Olivia (Logan 5)

"She's doing fine, Winston," Mother said.

"That's good. It's better we behave as if this didn't happen," he advised.

"You might as well pretend there's no ocean out there," I declared.

"Your father's right, Olivia. It won't do any good to talk about it, even amongst ourselves. Let's close our eyes and imagine it was a nightmare," she suggested.

It didn't surprise me to hear her say such a thing. It was the way Mother handled most of the unpleasantness in her life. Not even an event like this would be any different.

She leaned over to kiss Belinda who smiled at her, and then she left the room. Daddy stood there a moment gazing in at me, at the floor and then at Belinda.

"Everyone just go to sleep," he said and left.

I looked at Belinda. She offered me her small smile, but I just shook my head at her.

"I'm so tired, Olivia," she said. "I feel so weak inside, too, but I didn't want to alarm anyone. Daddy wouldn't want me to have to go to a doctor."

"You'll live," I said. "Just go to sleep."

I checked the room once more and then started out, pausing in the doorway to look back at her. She looked small, like a little girl again. In moments she was asleep.

I lay awake in my bed thinking not of Belinda, or of my parents. I thought about that dead infant whose spark of life went out so quickly and who was interred someplace on our grounds so soon afterward, he surely had no memory of ever being born into this family.

At the moment, I thought, he was the lucky one.

Belinda remained at home for the rest of the week. We told everyone she had the flu. I thought that Carmelita knew something far more serious had occurred. She brought Belinda her meals so she saw that Belinda wasn't coughing or sneezing. However, Mother pampered her and behaved as if our lies were really the truth. I heard her talking to her friends on the telephone, telling them how sick Belinda was.

"One day she was fine and the next, she was as sick as a dog," she rambled, describing the symptoms, even claiming she had phoned the doctor for instructions.

It all disgusted me. I was especially amazed at how quickly Daddy had adjusted to the facade he and Mother had created. The following morning he was up and dressed at his usual hour, already seated at the breakfast table, reading his newspaper as though the night before really had been just a bad dream. The only indication in his face was a quick but sharp look at me when Carmelita came into the dining room and inquired as to Belinda's health. That was when Mother went into her long, detailed explanation, pouring out her brook of bubbling white lies. Daddy looked pleased.

Since I had returned from finishing school, I had gone to work for him as an apprentice accountant. Daddy decided that it would be a waste to send me to some liberal arts college, "just to fill the time, until you find a decent and proper man to marry, Olivia. Any man you marry will appreciate you more for doing something practical," he added.

I wasn't excited about going to college anyway, and I had always been very good with numbers. Daddy claimed I had a good mind for business. He said he knew that even when I was just a little girl selling cranberries from our bog. I set up a stand on the street that ran by our property. Tourists thought it was sweet seeing a little girl behave so seriously about money. What impressed Daddy was that I took my money and had him put it into an interest-bearing savings account rather than spend it in the candy or toy stores.

"At least I have someone in the family to inherit my business," he declared. He had come to accept that he wouldn't have a son, but in time, I believed he no longer thought of me as an inferior substitute. He gave me too many compliments at the office for me to believe that.

Daddy was truly a self-made millionaire, a success story that illustrated the American dream: a small entrepreneur who made good business decisions and gradually but firmly built a bigger and bigger business. He was written up in many regional magazines and once in the Boston papers.

He had begun with a single fishing boat and then bought a second and a third. Before long, he had a fleet of vessels providing seafood for an evergrowing national market. He expanded into the canning of shrimp in Boston and built an impressive financial chain of related businesses, making the shrewd move to get a commanding interest in the trucking facilities so he could control his overhead. By his own admission, he was at times a ruthless businessman, smothering competition, dropping prices to drive them out of his territories. He became more and more influential in politics, picked up government contracts and continued to expand his reach and hold on his markets.

After less than six months, I knew our mother company inside and out, and Daddy even permitted me to sit in on some of his business meetings to listen and learn more. After they ended, he often turned to me to get my opinions, and a number of times, he took my advice.

Belinda, on the other hand, didn't know the first thing about our business. According to the way she behaved and thought, money came into our lives like rain. When we needed it, it was there, and there was never a drought, never a time when she ever heard the words, "We can't afford that, Belinda."

I often lectured her about being ungrateful and unappreciative.

"You take everything for granted as though it's owed to you," I accused.

She gave me that sweet smile of hers and shrugged. I could accuse her of murder and she would do the same. She rarely argued or denied anything. It was as if she believed she would be immune from responsibility and guilt, that she had been given some holy dispensation and could do whatever her little heart desired, no matter what the consequences.

It was even true now, I thought disgustedly, with our parents claiming it was better to pretend nothing happened. Belinda just had the flu. I almost believed Daddy had convinced himself he hadn't buried a premature infant.

The day after when I returned from the office, I wandered out behind our house, curious as to whether I could find the unmarked grave site. Our land behind the house ran nearly a full acre before it reached the cliff that looked out over the Atlantic Ocean. It was a sharp descent to the rocky beach below. There were some safe pathways that led down to the small private beach we had, only a clam shell's toss away. Our yard had sprawling maples and some oak trees, and a large part of it remained uncultivated. Poison ivy grew among the brambles and wild roses and more than once, Belinda had wandered too close, suffering the results for weeks after.

A large lawn was bordered by crocus clusters, Emperor tulips, jonquils and daffodils. There was a gazebo and a pond with benches around it, and I found it so restful to sit there and look out to sea.

Sometimes, I would walk out to the edge of the cliff and watch the tide, mesmerized by the rhythmic movement of the waves, the breakers, the spray shooting up from the rocks, listening to the seagulls scream as they plummeted for clams. I would go to the very edge and close my eyes. I could feel my body sway as if it were tempted to fly off the cliff and crash on the rocks below.