Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

ironic way, Lucille’s funeral and the aftermath did more to bring me out in public than anything she had tried. Daddy actually complimented me, telling me he was proud of the way I was conducting myself. Both Ethan and Uncle Perry followed up with their compliments as well. In the end, there were the four of us, sitting quietly together, all feeling as if we had just been through a great battle.
    Daddy proudly rattled off some of the messages he had received from high government officials and important businesspeople, as well as journalists and television personalities from our area. After we had heard most of it, Uncle Perry said Lucille had impressed many people and was highly respected.
    “Maybe there’s just a curse on Heaven-stone wives,” Daddy said. “Our grandmother died at an early age.”
    “I won’t have that problem,” Uncle Perry muttered. It was just a thought that had come to him, but after he said it, he looked up at us as if he had blurted out something terrible. It was the first time Daddy had laughed for days.
    “You will if they legalize gay marriage,” Daddy quipped, and Uncle Perry’s face turned into a ripe apple. Ethan smiled, and I thought to myself that Cassie would have enjoyed this.
    As soon as Daddy was able to get around more comfortably, he was back at his office. Sometimes Ethan would drive him, and sometimes he would use the Heaven-stone limousine. I decided to drive over and drop in on Daddy and Ethan from time to time.I saw how much it pleased them, as well as Uncle Perry. He spent almost every weekend with us during the months that followed.
    Daddy kept Gerad and the De Stagens working for us, and Heaven-stone was basically run the way it had been before Lucille’s death. Of course, some of the changes Lucille had envisioned and planned were not continued. To me, it was as if the grand old house released a deeply held breath. The faces on the ancestors in the corridor of portraits looked pleased. There was only one set of eyes that followed me with nervous interest, the eyes of Asa Heaven-stone.
    A number of times, I thought I saw Cassie floating through rooms and hallways. I waited anxiously for her whispers, but they didn’t come. Just before summer, I learned I was finally pregnant. Ethan and Daddy took me out to celebrate, but they wouldn’t let me drink anything alcoholic. They became nervous Nellies, hovering over me, nagging me about lifting anything too heavy. When I reached my fourth month, both forbade me to drive. Daddy assigned the limousine to me, and the poor driver had to hang about waiting for me to want to go here or there.
    Almost the day after my pregnancy was confirmed, work began on the nursery to be right beside our bedroom, just the way Lucille had suggested. Ethan and I moved to one of the guest bedrooms while the carpenters created an adjoining door. For as long as I could, I resisted learning whether I was going to give birth to a boy or a girl. My memories of Mother finding out she was having a boy and thejoy that followed were too vivid. That joy had made the tragedy much greater, I thought, and I was fearful. Ethan finally talked me into it, using the choices for furniture and the color of the nursery walls as a reason.
    I knew both of them were holding their breath, and when the doctor announced I was going to have a boy, it could have been New Year’s Eve. Someone might have thought I was giving birth to the new Messiah or at least some holy child. If the two of them had been nags before, they were now insane with protecting me. Daddy even thought aloud about hiring a nurse to be with me during the last trimester.
    I was sure he was sending Uncle Perry to Heaven-stone more often just to keep an eye on me. He began to have lunch with me twice a week and to take my walks with me. All the while, I looked for signs of Cassie, but I didn’t even see her ghostlike image floating through rooms or hallways anymore. Sometimes I would burst into her bedroom and stand there looking at everything as if I expected to see some proof that she was there, but nothing ever changed.
    One afternoon, while we were having lunch, Uncle Perry fixed his gaze on me with an intensity I recognized as the preface to some very serious comment or question. Cassie had used to call it his “tell” and claimed he was too obvious ever to be subtle or clever. I had told her he was refreshing because he wasn’t conniving, and of course she had thought that was a