The Bay at Midnight

“She was in therapy when she was a kid,” I said. “And she’s okay,” I assured her. “You don’t need to worry about her.You just need to know that the next few weeks might be hard on her and your grandmother.”

“And you,” Shannon said.

“You know,” I said, and shrugged, “I remember so little of that time that it doesn’t have a big impact on me. I don’t even remember Isabel very well.”

Shannon drew her feet onto the sofa and turned to face me. “Okay,” she began. “Now, I’m honestly not saying this to be self-serving or anything, but doesn’t it seem like a really bad time for me to tell Mom I’m pregnant?”

I nodded. “Yes, it does. But I think you’ll have to do it sooner rather than later.” I took her wrist in my hand. “Come on, sweetie. Don’t let her find out by seeing you in maternity clothes, okay?”

She sighed. She had to know I was right.

“Shannon.” I tightened my hand on her wrist. “I’ve never said anything like this to you before, honey, but if you don’t tell your mother, I’m going to have to.”

She looked at me in disbelief. “All right, I’ll tell her,” she said. “Just not, like, tonight.”

“You have a week,” I said.

“All right.”

We turned back to the TV and Shannon clicked the remote until she found a station with old black-and-white reruns. I didn’t know what show we were watching, but it didn’t matter. My niece moved closer to me on the sofa and leaned her head against my shoulder. I put my arm around her and felt my spirit fill to overflowing with love for her.

“Would you be my labor coach?” she asked.

I was touched, but I knew my answer. “No,” I said. “I’m not labor coach material.You know who to ask.”

She let out a long breath. “I’m scared, Lucy,” she said.

I tightened my arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Of giving birth or of telling your mother?” I asked.

“Of the rest of my life,” she said.

CHAPTER 24

Julie

1962

Once upon a time, I was a hero.

On a stifling hot day during the last week of July, Lucy and I were lying on our stomachs at the Baby Beach, reading while our mother swam in the bay and Isabel hung out near the lifeguard stand with her friends. Suddenly, Lucy scrambled into a sitting position.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. Lucy had an uncanny way of knowing when anything out of the ordinary was occurring.

“You’re imagining things,” I said, but then I realized she was right. There’d been a shift in the activity on the beach. I could still hear the music from the transistor radios, but the laughter and talking had changed to whispers and shouts. Something was definitely going on.

I sat up, too, and noticed a few women standing at the water’s edge, shading their eyes as they looked out at the bay, and it was a moment before I realized that my mother was one of them. I heard a woman’s voice from somewhere behind me calling “Donnie! Donnie!” I glanced toward the lifeguard stand and saw Ned standing on top of it, looking toward the deep water through his binoculars.

My mother started walking toward us.

“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“Oh, not much,” she said, “but I think we should go home now. It’s so hot today.”

I could see right through her. Something bad had happened and she was trying to protect Lucy from knowing about it. I had no intention of leaving. I took off for the lifeguard stand at a run.

“Julie!” Mom called after me. “Where are you going? We have to go home.”

“In a minute,” I called over my shoulder.

Ned was still on top of the stand, but now he was crouched down on his haunches talking to a woman. It looked like a private conversation, so I walked behind the stand to where the teenagers stood huddled in a mass. I tugged on Isabel’s arm.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“A little boy is missing,” she said.

“What do you mean, he’s missing?” I asked. “In the water?”

“If I knew where he was, he wouldn’t be missing,” Isabel said, and some of her friends laughed.

“A three-year-old boy disappeared from his parents’ beach blanket,” Mitzi Caruso explained to me. “He’s got light blond hair and is wearing blue trunks.”

I looked around me at the beach. Nearly everyone was standing now, talking with one another, holding fast to their children. Women had their hands to their mouths, frown lines across their foreheads as they stared at the water. From where I stood, I searched the beach for a towheaded little boy and spotted several of them, but they all appeared to have at least one parent close by. I felt sad and I prayed that the little boy had not drowned. I had to do something to ease my feeling of helplessness.

“I’m going to check the playground,” I said, even though the teenagers were not paying much attention to me. I ran toward the swings, my mother’s request to return to her and Lucy forgotten.

