"Really? Well, that's very nice. You know of course that Belinda is not quite all there these days."
"I don't know anything about her. That's why I'm going."
He nodded and then leaned toward me to whisper.
"She has a tendency to fantasize about people she knew. Don't believe most of it. Just come and ask me if you want to know if anything she says is true. Okay?" I nodded. "Don't tell Olivia. Just come to me," he added and sat back quickly when Grandma Olivia emerged from the house again. He smiled and winked.
All these people living side by side and keeping secrets from each other, I thought. It had to mean something terrible. How much of it, I wondered, had to do with me?
Cary was home by the time the limousine brought me back. From the way he emerged from the house the minute I stepped out of the Rolls, it was obvious he had been waiting and watching at the window.
"How was lunch?" he asked as I drew closer.
"At least the food was good," I said and he rolled his eyes..
"Uh-oh. I don't like the sound of that."
"I'm going to change out of this hand-me-down, as Grandma Olivia characterized it," I said.
"Then let's go for a walk to the cranberry bog."
"Okay. Where's May?"
"She and mother aren't back from wherever they went," he said.
I hurried upstairs and changed into a pair of jeans and a comfortable sweatshirt. Uncle Jacob was apparently taking a nap. The bedroom door was closed. I walked softly down the stairs and out into the front yard, where I found Cary tossing rocks across the road. The late afternoon sun had fallen behind a long stream of clouds, turning the ocean a metallic blue, making the breakers glitter like mirrors.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Ready."
We started across the beach. As we walked, I told Cary about the afternoon and how I had been cross-examined about Kenneth.
"It made me feel like Grandma Olivia's little spy. Do you know why Kenneth and his father don't get along?"
"Probably because he failed to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer. Look at all the money they wasted sending him to law school," Cary surmised.
"It's something more than that," I said. Then I told him I was going to visit Grandma Belinda. "Grandma Olivia's sending the car?"
I nodded. I told him what Grandpa Sam
uel had said to me about coming to him with any stories Grandma Belinda might babble. Cary thought about this for a few minutes.
"I don't know. I don't think any of it means anything," he concluded. "Grandpa Samuel is probably just trying to let you know he's not hard and bitter like his wife."
We sat at the top of the hill and gazed at the bog.
"It's gonna be a good crop. We need it," he said. "The lobster-fishing business stinks these days." He played a blade of crabgrass over his lips and stole a quick glance at me. "About last night, before May came," he said.
"Yes?" My heart began to thud in my chest, as if we'd just finished jogging the entire way to the bog. "I hope you're not mad."
"Why should I be mad?"
He smiled.
"I thought you might think I had invited you up just so something like that would happen."
"Didn't you?" I asked, and he blushed.