"Didn't you want to look at the town and-"

"Oh I know this town," she said laughing.

"Don't forget how long I lived here."

"But. . ." I looked at the house and then back toward the ocean. "Don't you want to talk with Uncle Jacob?"

"I think he'll be happy to avoid it right now,"

she said. "We put your things in your room. It's a very nice room, honey, nicer than what you had in the trailer. The window looks out on the ocean. Aunt Sara is going to see to it you get enrolled in the school and the school will get all your records from West Virginia easily enough. I've already signed the papers I needed to sign to give Aunt Sara the authority,"

Mommy added.

"When?" I asked, astounded at how much had really been done already.

"Um, just now. Aunt Sara found out what had to be done. She's very excited about having you."

Archie got into the car and started the engine.

My heart began to beat wildly like a jungle drum.

"Mommy?"

"Now don't make this any harder than it has to be, honey. I'll be calling you in a few days to tell you where I am and what I've been doing, and before you know it, I'll be coming back for you."

"Time ticks," Archie called.

"Can't you stay a little longer?" I pleaded. My heart was doing flip-flops.

"A little longer isn't going to make any difference to you, but it will make a lot of difference to us because we have to drive so far, honey. Please."

She hugged me, but I kept my arms at my sides.

Then she kissed me quickly on the forehead.

"I don't have to tell you to be a good girl. I know you will be. See you soon," she added and turned toward the car.

"Mommy!"

I ran to her and hugged her tightly, clinging to her, clinging to the only life I had known, clinging to the memories of our laughter and tears. Maybe she wasn't the best of all mothers, but she was the only mother I had, and there were nice times, too. There were the picnics and the dinners, the Christmases and birthdays. All I could remember now was being a little girl and clinging to her hand as we walked through the streets of Sewell. Everyone looked at us; Mommy was so beautiful and I was so proud.

"Melody," she whispered. "Please, honey."

I let her go and backed away.

She smiled. "I'll call you soon." She walked quickly around the car to get in.

Archie smiled at me. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, kid," he said and winked.

"There's not much you wouldn't do," I replied.

He laughed.

"Going to miss you, princess. I got no one to be my gopher." He laughed and backed the car out of the driveway. I took a step forward.

Mommy turned as they pulled away, waving.

Another picture to press down into my memory.

I watched as the car disappeared down the street. I stood there, still in disbelief.

Then I heard the door open behind me and I turned to see Aunt Sara nervously wiping her hands on her apron. "Laura always liked to help set the table.

Would you like to help?"

I nodded and she smiled.

"I thought so."

She went back inside. I lowered my head and followed. I felt like someone who'd been cast off a boat. I was searching desperately for a lifesaving raft.

6.

Laura's Things .

Aunt Sara had the dinner dishes on the kitchen counter and the silverware piled next to them. She folded linen napkins. The kitchen was as long as it was wide, with pots and pang hanging on the wall, two metal sinks side by side, a large cast-iron stove, and a refrigerator. There was a pantry off to the left.

The late-afternoon sunlight poured through the large window on the west end, providing the only light.

"I'm putting out my better china tonight," she said smiling as she meticulously folded the napkins.

"Your arrival is a special occasion. Set out five places," she told me. "You'll sit directly across from May and next to me. That's where Laura used to sit."

"Where is May?" I asked.

"May went up to her room, probably to start on her homework. She's a diligent student. Laura taught her that."

"She took me to the dock and Cary yelled at her," I said.

Aunt Sara nodded. "He won't permit anyone else to take her near the water. He's afraid." She took a deep breath and held her right palm against her heart. "We're all just a little more afraid," she muttered.

I gathered the dishes and brought them to the dining room. I felt I was sleepwalking. Was this really happening? Had Mommy truly gone and left me here?

When I returned to the kitchen to get the silverware and folded napkins, Aunt Sara was checking the chicken. Something simmered on the stove. Potatoes baked while pies cooled on the windowsill. The hustle and bustle in Aunt Sara's kitchen gave me a warm feeling. Everything smelled wonderful. I had been too nervous this morning to eat much of a breakfast, and except for the few clams I had nibbled when we first arrived, I had eaten very little all day.

"Laura loved to cook with me," Aunt Sara said as she worked. "While other girls her age were off giggling over boys, she was home, helping. She was always like that, even as a little girl. You never saw a more selfless person, worrying about everyone else before she worried about herself.

"You know what Jacob says?" She turned to me. "He says the angels must have been so jealous of her, God granted them their wish and took her to heaven sooner than planned."

She smiled, her face softened, her chin quivering. Tears glittered in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I never got to meet her."

"Oh, yes. Wouldn't that have been wonderful?"

She thought a moment and then sternly added, "You should have met."

I wanted to ask her why we hadn't, why this family had been so bitter and mean to each other, but I thought it might be the wrong time to bring up such questions.

She took a deep breath. "You better put out the silverware, dear."

After the table was set, Aunt Sara said she'd take me to my room. "Your things are already there. I want to show you where to put them away and all that you can use, too."

