Heartsong

  Today, I spent most of the morning working with Kenneth in his studio, watching him shape and mold the vases. The first few times I had been in the studio while he worked, he simply acted as if I weren't even there. Of course, after hearing his warning about it, I didn't make a sound, but twice, and now a third time, he talked while he worked, but it was always about art.

  "Yes, I've been artistic for as long as I can remember," he said, returning to the conversation we'd started that morning, "but I'm primarily a sculptor now. Sculpture is probably the oldest art form and has undergone only minor variations. Real sculpting, that is," he added glancing at me. I sat on a wooden stool and watched and listened. "I don't go for this new, radical stuff, welding, using neon tubes. A gimmick is not art. An artist has to be authentic. That's the most important thing. An artist must always be true and as pure and simple in his impulse as he or she can be," he lectured.

  He stepped back and looked at the vase he was shaping. It was different from any I had ever seen. It was almost shaped like an S.

  "I don't recall seeing any of your works in Grandma Olivia's house," I said. "How come she doesn't have anything? She's such good friends with your father and he's so proud of you."

  Kenneth paused and stiffened as if I had lashed him with a whip. He never talked about his father, nor, as far as I could tell, did they ever spend time with each other. Without answering my question, he turned back to his work.

  "By using soft, yielding materials like this," he explained, "a sculptor can capture and record fleeting impressions much the way a painter does in a quick sketch."

  "It's very interesting," I said.

  "Everything I do is different. I don't believe true art can be mass produced. It's a contradiction to reproduce it. If it's art, it is by definition one of a kind."

  "But then how would people who can't afford them ever have nice things? Not everyone can afford an original."

  "Let them go to museums," he replied. Then he paused and glanced at me. "I've given things away to people who can't afford to buy them if I believed they really appreciated the art. Lawyers do pro bone work; so can artists," he added. "This town is full of business people disguised as artists. If you're in it for the money, you're a hypocrite," he added bitterly.

  "But everyone needs money to eat, to live," I protested.

  "That just follows," he said. "You don't make it a priority. The art, that's the priority." He paused and really looked at me. "Don't you feel that way about your music?"

  "I'm not really that good," I said.

  He turned away with a shrug.

  "If you say you're not, you're not," he muttered. "You have to believe in yourself if you want anyone else to believe in you," he added. The hardness of his words brought tears to my eyes. I felt a lump grow in my throat and had to look away for a moment, but he didn't notice, or if he did, he chose not to pay attention.

  "I'm actually working up an appetite," he said. "Why don't you go think about lunch."

  I nodded and slipped off the stool. I looked back once before leaving the studio. He was working on his vase, seemingly oblivious to the questions his words brought to my mind. Would I ever find something to believe in so strongly? Kenneth had his art, Momma'd had her acting, even Uncle Jacob had his fishing business. But does believing in yourself mean you become so distanced from others that no one can believe in you?

  It was the first, but far from the last time the thought occurred to me that Kenneth Childs hid behind his art, used it like a shield or a fortress to keep anyone and everyone away from touching him. Why? I wondered, and understood that when I found the answer to that, I would find the answer to everything there was between us.

  Sometimes Kenneth chose to eat his lunch in his studio, staring at his work in progress and thinking as he ate. If he did that, I ate my lunch on the beach with Ulysses at my side. But it was when Kenneth and I ate lunch together in the kitchen that he was the friendliest and the warmest. At these times I had the feeling he was trying to relax with me, ease himself into more personal conversations, almost the way someone might lower himself into a hot bath.

  This particular afternoon, we ate together in the kitchen. I made us cheese and turkey sandwiches on Portuguese bread and some fresh lemonade.

  "How do you like going to school here?" he asked.

  "It's all right. I've had good teachers. Mama Arlene used to tell me school was like anything else-- it's as good as you make it, as you want it to be."

