Unfinished Symphony

  The caterers began serving the full meal. I wanted to wait for Cary, but he still hadn't arrived. I couldn't imagine what was keeping him. Finally, I joined Kenneth and Holly and, despite my nervous stomach, had a little to eat. After we'd finished, Teddy Jackson and his wife came to our table to congratulate Kenneth. He shifted his eyes to me, but I looked away. Behind him, Adam grinned, looking as arrogant, but as handsome as ever. Michelle, as usual, looked like she was bored out of her mind.

  My eyes went to the tent entrance, hoping for sight of Cary, but he still hadn't arrived. I was about to go into the house and call him when the Judge stopped by and whispered something to Kenneth. Then they both looked at me.

  "It's time I was able to step out of the limelight," Kenneth said gleefully. I groaned. They wanted me to perform. An announcement was made to the crowd as I left to get on the small stage where I had earlier left my fiddle. Most of the people drifted out to hear me play. Kenneth and Holly stood toward the back, both smiling from ear to ear. My eyes fell on Teddy Jackson, who wore a soft smile that made my heart pound so hard, I feared I might faint in front of all these people. Finally, I found the strength to lift the bow and begin.

  It was a song about a coal miner's wife who refused to accept the fact that he was dead in a mining accident and sat vigil at the mine entrance for days and nights, refusing to eat or drink anything. And then, one night, the miner emerged and there was a great celebration. Once or twice I thought my voice would break, but I kept my eyes closed and

  envisioned Papa George teaching me the song. When it ended, I received a wonderful ovation and there were shouts for another song. I played two more tunes and then stepped down. Grandma Olivia looked very pleased at the way some of the younger men were vying for my attention. Still, I didn't see Cary in the crowd, so I excused myself and hurried into the house to call him. He picked up after one ring.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just out the door. Ma was crying so hard and was so sad I just couldn't leave her. She kept thinking about Dad. She finally fell asleep. Did you play yet?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, damn."

  "But I'll play again and again for you, Cary. Just get here as soon as you can."

  "On my way," he promised and I cradled the phone. I stood there thinking about poor Aunt Sara. I was so deep in thought I didn't hear Adam come up behind me until he whispered in my ear and dared to kiss the back of my neck. I nearly jumped out of my shoes.

  "Easy," he said as if I were a horse he was trying to gentle. "I saw you go into the house and thought we could have a private conversation. You're really getting prettier and prettier, you know. I was hoping," he continued before I could speak, "that you might have realized how good we could be together. I'm a big deal at my college fraternity already and they're are lots of sorority girls to date, but I can't get you out of my mind, Melody. How about giving us another chance?" he asked stepping toward me.

  I backed away, shaking my head.

  "Get away from me, Adam. I don't know where you get the nerve," I said. He smiled.

  "I like that. I like a girl who doesn't give in easily."

  "I'll never give into you. Just stay away."

  "Now why don't you just try and give us a chance. We're both a little older and--"

  "I told you to stay away from me. Stay away!" I screamed at him when he reached for me again. He stopped his hand in mid-air and grimaced.

  "What the hell's the matter with you? Who do you think you are, the princess of Provincetown just because you can play the fiddle and sing? I'm not good enough for you now?"

  "No, it's not a matter of who's good enough for whom."

  "Then what? What?" he demanded. He looked angry enough to hit me.

  "Ask your father," I shouted at him. It came out of my mouth before I could swallow it back. He shook his head with confusion.

  "What?"

  "Just ask him, ask him why you and I could never be," I cried, the tears pouring over my lids. I turned and ran out of the room, leaving him twisting and turning in a whirlpool of confusion.

  At first I felt bad about what I had said, but then I felt good about it, actually relieved. It was as if I had passed the curse along, lifted the weight from my shoulders and placed it on the true sinner's.

  16

  Our Last Good-byes

  .

  Despite what Kenneth said about losing his

  enthusiasm for his art, he was busy creating

  something new only days after the unveiling of Neptune's Daughter. The art critics had given it wonderful reviews and he was featured in several magazines and newspapers. Neptune's Daughter was delivered to the museum as Kenneth had promised, and later I discovered he had permitted Judge Childs to buy and donate it.

  Holly remained after the festivities. I joined them for dinner twice over the following ten days, and once I took May for a bike ride out to the beach and we had lunch with Holly. I saw that Cary was right, she and Kenneth had grown closer. They both seemed very happy.

  Cary was working on the detailing of Kenneth's sailboat. The equipment had arrived and he was installing it all himself. A projected maiden voyage was proposed, one that would take the four of us for a day's trip. The boat was in the water now and people from town who had heard about it from Kenneth were coming around to see it. Mr. Longthorpe, a banker, was interested enough in Cary's work to initiate a discussion about his building a boat for him, too. Cary began to design another boat, and we were all very excited for him. I told Grandma Olivia, but she just said it was something only men who had money and time to waste would find interesting. Nothing that involved recreation was important to her. She considered entertainers, sports figures and the like to be frivolous people who had just not grown up. When I talked further with her about it, I understood these were ideas she had inherited from her rather Puritanical father, but ideas she clung to like a holy rod to help her pass through the trials and tribulations that in her mind were the realities this life bestowed upon us. She believed religiously that the Creator put us on this earth just to be tested, just to suffer and endure. That was the closest she came to any religious affiliations, although she entertained the minister and made contributions to the local church. She never ended a lecture or an explanation without referring to the importance of protecting the family, guarding the reputation. That was the only armor we had to ward off "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

  I was beginning to think she might not be all wrong. A mutual respect and kind of truce had developed between us, especially as it looked almost certain now that I would be the class valedictorian. She had arranged for me to have an interview with the head mistress of one of the New England prep schools. In her mind I was following her prescription for the perfect life and she was preparing me to walk in her footsteps.

