After it was all over, no one could find Sammy. He knew everyone would besiege him at once, so he fled to his favorite spot, a path along a river. Tallasy found him there several days later, sitting on a rock and gazing into the water.

"Sammy!" she called from a distance. His first response was not to respond, but a second later he realized he could, and he swung around to smile at her. Even knowing, as she did now, that he could hear, it was still a little startling to see him respond. "Hey, Sammy. I'm glad I found you before everyone attacked you."

He let his amusement show. "I—I'm glad, too."

Tallasy shook her head. "It's so weird, Sammy. I'm not used to hearing words come out of your mouth."

"I'm not…used to it either." He rose to his feet, and they began walking along the path.

"So how did it happen? Why did you pretend to be deaf and mute all these years?"

Slowly, hesitantly, he told her about his mom disappearing and his realization about being "deaf." "At—at first it was just a way to—to hide—a way to protect myself. But after a while everybody thought I was…deaf, and they started talking around me like…I wasn't there. I—I just kind of went with it. Norm and Lucille were so nice to me…and I got in so deep I thought it would all…go away if I told the truth. The funny thing is…I liked the way people…trusted me. But on the first day…when Tolliver threw that cherry bomb to make me jump…I wanted to tell you…"

Tallasy stopped and leaned against the rail of the wooden bridge over the river. "Tell me what?" she prompted, her breath catching in her throat.

"…Everything." He turned away to stare down at the water.

"You're not gonna quit talking, are you?"

"No! Never. I'm just not used to…words, explaining how I…feel. I'm sorry—about your mother."

Tallasy's face fell just a little. Oh. "No, don't be." She thought about her mother's death, just after the court case. "She always did what she wanted. There were generations of heart problems in that family. She wouldn't listen. No doubt about it—she sure was surprised that you could talk." She smiled a little, sitting on the bench against the rail of the bridge. He sat on the opposite side. "Can I ask you something? Remember a while back, when I'd just come home for my visit? I was playing the piano, and I thought I saw you—"

"Listening," Sammy smiled.

"I thought so. You had such a strange look on your face."

It was still taking him a moment to remember to respond. "My mama had a music box that played the same tune as you were playing. I used to listen to it over and over…when she'd be gone, or I was havin' a bad day. It was…so many years ago."

Her reminiscent look responded to his. "That was my father's favorite piece."

"Oh, that's nice. I—I like having something in common with you."

Tallasy's sweet smile crossed her face, and Sammy saw something in her eyes that made him glance down at his hands.

"So now you're leaving." Was there disappointment in her eyes?

"Yeah. I got my voice back. Time to go try it out." How did she know him well enough to know he was leaving?

"I'll miss you," Tallasy said frankly.

Sammy's eyes flew to hers, astonished. She would?

Tallasy smiled at him, easily reading his eyes. She made up her mind. It was 1965, times were changing, and she knew she'd have her way eventually, no matter what.


Norm carried the suitcase into Lucille's Kitchen and set it on a stool. "Well, here it is."

"You mean you had that all these years and didn't even tell anyone?" Lucille demanded, realizing what it was. "Not even me?"

"Well, it just wasn't time," Norm said gently.

"Time for what?"

"Lucille, I'm trying to tell you. Now, first I had to find out what happened to his mother. Then I had to make sure nobody complicated his situation."

"Well, it seems to me you're the one who complicated the situation," Lucille said dryly.

"Lucille!" Norm snapped. "That boy heard every word we said all this time and never spoke! Now, I—I—" He turned away. "I feel…"

"Cheated," she said pragmatically.

"Yeah…I guess."

"Betrayed."

"Yeah."

"Hurt."

He turned on her. "Well, don't you?"

"Well-I…I just think he musta done what he had to."

"Oh, Lucille." Norm shook his head. He didn't understand how she could just accept it. This boy that he'd loved and trusted all these years had been lying to them all these years, and that hurt.

Lucille looked out the window. "Here he comes."

