Melody (25 page)

We ate in silence, with everyone but Grandma Olivia keeping his eyes on the food before him. Finally, Grandpa Samuel looked up.

“The word I been getting,” Grandpa Samuel said to Uncle Jacob, “is there'll be a good tourist season this year with the price of travel overseas going up and all.”

Uncle Jacob nodded. “Aye. I heard that the hotels were looking good. There'll be lots of garbage to clean off the beach come this fall,” he added. I knew where Cary got his attitude about the outsiders.

“How are the cranberries coming along?” Grandpa Samuel asked.

“They look good. We're anticipating a decent crop.”

“Does she expect to leave you here over the summer?” Grandma Olivia suddenly asked me.

“I don't know,” I said. “I hope not.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“And why is that? Aren't you being treated well at my son's home? They gave you Laura's room, I understand, and you're even wearing her things, aren't you?”

“Yes, I'm being treated well,” I said quickly. “I just meant I would like to be with my mother. I miss her.”

She smirked. “A girl your age should have a home and not be living out of a car running on someone's pipe dreams,” she muttered.

“We had a home and we'll have another one,” I said, my voice full of defiance.

“What kind of home did you have in West Virginia?” she asked, not intimidated by my tone of voice.

“We lived in the trailer park. Daddy worked very hard in the coal mine. I never went hungry.”

“And your mother, what did she do?”

“She worked in a beauty parlor.”

“That figures,” Grandma Olivia said. “That woman could wear out a mirror.”

Before I could respond, Grandma turned quickly to call the maid. “The adults will have coffee in the sitting room, Loretta.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Bring out some ice cream and some of the petit fours for the children,” she ordered.

Children? I looked at Cary to see how he liked being referred to that way. He tucked the corner of his mouth in and gazed at the wall.

“Lucky for you that your Aunt Sara saved all of Laura's clothing,” Grandma Olivia told me. “She always had such nice things.”

“Mommy's sent for my things,” I replied. I glanced at Aunt Sara and saw the hurt look on her face. “Although I am grateful for what Aunt Sara has given me to use. I'm just sorry about the circumstances.”

Grandpa Samuel nodded, his look softening.

Grandma Olivia raised her eyebrows. “And what do you know about the circumstances?” she demanded.

“What? Well, I was told—”

“Olivia, must we go through this again?” Grandpa Samuel asked softly.

Grandma Olivia snorted. “Jacob says you can play the fiddle well,” she said. I was shocked. Uncle Jacob had
said something nice about me? “Maybe one day you'll come over and give us a concert,” she added. My jaw nearly dropped. Was she serious?

She stood up. “Let's go into the sitting room for coffee, Samuel,” she commanded.

“Right, dear,” he said rising.

The maid brought out three dishes of ice cream for Cary, May, and me and served them with a plate of small cakes, the ones Aunt Sara told me Laura had loved.

“Sorry, we only have vanilla ice cream,” Grandma Olivia remarked. “Cary, you can show Melody the grounds when you're finished, and entertain yourselves outside. But don't track in any dirt. Make sure May understands,” she concluded.

“Okay, Grandma,” he said and signed instructions to May.

“How is she?” Grandma asked, remaining at the table and looking at her with pity.

“She's doing very well, Grandma,” Cary said, before his parents could reply. Grandma Olivia nodded, shook her head as if to drive the thoughts away, and led the adults out of the dining room.

I felt a ceiling of oppressive gray clouds and heavy air, too thick to breathe, go out with her.

“You should call this place the Ice House,” I remarked.

Cary smiled. “She's not as tough as she makes out.”

We ate the dessert and, I had to admit, I did like the small cakes. “This house itself is very nice, nicer even than Alice Morgan's.”

“Who's she?”

“My best friend back in Sewell.” I gazed at the pretty things, the antique hutch filled with expensive crystal, the beautiful chandelier above us, and the rich, large paintings on the walls.

“How did Grandpa make so much money?” I asked Cary.