  "Who are this Mama Arlene and Papa George you've mentioned? I don't recall any Logan relatives by those names," he said. When he grimaced, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepened and cut through his temples, almost as if someone had taken a pencil and drawn them.

  As I explained who they were, he ate, listened, and nodded.

  "Despite what I have learned about my family, I still think of them as my grandparents," I concluded.

  "But Papa George died and Mama Arlene moved away from Sewell?"

  "Yes. I visited his grave when I visited my stepdaddy' s."

  He stared at me intently and then looked out the window. I thought he would grow interested in something else, the glide of a tern, the shape of a cloud, and drift off in his own thoughts as he so often did. But instead he turned back to me.

  "What exactly have you learned about your own family?" he asked. My heart began to thump. Was this it? Was this the moment I had been waiting for?

  "First, I was surprised to discover Mommy had been brought up with my step-daddy, the two of them living as brother and sister. Neither of them had ever told me that."

  He nodded.

  "Yes," he said, "they were like brother and sister. Brothers and sister I should say, for Jacob was there, too. When I was little and I used to play with them, I didn't realize Haille had been adopted by the Logans. As far as I knew, she had always been there, part of that family. And then one day, I think I was about nine or ten, something like that, Jacob told me. He just blurted it out like kids do. He said something like. . . . Haille's not really our sister. She's a waif."

  Kenneth laughed to himself and I didn't move or utter a sound for fear he would stop and I'd never learn anything about my past. He continued, "At the time I thought he said 'wave.' But he said it again, and finally I asked my father what that meant and he explained that the Logans adopted her, but I didn't learn who her mother was until much, much later. No one has a better lock on the door to their closet of skeletons than the Logans, especially Olivia Logan."

  "How did my mother feel about being an orphan?"

  "I think it bothered her only because Olivia made a point of reminding her," he said.

  "Maybe that's why . . ."

  "Why what?"

  "She was so wild," I said reluctantly. I hated saying anything bad about her, especially since she was no longer here to defend herself. "She was just rebelling."

  Kenneth didn't agree or disagree. He just glanced out the window again then said, "I like Olivia. She and I have a healthy respect for one another when we see each other, but she is like the dowager queen of Provincetown. There's no one with bluer blood. Haille was never impressed with all that. In a sense you're right. The truth is I think she hated not knowing where she came from, hated who Olivia wanted her to be."

  "No one likes not knowing who their parents are," I said. "No one wants to be an orphan.'

  He turned to me again, and again I held my breath. "Sometimes, you're better off not knowing," he finally replied.

  "How can you be better off not knowing?"

  "It's like you have a clean slate, no one's sins to overcome or forget. You can be yourself, and anyone who can be an individual these days is lucky, especially if he can make a living at the same time. Speaking of which, I've got to go into town to get some supplies," he added and stood. "Got to earn money. I'll be back in a few hours."

  I sat there fuming, feeling as if I had hit another wall of silence about my past. How could he be so cold about it? If he was my f
ather, why didn't he just admit it? Was he afraid I would ask to move in with him? Was he afraid he would have to provide for me?

  Maybe, just as he said, I was better off not knowing. I could create my father out of my own imagination and make him perfect. He would have no skeletons in his closet and no sins to weigh on both of us. He would be like some mythical god, who sailed in on a cloud of sea mist and strolled confidently into Provincetown and when he saw Mommy and she saw him they fell in love instantly and spent warm nights on the beach. One day, he was just gone and then I was born.

  Now that I was here, one day or one night I would be on the beach and my mythical father would appear and tell me everything was all right. I wasn't an orphan and I had a destiny.

  Dreams, I thought. They're the riches of a poor person, stashed in treasure chests buried deeply in the imagination. But are dreams enough?

  I cleaned up and took Ulysses for his afternoon walk. The clouds had broken up and the sky had become a quilt with deep, large patches of blue. The breeze was still strong, making my hair dance around my face. The breakers were high and sparkling, and once again I turned to the sea for answers.

