Summer's Child

“Right.”

“No, the real question is whether she should have this baby at all.

And if she does, can she take care of it. “

The baby’s grandmother could help her. Grace thought, and she felt tears rush to her eyes. She quickly lifted her sunglasses from her lap and slipped them onto her face.

“Well,” she said, standing up.

“I

think it’s time I was on my way. Thanks for putting up with me, Rory.

“

He stood up to give her a dispassionate hug.

“Keep in touch,” he said.

“I hope things work out for you.”

“Thanks,” she said. She left the porch and walked across the sand to her car, not daring to look back at Rory—or across the street at the Sea Shanty.

Eddie was waiting for her in the above-garage apartment. Grace stopped short when she saw him there, and he launched into an obviously rehearsed speech.

“Look,” he said, “I know I was wrong to do this, but please believe me, I did it because I’m worried about you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I followed you when you left today,” he said.

“I followed you all the way to Kill Devil Hills, and I saw you go to the cottage where Rory Taylor is staying. I didn’t know whose cottage it was, but I asked someone and they told me. I guess…! guess that’s where you’ve been going, huh? To see him? Was that who you were watching for outside the motel window in Greenville?”

Grace felt trapped and weary. She wished Eddie would at least yell at her, express some anger, so that she could get angry back. But that was not Eddie’s style. She sat down on the sofa.

“It’s not what you think,” she said. The line sounded as tired as she felt.

“I’m in a state of shock,” Eddie said, taking a seat on the other side of the room. “The last thing I expected was another man. I didn’t think you had the energy or interest for that. I didn’t think that was what you wanted.”

There were tears in Eddie’s eyes, and she couldn’t bear to look at them.

“You’re right,” she said.

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“Then why have you been seeing him? I don’t under stand, Grace. Do you want a divorce? Is that what would make you happy? I want to help you, and I don’t know how.”

Grace closed her eyes and felt her body sink lower into the sofa. It was all too much. Shelly was pregnant. Rory had chosen Daria over her.

She might never see Shelly again. She wished she could simply crawl into bed and bury her head under the pillow. But Eddie was questioning her, begging her for answers, and somehow she had to find a way to explain to him her behavior of the past few months.

She could think of no way other than to tell him the truth.

“Great beach weather,” Bonnie said sarcastically as she stood by the cottage window and stared out at the street. It was not raining, not yet, anyhow, but the clouds were thick, and there was a chill in the air. It had been this way for three days, the first three days of their week-long post-graduation vacation in Kill Devil Hills. The cottage was two blocks from the beach, a one-bedroom with a view of the street. It was the best they could afford.

Grace looked up from the book she was reading.

“Maybe tomorrow will be better,” she said, although she didn’t personally care one way or another. She was just relieved to be away from her mother and Charlottesville, where she’d had to mask her pregnancy. Here, for the first time, she was wearing actual maternity shorts and a top that ballooned over her abdomen. She was nearly eight months along, although she knew she didn’t look it, maternity clothes or not. A few of her classmates might have suspected something, but her mother attributed her weight gain to nothing more than her obstinacy. Her mother rarely spoke with her, anyway; she had not forgiven her for quit ting Brad’s modeling agency and for letting herself “go to pot,” as she put it.

This week at the beach was not simply an idle getaway for her and Bonnie, though. They were supposed to use this time to figure out what Grace should do. The only thing she knew for certain was that she was keeping the baby. She already loved it. She’d loved it from the moment she knew it existed. Her maternal instincts were very strong strong enough that she’d gone to a neighboring town for prenatal care, not wanting to take any chances with the health of her baby. The doctor there had tried to persuade her to put the baby up for adoption, but Grace was firm in her resolve. Her mother would have a fit, of course, and would most likely kick her out. But Grace was determined to find a way to take care of herself and her child, and Bonnie had promised to help in any way she could.

Bonnie flopped down in one of the ratty-looking chairs and put her feet up on the coffee table.

“I’ve already run out of books to read,” she said.

“You can borrow some of mine,” Grace offered.

“No offense, but I’m not very interested in reading baby books,” Bonnie said.

There was a sudden knock at the door, and Grace jumped. She couldn’t shake the fear that somehow her mother would find out she was pregnant and show up in Kill Devil Hills to drag her home. She stiffened as Bonnie got up and walked to the door.

A woman stood on the front steps.

“Hi,” she said with a smile. She was probably in her late twenties.

“I’m Nancy. My husband and I are staying in the cottage next door, and we don’t have a TV or radio. But we heard some talk that a storm was on its way in the next few days, and we were wondering if maybe you knew what was going on. Do you have a TV in your cottage?”

“Yes, a little one,” Bonnie said.

“We haven’t had it on much, though.

I don’t know what the weather report is. “

Grace stood up and walked to the door.

“You’re welcome to come over later when the news is on,” she said.

“Thanks, I’ll stop by around five, if you don’t mind,” Nancy said.

“We may leave if it’s going to be like this all week. We’ve been planning this vacation for so long, and I can’t believe how crummy the weather’s been.” Her gaze was on Grace’s belly as she spoke, and Grace felt torn between self-consciousness and pride.

“We’ll be here,” Bonnie said.

“There’s not much else to do.”

At exactly five. Nancy and her husband returned to Bonnie and Grace’s cottage, and the four of them sat in the living room watching the news on the small black-and- white television.

The husband’s name was Nathan, and he was an engineer with short, jet-black hair, dark eyes behind thick, wire-rimmed glasses and a bushy beard. He was very quiet, lying on the cottage floor, his back propped up against the sofa, as he focused on the TV. Nancy, though, was talkative.

“Where are you girls from?” she asked.

“Charlottesville,” Bonnie said.

“We just graduated from high school.

This week at the beach is our present to ourselves. “

“High school?” Nancy asked. Again, her gaze moved to Grace’s stomach, and this time Grace felt distinct discomfort.

“You’re not married, then, I take it?” Nancy asked.

“No,” Grace said.

“Wow.” Nancy said.

“When are you due?”

“Another month,” Grace said.

“Do you… Excuse me for asking such personal questions, but I’m a nurse. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Grace said. For some reason, she didn’t mind Nancy’s probing.

The woman’s questions were personal, but gently asked.

“Are you keeping the baby?”

“Yes, though I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to support it and me,” she said.

“Won’t your parents help?”

Grace laughed.

“I just have a mother,” she said.

“And she doesn’t know.”

“She doesn’t know?” Nancy asked, incredulous.

“Is she blind?”

“I’ve hidden it,” she said.

“She just thinks I’m fat.”

“Wow,” Nancy said again.

“What will she do when she finds out?”

“Have a heart attack.” Grace laughed.

“Right after she kills me.”

“Why didn’t you have an abortion?” Nancy asked.

“I didn’t want one,” Grace said simply.

“It must be scary not to know how you’ll support the baby,” Nancy said.

“You’re wise to be concerned about that. You’re only eighteen, right?”

“Not quite,” Grace admitted.

“Gee, honey, I think you should give some serious thought to adoption.”

“No, I’ll figure out a way to make it work.”

Nathan yawned from his station on the floor.

“It’s just that there are so many couples out there who can’t have a baby of their own for one reason or another,” Nancy said. “They would be able to give your baby a good home, with two parents and lots of love.”

Nancy was tapping into the one misgiving that gnawed at her: she was not being fair to this baby by depriving it of two parents and the material goods it deserved to have.

“I couldn’t give it away,” she said.

“I understand,” Nancy said.

“I don’t think I could, either. But you still have a month to think through that decision

“I’ve thought it through,” Grace said.

“Well, how has your pregnancy been?” Nancy asked.

“Easy,” Grace said.

“I was never even sick. Although now… I’m getting kind of nervous. I’ve been reading books about labor and everything. It scares me.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nancy said.

“What kind of nurse are you?” Grace asked.

“Have you ever helped at a delivery?”

“When I was a student, yes, I sure did. Right now, though, I’m an oncology nurse.”

“What’s that?” Bonnie asked.

“I work with cancer patients in a hospital in Elizabeth City.”

“That must be hard,” Grace said.

“Hard, but rewarding,” Nancy said.

“So,” Grace began, hungry for information, “when you were a student, what was the longest labor you ever saw?”

Nancy laughed.

“You’re worrying yourself into a tizzy, aren’t you?”

she asked.

“It’s not worth getting worked up about, I can promise you that. It’ll all be over before you know it, and then you’ll have your beautiful baby in your arms.”

Grace didn’t feel particularly comforted. She knew no one else she could discuss this with. “But why do women scream?” she asked.

“I

mean, I fell and broke my arm once, and I didn’t scream even though the pain was truly unbearable. So I figure, the pain of having a baby must be thousands of times worse. “

She thought there was sympathy in Nancy’s eyes.

“I’ve never gone through it myself,” she said, “so I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything from personal experience.”

Grace thought Nathan glanced at his wife when she said that, but she couldn’t be sure. His glasses were so thick it was hard to tell just what his eyes were doing.

“But every woman I’ve ever known has been just fine with it,” Nancy continued.

“Yes, they might scream, but in a couple of years they turn around and do it all over again. It’s worth it to them. Really, Grace, you don’t want to spend this whole last month of your pregnancy worrying about that.”

Grace let her head fall back against the chair, suddenly overwhelmed by everything she had to worry about.

“Worry is my middle name, lately,” she said.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. How do I tell my mother? Where will I live? I only have a little bit of money in my savings. At first, I can nurse the baby, right? I won’t have to pay for food?”

Nancy stared at her hard for a moment before answering.

“You’re not prepared for this,” she said, her voic now low and serious.

“You need to get help from ai agency. You’re in Charlottesville, you said? Write dowi your name and phone number for me and when I get bac’to Elizabeth City, I’ll do some research and find out where you can go to get help. Okay?”

“Thanks,” Grace said. She suddenly felt less alone Bonnie was a good friend and a loyal supporter, but she knew just as little about birth and babies as Grace did.

“And,” Nancy continued, “I think the first thing yoi:

need to do when you get back to Charlottesville is to tel. your mother what’s going on. “

She shook her head vigorously.

“You don’t know m mother,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think ] can go back to the house at all.

I’m getting too big. She‘1 know. Bonnie and I have to figure out where I can lay low during the next month. “

Nancy sighed, and Grace read disapproval in her face “This is no way to live. Grace,” she said.

