Delia's Heart by V. C. Andrews

Isabela.”
    “Wherever Sophia goes, it’s a party,” Edward said.
    “Well, I’m not waiting up for her. I made up my mind long ago that I would not permit that girl to destroy my health,” Tía Isabela said. “We’ll deal with her in the morning. I’m going to sleep.”
    I started to hand her hat back to her, and she looked at me as if I were insulting her.
    “I don’t lend out my clothes, Delia. My son gave you that hat. It’s yours now,” she said, and walked away.
    “Great,” Edward said. “You’ll wear it to the party next weekend.”
    “She was not pleased you went into her closet,” I said.
    “Delia, you ever look into my mother’s closet?”
    I shook my head.
    “There’s more in it than in most clothing stores. She doesn’t even know what she has anymore, believe me.”
    “She knew this was her hat,” I said, and he laughed.
    “She only said it because it looks better on you,” he told me. Jesse agreed.
    We went up to our bedrooms. I kissed them both good night and thanked them for a wonderful evening.
    “You are truly my knights in shining armor,” I told them, my arms around them both.
    They wore identical smiles. It made me laugh, and for that I was grateful. I would not toss and turn within a kaleidoscope of emotions, as I had expected. Instead, warmed by their love and concern for me, I settled comfortably into my bed and didn’t awaken until I heard Sophia’s loud laughter very late at night. She stumbled down the hallway to her room. Edward stepped out of his to chastise her, but it was a waste oftime. She was either too drunk or too high on something even to know he was there. I held my breath until she went into her own room and closed the door. Then I fell back asleep, just as I would had I been woken by a nightmare and then driven it from my mind.
    But nightmares need not worry about their future in this house. There was no more fertile soil for their well-being and growth than the Dallas family. Rain the color of blood moistened it, and the pale yellow moon replaced the sun and gave the dark dreams the light they needed. They moved freely from Tía Isabela’s sleep to Sophia’s to Edward’s and then to mine. Casto had told me that Señor Dallas’s love had kept his family together. Now it was Tía Isabela’s bitterness that bound them, chained them together like prisoners of their own troubled souls. What would free them was still something impossible to imagine.
    Sophia did not get up for breakfast, nor did she call down for any late into the morning. Jesse, Edward, and I ate alone because Tía Isabela was taking her breakfast in her room this morning, perhaps to avoid any more conflict. True to their word, Edward and Jesse insisted I go with them to buy a new dress, something even more beautiful.
    “And something definitely more expensive,” Edward said.
    We went directly to a boutique in the upscale shopping area of El Paseo in Palm Desert, which was comparable to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills or Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, according to both Jesse and Edward. Of course, I had been to neither of the other places.
    The truth was, both Jesse and Edward knew moreabout women’s designer clothing than I did. They rejected dress after dress as being too ordinary and finally settled on a beaded gown that sold for fifteen hundred dollars, nearly twice the cost of the dress Sophia and her friends had destroyed. It was red with silver-tone beaded shoulder straps and waist. It had an open back, a surplice V neckline, and a gathered front with a full skirt.
    “What about shoes?” Jesse asked, and the saleslady immediately brought out a pair to match the dress. Before we left the store, Edward had spent more than two thousand dollars. When I thought what this money would mean back in my little Mexican village, I was speechless.
    “I want to be there when Sophia sees you in the dress,” Edward said gleefully. “Don’t show it to her until next Saturday.”
    He didn’t have