Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) (42 page)

“Yes, Joey told me about some of the crazy stuff you went through in California. But believe me, Cassandra, I blame all that on me. You wouldn’t have done what you did if I hadn’t made so many stupid mistakes back when you were a kid.”

“But I made my own choices, Daddy.”

He shook his head. “I had a lot to do with those choices, Cassandra. In fact, I’ll bet I could take the blame for every single bad thing that’s ever happened to you.”

I blinked. “Well, that’s a whole lot of blame to heap on yourself.”

“Nothing more than what I deserve.”

I sat back down and laid my hands on the table. “Look, Daddy, I don’t claim to know too much about these things, but I’m learning more all the time. And the thing is, I think you need to give all that blame stuff to God.”

He nodded. “I know. And I try to.”

“And I think you need to forgive yourself.”

He pressed his lips together. “I know you’re right, Cassandra, but I guess I just don’t rightly know how to do that.”

“To be honest, I don’t completely know how to either, but I’m working on it. And I think if God can forgive us for all the crud we do to ourselves and to others, well, then we ought to be able to forgive ourselves too.”

He didn’t say anything after that, and I began to suspect he was getting a little worn out. And so I helped him back to his room and then returned to clean up in the kitchen. But just as I finished drying the last dish, he came back out, this time wearing a dark red flannel bathrobe. “Cassie,” he said as he eased himself down onto the sofa, “there’s something I need to tell you—just in case.”

“In case what?”

“Well…” He touched his chest. “I’m not sure how long this ticker is going to last me. Even the doc said he couldn’t give me any guarantees. And who knows, I might just up and go in my sleep tonight. But there’s something I’ve never told you—or anyone else, for that matter—and it has to do with your mother.”

Interested, I sat down in a chair across from him, the dishtowel still in my hand. “What is it?”

He exhaled slowly. “This isn’t an easy thing to tell, and there was a time when I thought I’d take this to the grave with me. But since then I’ve learned a few things that make me think otherwise. And now I feel that since you’re her daughter, and all grown-up, you have a right to know the truth. And knowing all that you’ve been through, Cassandra, I reckon you can probably handle it now.”

“Sure, go ahead,” I leaned forward, eager to listen to anything he could tell me about my mama. In my mind, she’d always been just a step away from sainthood, and anything I could find out about her was of the utmost interest to me.

“Well, right after you were born, your mama, well, she wasn’t quite herself.” He rubbed his chin. “Always before, she’d been cheerful and happy and a real go-getter. And…” He paused and studied me. “A lot like you.”

I smiled.

“In fact, you remind me of her in so many ways.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded. “Your mama was a good woman. And what I’m about to tell you, I don’t want it to diminish in any way how you think of her, because your mama was fine and decent. She was smart and pretty and kind, the pick of the crop, really and truly. All these years later, I still can’t believe she agreed to marry me. I didn’t think I had anything to offer her—except my undying love, that is. Oh, I loved her with my whole heart, Cassandra. Believe me, I did. And you may not know it, but I didn’t have a drinking problem back then—that only came later, afterwards. And anyway I promised your mama that I’d make her proud of me, and that I’d work real hard and make us rich someday. And I think I would’ve, too…”

“But what happened?”

“Well, right after you were born, your mama got what you might call the blues. Only in a real bad way. She would just cry and cry and cry. And I couldn’t understand why, because you were a fine, healthy, beautiful baby. But your mama was just plain miserable. I tried to do everything I could think of to help her. Why, I even fed you and changed your diapers during those first couple of days, thinking your mama was just worn-out. But on that third day, I had to go back to work, if we were going to eat.” He sighed. “And well, when I got back home that night, I found her.”

“But I thought you’d been out drinking.” The words came out of my mouth before I could even stop them, but instantly I regretted them. Not because I thought they were untrue, but because of my daddy’s delicate heart condition just then. But to my relief, he took no offense. He just nodded sadly.

“I know that’s what you were told, Cassandra. But that story only came along later—after I started turning to the bottle for relief. You know how stories go. Sometimes they change and get worse with the passing of time.”

I nodded, although I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Anyway, when I got home, I could hear you crying in your crib and I ran in there to see what was wrong. I could tell that you’d probably been neglected most of the day. And when I went to find your mother—” He stopped now and wiped his hand over his brow as if the memory were still fresh in his mind. “Well, she was in the bedroom, in a pool of blood and already dead.” He looked across the room at me, straight into my eyes. “But she didn’t die in the way that I told everyone, from complications of the birthing. No, your mama had been so distraught and depressed that she’d slit her own wrists with a razor blade.” He looked down at his lap and sighed heavily.

“No!” I gasped. “No, she couldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have—”

“I’m sorry, Cassandra. I hated to have to tell you, but I’ve done some reading up on this whole thing and I know—”

“No,” I said, standing now, tears filling my eyes. “No, I can’t believe it, Daddy. Are you honestly saying my mama killed herself?”

He nodded. “I never would’ve told you this before, Cassandra, but I talked to someone who knows about such things, and then I did some reading up, and I’ve learned that your mama had an illness that affected the way she was thinking…”

I sank back down into the chair, trying to take in his words, trying not to appear so skeptical, so confrontational. But at the same time, I wondered if he was making all this up—just to make himself look better.

“I can’t think of the name of it just now, but your mama had a kind of depression that some women get after giving birth.”

“You mean postpartum depression?”

He looked at me in surprise. “Yes, that’s it. That’s what the book called it.”

Well, I remembered that name from the natural childbirth book as well as my psychology classes. “Yes, Daddy, that’s a real condition, brought on by hormonal imbalances after giving birth, but women don’t usually kill themselves.” I studied his face carefully, suspiciously.

