"When I finish this, I'm going to tell the doctor to put you in the infirmary where you belong. You told me not to hesitate when the time came, didn't you? You were so brave then. Well, Aunt Sara, Cary and I will see to it and even Judge Childs will not resist."

I paused.

"I assume he knew about this too, didn't he?" I asked, holding up the box. She stared a moment, closed her eyes and then opened them and shook her head. "He didn't? Why not? You mean there was something he would have denied you after all? Were you afraid of that?"

She nodded and then started to shake her head and reach out for me, but I stepped back.

"There is nothing you could say, nothing, no words, no thoughts, nothing that would justify what you have done and the pain you have caused."

I turned and she cried out in her distorted way, uttering a guttural scream that reverberated through my body. With all her remaining strength, she propped herself up and then cried out again, but I turned my back on her and marched out of the room, the echo of her horrible sound shut away behind me.

As soon as I left her, I went downstairs to the office and called Cary,.

"I want you to come and get me, Cary," I said.

"I need you to take me someplace."

"When?"

"Right now," I said.

"What's going on? You sound so strange," he said.

"Will you do it?" I replied.

"Sure, but-"

"Thank you. Just be patient with me and I'll explain everything in time, okay? Please," I added.

"Okay, Melody," he said. "I'll come."

After I finished talking to him, I took a deep breath, went to the telephone book, looked up the number and called my father. His wife answered.

"May I please speak with Mr. Jackson?" I said.

"Whom may I say is calling?"

"Melody Logan," I said curtly.

"One moment please."

Seconds later, he was on the phone.

"This is Teddy Jackson," he said formally.

"Meet me in your office in a half hour," I said.

"Pardon?"

"Meet me in your office. I have something to show you and something to ask. Actually, a lot to ask."

"I'm not sure I understand," he said weakly.

"You will," I promised. "Be there," I said and hung up, my heart pounding so hard, I had to pause to take a deep breath and calm myself.

I saw Mrs. Grafton walk by with my grandmother's dinner tray. She glanced in at me, but continued toward the stairway.

Grandma Olivia won't have much of an appetite tonight, I thought.

Twenty minutes later, Cary pulled up in front of the house and I ran out to get into his truck.

"What's going on? Something more with Grandma Olivia? Did they take her to the hospital?"

"Not yet," I said. "Take me downtown, Cary."

"To where?"

"My father's office," I said.

"What?"

"Please."

He stared at me a moment.

"What's in that box?"

"I promise I'll explain everything as soon as I can," I said. "Trust me."

"Sure." He shrugged, started the engine again and drove us away.

"Whatever it is, I hope you'll tell me about it soon," he said as headed toward Commercial Street.

He glanced at me. "I don't remember you ever acting this strange, Melody."

I took a deep breath but said nothing. He shook his head and drove faster. When we arrived in front of the law offices of Teddy Jackson, we saw the lights were on inside and his car was in its reserved parking space. Cary started to get out of the truck.

"Please wait for me in the truck, Cary," I said.

"Why?"

"This is something I have to do myself first.

Please."

"I don't like this, Melody. You're in some kind of trouble. I should know more about it and I should be able to help you."

"I'm not in trouble, Cary. It's not that. Please, be a little more patient," I said.

Reluctantly, he got back into the truck and closed the door.

"Thank you," I said and stepped out.

My father's offices were plush, richly carpeted with real leather waiting room sofas, paneled walls and oil paintings. There was a large legal library and his own office was oversized with a set of back windows giving a full view of the harbor. He was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets gazing out when I entered.

"What's this all about?" he asked, obviously a little annoyed at the way I had ordered his appearance.

"It's about all this," I said, putting the metal box on his large, dark mahogany desk. He stared at it a moment and then walked over.

"What's this?" He opened the box and took out one of the documents. As he read it, his face took on more of a crimson tint. He glanced at me, put the paper down and read another. "She gave you this?"

"No. She had it hidden in the basement," I said.

He nodded, blew some air through his lips and then sat at his desk.

"Who else knows about it?"

