Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

of my answers to any of her questions really pleased her, but she wasn’t pushy. Like most of thepeople my father had spoken to about me, she tiptoed and whispered and showed great patience and understanding. I was so tired of this so-called tender loving care that I wanted to scream, but instead, I turned myself into a sponge, absorbed what I had to absorb, and then squeezed it out of myself as soon as I was alone again or when Ellie was on the phone or out in the hallway talking to other girls.
    Right now, she continued to stand in the bathroom doorway, impatiently waiting for an explanation for the lit candle and my sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor talking to myself.
    When I was at home on my daughter’s birthday, I lit the candle in my bathroom with the windows wide open so no one would smell the wax melting. Softly, under my breath, I would sing “Happy Birthday” to her and pretend she was there, now almost four years old, sitting on the floor with me, her eyes wide with excitement. I even pretended to give her a present and watch her unwrap it. We would hug, and I would hold her and give her the security and comfort that came with knowing your mother is always there for you, loving you and protecting you. I cried tears of joy for both of us.
    Then I would hear someone walking in the hallway or a door open and close, and I would quickly smother the candle flame and hide the candle again in the bottom of a sink cabinet. I knew how furious my father would be if he discovered I had done such a thing. Maybe for a few seconds, there was some awareness of the special day visible in his eyes on the first-year anniversary after I had given birth, but thatcandle burning in his memory was soon snuffed out. It was truly as though he had clapped his hands over the tiny flame.
    I could never forget any of it, even though it was all so painful to remember. Of course, I tried to forget. I really did, and maybe I was making some progress. Maybe that was why Cassie was coming back to me in whisperings and shadows. She was afraid I would leave her in her grave forever.
    “Semantha?” Ellie pursued. “Will you please tell me what you’re doing in our bathroom?”
    “It’s just something I do in memory of someone I loved and lost,” I told her.
    “Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” I knew she thought I was doing it for my mother or my sister or perhaps both.
    When Ellie and I were first assigned to room with each other, I didn’t reveal anything about my seeing a therapist on a regular basis. I did that later, when it was clear to me that none of the girls would leave me be until I told them something negative about myself. It was almost as if they wouldn’t tolerate someone who had nothing to hide.
    However, I told Ellie the story that was so embedded in my mind that it was practically a recording. I couldn’t avoid telling her, because I never had a mother call or visit, and the logical question was why not.
    “My parents at a late time in their marriage tried to have another child, hoping for a boy,” I began. “My father had always dreamed of having a son he would name after one of his famous ancestors, AsaHeaven-stone, a young man who fought and was killed in the Civil War. His portrait hangs on a wall in our house in Kentucky with the portraits of other Heaven-stone ancestors.
    “Not long after my sister and I were told that my mother was pregnant, it was determined that my mother was having a boy. The news brought my parents great happiness. They immediately began work on setting up the nursery, but my mother suffered a miscarriage and went into a deep depression. She took too many sleeping pills one day, and we lost her.”
    Of course, I didn’t tell Ellie about the things Cassie had done to cause all of this. Only my father, my uncle Perry, and I knew the truth.
    Ellie, like everyone else, looked devastated for me and nearly broke into tears.
    “Less than two years later,” I continued, “my sister, Cassie, tripped and fell down a stairway in our house and broke her neck. She died instantly.”
    When I added that, some people would just sit with their mouths wide open, and some would shake their heads and say, “You poor girl and your poor, poor father.”
    I would bear their sympathy like someone who had been beaten beyond pain and thank them.
    Ellie didn’t linger after I explained the candle. She nodded, backed out of the bathroom, and closed the door. She either fled from or ignored sad