“I’ll get yoi that information on agencies that can help you, but I wani you to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That after this baby is born, you’ll go on the Pill. Yoi can’t let this happen again. This baby you’re carrying should never have been conceived.”

Grace wanted to say it wasn’t her fault. She wanted to pour out the story of what had happened in Hawaii. Bu she could have said no to Brad; she could have said no to Joey. No one had raped her. It was her fault.

“I know,” she said.

“Believe me, it won’t ever hap per again. Not this way, anyhow.”

There were brief intervals of sunshine over the next few days, enough to encourage Nancy and Nathan to remain in Kill Devil Hills for the rest of their vacation, and enough to keep Bonnie from complaining too much. The promised storm hit on Saturday. It was not a hurricane, although there had been talk of it becoming one. It was considered a tropical storm, and evacuation was not required, although most vacationers left the Outer Banks that Saturday morning, knowing what was coming. Grace and Bonnie did not leave, however. Their lease was up the following day; they were due to be out by one in the afternoon, but Grace was not ready to let go of her time away from home. She still didn’t know where she was going to go. She’d given Nancy her phone number so that the nurse could call her as soon as she had information about an agency that might be able to help her. She wished it were winter instead of summer, so she could cover her body more easily with heavy clothing. Maybe she could simply avoid her mother.

As darkness fell, the wind was wild and whistling, and the cottage shuddered violently, as though it might collapse around them. For the first time that week, Grace and Bonnie were glad they had not been able to afford a house on the ocean. Surely they would be washed away.

They had very little food left, and it was too nasty to go out for more, so for dinner, they made do with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The power went out shortly after dinner, taking their lights and their TV. There was one hurricane lantern in the cottage, and they lit it and set it on the coffee table. Sitting on the sofa, they watched the flame lick at the inside of the glass chimney. And that’s when Grace’s cramping started. “Can peanut butter and jelly go bad?” she asked Bonnie.

“I don’t think so. We just bought it a few days ago, anyway. Why?”

“I have a stomachache.”

“Oh,” teased Bonnie, “you’re probably going into labor

“Very funny,” Grace said. But she feared that Bonnie might be right.

This was not a typical stomachache. More like menstrual cramps that came and went. But they were mild, ignorable, certainly not like labor would be. And she was only eight months pregnant.

“We might as well go to bed,” Bonnie said.

“Oh, God, Bonnie.” Grace couldn’t bear the thought of going to bed.

When she woke up, she would only have a few hours left of her freedom.

She would finally have to face the uncertainty of her future, and that of her baby. “I don’t want to go home tomorrow.”

“I do,” Bonnie said.

“No offense. But I want to see Curt. And I bet the weather has been better in Charlottesville than it’s been here.”

“You don’t have to hide a bowling ball under your shirt when you go home, though,” Grace said. “My mother would have known a long time ago,” Bonnie said.

“She pays way too much attention to me.”

Grace glanced away from her friend. Bonnie’s words were spoken as a complaint, but she didn’t appreciate how good she had it. Grace shifted on the couch, trying to find a position that would make her stomach more comfortable. Maybe lying down would help.

“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Let’s go to bed.”

Her sleep was fitful. She’d closed her bedroom window against the rain, but the glass rattled in its frame, and de spite the storm raging outside, the room was hot, her sheets damp with perspiration.

Even while asleep, she was aware of the pain. She dreamed she was in the hospital room, having the baby, and she was screaming. She screamed herself awake, and knew at once that she was truly in labor. This pain was not a dream.

Bonnie rushed to her side.

“Grace? What’s the matter?”

The room was pitch-black. Bonnie’s voice cut through the darkness, but Grace had no idea which direction it had come from.

“I think the baby’s coming.” She managed to get the words out between explosions of pain. She let herself scream, throwing all of her breath and energy behind the sound, understanding now why women in labor felt that compulsion. No other sound would do.

“It can’t be coming,” Bonnie said, and Grace heard the panic in her voice.

Grace could not respond with words, only with gasping breaths and yet another howl of pain.

“I’ll get the lantern,” Bonnie said.

“Wait here.” Then she laughed.

“Like, where else would you go?”

In a moment, she returned to the room with the burning lantern, which she set on the old dresser, and Grace could see how frightened she was. She imagined her own face held that same look of terror.

“I don’t know what to do, Grace,” Bonnie said, waving her hands feebly in the air.

“Tell me what to do.”

Grace felt helpless. What was happening to her had a life of its own, and she was completely unable to stop it. She looked at Bonnie, wordlessly pleading with her to take over.

“The nurse!” Bonnie said suddenly.

“Nancy!” Bonnie ran out of the room, ignoring Grace’s plea not to leave her.

She screamed in Bonnie’s absence, screamed and screamed just to keep her mind off the raging pain in her body and the fact that she was alone. She was still screaming when Nancy and Bonnie rushed back into the room. i Nancy gave Bonnie instructions Grace could not make I out, and Bonnie left the room. Nancy uttered words of comfort as she moved around, as if nothing unusual were occurring, and Grace suddenly felt enveloped by the nurse’s calming presence. She was only vaguely aware of Nancy rearranging the bedclothes and holding the lantern between Grace’s legs as she examined her. Nancy’s movements her entire demeanor, were confident and unhurried.

Placing the lantern back on the dresser. Nancy sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m going to tell you how to breathe,” she said to Grace, her voice soft and even.

“It will help with the pain.” Grace was aware that Bonnie was in the room again, and she glanced at her friend’s face only long enough to know that she was crying. Fear always induced tears in Bonnie. Grace had seen it happen before.

She struggled to follow Nancy’s instructions to breathe, calmly and slowly one moment, panting the next.

“Squeeze my hand when you have to,” Nancy said, slipping her hand into Grace’s. Grace clutched at her fingers

“Now listen to me. Grace,” Nancy said, leaning close to her.

“Surely you now realize you can’t keep this baby. You know that, right? You’re simply too young to raise a baby by yourself, especially without the support of the baby’s father or your own mother. You don’t even know where you’re going to live. You’ll have to leave here to morrow morning with a newborn baby in your arms and no diapers, no clothing, no formula and no knowledge of how to take care of it. Be honest with me, can you take this baby home to your mother?”

Grace let out a wail at the thought.

“She can’t,” Bonnie agreed.

“You don’t know her mother.”

“I know you’ve had a fantasy of keeping this baby,” Nancy said.

“But it was a fantasy, just that. I can help you, though. Let me take the baby. Let me take it to the hospital where I work. I’ll get the baby checked out and make sure it’s healthy and then I’ll arrange to have it adopted by a good family. That way, no one, not even your mother, will ever have to know that you were pregnant. You, me, Bonnie and Nathan. We’re the only ones to know. And it can stay that way.”

“She’s right,” Bonnie said.

“I’m scared. Grace. I mean, it was one thing when you were just pregnant. But any minute there is going to be a baby here. Another life! You’ve got to let Nancy take it.”

A boulder of pain pressed down on her stomach, and Grace screamed again. Her mind filled with jagged shards of thought. She could see her mother’s face, yelling at her, forcing her to tell her how this pregnancy had happened. She could see Bonnie and herself tomorrow, struggling to keep a newborn alive. Oh, God, what if her selfishness caused the baby harm? Suddenly, through the veil of pain and terror, her idea to have the baby and keep it seemed unspeakably selfish, almost cruel.

She squeezed Nancy’s hand with both of hers.

“Would you call me? If you take the baby, would you let me know that it’s all right? That it’s been adopted… by somebody wonderful? Promise me you’d only let it go to somebody wonderful who could give it everything.” Her voice broke and she clutched Nancy’s hand even harder.

“Absolutely, Grace,” Nancy said.

“I’d do all of that. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Just turn the baby over to me and I’ll take care of it.”

“This is like a miracle, isn’t it. Grace?” Bonnie asked.

“I mean, you happened to go into labor a whole month early, but a nurse just happens to live next door, and she knows exactly what to do and she can find a good home for the baby. You have to do it, Grace. This is obviously the way it’s supposed to be.”

She writhed on the bed with a fresh wave of pain. The storm pummeled the window above her head. Thunder cracked in her ears and lightning lit up the room with an eerie, unearthly pulse of flight. Let me out of this nightmare. She’d wanted this baby so badly, now she just wanted to be free of it. Get it out of her body. Make the pain stop. Let Nancy take it away, safe and unharmed with a future better than any she could hope to give it.

“Yes,” she wailed.

“Please take it. Nancy. Please make this be over!”

The baby girl was born at four-fifteen in the morning, when the ferocity of the storm had dissipated, and Grace had reached the end of her own strength and will to fight. Through a fog, she heard the cries of her baby, and she stretched out her arms into the darkness toward the sound.

“Let me see her. Nancy,” she said weakly.

“No, no,” Nancy said.

“Trust me. Grace. It will be easier for you if you don’t see her.”

“She’s right,” Bonnie’s voice came from somewhere beside her.

“It might be harder for you to give it up… give her up… if you see her.”

She was too tired to fight, and she let herself be lulled into sleep by the release from pain and the peace and quiet that had finally come to settle outside her window.

It was nine-thirty when Grace opened her eyes the following morning, and the night came back to her like a bad dream. She felt the dampness on the bed beneath her bottom, and reached down to touch the towel Nancy, or perhaps Bonnie, had folded beneath her. She’d had her baby.

She’d given it to Nancy. That had been the right thing to do; Nancy could take good care of the baby. But there was no reason why Nancy had to find it a permanent home. The baby could stay in a foster home!

As soon as Grace got up on her feet again, as soon as she had a place to live and a job, she could take the baby back. All her desperate fears of the night before seemed out of proportion to the situation now.

“Bonnie?” she called out.

Bonnie came into the room, deep bags under her blue eyes.

“You’re awake!” she said.

“How are you feeling? Are you terribly sore?”

Grace raised herself to her elbows. “I want to see my baby,” she said.

“You can’t. Grace,” Bonnie said.

“Remember what Nancy said? It’ll just make it harder for you if you see it.”

“Not if,” Grace said.

“Her. And I’ve thought about what I said last night. What I agreed to. I don’t want her to have the baby adopted out. I was feeling crazy last night. If Nancy could find a foster home or something until I can figure out what to do, then I can take the baby.”

“Oh, Grace, you’re still not thinking clearly.” Bonnie sat down on the bed.

“You have to do what’s best for the baby. And also, what’s best for you. You haven’t even ever had a boyfriend. Grace. You haven’t even gotten to live. I’ve always thought it was crazy that you were going to tie yourself down with a baby, but I knew that was what you wanted, so I went along with it. But this is such a perfect solution.

