"And this is Melody," Mommy added, putting her hands on my shoulders. Aunt Sara's gaze was so penetrating I thought she could look right through me. A small smile, almost impossible to notice, formed at the corners of her mouth.
"Yes," she said nodding as if I were exactly the way she imagined I would be. "She's about Laura's size and height, only Laura's hair was darker and she never kept it that long," she said, sadness making her face long and hollow eyed.
"I'm so sorry about all that," Mommy said softly.
"Yes," Aunt Sara said, still staring at me. I looked to Mommy. What was she sorry about? Who was Laura? Apparently, she knew more than she had admitted about Daddy's family.
"I bet you're hungry," Aunt Sara said to me, a smile returning to her lips. I smiled back, but my stomach was tied in so many knots I didn't think I could ever put food in it. "I've got a chicken roasting. Cary will be home from school soon with May. They're both very excited about your coming here." She turned to Mommy and Archie. "In the meantime, I have some clams steamed for you."
"Oh good. In the years since I've been here, I've never had any good as yours, Sara."
"I don't do anything more with clams than anyone else around here does," she said modestly. "You scrub them and drop them into a clam kettle with just enough water to cover them. No mystery about it," Aunt Sara said, her voice suddenly harder, sterner.
"Maybe it's just the clams here," Mommy said. She seemed awkward and uncomfortable under Aunt Sara's icy glare.
"That's it for sure," Archie said. Aunt Sara raised her eyebrows and looked at him as if she had just noticed his presence.
"Well now, come into the dining room and make yourselves to home," she said.
An antique trestle table stretched nearly the whole length of the dining room. It had a captain's chair at each end and four straight chairs in a perfect line on each side. Lying at the head of the table was a leather-bound Bible. There was a small pine table in a corner of the room with a vase of yellow roses on it. On the wall was an oil painting: a seascape with a lone sailboat moving toward the horizon. I looked closer and saw what looked like a ray of bright sunshine pouring through an opening in the overcast sky with a godlike finger in the center of the ray of light. The finger pointed at the lone sailboat.
"Please take a seat," Aunt Sara said. "That's Jacob's chair," she added and nodded toward the captain's chair at the end of the table where the Bible lay. Obviously, no one else was permitted to sit in it. "Everyone like cranberry juice?"
"It makes for a great mix with vodka," Archie quipped.
"Pardon?" Aunt Sara said. Mommy gave him a reprimanding look.
"What?" He recovered quickly.
"Oh, sure we like it. Thank you." Aunt Sara hurried back to the kitchen.
"Who's Laura, Mommy?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"It's too sad," Mammy whispered and brought her finger to her lips. "Not now, honey."
Aunt Sara reappeared carrying a pitcher filled with cranberry juice on a tray with three tall glasses, each with two ice cubes. She gave us each a glass and started to reach for the pitcher.
"Let me pour that," Archie volunteered. Aunt Sara nodded to him. She gazed at me again, drinking me in for a long moment, her eyes twinkling with pleasure and approval. It made me feel uncomfortable to be scrutinized so closely. I looked away.
"Do you like clams, dear?" she asked.
"I guess so," I said. "I don't remember eating them."
"She loves them," Mammy said quickly.
"Laura loved them so," Aunt Sara said. She sighed. "I'll go get them."
She returned to the kitchen.
"Mommy?" I said, pleading for information.
"Just wait, Melody. Let everyone get to know everyone before you start asking all your questions." She looked at Archie. "She's always full of questions."
"You don't have to tell me." He gulped down some cranberry juice. "Hey, this is good."
"Cranberries are a big thing here," Mommy said. "I'd like a penny for every one I harvested. I'd be rich."
"You're gonna be rich," Archie promised. Mommy's smile warmed and she turned to me. "Isn't this a nice house, honey? There's a beach right behind it and a dock, too." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I forgot how refreshing the ocean air could be," she said, which I thought was funny. She had never enjoyed our trips to the ocean as much as Daddy had.
"Yeah, it sure cleans the coal dust out of your lungs," Archie said.
