Page 111

"Remember when those doctors gave you their diagnosis? They did admit sometimes the body is as much a mystery to them as it is to us. Even though the neurologists said she seems perfectly healthy, they don't know what's going on inside her brain, do they?"

"Heaven, taking care of her is ruining both our lives. I don't have you as much as I need you. I thought at first it was a blessing in disguise." He laughed, short and hard. "We've got to take Kitty back to Winnerrow."

Helplessly I met his eyes, not knowing what to say.

Kitty was in her bed, wearing a hot-pink nightgown under a hot-pink bedjacket trimmed with row upon row of tiny pleated ruffles. Her red hair was growing longer and longer, and appeared remarkably healthy.

Her muscle tone didn't seem as flabby as it had, nor did her eyes seem quite as stark or apathetic as they turned our way when we entered together. "Where ya been?" she asked weakly, showing little interest.

Before one of us could answer, she fell asleep, and I was stricken with the pity of such a strong, healthy woman lying still all the remaining days of her life.

I was also filled with excitement, with relief, with a rare kind of anticipation, as if Winnerrow had once given me something besides pain.

"Cal . . there are times when I think she's getting better," I said after we left Kitty's room.

His brown eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. It's nothing she does, or doesn't do. It's just that when I'm in her room, dusting the things on top of her dresser, I feel she's watching me. Once I glanced up and I could swear I saw some fleeting emotion in her eyes, and not that blank look she usually wears."

Alarm sprang into his eyes. "That's all the more reason to move fast, Heaven. Loving you has made me realize I never loved her. I was just lonely, trying to fill the void in my life. I need you; I love you so much I'm bursting with it. Don't pull away and make me feel I'm forcing you." His lips on mine tried to give me the same kind of passion he experienced; his hands did what they could to bring me to the pitch of excitement he reached so easily--why couldn't I let go of the sense I was drowning myself? Going under each time we made love.

He possessed me with his body, with his will, with his needs, so much that he began to frighten me as much as Kitty once had. Not that he'd ever hurt me physically . . . only mentally and morally I felt damaged beyond repair. Regardless, I loved him, and I had that same insatiable, aching hunger to be cherished tenderly.

Going home would save me, save him, save Kitty, I convinced myself.

I'd find Tom, see Grandpa, visit Fanny, find Keith and Our Jane. I brainwashed myself with this litany I repeated over and over. I made of Winnerrow a kind of refuge, believing it held all the solutions.

PART THREE Return to Winnerrow . eighteen Winnerrow Family

.CAL AND I MADE A BED FOR KITTY IN THE BACKSEAT, loaded our suitcases in the trunk, and set off on a fine sunny day in mid-August, a few days before her thirty-seventh birthday. Kitty had been incapacitated for two months, and seemed likely to stay that way from the vacant way she acted.

Yesterday her "girls" had shampooed and set her hair, had given her a fresh manicure and pedicure, and this morning I'd given her a sponge bath, put on her pretty pink bra, then dressed her in a brand-new pink summer pantsuit. I'd styled her hair as best I could, and done a pretty good job before I put on her makeup so she looked pretty. But for the first time during a trip, Kitty didn't say a word. She just lay as if dead, like the doll she'd burned so ruthlessly.

All the things we should have said on this return to West Virginia remained unsaid as Cal and I sat in the front seat with enough room between us to have put Kitty, if she could have sat up. Soon Kitty and Cal would be established with her family and no longer could he come to me with his needs. Pray God that the Settertons never learned about what we had done together. It troubled me so much I felt almost ill. Was Cal thinking the same thing? Was he regretting now his declarations of love for a hill-scum girl?

This was our moment of truth, or soon would be. His eyes stayed on the road ahead, mine on the passing landscape. In another few weeks school would be starting again, and before that we had to decide what to do with Kitty.

I couldn't help but compare this summer's trip with the winter one, more than two years ago. All that had been impressive then had now become

commonplace. McDonald's golden arches no longer commanded my awe or admiration, and hamburgers no longer pleased my palate since I'd eaten in the

best restaurants in Atlanta. What was Cal going to do with me now? Could he turn off his love and need, as Kitty could so easily turn off what she used to be? I sighed and forced myself to think of the future, when I'd be on my own. I had already taken my SAT exams and applied to six different universias. Cal had said he'd go with me to college, and acquire his own degree while I began my higher education.

It wasn't until we were halfway to Winnerrow that I knew why Miss Deale had come to our range of mountains, to give the best of her talents to those who needed it most. We were the forgotten, the underprivileged of the coal-mining regions. A long time ago I'd told Tom in jest I'd be another Miss Deale; now, looking around, I knew I wanted more than anything to be her kind of inspiring teacher. Now that I was sixteen, Logan would be in college, home for summer vacation, but soon to leave. Would he see guilt and shame on my face? Would he see something to tell him I was no longer a virgin? Granny had always said she could tell when a girl was "impure." I couldn't tell Logan about Cal, could never tell anybody, not even Tom. I sat on and on, feeling heavy with the burden of shame I carried.

Miles and miles and miles slipped by. Then we were in the hill country, steadily climbing, winding around and around. Soon the gasoline stations became more widely spaced. The grand new sprawling motels were replaced by little cabins tucked away in shadowy dense woods. Shoddy, unpainted little buildings heralded yet another country town off the beaten track, until those too were left behind us. No fast expressway to take us up into the Willies. How scary that name sounded now.

I was seeing the countryside as my true mother must have seen it seventeen years ago. She'd be only thirty-one if she'd lived. Oh, what a pity she had to die so young. No, she hadn't had to die. Ignorance had killed her, the stupidity of the hills.

How had my mother had the nerve to marry Luke Casteel? What insanity had driven her away from a cultivated place like Boston, so she'd end up here where education and culture were scorned, and the general opinion was who eheck kerrs . . life's short . . . grab what ya kin an run, run, run. Running all through life, trying to escape poverty, ugliness, brutality, and never succeeding.

I glanced back at Kitty. She appeared to be sleeping.

A fork in the road ahead. Cal made a right turn that took us away from the dirt road leading to our small, pitiful cabin in the high country. How familiar everything seemed now, as if I'd never left. It all came rushing back, filling me with memories, tingling my nostrils with the familiar scents of honeysuckle and wild strawberries, and raspberries ripe on the vine.

I could almost hear the banjos playing, hear Grandpa fiddling, see Granny rocking, Tom running, hear again Our Jane wailing, while Keith stayed in close, loving attendance. Out of all this mountain ignorance, all this stupidity, still came the gifts of God, the children, not blighted by their genes, as some might have thought, but blessed in many ways.

Mile by mile I was growing more impatient, more excited.