  As the school year moved into its final quarter, plans for the annual variety show were being developed and I was approached by the show's director to perform again. I agreed and we began rehearsals soon afterward. The night of the second rehearsal, I came out of the school, expecting to find Raymond waiting as usual. He wasn't there yet, but it wasn't because he was late. My part had ended earlier than I had expected and I had decided to step out and get some fresh air while I waited.

  I noticed an automobile across the street and a man sitting the steering wheel. For a few moments I stood. gazing at the man and the car without fully realizing who it was. When the realization came, I felt as if I had stepped into a pool of ice water. My legs actually turned numb. He rolled his window down and beckoned to me. I didn't move and he beckoned more emphatically. There was no one else around. I hesitated and then crossed the street to the car and Teddy Jackson, my real father, smiled at me and nodded.

  "I've been looking for an opportunity to speak to you," he said, "ever since you sent Adam to me. Can we talk for a few minutes?"

  I glanced at my watch. Raymond wouldn't be here for at least another fifteen minutes, I thought.

  I
shrugged.

  "Why?"

  "We both know you know why," he said, holding his smile. He stopped smiling when I didn't move. "Please."

  He leaned over and opened the passenger's door and I went around the car and got in.

  "Well," he began, both of us looking forward and not at each other, "I think I rehearsed and replayed this conversation in my mind a thousand times." He turned to me. "How did you finally find out?"

  "What difference does it make?" I countered.

  "I was under the impression Haille never told anyone. It was a secret she took with her to the grave. Did someone else tell you?"

  I looked at him, my eyes burning with the fire in my heart.

  "You're afraid someone else in this town may expose you? Is that it?" I shot back at him.

  He stared and then he looked through the windshield again.

  "I have a family, a wife who doesn't know any of this, a very successful legal practice. I have some reason to be afraid," he admitted. "However, I don't feel good about that. I don't like continuing to be a coward, especially when I see how well you've turned out, how beautiful and talented you are. I'd like to stake claim to you."

  "I'm not a piece of property, some acre of land or something to possess," I said. "You don't stake a claim on a daughter."

  "I didn't mean for it to sound that way. What I meant was, I'd like to be proud, too. You didn't tell Adam anything, but he was quite upset. He didn't know what to think."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I didn't. The coward won out in me again," he said. "I acted just as confused. He's smart though. He didn't buy it and one of these days, he and I are going to have a heart to heart. I guess he won't think it's so wonderful to be a Jackson then," he added a bit mournfully.

  "He's spoiled and arrogant," I said. "He needs to be brought down a few pegs, maybe a dozen."

  "Yes, he is something of a snob. I will definitely stake claim to that. That's my fault." He paused, gazed at me and then nodded. "I guess I owe you some sort of explanation."

  "I don't want anything from you," I said.

  "I'd like to tell you some of it. Please."

  I said nothing. I just sat there, half wanting to lunge out of the car, and half wanting to lunge at him and demand why he was such a coward all these years. I wanted to pound his chest and pummel his face and scream and scream and scream about the lies, the deceptions, the people who suffered while he built his precious law practice and wonderfully secure family.

  "Nearly nineteen years ago, I was a lot less mature than I am now. Not any less than other young men my age," he added, "but I was impulsive and full of myself. My career had begun. I was successful rather quickly, which is not always a good thing; but in my case, I handled it well, invested well, built more and more of a fortune, married a beautiful woman and had my first child.

  "Your mother," he continued with a smile, "was the most attractive young woman in this town then, and very seductive. She had a way of directing herself at you that kind of melted your resistance, filled you with fantasies. She was," he said with a laugh, "a terrific flirt."

  "I don't want to hear any more about her wild ways," I said. "Every man I've spoken to who has known her talks about her as if she waved a magic wand over them, hypnotized them."

  "That's not far from the truth."

  "So you don't bear any blame, is that it?" I fired back at him. "It was all her fault. She seduced you and since she seduced you, you felt no obligations?" Tears burned my eyes and my heart thumped like a tiny hammer under my chest.

  "No, I'm not going to say that, although I did rationalize it that way for a long, long time," he replied calmly. "I let her blame someone else and cause problems for the Logan family. It was an easy way out for me and I took it."

  "Why did she do that?" I asked. "Why didn't she just expose you?"

  "I pleaded with her not to, but I think she had other reasons for doing what she did. She didn't do it for me. It had more to do with her relationship with Olivia Logan and the rest of that family. In short, I lucked out and left it that way.