  I was so lost in my own thoughts and the surf was so loud, I didn't hear the horn or the shouts until I turned to look back at the house and saw that Cary had driven up in his truck and was waving wildly from the top of a dune. I waved back and started toward him.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "The water is too rough today. My father decided to come in early, so I thought I'd take a ride over to see how you were doing. Where's Kenneth?"

  "He went on an errand he said would take him a few hours," I replied.

  Cary knelt and patted Ulysses, but kept his eyes on me.

  "Has he said anything?"

  "Very little. I thought he was going to say something at lunch today, but--"

  "But?"

  "He said some people are better off not knowing who their parents are.

  "He said that?"

  I nodded.

  "Strange."

  "Something's making him very bitter. I wish I could get him to tell me more."

  "I guess he will, in time."

  "I'm afraid I might be old and gray by then," I wailed.

  Cary laughed and stood up, reaching out to help me climb up the knoll.

  "Somehow I can't imagine you old and gray." He continued to hold my hand even though I was beside him. His eyes washed over my face. "The sun's bringing out your freckles," he said. When I started to moan, he quickly added, "but that's cute."

  "Cute? I'm too old to be cute," I snapped, pulling my hand from his as I started for the house.

  "Hey," he called, but I just kept walking. Suddenly I felt like screaming at everyone and everything. "I'm sorry," he said catching up. "I didn't mean--"

  "It's all right," I said. "It's just that I'm so sick of everyone treating me like a child."

  "Huh?"

  I walked slower, my arms crossed under my breasts. The blood that had rushed into my cheeks warmed my face. I couldn't explain why I was suddenly so angry. Maybe I wasn't angry; maybe I was just afraid, afraid that no one would ever take me and my questions seriously. Cary seized my arm at the elbow and I spun around.

  "If you want," he said, "I'll just confront him. I'll just come right out and ask him. I'm not afraid of him," he bragged.

  "If he won't tell me anything, what makes you think he would tell you?"

  "Then maybe you shouldn't work here anymore," he said.

  "Maybe i shouldn't. Maybe I shouldn't have let you talk me into coming back to the Cape in the first place."

  I had run away when Grandma Olivia told me about Mommy being raised a Logan. I had gone back to Sewell, but that was when I found out Papa George had died and Mama Arlene had gone to live with her sister in North Carolina. I had no one in Sewell, either, except my best friend Alice Morgan. But I couldn't live with her. Her mother couldn't understand how a daughter of hers would befriend someone raised in a trailer park.

  "Of course you should have come back. This is where you belong," Cary insisted. "People care about you here."

  "People care about me? I've got a grandmother who wishes I would wash out to sea so I don't embarrass her; an uncle, your father, who thinks I'm the daughter of Satan; a man who could be my father but is unwilling to tell me--"

  "I care about you," he said. "A lot."

  I tried to hold on to my anger but instead I took a deep breath and let my shoulders sag. I believed Cary, but somehow it wasn't the same. I needed someone to love me the way my daddy did. Of course this thought made me feel guilty, as if I were trying to replace him in my heart. But wasn't that exactly what I was doing?

  "It's all just confusing," I said. "Confusing and frustrating."

  He nodded.

  "Well, you've been here a while. You clean his house, see his things. Are there any hints, clues? Pictures, letters?"

  "Nothing I've seen." And then I remembered. "There's only one place I haven't looked."

  "Where's that?"

  "Remember I told you about that door he has locked in the studio?"

  "Oh, yeah. Let me look at it," he said. My heart began to pound.

  "Kenneth doesn't like anyone going into his studio when he's away."

  "He keeps it unlocked, doesn't he?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "We won't touch anything. Let me just look," he said.

  I looked toward the dune road and thought about Cary's plan. Kenneth had said he would be away for hours.

  "Okay," I said, "but don't touch any of his things in the studio. Even though it's usually a mess, he would know if something had been moved an inch."

  "Fine," Cary said.