The baby will be fine. She’ll have a better life than she would have with you—you have to admit it. And then you can get on with your own life. “

It bothered her that Bonnie could not understand. “You weren’t pregnant with this baby for eight months,” she said, starting to cry.

“You didn’t carry her around right beneath your heart. You didn’t feel her moving around inside you. You talk about the baby like she’s some… nuisance, or something. She’s my child. I may not be able to give her every single toy she sees or dress her in perfect, matching little outfits, but I’m going to give her so much love and attention that she’s never going to feel deprived of anything.”

Bonnie sighed tiredly.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Go next door and ask Nancy to bring the baby over so I can finally see her, and then I can talk to her about how I can get the baby into foster care while I’m getting on my feet.”

“All right,” her friend said, standing up.

“Remember, we have to get out of here by one. And we don’t have a thing to eat, so after I get Nancy, I’m going to go to the store and get some bread and some sanitary napkins for you. Nancy said you’d need them.” “Okay, but bring the baby over first, please?”

“Okay.”

Grace got out of bed, slowly, after Bonnie left the cottage. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom, and she was horrified to see several bloodied towels in the wastebasket. They would have to remember to get rid of them before they left. She improvised a sanitary pad for herself out of a washcloth and got dressed. She couldn’t wait to see her baby.

She walked out of the bathroom to find Bonnie in the doorway of the bedroom. Her face was white.

“They’re gone,” Bonnie said.

“Who?” Grace asked, although she was afraid she knew the answer.

“Nancy and Nathan,” Bonnie said.

“The cottage is deserted Their car and suitcases and everything are gone.”

Struck instantly by an overwhelming grief. Grace sat down on the bed.

Her mind raced.

“I don’t even know their last name. Do you?” she asked.

Bonnie shook her head.

“I don’t think they ever told us,” she said.

“Oh, God, Bonnie. My baby. They took my baby.” She began to cry, and Bonnie moved to the bed and put her arms around her.

“I know. I’m sorry. But she’ll be all right. I’m sure they left early so they could get to the hospital to make sure the baby was fine and healthy. Nancy seems like a really good nurse to me. She’s going to make sure everything’s perfect for your baby.”

“But I’ll never get to see her!”

Bonnie was crying, too.

“I shouldn’t have agreed with Nancy last night,” she said.

“I didn’t realize you’d change your mind, though. It seemed to make such good sense.”

Grace cried for a long time in Bonnie’s arms. Then, finally, she looked down at the pillow on her bed. It was inviting. She lay down, facing the wall, and pulled the covers over her head. She felt Bonnie’s hand on her back and closed her eyes.

“I’m going to the store,” Bonnie said.

“I’ll get you the pads. Is there anything else you want? Soup or anything?”

Grace didn’t bother to answer. She’d barely heard the question.

JVly God, Grace,” Eddie said. He was sitting next to her on the sofa, having moved there sometime while she was speaking.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” ;

“It was something I was trying to forget,” Grace said.

“So… I’ mtrying to understand. Was it Pam’ sdeath that made you start thinking about this other baby? Realizing | that somewhere out there you had a child living with her :

adoptive parents? And I still don’t get it the part about Rory Taylor.

What’s going on between the two of you? “

So many questions, so much he still didn’t know.

“I , haven’t told you everything yet,” Grace said. God, she | hated saying all of this out loud. She’d gone over it in her own mind too many times to count, and, of course, she and Bonnie had revisited the experience over the years, ;

but to recite it this way gave it a terrible credibility. “Bonnie went to the store that morning,” she said, “and when she came back, she was very quiet. I thought maybe she just felt guilty about her role in getting me to give the baby to Nancy. She tried to get me to eat something, but I just couldn’t. I’d never felt so despondent. I wanted to die.” She looked at Eddie.

“It was the same as I felt after S Pamela died.”

Eddie covered her hand with his, and she didn’t pull J away.

“Me, too,” he said. The two words cut through her. | She had given him no comfort, no sympathy after Pamela | died. Only blame and recriminations. <|

“Bonnie finally started talking,” she said.

“She told me that when she was in the little market, everyone was talking about a newborn baby girl that had been found on the beach very early that morning.”

“Oh no.” Eddie tightened his grip on her hand.

“The store clerk told Bonnie the baby had been found dead. When Bonnie told me that” -Grace shut her eyes at the memory “—I was torn apart, Eddie. I’d wanted that baby. I’d been willing to turn my life inside out for her. But I thought the nurse might be right, and I’d trusted her. And she went and left my baby on the beach to be washed away like a piece of driftwood.”

“Oh, Grace,” Eddie said.

“How awful.”

“So, Bonnie called me early this summer and said that she’d found out that Rory Taylor wanted to do an episode on his True Life Stories show about that baby. He was going to look into how she came to be on the beach that morning.”

“So, you contacted him and told him you thought you were the mother?”

Eddie asked.

“No,” Grace said, horrified by the thought.

“I didn’t dare do that.

I.

manipulated a meeting with him to try to find out what he knew.

And what I found out was. the baby had not died. A little girl found her, and her family adopted her. And now she lives in the house right across from the house where Rory Taylor is staying. She lives with her sister. She had some brain damage from that night. It’s mild, but she really does need someone to look out for her. Her sister seems to have done a good job of that. “

Eddie stood up and began to pace, something he always did when he was upset.

“This is unbelievable,” he said.

with one hundred percent certainty, that she is my daughter. It seems crazy that in the middle of a storm, the nurs would take her out to the beach, but”” —How many babies could have been born that night i;

Kill Devil Hills? ” Eddie asked.

“I know, I know. I just can’t make myself tell he] though, Eddie. What if I’m wrong?”

“Does she look like you?”

“Not really. She’s very blond, but then, so was her father.” She said the word other as though it tasted bad i:

her mouth. It did.

“But she’s tall and slender, just like me Just like Pamela was. And she has seizures, Eddie.”

“Marfan.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. And to make matters worse now she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, she doesn’t know sh has Marfan’s syndrome, her child might have it, it might go undiagnosed, and” — “You’re being tortured by this.” Eddie sat next to be and took her hand again. He touched her cheek.

“Iwis you could have told me what was going on with you thi summer. I would have been there for you.

Grace. “

“I know,” Grace said.

“I was too angry with you.”

“I loved Pamela, too, you know.”

“I know you did,” she admitted.

“As much as I die And you didn’t know she was sick, just like I didn’t kno^ it. She loved flying—I can’t deny that. You might have encouraged her to do it more than I would have liked, bi it was her choice. You only gave her that choice.”

Eddie lowered his head, and she knew he was strugglin for composure.

“Thanks for saying that,” he said. H leaned back against the sofa.

“The girl,” he said.

“What’ her name?”

“Shelly.”

“Shelly. If you truly believe Shelly is your daughtej and if she and her unborn baby are… at risk, then you have to tell her. Or, at least tell her sister so she can get her evaluated and started on any treatment she might need. You have to do that.

Grace. “

“But what if she’s not my child?” Grace asked.

“She’s a bit fragile. I don’t want to confuse her.”

“Does Shelly have a widow’s peak?” Eddie asked.

Grace shook her head.

“Don’t all the women in your family have one?”

“Most, but not all.”

“Did you ever try to find the nurse?” Eddie asked.

“It seems that she’s the missing link in all of this.”

“There’s no way to find her,” Grace said.

“All I remember about her was that her name was Nancy and she worked in the oncology department of a hospital in Elizabeth City, twenty-two years ago. That’s not much to go on.” Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation.

“I was using a… friendship with Rory Taylor to stay close to Shelly,” she admitted.

“I can’t believe I did that, but I did. But now he’s involved with Shelly’s sister, so I have no reason to go up there anymore. I want to see Shelly again. I miss her already.”

“Let me help you with this,” Eddie said.

“Let me take on some of the burden you’ve been carrying around all summer, okay?”

She didn’t know what he could do to help, but she was far too tired to fight on her own anymore.

“Okay,” she said.

He gently pulled her closer, lowering her head to his shoulder, and for the first time since before Pamela’s accident, she let her body relax against his.

Uaria rolled onto her back, still trying to catch her breath She stared at the ceiling of her room, while Rory tracec her profile with the tip of his finger.

She had cried out. That was a first. No one had eve:

elicited that from her—surely not Pete—and she’d wondered if that sort of intensity ever truly happened fo:

women outside of books and movies. Now she knew. Shf had never thought of lovemaking as a talent before, bu Rory certainly had it, and she was glad no one else hac been home at the Sea Shanty when he’d revealed it to her “Well,” Rory said, the tip of his finger circling her lips “I think Zack is on to us.”

“You mean … that we’re lovers?” Zack certainly knew she and Rory had been seeing each other for the past tw( weeks, but Rory had been careful about concealing th physical side of their relationship from his son.

“Uh-huh. This morning he asked me if I’d been sure t( use a condom when I was out with you last night.”

She laughed.

“Touche, huh? What did you say?”

“I said I’m an adult in an adult relationship and that i wasn’t appropriate for him to ask me a question like that Then he called me a hypocrite and went out to the beach Not sure I handled it the right way.”

“I think you did,” she said.

“He needs to know then are some boundaries between you and him.”

The past two weeks had been a mixture of joy an worry. Being with Rory, being able to openly acknowledge her feelings for him, had been glorious. Everyone on the cul-de-sac knew about them and approved. Shelly was delighted. Only Chloe seemed less than enthusiastic.

“He’ll be leaving in a few weeks,” she’d say to Daria.

“Don’t throw yourself into this so freely.” Chloe was only trying to protect her from being hurt, Daria told herself. Yet she felt as though there was something less noble in Chloe’s admonitions, and she wondered at times if Chloe was simply jealous. After all, Chloe’s lover was dead, her life in a serious state of disarray.

And that’s where the worry came in. Chloe’s silence and irritability were evidence of the war going on inside her, and although Daria could think of no way to ease her sister’s suffering, that didn’t stop her from worrying about her. Then there was Shelly, who grew more attached to her unborn baby with each passing minute. Daria would never be able to persuade her to have an abortion, that much was clear, so some other arrangements would have to be made. She felt no rush to do that.

Right now, she wanted to focus her time and attention on Rory. With her sisters’ turmoil swirling around her, she had found a safe harbor in his arms.

