"And under unfavorable influences?" I asked. She nodded.
"Postpone change and long journeys."
"Is it a favorable or unfavorable time?" I asked. "I'll study my charts and let you know later," she promised.
Holly was so serious about her beliefs, I couldn't laugh. Who knew? Maybe there was some truth to it.
Kenneth was in the studio when we arrived, but I wasn't prepared for what he looked like when I entered. He was pale and drained, his beard scraggly and his cheeks and neck unshaven. His clothes were wrinkled and looked slept in. His eyes were distant, bloodshot, the eyes of someone who was looking beyond everything that stood before him. He barely muttered a good morning when I greeted him.
I saw he had made considerable progress on the sculpture, especially with the face. It was becoming the face in the drawings, the face of my mother, more than it was my face. There was that slight turn in the upper lip that Mommy had, especially when she was being coy.
Kenneth's hands did have miraculous artistic power, I thought. As I gazed at the work in progress, I felt the movement. It was almost as if the stone girl would become flesh and blood at any moment and pull herself up and out of the base. Under his surgical fingers, the marble looked malleable, easier to form than clay. The figure's shoulders and face already showed skin-like texture, down to the way it rippled over the embossed cheekbones and breastbone. Perhaps, I thought, an artist was a person born with more life in him than other people and he puts some of that life into the work itself, diminishing himself every time he creates something as great as this, until one day, he is just an ordinary man surrounded by his creations, but comforted by the thought that he could never die as long as his work lived.
How was I to compete with this for his attention and love? I wondered.
"Did you have any breakfast yet, Kenneth?" I asked. For a while I thought he either hadn't heard me or didn't care to reply. Then he paused and looked at me.
"I had some coffee and a piece of something," he said.
"Piece of something?"
"A doughnut, I think." He thought another moment. "Or was that yesterday?" He shrugged and looked at his sculpture.
"Grandma Olivia sent for me last night, Kenneth, because your father told her what he had told me."
"Oh?" He brushed off the left earlobe on the sculpture and stepped back to study the face of Neptune's Daughter. "Just a minute," he said. "I want to check something."
I thought he was going to look at me to compare, but instead, he went to his drawings. He nodded to himself and wiped his hands on a rag.
"What were you saying about Olivia?"
"She sent for me because Judge Childs told her about our conversation."
"What did she want?"
"She wanted to be sure I told no one. She's afraid of a new scandal and she is so concerned about it that she wants--she practically ordered, I should say--me to come live with her and Grandpa Samuel. She forbade me to live with you."
Kenneth stared at me and, just when I thought he was going to say something, turned back to his drawing.
"The way you just raised your right eyebrow," he said, "I never saw you do that. It's interesting. It sort of indicates some mature insight. I like it, but Haille never did that," he muttered more to himself than to me.
"Did you hear what I said, Kenneth? Grandma Olivia wants me to live with her. She says it would be better for Uncle Jacob's recovery if I was living there right now, too, and it would only fan the flames of scandal if I came to live with you."
"She's right about that," Kenneth said. "Olivia's always been the sensible one, the one with solutions in that family."
"You think my moving in with her and Grandpa Samuel is the right solution?" I asked and held my breath.
"Might be," he said and turned again to his sculpture.
I stood there, fighting down a throat lump and swallowing back my tears. I had hoped he would tell me not to go to live at Grandma Olivia's. I had hoped he would insist I move in with him, that there was no other real solution, no other place I belonged but at his side. Why should he care about scandals?
"One thing's for sure," he said as he approached the marble, "you'll get the best of everything living there."
"Except love," I muttered sharply. At first I thought he hadn't heard. He just stared at his work. Then he turned and looked at me with his eyes finally focusing on me.
"Don't put too much stock in that, Melody. Love is fragile at best and often a burden or something that blinds us. It's fodder for poets and song writers and they build it into something beyond human capacity. Falling in love means enrolling yourself in the school of disappointment. Being human means failing each other often, and no two people fail each other more than two people who pledge to do things for each other that they'll never do because they're just incapable of it."
He gestured toward his sculpture.
"That's why art is enduring. The look of love or hope, or the look of compassion, bravery, whatever, is captured forever. We spend our lives trying to get someone to be as enduring as a painting or a sculpture and we can't because feelings crumble as quickly as the flesh."