“No, I don’t expect they usually do.” He sadly shook his head. “And for years I blamed myself for her death, and well, to be honest I guess I blamed you too.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I know it was completely unfair, and it makes no earthly sense. It was nothing but pure craziness on my part. But, the fact is, I was crazy back then. Losing your mama like that just pushed me right over the edge. And even though I’d try and try to get back again, and sometimes I’d even think I’d made it, well, then off I’d go—back to the bottle.” He leaned over and buried his head in his hands. “It shames me to remember those years, and yet, to be perfectly honest, I’m sometimes still thankful that the alcohol’s poison blurred a lot of those bad memories for me.”

“But why are you telling me this?” I still didn’t know if I believed him or not. I still couldn’t imagine that my sweet mama would’ve killed herself when she had a dependent little baby girl who needed her—needed her
badly!

“Well, in the box I saved, there’s a note written by her—on that day—the very day she did it. And I didn’t want you to read it and not understand what she meant. She couldn’t help how she felt. She wanted to be a good mother. She loved you, she really did. But she was just so sad and hopeless that she couldn’t hold on. She just gave up. And I was afraid that if I died, then you’d get that box and you’d read that letter, and well, you’d be so shocked and hurt that, and oh, I don’t know…”

He was right. I did feel shocked and hurt—and now more abandoned than before. “But why didn’t you just throw that letter away, Daddy?”

He sighed again. “You know, I considered doing that. And the truth is, I’d never intended to tell you at all. But lately, I’d come to think that you had the right to know about these things. You know how I grew up not knowing a thing about my own real family. And I used to pretend that it didn’t matter none, that I didn’t care. But the truth is, Cassie, it does matter. And I felt you had the right to know what really happened to your mother, not to diminish her memory in any way, but just so that you could have all the pieces to your puzzle—so you could figure things out for yourself. That’s why I didn’t throw the letter away.”

I looked right at him then, and suddenly I could sense how hard this whole thing was on him, how it would’ve been much easier to have just destroyed the letter. “Thanks, Daddy. I’m sure you did the right thing. And now, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to see the letter, and those other things, too.”

His smile was heavily laced with sadness. “I’d hoped you would.” Then he pointed to a small chest of drawers right beneath the window with several cactus plants neatly arranged on top. “It’s all there, in the bottom drawer of that old chest.” Then he slowly stood. “I’ll leave you to look at it as you like, but I’m feeling pretty worn-out just now.”

I went over and took his arm and helped him back to his room. And then I did something that surprised even me. I gave my daddy a hug.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said again, and this time with more meaning. And I came very close to saying “I love you,” but somehow I just couldn’t do it right then. I couldn’t form those words just yet. Not without sounding phony, that is.

And I decided that if and when I first told my daddy I loved him, I wanted to mean it with my whole heart. And so I simply said: “Good night, Daddy, you take care now.”

Thirty-two

N
o one ever said
there wouldn’t be any bumps on the road of life, and there’s no denying that my growing-up years had plenty of lumps and jolts and thumps to go around, and then some. This is not to suggest that I think I have somehow “paid my dues” and will consequently get off easy from here on out (because who’s to say what’s around the next bend anyway?) but I must admit that the following installment of my life story progressed much more smoothly than even I would’ve expected. Not that everything’s perfect, by any means, but maybe it’s just the contrast that makes it seem so good to me now.

Naturally, I was brokenhearted for a brief period after learning of the tragic circumstances of my dear mama’s death, but then as my daddy had predicted, it all began to make sense to me, over time. For you see, I finally began to understand that my daddy, while clearly a mess, hadn’t been after all quite the “evil man” that I’d imagined during all my painful growing-up years. And I finally began to see how he’d been hurting inside—badly. But unfortunately for him (and for me) he turned to the bottle for comfort back then. Now, thank goodness, he turns to God—and his family.

For you see, we are a family now. A real family, like I’d always longed for. In the same summer that I was reunited with my daddy, Joey Divers, once again, asked me to become his bride. And this time I took him seriously. I looked him right in the eye and said, “Do you really mean that, Joey Divers? Because I swear if you’re just toying with me, I’ll take that pretty cane of yours and just beat you silly!”

Well, he answered me soundly (in the form of a kiss) and of course, I knew he meant it, and I knew I couldn’t possibly say no this time. Because when in my entire life had I
not
been in love with Joey Divers? And how could I possibly manage to spend the rest of my life without him? To me, the one truly amazing thing in all this was that he actually loved me!

Fighting back my disbelief in the following weeks, I asked him over and over—was he absolutely, positively sure that he really loved me? Or was he just feeling sorry for me again? Because no matter how I loved him, I still didn’t want his pity! And I’d ask him if he was completely sure there wasn’t somebody else who would be better for him. Someone with more education? More brains? More class? But he would just laugh and say that the only one for him had always been and would always be Cassandra Jane Maxwell. And who was I to argue with a highfalutin Harvard-educated lawyer anyway?

My daddy got himself well enough to walk me down the aisle that fall. And I don’t even think the Diverses were too terribly embarrassed to, at long last, welcome me into their family (or at least not so they’d show it).

After a blissful honeymoon in the Florida Keys, Joey and I moved up to New York City where he joined an impressive law firm and I taught art in an alternative high school full of troubled kids who reminded me a lot of myself when I was their age. Joey didn’t disappoint his associates one little bit, and before long his name appeared right along with theirs in big, shiny, brass letters. And I went back to school for my counseling degree, which led me to become something of a pioneer in the field of art therapy (actually, it was God who did the leading). Before I knew it I was teaching classes to other counselors, writing grant proposals, and setting up clinics to help young people deal with their problems by expressing themselves through art. And I just totally loved it!