“A great deal was left to Grandma Olivia when her
parents passed away. Grandpa had a fleet of fishing vessels, including five lobster boats. But, he lost most of them during bad times. Luckily, my father had his own by then. Come on. I'll show you around.”

He signed to May and she gulped down one more spoonful of ice cream. I took her hand when she came around the table. Cary led us through the house, down the corridor, past the door to the kitchen, past a den-office on the right, finally to a rear door. It opened on a small porch.

Behind the house was a large gazebo, some benches and a rock garden with a small fountain. The rear of the property was on the beach and there was a dock with a large sailboat and a small motorboat tied to it.

“This is a beautiful place,” I declared.

“Aye. They actually have a small cove here so it's not as rough as it is up and down the beach.”

We walked down to the dock and looked at the ocean. The waves were gentle. Milk-white streaks of clouds lay against the blue sky. To the right against the shoreline were large rocks.

“See the mussels clinging to those rocks,” Cary said pointing. They were dark purple against the stone. On the sand, seagulls strutted about searching for clams. I saw one circle the rocks and then drop something from its beak. The moment what it had dropped hit the rock, it swooped to retrieve it.

“What is that bird doing?”

“Seagulls drop the clams on the rocks to break the shells and then drop to eat them as soon as they hit the stone. Smart, eh?”

I shook my head in amazement, not only at what I saw, but at how much Cary knew about nature.

I looked down the beach to our left. A large sailboat bounced over the waves, its sail flapping in the breeze. “I can understand why my daddy wanted to go to the seashore so much. He missed this.”

Cary nodded, glanced at me, and then checked the
knot on the rope that held the motorboat to the dock. May signed to us she was going to look for seashells.

“Not too far,” Cary signed. She nodded and directed her attention to the beach.

“Our grandmother sure hates my mother, doesn't she?” I said.

Cary kept his watchful eyes on May. “Looks that way,” he admitted.

“Do they often talk about her and my daddy?”

“Hardly ever,” he said. He started for the beach and I followed.

“I can't understand what my daddy could possibly have done to make them so angry. Why shouldn't a man have a right to chose the woman he loves to marry? Why did they have to disown him? She's very cruel, or are you going to tell me it's simply because she's afraid, too?”

He spun around, his eyes filled more with pain than anger. “Grandma's bark has always been worse than her bite,” he said. “After you're here a while, you'll see that, too. It takes her a little time to warm up to strangers.”

“I'm not a stranger. I'm her granddaughter, whether she likes it or not.”

He looked away. May was close enough to the water for the tide to just touch her feet. “Damn!” He rushed to her and pulled her farther back. I thought he was unnecessarily rough with her and said so. Then I took her hand and we walked away. I told her I would help her find seashells. Cary followed.

“She can't swim, you know,” he said in his defense.

“She can't swim?”

“No. Even if she could, the undertow can sometimes pull the strongest swimmer out to drown.”

I kept us a good distance from the water.

“I understand why you are so protective of her, Cary, and it's a good thing, a loving thing, but you've got to let her breathe.”

He stared at me. The wind made the strands of his hair dance around his face. I felt the sea spray on my own. Above us, the terns circled and cried.

“I know why the family had nothing to do with your father and why he and your mother ran off,” he confessed.

“You do?”

“Yes.” He knelt down and plucked a shell out of the sand and handed it to May. “It wasn't something anyone told me,” he continued. “I learned about it all in bits and pieces over the years just being nearby when they would discuss it.

“When my father realized what I had learned and knew, he pulled me aside one day and forbade me to ever mention anything, especially in my grandparents' presence.”

“Tell me.” I asked softly.

“Your mother should have been the one to tell you, or your father, but I'm sure they were too ashamed and afraid,” he added.

My heart seemed to stop and then start, and accompanying that came a thumping that made my blood rush to my head.

“Ashamed of what? What had they done?”

“Married,” he said.

