Unfinished Symphony

  "Right now," I said.

  "What's going on? You sound so strange," he said.

  "Will you do it?" I replied. "Sure, but--"

  "Thank you. Just be patient with me and I'll explain everything in time, okay? Please," I added.

  "Okay, Melody," he said. "I'll come."

  After I finished talking to him, I took a deep breath, went to the telephone book, looked up the number and called my father. His wife answered.

  "May I please speak with Mr. Jackson?" I said. "Whom may I say is calling?"

  "Melody Logan," I said curtly.

  "One moment please."

  Seconds later, he was on the phone.

  "This is Teddy Jackson," he said formally.

  "Meet me in your office in a half hour," I said.

  "Pardon?"

  "Meet me in your office. I have something to show you and something to ask. Actually, a lot to ask."

  "I'm not sure I understand," he said weakly.

  "You will," I promised. "Be there," I said and hung up, my heart pounding so hard, I had to pause to take a deep breath and calm myself.

  I saw Mrs. Grafton walk by with my

  grandmother's dinner tray. She glanced in at me, but continued toward the stairway.

  Grandma Olivia won't have much of an appetite tonight, I thought.

  Twenty minutes later, Cary pulled up in front of the house and I ran out to get into his truck.

  "What's going on? Something more with Grandma Olivia? Did they take her to the hospital?"

  "Not yet," I said. "Take me downtown, Cary."

  "To where?"

  "My father's office," I said.

  "What?"

  "Please."

  He stared at me a moment.

  "What's in that box?"

  "I promise I'll explain everything as soon as I can," I said. "Trust me."

  "Sure." He shrugged, started the engine again and drove us away.

  "Whatever it is, I hope you'll tell me about it soon," he said as headed toward Commercial Street. He glanced at me. "I don't remember you ever acting this strange, Melody."

  I took a deep breath but said nothing. He shook his head and drove faster. When we arrived in front of the law offices of Teddy Jackson, we saw the lights were on inside and his car was in its reserved parking space. Cary started to get out of the truck.

  "Please wait for me in the truck, Cary," I said.

  "Why?"

  "This is something I have to do myself first. Please."

  "I don't like this, Melody. You're in some kind of trouble. I should know more about it and I should be able to help you."

  "I'm not in trouble, Cary. It's not that. Please, be a little more patient," I said.

  Reluctantly, he got back into the truck and closed the door.

  "Thank you," I said and stepped out.

  My father's offices were plush, richly carpeted with real leather waiting room sofas, paneled walls and oil paintings. There was a large legal library and his own office was oversized with a set of back windows giving a full view of the harbor. He was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets gazing out when I entered.

  "What's this all about?" he asked, obviously a little annoyed at the way I had ordered his appearance.

  "It's about all this," I said, putting the metal box on his large, dark mahogany desk. He stared at it a moment and then walked over.

  "What's this?" He opened the box and took out one of the documents. As he read it, his face took on more of a crimson tint. He glanced at me, put the paper down and read another. "She gave you this?"

  "No. She had it hidden in the basement," I said.

  He nodded, blew some air through his lips and then sat at his desk.

  "Who else knows about it?"

  "Just me for now," I said. "Cary is waiting outside in the truck, but I haven't told him anything yet. I want to know everything first, every dirty detail."

  "I don't know every dirty detail," he replied sharply. I glared down at him and he shifted his eyes guiltily away. "I didn't want to do it, but she blackmailed me," he began and turned back to me.

  I sat in front of the desk.

  "Go on," I said.

  "I didn't think she knew the truth about Haille and me. I'm still not positive about how she found out. I suspect Haille told her, taunted her with it maybe. I don't know."

  He pulled himself up in his chair.

  "She came in here that night, calling me to this office almost the same way you did," he added with a small smile, "and she told me what had happened and what she wanted and what I had to do.

  "I started to resist and she told me she would not hesitate to expose me, to bring Haille back, to destroy me just when I was getting a wonderful start.

