p; connivance to keep Haille and me from becoming
boyfriend and girlfriend and eventually marrying, but
he broke down and cried and confessed and blabbered
like I had never seen.
"I was stunned. I rushed out of the house and
over to see Haille. That was when she described the
sailing and the way Dad broke the news. She was
already different," Kenneth said, nodding to himself. "How?"
"I sensed this abandon, this feeling that
whatever had been keeping her in check was gone.
She was like a kite whose string had broken and she
was being tossed about, but not minding it. She was laughing a lot, acting like the daughter of a mentally disturbed woman. I got frightened, especially when she embraced me on the beach and said, 'Let's not care. Let's do what we want and let's do it right now,
right here.'
"I panicked. It was as if a vampire had asked
me to become a vampire with her. I broke her hold on
me and ran from her, hearing her laughter trail after
me. I still hear it sometimes.
"Anyway," he said, "the rest you know. Haille
became the woman Olivia accused her of always
being: promiscuous, uncaring, indifferent, reckless,
and wild. The rest is as I told you. Oh, I tried to be
friends anyway, tried to give her good advice, come to
her aid whenever she needed me, but it was like
holding back the tide, the inevitable disaster. Dad was
right. It wasn't very long afterward that she became
pregnant with you and then Chester came to her
defense. Blindly in love with her, he stood by while
she accused Samuel of unthinkable things. Maybe that
was her way of getting back at my father, attacking
his close friend. To her, they were all the same: