Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

psychiatric therapy. I certainly didn’t want that, not now. So I decided against even suggesting anything about Cassie.
    I was surprised to learn that both Daddy andLucille had left the house before I went downstairs. Mrs. Dobson said they rushed out “as if the house was on fire.” She didn’t know why, either, but she did say they appeared more excited than frightened about anything. I could see she was more curious than usual, which made me more curious, but I told her I didn’t have a clue.
    For the first time since I had returned from school, I was alone at home. Mrs. Dobson and Doris had their work, and besides, neither really ever spent time socializing with me. Of course, I had been home alone often while I had attended Collier and returned for the holidays. Daddy rarely took a day off besides Sundays, and often, since Mother’s death, he didn’t even do that. Most of those times, I’d had schoolwork to do. With what I could do on my computer and in our own wonderful library, I hadn’t had to leave the house.
    Now, however, all that schoolwork was behind me, and I had little to occupy my thoughts. Any future plans and ambitions remained vague. I really had little to look forward to and little to do, which was why I was now so eager to participate in Daddy and Lucille’s wedding. Of course, that stirred up dreams and fantasies about my own marriage and wedding ceremony. I didn’t want it to be as grand and as elaborate as Daddy and Lucille’s. I imagined a wedding in a small chapel followed by a family banquet and then a wonderful honeymoon. All I needed was a groom, someone to fall in love with me, someone with whom I could fall in love, but I didn’t even have a date with anyone. None of the boys who once knew me whenI was in public school ever called or wrote e-mails. I was sure for them it was as if I never had existed.
    The thought depressed me, but for the moment, at least, I could look forward to Uncle Perry’s visit. I told Mrs. Dobson that he was coming for lunch and asked her to prepare her chicken salad. Uncle Perry really enjoyed it the way she made it with apples and pears. I knew she liked him very much. She referred to him as “a refined gentleman,” someone who reminded her of her last employer in London. She said she would set up the table on our back veranda and would put out flowers and dress it up “like a Sunday high tea.”
    While I waited for him to arrive, I went on a tour of our home. I was curious to see what, if any, changes Lucille had already accomplished or begun. The door to the room that had been going to be little Asa’s nursery was still locked. I was happy to see that. And aside from the way Lucille had set up her vanity table in the master suite, nothing there had been changed. I went into the room and, feeling a little like a voyeur perhaps, opened her closet and looked at her fine clothes and shoes. There was already far more than what Mother had had in it. There was a different scent in the room, too, although the room itself was still the way Cassie had rearranged and redecorated it.
    I recalled how she had done it without Daddy’s permission, planning and scheming with the decorator. Even I hadn’t known what she was up to until the day she’d had it all done. I’ll never forget the look of surprise and shock on Daddy’s face when he entered the room that day. It had driven home that Motherwas gone. I knew that was why Cassie had done it. She never had trouble facing reality and had expected the same of everyone else, especially Daddy.
    I had told her that I thought it was cruel and I could never do such a thing. She had said that was why she was more of a Heaven-stone than I was. She could do the hard, necessary things without emotions dragging her down.
    “You don’t lower yourself and your beliefs to fit the inferior ones. You force them to rise to your standards, whether it’s painful for them or not. That’s what Heaven-stones do,” she had lectured.
    I thought to myself, if she was right, I wanted to change my name.
    I hated the idea that Mother was completely erased from existence. Even the traces of her in her own bedroom were gone. Cassie had put away their wedding photos and photos of us with Mother as well. Daddy had put them back, at least, but I suddenly realized as I gazed around now that they were gone again. That was obviously because of Lucille.
    “Of course it is,” Cassie whispered, seeing her opportunity to open the