"Not half as much as I love you, Angel. Nothing as special or as sweet and precious has ever come into my life before. I feel so complete when I'm with you, so hopeful. I don't doubt I can do everything I dream of doin' as long as I have you. You make me feel important, just as important as anyone else. I'd work myself to the bone for you. Won't you say yes? Please."
I was speechless for a moment. Nearly fourteen years ago, my mother had become pregnant about my age and then tricked the man I thought was my daddy into marrying her, never telling him the truth. Would he have wanted her the way Luke now wanted me, if he had known the truth? How different would my life have been in the beginning? How different was it going to be for my baby having a father who knew and accepted the truth? I really believed Luke's love for me was so strong and so full, there was enough of it to spill over and embrace my baby too.
I felt hope sweep back all fear and trepidation. This handsome, loving young man wanted me no matter what, wanted me even though he had heard my story and knew my condition. He loved me so much he was willing to consider my baby his baby and give up things he wanted just to please me.
I never knew such unselfishness. Why couldn't my daddy have had half Luke's love for me and have been willing to sacrifice some of his business interests in order to help and protect me? Why couldn't my mother have cared more for me than she cared for herself? My parents claimed they loved me, but they didn't love me the way Luke did. His was a more honest and sincere love because he was willing to sacrifice for me.
And then I thought love means not only sacrificing, but wanting to sacrifice, getting pleasure out of giving to your loved one more than you give to yourself. How lucky I was to have found someone who loved me this way.
I looked at Angel. She seemed to be smiling. Perhaps she was my guardian angel after all; perhaps she had brought Luke to me or me to him. And now Luke wanted to be that same guardian angel.
Luke saw the way I was gazing at Angel.
"What's she-tellin' you?" he asked softly, hopeful.
"She's telling me to say yes, Luke," I whispered, as much to myself as to him.
His dark eyes brightened. What a handsome smile he had. He was the kind of young man who would only grow more and more good-looking with every passing year and he would be my husband.
"She's telling me to say yes," I repeated, looking into those beautiful eyes.
Luke embraced me and we kissed.
A journey that had begun in anger, fear and hopelessness had suddenly become a journey of love and hope. My tears were different. They were tears of happiness and they were warmer. I held on tightly to Thomas Luke Casteel. My heart beat happily. There was magic in the air.
The circus management was not upset about Luke's abrupt departure because he explained that he was going to marry me and start a new life back in his hometown. He told them he had obligations and responsibilities now and the news spread quickly through the carnie population. By the time we had gone back to his tent to gather his things, a crowd of well-wishers had appeared. It was an unusual crowd, to say the least. I found myself being introduced to and congratulated by the bearded lady, the Siamese twins, midgets, the fattest man in the world, the tallest man in the world and the strongest man in the world, as well as jugglers, tire eaters, acrobats, and the knife thrower and his wife. Then the magician, the Amazing Mandello, appeared with his glamorous assistant and asked me to give him my hand. I looked at Luke, who nodded, so I did so, and suddenly, I felt a ring in my palm.
I opened it and saw a pretty, imitation rhinestone.
"A gift from the Amazing Mandello," he announced. "Your wedding ring." The audience that had gathered around us "oohed" and "ahhed" as if he had handed me something truly valuable. They all truly lived in a world of illusion, but I didn't mind. I felt as if I had entered their world, a world in a rosetinted bubble,
"Oh, thank you. It's beautiful." Back in Farthy I had real diamond rings and bracelets and necklaces, but here at Luke's circus, amidst all these friendly, happy people, I thought this ring was the most precious and wonderful I had ever received. All of these people liked Luke so much and wished him the best.
"We'll be stopping at the justice of the peace right down the street on our way out," Luke announced. There was a murmur of excitement. Someone said, "Let's go," and the whole crowd of circus people followed us to the home of the justice of the peace. It was surely a wedding he and his wife would never forget.
The judge couldn't conduct the wedding in his office. Our guests even crowded his nice-size living room and spilled out onto the porch. The Siamese twins, two men in their twenties who were attached at the waist, played piano. They squeezed themselves onto the piano stool and began a rendition of "Here Comes the Bride." I looked around me, into the eyes of the bearded lady, the smiling faces of the jugglers and midgets and acrobats, and thought about Momma's wedding.
It seemed a hundred years ago, but I
remembered how nervous and uncomfortable I was following those elaborately dressed bridesmaids down the great stairway. I recalled the sea of faces below . . . all those wealthy people, the men in expensive tuxedos, the women in designer gowns and bedecked with precious jewels, one trying to outdo the other.