  "So I did what she wanted. I took care of all the legal issues," he confessed. "I wasn't happy about it and I couldn't look Jacob and Sara in the face anymore, but in time she had me believing it was for the best."

  "Oh, I'm sure you were concerned," I said disdainfully.

  "Well, I ... look, it was her decision," he protested. "She wasn't the mother; she wasn't the father. It wasn't her decision. You let her play God!" I shouted. He seemed to shrivel in the chair. His eyes went down. "What happened to her?" I asked. I didn't want to say anything to Cary before I knew every possible detail and before I knew her final fate.

  He looked up.

  "Olivia didn't tell you anything?"

  "Grandma Olivia had a stroke. I thought everyone in Provincetown knew by now. She can't talk."

  "Oh." "Well?"

  "I know only what I was told, Melody. Laura and Robert Royce went sailing. They got caught in a storm and Robert drowned. Olivia told me Karl Hansen picked her up in his fishing trawler and brought Laura directly to her. She was a raving lunatic, suffering from traumatic amnesia. She was naked when he found her at sea and Olivia, well, Olivia thought the worst of that, of course. Anyway, Karl had worked for Samuel and knew who Laura was. Olivia took control after that. She made sure Karl told no one and then she decided to have Laura secretly institutionalized. I think the whole affair embarrassed her. Legal guardianship was established and Laura was left there where she remains to this day, as far as I know. I never . . ."

  "Never cared to find out?"

  "It was out of my hands by then," he protested. "I just assumed, as the years went by, that she never . . . that it was for the best."

  "Which eased your own conscience," I accused. I stood up. "I expect you will give us any help we need now," I said. He nodded.

  "After I had discovered that the man I believed was my father was really my stepfather, I used to dream about the man who was my real father. I used to imagine he was a wonderful person, someone who might not even have known he had me as a daughter, but once he found out, he would come running to me, wanting to love me, to do things for me. I used to dream we would finally have a daughter-father relationship."

  "Melody--"

  "Now," I quickly continued, "I am grateful that you chose to be a coward. I don't want anyone ever to know that you are my real father," I said. "I couldn't get over the shame."

  He stared at me, his face bright red, while I gathered up the papers and put them back into the metal box.

  "You're just like her, actually," I said. "No wonder fate brought you together."

  "Melody . ."

  I turned and walked away from him, hopefully forever.

  Cary read the documents ravenously and then put the papers down and looked at me, his eyes wide, his mouth pulled so tightly in the corners, his lips looked like they would snap.

  "I don't understand," he said. He shook his head, refusing to believe in such a betrayal and such deception. We were sitting in the truck in front of his home. Dark clouds had accompanied the twilight and now there was a steady, hard rain. I told him all that my father had told me.

  "All this time we've been thinking Grandpa Samuel was babbling about what had been done to Grandma Belinda," I concluded.
r />   "How could this be? Why?"

  Tears spilled over his lids and trickled down his cheeks as if they were tiny watery creatures escaping. He didn't seem to realize it, even as they dripped from his chin.

  "Her own grandmother," he said. "My father's mother . . ."

  "In her distorted way of thinking, she somehow believed she was protecting the family from disgrace and hardship. There is no way to justify what she did and I condemn her for it as much as you will," I said, "but after living with her and learning who she is and some other things she believes and has done, I understand how this could have happened."

  "I don't. I never will."

  He closed his eyes and held his head back as if to swallow down some pain.

  "My father . . . my father suffered great guilt about Laura."

  "I know."

  "And Grandma Olivia knew it, too. She must have known it," he said quickly.

  "Maybe. Maybe she saw only her own guilt, her own pain, her own fears, Cary."

  "She doesn't have an ounce of love in her," he muttered through his teeth. "I hate her more than I have ever hated anyone. I'm glad she had a stroke. I hope she dies tonight," he said.

  "Don't become like her, Cary. You only end up so full of hate you can't love."

  He stared a moment.

  "What do we do? Do I tell Ma now?"