"Just me for now," I said. "Cary is waiting outside in the truck, but I haven't told him anything yet. I want to know everything first, every dirty detail."

"I don't know every dirty detail," he replied sharply. I glared down at him and he shifted his eyes guiltily away. "I didn't want to do it, but she blackmailed me," he began and turned back to me.

I sat in front of the desk.

"Go on," I said.

"I didn't think she knew the truth about Haille and me. I'm still not positive about how she found out.

I suspect Haille told her, taunted her with it maybe. I don't know."

He pulled himself up in his chair.

"She came in here that night, calling me to this office almost the same way you did," he added with a small smile, "and she told me what had happened and what she wanted and what I had to do.

"I started to resist and she told me she would not hesitate to expose me, to bring Haille back, to destroy me just when I was getting a wonderful start.

"So I did what she wanted. I took care of all the legal issues," he confessed. "I wasn't happy about it and I couldn't look Jacob and Sara in the face anymore, but in time she had me believing it was for the best."

"Oh, I'm sure you were concerned," I said disdainfully.

"Well, I ... look, it was her decision," he protested. "She wasn't the mother; she wasn't the father. It wasn't her decision. You let her play God!" I shouted. He seemed to shrivel in the chair. His eyes went down. "What happened to her?" I asked. I didn't want to say anything to Cary before I knew every possible detail and before I knew her final fate.

He looked up.

"Olivia didn't tell you anything?"

"Grandma Olivia had a stroke. I thought everyone in Provincetown knew by now. She can't talk."

"Oh."

"Well?"

"I know only what I was told, Melody. Laura and Robert Royce went sailing. They got caught in a storm and Robert drowned. Olivia told me Karl Hansen picked her up in his fishing trawler and brought Laura directly to her. She was a raving lunatic, suffering from traumatic amnesia. She was naked when he found her at sea and Olivia, well, Olivia thought the worst of that, of course. Anyway, Karl had worked for Samuel and knew who Laura was. Olivia took control after that. She made sure Karl told no one and then she decided to have Laura secretly institutionalized. I think the whole affair embarrassed her. Legal guardianship was established and Laura was left there where she remains to this day, as far as I know. I never . . ."

"Never cared to find out?"

"It was out of my hands by then," he protested.

"I just assumed, as the years went by, that she never . .

. that it was for the best."

"Which eased your own conscience," I accused.

I stood up. "I expect you will give us any help we need now," I said. He nodded.

"After I had discovered that the man I believed was my father was really my stepfather, I used to dream about the man who was my real father. I used to imagine he was a wonderful person, someone who might not even have known he had me as a daughter, but once he found out, he would come running to me, wanting to love me, to do things for me. I used to dream we would finally have a daughterfather relationship."

"Melody-"

"Now," I quickly continued, "I am grateful that you chose to be a coward. I don't want anyone ever to know that you are my real father," I said. "I couldn't get over the shame."

He stared at me, his face bright red, while I gathered up the papers and put them back into the metal box.

"You're just like her, actually," I said. "No wonder fate brought you together."

"Melody . ."

I turned and walked away from him, hopefully forever.

Cary read the documents ravenously and then put the papers down and looked at me, his eyes wide, his mouth pulled so tightly in the corners, his lips looked like they would snap.

"I don't understand," he said. He shook his head, refusing to believe in such a betrayal and such deception. We were sitting in the truck in front of his home. Dark clouds had accompanied the twilight and now there was a steady, hard rain. I told him all that my father had told me.

"All this time we've been thinking Grandpa Samuel was babbling about what had been done to Grandma Belinda," I concluded.

"How could this be? Why?"

Tears spilled over his lids and trickled down his cheeks as if they were tiny watery creatures escaping.

He didn't seem to realize it, even as they dripped from his chin.

"Her own grandmother," he said. "My father's mother . . ."

"In her distorted way of thinking, she somehow believed she was protecting the family from disgrace and hardship. There is no way to justify what she did and I condemn her for it as much as you will," I said, "but after living with her and learning who she is and some other things she believes and has done, I understand how this could have happened."

"I don't. I never will."

He closed his eyes and held his head back as if to swallow down some pain.