My mother had promised me a wedding just like hers with a costly reception, but here I was in the home of this ordinary justice of the peace, marrying a young man I had just met, and surrounded by circus people. Never in her wildest imagination could Momma have envisioned this, I thought.
And yet, I wasn't upset about it. I didn't mind not having the famous and upper-class people around me; I didn't care that I was wearing one of my simple summer dresses, instead of a custom-made wedding gown, and that as soon as this was over, we would be off without any reception, no music and dancing and fancy foods.
But I knew that no amount of money, not a hundred more rich people nor a mountain of food, could have made Momma's marriage any happier or her life any better. The guests she had at her wedding didn't look at her and Tony as warmly as Luke's circus friends looked at us. Momma's well-wishers weren't anywhere as sincere. I felt a real pouring out of hearts. When these people kissed and hugged me, they meant it. They were a special, happy lot, many of whom had overcome their peculiarities and made those peculiarities work for them. They were show people who lived to give other people pleasure, lived to dazzle and amuse. In a way they did live in a world of magic, the magic of smiles and laughter, the magic of the lights and the music. No wonder Luke had been so comfortable among them, I thought.
"Well, now," the judge said when he took his position before us and looked around him, "I guess we can begin."
The judge was a tall, thin man with a red mustache and hazel eyes. I knew I would never forget his face, for he was about to utter the words and make the pronouncements that would tie me forever and ever to Thomas Luke Caste& Luke's future would be my future; his pain, my pain; his happiness, my happiness. In a real sense, our lives resembled two trains that had approached each other from different angles and joined to continue their journey. It was significant that we met at a train station, I thought.
The judge's wife, a short, plump woman with a jovial face, stood beside him, her eyes wide with amazement, too.
The judge began, and when he reached that point where he asked if I take Thomas Luke Casteel to be my loving husband, to have and to hold until death did us part, I closed my eyes and thought about Daddy holding me in his arms when I was no more than eight or nine and promising to build me a mansion when I got married, "a castle on a hill for you and your prince." I heard my mother rattling on and on about the day I would get married, what I must wear, how I must act, who I must invite. My whole life seemed to flash by in seconds, the words, the pictures, the smiles and the tears all falling away until I could hear only the pounding of my own, excited heart.
"Yes," I said, turning to Luke and looking into his deep, dark eyes and seeing the promise of love, "I do."
"And you, Thomas Luke Casteel, do you promise to have and to hold Leigh Diane VanVoreen, to love and to cherish her through sickness and through health until death do you part?"
"I do," he said with a manly firmness that nearly took my breath away. He looked ready to fight to the death to make me happy.
"Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."
We kissed like two lovers who had run across a long field to leap into each other's arms and hold each other forever and forever. The circus people cheered and surrounded us. I had to kneel down so the midgets could give me a good luck kiss. The acrobats had located rice and passed out handfuls to many of the others so they could rain it down upon us as we left the judge's house.
We got into Luke's truck and waved to them. Everyone was on the front lawn waving and smiling and throwing kisses, everyone but one woman in a purple dress, a matching bandana around her forehead. There were long, silver leaf earrings dangling from her lobes and she had a dark face with eyes even darker than Luke's. She looked serious, somber, and stood back from the crowd.
"Who is that woman, Luke?" I asked and pointed.
"Oh, that's Gittle, the Hungarian fortune-teller."
"She looks so serious, so worried," I said with trepidation.
"She always does," Luke explained. "That's her act. People take her serious that way. Don't worry. It doesn't mean anything, Angel."
"I hope not, Luke," I muttered as we drove off. "I hope not." I looked back and waved as we bounced out of the judge's driveway and turned onto the main highway. In moments it was all behind us and Angel and I were off to another life, another world, which was hopefully a much happier one than the one we had known at Earthy, the life we had left behind forever.
I looked back once more. There were storm clouds on the horizon behind us, but we were riding away from them, rushing down the highway as if in flight from the threat of rain and wind and cold. Off in the distance before us, the sky was bright blue, warm and inviting. Surely that meant all that was sad and ugly was in back of us. Even my memory of the somber face of the fortune-teller couldn't survive the glow of warmth in the promise spread out by the welcoming sun.
I squeezed Angel to me.
"Happy?" Luke asked.
"Oh yes, Luke. I am."
"So am I. I am as happy as a pig in . . ."
"In what?"
"Never mind. Got to watch what I say from now on. I want to be a better person and all because I have you."
"Oh Luke, don't make me seem like some royalty. I'm just another person trying to be happy in a world that could rain down pretty hard at times."
"No, you ain't. You're my angel and angels come from heaven.. Say," he added smiling. "If we have a girl, that might not be a bad name for her: Heaven. What do you think?"
