Free Heaven by V.C. Andrews Page B

could have laughed and cried at the same time, I was so happy.
    The glorious spring days sailed too quickly by now that love was in the air, and I wanted time for romancing, but Granny and Sarah were relentless in their demands for my time. There was planting to do as well as all the other chores that were my duty, but not Fanny’s. Without the large garden in the back of our cabin we wouldn’t have been as well nourished as we were. We had cabbages, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, collards for the fall, and turnip greens, and, best of all, tomatoes.
    On Sundays I looked forward to seeing Logan again in church. When we were in church and he was seated across the aisle from me, meeting and holding my eyes and sending so many silent messages, how could I help but forget the desperate poverty of our lives? Logan shared so much of what was in his father’s pharmacy with us; small things he thought commonplace filled all of us with delight, like shampoo in a bottle, perfume we could spray on, and a razor and blades for Tom, who began to grow more than auburn fuzz over his lip.
    One Sunday afternoon we planned to go fishing after church, though Logan didn’t tell his parents who he was chumming with. I could tell from their stony faces when we occasionally met on the streets of Winnerrow that his parents didn’t want me, or any Casteel, in their son’s life. What they wanted didn’t seem to matternearly as much to Logan as it did to me. I wanted them to like me, and yet they always managed, somehow, to avoid the introductions Logan wanted to make.
    I was thinking about Logan’s parents as I furtively brushed my hair while Fanny was in the yard tormenting Snapper, Pa’s favorite hound. Sarah sat down heavily behind me and pushed back long strands of red hair from her face before she sighed. “I’m really tired. So blessed tired all t’time. An yer Pa’s neva home. When he is he don’t even look t’see my condition.”
    What she said made me start, made me want to look and see what Pa was missing. I whirled around to stare at her, realizing that I very seldom really looked at Sarah, or else I would have seen before this that she was pregnant … again.
    “Ma!” I cried. “Haven’t you told Pa?”
    “Iffen he really looked at me, he’d know, wouldn’t he?” Iridescent tears of self-pity formed in her eyes. “Last thin in t’world we need is anotha mouth t’feed. Yet we’re gonna have anotha, come fall.”
    “What month, Ma, what day?” I cried, unsettled by the thoughts of another baby to take care of, just when Our Jane was finally in school and not quite as troublesome as she’d been, and Lord knows it had been difficult enough with only a year separating her and Keith.
    “I don’t count days t’tell doctors. Don’t see a doctor,” whispered Sarah, as if her strong voice were weakened by the coming baby.
    “Ma! You’ve got to tell me when so I can be here if you need me!”
    “I jus hope an pray this one will be black-haired,” she mumbled as if to herself. “T’dark-eyed boy yer pa’s been wanting—a boy like him. Oh, God, hear me this time an give t’me an Luke his look-alike son, an then he will love me, like he loved her.”
    It made me hurt to think about that. What good didit do for a man to grieve too long—if he did—and when had he started that baby? Most of the time I could tell what they were doing, and it had been a long time since the bedsprings had creaked in that rhythmical, telling way.
    Gravely I told Tom the news while we were on the path to the lake where we would meet Logan to fish. Tom tried to smile, to look happy, and finally managed a weak grin. “Well, since there’s nothin we kin do about it, we’ll make the best of it, won’t we? Maybe it will be the kind of boy that will make Pa a happier man. And that would be nice.”
    “Tom, I didn’t mean to hurt you by repeating that.”
    “I ain’t hurt. I know every time he looks at me he wishes I looked more like