Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

day, she paused and said, “I really don’t understand why you’re not enrolled in either a public school or a private school, Semantha. You’re not an invalid or homebound by any illness. Don’t you miss being with other kids your age? Doing school activities, clubs, teams?”
    “Yes,” I admitted.
    “Then why …” She held her hands up.
    I gave her Cassie’s stock explanation, but she shook her head.
    “First, you shouldn’t be running away from difficulties. You should be facing them and solving them. Hiding in your home like this is no solution. Second, I’m sure that’s all a bit of an exaggeration. I don’t want to sound like I’m diminishing your family’s tragedy, but there are many, many young people your age who have suffered similar things but don’t hide out.
    “Listen,” she said, getting softer in her tone, “I’m giving you advice that takes money out of my pocket,but I have to confess that I’m beginning to feel somewhat guilty about it. I don’t like taking advantage of people, especially young people. What do you do here all day after our lessons? Do you have any friends visit? Because I’ve never heard mention of any.”
    “No, no one.”
    She shook her head. “And your father approves of this?”
    I shrugged. How was I to explain to someone who wasn’t a member of our family how Daddy was so attentive to Cassie’s wishes and ideas? How was I to tell her that my sister, only a few years older than I, had stepped so completely into my mother’s shoes, at least when it came to parenting? My father was an important and influential businessman in the state. He was on a first-name basis with senators and congressmen, as well as the governor, but when it came down to my education and even Cassie’s, he seemed incapable of opposing her.
    Mrs. Underwood shook her head. “I think it’s time I had a conversation with him,” she muttered. “I don’t want you to think I don’t like you. It’s nothing like that, Semantha, but I’ve been in education all my life, and I have always placed the interests and needs of students ahead of my own. You’re doing the work I assign, but you’re only going through the motions. You’re not inspired by anything. You don’t show any special interest in any one subject, as you might if you were in a classroom with a good teacher. But,” she said, ending her little speech, “these are things I should be telling your father and not you.”
    I didn’t say she shouldn’t. Everything she hadtold me made sense and was what I believed in my heart, anyway. Besides, I was beginning to get cabin fever. Except for the grounds workers, I didn’t see another person. My longest walk was to go down the driveway to get the mail. Twice I asked Cassie why Porter hadn’t returned or why she wasn’t going out on another date. The first time, she ignored me completely. The second time, she said she was simply too busy right now. I didn’t follow with the next question, but it was on my lips.
How can you be too busy to take a few hours out of a week and enjoy yourself?
    Because Mrs. Underwood didn’t say any more on the subject, I assumed she was just talking about doing something but never would or had, but two days later, before Cassie followed Daddy to the office, she came into the kitchen while I was cleaning up after breakfast and told me Mrs. Underwood would no longer be my tutor.
    “What?”
    “Just what I said. Mrs. Underwood is finished here, Semantha.”
    “But she gave me assignments for today.”
    “We paid her off late yesterday afternoon. She had the tenacity, the nerve, to go to your father and tell him everything I had suggested we do for now was dreadfully wrong. Daddy called me in, and I had it out with her right in front of him. He saw what a weak, insecure, stupid woman she was after all.
    “I’ll tell you what I think,” she continued. “I think she jumped at this job, this opportunity, because somewhere in that rotting brain of hers, she fantasized about winning Daddy.”

    “Winning Daddy? What do you mean?”
    “Christmas trees, Semantha. She’s a widow. Daddy is a recent widower and a tremendous catch for any woman.”
    “Mrs. Underwood? But she’s … isn’t she older than him?”
    “What does that matter? There are thousands of men out there being seduced by older women, especially when those men are vulnerable after suffering a loss. I saw the way she looked at him when she saw him in the house. I’m