“So, when do Ellen and Ted get here?” Rory asked her.

She rolled onto her side, resting her head against his shoulder.

“Early tomorrow morning,” she said, then added sarcastically, “I can hardly wait. They hadn’t planned to be here this weekend, but when I stupidly mentioned that the bonfire was scheduled for tomorrow night, they changed their minds.”

“I’m not going to be able to look at Ellen the same way now,” Rory said. “Well, I don’t think she was one of your favorite people to begin with.”

“Shelly was really lucky that you were the one to raise | her, and not Ellen.” | “I’ve thought of that,” Daria said.

“And I was lucky, 4 too. I can’t imagine my life without Shelly.” | “She hasn’t asked me if I’ve uncovered any more in| formation about who left her on the beach,” Rory said. |”How have you explained to Zack or the neighbors why * you suddenly stopped researching Shelly’s background?” she asked. ^ “No one’s asked me yet,” he said.

“When and if they ‘|| do, I’ll tell them I wasn’t able to come up with enough information to make it worthwhile. The person I worry about telling that I failed in my research is Shelly.”

“I know.”

“Have you thought about whether Shelly should know i the truth?” Rory asked.

“I think I would want to know the truth if I were in her shoes, no matter how hard it might be to hear.”

Daria smoothed her hand across his chest.

“Well,” she I said, “I’d have to confront Ellen with it first, and I have no desire to do that.

I hoped that someday she would come forward herself, but that’s never going to happen. It’s not Ellen’s style. Ellen has one person on her mind, and that’s . Ellen. I sometimes think she’s in denial about Shelly being her daughter. In a different sort of world with a different sort of mother, I would say that Shelly should be told the troth. But Ellen is such a bitch to her, that I can’t see how it would do Shelly any good to know. ” :” Maybe Ellen is a bitch to her, as you say, because she i resents her. Shelly was unwanted. The pregnancy got in Ellen’s way. “

“K

“I don’t know, Rory,” Daria said.

“I’ve tried analyzing Ellen over the years, and I’ve never come up with any very charitable perspective on her. I try to remind myself that

she was only fifteen. If something like that had happened to me when I was fifteen, I might have done the same thing.”

“I doubt that very much.” Rory rolled over and leaned on his elbows.

He smiled down at her.

“Not my Daria,” he said.

“You would have been too smart to get pregnant in the first place. But if you did, you would have probably delivered the baby yourself, cut the cord with your teeth and breast-fed her while saving three swimmers caught in an undertow.”

She laughed.

“I think you have me on a bit of a pedestal,” she said.

He was quiet a moment.

“You haven’t talked about your EMT position,” he said finally.

“After the incident on Andy’s pier, I thought you might want to get back into it.”

She drew in a long breath.

“I feel less afraid,” she admitted.

“I

haven’t had a nightmare about the pilot in a few weeks. But I still lied, Rory. I was involved in a coverup, and I just can’t get past that. “

“What would happen if you admitted what you did?” he asked.

“I’ve thought about it. You know, plead temporary insanity and beg for mercy. But the system doesn’t work that way. There would have to be an investigation. This sort of thing is taken very seriously, and it should be. I did it to protect my sister, and you and I both know she had no idea what she was doing and that she truly needed that protection. But if can get away with doing that, then someone else should be able to protect his brother for having done something else, and maybe that something else wasn’t quite so innocent. So, it can’t simply be erased and forgotten. At some point, I’ll have to deal with it, because I truly do want to be an EMT again. For the rest of the summer, though, I just want to forget about it and have steamy sex with you. Okay?”p>

He laughed.

“Glad I can help with your escape from reality,” he said.

Finished with that topic, she nipped onto her back again.

“I have to buy the ingredients for my baked beans today,” she said.

“What are you bringing to the bonfire?” Every one on the cul-de-sac was expected to bring food to share. “Jill suggested I bring the paper plates and napkins and plastic silverware,” he said.

“I guess she figures I don’t look like much of a cook.”

Daria could already imagine the smell of the bonfire. Once the daytime crowd had left the beach, Jill and her husband and children would set up two fire rings, one for the adults, a second for the teenagers.

Everyone from the cul-de-sac would slowly make their way to the fires, to eat and talk and bemoan the fact that summer was nearly over. The bonfire was always the prelude to summer’s end.

Rory glanced at the clock on her night table.

“Well, I guess I’d better get back to Poll-Rory,” he said.

“Time to face more of my son’s probing questions about my love life.”

He sat on the side of the bed as he dressed, and Daria ran her hand across the warm empty space on the bed where his body had been. ;

The bonfire. The end of summer. | “Rory?” I “Uh-huh.” | “I haven’t asked you this, because I’ve been afraid of| the answer,” she said.

“But when exactly are you going| back to California?”

He looked at her over his shoulder, hesitating for a moment before answering.

“Let’s not talk about it now,” he said.

She accepted his answer willingly, not truly wanting to know.

JVImm,” Shelly said as she walked in the back door of the Sea Shanty.

“You’re making the beans.”

Daria looked up from the stove, where she was adding brown sugar to the pot of beans.

“How was work?”

“Okay. Where are Ellen and Ted?” she asked.

Daria turned the heat down under the beans. “Ted man aged to talk Ellen into going fishing with him today,” she said, and she was tempted to add. Isn’t that great? It was a true pleasure not having Ellen at the cottage all day. She knew Shelly felt the same way, although neither of them would say it.

Shelly sat down at the kitchen table.

“I don’t like working at St.

Esther’s as much without Father Sean there. No body else talks to me like he did. I liked talking to him. “

Daria leaned against the counter.

“Did Father Macy know about you and Andy?” she asked.

“He knew everything about me,” Shelly said bluntly.

Daria wiped a spot of molasses from the counter with a sponge. So, Sean Macy had known about Shelly’s relationship with Andy and had said nothing about it to her or Chloe. She was momentarily angry with the priest, but knew that wasn’t fair. Shelly had not felt able to talk with her sisters about Andy; it was good she’d at least been able to confide in the priest. No wonder Father Macy’s | death had been such a loss for her.

Setting down the sponge, Daria walked over to the table and gave her sister a quick hug.

“You must really miss him,” she said.

“Tons.”

Daria looked at her watch, then lifted her purse from the table and rooted around inside it for her car keys.

“Could you keep an eye on the beans for a few minutes while I run some errands?” she asked, keys in hand.

“Sure.” “I just have to go to the drugstore and the drive-through at the bank,” Daria said.

“You got paid today, right? If you want, I can deposit your check for you.”

“Oh, I don’t have it anymore.”

“What do you mean?” “When I was walking home from the church, I met this girl,” Shelly said.

“She’s only fifteen, and she doesn’t have any family.”

Daria felt her shoulders stiffen. She had a terrible feeling where this was going; they’d been down this road before.

“How do you know she doesn’t have a family?” she asked.

“Well, actually she does have one.” Shelly’s large brown eyes were filled with concern.

“She has a mother and a stepfather, but they treat her terrible. So, she’s in the Outer Banks all by herself. And she didn’t have any money, Daria. No money at all! She hadn’t had anything to eat all day today and no dinner last night. So, there was a bank right there, and I cashed my check and gave her the money.”

Daria dropped her purse onto the table.

“Shelly, you can’t do things like that!” she said.

“First of all, the girl could have been lying to you. Maybe she’s using your money right now to buy drugs.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Shelly said.

“She was really skinny. I believe that she hasn’t eaten in ” “Even if she hadn’t eaten, even if she needed a few bucks for a meal, you didn’t have to give her your whole check.”

“Daria, Iwish you could’ve seen her. You would’ve given her your whole check, too. She’s poor. We’re not poor. She needed that money a whole lot more than I did.”

“We’re not as wealthy as you seem to think,” Daria said, although that was hardly the issue.

“And now you’re expecting a baby. And babies cost money.”

Shelly looked stricken.

“I won’t give any more money away, then,” she said quickly.

“But really, Daria, she said her stepfather beat her and everything. You wouldn’t want her to go back to that kind of home, would you?” “No, of course not. But there are other ways of handling a situation like that and getting her help.” Daria looked toward the ceiling in frustration.

“We’ve been through this so many times. Shelly. You can’t save the world, honey.” “I know that. I just wanted to help this one single girl. I don’t think that was so wrong.”

“It was really… foolish.” She had started to say “stupid,” but caught herself in time. Tears were already brimming in Shelly’s eyes.

“This is why I worry about you, Shelly,” she said.

“This is why I don’t believe you’re mature enough to have a baby. Your judgment is not always good. I know it’s hard to hear that. I know you don’t really understand it. But there is no way you’re ready to get married and have a child.”

Shelly didn’t respond. Her eyes suddenly went blank in an expression Daria knew all too well, but hadn’t seen in a while. She rushed to her sister’s side just as her body stiffened and dropped to the floor.

Shelly began to writhe with convulsions. Daria quickly turned her onto her side, then pulled a cushion from one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it beneath Shelly’s head. As she held on to her sister, waiting for the convulsions to run their course, she wondered if the seizure could hurt the baby. If it did, if the baby suffered damage, would Shelly then agree to an abortion? Daria squeezed her eyes shut, horrified with herself for even entertaining the thought.

“Daria?”

She glanced up to see Rory standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

“I think it’s almost over,” she said, looking down at Shelly, whose body no longer twitched and jerked. She shifted Shelly’s head slightly on the pillow to be sure she could breathe easily.

Rory walked across the room and knelt down by Shelly’s head. Moaning, Shelly curled herself into a fetal position and slipped her thumb into her mouth. Rory smoothed his hand over her silky blond hair, and Daria fell even more deeply in love with him. “Could the seizure hurt her baby?” Rory asked.

“It’s possible, but this one was very short,” Daria said.

“I doubt it did any damage.”

“Is this the first one she’s had all summer?”

“The first in about six months, actually,” Daria said.

“And I’m afraid I might have brought it on. I yelled at her.” She leaned over and kissed Shelly’s temple.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Rolling onto her back, Shelly opened her eyes. She pulled her thumb from her mouth.

“Seizure…?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.” Daria nodded.

“How do you feel?”

“Did I hurt my baby?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Shelly rolled back onto her side and closed her eyes again.

“Tired,” she said.

“You can’t sleep here on the kitchen floor,” Daria said.

“Stay awake just another minute, honey, so Rory and I can get you to the couch in the living room.”