Sammy parked his bike and hesitated at the door. Tallasy had convinced him to go talk to them, confront the situation, but while it was becoming easier to talk to her, Norm and Lucille were a different matter. He knew he'd broken their trust, and that hurt. He sighed and entered the cafe. Norm and Lucille just watched him as he entered, faltered, half turned away, nervously picked up some dishes from a table and carried them to the end of the counter. Finally he took a deep breath and plunged into speech.

"I 'spose I owe you a big apology." When neither answered, he went on, "A—an explanation—some reason for—I don't blame you for bein' mad."

"I'm not mad," Norm said in a shaky tone, and then abruptly turned and walked away. He didn't go far, though, and Sammy could see him out of the corner of his eye.

Lucille looked a little more sympathetic, and Sammy moved to sit on a stool near her.

"I'm sorry, Lucille. It's just—well, everybody got used to me bein' the way I was, and, well, you needed someone to listen to you, and Norm needed someone to listen to him—everybody needed someone to listen to them, and, well, years just went by, and time passed, and I just kept listening!" After so many years of not explaining himself, the words just poured out. "I didn't want to hurt anybody—I certainly didn't—"

"Norm Jenkins, you get back in here and explain this suitcase!" Lucille interrupted. She felt it was high time everybody was honest with each other.

Sammy stared at the suitcase and recognized it. He'd always thought Mom had taken it, or maybe it got left on the bus. "Where did that come from?" He stared up at Norm coming back slowly into the cafe and realized that Norm had held back from him as much as he'd held back from Norm.


The next day he and Norm met with Tolliver, Tolliver's lawyer Sinclair, and Judge Neeley. The suitcase sat on the table before the judge, who withdrew an envelope from it. Norm wouldn't tell Sammy why they were meeting, only that he would find out.

Sinclair said, "Judge, may I say something on behalf of my client?"

"No," the judge said flatly.

Both Tolliver and his lawyer's eyes widened, but they subsided.

"This is a sad day for me, Tolliver," the judge said in his deep drawl. "I must inform you that I am sentencing you to two years in the State Prison for the embezzlement of church funds."

Tolliver's eyes closed as he winced.

"I say sad," the judge continued, "'cause I knew your father. Used to fish with him. Finer man never cast a fly."

Tolliver looked up, confidence returning. He was still Alfred Tynan's son. "Hey, Judge Neeley, that's what you're here for, right?" he said patronizingly. "Now, I figure with time off for good behavior, I can do it standing on one foot in no time at all. I'll be off and runnin'—and a better man for it," he remembered to add.

"Let me finish, if you please, Tolliver," the judge said coldly. "Your father's iron-clad will left his entire estate upon the death of Mrs. Tynan to his eldest son."

"That's me, Judge," Tolliver smiled, "and my sister Tallasy can't challenge it; she's adopted. We've known that for years. Heck," he laughed, "I'm the one who told her." He ignored Sammy's shocked eyes.

You would be. Neeley had never liked Tolliver. "Well, that's very impressive, Mr. Tynan," he said sarcastically. "But now let me tell you a thing or two. Eldest son is the key here. Now among these documents, sworn to and verified by your father before his death is this notarized letter dated a year before he died. I'd like to read it because it sounds exactly like the Alfred Tynan I knew."

Sammy had no idea where this was going, and from the looks Tolliver and Sinclair were giving each other, neither did they. Norm smiled knowingly however.

"'I have met the lad,'" the judge read, "'recognized to be in my own true image, brown of eyes, wide of brow, bold of chin, warm spirit, born to me of the only person who showed me love and unselfish commitment, her full name being Ellen Ayers.'"

Sammy's breath caught in his astonishment. Norm glanced at him with a smile. He'd held this knowledge for the last twenty years, and now it was a great satisfaction to see Tolliver, who had always looked down on the man now proven to be his older brother, stare as if he'd heard himself declared certifiably insane.

Judge Neeley shook his head. 'Bout time Tolliver Tynan got his comeuppance. "Tolliver, this just ain't been your summer."