"Use?" I wondered what she meant as I followed her up the short stairway leading to the second floor. The steps creaked and the railing shook as we ascended. At the top was a small landing.

"May's room and Cary's room are down that way," she said pointing right. Without windows, the hallway was dark. "Jacob's and my room is the last room on the left and your room, which was Laura's room, is right there." She pointed to the first door on the left. "That's the bathroom, of course," she added, curtly nodding at the doorway across from what was to be my room.

"Here you are." She stood back after opening the door. I gazed in slowly, shocked at what I found.

The room was cluttered with things that had once belonged to my dead cousin. It looked as if she had just died yesterday. The walls were covered with her posters of rock and movie stars, the shelves crowded with stuffed animals and ceramic dolls. There was a collection of ceramic and pewter cats on one shelf.

Below the shelves was a small table with a miniature tea set and a big doll in a chair.

It was a very pretty, cozy room, with pink wallpaper spotted white. There was a canopy bed, just like the bed Alice Morgan had, only the headboard didn't have a heart design. The bedding, comforter, and pillows all matched the mauve shade of the canopy, and at the center of the two fluffy pillows was a large, stuffed cat that looked almost real and very much like the one I had brought.

There was a vanity table with a large mirror and a matching dresser. In one corner was a desk and chair. An open notebook lay on the desk and beside it was a pile of school textbooks and what looked like library books.

Why weren't they ever returned? I wondered.

The sliding doors on the closet were open, so I could see the garments hanging inside. On a hook next to the closet doorjamb was a pink terrycloth robe.

The slippers were at the foot of the bed.

Two open windows, one on each side of the bed, faced the ocean. The breeze made the curtains flutter and wave. The scent of the sea air overpowered the vague, sweet perfume I smelled when first looking into the room.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Aunt Sara said.

"Yes."

"I want you to be comfortable here," she said.

"Use anything you want and need. It would be a great joy to me to see you wearing one of those pretty dresses. Try one on," she said anxiously. "They look just your size."

I shook my head gently.

"I don't know if I should, Aunt Sara." Despite its recently lived-in appearance, the room felt more like a shrine to a dead girl.

"Of course you should," she said, her eyes full of panic because I had suggested otherwise. "That's why I wanted you to stay here. There's so much going to waste and now it won't. If Laura were standing right here beside us, she would say, 'Cousin Melody, use anything you want. Go on.' I can almost hear her saying that." She tilted her head as if to catch someone's voice in the breeze. "Can't you?" She wore a strange, soft smile.

I walked into the room and looked more closely at everything. On the desk was a pile of letters wrapped in a rubber band. The brushes and combs on the vanity table still had strands of dark brown hair twirled through them. On the top of the dresser was a framed picture of my cousin Laura standing at the front of the house holding a bouquet of yellow roses.

"That was her sweet sixteen picture," Aunt Sara explained. "Taken almost a year ago now. Laura and Cary's birthday is next month, you know."

Cary would be seventeen. "Is Cary a senior?"

"Yes. Laura would have been the class valedictorian and have made the speech on graduation day. Everyone says so."

I looked more closely at the girl in the photograph. Aunt Sara was right. Laura had been very pretty. She had Cary's eyes and they had similar noses and mouths, with the exact same shade of dark brown hair. Laura's features were smaller, feminine, dainty.

She looked about my height and weight, but not as full as I in the bosom. Staring at the photograph, I understood why Uncle Jacob told Aunt Sara the angels were jealous, however. Laura had a glow in her face, a soft, spiritual quality that made her look as if any moment she might sprout angel wings and fly away.

"She was very pretty," I said.

"Yes."

"And who is this?" I picked up a wallet-size photograph of a brown-haired boy that was wedged in the frame of Laura's sweet sixteen photograph. He was handsome.

"That was Robert Royce," Aunt Sara said. She sighed yet again. "He was taken along with Laura that terrible day."

"Oh. How horrible!"

"How horrible," Aunt Sara parroted. She gazed around the room. "I haven't touched anything in here except to dust and clean. It's just as it was the day she died. Please try to keep everything where it is, Melody dear. Put everything back exactly where you found it.

But as I said, use whatever you want.

"I suppose you could use a little rest after traveling so long and so far. Dinner is in an hour.

Jacob likes us all to look nice come the evening meal.

I left this drawer for you to put your own things in,"

she said showing me the third drawer in the dresser, "and you can find enough space in the closet for what you have brought, I'm sure."

"Mommy said she was going to have my other things sent," I said.

"Until she does, use these things," Aunt Sara said gesturing at everything. "Tomorrow morning,"

she continued, "I will take you to the school to get you enrolled. It's not far. You can walk home with Cary and May every day, just as Laura did."

Aunt Sara turned, paused in the doorway, and then marched back to the closet.

"I might suggest something for you to wear to dinner." She sifted through Laura's garments. "Now this, yes, this would be perfect." She held out a blue dress with a white collar and white cuffs on the three-quarter sleeves.