They managed to raise Shelly to her feet, and with their help, she stumbled through the house to the sofa in the living room. She lay down, her thumb back in her mouth.

“Let’s go out on the porch,” Daria whispered to Rory.

They sat down in two of the rockers, side by side. Rory reached out to hold her hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She smiled at him.

“I am now,” she said.

Shelly had never felt this tired, yet she was awake. Awake enough to hear voices coming through the open window above the sofa. Her eyes were still closed, her head heavy, and it took her a few minutes to recognize the voices as those of Daria and Rory. They were speaking softly. Daria was telling Rory about what she’d done with her paycheck. It seemed like days ago that she’d given the money to that girl. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Had she been foolish? Would Andy have been angry with her, too?

“Sometimes lately,” Daria was saying, “I think Pete might have been right about Shelly needing more supervision than she’s been getting.”

Shelly frowned, concentrating on the words coming from the porch. She needed to listen, especially if the words were about her. But she must have slipped into sleep again, because the next thing she heard was the sound of the ocean, the backdrop for Rory’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m down,” he said.

“Why?” Daria asked. “Well, last night you asked me when I was going back to California, and I put you off. I just didn’t want to think about it. But I know I have to.”

“So… when?” Daria asked, and Shelly knew she was having trouble getting the question out. “When do you go back?”

“September third,” he said.

“Less than two weeks from now. I have to get Zack back for school. I could kid myself for wasting so much of the summer without yoi when we could have been together.”

“That wouldn’t make your leaving any easier,” Dam said.

“I know.”

For a minute, neither of them said a word. Shelly heart some kids yelling out on the beach. Then Rory spoke again.

“I’m pretty sure I know how you feel, Daria, althougt I guess I need to hear it, anyway. But I can tell you that don’t want this to be the end. I have to go back—that’s where my life and job and my son are.p>

But I don’t wan that to mean we can’t still be together. “

Daria started to say something Shelly couldn’t hear, bu he stopped her and kept on talking.

“I know long-distance relationships are for the birds,” he said, “and I know our relationship is very new. But ii some ways, it’s one of the oldest and most enduring relationships I’ve had. I have to ask you this. I’m sure o your answer, but selfishly, I just have to ask it. Is then any chance… any chance at all that you would move to California? With Shelly, I mean, even though I know i would be hard for her to leave the Outer Banks.”

Shelly’s heartbeat quickened at the thought, and Ron rushed on, without waiting for Daria to answer him.

“I know there’s the baby to take into consideratici now,” he said.

“But I just don’t want to lose you nov that I found you. We could move closer to the beach ii California. Maybe that would make it easier for Shelly t( live there.”

Shelly held her breath, waiting for Daria’s answer. Wha about Andy?

Plus, there were earthquakes in California And she wouldn’t be able to breathe there. She couldn’ even breathe in Greenville.

Daria’s answer was a very long time coming.

“It’s impossible,” she said finally, and Shelly’s body literally shook with relief.

“There’s no way Shelly could ever move to California, with its earthquakes and its…. It’s just not the Outer Banks.”

“Leaving Shelly out of this for just a minute,” Rory said.

“What do you want?”

Again, it took Daria a long time to answer, and Shelly heard tears in her sister’s voice.

“I want to be with you,” Daria said.

“But I love Shelly. I love her so much, and she’s my first concern. I was the one who found her and saved her life, and I’m the one responsible for taking care of her. And now there’s going to be a baby to take care of, as well. She’s never going to give it up, and she can’t possibly be expected to take care of it herself. And…! don’t see a way of doing that … of taking care of Shelly, and being with you at the same time. It’s the same as it was with Pete.”

Shelly turned her head toward the window. What did she mean, “The same as it was with Pete”

“Only Pete didn’t want Shelly to come with you to Raleigh,” Rory said.

“I’d want Shelly with us. That’s the difference.”

“Yes, that’s one of many differences between you and Pete,” Daria said.

“But the end result is still the same:

Shelly can’t leave here, so neither can I. “

“There’s one other difference,” Rory said.

“Pete broke up with you because you wouldn’t leave. I don’t have any intention of doing that.

I’ll find a way to make this work. If I have to choose between having a long-distance relationship with you and no relationship with you, well, that’s a no-brainer. “

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Daria said.

“Daria,” Rory said slowly, “I don’t mean to push you on this. But maybe Shelly is more capable than you give her credit for. Maybe she would be able to take care of a baby with Andy’s help.”

“You don’t know Andy well enough,” Daria said.

“He is nearly as… unreliable as she is. He’s a great carpenter, but he wants to be an EMT and there’s no way he’ll ever pass the test. And do I have to remind you of the accident with the pilot? Grace’s daughter? If it hadn’t been for Shelly’s lapse in judgment during that rescue, Grace’s daughter might still be alive. How can I be sure she’d use any better judgment in taking care of a child?”

What? Shelly raised herself to her elbows to hear better. What was Daria talking about? The pilot was Grace’s daughter? What had she done to cause her death? She searched her memory, racing back over those frantic minutes in the cold water. What had she done? And what was she doing to Daria? Daria was crying on the other side of the window because of her. She’d been the cause of Pete breaking up with her.

She’d had no idea. She’d just gone merrily on her way, thinking Daria was just as happy as she was in the Outer Banks. And now she was standing in the way of her relationship with Rory, as well. But there was no way she could leave the Outer Banks. No way. No way. No way.

If Daria had never found Shelly on the beach, the pilot would still be alive.

Somehow she’d killed the pilot. And she was slowly killing her sister, as well.

Ivory was beginning to get worried. He’d been on the beach nearly an hour, and there was still no sign of Daria or Shelly. He’d helped Jill and her husband build the fires and carry the picnic table from their house to the beach. People had arrived, including Chloe, who was carrying Daria’s baked beans, and Ellen and Ted, sunburned from their day on the fishing pier. Daria would be over soon, they told him; she was with Shelly, who was still a little groggy from her seizure that afternoon. Now he was wondering if he should go to the Sea Shanty to make sure everything was okay.

As darkness fell, Zack and the other teenagers loaded their plates and went off to their own bonfire, away from the adults and the Wheelers’ two youngest granddaughters, who at eight and nine, were caught between the older kids and the grownups and not very happy in either camp.

The adults started eating once the teens had moved away from the food-laden table, but Rory held off, still waiting for Daria. Coppery sparks rose into the sky from the bon fire, and he sat on a beach chair, talking to Linda and Jackie, their dog Melissa lying at his feet. He kept glancing toward the Sea Shanty, and finally spotted Daria walking toward him. He excused himself from Linda and Jackie and went to meet her. Only when he was next to her, did he see that Shelly was with her.

“Hi, Shelly,” he said.

Shelly gave him a halfhearted wave before walking away from them, toward the teenagers.

Putting his arm around Daria’s shoulders, he guided her to the picnic table, covered now with half-empty bowls and trays of food.

“I was getting worried about you,” he said.

“I didn’t want to leave Shelly,” Daria said, looking over her shoulder toward the group of teenagers.

“She hasn’t pulled out of her post-seizure fog the way she usually does.”

“She doesn’t seem like her usual perky self,” he admitted remembering the weak wave she’d offered him.

“She’s not. She’s very… subdued. And she’s not talking to me. She’s angry with me for blowing up at her, I guess. I still feel bad about it.”

“Isn’t she going to eat?” Rory asked.

“I doubt it. She said she’s not hungry.” “What is she usually like after a seizure?” he asked.

“Tired. She usually sleeps for a while, and then she rallies. Not this time, though.”

“Could her pregnancy have something to do with it? Either physically or psychologically?”

“I wondered that myself,” Daria said.

“I’ll have to do some research into seizures during pregnancy.”

Rory handed her a plate.

“The food is different than it was when we were kids,” he said, spooning some of her beans onto his own plate.

“Everything’s low-fat now. It’s all salads and couscous and tabouli.

What happened to the burgers and the barbecue? “

Daria smiled, and he was glad to see it.

“I didn’t realize it, but you’re right,” she said.

“I come to the bonfire every year, so the changes have been gradual for me. But com pared to when we were kids, this is completely different fare.”

“Except for your beans,” he said.

“They’re the only good, down-home cooking on the table. Your mother used to make these, too, didn’t she?” He ate a forkful of the beans before moving on to the next offering.

“Uh-huh.”

“I remember, because I wouldn’t eat them,” he said with a laugh.

“I

thought it was weird that they had all these different-colored beans in them. Didn’t look like the canned kind I was used to. ” He took another bite.

“Didn’t know what I was missing.”

He couldn’t believe he was talking to her about beans and food, when his insides were still churning from their conversation that afternoon. In less than two weeks, the country would divide them. She felt the same way, he could tell by the way she looked at him as they sat down on the beach chairs near the fire. It was a look of resignation and sorrow that made him reach out to touch her arm. He wished they had the beach to themselves rather than having to share it with their neighbors from the cul-de-sac.

Daria suddenly looked over her shoulder in the direction of the cul-de-sac.

“There’s Grace,” she said.

Rory turned around. Sure enough, Grace had crossed through the sea oats and was walking toward them, a large bowl in her arms.

“What’s she doing here?” he said under his breath to Daria. He hadn’t seen Grace, hadn’t even heard from her, since the day he’d told her that he and Daria were together. He stood up and took a step away from the circle to greet her.

“Hi, Rory. Hi, Daria,” Grace said, an uncertain smile on her face.

“I

hope you don’t mind my stopping by. I brought some fruit salad. “

Daria rested her plate on the fire ring and stood up to take the bowl from Grace’s arms.

“We’ve got the food over here,” she said, walking toward the picnic table.

Grace must have caught Rory’s look of confusion as they followed Daria to the table.

“I know you weren’t expecting to see me here,” she said.

“And, Daria, I want you to know how really pleased I am that you and Rory are… you know, seeing each other.”

Daria gave her a half smile.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I think you two are really good together,” Grace continued “But when I remembered that tonight was the bon fire, I decided to come over. I hope that’s all right. It’s just that I knew everyone from the cul-de-sac would be here, and there’s something I need to talk about.

To everyone. “

Why? he wanted to ask. Grace had perplexed him. from the moment he’d met her. He wasn’t sure what she was up to this time, but he didn’t feel like making her his responsibility.

“Okay,” he said.

“Help yourself and come sit by the fire.”

He and Daria waited while she took a couple of spoonfuls of food onto her plate, then the three of them moved to the fire. Rory found an empty beach chair and set it in the sand next to Daria for Grace.