Aunt Sara brought in pretty blue-and-white china soup bowls and set them in front of us. Then she brought in the kettle of clams and a bowl of melted butter.
"Please help yourselves," she said. Archie dipped his hand into the kettle quickly and brought out a clam. He plucked the meat with his thumb and forefinger and dipped it in the butter and sucked it down quickly.
"Great," he said.
"Use your fork," Mommy instructed as quietly as she could.
"What? Oh. Sure." He took a handful of clams out of the kettle and dropped them into his bowl, this time digging into the clams with his fork.
Aunt Sara smiled quickly and then looked as if she were at a loss as to what to do next.
"Aren't you having any, Sara?" Mammy asked.
"No. I'm fine. Go on. You eat, Haille." She looked at me again, stabbing me with her penetrating gaze. I nervously reached into the kettle and scooped up a few clams. I put them into my bowl and picked out the meat of one with my fork. Aunt Sara watched my every move, approving with a little nod every gesture I made. I felt like a specimen under a microscope. I looked at Mommy.
She didn't seem to notice or care about the way Aunt Sara was looking at me. "These clams are as wonderful as I remember them. It's been a long time."
"Yes," Aunt Sara said. After a deep sigh, she finally sat in her chair. "Was it a hard trip?"
"Naw," Archie said. "Some rain along the way is all."
"We had an unusually cold winter this year," Aunt Sara said. She looked around. "This house never seemed to warm up."
"How do you heat it?" Archie asked.
"Fireplace, and kerosene stoves. It's an old house, but we've been here ever since."
"Ever since what?" Archie asked.
"Ever since Jacob and I got married," she said. She looked at Mommy a moment. "You haven't changed all that much, HaiIle. You're still so pretty."
"Thank you, Sara."
"Melody has inherited your best features," Aunt Sara added, gazing at me again. I couldn't help blushing. "Yes," Mommy said. "Everyone says so."
"Cary, he takes after Jacob, but May looks more like my side of the family. Laura.. Laura was special," Aunt Sara added softly. Her eyes grew glassy and her gaze grew faraway. Then, suddenly, as if realizing we were there, she turned to me again and smiled. "Are you a good student?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"She's a very good student," Mommy said. "All A's."
"Just like Laura," Aunt Sara said. She shook her head. "Cary isn't like his twin sister was. He gets by, but he's not much for being shut up in a classroom. He's more like Jacob," she said. "Give him something to do outside and he'll be happy, no matter how cold it is or how much it's raining. When the Logan men get busy, the world could come to an end around them and they wouldn't know it."
"I know," Mommy said.
Aunt Sara sighed again, so deeply I thought she might shatter like thin china right before our eyes. "I'm sorry about Chester. Might as well tell you that before Jacob comes in. He won't want me speaking about him."
I looked at Mommy. Why wouldn't Daddy's brother permit anyone to speak about him even now, after he was dead? Mommy nodded, as if she had no trouble understanding.
"So how old's Cary now?" she asked, deliberately changing the topic.
"He's sixteen. May was ten last month."
"I bet she's a good student," Mommy said, struggling for conversation. Aunt Sara raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, but she goes to the special school, you know. Cary sees
she gets there all right and home all right. He's devoted to her. I think more so since Laura. . since Laura's been gone," she said.
Again, I looked at Mommy. She shifted her eyes away. "You don't like the clams, dear?" Aunt Sara asked me, poised to be disappointed.
"What? Oh, yes," I said and dug my fork into another.
"How are Samuel and Olivia?" Mommy asked Aunt Sara. I knew those were my grandparents so I stopped eating again to listen.
"They both suffer from arthritis now and then, but otherwise they're well. I told them you were coming," she said, almost as an afterthought.
"Oh?"
Aunt Sara said nothing more about them. The topic disappeared as quickly as a popped soap bubble, but neither Mommy nor Aunt Sara seemed unhappy about that. I wanted to know more. They had never seen me. Were they curious about me as I was about them?
