This day I concentrated only on schoolwork, even though I sensed there was a good deal of whispering and note passing going on behind me.

There was just one critical moment in the cafeteria after I entered. The jabber lowered and all eyes were on me for a few seconds. Theresa came up and began talking to me. Then the din in the cafeteria rose again and everyone appeared to go back to his or her business. It left me feeling I had swallowed a spoonful of nails.

Theresa told me that Adam Jackson had tried to recoup his reputation by telling everyone Cary's actions just proved him right. But he stayed away from me, not even glancing in my direction. Toward the end of the school day, I had the distinct sense that everyone had grown tired and bored with this scandal.

Some of the students in my classes who had often talked to me about the work did so again. I felt more relaxed and at ease moving through the corridors.

All of Cary's teachers were glad to give me assignments for him, and every one of them said he or she felt Cary could do better if he only tried or cared.

Mr. Madeo winked at me and said he was sure Cary would pass his English final if his tutor would stand by him.

"I'll see to it she does," I told him.

True to his word, Cary was waiting after school, his hands in his pockets, his hair over his forehead, his face drawn in a scowl, right at the entrance to the school when the bell rang ending the day.

"Everything's fine," I told him immediately.

"It's over, forgotten."

"Sure."

"It is. Here." I thrust the pages of assignments in his hands. "This is your schoolwork, Cary Logan, and I expect you will do it even though you're not attending classes."

He gazed at the papers and then looked up at me and smiled. "You'll make me an A student yet, eh?"

"You'll do it yourself."

We started away and at the end of the street, we paused because I was going to walk to Grandma Olivia's.

"It's not a short walk," he warned. "If I hadn't gotten suspended, my father would have let me use the pickup and I could have taken you, but-"

"I know how far it is. I'll be all right. I want to do it. I have to do it," I said. He nodded and kicked a stone across the macadam.

"You sure you don't want me along?"

"Cary, you have to see to May," I told him.

"She can make her way home alone if she must."

"I once said that and you nearly bit my head off." He smiled.

"I did. I remember. All right, go on, but don't get upset and-"

"Mr. Worry Wart, stop it!" I ordered.

"All right."

I started away.

"Her bark's worse than her bite!" he shouted after me. "So's mine," I shouted back. He watched me walk off for a while and then he went to fetch May.

It was a long walk, and when I broke out to the main highway, it was harder, because the cars were whizzing by, some so close I felt the breeze in their wake lift my hair. Suddenly, an elderly man driving a rather beaten up light orange pickup truck stopped.

"You shouldn't be walking on this highway," he chastised.

"I have no other way to go," I said.

"Well, get in and I'll drop you off. Come on.

My wife would give me hell if she heard I let a young girl walk along here."

I smiled and got into the truck. The seat was torn and there was a basket of what looked like seashells on the floor of the cab, along with all sorts of tools.

"Don't worry about any of that stuff. My granddaughter likes to make things with seashells," he explained.

He had gray stubble over his chin and the sides of his jaw, and his thin gray hair ran untrimmed down the sides of his temples and the back of his head, but he had kind blue eyes and a gentle smile. He reminded me of Papa George. Papa George, I thought, how I missed him.

"So where are you heading with your sails up like that?" he asked.

"My grandparents' house, the Logans," l told him and his eyes widened.

"Olivia and Samuel Logan?"

"Yes," I said.

"I heard their granddaughter was deaf."

"I'm a different granddaughter."

"Oh. Didn't know. Course, I don't keep company with your folks. I worked for your grandfather once a long time ago. Built a tool shed for him. Paid me on time, too," he added. His truck rumbled along about half the speed of the cars that flew by us, but he didn't care.

"Everyone's in a mad rush," he muttered.

"Chasing the almighty dollar, but they miss the good stuff along the way."

He smiled at me and then he grew serious as though the thought just crossed his mind.

"You're Chester's little girl?"

"Yes, sir."

"What ever happened to him? No one seemed to know much about him after he left here with your mother."

"He was killed in a coal mine accident," I said, my throat choking up immediately.

"Coal mine? Is that what he left here to do? I never could understand. ." He gazed at me a moment and saw the sad look on my face. "Sorry to bring it up.