I began my search for clues in a methodical fashion, using my foot to mark off areas in the sand to examine. I found a man’s watch almost immediately. It lay in the sand near one of the swings and had probably come off when a father had been pushing his child. I found a playing card—the two of clubs—along with numerous Popsicle sticks. And then I found a clue that sent a chill up my spine: a small piece of blue cloth!

I ran back to the lifeguard stand just as Ned was climbing down the ladder.

“Ned!” I called as I neared him. “Look what I found near the swings.” I held the piece of cloth out to him and he took it from my hand but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. His face looked grim, his mouth a straight, tight line.

“It might be from the boy’s trunks,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “No. His trunks are plaid, not solid.”He looked distracted as he handed the cloth back to me. “But thanks for trying and for keeping your eyes open.” He started toward the parking lot at a run, and Isabel walked up to me, frowning.

“Don’t bug him, Jules,” she said. Lifting her hair off her neck, she slipped a rubber band around it to form a sloppy ponytail. “This is an emergency. There’s no time to fool around.”

“I know it’s an emergency,” I said, and I walked away from her, annoyed.

“Come on, Julie,” my mother called again. She was folding the blanket and I walked over to help her.

“I want to stay, Mom,” I said, taking the hem of the blanket in my hands.

“You’ll only get in the way.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

My mother took the folded blanket into her arms and looked around us. People were still huddled together in small groups, talking. Some of the adults were racing this way and that, searching for the boy, I guessed, although the beach was so small you could nearly see all of it from where we were standing. The only areas hidden from view were the patches of tall beach grass at either end of the sandy crescent, and I watched a couple of women disappear into them, calling, “Donnnnneeeee! Donnnnneeeee!”

I heard sirens in the distance and looked toward the road. Ned and Isabel and a few other people stood in the parking lot, and Ned waved at the ambulance and the police car as they came into view.

“Please, Mommy.” Lucy grabbed our mother’s arm. “I want to go home.”

Lucy hated the sound of sirens. They must have reminded her of riding in the ambulance after the long-ago accident she’d been in with our mother.

“All right,” Mom said. “Pick up the thermos and we’ll leave. Julie, you can stay, but be sure you let the police do their job.”

“I will.”

“And be home by three. Not a second later, all right?”

A couple of men walked past us, one of them saying to the other that the bay might need to be dragged.

“What does that mean?” Lucy asked.

“Never mind,” my mother said. She picked up her beach bag and I saw tears in her eyes. She probably thought the boy was dead.

My mother and Lucy headed for the parking lot and I looked around me, trying to figure out what to do. My gaze lit on the pier. No one was out there, and I wondered if I could get a better look at the water from the end of it. I started running in that direction as a second police car pulled into the parking lot.

By the time I reached the end of the pier, there were no children at all in the water. Adults waded in the shallow section, eyes downcast as they looked for the little boy’s body. I studied the water below the pier, thinking that if the boy had made it onto the pier and then fallen in, I might see him under the water’s surface. But the water was too dark and, after a while, my eyes hurt from trying to pierce it.

I walked back down the pier toward the beach, and when I reached the area where the wood of the pier met the sand, I saw small footprints. They headed away from the beach toward the parking lot and they were the only set of footprints going in that direction. I followed them to where they disappeared into the crushed shells of the parking lot. Even when I got down on my knees and looked very closely, I could see how the bleached white bits of shell had been disturbed by tiny feet. I followed the footprints across the entire width of the parking lot, heading toward the clubhouse which was a nice, woody-smelling building where the kids in the area could play bingo and other games on rainy days. I picked the footprints up again in the sand at the other end of the parking lot. It was almost too easy. The footprints led directly to the rear of the clubhouse and stopped short at the lattice that enclosed the building’s crawl space. I tugged at one of the seams in the lattice and it pulled away easily. Kneeling down, I crawled inside, and there I found little Donnie Jakes, sound asleep on the cool, shaded sand.

I got a ride home a little after three from a policeman named Officer Davis, to whom I’d turned over the boy after I found him. Officer Davis walked me to my front door and told my mother that I had found Donnie Jakes, alive and well. Mom burst into tears, and it took me a while to realize it was not my role in finding him that made her cry, but rather that the child, even though he was a stranger to her, was safe.