I loved him for saying, "If WE have a girl . . ." "Oh yes, Luke. Heaven would fit her real fine."
"Why, we'll give her your name, too. Then, we can call her Heaven Leigh Casteel," he said.
He laughed and we rode on toward the sunlight and the promise.
The trip to Winnerrow and the Willies was a long, hard one in Luke's old truck. Shortly after we had started out, his engine overheated and he had to walk a mile to get some water from a gas station. He kept apologizing for making me wait in the truck on a hot day. I told him it was all right and that nothing could make me unhappy now. Even so, he insisted we stop at a small restaurant just outside of Atlanta so I could get something cool to drink and he could get a cold beer. He downed it quickly and ordered another.
"Don't you worry about drinking too much beer, Luke?" I asked him.
He paused as though it had never occurred to him before.
"I don't know. Where I come from, it just seems natural to drink moonshine and beer. We hardly ever think about it."
"Maybe that's because you're drinking so much you can't think about it, Luke," I suggested gently.
"You're probably right." He smiled widely. "You're lookin' after me already," he said. "I like that, Angel. I just know I'm goin' to be a better person all on account of you."
"It has to be on account of yourself, too, Luke."
"I know," he said. "I promise you this, Angel. do all I can to, make you happy, and if anything I do makes you unhappy, why you just don't hesitate to bawl me out. Besides, when you bawl me out, I feel good," he added and kissed me on the cheek. It made me tingly and warm to hear a young man like Luke tell me he wanted me looking after him. I felt as though he and I were growing up years with the passing of minutes.
While we were at the restaurant, I saw some postcards on the counter and decided to buy one to send to my mother. I thought it just might be the last thing I would say to my mother for a very long time, so I thought carefully and then wrote.
.
Dear Momma,
I am sorry that I had to run away, but you wouldn't listen to me. During my travels I met a wonderful young man named Luke. He is handsome and gentle and very loving and he has decided to marry me and be the father of my child.
Luke and I are on our way to his home, where we intend to build our own lives.
No matter what you said to me or what you did, I still wish you happiness and hope that you will find it in your heart to wish me the same.
Love, Leigh
.
I put a stamp on it and dropped it in the mailbox outside the restaurant. Then, we were off again.
Luke drove all day and all night. I kept asking him if he was tired, but he said he had more energy now than ever before in his life and he was so anxious to get to Winnerrow, he didn't want to stop for anything but gas, food, and the bathroom. Miles and miles slipped by and I fell asleep a few times. By the time the first light of morning peeped over the horizon, we were in the hill country, steadily climbing, the truck straining as we wound around and around. Shoddy, unpainted little buildings heralded yet another country town off the beaten track, until those too were left behind us. I noticed that the gasoline stations became more widely spaced, and the newly constructed motels were replaced by little cabins tucked away in shadowy dense woods.
We went down the mountains again and reached a valley. Here were the broad green fields on the outskirts of Winnerrow, neat farms with fields of summer crops that soon would be harvested.
"After these farms," Luke said, "you'll see the homes of the poorest in the valley, those not much better off than true hillbillies. Up there," he pointed toward the hills ahead of us, "are the coal miners' shacks and moonshiners' cabins."
I gazed up toward the hills excitedly. The tiny homes dotted the mountainside and looked so peaceful and set back, almost as if they had grown there and were part of the natural surroundings.
"There are rich and well-to-do people here, too," Luke explained, nodding toward the deepest part of the valley. "See where all the richest mountain silt is driven downward by the heavy spring rains? It ends up in the gardens of Winnerrow families, providin' fertile soil for those who need it least. They have all these spectacular flower gardens and grow the best tulips, daffodils, irises, roses, and anythin' else their rich, little hearts desire," he added bitterly.
"You don't like the town people very much, do you, Luke?" I asked. He was silent for a moment and then he spoke through his teeth.
"We'll drive down ,Main Street and you'll see that's where all the winners live. Maybe that's why they call this place Winnerrow."
"Winners?"
"The owners of the coal mines built their big houses here on the backs of the losers: miners who still die from black lung and the like. You also have the owners of the cotton gins that make fabric for bed and table linenes and owners of cotton mills with their invisible airborne lint that so many workers breathe into their lungs. And no one ever sued an owner for damages," he added angrily.
"Did you or any of your family ever work in the mines or mills, Luke?" I asked.
"My brothers did for a while when they were younger, but they couldn't hold down any sort of work long and took off on their own. My pappy wouldn't do that work. He'd rather scrounge out a livin' from the earth, take odd jobs here and there, or sell moonshine. And I can't say as I blame him.
