Heartsong (Logan 2)

Cary gazed up at me with eyes of appreciation and glee.

"Grandma Olivia has met her match in you, Melody Logan," he said, struggling to contain his amusement.

"Yes, she has. Whether she likes it or not," I fired back, and Cary gave in to a fit of laughter.

Confused at all the commotion, May tugged on my hand for explanations. Instead, I took her into the living room for our game of Chinese checkers. Cary came in to watch us play and fell asleep in his father's chair. No one had the heart to wake him.

"Jacob does that often now," Aunt Sara said gazing at Cary with her eyes twin pools of sadness. She sighed. "Let him sleep."

May and I went up to bed. Aunt Sara tinkered around the house until she had gotten herself tired enough and came up, too. Hours later, I heard Cary's footsteps on the stairway. He paused at my door and then went on to his own room. The boy in him was being shoved further and further back into his memory as he was forced to become a man of responsibility and duty. How lucky were those who could have a full and happy youth.

Holly was there in the morning as she had promised. It was the first time Cary had seen her car, or her, for that matter. She wore one of her long, flowing dresses, a matching headband, opal earrings in a silver setting, a jade necklace, and her pink and green sandals. She had even painted a small pink and green dot on each of her cheeks.

At first Cary was amazed and then he thought it was all very amusing. Aunt Sara merely dropped her jaw and retreated into the house with May. I introduced Cary to Holly and she immediately asked him his date of birth.

"Why?" he asked.

"I know you're a Gemini," she said, "but I need more details about your birthday."

"Huh?" Cary turned to me.

"We have to go," I said quickly. "I want to make visiting hours."

"Oh yes," Holly said. "Perhaps I'll see you soon and we can talk again," Holly told Cary.

He nodded and I got into Holly's car.

"I made something for your grandmother," she told me as we drove away. "It's right on the back seat."

I turned and found a crystal embedded in a blob of silvery-gray stone that looked like petrified scrambled eggs.

"What is it?" I had to ask.

"It's a paperweight," Holly explained, "but that's lepidolite in the center. It aids muscles, strengthens the heart, and is very beneficial to the blood. What is most important, it aids sleep, which I know is a problem for the elderly. Try to get her to keep it close to her bed," she advised.

"Thank you, Holly," I said, wondering not only what Grandma Belinda would think, but what Mrs. Greene and her assistants would do.

Holly thought the rest home was in a truly beautiful and tranquil place.

"Whoever chose the location was sensitive to positive energy," she declared. "I can feel it. It's ideal for meditation."

There were a half dozen or so other vehicles in the visitors' parking lot when we pulled up. I saw a man and a woman helping an elderly lady walk along a garden pathway. The two elderly gentlemen I had met when I came the first time were on the porch again, sitting in the same seats. Only today, both were wearing suits and ties and had their hair neatly combed.

"Well now," the one who had first spoken to me last time said, "you come to entertain us, have you?" He was looking at Holly.

"No sir," she said. "We're just visiting someone."

"That them?" the other man shouted.

"No, they're just visiting someone."

"Who'd you say they were?"

"Just visiting," he repeated. Holly laughed and followed me through the front entrance.

Mrs. Greene was in the lobby, talking with some of the residents, who were apparently waiting to be entertained. One of the attendants, a tall, dark haired man with a pock-marked face and thin, very red lips, stepped out from behind the desk on our right, where he had been talking to a young girl. Mrs. Greene straightened up quickly and hurried toward us, the attendant moving to join her.

"Yes?" she said.