“We’d have found him eventually,” Officer Davis said to her, once she’d mopped the tears from her face with a tissue, “but Julie here saved us a lot of work.” He told her I was an excellent sleuth. He told her I was a hero.

The next day, the Ocean County Leader ran the following headline on its front page: Boy Found Unharmed. The first sentence of the article was something like, Twelve-year-old Julie Bauer, aka the Nancy Drew of Bay Head Shores, helped police locate three-year old Donald P. Jakes, who had wandered off from his parents’ blanket on the BHS beach.

Within twenty-four hours, everyone knew my name. The mayor called to thank me, telling me once again that I was a hero, and Daddy came to the bungalow a day early to take us all out to dinner to celebrate. I was full of pride and self-importance, and I started thinking of myself as charmed, as though I could do no wrong. If only that had been the case.

CHAPTER 25

Julie

“I told him.” Ethan’s voice was a soft monotone on my speaker phone.

I was sitting at my desk, once again attempting to work on Chapter Four, and I quickly picked up the receiver.

“What did he say?” I asked. “And how are you?” I’d been waiting for his call, knowing he planned to talk to his father this morning. I had not yet gotten up the courage to call my mother.

“I’m fine,” he said, “but I won’t pretend it was easy.”

“Did you go to his house?” I knew that had been his plan.

“Uh-huh. I told him I’d bring over some pastries for breakfast and I think he knew something was up. So, we sat in his kitchen, and first I told him about Ned’s letter. He looked…God, he looked awful, Julie. Shocked. His face was all…it just crumpled in on itself. I told him I didn’t think it meant that Ned had done it, and he started yelling…well not yelling, exactly, but he said how he knew Ned didn’t do it better than anyone, because he’d been with Ned that night, just like he told the police. And then he said, ‘I hope you didn’t do anything with that letter. We should burn it.’”

I winced. “Oh, Ethan,” I said.

“I told him that I took it to the police and that they spoke with you and me and that they’ve reopened the case and will probably want to talk with him.” The words came out in that monotone again. He sounded tired.

“What did he say?”

Ethan sighed. “He got up and walked around the kitchen for a while. He limps. Man, it just about breaks my heart to see how fast he’s aged since my mother died. He said it seems unfair that Ned’s not here to defend himself. He kept asking me why I took it. ‘Why did you feel the need to take it?’ he kept saying. I told him I had to take it, that it was the only decent thing to do.”

“Of course,” I murmured, reassuring myself that it had been the right thing, even with the authorities looking in my direction for their suspect.

“I knew he’d finally see it that way,” Ethan said. “He’s always had this strong sense of justice. Of right and wrong. And finally he sat down again and said he wished I hadn’t, but that he understood. He had tears in his eyes and I asked him why and he said he was thinking about George Lewis and his family. He looked like he was going to…I don’t know. Fall apart, or something. I felt like I was killing him, Julie.”

The way he said my name made me feel close to him. I wished he were sitting next to me so I could wrap my arms around him.

“He finally said I did the right thing and that he’ll be glad to talk to the police because he’s the only voice Ned has now. He’s afraid the finger’s going to end up pointing at Ned anyhow, no matter what he says.”

“I’m sorry it was so hard,” I said. “For both of you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I feel relieved that he knows now. That he heard it from me and not the police. When do you plan to tell your mother?”

“Today,” I said, knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer. “I’ve got to get it over with.”

“Do you want me to come up there?” he asked. “I could be with you when you tell her.”

I smiled at his offer. It was tempting; I wanted to see him again. But I knew this was something I had to do alone.

“I’ll be okay, thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

I walked the two blocks to my mother’s house as soon as I got off the phone with Ethan. I found her in the backyard where she was clipping blue hydrangea blossoms to bring into the house, and she looked up in surprise when she spotted me. I didn’t often drop in unannounced.

“Julie!” she said, straightening her spine, the hydrangeas in her left hand a giant pom-pom of baby-blue. “What are you doing here?”

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said, “but how about I help you with the hydrangeas first?” I reached for the blooms in her hand, but she pulled them away from me.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, studying my face. I knew my sunglasses were not so dark that she couldn’t see my eyes, and she seemed able to read the concern in my expression. “Is it Shannon?” I thought she was holding her breath as she waited for my answer.