The door opened and closed. Uncle Jacob appeared, a rag in his hands. The shape of his chin and mouth resembled Daddy's, but he had a longer, sharper nose and larger ears. His eyes were more hazel than green.
"Clams are sweeter this year," he said.
"They're great," Archie said. Uncle Jacob finally considered him.
"This is my friend Richard, Jacob. He drove us here."
Uncle Jacob just nodded and then looked at me.
"She's not as tall as I thought she'd be," he said. The way he said it made me feel as if I had failed at growing properly.
"Melody, this is your Uncle Jacob," Mommy said, her eyes on him.
"Hello," I said, my voice cracking.
He didn't smile. He wiped his hands and stared at me. "Plenty of time for us all to meet later," he declared. "I got to do some work on the boat right now. Sara, send Cary down as soon as he's home." He left through the rear of the house.
"It's very important to look after the boat," Aunt Sara explained, with another quick smile. "Well," she continued, "I imagine you plan on staying the night, Haille."
"No," Mommy said quickly. "We have a tight schedule."
"Oh."
Why had we come so far if we were going to leave so quickly? I wondered. Mommy had talked about showing me Provincetown. Before I could ask, we heard the front door again.
"That should be Cary and May," Aunt Sara said. A few moments later, my cousins appeared in the dining room doorway.
Cary was tall and did indeed take after his father. He had the same dark complexion as Uncle Jacob only he had a more sensitive face with much softer features. He had green eyes like Daddy, but because his hair was darker, almost coal black, his emerald eyes seemed brighter. He wore his hair rather long, almost to his shoulders. He was dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Beside him, still clinging to his hand, was my cousin May. She was small, birdlike for ten, diminutive except for her round, very bright hazel eyes. Her hair, the same chestnut shade as Aunt Sara's, was cut short in a pixie style. She wore a light blue dress with an embroidered bodice and saddle shoes. Her feet were so small, they made her look like a doll. She smiled, but Cary kept a very serious expression on his face, his gaze quickly moving from Archie to Mommy to me. When he fixed his eyes on me, I thought his look softened.
"Well, now, say hello to everyone," Aunt Sara said. "This is your aunt Haille, her friend Richard, and your cousin Melody."
Cary immediately turned to May and began to move his hands. She watched him and nodded when he stopped. Then she turned to us and said, "Hello." She stretched the syllables so that it sounded mechanical.
I couldn't help my look of surprise, but I saw it displeased Cary.
"Yes, she's deaf," my cousin said sharply to me.
"Well, ain't that a shame," Archie muttered. Cary threw him an angry look that, were it a knife, would have cut off Archie's head.
"How was school today, May?" Aunt Sara asked her, signing as she spoke.
May proudly held up a paper with a bright gold star at the top.
"She got a hundred on the spelling test," Cary boasted.
"That's nice, dear," Aunt Sara said. She seemed a bit more uncomfortable with the hand movements than her son was. "Your father wants you to go right down to the dock, Cary," she said. He nodded. "You can visit with everyone at dinner."
Cary turned immediately and signed something to May. She nodded and then looked at me. He glanced at me once more before heading out back.
"Go up and change your clothes, dear," Aunt Sara signed to May. The young girl nodded and signed something back before hurrying off. "Cary takes such good care of her," Aunt Sara remarked with a sigh.
"I didn't know she was deaf," Mommy said softly. "I don't think Chester knew either."
"Yes, she was born deaf. Seems like that should have been enough of a burden for us, but then. . . there was Laura."
A heavy pall fell over the table.
Archie couldn't stand it. "Why don't we go into the town and see the sights before dinner, Haille?" Mommy nodded.
"Can we take May along?" I asked Aunt Sara.
"Oh, I don't think we should," Mommy said quickly. "We're still strangers to her."
"Your mother is right, dear. It's a little soon," Aunt Sara said. She got up and started to clear off the table.
"Let me help you, Aunt Sara," I said. She turned with surprise.
"Why, thank you, dear, but I can manage fine. Why don't you go and get your things and show you your room now."
