Our heroine is with her new family - Cal and Kitty Dennison - and headed to their home in Atlanta. Heaven is amazed at the new sights she sees along the way. They arrive at their home and Heaven is awestruck by the house. It was completely different from the cabin in the hills. Kitty shows off her prize possessions - ceramic animals that she makes herself. Kitty is very particular about her house and everything must be spotless. This should cause warning bells to go off in Heaven's head but it doesn't. Kitty sends Cal to K-Mart to buy Heaven some clothes. While Cal is away, Kitty tells Heaven that she needs to take a bath and get all the hill filth off her body. This bath consists of scorching hot water, Lysol and a brush. After fighting Kitty and eventually getting pushed into the tub, Heaven is bathed and scrubbed until her skin is raw. Kitty also uses some gunk to wash Heaven's hair and it gets tangled and matted on her head. After drying off using a white towel (pink towels are Kitty's, black towels belong to Cal, Heaven must use the white or faded pink towels), Heaven puts on one of her new gowns. Kitty then informs everyone that Heaven will be sleeping in the bed with her and Cal because hill girls do nasty things and you can't trust them.
Heaven is confused by Kitty's erratic behavior. She hopes that Kitty will be a good mother and that Cal will be the father she always wanted. That seems to be the running them in this book. Heaven looking for a father figure. Well she's not going to find it in Cal. He's sympathetic and tries to protect her from Kitty's madness, but he doesn't take a stand against Kitty because he's in debt to her. She has him by the balls because she helped get his TV repair business started. Heaven spends her time going to school and coming home and cleaning. On Saturdays, Cal treats Heaven to a dinner and a movie and shopping excursions. Sounds like a good old-fashioned date to me. They become closer; two wounded souls who have to put up with the abusiveness of Kitty.
The closeness between Heaven and Cal reaches the point of inappropriateness. Heaven and Cal kiss. Heaven knows that it's wrong but she doesn't want to push him away because he's the only good thing she got going in her life. She's lost her family and the love of her life. The only person she can depend on is Cal. And she's heard Kitty tell Cal "NO" so often and she didn't want to do that to him. So they have sex and Heaven feels like a slut. She starts to think that it's in her blood to be trampy.
Heaven has been living with the Dennison's for two years. Kitty develops breast cancer and they return to Winnerow to let her family take care of her. There Heaven hopes to see Tom and Fanny. She visits Fanny with no luck. Fanny shuts the door in Heaven's face. It turns out Fanny's pregnant with the Reverand's baby. She's going to sell the baby to the Rev and his wife for $10k and then go to New York City (why? i don't know) Heaven sees Tom and discovers that his life isn't as great as he said it was. Buck Henry works him to death and he hates it. Heaven sees Logan and keeps him at bay. She's a ruined woman after letting Cal have his way with her. Heaven more or less tell Logan that's she's not the innocent he thought she was and he runs away, not wanting to hear it.
Pa is back in the picture and it seems he's finally got his life together. He has a new wife. Tom wants to go live with Pa and try to be a family again. This pisses Heaven off. She feels betrayed. She wants Tom to go with her to Boston so that she can see her mother's parents so that she can claim her heritage. It's a no go. Heaven says good bye to Tom and Fanny. She hops on the plan, off to a better future. Hopefully.
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