Better next to her than him, he thought. Chloe, who was sitting on the other side of the fire near Ellen and Ted, greeted Grace by name, but the other neighbors merely nodded and smiled in her direction.

Chloe stood up and moved to the empty beach chair next to Rory, leaning across him to speak to Daria.

“How’s Shelly?” she asked.

“Isn’t she eating?”

“She said she’s not hungry,” Daria said.

“What’s wrong with Shelly?” Grace asked.

“Where is she?”

“She had a seizure today,” Daria said.

“I think she’s still feeling a little tired from it.”

“Is she at the Sea Shanty?” Grace glanced over her shoulder, where the widow’s walk was barely visible in the darkness.

“No, she’s down there with the kids.” Daria pointed toward the second fire.

Melissa lifted her head to sniff Rory’s food, then leaned against his legs. He scratched her behind her ears.

“My guys are going to miss you when summer’s over,” Linda said to Rory from her seat on the other side of the fire. She had her arm around Jackie.

“Yeah, I was thinking I might have to get me one of these when I get home.” Rory looked down at Melissa’s kind eyes.

“When do you leave?” Ted asked.

“September third.”

“I’m sorry to see you go,” Ted said.

“It’s great seeing you and Daria together.”

Ellen rested her empty plate on the edge of the fire ring.

“So, was this just an end-of-the-summer fling for the two of you?” she asked bluntly.

“What happens next?”

Rory took Daria’s hand again.

“No,” he said calmly.

“It’s not a summer fling. We’ll have to figure out how to keep things going. I’d like to have Daria and Shelly move to California, but Daria doesn’t think that would work out.”

“Shelly would never survive in California,” Daria said. “And she needs me too much for me to just pick up and move three thousand miles away.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Ellen said.

“When are you going to start living your own life, Daria?”

Rory felt Daria bristle next to him, and Ellen continued.

“It’s like you’re married to her,” she said.

“Ellen, that’s really not fair,” Rory said. He wondered how Ellen could talk that way to Daria, when Daria had been the one to so lovingly raise the child Ellen had abandoned.

“Daria’s done the best job possible with Shelly,” Chloe said to Ellen.

“I agree,” Grace said firmly.

“From what I’ve seen, Daria’s been fantastic for Shelly.”

“Give me a break,” Ellen said.

“If anything, she’s ruined Shelly.”

The atmosphere around the bonfire was suddenly thick with tension.

Mrs. Wheeler told her granddaughters to “go over to the picnic table and get some dessert.” Jill studied her fingernails, and Jackie studiously began petting one of the dogs.

“I’m sorry, Daria,” Ellen continued, “but it’s the truth, and it’s time somebody told you. You’ve made Shelly so dependent on you and on this tiny little corner of the world, that living anywhere else is going to be a major hurdle for her. But it’s a hurdle she has to jump over one of these days, and you need to let her.”

“Don’t you dare give me advice about Shelly.” Daria’s voice was even, too even, and in the firelight, Rory saw the rigid set of her jaw.

“You see her for a couple of days at a time, then you go back to your own, self-absorbed life and complain about what I’ve done with her.

That doesn’t help, Ellen. As a matter of fact, you’ve done nothing to help with Shelly, have you? “

Chloe reached across Rory to wrap her hand around Daria’s arm.

“Daria,” she said softly.

“Not here, sis.”

“You wouldn’t have accepted my help even if I’d offered it,” Ellen said.

“You resented any suggestions I’ve ever made. In my opinion, you should move to California and be with Rory. Leave Shelly here, if this is where she wants to be. She’s an adult now. She’ll survive somehow.”

Daria wrenched her arm free of Chloe’s hand.

“Is that what you thought when you left her on the beach twenty-two years ago?” she snapped.

“That she’d survive somehow?”

The bonfire crackled, waves broke and hissed to shore, and the teenagers laughed. But no one around the bonfire uttered a word. People looked from Daria to Ellen and back again.

Ellen’s mouth dropped open in what Rory guessed to be a pretense of shock.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ellen bit off each word as it came out of her mouth.

“I’ve had it with your insensitivity to Shelly,” Daria said.

Rory stroked his hand down Daria’s back, wishing there was something he could do to change the direction of her anger. This was not the place or time for a personal confrontation. But Daria seemed completely unaware that her neighbors were even present, much less paying attention to every word.

“Shelly has special needs,” Daria continued.

“And she probably wouldn ‘t have them if you’d… If she’d been born in a hospital to a mother willing to take responsibility for her, she’d probably be fine. You’ve even been a lousy mother to the two daughters you acknowledge as yours.”

Ted leaned forward.

“Daria, you’re off your rocker,” he said.

“If you’ve got a bone to pick with” — “Are you accusing me of being Shelly’s mother?” Ellen interrupted her husband.

“Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Daria said.

“You are losing it, Daria,” Ellen said.

“I didn’t have anything to do with Shelly being dumped on the beach.”

Daria started to stand up, but Rory caught her arm. She looked at him and must have seen the plea in his eyes, because she dropped into the chair again. When she spoke, her voice was calmer.

“I know this isn’t the time for this,” Daria said.

“I’m sorry I spilled it out this way. But it’s the truth, Ellen, and it’s time you admitted it. I found your pukka-shell necklace lying right next to the baby. I’ve known all along. I didn’t say anything back then because I didn’t want to get you in trouble. But it’s twenty-two years later, and it’s time to own up to the fact that Shelly was yours.”

Rory’s gaze was suddenly drawn to Grace. She looked truly ill, her face more ashen than usual. Even the golden flames from the fire brought no color to her cheeks. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but Chloe spoke first.

“I took Ellen’s necklace that night,” Chloe said.

All heads turned in her direction. Sitting right next to her, Rory could see the resolve in Chloe’s face.

“I borrowed it without her permission,” Chloe continued.

“I never knew what happened to it. I guess it fell off while I was…” Her voice trailed off. She stared into the fire, then looked up again, her eyes glassy and apologetic as she turned to Daria.

“Shelly’s mine,” she said. “Chloe.” Mrs. Wheeler breathed the word in disbelief.

Rory’s mind raced. Sean Macy. The priest had been involved with Chloe for many years, had even managed to help her parents adopt Shelly. No wonder he had killed himself when Rory was trying to uncover Shelly’s parentage. He rested his hand lightly on Chloe’s arm.

“Yours and Sean’s,” he said softly, not wanting anyone else to hear.

“No,” she said in a whisper. The piercing look in her eyes was meant just for him, and it sent a chill down his back.

“Not Sean’s,” she said.

Rory went numb as he realized what she was telling him.

“Chloe,” Daria said.

“I don’t understand.” And Rory knew she understood even less than she thought.

“Where’s Shelly?” The voice came from the beach, and Rory turned to see Andy approaching the bonfire.

For a moment, no one said a word; Chloe’s admission had stolen their voices.

“She’s down there with the youngsters.” Mr. Wheeler pointed toward the second bonfire.

“No, she’s not,” Andy said.

“I was just down there. She was with them, but Zack said she went in for a swim. He thought she might have come out of the water up here to be with you guys.”

“A swim in the dark?” Daria got to her feet.

“She knows better than that.”

Rory stood up.

“Zack!” he called, waving toward the huddled group down the beach.

“What?” Zack called back.

“Come here!” Rory said.

Zack must have heard the urgency in his voice, because he came over to the adults’ bonfire at a jog.

“When did Shelly go into the water?” Daria asked.

“I don’t know.” Zack shrugged.

“Maybe five or ten minutes ago? I thought she was just taking a dip and planned to come out up here by you. She was saying some strange things.”

“Like what?” Daria asked.

“She told me… she said she wanted you to be able to go to California with Dad. She said you wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore, or something like that. I wasn’t sure if that was something you were actually thinking about doing or if she was just, you know, like fantasizing or something. Because then she said she was sorry about the pilot. I don’t know what pilot she’s talking about. I wasn’t paying much attention to her. She” — “She overheard us.” Daria pressed her fist to her mouth and looked at Rory.

“Our conversation on the porch. I thought she was asleep.”

Rory thought back to that conversation, imagining how it had sounded to Shelly’s sensitive ears.

“I’m sure she planned to swim up here to you guys, because she said goodbye to us,” Zack said.

“I mean, like a real goodbye, like she was leaving us for the night.”

“Or forever.” Rory grabbed his son’s arm.

“Come on,”

he said, running toward the ocean.

“Show me where she went in.”

Running away from the bonfire, he was vaguely aware of the shouting behind him. He heard Daria yell for someone to call 911. Someone else said they would check the Sea Shanty to see if Shelly might have gone back there. And he knew that several people were running after him, as beams from their flashlights darted off the sand ahead of him.

“I think it was here. Dad,” Zack said, pointing into the black ocean. “I think she went straight out from our bonfire.”

Rory tore off his shirt and plunged into the water. “Give me light!”

he called over his shoulder, and the flashlights instantly illuminated the water around him. Swimming through the breaking waves, searching the water with his eyes, he realized how fruitless his quest was. He had no idea how far out Shelly had gone, or where she had been when she let herself go under—surely that had been her plan. Sean Macy had said it was all right to kill yourself if you were doing so to save someone else, and Shelly must have thought she was saving Daria. She had no idea that her death would have exactly the opposite effect on the sister who adored her.

Rory felt disoriented in the water. The sky and water and air all around him were black, and he thought about how easy it would be to die out here. To simply slip beneath the surface into more blackness.

He heard splashing as other people came into the water. One of the beams of light illuminated Daria as she fought her way through the waves.

“Daria!” he called.

“How did she usually swim out here? Would she swim straight out, or parallel to the beach, or”

“Depends on her purpose!” Daria shouted back to him.

“I’m afraid … I’m afraid straight out, this time.”

She knew as well as he did what Shelly’s purpose had been. He oriented himself to the teenagers’ bonfire, then turned and began swimming farther into the opaque sea. He had gone only a few strokes when he felt something soft brush against his leg. Seaweed, he thought. He almost didn’t bother to reach down to touch it, but he did, and his fingers slipped into the silky, undulating tangle of Shelly’s hair.

Diving beneath the surface of the water, he grasped her arms and lifted her up to the air. She was a heavy weight against him, heavy and silent, and he knew she was not breathing.

“I have her!” he called. The beams of light darted around him, finally focusing directly on him as he swam, Shelly’s body still beneath his arm.

