Heaven (Casteel Series #1)
Page 41
Kitty Setterton Dennison, age 37, died today in the Winnerrow Memorial Hospital. The de-ceased is survived by her husband, Calhoun R.
Dennison, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Porter Setterton, her sister, Maisie Setterton, and her brother, Daniel Setterton. Funeral services will be held at the Setterton family home on Main Street, on Wednesday, 2 P.M.
It took me a while before all that sank in.
Kitty was dead. Had died the day before I left Winnerrow. Cal had driven me to the airport, and he must have known and didn't tell me!
Why?
He'd rushed away. . . why?
Then I guessed why.
I bowed my face into my hands and sobbed
again, not so much for Kitty as for the man who'd finally gained the freedom he'd lost at the age of twenty.
Freedom at last, I could almost hear him
shouting, to be what he wanted, do what he wanted, how he wanted—and he didn't want me to deprive him of what he had to have.
What kind of crazy world was this anyway, that men could take love, then throw it back? Cal wanted to go on alone.
Bitterness overwhelmed me.
Maybe that's the way I should be, more like a man, take 'em and leave 'em and not care so much. I'd never have a husband; only lovers to hurt and discard, as Pa had done. Sobbing, I folded the paper and stuffed it into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me.
Then, once more, I slipped a photograph out of a large brown envelope, the one Tom had handed me just before he pulled Fanny away, and at the time I hadn't even considered it important. "Hold on to this,"
he'd said in a low whisper, as if he hadn't wanted Fanny to know. There they were, Our Jane and Keith, looking older, stronger, happier. I stared and stared at Our Jane's sweet, pretty face, and then it came to me who she looked like. Annie Brandywine Casteel!
Granny born again in Our Jane, just as I could see a bit of Grandpa in Keith's good-looking young face.
Oh, they did deserve the best, the very best, and for now I'd do nothing to bring unhappy memories to them.
My tears dried. I knew without doubt that
someday Fanny would reach her goals, no matter what she had to do to gain them.
What about me? I knew now that every event in anyone's life changed some facet of them—what was I now? Even as I thought that, my spine stiffened. From this day forward I'd step boldly, without fear or shame, not timid, nor shy, nor to be taken advantage of. If you gave me nothing else, Kitty, you did give me true knowledge about my strength; through thick and thin, through hell and back, I'd survive.
Sooner or later I'd come out the winner.
And as for Pa, he'd see me again. He still had a huge debt to pay, and pay he would before I quit this world that had shown me so little mercy.
As for now—Boston. The home of my mother.
Where I'd change, as if magically, into all that my mother had been—and more.
Table of Contents
PART ONE
Prologue
PART 0
PART THREE