  "No. Let's go there first," I said. "Perhaps . . . we can bring her home."

  He nodded, smiling.

  "Maybe so." He reached for the key in the ignition. "We'll go in the morning, Cary. It's too late now," I said.

  "No. I don't want to think of her being there five minutes more," he said. "We have to go now," he insisted. He looked at the papers. "I know where this is. It's a four, four-and-a-half hour drive."

  "But it will be the middle of the night," I reminded him.

  "Who cares about that?" he said and started the engine. "I can drop you off, if you want."

  "Cary Logan, do you think I would let you do this yourself?"

  He shook his head.

  "Okay, let's go," I said. "We probably couldn't sleep anyway. Shouldn't you tell your mother something?"

  "No, I don't want to utter one more lie, even a white one," he said.

  I smiled.

  "Okay, but we've got to be prepared for anything, Cary."

  "I'm prepared," he said. He started away. "As prepared as I could ever be."

  It was a long, hard ride. Cary talked more about Laura than he had ever talked, recalling things they had done together, things she used to say. I sensed these were thoughts he had forbidden himself to have these past few years. He was afraid of what reviving such memories might do to him.

  A few times during the journey, he sat there silently, crying, tears streaming down his cheeks as he relived the tragedy and everyone's sorrow.

  How could Grandma Olivia attend those services knowing what she knew? I wondered. How could she be so confident she was doing the right thing for the family, so positive that she could bury her feelings, watch her son suffer and not say a word? Instead of a heart in that chest, she surely had a cube of ice, I thought. How horrible her own parents must have been to her to shape her into the woman she had become.

  I shouldn't have been surprised. She put her sister away without a single regret and did the same to her husband. Individuals meant nothing in the face of her fanatical faith in the family name. Love was merely a minor inconvenience. Correct behavior, prestige, respect, wealth and power were the five points of her star, and that star was embedded on the face of her soul.

  I lay back and closed my eyes and dozed for a while. When I woke, we were near a town. I saw the lights of an all-night restaurant.

  "You want some hot coffee or something?" Cary asked.

  "Yes, please," I said and we pulled in and ordered coffee and doughnuts.

  Cary drank and ate in a deadly silence, his eyes fixed on his anger, brightening with the stream of furious thoughts behind them. I didn't speak. I reached for his hand and smiled at him. He snapped out of his daze and nodded.

  "I'm all right," he said. "We'll be all right."

  "Yes, we will, Cary. We will," I agreed.

  We had another hour's ride before we found the entrance to the institution. It was a tall, gray stone building with a parking lot on its left. It was too dark to see clearly, but we could make out some nice grounds around it. We saw the high fences and then woods.

  The outside lights in front of the building were bright. We parked and after Cary shut off the engine, we just sat there, both trying to gather strength.

  "Ready?" he asked me finally. I nodded and we got out and walked to the entrance. The door was locked, but there was a buzzer beside it with a little sign that read USE ONLY AFTER TEN P.M. Cary pushed the buzzer and we waited. Because of the reflection of the outside lights on the glass of the doorway, we couldn't see very much of the inside. It looked like a small entryway before a set of double doors. No one came so Cary pushed the buzzer again, holding it longer.

  "It's pretty late, Cary."

  "Someone's got to be here," he said undaunted.

  Finally, the double doors were opened and a redheaded man in a pair of white pants and a light blue shirt stepped out. He looked no more than thirty, thin and slim-waisted, at least six feet tall with freckles over his forehead and cheeks. He peered through the glass before opening the door, scowled and then opened it quickly.

  "What'dya want?" he demanded.

  "We're here to get someone," Cary said firmly. "Huh?"

  "My sister," Cary said.

  "What the hell are you talking about? It's almost three o'clock in the morning," the redheaded man said.

  "I don't care what time it is. She's not supposed to be here," Cary said and stepped between the man and the door. The redheaded man recoiled as if he thought Cary would strike him.

  "You can't come in here now. Visiting hours begin at ten A.M.," he said.

