"Want to go for a walk?" he asked. "We can get some ice cream in town or--"
"I'd rather just walk on the beach, Cary, and then go to bed early tonight," I replied.
He nodded and signed to May to ask her to run up and tell Aunt Sara we were all going for a walk. She jumped to her feet and hurried upstairs. Cary took my hand and we went outside to wait for May. The sky had become overcast, not a star in sight. There was a strong breeze coming from the northeast. I laughed to myself, thinking that the people I knew back in West Virginia would be so impressed with my knowledge of weather systems, they would start calling me The Weather Girl of Sewell.
"Why are you smiling?" Cary asked.
"I was just thinking about people back home and how different I would seem to them now," I said.
"I wish you thought of this as your home," Cary said softly. "It's the only place you have any real family, the only place where someone who really cares about you lives."
I didn't reply, even though I felt his eyes on me and my heart had warmed with his soft words. Instead, I looked out over the dark blue-black ocean that seemed to flow into the sky. Terns, barely visible, looking more like ghost birds, called to each other. To me there was a note of desperation, fear in their cries. It was as if they were afraid they would lose each other forever in the darkness.
Off in the distance, I saw the lights of a tanker just emerging on the horizon. It looked so small and far away. The sea is a place for people who don't mind being alone, I thought, for people who actually crave being away from the din and clatter of society. Out there, the sky must be overwhelming at night and make one feel either tiny and insignificant or part of something much bigger than anything one could experience on the shore.
"I'd like to go for a real sea trip one day, Cary." "You mean like overnight, days?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he said. "When?"
"Someday," I said with a smile.
"Something very, very serious is happening, isn't it, Melody?" he asked in shaky voice.
I nodded just as May came out to join us. I took her hand and the three of us began our familiar walk over the sand. Although it was harder to see it because of the thickening darkness, the ocean was just as loud, if not louder, than ever.
"Looks like a storm, but it's not," Cary said. "These clouds will all be gone before morning."
"Nevertheless, it's a bad night for astrologers," I said.
"What?"
"People who read the stars to tell your future." I explained.
"Oh, you mean like your new friend Holly?"
"Yes."
"She read your future lately?" he asked in a timid voice.
"Yes."
"And?"
"She predicted a big change involving family and she was right"
As we continued along the beach, I told him about my discussion with Grandma Olivia and what she had suggested, or rather, what she had demanded, backing it all up with threats. Cary was astounded.
"She wants you to live with them?"
"I think she can make a lot of trouble for everyone if she doesn't get her way."
"I'll go talk to her tomorrow," he said firmly. "She can't run everyone's lives."
"No, Cary. I don't want to be the cause of any more family turmoil."
We plodded on in silence for a while and then Cary turned back to me.