Didn't know," he muttered awkwardly. Then he turned into a concerned grandparent again. "I'm surprised to see Samuel Logan lets his granddaughter walk along this crazy highway."

"I just decided to do it on my own," I said quickly. He nodded, but his eyes remained suspicious.

"That's it ahead," he said.

"I know. Thank you."

He stopped and I got out and thanked him again. "Now you don't walk that highway no more, hear?" "Yes sir," I said.

"I'm sorry about your father. I just knew him when he was younger, but he seemed to be a fine young man."

"Thank you."

"Bye," he said, and drove off.

I sucked in my breath, straightened my shoulders, reaffirmed my determination, and walked up the driveway to my grandmother's home. Before I reached the front door, a dark-skinned man of about fifty or so came around the corner of the house, pushing a wheelbarrow.

"You looking for Mrs. Logan?" he asked.

"Yes."

"She's around back in the vegetable garden," he said.

I thanked him and went to the rear of the house, where Grandma Olivia was on her knees in her fenced-in garden. She was dressed in a pair of old jeans and she wore a flannel shirt and work gloves.

She had a wide-brimmed hat with a few fake carnations sticking up in the rear of it. I was so shocked to see her looking so casual, I paused to watch her dig out weeds. The contrast between the woman who reigned like a queen in the elegant house and this woman with her hands in dirt, wearing old and tattered clothing, was so great, I thought I was looking at a stranger.

She sensed me behind her and turned. "Hand me that iron claw there," she ordered, pointing to a pile of tools nearby. I hurried to do so. "Careful where you step," she said. "I don't want to lose any of those carrots." She took the tool from me and scratched the earth around a tomato plant. "You walk all the way?"

she asked as she worked.

"No, Grandma. Some kind old man in a pickup truck stopped to give me a lift."

"You were hitchhiking?"

"Not exactly."

"You always get into trucks with strangers?"

"No."

She paused and wiped her forehead.

"It's going to rain tonight," she said with the same tone of voice Cary had used when he made his weather prediction. "We need it. I had a better garden last year."

"It looks nice."

She shook her head and stood up. Then she pointed to a small table. There were a mauve ceramic pitcher and some glasses on it.

"You want some lemonade?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you."

She poured me a glass and a glass for herself.

Then she sat and looked up at me as I drank.

"All right, you've come to see me. Why?" she demanded.

My lemonade caught in my throat for a moment. I took a deep breath and sat across from her.

"I want to know the truth about my parents," I said.

"I'm tired of not knowing the truth and knowing only lies."

"That's good. I can't countenance a liar, and goodness knows, this family's had more than its share of them. All right," she said sitting back. "What is it you want to know?"

"Why do you hate my father so? He was your son." "He was my son until she stole him from me,"

Grandma Olivia said.

"But I don't understand that. You adopted my mother, right? You wanted her in your home."

She looked away for a moment.

"That was something I couldn't help. I never wanted her in my home, but I had to have her."

"Why?" I pursued.

She turned back to me.

"Haille was my sister's illegitimate daughter,"

she said. "My sister was a spoiled, silly girl from the start. My father spoiled her and she grew up thinking anything she wanted, she could have. She couldn't tolerate waiting or disappointment. Her solution was to turn to alcohol and drugs. I always did my best to protect and shelter her from herself, and maybe I'm to blame as much as my father, but I made him a foolish promise on his death-bed: I promised to look after Belinda and see to her happiness."

Her sister was my grandmother? My mind spun. I tried not to look overwhelmed for fear she would stop talking.

"What happened to your mother?" I asked.

"My mother was a weak woman herself. She couldn't face unpleasantness and always pretended it wasn't there. The truth was my father had three daughters, not two. My mother died of breast cancer.

She ignored the diagnosis, just as she had ignored all bad news.

"Anyway, my sister became pregnant with your mother and I made the stupid mistake of having her here during the birth. I made the second mistake of not giving the baby away. My husband," she said bitterly, "thought that would be a horrible thing to do, and he reminded me of my oath to my father on his deathbed. So," she said with a deep sigh, "I took Haille into my home and raised her with my sons, something I'll regret until my dying day."

"Then Belinda is my grandmother?"

"Yes," she said with a nod and a twisted smile.

"That wretch living in a home is your grandmother.