Heartsong (Logan 2)

"I want to know the truth," I said. "Is Kenneth Childs my father? Is that why you have been questioning me about him?"

She started to smile.

"Is that what he told you?"

"He hasn't told me anything."

Her smile faded.

"I'm sure if there is one thing I don't know and don't care to know it's which of Haille's many men friends sired you. It would be easier to find the father of some shark in the ocean," she added with a wave of her hand toward the sea.

"Perhaps my real grandmother would know," I said, and Grandma Olivia burst out laughing.

"Belinda? Know anything that goes on around her? Please."

"I'd like to meet her. I would," I insisted. She stopped laughing.

"Don't be silly. She wouldn't have the slightest idea who you were or be able to make sense out of anything you said or asked her," Grandma Olivia said. "It would be a pointless visit."

"Still, I'd like to do it. Isn't she permitted to have any visitors?"

"She can have visitors, but I can't think of anything that would be more of a waste of time than visiting Belinda Gordon."

"I have the time to waste," I said. "Did my mother ever visit her?"

"Not once," Grandma Olivia replied and smirked. "And let me tell you, it wasn't because I forbade her either."

"Then that's all the more reason for me to go," I said firmly. She raised her eyebrows again and widened her eyes as she nodded.

"Maybe I'm wrong," she said. "Maybe I should have taken an interest in who your father was. Whoever he was, he must have had some backbone."

If ever I was to receive a backhanded

compliment, I thought, this was it.

"Okay," she said after another moment. "You're so determined to meet your real grandmother," she added, pronouncing real as if it were a dirty word, "I'll even have Raymond drive you up there.

"Thank you," I said quickly. "When?"

"Tomorrow. Sunday is visitors' day. He'll pick you up at ten A.M. They like the patients to have visitors in the morning," she said.

"Haven't you ever visited her?" I asked.

"Of course not."

"But she's your sister," I said. She looked as if she had a rod of steel down her back.

"I did more for her than she would have ever done for me," she retorted, "especially under the circumstances.'

"What circumstances?"

"Please. I don't want to have to till that soil again. Just make your dutiful visit and get it over with," she added with another wave of her hand. Ideas or words she disapproved of or disliked were like flies for her to swat away from sight. No one could ever be more infuriating, I thought.

"It's not a dutiful visit. I really would like to meet her."

"You're going to be quite disappointed," she warned, almost gleefully.

"I've been disappointed many times before," I said. She sent fire from her eyes again and then calmed down when we heard the judge and Grandpa Samuel as they emerged from the house and started toward us. Grandma Olivia sat forward.