"One thing I should tell you right off, Angel: the townspeople don't like us Willies folk much. They make us sit in the back in church and keep their children away from our children."
"Oh, that's terrible, Luke. Why take things out on little children?" I cried, thinking how hurt they must feel. Now I, too, understood why Luke was so bitter about the townspeople. "No one should feel better than anyone else."
"Yeah, well, you tell that to the mayor of Winnerrow," he said smiling. "I bet you could. I can't wait to get dressed up and take you to church, Angel. Can't wait," he said shaking his head.
We arrived at a fork in the road and Luke made a right turn that took us away from the macadam road and onto a hard-packed dirt and gravel road. It went on and on through the woods and finally became only a dirt road with ridges and bumps that made the truck toss and turn so hard, I had to grab hold of the door handle. As we drove on, my nostrils were tickled with the scents of honeysuckle and wild strawberries, and raspberries on the vine. It was cool and fresh and crisp here in the mountains of West Virginia, and it made me feel more alive. It was as if the mountain air washed away all the polluted air I had been breathing in the stale, cold and dreary rooms of Farthy; for that was the way I remembered it right now.
"Almost there, Angel. Hold on. Wait until Ma gets a gander at you."
I held my breath. Where did his family live? How could they be so far back in the woods? How could they have a house with pipes leading to a sewer system or to a water system? And where were the electric wires and telephone wires? All I saw were trees and bushes.
Suddenly, I thought I heard the sound of a banjo being played. Luke smiled widely.
"Pa's on the porch, strummin' away," he said.
We turned around a clump of thick trees and stopped. There it was--Luke's home. I couldn't prevent my gasp of surprise. Two small hound dogs sprawled in a pool of sunlight sprang up and began barking excitedly.
"That's Kasey and Brutus," Luke said. "My dogs. And that's home sweet home."
Home sweet home! I thought. The cabin was built out of old wood full of knotholes. It looked like it had never known paint. The roof consisted of rusted tin that had wept a million tears to stain the old silvery wood. The cabin had drainpipes and rain barrels which I realized were meant to catch water.
Across the front of the cabin was a sagging, dilapidated front porch on which there were twin rockers. A man I easily recognized as Luke's father sat with a banjo in his lap. He had the same coal-black hair and dark complexion, and although he looked like he had traveled a rough road, he still possessed handsome facial qualities--a straight Roman nose, strong cheekbones and strong jawline. He looked rugged, but when he saw Luke, he smiled in a soft and gentle way.
The woman sitting beside him and crocheting looked much sterner. Her long hair was tied in a ponytail that reached halfway to her waist. When she stood up, she appeared to be about my mother's age, but after she came off the porch and closer to the truck, her face added years to my first estimate. I saw she was missing some teeth and she had weatherworn wrinkles around her eyes and temples. The lines in her forehead were cut deeper, harsher, than the lines in my mother's face.
But Luke's mother had once been a very pretty woman probably. She had Luke's dark eyes, and although her hair was stained with gray strands, it looked like washing it in rainwater kept it as healthy and rich as it ever was. She had a proud, firm look, Indian proud, with high cheekbones, and she was nearly as tall as Luke. I saw that her hands, which could have been as soft and as dainty as my mother's, were rough and manly looking because of the short fingernails and calluses.
"Ma!" Luke exclaimed and hopped out of the truck. She embraced him eagerly, a mother's pride and pleasure lighting her eyes and softening her suspicious look. Luke's father set his banjo down on the rocking chair and bounced down the porch steps quickly to greet and hug his son.
"Howdy, Luke," his father said. "Didn't expect ya back so soon this time. What changed ya mind?" he asked, still holding on to Luke's shoulders.
"Angel did," Luke said.
"Angel?"
Luke's mother and father turned my way.
"Angel, come out here and meet Ma and Pa. Ma," Luke continued as I got out of the truck, "I want ya to meet my wife, Angel."
"Yer wife!" his mother exclaimed. She looked me over from head to foot as I approached, her expression of disbelief turning to an expression of disappointment. "Ain't she a bit young and fragile lookin' fer a Willies wife?" she asked herself aloud. I stood in front of her and Luke's father, waiting for a proper introduction.
"Angel, I want ya to meet my ma, Annie, and my pa, Toby Casteel. Ma, this is my Angel. Her real name's Leigh, but she's more an angel than a Leigh."
"Is that so?" his mother said, still eying me with disbelief. "Welcome to our home," his father said and hugged me. "When ya go an' do this, Luke?" his mother asked, still staring at me.