"That's not true, Kenneth," I insisted.
He turned back to me and sighed. Then he shook his head and smiled.
"You know what I miss the most about my youth? My gullibility. It's nice believing in everything and everyone. It makes you feel secure, but be strong and depend more on yourself and you'll be ready for disappointments. That's the best advice I can offer you.
"Go live with Olivia. She's the real guru, not Holly with her stars and moon. Olivia can read the future better than anyone. She's the true captain of her soul and the master of her fate. She's endured and she's stronger than anyone. Disappointment withers in front of her. She can stare down disaster. My father cries in his beer, mourns his lost youth and his mistakes, while Olivia will rage on until the day she dies. And even death gets little satisfaction when it takes someone like her. For death, Olivia is a reminder that it, too, is a slave to something bigger. It's just an errand boy for Nature.
"So live with her and learn from her," Kenneth concluded. Then he took up his tools and returned to his marble creation, not seeing the tears brim in my eyes.
I sucked in my breath and left the studio. He didn't need me there, I thought. The vision is all in his head now anyway, just as he always claimed.
Holly was sitting in front of the house on a stone bench, Ulysses at her feet as she worked on a chart and thumbed through her books. When I appeared, she looked up with surprise.
"Why aren't you working?"
"There's nothing for me to do in there. You were right about him," I said.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Oh? Ignored you, too, huh?"
"Something like that."
"Were you crying?" she asked after she gazed at me closer.
"No." I turned away quickly and took a deep breath.
"Oh honey, don't let him get to you. Artists are so moody and--"
"It's okay," I said and smiled at her. "Could you take me home? I'd do more good helping Aunt Sara today."
"Sure. Oh," she said, "about your chart, the planets . . ."
"Yes?"
"It's a favorable time, a time for change," she said. She didn't have to tell me. I already knew.
Grandma Olivia's Rolls Royce was just leaving the house as Holly and I made the turn. The sight of the luxury limousine made my heart do flip-flops for I was afraid of how Aunt Sara would react to what Grandma Olivia was proposing. I was sure Uncle Jacob was ecstatic.
"I've made up my mind," Holly said as we pulled into the driveway. "I'll be leaving the day after tomorrow."
"Oh, no! I'll miss you," I said. She smiled and leaned forward to squeeze my hand and give me a kiss on the cheek.
"And I'll miss you too, sweetheart. You're a very nice girl, Melody, full of good energy, compassion, and love. Someday, you'll make a lucky man a wonderful companion."
I hurried into the house, worrying more about Aunt Sara than myself at the moment. May was in the kitchen washing out the pot in which Aunt Sara had made some hot oatmeal for Uncle Jacob. She was surprised to see me and obviously did not yet know what Grandma Olivia had wanted. She told me Aunt Sara was upstairs with Uncle Jacob. I waited for her to come down, but when nearly a half hour passed and she still hadn't, I went upstairs. The door to Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara's room was closed. I hesitated and then knocked softly. They must have thought it was May and wondered why she was knocking.
Aunt Sara opened the door and looked out at me with bloodshot eyes. Uncle Jacob was dressed in a cotton flannel shirt and pants. Aunt Sara was helping him dress.
"Melody. You're home already?"
"Yes, I thought--" I looked past her at Uncle Jacob, who struggled to pull on one of his socks. He did look stronger, with more color in his face. I was sure the news Grandma Olivia had brought had cheered him. "I thought you might need me here more."
"She doesn't need you," Uncle Jacob snapped. "Everything's fine here."
"He insists on getting up and going
downstairs," she said mournfully.
"Did you ask the doctor, Uncle Jacob?"
"I don't need the doctor to tell me what I can do and what I can't," he said and pulled on the other sock. Aunt Sara hurried to kneel at his feet and help him put on his shoes. He turned to me as she did so.
"Good you came home early though. You can start packing," he said. "Your grandmother can send the car over for you earlier than she thought," he added, and Aunt Sara uttered a cry and then pressed her hand against her mouth as he glared down at her. "Now Sara, you heard it all and you know that it's best for everyone all around. We're just lucky to have my mother and father alive and strong enough to handle the problem."
