"Oh. Yes, Belinda, he did. Come on, honey.
That's it," she said. "Now wash them down. Good
girl."
"What are those pills?" I asked.
"They're just a form of a tranquillizer to keep
her calm," she said.
"Maybe they're doing her more damage." "Are you a doctor?" the plump nurse asked with
a face full of ridicule.
"No, but--"
"Well, her doctor has prescribed them. If you
have a problem with that, speak to Mrs. Greene," she
added and left the room.
"I'd rather speak to the wall," I mumbled. Grandma Belinda was staring out the window
again. I touched her hand and she turned slowly, very
slowly, toward me, her eyes so sad, they put tears in
my heart.
"Grandma, it's me, Melody. Remember?" She
smiled.
"Yes. He told me about you. He said you look
just like your mother." Her smile evaporated. "Only, I
can't remember what she looked like."
"She looked like you," I said.
"Did she?" She smiled again and then gazed out
the window while she spoke. "It's my birthday you
know. We're having guests and a cake.
"Happy birthday, Grandma," I said, tears now
building under my eyelids.
"Everyone's going to sing Happy Birthday to
me." She turned. "Even Olivia, because I'll look right
at her and she'll have to sing. Right?"
"Yes," I said and smiled.
"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,
happy birthday, dear Belinda, happy birthday to me."
She closed her eyes.
There was a harder knock on the door and the
attendant appeared.
"It's time, he said.
"It can't be a half hour."
"It is," he insisted. "Don't make it hard for me,
will ya," he muttered with threatening eyes. "No," I said standing. "I'll leave that to Mrs.
Greene."
I leaned over and kissed my grandmother on
her cheek. She didn't open her eyes. Then I turned and
marched past him and down the corridor.
The residents were being entertained by a
singer in the lobby. She played the accordion as well.
Mrs. Greene was standing in the rear with some
attendants, a receptionist, and some visitors. She
glared my way and I glared back as I left the lobby
and stepped out of the building, my heart thumping so
hard I thought it would drown out the singing. There was no one on the porch, but I saw Holly
on a bench talking softly to some song birds who stared up at her as if they really understood. Even though I was still shaking, the sight brought laughter
to my lips. She saw me and hurried up the walkway. "How was your visit?" she asked.
"Very bad," I said. "They're medicating her into
oblivion and I have the feeling it's Grandma Olivia's
fault. I've got to pay her a visit."
"Oh, that's so sad. If we just taught them how to
meditate, there would be no need for chemical
therapy."
"There's no need for it now," I said. "Unless
keeping the truth buried is a good reason."
Holly's eyebrows lifted into question marks, but
I didn't want to say anything until I was certain what I
had heard was really the truth. At least now I understood why Grandma Olivia had been so interested in
learning what her sister had told me the first time. I
felt as if I were opening the door to a vault, a vault
covered in dust and cobwebs, its hinges rusted. This
was no time to walk away.
"Could you do me a favor," I asked, "and take
me to my Grandmother Olivia's house? It's just a little
out of the way."
"No problem," Holly said. "If that's what you
want."
"Oh, it's what I want," I said nodding. "I never
wanted it more.."
13
Accusations
.
When we turned into Grandma Olivia's
driveway and came to a stop, I sat quietly while I tried to catch my breath. Confronting Grandma Olivia was always difficult, but this was going to be twice as hard and the anticipation made my heart race.
"Are you all right?" Holly asked. "Yes. You don't have to wait for me," I said. "I might be here a while."
"But how will you get home?"
"Grandma Olivia's driver will take me, I'm sure:"
I gazed at the house. Despite the bright sunshine glittering on the windows, the beautiful rainbow colored flowers and perfectly trimmed hedges, the house looked dark and full of foreboding to me. Holly sensed my tension.
"Maybe she's not home. Maybe nobody's home," Holly said.
"I'll wait for her," I said in a tone of voice that indicated I would wait forever, if need be.
Holly gazed at me and then at the house. She squinted, closed her eyes, and then opened them and nodded as if she had reached a conclusion.
"There's a lot of static here, a bed of negative energy. Remember what I told you about my friend who went to India and walked on a bed of hot coals?"
"Yes." I smiled, recalling the story and how animated Holly had been when she told it.
"You've got to build a wall between yourself and that which can hurt you, Melody. You have the power in your own mind. Rely on your concentration, focus."
"I'm doing just that," I said. "Thank you." I got out. She remained in the driveway, watching me walk up to the front door. I pushed the buzzer and waited and then pushed it again. Holly was still in the driveway, unwilling to leave me here. Finally, Loretta, the maid, came to the door. I looked back and waved to Holly to indicate it was all right. Reluctantly, she backed out. I didn't want to send her away, but I knew that if she came into the house with me, Grandma Olivia might use her as an excuse to refuse to talk to me. I was determined she wasn't going to find any avenue of escape from the truth this time.
"Hello, Loretta," I said. "I want to see my grandmother. Is she here?"
"Mrs. Logan is upstairs in her bedroom. She wasn't feeling well today. I just brought her a little lunch, but she didn't eat much."