“No, she’s fine,” I reassured her. “Everyone’s okay.” I put my hand on her back and motioned toward the patio. “How about we sit down?” I suggested.

“Oh, it’s a ‘you’d better sit down’ kind of thing, eh?” she asked, walking with me toward the patio. Her pace seemed much slower than mine. Was that new? I wondered. Was she having problems with the hip that sometimes bothered her? I remembered Ethan’s comment about his father’s aging and understood how he felt.

She laid the bouquet of hydrangea blossoms carefully on the glass-topped table along with the pruning shears, and sat down, taking off her gardening gloves.

“Well?” She looked at me.

“Remember a couple of weeks ago when I had lunch with Ethan Chapman?”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said.

“And you know that his brother, Ned, died, right?” I wasn’t sure if Mr. Chapman had told my mother about that or not.

She nodded again, silent now.

“Well, when Ethan and his daughter cleaned out Ned’s house, they found a letter Ned had written—but never mailed—to the Point Pleasant Police.”

My mother frowned. “What did it say?”

Here we go, I thought. “It said that the wrong man went to prison for Isabel’s murder and that he—Ned—wanted to set the record straight.”

My mother looked frozen, as though she’d had an attack of paralysis. Her eyes bored into mine, and in the silent moment while she was absorbing my words, I remembered that she had slapped me—hard—the day Isabel died. It was the only time either of my parents had ever laid a hand on me. My cheek stung to remember it.

“Ned did it?” she asked finally. “But Ross said he was—”

“No one knows for sure who did it,” I said quickly. “Ned didn’t confess to anything in the letter.” I took off my sunglasses and rubbed my eyes. “I think it’s likely he did, Mom. I mean, that’s what makes the most sense, but Ethan can’t believe Ned could have done something like that and the police are looking at every possible suspect. They may want to talk to you. I hope not, but it’s possible.”

My mother looked toward the vegetable garden, where the tomatoes were ripening and the zucchini vines were quickly getting out of control. I knew she was not truly seeing the garden, though. Her mind was someplace far away.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Telling her about the letter. Isabel’s murder. Everything.

“George Lewis was innocent?” she asked me, as if I knew for sure.

“The letter makes it sound like it,” I said.

She stared at me for another moment and I wasn’t sure she’d understood what I said. Then she stood up slowly. “I’m going to take a nap,” she said, brushing a few small leaves from her overalls.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She didn’t answer and I got to my feet as well and started walking toward her, but she held up her hand to stop me.

“I’m fine,” she said. “This all just makes me tired. It’s so…” She looked at me then. “You lose a child and they make you lose her all over again. Again and again and again…” Her voice trailed off as she walked away from me. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I follow her into the house? Make sure she was all right? It was clear that she wanted time alone. I would give that to her, at least for the moment. I picked up the pruning shears and headed toward the hydrangeas.

CHAPTER 26

Maria

I couldn’t believe what was happening.

All of a sudden, a time I had tried to put to rest more than forty years ago was coming back in a most hideous way. My Isabel. I’d failed her so. If only I had been a better mother. If only I had known how to handle her rebellion.

Was there a day in the past forty-one years that I hadn’t imagined what her last moments had been like? This is what I’d been picturing for all those years: Isabel was at the bay, alone on the platform in the darkness, excited that Ned would soon be joining her there. Then the black boy, George Lewis, appeared on the beach and started to swim out to her. Next followed the part I could never understand. Isabel was an excellent swimmer. Why didn’t she jump into the water to try to escape him? Why didn’t she swim to the beach or the pier or…I don’t know. Or maybe she didn’t see him. Maybe he’d cut through the water so quietly that she’d been unaware of him until he climbed onto the platform with her. There had been bruises on her arms. Did he try to rape her? Did she jump into the water to escape him? Did she hit her head on the platform or did he knock her out with a weapon? I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. All I knew was that my baby had to have been terrified. My little girl had been trying to act so much like a woman, trying so hard to be grown up, to make decisions for herself, albeit poor ones. She thought she was so independent, on the road to freedom from me and my rules. I was certain that, at that moment on the platform, she was reduced to the little angel of a child I used to carry around on my hip. The little girl who called me Mommy, who thought the sun rose and set on me.

