Artist's Dream by Gerri Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

about it. I never saw them again either.”
    “That’s so very sad,” Luke murmured. “But you still see your father?”
    “He’s been up here twice in the last six years. I don’t go see him. Well, I went one Christmas a few years ago, but that turned into one big ‘Let’s Save Cassandra’ weekend. We talk on the phone occasionally. Briefly. That’s about as much as I can take of his preaching.”
    “What about Kim? How did you meet her?”
    “I met her in an art class my second year in college. We just hit it off right away. Kim’s been my therapist all these years. She knows all about my father. First hand.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “When Kim discovered she was … a lesbian, she came to the house, she needed to talk.”
    “You still lived at home?”
    “I lived at home until that week, yes. She had gotten married six months before. Just to prove to herself that she wasn’t gay, I think. But, it didn’t work out. She came over to tell me that she was leavŹing him, that she couldn’t live a lie anymore, that she was ready to accept what she was. My father was home, listening. He nearly brought the house down with his Bible quotes that day,” she said, managing a laugh. “Kim’s eyes were so big,” Cassie remembered, smiling. “I thought she was going to pass out. He sent her away, forbid me to see her. That was the first time I had ever stood up to him. I moved out that week ‘over his dead body,’ and Kim and I lived together for nearly a year.”
     
    At Luke’s raised eyebrows Cassie laughed. “No. We were just
    friends. Always.”
    “I take it your father never came to your house,” Luke said.
    “No. Never. He assumed I was living in sin. That I had become one of those. And when I moved up here with all these ‘unnatural people, thick as thieves’—that’s one of his favorite sayings—he vowed he would never see me again. I think that’s one reason I moved. I was perfectly happy having a long distance relationship with him over the phone. It’s been two years since he was last here.”
    Luke was shaking her head and smiling.
    “What?”
    “We grew up so differently. At opposite ends of the scale, I think.”
    “Tell me.”
    “You’ll be shocked,” Luke warned.
    “No more so than you were hearing about my life.”
    Luke sat back down, folded her legs and faced Cass ie. “My mother was fifteen and pregnant when she ran away from home. Oklahoma. She made it to Berkeley, got a job as a waitress and lived in a run-down apartment building until I was born. She named me after her grandmother,” Luke said. “But I’m no Lucinda.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “My mother was a flower child,” Luke said.
    “Flower child?”
    “Yes. A real hipp ie. In the late sixties, early seventies, we lived in a commune of sorts. Grew our own food and lived royally,” she said and laughed. “They were all vegetarians and war protesters. They would load up the vans, kids and all, and go to peace rallies, protest marches, demonstrations. We hit them all.”
    Cassie smiled delightfully. “Go on,” she said.
    “Neal, that was my mother’s man, he’s the one that started callŹing me Luke. One day after a rain, I wanted to help in the gardens. I came back home covered head to toe in mud. As he was spraying me off with a hose, he asked what I had done with Lucinda. There
     
    couldn’t possibly be a little girl under all that dirt, he said. I must be her brother, Luke.” Luke shrugged now. “The name stuck. Thankfully.”
    “You don’t know who your father is?” Cassie asked.
    “No. He was just some farmer’s son that my mother lost her virginity to. She didn’t love him. That’s why she ran away. Her parents wanted her to get married.”
    “Have you ever wanted to know?”
    “Not really. Neal was all the father I needed. They’re still together, living in sin,” she said lightly.
    “They never married?”
    “Oh, no. They wouldn’t even consider it.”
    Cassie stared at