"I have to speak to her," I insisted.
"She's in her bedroom," Loretta said, intending that I take that as a reason why I couldn't. She was a tall, thin woman with a face that looked as if it were made from porcelain and would crack and shatter if she smiled or laughed.
"People talk in their bedrooms," I said and marched past her.
"Oh, but Mrs. Logan doesn't want to be disturbed," she cried.
"No one wants to be disturbed, Loretta," I replied and started up the stairway.
I had been upstairs only once before, when Cary had given me my first quick tour of the house, but I had seen Grandma Logan's bedroom. I remembered she had a bed next to a wide, dark cherry wood, three-drawer nightstand on which sat a large Tiffany lamp. Behind the bed were two big windows over which hung sheer wine-colored drapes. The bed was on a matching oval area rug. On the right was a cherry wood desk and on the left, adjacent to the door, were the closets, dressers, a very uncomfortable looking spindle chair, and a side table. The walls were covered with a light brown wallpaper that had what looked like tiny flowers stenciled around the borders. I saw no paintings on the walls and thought the room was rather cold for a bedroom.
At the moment the door was closed. I knocked and waited and then knocked again.
"What is it?" I heard Grandma Olivia cry with sharp annoyance. Rather than answer and announce myself, I just opened the door.
My appearance was almost as shocking to her as hers was to me. She was sitting up, her
face covered with some sort of milk-white facial cream. Her watery red eyes peered out of the mask of lotion and her bland lips looked like a line drawn with a broken crayon. Her blanket was folded back at her waist. Surrounded by her oversized pillows, her thin hair down, her egg-shell white silk nightgown loosely clinging to her bony shoulders, she appeared smaller than she did when dressed and moving about the large rooms. The portion of her chest that usually remained covered now revealed age spots and tiny moles. Minus her jewelry and her hair combs, and wearing this skin lotion, she looked naked, vulnerable, caught unprotected by her wealth and power, a queen without her crown. My seeing her like this filled her face with immediate rage. She stuttered and gasped before she could get out her angry reprimands.
"How--how dare you come up here without being announced? Who do you think you are barging into my bedroom? Where do you get the audacity-- Haven't you learned anything about manners?"
She reached over the bed to fetch a towel and wipe the cream from her face, whipping her eyes back at me as she did so. There was so much fire coming from them that if I had been made of ice, I'd have been a pool of water in seconds.
"I just came from visiting with Grandma Belinda," I said in response.
She threw the towel to the floor and pulled her blanket up until it covered her to the neck.
"Where's Loretta? Did she permit you to enter the house?"
"Don't blame Loretta. She told me you were up here and I insisted on coming up to see you."
"Well, you just turn yourself around and march back down those stairs and out of the house. I am not entertaining guests today. I have a splitting headache, a sinus problem and--
"I'm not here to be entertained, Grandma Olivia. I'm here to confirm the truth, once and for all," I fired back. Her eyes widened as her anger peaked.
"How dare you speak to me like that? And with all the family trouble now, too. Poor Jacob and Sara having to contend with Jacob's heart attack and now your insolence. I warned you about your behavior. I told you--"
"I said I have just come from seeing Grandma Belinda," I interrupted, raising my voice just enough to grab her attention. She stared a moment, her lips pursed.
"What of it?" she demanded.
"First, I was told you left orders for no one to see her," I began in a smaller, quieter voice.
"That's correct."
"Why?" I asked, my eyes narrowed as I took a step toward her.
"I don't think I have to explain myself to you and I will not be cross-examined in my own home. Get out," she said, pointing to the door.
"I'm not leaving until I hear the truth from your lips. It may burn your tongue, but I want to hear it," I said.
My calmness fanned the flames of her rage even more. Her mouth opened and closed without a sound emerging as she choked on her own fury.
"Grandma Belinda was not in good health," I said. "She was under some medication that's turning her into a zombie."
"Oh, so you've become a doctor, too, is that it? You want to go up there and tell them how to treat their patients. Is that why you've come bursting into my home?" she added with a cold smile spreading from her twisted lips to her steely eyes. "This is exactly why I left orders for no visitors. She's not well. She's not up to visitors anymore, and I'm disappointed that you were permitted to see her. I will have a stern talk with Mrs. Greene."
"Mrs. Greene knew if she didn't permit me to see my grandmother, she would have a bigger fight on her hands with me than she would have with you," I said.
"Oh, so you pushed your way in there just as you've done now, is that it? You think I'm going to tolerate this sort of behavior? You think just because my son is in the hospital that I won't call Sara and tell her to throw you out on the street? Don't you know that it's only because of my generosity that I permit you to live here? By all rights you should be in some foster home until they find a family strong enough to stomach you," she spit back at me.
"I'm not going to be intimidated by your threats this time, Grandma Olivia. If you threw me out on the streets, I would just go down to the Provincetown newspapers and tell them about this family and its dark secrets."
She laughed.