  We walked to the studio, pausing momentarily to look into the fish pond

  "When did he add the turtle?" Cary asked.

  "I don't know. Maybe last weekend. He calls him Shell."

  Cary laughed and we went into the studio. He saw the block of marble and asked about it immediately. I explained the artistic vision just the way Kenneth had explained it to me, but Cary squeezed his eyebrows toward each other, smirked, and asked, "How can you see anything in a block of marble?"

  "You can if you have an artist's eyes," I said. He shrugged again and then went to the closet door. For a few minutes, he studied the lock and the hasp.

  "Just a combination lock, but it would take forever to figure out the combination. However . ."

  "However what?" I asked coming up beside him.

  "This hasp is attached with only these four screws. It would he easy to unscrew them, take off the hasp, leave the lock in place, and open the door. I could do it in five minutes," he claimed. I started to shake my head. "And I can put it back just the way it is so no one would notice. It's easier than finding seaweed on the beach."

  "No," I said, turning away. He seized my wrist.

  "You haven't gotten him to say anything important and you haven't found anything that would give you any clues."

  "He wouldn't have put a lock on it if it wasn't very private," I said.

  "You have a right to know about yourself. No one has a right to keep that under lock and key, do they? Well?" he pursued.

  I thought a moment.

  "You can put it back just the way it is?"

  "Easily." He reached into his pocket and produced his Swiss Army pocket knife to show me the small screwdriver. "Okay?" he asked.

  I looked at the lock again. Maybe there was nothing behind this door. Maybe it was just filled with some of his vases or statues, but Cary was right. I would always wonder.

  "Okay," I said. He smiled and put the screwdriver to work. In minutes, just as he had predicted, the hasp came free of the wall and with it, the lock. He folded his knife and turned the handle.

  "Ready?"

  I took a deep breath and nodded. He opened the door. It was a deeper closet than I had anticipated. Apparently, no one had been in it for a long time. There were cobwebs across the doorway. C
ary cleared them out of our way and we stepped into the closet. We saw an easel on the right, a carton filled with brushes, and another carton filled with carving tools beside it. There was an artist's smock hanging from a hook on the wall above the cartons.

  "Nothing unusual," I said, my voice tinged with disappointment.

  "Isn't there a light in here?" Cary asked as he groped through the air for a pull chain. He found a string and pulled it to turn on a single, naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. The illumination washed away the shadows and revealed a pile of canvases under a white sheet. The sheet was caked with dust. Cary curiously lifted one edge and gazed under it, but I had been hoping we would find a box of letters from Mommy or a diary, something I could read to discover information.

  "It just looks like some pictures of someone, but I can't tell anything. I'll hold this up. You pull one out," he instructed.

  "We shouldn't, Cary. He's going to know."

  "We'll just put it back the way we found it," he said. "Go on," he urged. "Aren't you curious?"

  I was, but I was also afraid. Ulysses stood in the doorway behind us, watching, and to me it was as if he were wondering why I had betrayed his master.

  "Let's just back out of here and put the hasp back in place, Cary."

  "We're in here already; we might as well look at everything," he insisted and held the sheet up with one hand while he worked the first canvas off the top of the pile. As it came out, I stepped closer.

  First, we saw a pair of legs and then, as more and more of the canvas was revealed, we saw it was a naked woman sprawled on a beach blanket. The picture was done in a most realistic style; it was practically a photograph. Cary got so excited, he dropped the sheet entirely and used both hands to lift the canvas and place it on the floor.

  We both stared down, neither of us able to speak, for we both recognized the woman. She couldn't be mistaken. It was Mommy, and the picture was done when she was much younger, perhaps in her late teens.

  "Wow," Cary said.

  "Put it back, Cary," I urged, my throat quickly closing. Instead, he reached in and pulled out the next canvas. This, too, was of Mommy, only in this one, she was standing, completely naked, gazing at the ocean. It had been drawn and painted very precisely. I recalled the small birthmark just below her left hip.