finally coming back to life, Sam,” he said. “That’s good. Things will be better for you, for us all, if he’s happy again.”
I looked at him with surprise. Didn’t he see what I saw? Didn’t he see how controlling Lucille was, and how self-centered?
“See?” Cassie said. “I told you he was a lamebrain.”
For most of the remainder of the trip, Uncle Perry was the only one talking to me. Daddy was on the phone with some of his store managers, and when she wasn’t talking with him, Lucille read fashion magazines. Uncle Perry described some of the changes he had been making in the Heaven-stone fashion line. Despite some cutbacks Daddy had made when Cassie was working with him, Uncle Perry had held on to what interested him most and eventually brought it back to where it was.
“Maybe you’ll come work with me,” he suggested a little before we landed. “I always welcomed your opinion and advice, Sam, and it’s a lot more interesting than the work your father does.”