  "We're here and we're coming in. Get whoever is in charge," Cary ordered.

  The redheaded man looked from him to me and then stepped toward the double doors. Cary put his hand out to keep the double doors from closing.

  "You're going to get into big trouble for this," the redheaded man threatened.

  "Good," Cary said. "Now go get a supervisor or someone. Do it!" Cary ordered, so fiercely, the man rushed off. Cary and I followed and entered the lobby. There was a counter with a glass window ahead of us. To the right were sofas and chairs, small tables, magazine racks and a television set. The door directly in front of us most probably led into the institution, I thought.

  We waited and finally heard footsteps on the other side of the door. It was opened and a very heavy woman in a nurse's uniform came charging out, her dark brown hair chopped rather crudely at the nape of her neck and ear lobes, her hips rubbing against the stiff material of the uniform, producing a loud swish.

  "What's this all about?" she demanded, directing her beady black eyes at Cary. She folded her arms over her heavy bosom like a battering ram and walked within inches of him.

  "My sister was illegally brought here," Cary said. "We've come to take her home."

  She stared at him a moment, grimaced with confusion and then glanced at the redheaded man.

  "Should I call the police?" he asked.

  "Not quite yet," she said. Her curiosity was piqued. "Who are you and who is this sister you are looking for?" she asked.

  "I'm Cary Logan. This is Melody Logan. My sister's name is Laura. Show her," Cary said and I produced some of the documents taken from the metal box. She eyed me suspiciously and then took them and began to read. When she was finished, I saw that her face softened a bit.

  "You just found out about all this?" she asked.

  "Yes, today," Cary said. "Those papers are incorrect. My sister did have parents and not a legal guardian," he said.

  "Where are your parents? Why didn't they come here, too, if this is so?"

  "My father recently died
and my mother . . . my mother is not able to make this journey. In fact, she doesn't know the truth yet," Cary explained.

  The nurse handed the documents back to me.

  "This is a legal matter," she said. "It has to be handled in a proper way."

  "Look--"

  "But as for your coming for your sister," she continued, "I'm afraid you're too late."

  "What?"

  My heart stopped. I stepped forward and took Cary's hand quickly.

  "This young lady unfortunately died a short time after she was admitted," she said.

  "Died? How?" I asked.

  "She drowned. We informed the grandmother about it. She was listed as next of kin."

  "How could she drown?"

  "It was deliberate, self-induced," the nurse confessed after a moment. "I'm not permitted to discuss the details. There are always legal issues when something like this occurs. It wasn't our fault, however," she added quickly. "I really don't understand who you are and why you're here," she continued.

  Cary just stared at her, refusing to believe her. "I want to see my sister now," he said.

  The nurse looked at me to see if she had heard right. "Don't you understand what I'm saying?" she said. "Cary, come on," I said.

  "No. I want to see her right now. I'm not leaving until I do," he insisted.

  "Call the police," the nurse told the redheaded man. He spun around and disappeared inside.

  "Cary, it's no use," I urged. He shook his head. "You're lying," he told the nurse. "She got to you. You were told to say this in case I ever arrived, weren't you?"

  "Absolutely not. I don't know anything about you," the nurse said. "And I don't lie about my patients."

  Another attendant arrived, an older, bigger man. "You having some sort of trouble, Mrs. Kleckner?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said. -The police have been called, Morris. No one is permitted into the hospital," she said, her eyes fixed on Cary.

  "Cary, let's go," I pleaded, but he was as stiff and unmovable as one of Kenneth's statues. It was like trying to uproot a tree.

  The larger attendant took his position in the doorway. Mrs. Kleckner turned to me.

  "I'm not lying about this. You have to go through proper channels and you will learn I've told you the truth. You're just making things harder for yourselves."

  "I'm sorry," I said, "but you have to understand we just learned about all this and it really was done illegally. I'm sure you can imagine the shock. That's why he's so upset. He doesn't mean to make trouble for you. Please understand," I begged.