Heartsong (Logan 2)

"No, Ken. Thanks."

"Okay. I'm going back to the studio." He turned to me. "Are you sure you don't mind staying the whole day?"

"I think I'm getting a little stomachache. But I'll be fine. I can stay," I said.

"Oh?"

"Stomach ache? Don't you worry, Ken. I'll help her. I have just the herbal medicine for stomach aches. Come along, Melody," she sang.

Reluctantly, my legs feeling like twin sticks of lead, I followed her into Kenneth's bedroom. She took the crystal and placed it beside the bed on a night stand and then she turned to me and smiled.

"Time of the month?" she asked.

"What? Oh. No," I said.

"Did you eat something nasty this morning?"

"No.'

"Just stress then," she concluded. "I have just what you need."

"I doubt it," I said harshly. She stared at me curiously.

"You have a lot of negative energy coming out of you, Melody. If you let me,I'll help you."

"No thank you," I said. "I'll just walk it of That usually works. ' I turned and fled the bedroom.

Outside, I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to walk home or walk on the beach.

Why hadn't he told me she was coming? Why hadn't he told me anything about her?

"Is every man a liar?" I shouted at the sea and the sea roared back what sounded like a resounding yes to me.

Just when I had gotten to the point where I thought I knew Kenneth, I discovered he was more of a stranger than ever. Perhaps we never get to know anyone, I thought, not even people we love and people who claim to love us.

I took a deep breath and walked toward the sea, hoping that the roar of the waves I heard would grow louder and louder and drown the angry voices chattering away inside me.

9

It's in the Stars

.

I took a long walk down the beach toward

where I could see the Point's end and the vast North Atlantic. As I let the sea spray wash over me, I wished I could just drift away with the tide, away from Kenneth, away from the Logans, away. How could I have been stupid enough to think that Kenneth could love me? Holly and all her eccentric, exotic ways were what an artistic man like Kenneth wanted. I was just a silly teenager who bored him. But I hadn't bored Cary, Cary who truly loved me, Cary whom I rejected to follow my childish dreams of Kenneth and his love for me.

I felt awash in self-pity as I continued down the beach, noticing that the seaweed was thicker on this part of the Point. It looked like the ocean had been in a rage here, tearing up the underwater vegetation like a madwoman might rip out her hair. There was driftwood everywhere, made shiny from the constant scrubbing of the salt water. I spotted something that had washed ashore. As I drew closer, I realized that it was a doll, her hair matted, her face bleached by the sun so that even the black button eyes were a dull gray. The lower half of her body was embedded in the sand where the tide had deposited her and would no doubt return to carry her back out to sea.

I plucked the doll from her temporary grave and brushed her off, imagining how this had once been a little girl's prize possession. In my mind's eye, I envisioned the little girl as sweet and as innocent as May perhaps, preparing a fantasy tea party with the doll seated at a toy table, the teacups and teapot set out. Surely the little girl had told her doll all her wishes and secrets. In the beginning, when she first had been given this doll, she probably slept with it beside her and carried it everywhere. It had become her precious little companion in which she had trusted her love and her dreams.

For whatever reason --maybe the girl had just grown up and left it at the bottom of a toy chest--the doll drifted from her private world and was forgotten, discarded, to take her place among all the other forgotten toys. Later, there might have been a house cleaning and toys were thrown away to make room for other things. Her mother might have held it up and asked, "Do you want this anymore?"

The little girl thought for a moment and remembered her childhood best friend fondly, but she was older now and her eyes had turned to boys; dolls were as embarrassing as an annoying little sister giving away intimate family secrets. Who wanted her new boyfriend to know she used to whisper I love yous to a doll instead of to him.

"No," she said, and sentenced her precious friend to the dump. How it came to be in the ocean was another story, but it had, and it had found its way to this beach. Even with her eyes bleak, her face lackluster, I thought I could hear the tiny doll's plea. She looked up at me, begging not to be left alone, condemn

ed to this horrible fate.