"Just yesterday in Atlanta. We met and fell in love in three days' time and were married by a justice of the peace, all right and proper, and we had the biggest and best crowd of wedding guests you ever did see--all my circus friends. Right, Angel?"
"Yes," I said. I felt so self-conscious under Luke's mother's intense gaze. Any mother would be suspicious and would look critically upon the woman her son brought home, I thought, but Luke's mother looked shocked and disappointed.
"How old are ya?" she asked me.
"I'm nearly fourteen," I said. I felt my eyes begin to tear. Even here, in the poorest part of the world, people found fault with me.
"Well yer age ain't no problem," Luke's mother said, "but it takes a lot a grit ta live in the Willies, child. Let me see ya hands," she demanded and reached out, seizing my fingers and turning my hands over. She ran her callused fingers over my soft palm and shook her head. "Ya never seen a real day's work ya whole life, didja, girl?"
I pulled my hands back sharply.
"I can work as hard as anyone," I replied. "I'm sure your hands were as soft as mine once."
There was a moment of heavy silence and then she smiled.
"Well now, ya got pride like a Casteel. Knew there had ta be some reason my son chose ya." She turned back to Luke, who stood beaming with pleasure. "Welcome home, son. What are ya plans now?"
"Angel and me are goin' to live on with you and Pa for a while, Ma. I'm goin' to get a job with Mr. Morrison in Winnerrow and learn carpentry. He was always after me to work for him. Then I'm goin' to build us a fine house, maybe in the valley where I'll work the land, raise cows, pigs, and horses, and make us a clean and decent life. I'll build a house big enough for all of us and you and Pa can come down off this mountain and live like people should live," he added.
His mother hoisted back her shoulders, whatever smile there was in her face evaporating.
"We ain't no lower or worse than those people in the valley, Luke. Ya never talked down about the Willies life before. It was where ya was born and raised and ya ain't no worse off fer it."
"Didn't say I was, Ma. I just wanna do big things now," he said taking my hand. "I got
responsibilities."
His mother continued to eye me with suspicion.
"Well now," Pa Casteel said, "this calls fer a celebration, right, Ma? Let's cook up those rabbits."
"The rabbits is fer Sunday," she replied.
"I'll go huntin' fer more."
"Took ya long enough ta go huntin' far these," she snapped, but he remained undaunted.
"I'm back now, Ma," Luke said. "There'll be plenty a meat on the table again."
"Um," she said skeptically. "All right, better bring in yer things, Angel," she told me.
"All she got is one suitcase," Luke said.
"One suitcase?" Annie Casteel's eyes widened with new interest. "She looks like she should have a truckload a things. Well now, ya come on inside and watch me put up a rabbit stew and tell me all about yerself."
"I'll break out the apple cider, Luke," Pa said behind us.
"Now don't ya go and get yerself and Luke all soggy and plastered with that rotgut linker, Toby Casteel," she warned. Luke's father laughed. Luke and he followed Annie and myself up the rickety steps and into the cabin. My expectations had been lowered considerably the moment I had set eyes on the cabin, but I was still not prepared for what I found inside.
The cabin consisted of two small rooms, with a tattered, faded curtain to form a kind of flimsy door for what I imagined was to be a bedroom. There was a cast-iron stove in the center of the big room. Next to it sat what looked to be an ancient kitchen cabinet outfitted with metal bins for flour, sugar, coffee, and tea.
"As ya kin see," Annie began, "we ain't got a castle, but we got a roof over our heads. We got fresh milk from our cow and fresh eggs when our chickens have a mind ta lay 'em. The hogs and pigs roam at will and snuggle down under the porch at night. You'll hear 'em snortin', along with the dogs and cats and whatever else decides ta make its bed under there," she said nodding toward the floor.
I believed she wasn't exaggerating. The cabin floor had at least a half-inch space between each crookedly laid floorboard. As I gazed around, I realized there was no bathroom.
Where did they go to the bathroom? How did they take a shower or a bath? I wondered. Luke's mother read my thoughts. She smiled at my look of curiosity.
"If ya wonderin' about the toilet, it's outside."
"Outside?"
"Don't tell me ya never hear of an outhouse, child?"
"Outhouse?" I looked back at Luke.
"Don't you worry, Angel. First thing I'm going to do is build you your own outhouse. I'll be startin' on it as soon as I get back from town tomorrow."
"What's an outhouse?" I asked softly.
Luke's mother laughed.
"Ya sure got yerself a city girl, didn't ya, Luke? An outhouse is a bathroom, Angel. Yer go out ta the little buildin' when nature calls and ya sit on a board with two holes."