Unfinished Symphony (Logan 3)

"I'm staying with Holly Brooks's sister, Dorothy Livingston, but not after tonight," I said.

"Holly Brooks? I know that name."

"She's a friend of Kenneth's."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Is she living with him?"

"No, she lives in New York City. She's been very nice. She helped me get here."

"And this Dorothy . . . what does she know about us?" "Just what I've told her . . . how you pretended I was someone you didn't know."

"Good. Go back and tell her you came here again and you had made a mistake. Then go back to Jacob and Sara."

"I can't go back to Jacob and Sara," I said. "If I go back, I have to live with Grandma Olivia."

"Olivia? Why?" she asked. I sat on the sofa and began to tell her the story of my discoveries, how I had visited with her mother, my grandmother Belinda, and how I had learned that my mother's father was really Judge Childs.

"I finally understood why Kenneth and his father don't get along. He blames his father for his losing you," I said.

Mommy smiled.

"Kenneth," she said softly, reminiscing. "I suppose if things had been different, he and I would have married.

You don't know how handsome he was and bright. All my girlfriends were crazy about him. He was always different, always exciting to be with." Her smile faded. "But when I learned the truth and brought it to him, it was as if I had hit him with a

sledgehammer.

"They're all so prim and proper on the outside, the blue bloods who made me feel inferior. I was the poor, discarded little girl, the waif living off of Olivia's kindness and generosity. How she continually reminded me of it. She took me in just to reduce the embarrassment, but she hated every moment I was there and she brought her boys up to think of me as contaminated. Only I fooled her, didn't I? I won Chester away from her and for that, she hated me forever.

"Was she smiling at my funeral? I wish I had been there just to watch the hypocrites," Mommy said and puffed her cigarette violently.

"No, she wasn't smiling. She was dignified. It was a very nice funeral. Kenneth was there, too."

"Poor Kenneth. Was he very upset?"

"Yes."

She sat back, pleased.

"It's not so bad to bury yourself once, especially when you're burying the ugly past too." She stared blankly at me. "But that's all gone, six feet under, Melody. You can't dig me up. It's not fair. I've finally thrown off the chains, the weight of my past, and I have opportunities now, new friends . . ." She gazed around. "This is just temporary. After my next few jobs, I'll be living in a plush condo, maybe in Brentwood. Archie assures me," she said.

I looked down, my heart so heavy I thought it might fall out of my chest.

"Why does Olivia want you to move in with her now?"

"Because Uncle Jacob's so sick and because she wants to keep the lid on any scandal. I told her I wanted to live with Kenneth since he's really my uncle, but she says that will only stir gossip."

"Oh, she's right about that. Olivia knows her territory.

Maybe it's not a bad idea anyway. It's a beautiful house. I did enjoy living there when she wasn't breathing down my neck or screaming at me for one thing or another."

"She wants to find a proper school for me and she said I have an inheritance from Grandma Belinda's half of the Gordon fortune."

"That's great. So you see, you should go back and quickly."

"But . . . it's not money I want or a snobby girl's school, Mommy. Olivia isn't my mother. She's not even my real grandmother. I'm afraid to live with her, afraid she'll make my life as miserable as she made yours."

"She wasn't completely at fault. I brought a lot of it on myself," Mommy confessed. "I was angry at them, all of them, and I wanted them to pay for my unhappiness."