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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. Go claim her," she said. She looked as if she were going to end our conversation, so I repeated my original question.

"But why do you hate your own son, my father? Because he married his cousin and had me?" I ventured.

She regarded me with a cold, hard stare. "You think you're old enough for the truth?" she challenged.

"Yes," I said, my heart pounding, my breath so thin I could barely utter the word.

"Your mother grew up here, had the best of everything. My husband spoiled her just the way my father had spoiled my sister. All Haille had to do was bat her eyelashes at Samuel and he'd do her bidding: buy her the dress and jewelry, permit her to go out when I had already said no and on and on. I warned him about her, but he wouldn't listen. She was the little girl I had never given him. Just like all men, he thought he was supposed to spoil his little girl. They confuse flooding them with gifts and their kisses of thanks and hugs as love.

"She had boyfriends. Dozens of boys marched through this house, followed her every

where, came at her beck and call, groveled for her kisses. Every time I forbade something or punished her for something, Samuel overruled me, and what was the final result? The hand that fed her was bitten."

She paused. The telling of the story was exhausting her emotionally and physically. She sipped some lemonade and shook her head.

"What do you mean, the hand that fed her was bitten?" I asked after she had rested.