"Do you think anyone in Provincetown would do anything to upset me?" she challenged. "You don't know how ridiculous you sound. Now do as I say and--"
"Grandma Belinda told me the truth about my mother's birth," I blurted. I didn't add that she had babbled it in what sounded like insane rambling. "She told me she was kept shut up in the house, not even provided with proper medical care, in the hope that she would lose the baby. She told me how you made her deliver her own baby."
"What? That is such a preposterous story, I don't think it requires a response."
"And then she told me who the father was, my mother's father, my grandfather," I added.
Grandma Olivia seemed to sink a little in her bed. She leaned back against the pillows, her ashen face almost transparent now. Then she brought the corners of her mouth up and into her cheeks, thinning her lips so they looked like strings of pale pink wool strained to the point of tearing.
"Which one of her many, many lovers did she call the father of her baby? This time," she added.
"She said it was Judge Childs."
Grandma Olivia's lips trembled and then broke into another, very forced, hard smile.
"Oh she's gone back to that story, has she? Last year it was Samuel, you know. And before that, it was Martin Donnally, a policeman who died two years ago. Once it was Sanford Jackson, Teddy Jackson's father. I told you not to go up to see her anymore. I knew she was going to tell you with one ludicrous story after another. She was always a liar, always fantasizing about this or that man. Belinda never had more than one foot in reality and most of the time, not even a toe. She was always doing terrible things and then making up stories. In her deranged mind, she thought the wealthiest, most handsome men in Provincetown were going to rush off and marry her. Nothing was further from the truth.
"She was crazy even before she began drinking and sleeping around. All that just put her over the top, and after she gave birth, she went completely mad. Why, if I hadn't had the judge's help at the time--" "The judge's help?"
"Yes. That's why she's making up this story now. It was Judge Childs who came to my aid and helped me place her in the home where she was treated well and where she has lived comfortably in her madness up until now. I needed his political influence. You can imagine the waiting list for that place. That's why she accuses him of such a thing."
She wagged her head and then nodded.
"Belinda's getting worse. I didn't know how bad things were until very recently and that's why I left orders for her not to have visitors. Satisfied? Now that you know all the nitty gritty dirt I've been trying to keep swept out of sight?"
She leaned forward, strengthened by the venom of her lies. For I could tell, she was lying.
"We are one of the most respected and well known of the original families here," she continued. "Reputation is as important as money in the bank. Despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Belinda and your mother, I was able to protect my family. Now, after we've been overly generous and permitted you to live amongst us, given you opportunities, you continue to threaten our peace and well being. How dare you come here with your accusations? I shut my sister up pregnant? I didn't give her medical assistance? What do you think I'm doing now?"
"But, that's what she told me," I said,
weakening.
She laughed again and shook her head.
"So you will go around and tell people what a deranged, mentally ill woman who has been institutionalized for years and years said? This is why you come running here? This is how you threaten me?
"Please," she said, wagging her head and waving her hand as if she were chasing away flies, "go home and try to be of some assistance to my son's wife during this trying time. If you can't, well, we'll see about making some other arrangements for you," she said, but not as a threat,
more like a logical conclusion.
I stepped back. Was I wrong? Was Grandma Belinda just fantasizing? Oh, why couldn't the truth be as plain as day? Why was everything to do with this family so cloudy and confused? Was it like that in all families?
Grandma Olivia leaned back and moaned. "You've made my head pound again. Please, send
Loretta up immediately. I need her to get me more of my medicine," she said in a thin, breathless voice. "Where is it? I'll get it," I offered.
"I'd rather do without it and suffer," she retorted. "Just send Loretta up on your way out." She thought a moment and sat forward again. "How did you get here?"
"A friend brought me."
"A friend? Is your friend downstairs,, too? Is my house full of strangers?"
"No, I sent her away."
"And how do you intend to get home then? Go walking on the highways so I hear about it?"
"I thought maybe if Raymond were here--"
"He's not. He's running errands. And of course Samuel is down at the docks wasting time with fishermen. Damn your insolence," she muttered. "Hand me my pocketbook and I'll give you taxi fare," she said.
"I don't need your money. I've been working and have my own," I said.
"Suit yourself. Actually, that's good. I'm glad you have some independence. I have a feeling you're going to need it. Go downstairs and call your taxi and take yourself and Belinda's idiocy home," she ordered.
She fell back against her pillow and put her hand over her forehead.
"Loretta!" she cried.
I turned and went out the door. Loretta must have been waiting at the bottom of the steps, for she heard Grandma Olivia's cry and was already coming up quickly.
"I told you not to go up," she said. "I told you. Now she'll be furious at me." She glared angrily at me as we passed each other on the stairs.
I hurried down and went to the phone in the kitchen where the telephone numbers for various services were posted on the wall. I found the number for the taxicab company and called for a car. Then I went out front and sat on a stone bench and waited. As I sat there, I thought about Grandma Belinda. She didn't seem mean enough to make up a story about Judge Childs just to get back at him. How I wished there was someone else to talk to, someone who had been around at the time. Grandpa Samuel was there, but he wouldn't contradict Grandma Olivia. That was certain. There was no point in asking him anything.