"My room?"
Aunt Sara smiled and went into the kitchen. I turned to Mommy.
"My room? What's wrong with her, Mommy? Didn't you say we weren't staying overnight?"
"Let's go outside, Melody," Mommy said in a whisper.
I followed her and Archie out. He headed for the trunk of the car.
"Let me talk to her first, Richard," Mommy told him. He paused and shrugged. Then he dug a cigarette from his pocket and leaned against the car.
"What's going on, Mommy?"
"Nothing terrible," she replied quickly. "Isn't it pretty here? Look at the view of the ocean you get from the house, and it's not too far from the town, is it?"
"Mommy, what is happening?" I demanded.
"Now just listen carefully, Melody, and don't go into a tantrum." She glanced over at Archie. He looked at his watch. "Let's take a little walk by ourselves," Mommy suggested. She started away. I followed, but I was stretched like a tight wire inside, so taut I thought I might snap in two.
"It really wasn't right for the family to be separated for so long," Mommy began. "It wasn't right that you never met your cousins until now, and it certainly wasn't right for you never to have met your grandparents," she recited. It sounded like something she had memorized.
"So? I thought that was why you wanted us to come here first," I said.
"It was. It is. I mean, yes." She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. Tears came to her eyes. "What's wrong, Mommy? What is it?"
"Oh Melody, you know that I love you, that I will always love you."
"I know that, Mommy."
"You know that even though I love you, I always thought it was a mistake for me to have had a child so early in my life. I want to warn you about that," she said sternly. "Don't have children until you're at least thirty-five."
"Thirty-five!"
"Yes. If you're smart, you'll remember that. Anyway, you know that I've tried to be a good mother. I know I'm not the best mother."
"I'm not complaining, Mommy," I said. There were burning tears coming to my eyes now, too. "We'll be all right."
"Oh, I know we will, honey, but first I have to do things. I have to try, don't I? You wouldn't want me to feel I never tried when I had the chance. You wouldn't want me frustrated and shut up in another place like Sewell, would you? Because if I'm not happy, Melody, I can't make you happy, can I? Can I?" she repeated.
"No," I said. I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs felt as if ice had entered them and shriveled them with constricting pain.
"Good. So yo
u understand why I've got to go places and meet people and do auditions and learn things," she said.
"You already told me all this, Mommy."
"I know, but. . . well, it's not the kind of life I can put you through right now. You're still in school and you need stability. You need friends and boyfriends and to go to parties and--"
"So, why can't I do that wherever we are, Mommy?"
"Because I'm not going to be anyplace for a while, maybe a long while. I'll have to travel around. If I get an opportunity, I have to pick right up and go. You can't turn down good opportunities, not at my age," she emphasized. "And what would life be like for you under such circumstances, huh?"
"But Mommy--"
"Listen, honey. Imagine just having made some new friends or starting out with a new boyfriend, and me coming home and saying, we're leaving tomorrow. You know now how hard that was this time, how terrible you felt? How would it be feeling that all the time? And then having to sleep in cheap motels and eat on the road and. . . everything. After a while you're just going to hate me, and then I would hate myself, and then I wouldn't try to be someone," she explained. "We would both be unhappy."
She smiled. "I don't want you to be unhappy, honey."
"What are we going to do, Mommy?" I asked and held my breath.
"Well, now here's where everything worked out for us. After your daddy died, I called Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara and told them, of course, and then explained what I was going to do with my life now. It was Aunt Sara who suggested it."
"Suggested what, Mommy?"
"Suggested you stay here while I'm off making a career change," she said. "She's very happy to have you and this is a wonderful place to live. You'll make so many new and interesting friends, I'm sure."
"You can't leave me here." I shook my head.
"Just for a while, honey. call constantly and I'll come back for you as soon as I'm established some place. But for now I've got to go off with Archie and I know you're not crazy about traveling with us."
"You mean Richard," I said dryly. "And I know he's not happy about having me travel with you."
"It's not because of Richard."
"Are you going to marry him, Mommy?"