Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) by Melody Carlson Page B

where. For the first time ever, I almost felt like a normal girl.
    Almost.
    Perhaps the only thing that disturbed me much during that era was my unwillingness to pick up my guitar. For some reason, whenever I looked at my poor old Martin guitar, I thought of my daddy and a lifestyle I wanted to put completely behind me. So finally I just tucked the sorry instrument into the darkened back end of my narrow little bedroom closet and spent my free time sketching pictures or reading from the Crowley’s large selection of Reader’s Digest condensed books. I don’t know how many books I read “just part of,” but it bothered me some. Maybe it just seemed too much like the way I had lived my life in the past years.
    During that summer, one of the happiest of my youth, I went to church gladly and regularly, and surprised myself and everyone else by going forward after the salvation sermon one hot and humid Sunday when I’m sure everyone else would’ve just as soon heard the benediction and gone on home to their cold ham and potato salad. I’m still not sure that I knew exactly what it was I was doing, or even if it really “took” at the time. But the following Sunday, I was baptized down at the river with three other young people, and then we had ourselves a big celebratory picnic.
    To this day, I can still recall that wonderful, cleansing feeling as the chilly, albeit muddy, waters washed over my head. When I stood up, I truly felt like a brand-new person—inside and out. And I don’t think it was all my imagination, either—I truly believe that God got ahold of me that day.
    After we got home, I briefly considered calling up Joey Divers to tell him the good news. But I didn’t. I think part of me was still enjoying the luxury of leaving all my past back there in Brookdale and everything and everyone right along with it. I had become Cassie of the Crowley farm down High Banks Road—that nice girl who gets the best grades in Snider High’s sophomore class and gladly goes to church every Sunday. Why mess with something that was working?
    Eunice and Suzy put together a nice little birthday party for me when I turned sixteen, inviting friends and relatives and young folks from church. I wore a pale blue dress (hand sewn by Eunice) and flat sandals. Eunice and Roy surprised me with a brand-new Bible. They spent a lot of time reading their old, worn, leather one, and they thought I might like one of my own, after being baptized and all. I still have a faded Polaroid photo that Tim took of me at that party, holding a broad pink cake with wobbly blue letters that read: Happy 16th, Cassie! It was a happy time indeed.
    But all this goodness came to a swift halt one sultry afternoon shortly after my birthday. Roy was out in the west field, preparing the soil for winter wheat, when he ran his tractor just a little too high on the small hill that bordered their farm—the very thing that Tim remembered his daddy had always warned him about when he plowed that field. The old John Deere tractor hit a bump and just rolled over sideways, pinning Roy underneath. Killed him instantly, the doctor reassured us later. We didn’t even know it had happened until suppertime when he hadn’t returned to the house on time.
    “Run out and see what’s keeping Daddy,” said Eunice as she set a plate of fried chicken on the table.
    I remember the sky was a strange shade of yellow that evening—kind of like tobacco-stained teeth. I figured it had to do with the high humidity and heat plus the dust in the air, but it gave me an eerie feeling just the same. And the closer I got to the west field, the more I began to sense that something was really wrong.
    When I saw the overturned green tractor, my eyes filled with tears, and I began to run with all my might through the soft, rich, upturned soil. But as soon as I saw him, lying there lifeless with both eyes still open, I knew I was too late. I can’t really remember all that much after