“Is she alive?” someone called from the beach. It sounded like Grace’s voice. “Is she okay?” someone else shouted.

He was winded as he neared the shore, and Daria and Andy pulled Shelly from him, dragging her through the breaking water and laying her down on the beach. In the light from the flashlights. Shelly’s skin was already waxy and blue, and he felt a cry rising up his throat. He managed to swallow it back down as he fell to his knees next to her.

“I’ll do the compressions,” Daria said to him.

“You breathe.”

He had his mouth on Shelly’s, her nose pinched closed by his fingers, before Daria had even finished her sentence. The sound of sirens wailed far in the distance as he blew air into Shelly’s lungs, breathing for her in a fury, trying his best to save his daughter’s life.

ivory was cold. Someone he had no idea who had given him a sweatshirt to put on, but his shorts were still damp and the air-conditioning in the hospital was bone-chilling.

Daria put her arm around him, trying to warm him, but her effort was futile. She was equally as cold, and her body shivered next to his.

They were sitting on a vinyl-covered couch in a tiny waiting room at the trauma center, across the hall from the treatment room where doctors were working on Shelly. Chloe, Andy and Zack were with them.

He thought that Grace and Ellen and some of the neighbors were in the larger, general waiting room, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of much. Not even how long they’d been sitting there, waiting for word on Shelly’s condition.

Not one of them had spoken since they’d been ushered into the room.

There was so much that needed to be said, but no one knew exactly where to begin. Andy sat on one of the hard plastic chairs in the room, his eyes downcast. The only sign that he was alive was the too-rapid rise and fall of his chest. Zack sat next to Rory, on the other side of him from Daria, and Rory rubbed his son’s back. Zack had cried openly on the drive in the Jeep to the trauma center.

“It’s my fault,” he said over and over again.

“I should have realized something was radically wrong with ,s her by how weird she was acting.” | Rory had told him it was not his fault. It was no one I

person’s fault. To himself, he thought that everyone shared a bit of the blame.

He looked across the small room at Chloe, where she sat alone on the vinyl love seat. Her eyes were closed, the dark lashes long and flat against her cheeks, and he guessed she was praying. Suddenly, she looked up, and her gaze met his.

“I need to talk.” Her voice splintered the silence in the room.

The others turned their heads toward her in slow motion, as though not quite certain they’d heard her.

Chloe looked at Daria.

“I’m so sorry, Daria,” she said.

“I’m sorry I never told you.”

“I thought it was Ellen,” Daria said.

“All these years, I thought it was her. I could imagine her doing something like that. I couldn’t imagine you doing it.”

Chloe nodded.

“It’s hard for me to imagine it myself,” she said.

“Something happened to me back then. I snapped. That’s my only excuse.

You remember what I was like, Daria. I was a pretty good kid. I attended church every Sunday. I was obedient. ” She laughed.

“I even prayed the rosary every night, I wanted so much to be good and pure and holy. But I was always fascinated by sex. I knew that having sex prior to marriage was a sin, but I was drawn to it. I was drawn to boys.”

“I remember that,” Daria said.

“In high school, I had sex with a few different boys,” Chloe said.

“I’d come home afterward and pray to God to forgive me. I promised myself that it would never happen again, but, of course, it always did. Then, when I was seventeen, I became pregnant.”

Daria removed her arm from around Rory’s shoulders to lean toward her sister. “Who was it?” she asked. “Who is Shelly’s father?”

Rory held his breath. Chloe didn’t so much as glance in his direction, and he knew she wasn’t going to give him away.

“It doesn’t matter. He was just a boy.” Chloe gnawed at her upper lip.

“I was terrified,” she continued.

“There was no way I could tell Mom and Dad, and there was no way I could ever have an abortion. I was away from home, in my freshman year of college, but I didn’t really have very many friends. I was younger than most of the other kids, both chronologically and socially, but I pretended that I had this great social life and that’s why I didn’t come home for holidays. I was just afraid Mom would figure out I was pregnant if I went home.”

Chloe scratched her cheek.

“I really don’t know what I thought I was going to do when I came to the Sea Shanty that summer. I was wearing oversize clothing, but I knew I couldn’t do that for the whole summer.

I remember being glad that the weather was so bad that first week, and it didn’t seem too strange to be wearing sweatshirts and whatever. I hadn’t gotten any prenatal care. I had no idea how far along I was. In retrospect, I know I was about eight months pregnant. “

She glanced at him now, but quickly shifted her gaze to a spot on the floor, and Rory wished he didn’t have to hear this. Yet, he only had to hear it, he thought. Chloe’d had to live it.

“One night, I woke up in bed and I was in labor,” Chloe continued.

“I

was terrified. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go into Mom and Dad’s bedroom and say, “Guess what, Mom, I’m having a baby.” I know this sounds crazy”-she looked at Daria ” —but I don’t think I ever really believed it. Not even then, when I was in so much pain. You hear about teenage girls delivering babies when they didn’t even know they were pregnant, and it sounds so crazy. But I can understand it. I had somehow managed to ignore what was happening to me. So, even that night,

I felt detached through it all. It’s hard to explain. I knew I had to get away from the house, though, so I went out on the beach. ” Chloe lowered her head. She was breathing through her mouth. Her nose was red, and when she looked up again, her eyes were overflowing with tears. Rory had the urge to move next to her, to take her in his arms and tell her he was sorry for all she’d been through—and for his role in it. Instead, he stood up, plucked a tissue from the box on one of the end tables and handed it to her before taking his own seat again next to Daria.

“It was horrible,” Chloe said, blotting her eyes with the tissue.

Daria moved across the room to sit next to her sister. She put her hand on Chloe’s back.

“It must have been so frightening,” she said.

Andy stared at both women, and Rory had the feeling he didn’t care about Chloe’s trauma. He just wanted Shelly to be all right.

“I thought I was going to die,” Chloe said.

“I thought I deserved to die, and there was no way I could turn to anyone for help. I just lay there on the beach, crying and terrified. And then… it was the strangest thing. The baby just came out of me. I wasn’t even sure it was alive. It was so dark out there, and the baby didn’t cry. I was certain it was dead. And to be completely honest, I was relieved. If it was dead, no one ever had to know. I washed myself off in the water. I didn’t even look at what had come out of me—that’s how I thought of it. Not as a baby, but as something foreign that had been inside of me and, to my relief, no longer was. I went back in the house, went to bed and fell asleep, and I slept until the next morning, when you found Shelly.” She looked at Daria.

“I can’t describe how I felt when I heard you had found the baby and that she was alive. I was in so much denial, that I actually convinced myself that maybe it wasn’t my baby that you’d found. Some other baby had somehow gotten out there on the beach, but I knew in my heart she was mine. I felt such relief that she was alive, but terribly guilty that I had left her out there to fend for herself. And, of course, I still couldn’t admit to Mom and Dad or anyone else that the baby was mine. Except for Sean. I went to see him that afternoon. He was still Father Macy to me then. Still a priest and not a man I loved.”

Rory wondered how that sounded to Zack. He had known nothing of Chloe’s relationship with Sean Macy. Zack was sitting very still on the couch, not moving, barely breathing.

“I cried and berated myself,” Chloe said, “and Sean told me that God loved the truly repentant sinner. We talked for a long time, and I knew I could trust him. He made me feel forgiven and safe. I knew right then that I wanted to be a part of the Church forever. I hoped that taking a vow of chastity would somehow erase my sexual side. Of course, that had been an unrealistic expectation, but I was young. I didn’t know.”

She blew her nose, then sat hunched over her lap, Daria’s hand on her back, and Rory knew he had to speak. Chloe had gone through that pregnancy alone. He wasn’t going to let her carry this burden by herself, as well.

“Chloe’s left out one important fact,” he said slowly. Chloe raised her head sharply to look at him.

“This is hard to say.” He looked at Daria, squarely, trying not to flinch.

“I believe I’m Shelly’s father.”

No one said a word. Daria looked at him hard, a crease between her eyebrows.

“What?” Andy finally broke the silence.

“You don’t have to do this, Rory,” Chloe said gently.

“Yes, I do,” Rory said.

“It’s time for the truth.”

“You’re…” Daria shook her head with a frown.

“Have you known this all along?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“I had no idea. Not until the bonfire tonight. When Chloe said that she was Shelly’s mother, I could tell… She gave me an unspoken message…” He looked at Chloe, and she nearly smiled at him.

“And I knew,” he said.

“But she was seventeen,” Daria said.

“You would have only been…”

“Fourteen,” he volunteered. He wondered how to say anything more without painting a worse picture of Chloe than she had already painted for herself.

“I was fourteen,” he repeated, “and anxious to experience anything I could.” He still remembered that night vividly. The dunes at Jockey’s Ridge had been chilly, the sand downright cold. It was October, Columbus Day weekend, when most of the homeowners of the cul-de-sac came to the beach for a three-day getaway. He’d been naive, but willing—no, eager—to learn, and Chloe had been an excellent teacher.

Rory smiled weakly at his son. “I owe you an apology, Zack,” he said.

“I came down on you pretty hard this summer for your relationship with Kara.” He had even used Shelly’s birth and desertion as an example of one young couple’s poor judgment and irresponsible behavior. He waited for Zack to rub his nose in it.

But Zack surprised him.

“It’s okay, Dad.” His voice was husky, and he put an awkward arm around Rory’s shoulders.

“Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Daria.” Chloe turned to her sister, taking both Daria’s hands in her own.

“I’m so sorry you had to take such complete responsibility for Shelly. When Mom died, I probably should have taken over, but it would have meant leaving my order, and you never seemed to mind being in the position of caretaker.”

“I never did mind,” Daria said. She sounded flat, and Rory had no idea how she was handling the revelations filling this tiny room. She had to feel betrayed by both Chloe and himself. But he guessed that right now, her mind was on Shelly. Nothing else—no confessions, no disclosures—could eclipse that primary concern. “If Shelly lives…” Chloe pressed the tissue to her eyes, and it was a moment before she could continue.

“If she lives,” she said, “I’ll take care of her, Daria. I’ll stay in Kill Devil Hills with her.

It’s time you were able to live your own life. Move to California with Rory, if that’s what you want. “

Daria said nothing. She avoided Rory’s gaze, and he could hardly blame her.

Andy suddenly spoke up again. “What did you mean at the bonfire, Daria, when you said that Shelly overheard you and Rory on the porch?”

