Heartsong (Logan 2)

"I'm not really that good," I said.

He turned away with a shrug.

"If you say you're not, you're not," he muttered. "You have to believe in yourself if you want anyone else to believe in you," he added. The hardness of his words brought tears to my eyes. I felt a lump grow in my throat and had to look away for a moment, but he didn't notice, or if he did, he chose not to pay attention.

"I'm actually working up an appetite," he said. "Why don't you go think about lunch."

I nodded and slipped off the stool. I looked back once before leaving the studio. He was working on his vase, seemingly oblivious to the questions his words brought to my mind. Would I ever find something to believe in so strongly? Kenneth had his art, Momma'd had her acting, even Uncle Jacob had his fishing business. But does believing in yourself mean you become so distanced from others that no one can believe in you?

It was the first, but far from the last time the thought occurred to me that Kenneth Childs hid behind his art, used it like a shield or a fortress to keep anyone and everyone away from touching him. Why? I wondered, and understood that when I found the answer to that, I would find the answer to everything there was between us.

Sometimes Kenneth chose to eat his lunch in his studio, staring at his work in progress and thinking as he ate. If he did that, I ate my lunch on the beach with Ulysses at my side. But it was when Kenneth and I ate lunch together in the kitchen that he was the friendliest and the warmest. At these times I had the feeling he was trying to relax with me, ease himself into more personal conversations, almost the way someone might lower himself into a hot bath.

This particular afternoon, we ate together in the kitchen. I made us cheese and turkey sandwiches on Portuguese bread and some fresh lemonade.

"How do you like going to school here?" he asked.

"It's all right. I've had good teachers. Mama Arlene used to tell me school was like anything else-- it's as good as you make it, as you want it to be."

"Who are this Mama Arlene and Papa George you've mentioned? I don't recall any Logan relatives by those names," he said. When he grimaced, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepened and cut through his temples, almost as if someone had taken a pencil and drawn them.

As I explained who they were, he ate, listened, and nodded.

"Despite what I have learned about my family, I still think of them as my grandparents," I concluded.

"But Papa George died and Mama Arlene moved away from Sewell?"

"Yes. I visited his grave when I visited my stepdaddy' s."

He stared at me intently and then looked out the window. I thought he would grow interested in something else, the glide of a tern, the shape of a cloud, and drift off in his own thoughts as he so often did. But instead he turned back to me.

"What exactly have you learned about your own family?" he asked. My heart began to thump. Was this it? Was this the moment I had been waiting for?

"First, I was surprised to discover Mommy had been brought up with my step-daddy, the two of them living as brother and sister. Neither of them had ever told me that."

He nodded.

"Yes," he said, "they were like brother and sister. Brothers and sister I should say, for Jacob was there, too. When I was little and I used to play with them, I didn't realize Haille had been adopted by the Logans. As far as I knew, she had always been there, part of that family. And then one day, I think I was about nine or ten, something like that, Jacob told me. He just blurted it out like kids do. He said something like. . . . Haille's not really our sister. She's a waif."

Kenneth laughed to himself and I didn't move or utter a sound for fear he would stop and I'd never learn anything about my past. He continued, "At the time I thought he said 'wave.' But he said it again, and finally I asked my father what that meant and he explained that the Logans adopted her, but I didn't learn who her mother was until much, much later. No one has a better lock on the door to their closet of skeletons than the Logans, especially Olivia Logan."

"How did my mother feel about being an orphan?"

"I think it bothered her only because Olivia made a point of reminding her," he said.

"Maybe that's why . . ."

"Why what?"

"She was so wild," I said reluctantly. I hated saying anything bad about her, especially since she was no longer here to defend herself. "She was just rebelling."

Kenneth didn't agree or disagree. He just glanced out the window again then said, "I like Olivia. She and I have a healthy respect for one another when we see each other, but she is like the dowager queen of Provincetown. There's no one with bluer blood. Haille was never impressed with all that. In a sense you're right. The truth is I think she hated not knowing where she came from, hated who Olivia wanted her to be."

"No one likes not knowing who their parents are," I said. "No one wants to be an orphan.'

He turned to me again, and again I held my breath. "Sometimes, you're better off not knowing," he finally replied.

"How can you be better off not knowing?"