"I'll tell you at lunch," I promised. "There isn't time now."
Robert nodded, his face darkly serious and full of worry. Between every class he tried to catch up with me so he could find out what was wrong.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "You look really tired, Laura."
"I am really tired," I admitted.
"Your brother's doing a good job of avoiding me today. I caught him looking at me and when I looked back, he turned away. He's back to muttering or grunting whenever I try to speak to him. What's going on?"
"We'll talk at lunch," I said, and I, too, hurried away.
However, when lunch hour finally arrived and I approached the cafeteria and heard the happy chatter of the students, all full of excitement about the approaching end of the school year and summer vacation, I stopped a few feet from the door. My feet felt frozen to the floor.
"What's the matter with you?" Theresa Patterson asked as she came up beside me. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I turned to her. A tear escaped from my eye and I shook my head instead of speaking.
"Laura?"
I ran back down the corridor and out a side door, bursting into the afternoon sunshine and letting the tears come more freely now that I was alone. I walked to an old oak tree and plopped down in the shade, hugging my knees, gently rocking back and forth. My shoulders shook as I sobbed.
"Laura," I heard minutes later. Robert was rushing over the lawn toward me. "What happened? Why didn't you come into the cafeteria? I waited and waited until Theresa told me she saw you run outside."
He knelt beside me. I wiped my tears away and tried to smile.
"I'm all right," I said. "I just wasn't in the mood for all those eyes and all those inquisitive faces today."
"Why? Tell me everything," he demanded as he sat on the grass beside me.
"Oh Robert . . ." I started and then sucked in my breath. "Cary read the letters you wrote to me. He went into my room when I wasn't there and he read them," I wailed.
"Uh-oh," Robert moaned. "No wonder he's been treating me like someone with a contagious disease today. I'm sorry, Laura. I shouldn't have put any of that in writing. Has he been nasty to you or--"
"No, it's not just Cary," I said. I paused and looked around at the slow-moving traffic, the soft cotton clouds lazily crossing the horizon, and the songbirds flitting from tree to tree. The world looked so calm and beautiful that it made the knots in my stomach and the chill in my heart seem worse.
I told Robert about my great aunt Belinda and how my grandmother Olivia had questioned Cary at length about my visiting Belinda at the rest home.
Then I described how Grandma Olivia's interrogation had turned to-my personal life and specifically my relationship with him. Before I could go on, Robert sputtered out, "You mean, Cary told her what I wrote in my letters?"
"Not exactly," I said, "but it had the same result."
Robert shook his head, amazed.
"What happened after that?"
"That was why she had the driver here for me yesterday, Robert," I said.
"Oh. You mean, she called you to her home to question you about you and me?"
"Yes."
He blew a low whistle through his closed lips.
"I'm sorry, Laura. I guess I really messed things up but I couldn't help myself. I had to tell you how I felt and you wouldn't talk to me. . . ."
"Don't blame yourself, Robert. Cary knows he was wrong," I said, grinding the tears out of my eyes and catching my breath. "It's just that Grandma Olivia is the head of our family and she could make things hard for everyone."
"What does she want? Should I go to see her? Maybe--"