  "I don't think you want to know the gritty details," he continued. "Suffice it to say we had a few passionate rendezvous and, well, the rest you know."

  "Yes, the rest I know," I said, reaching for the door handle.

  "Wait. I didn't just come to see you to tell you all that. I'd like to do something for you," he blurted.

  "Oh? Like what?"

  "I don't know. Isn't there something you need? Something I can buy you?"

  "Buy me a real mother and father," I said. "Buy me a real family with people who love and care about each other."

  He shook his head.

  "I'm sorry. It wouldn't do anyone any good, least of all the Logans, if I stepped forward and confessed, would it?"

  Your confession has to be made to a higher authority." I paused after opening the door and turned back. "There is one thing you can do for me."

  "Name it," he said quickly.

  "Keep Adam away from me," I said.

  "Done. And Melody, I really am sorry," he said.

  Just as I stepped out of the car, Raymond appeared with the limousine. I hurried across the street and got in without looking back until we had turned around and were heading back to Grandma Olivia's.

  My father was still there, parked, staring ahead at the darkness of his own making.

  It took me forever to fall asleep that night. I tossed and turned, my mind fuzzy, full of mists that rolled like the fog. How pathetic my real father had sounded to me. Well all his explanations, his promises and good intentions wouldn't- keep the ocean from washing over the deceit. Let it all be swept out to sea where it belongs, I thought. Let me be free of a past that wanted to chain me to despair.

  I was exhausted the next day and moved through my classes like a zombie. Theresa kept asking me if I was all right. She thought my mood might have something to do with Cary, because she, herself, had just broken up with her boyfriend. I kept telling her it was nothing like that, but she refused to believe me.

  "When you're ready to talk, call me," she said, actually a bit put off.

  I had the feeling I was caught in between those webs of confusion that prevented you from doing or saying anything right. It was better to just retreat into a cocoon of silence and wait for it to pass.

  When I saw Cary that afternoon, he read my face as quickly as plans for a new yacht.

  "More trouble with Grandma Olivia?" he guessed.

  "No. We circle each other from a safe distance these days, like two wolves in silent agreement as to each other's territory."

  He laughed.

  "So?"

  I pondered a moment. I had come out with him to Kenneth's dock to keep him company while he completed the finishing touches on the cabin. It was really a magnificent boat and as comfortable inside as he had predicted. He turned from the wiring he was doing on the stove and gazed at me with those green eyes fully focused.

  "What is it, Melody? Have you heard from your mother?"

  "Hardly," I said with a laugh. "I'd expect to hear from the Queen of England first."

  "Then what?" When I wouldn't answer, he turned, putting his tools aside. "If you and I can't trust each other by now with our deepest secrets and feelings, we'll never trust each other," he said and I gazed at him lovingly, appreciatively. I was lucky to have him, to have someone so devoted to me, I thought. Would any of Grandma Olivia's so-called young men of distinguished families have half of Cary's love for me or would they just see me as another part of the puzzle constructed to make them look successful in the eyes of their parents and friends? As if he could read my thoughts, Cary added, "I love you, Melody, and loving you means feeling pain when you feel it, being sad when you're sad and being happy when you're happy."

  I nodded. He waited as I took a deep breath.

  "Cary, I know who my real father is," I said, "and he lives here in Provincetown."

  He stared at me and then slid down a
gainst the cabinet to sit on the floor and face me.

  "Who?" he asked, holding his breath.

  "It's Teddy Jackson," I revealed. For a moment he just sat there stunned, blinking rapidly, his face unchanged.

  Then, the realizations began to sink in and his mouth opened slightly, his eyes darkening.

  "You mean, that skunk, that shark, that ocean scum is your half-brother?" he said. I nodded. "How did you find out?"

  "Mommy finally told me before I left Los Angeles," I said.

  "And you kept it a secret all this time?"

  "I didn't want to believe it or face up to it. I did my best to avoid him and my half-sister Michelle, who, ironically, despises me. I thought I could bury it with the other lies."

  "What happened?"

  I told him about my meeting my father the night before. He listened, smirked and nodded.

  "In character. I'm sorry, but I have to confess something, too," he said. "I have to confess I'm happy."

  "Happy? Happy about Teddy Jackson being my real father? Adam and Michelle being my half-brother and half-sister?"

  He looked down at the floor.

  "There were times . . . because of the things he said, remarks he made, times because of the way he treated you and your mother that I feared . . . suspected . . ." He looked up at me. "I was terrified my father was your father."

  "What?" I started to smile and stopped, realizing how horrible it must have been for him to have lived with such an idea.

  "I thought that was what he really had confessed to you that day in the hospital when he called you to what he thought was his deathbed."

  "But if I knew that, Cary, do you think I would have ... would have permitted you and me to be lovers?"

  "I hoped not, but it was a nightmare of mine."

  "Well, I've thought about it too," I said. "We're distant enough cousins so it doesn't matter," I stated firmly. "You say that now, but Grandma Olivia has your life plotted like a chart for a sea voyage. Don't you think I know why she wants you to be refined and attend those snob schools?"