Heaven Is High by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online Page B

She was running away from him and a marriage he wanted to arrange. She had fallen in love with Binnie’s father. She was attending the university when she met him, and hated the man her father was trying to make her marry.”
    And finding her pregnant scotched that, Barbara thought. She asked Binnie how and when she had learned to swim well enough to jump off the yacht and swim to shore at Miami Beach.
    This time Martin answered without waiting for Binnie to sign. She nodded as he told how Domonic had made her and her mother dive for abalone and conch for the restaurant trade. Her mother and Anaia had swum a lot in Belize, sometimes down deep by the reefs. Her mother had taught Binnie.
    After she asked Binnie a few more questions, Martin said, “Barbara, she’s written a lot of the things you’re asking about. Pretty much all she can remember about her mother. How Domonic used Binnie as hostage whenever he sent her mother out to shop or anything. After her mother got sick, she became the hostage and Binnie was sent out to the market. It’s all in the notes she made for me, a notebook full of them.”
    â€œOkay, fair enough. I’ll read the material, and if I have more questions we’ll get back to them. One more for now. Binnie, do you resemble your mother?”
    Binnie looked taken aback by the question, surprised and very unhappy. It was a tough one, Barbara knew. Few people saw their own resemblance to family members, likenesses others recognized at a glance. But it was more than just that, she realized, watching Binnie struggle with the question.
    She started to sign, stopped, and looked at her hands miserably. After a moment, she signed again, not looking at Barbara or Martin. When her hands became silent, Martin reached out for one and held it.
    In a low voice he said, “She doesn’t know. Her mother had turned into an old, destroyed woman by the time Binnie reached puberty. They were about the same size, that’s all she can tell you.” His voice dropped even lower. “Her mother died, probably of AIDS, before she reached forty.”
    Tears were on Binnie’s cheeks, and Martin said, “Why don’t you go up and get that notebook for Barbara?” He kissed her hand before releasing it. Without a glance at either of them, Binnie rose and walked rapidly from the room with her head lowered
    â€œShe needs a couple of minutes,” Martin said.
    Barbara could only agree. “When she’s ready, I’d like to take some pictures,” she said. “I’m going to try to get in touch with her grandfather and hope he’s more humane with his granddaughter than he was with his daughter. I want to try to enlist his help in establishing her identity, her right to refuse deportation to Haiti.”
    Hope flared in his eyes but faded quickly. “There’s not enough time, is there? Find him, send him pictures, write or telephone him. Just not enough time.”
    â€œI’ll prepare another document, a letter to the immigration office in Eugene. It’s a request for an extension of the deadline in which to locate the necessary documents. I’ll use my father’s office stationery. As imposing as that is, and as prestigious as the firm is, it should make them hesitate to deny the request. Or at the very least make them decide to pass it on to superiors for a response.”
    He nodded and then said, “You’ll be buying some time, maybe. Barbara, if nothing works, if they come after her hard, I won’t let them take her. I won’t let her go to that hellhole and suffer what her mother suffered. I’ll kill her first, and then turn the gun on myself. That’s just the way it is.”
    â€œWe won’t let her go back, Martin. We’re in this together and we won’t let them send her back.”
    He studied her face, then stood and held out his hand to her. When he released her hand, Barbara reached into