"What?"
"I'm back, Kenneth. It's Melody."
"You're back?" He scrubbed his face with his palms, dropped his head as if he were going to fall asleep again, and then lifted it slowly, gazing at me harder. "You're not a vision, a dream? You're really here," he said smiling.
"Yes, Kenneth. I'm really here. What's going on? What have you done to yourself?"
He smiled.
"Done to myself? Nothing. What you see here has been done to me, not by me," he replied. "So . ." He finally noticed Cary standing to the side. "Oh, the beach rescue service has arrived, huh?"
"Hi, Kenneth. I think you drained your battery in the jeep. You must have left the lights on last night."
"Most likely," he said nodding.
"I have some jumper cables in the truck. I'll give it a boost and get it running for you."
Kenneth brought his hand to his temple, to his mouth and then bowed.
"My family thanks you."
Cary laughed and then looked at me and saw I didn't think any of this was funny.
"I'll just go charge the jeep while you two talk," he said and hurried away, Ulysses at his heels.
"Talk? We're going to talk?"
"What's happened to you, Kenneth? You weren't like this when I left."
"I don't know," he said quickly and struggled to get to his feet. I moved to help him, but he pushed me away. "I can do it myself," he said, but he wobbled when he stood and had to put his left hand against the statue. He opened his eyes and smiled. "I knew I created this for a reason."
"It has a lot more reason to be than that, Kenneth. It's spectacular," I said, glancing at Neptune's Daughter again. There was no question the face was my mother's face.
"Right. Art for art's sake, to bring out the beauty that is otherwise unseen, unheard, untouched around us. I am a prophet, a singer of songs, a . . ." He groaned. ". . . a man with a terrific hangover."
He staggered over to the sofa, grabbed a pillow and flopped down, nearly turning the sofa over at the same time.
"Why are you drinking like this? You're killing yourself," I said.
"No, it just looks that way. I can go on like this indefinitely. So," he said coming more to his senses, "I did hear from Holly a few times. Apparently, our Miss Cape Cod did pull a fast one, huh? She performed a death and resurrection, just as we all suspected?"
"Yes, she and her so-called agent took advantage of a situation to fake her death. The woman in the car with Richard Marlin was borrowing my mother's identification and was first mistaken for Mommy and then deliberately made out to be her."
"Olivia's not going to appreciate less than blue blood bones in her sanctified ground."
"Why is everyone so worried about what Grandma Olivia thinks?" I moaned.
"I don't really worry about it. I'm amused by it, actually." He thought a moment. "I shouldn't be at all surprised. Haille liked to pretend she was someone else all the time, especially movie actresses. When she met strangers, she would give them a fictitious name, make up a whole history for herself and do it rather convincingly."
"Then she's in the right place," I said and began cleaning up the studio.
"Don't do that. I don't care about it being clean and organized anymore. You are looking at my last work," he said staring at Neptune's Daughter.
"Stop it, Kenneth. You're not going to let this be your last work. You're too young to retire."
"Retire?" He laughed. "Yes, retire is a good word for it. Kenneth Childs, renowned New England sculptor, has declared his retirement. I like the sound of that."
"I hate it because it's full of self-pity," I said. His eyes widened.