"Is that how everyone sees me now?" I asked. "The problem?"
"She's never been a problem for me," Aunt Sara said. "And the children--"
"Everyone will be better off," Uncle Jacob insisted. "Especially the children."
"I'm not full of contamination, Uncle Jacob." "You're Haille's daughter," he said as if that explained everything. "We can't help what's been passed through the blood. It takes someone as strong as my mother to keep things right," he said.
"Yes, she's got a wonderful track record," I snapped.
"Now don't you be insolent and disrespectful. You ought to be grateful someone wants to take you into her home. You're the result of lust and sin and--"
"Jacob!" Aunt Sara exclaimed. She stood up and he turned his head away.
"I've got to get some exercise," he muttered, "so I can build myself up and get back to work."
He started to stand, wobbled, and sat down hard on the bed.
"Jacob!"
"I'm fine. Just a little bed weary," he said. When he started to stand again, Aunt Sara put her arm around his waist and he reluctantly leaned on her shoulder. "There," he said, standing. "That's a start."
Aunt Sara looked at me with eyes so full of sadness, I had to turn away.
"I'll go pack," I said.
"Good," Uncle Jacob muttered.
My throat tightened and my tongue felt glued to the bottom of my mouth, so all my words were swallowed back. There was nothing more to say to him anyway, I thought. After his confession in the hospital, I was a constant embarrassment to him. He couldn't look at me and not feel guilty. It brought him much needed relief to see me go. Grandma Olivia didn't know how right she was when she suggested my moving out would improve Uncle Jacob's chances for recuperation.
May was waiting for me in the hallway, her eyes full of questions and confusion. She wanted to know if we could go for a walk to town. I smiled at her and took her hand. I brought her into my room and sat her on the chair by the desk.
I began by reminding her why I had come, why I had been left there, and why I had been forced to stay.
She was sad about my mother, but she quickly told me she was happy I was there. I thanked her and then told her about Grandma Olivia's offer and why it would be good for everyone. I didn't tell her about my grandfather or his sinful history. I tried to make it seem as if I would be gone only for a short while. I would always be nearby, I told her, and she would come to visit me as much as she wanted, that Cary had promised to bring her often, but she was still confused.
How could it be good for everyone? Didn't I help her mother?
How could I explain it all to her? I wondered and then I did the one thing I had tried never to do: I told a lie to make things easier. I told her Grandma Olivia needed me.
The idea of Grandma Olivia needing anyone surprised but interested her. May was so forgiving and compassionate she couldn't deny anyone anything, even someone like Grandma Olivia, who seemed to have everything she could want.
In the end she accepted it. It brought tears to her eyes, but she didn't cry. She offered to help me pack. I explained I had very little to bring with me. Grandma Olivia was going to buy me many new things. When I heard Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara in the hallway, I told her she had better see what she could do to help her mother and she left.
Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara made a lot of commotion going down the stairs. Uncle Jacob got dizzy once, but when I came out to help, he made a miraculous recovery and completed the journey. Aunt Sara brought him outside to sit on the porch.
As I sifted through the things I would take with me, I recalled when I had first come to stay in this room. I looked at Laura's picture and thought about her again. Cary insisted Laura and I were alike in so many ways. Holly would call it a kindred spirit. There were nights when I had lain here and felt another presence, felt encouragement and comfort, as if someone warm and loving had touched my cheek or stroked my hair or taken my hand during the night. It turned my nightmares into sweet dreams.
I had no idea what sort of a room Grandma Olivia would provide for me. Chances were it would be bigger, of course. I hadn't done very much to change this room. So much of what was in it still had significance and great importance for Aunt Sara. Laura's love letters were where they had always been. Her clothes remained in the closet and bureau. Her dolls and music box were undisturbed.
Aunt Sara was sure to return the room to its shrine status after I moved away, I thought. Now, she would mourn her daughter's death a second time. I had tried to be a daughter to her, but the truth was no one could replace Laura, and the hole in her heart Aunt Sara had hoped I would fill would always be there. Maybe it was more painful, even deceitful, for me to wear Laura's clothes and sleep in Laura's bed. Maybe as Kenneth had said, Grandma Olivia was the real guru for this family. She knew best.