When we stepped out, she paused to squint at the sunlight.
"Oh, it's warmer than I thought," she said. "It should be my birthday," she added and laughed. "I always say that on nice days. Olivia thinks it's very silly. What a silly thing to say, I wish it was my birthday. Like you could pick your birthday, she says. Your head is full of cranberries, she says.'
I had to laugh at Grandma Belinda's imitation of her sister.
"Shall we go into the garden?" I asked.
"Oh yes. I love to smell the flowers."
We walked silently for a while and then she paused and looked back to see if anyone were near us. One of the attendants had come out and was watching us.
"You know why she says all those things and calls me all those names, don't you?" Grandma Belinda, asked in a deep whisper, snapping her head around to face me again. I shook my head. "Because she knows Daddy loves me more. Daddy buys me nice clothes. Daddy takes me places. Daddy is proud to introduce me to his friends. Daddy wants her to stay in her room." She smiled coyly. "Daddy told her to get married or else."
She leaned toward me again.
"I put my ear to the door and I heard him yelling at her. She was crying and he was yelling. But I felt more sorry for Samuel Logan than I did for her. He has to wake up every morning and see that grouchy face. I told him to sleep with his back to her so when he opened his eyes, he could see the sunshine and not Olivia with her puffed up eyes and her puffed up lips and her sour breath."
She started to walk again.
"You know he was here," she said softly.
"He was here? You mean, Samuel?"
She nodded. And then she stopped suddenly. "But don't you tell. Promise?"
"I promise. When was here?"
"Last night. He came to my window and knocked and I opened it and I said, Samuel Logan, what are you doing here at my window the night before your wedding?"
"Wedding?" I shook my head. "I don't--"
"'If you don't let me in,' he said, 'I'll kill myself.'"
"Last night?"
"Shh," she said looking around. She continued to walk, moving a little faster. The attendant followed. "People here tell Olivia things. She has her spies everywhere. Let's sit on this bench," she said.
It was under a spreading maple tree with a row of multicolored impatiens behind it. I sat next to her. She leaned back and waited as the attendant walked slowly by us, pausing only a half-dozen feet away.
Whispering again, Grandma Belinda continued. "I said, 'you won't kill yourself' and he said, 'I will. I will. I swear.' So I let him in."
"Let him in?"
"He crawled through the window and fell to the floor. It was quite a sight. `Shh,' I told him. 'Someone will hear and how will that look? You here the night before you marry my sister?' He lay there on the floor so I sat on the floor and he told me how sad he was and how terrible it was to be sad on the night before your wedding. He wanted me to make him feel better. So I did. If Olivia knew, she would have them put poison in my food."
"She wouldn't do that, Grandma."
"Oh yes, she would. She poisoned my song bird. I know she did, even though she says she didn't. Daddy bought it for me on my sixteenth birthday and she was jealous. Nelson bought me something nice too," she added, "and that made her more jealous. He bought me a gold locket with a red ruby at the center. It had his picture inside." She smiled and then she grimaced. "Do you know where the locket is?"
"No. Where is it?"
"Ask Olivia. She took it and buried it somewhere. I'm sure. One day, it wasn't in my jewelry cabinet and that was that. You can kill my birds, you can steal my jewelry, but you can't keep them from liking me more, I told her. She said she didn't care, they were all ugly philanderers. But that's like the story about the fox and the grapes, right?"
"The fox and the grapes?"
"The fox couldn't reach the grapes so he said they we
re sour. Yep, sour grapes. That's Olivia all right." She laughed and then took a deep breath.