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"There was still lots to do, cleaning, washing, cooking."

"I bet there was." He shook his head. "Haille was never one for doing home chores." He paused and turned to me. "What was that music I heard before?"

"I was playing my fiddle for May."

Uncle Jacob raised his eyebrows as if I had said the most astonishing thing. "Who taught you how to do that? Chester wasn't musical." He paused and then added, "Although Dad says his Pa was."

"Papa George taught me," I replied, quickly explaining who he and Mama Arlene were.

"So he was a coal miner, too?" He shook his head. "I don't know how anyone could shut himself inside a mountain for his daily bread," Uncle Jacob said. "Especially someone who was brought up on the ocean, breathing God's freshest, cleanest air. It's what we were meant to do. We weren't meant to live like moles."

"It wasn't something Daddy wanted to do," I replied.

Uncle Jacob grunted. "You make your bed and then you lie in it."

I was afraid to ask what he meant. We all started eating.

My uncle paused after a few moments and looked at me again. "This year, we're going to have our best cranberry crop. If you're still here in the fall, you can help harvest."

"Cranberry crop?"

"We got a bog just over the hill here." He nodded toward the north end. "Helps supplement what I make lobstering. That ain't what it was when my father had his fleet of boats working."

He nodded at Cary. "Cary can tell you all about the cranberry harvesting. We're not millionaires, but it's easier than clawing black rocks from the earth's gut," he muttered.

My eyes went to Cary. His eyes were on me. He shifted them quickly away and I looked at May. She smiled. The one bright spot at the table, I thought.

Then I looked at Aunt Sara. She hadn't yet eaten a bite of supper. She had been staring at me the whole time, smiling.

I helped Aunt Sara with the dinner dishes and silverware, then decided to take a walk. The entire time I was in the kitchen, Aunt Sara went on and on about Laura, describing how much of a help she had been and how good she was at making cranberry muffins and jams. Aunt Sara wanted me to learn how to do everything Laura had been able to do. I didn't mind, I suppose, but it was strange being constantly compared to my dead cousin. If I voiced any hesitation, however, Aunt Sara would stop whatever she was doing and smile at me.

"But you have to try, dear. Laura would want you to try." She said it with such certainty. It was as if she could still speak to her drowned daughter. It gave me the willies.

Leaving the kitchen, I felt drained, but I had more tension ahead of me. I had to walk through the living room to the front door. Uncle Jacob sat in the rocker reading a newspaper. He looked up sharply when I appeared.

"Dishes done?" he demanded.

"Yes, Uncle Jacob."

"Well, then take a seat there and we'll have our talk now." He folded his paper and nodded at the settee across from him.

"Our talk?" I slowly entered the room and sat. He put his newspaper on the sea chest table, tapped the ashes from his pipe into a seashell ashtray, and sat back in his rocker, gazing more at the ceiling than at me.

"W

hen Sara told me Haille wanted to bring you here to live a while, I was against it," he admitted frankly. "It didn't surprise me none to hear that she was trying to avoid her responsibilities. That was the only Haille I ever knew. But Sara had her heart set on this, and Sara has suffered far more than a decent, hardworking woman like her should. We can't question the burdens God gives us. We've just got to bear them and go on.

"Sara," he continued, fixing his cold, steely gaze at me, "thinks God sent you here to help fill the hole in our hearts we got from Laura's passing. You ain't never going to fill that hole. No one can fill that hole. But Sara's got a right to hope, a right to put her tears to bed. Can you understand that?"

"Yes," I said meekly. I held my breath.

"Good. I want you to promise never to disappoint Sara. You got off to a good start here helping out with dinner like you did without anyone having to tell you to do it. It's the way Laura would have behaved.

"Laura was a good girl. She read her Bible, said her prayers, did well in school, and never gave us none of the grief some of the young people today are giving their folks. I never caught her smoking . . . anything," he added. His eyes burned with warning. "And she never drank beer or whiskey outside of this house. If she went on a date, she was always home the proper time and did nothing about which we would be ashamed to hear."

I let out the breath I was holding. Surely, Laura wasn't a total saint, I thought. I dared not suggest it.

"This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone else's itches and scratches. What you do reflects on us and we'll hear about it, you can be sure of that."