“So? Are your parents and our grandparents so conceited, so arrogant, that they can look down on someone who wasn't from what they call the best families? Someone who was an orphan? Just who do they think they—”

“Your mother was an orphan, yes. But she never told you the truth about who her adopted parents were.”

I held my breath.

“What do you mean? Who were they?”

“Grandma and Grandpa,” he said. “Your mother and your father grew up like brother and sister, and when they found out she had become pregnant with you, it was even more of a disgrace.”

I shook my head and nearly laughed aloud.

“That's stupid. That's some ridiculous lie your father told you to cover up for the disgraceful and disgusting way they treated my daddy.”

“It's the truth,” he insisted.

“No!” I put my hands over my ears. “I won't listen to another horrible word.”

May stared at me, her face in a grimace. She started to sign quickly, asking what was wrong. I shook my head at her.

“I thought you should know so you would understand why everyone has these feelings about your mother and father. Maybe you won't blame Grandma and Grandpa and my father and mother so much.”

“I blame them more!” I screamed at him. “More for lying.”

“They're not lying,” he said softly. “I'm surprised those gossipmongers in school haven't said anything to you. It's an old story, so maybe they don't know, or maybe they just don't realize who you are.”

I shook my head and backed away from him. “You're just getting back at me for what I said about May. You're cruel. I hate you,” I said. “I hate you!”

I ran down the beach, tears streaming down my cheeks. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, my feet slipping and sliding in the sand. I even splashed through some water without caring, and then I fell forward on the sand, exhausted, my chest feeling as if it would explode. I took deep, hard breaths.

He had to be lying, or passing on their lies. Why wouldn't Mommy or Daddy ever have told me?

Moments later, Cary stood at my side. “I knew I shouldn't have said anything.”

“You shouldn't have said anything so stupid,” I retorted, looking up at him. He stood holding May's hand. She looked frightened, as if she might start to cry herself. I got to my feet and brushed off my clothing.

“When we get back to the house, I'll show you something,” he said. He turned and started away. I took May's hand and we followed.

At the rear door, Cary paused. “This way.” He took us around to the north side of the house where there was a
metal cellar door. He reached down and pulled it open. There was a short, cement stairway that led to another door. “It's the basement.”

I hesitated. He went down the stairs and opened the next door, stepping in to pull a cord that turned on a swinging, naked bulb. When I walked down the stairs, I saw the basement had just the ground for a floor, but there were metal shelves against the old fieldstone foundation. I passed through cobwebs. There was a dank and musty odor.

“This is under the oldest section of the house,” Cary explained. “I think it was once the fruit and vegetable cellar. Something like that. Laura and I used to think of this as our clubhouse. We didn't mind the dampness or the spiderwebs and mice.”

“Mice?”

“They've scurried into their hiding places by now.” He smiled, then stepped across the small room to one of the metal shelves and pulled a carton off the second shelf, lowering it to the basement's dirt floor. The cardboard, left in this clamminess, was soft and nearly ripped under his touch as he opened the box slowly.

“Here,” he said, waiting for me to approach. I took slow steps, my chest feeling as if I had swallowed lumps of coal that now lay stuck against my heart. May remained at my side, clinging to my hand. I gazed into the box. It was filled with photo albums. He took out the first one and opened it.

“Your parents were gone by the time Laura and I had discovered all this, of course. When we asked Grandma Olivia about these pictures, she forbade us ever to come in here again. We didn't for a long time,” he said.

I looked at the pictures. They were old photos taken of children, two boys and a girl.

“This is your father and your mother and this is my father,” Cary pointed out. He turned the pages, which contained pictures of Daddy, Mommy, and Uncle Jacob as they grew older. The resemblances became sharper and clearer with every turn of the page. “Your father was
always a big guy, huh? And your mother, she was pretty from the start,” he said.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as he slowly turned the pages, revealing pictures taken at lawn parties, on the swing bench, near the flower gardens, pictures on sailboats and fishing boats. There were school pictures, as well as group family pictures.