Daria pressed her fingers to her forehead, rubbing her temples.

“I

think Shelly must have heard us talking about how Pete broke up with me because of her. And she heard us talking about. ” Daria’s voice trailed off.

“Do you remember the plane accident back in April, Andy?”

she asked.

Andy nodded. “Remember how Shelly swam out to help us? The pilot was this young, eighteen-year-old girl,” she explained to Chloe and Zack.

“It turns out she was Grace’s daughter, but none of us knew that at the time.”

“Grace’s daughter?” Andy asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not important now,” Daria said.

“What is important is that Pete was trying to free the pilot. She was trapped in her seat, twisted around in her seat belt, somehow. Pete kept having to go underwater to try to get to her belt. And then, suddenly, he started yelling at Shelly. Shelly was supposed to be keeping the plane afloat, but she was leaning on the propeller instead, actually dragging the plane down. She was”

“What?” Andy interrupted her.

“Is that what Pete told you?”

Daria stared at him.

“Yes,” she said.

“He” — “Son of a bitch.” Andy stood up, fire in his eyes.

“Shelly didn’t do anything wrong. How stupid do you think she is? It was Pete who dragged the plane down. I saw the whole thing. He didn’t mean to, I know that, but he was standing on the pontoon for a minute, and that pulled the plane and the pilot under. When Pete figured out what he was doing, he started yelling at Shelly. I didn’t get why he was yelling at her. She was just treading water;

she didn’t have a clue what he was yelling at her about. Pete is a frigging coward. He wanted to find a way to get you to lock Shelly up so you could go with him to Raleigh. “

“My God, Andy.” Daria’s face was ashen, and Rory knew she believed every word Andy had said.

“Iwish you’d told me sooner.”

“If I’d known he was pinning the blame on Shelly, I would have.”

“Poor Shelly,” Daria said.

“She probably overheard” -She turned at the sound of the door opening, and the woman physician who had been treating Shelly walked into the room. Rory stood up, and the others followed his lead, as they waited to hear what their futures would hold.

1 he sun was a creamy orange globe hanging low over the ocean as Grace drove to Rodanthe in the morning. She was exhausted and numb, confused and dazed. Shelly was not hers; that much was clear. Yet she had come to love her, and as she drove, she prayed. Prayed and cried.

She pulled into her driveway and went into the house. She’d been living there with Eddie ever since the day he’d followed her to Rory’s house. It was Eddie who’d persuaded her to go to the bonfire the night before. It was time she told everyone the truth, he’d said. She needed to do it to be sure Shelly was evaluated for Marfan’s syndrome. Chloe, though, had beaten her at the truth-telling game. How Grace’s heart had survived that revelation, she had no idea.

She’d called Eddie from the trauma center late last night to tell him all that had happened, and now she found him waiting for her in the living room. He handed her a cup of coffee, gave her a hug.

“How is Shelly?” he asked.

“She’s in critical condition,” she said, sitting down on the sofa.

“They only give her a fifty percent chance of pulling through. And if she does make it, she may have even more brain damage.”

“That’s terrible.” Eddie shook his head.

“What a shame.”

“I’m still in shock.” She lifted the coffee to her lips,

but lowered the cup again without taking a sip.

“I just can’t believe she’s not mine, Eddie.”

“I can,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because,” he said, “I found the nurse.” “What?” She set the cup on the coffee table. “How did you” — “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Does she know what happened to my daughter? Does she know who adopted her?”

He nodded.

“Yes, she knows. But she didn’t want to get into it on the phone. She asked that I bring you to her. She said it was the sort of thing she should talk to you about face-to-face.”

Grace looked at her watch. “Can we go today? Is it too early to go now?” She was ready to race out the door.

Eddie smiled.

“Let me give her a call first,” he said.

“But I think it will be okay.”

He made the call to the nurse, Grace dissecting his every word as she tried to imagine what Nancy was saying on the other end of the line.

Nurse Nancy. How Grace had hated her all these years!

Then Eddie called Sally to tell her they wouldn’t make it into the cafe today and to ask her to take over for them. Finally, they were ready to leave.

They were both quiet in the car as they drove up the Barrier Islands and across the bridge to the mainland. Grace kneaded her hands together in her lap, anxiously wondering what sort of people had adopted her child. And would her daughter want to see her? She had to be prepared for the fact that she might not.

She read the directions to Eddie as they entered Elizabeth City. They drove through a beautiful old neighborhood, with tree-lined streets and old-fashioned streetlights, finally coming to stop in front of a large brick house.

Nancy and Nathan had obviously moved up in the world since 1977, Grace thought, when they’d only been able to afford that raunchy little cottage for their vacation. Eddie looked at her across the seat.

“Ready?” he asked. She nodded, pressed her clammy palms together and got out of the car.

They walked hand in hand up the slate walk to the front door. Eddie rang the bell, and Grace waited for Nancy to appear. Instead, though, the door was opened by a young woman Shelly’s age. She was tall and slender, with dark hair, an uncertain smile and a deep and definite widow’s peak.

Epilogue

Only as the ambulance raced toward the beach near milepost 6, did the irony of the situation strike Daria full force. Here she was, one year almost to the day after the plane crash, heading for another water emergency on the beach. This time, it was an early-morning surfing accident that needed her attention.

Daria was once again a full-fledged EMT, having battled her demons over the death of the pilot, and she felt no trepidation as the ambulance parked at the end of the street. She and Mike jumped out and ran toward the small crowd that had formed around the fallen surfer.

People drew back to let them through, and only then did Daria see that the surfer was a woman. Dressed in a wet suit, she lay on the cold sand, while a male surfer pressed a towel to her head.

Daria and Mike dropped to their knees next to the woman. She was conscious, even laughing a bit at something her surfing partner had said to her.

“Her board hit her in the head,” the man said.

“She lost consciousness for a minute or two, but seems all right now.”

Daria took the woman’s vital signs, while Mike tended to the laceration on her head. They were strapping her onto a backboard when Daria happened to look up to see Shelly standing near the center of the crowd, baby Mattie in a sack against her chest. Daria waved, and Shelly waved back. She remembered that Shelly planned to make dinner for everyone that night.

In a matter of hours, Rory would be in Kill Devil Hills. He was bicoastal these days, spending Monday through Thursday in California and living at the Sea Shanty the rest of the time. Zack came with him every once in a while. Their presence made the Sea Shanty a wonderfully full house, since Andy, Shelly and the baby were living there, as well. Daria needed to be certain that Andy and Shelly could handle child care without her help, although she had few doubts at this point. Both Shelly and Andy were attentive, careful parents.

During the week, when Rory was not with her, Daria watched him on True Life Stories. It was strange to see him on television and know that he was hers—and that they’d been brought together by the one true life story he would never talk about in public.

The crowd dispersed after the surfer had been taken away in the ambulance, and Shelly began strolling toward the Sea Shanty, talking to Mattie as she walked. This last month, she’d come to understand Daria’s over protectiveness because she now experienced the feeling herself. She could not get enough of her month-old daughter. She studied the way Mattie clenched and unclenched her tiny fists and the expression on her face that was beginning to resemble a smile, and she prayed that the baby was all right. She had deprived Mattie of oxygen when she was underwater; no one really knew how long she and her baby had gone without air. She herself had no memory of that night at all.

She’d had to deliver Mattie at a special maternity ward in a hospital in Elizabeth City, because her doctor was afraid the baby would not be okay. Mattie had surprised everyone, though. She was born healthy, and she still seemed healthy. But Shelly had seemed healthy when she was a baby, too. It would only be later, when Mattie tried to learn how to tie her shoes or add two plus two that they would know what the time without oxygen had done to her.

If she let herself think about it too long, Shelly could still cry over this. Chloe helped her with the guilt, though;

Chloe knew all about guilt. She called Shelly several times a week from Georgia, where she was still teaching, but no longer a nun, and she talked about how sorry she was about the poor start she’d given Shelly in life. But Shelly felt no anger toward her. No one ever talked about this, but Shelly knew that Chloe was one of those women who wasn’t cut out to be a mother. Chloe loved her. Shelly was certain of that, but it was a sisterly kind of love, not the motherly kind.

She got plenty of that, though, from Daria.

In the last eight months or so, Shelly had undergone a metamorphosis.

That was the word Zack had used to describe her transformation the last time he visited Kill Devil Hills, and she liked the way it felt in her mouth. She was definitely a stronger person. She’d been seeing a therapist, and he’d helped her feel less afraid about leaving the Outer Banks. He even drove her onto the mainland every couple of weeks during her session, taking her farther and farther away from Kill Devil Hills each time, and she no longer trembled at the thought of leaving the Barrier Islands. The therapist, of course, thought it was his fine work with her that had led to that result, but it was actually the baby. Mattie could do what no one else had been able to do:

make Shelly less afraid. It was impossible. Shelly discovered, to focus on her own fears when she was concentrating on Mattie and her needs. Last week, she and Andy had driven the baby all the way to Greenville to be checked out by a specialist, and Shelly hadn’t

realized the magnitude of what she had done until they were in the car com n ing home. Andy was proud of her, and she was pn herself.

Her family had grown quite complicated. She ha ther—an excellent father. She started calling Rory ” just a couple of months ago. It had felt funny at firs made them both laugh whenever she said it, but i felt natural. Just a few weeks ago, he and Daria and and Andy had gone out to dinner together and dis< how confusing the Cato family tree had become. To:

Daria planned to get married that summer. Once the Rory pointed out, Daria would be Shelly’s sister an mother, as well as Mattie’s aunt, great-aunt and mother. Plus, Rory said, Shelly had a new half br Zack—in addition to her two sisters, one who was her mother, the other, her aunt. Andy had laughed . what a crazy family he’d married into.

Someday, she and Andy and Mattie would lei Outer Banks. Even though everything she could p need was there on that long narrow strip of land, wanted more for Mattie than Kill Devil Hills could Andy talked about how much he would like to 1:

California, and Shelly was beginning to think she be able to actually go there someday. No matter wb lived, though, she was looking forward to the day she would bring an older Mattie back to the Outer She would walk with her on the beach in the mon teach her the names of the shells, and she’d stay daughter in Kill Devil Hills long enough to make 1 of the sea part of Mattie’s soul. It would be a ti family, when she, Andy and Mattie, Daria, Chit and Zack were all at the Sea Shanty.

And she w( Mattie the story of the girl who kicked over a he crab shell on the beach and gave all of them a life.