Whenever I thought of her final moments, I felt her fear, a wringing, wrenching terror, in the center of my chest. It made me want to scream and pound the walls. It once made me strike my little daughter, Julie. It was hard to admit to hating one of my children, but for a few days, I believe I did hate Julie for her part in Isabel’s death. It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was myself I loathed. But back then, Julie took the brunt of it all. She took the full weight of my grief.

Sometime in the last forty-one years, I’d been able to make a sort of peace with that night. Peace might have been the wrong word, but I’d at least been able to live with what happened and with my failings as a mother. I’d forgiven Charles for his permissiveness with Isabel, and I’d taken comfort in knowing that the man responsible for her death and for those last horrible minutes of her life was rotting in prison. I’d felt such hatred for George Lewis, and that hatred extended to every other black man I’d see, before my intellect would take over and I could remind myself that Lewis was one man who acted alone and was not representative of his entire race and gender. Now it seemed that all the hatred I’d expended on him might have been misdirected.

Had it been Ned himself then who murdered Isabel? That was certainly the implication of the letter he’d written to the police. What else could it mean? I believe he loved Isabel as best as an eighteen-year-old boy could love a seventeen-year-old girl, and therefore I had to assume it was an accident for which he never came forward to take responsibility. In a way, that explanation was reassuring to me, because Izzy would have been with someone she loved and trusted, so fear might not have been the last thing in her heart. But if it had been Ned, Ross must have fabricated his alibi.

My mind spun as I tried to figure out what had truly happened. Julie said the police might want to talk to me again. How I would tolerate that, I didn’t know. I would tell them that I was a bad mother who didn’t know how to parent a teenage girl. I’d tell them that I was jealous of how my husband adored her and that maybe that got in the way of how I treated her. And I would long to ask them questions of my own, but I never would. Asking my questions could only invite more of theirs, and I had far too much to hide.

CHAPTER 27

Julie

I’d never felt more like a part of the sandwich generation than I did the day I told my mother about Ned’s letter. I was a middleaged woman caught between the concerns of her aging parent and the challenges of dealing with her child. I worried that I was going to fail both of them—or that I may already have done so long ago.

After bringing armloads of hydrangeas into my mother’s house and placing them in vases in the living room and kitchen, I knocked on her bedroom door.

“Mom?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just tired.”

I didn’t want to leave her alone but was not sure what else to do.

“Would you like me to stay here awhile?” I asked through the door. “I could make you something to eat or—

“There’s no need to stay, Julie,” she said. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t worry about me.”

“All right,” I said.

I made some tuna salad for her and left a note on the table telling her it was in the refrigerator. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt helpless.

I came home and sat down in front of computer. I checked my e-mail; there were many notes from my fans that had accumulated over the past few difficult weeks. I hadn’t had the concentration necessary to answer them and I wasn’t sure when that would change. I sat staring at them, thinking that I should open Chapter Four and try again, but I knew I wouldn’t. Writing a story about Granny Fran, a woman who didn’t exist outside my imagination and whose silly life was filled with silly mysteries solved in three hundred silly pages, seemed completely pointless.

I was still staring at the e-mail when I heard the front door open.

“Mom?” Shannon called, and I felt a rush of much-needed joy. I missed having her around so much.

“In here,” I called.

She walked into my office and sat down on the love seat. “Sorry to interrupt your work,” she said.

“Oh, honey,” I said. “You’re never an interruption.” We both knew that wasn’t the truth. I’d had a rule that I was not to be disturbed while I was writing unless it was a dire emergency. Was that one of the many areas where I’d screwed up?

“Well, I have something I need to talk to you about,” she said. She was watching me, making good eye contact with those longlashed dark eyes, but there was no hint of a smile on her face.

“You sound serious,” I said. I suddenly understood how my own mother had felt a few hours earlier when I’d said I needed to talk to her.

“I am,” she said, and then she looked away from me, down at her hands. She was pressing them together in her lap, hard enough to turn the knuckles white. “I’m really, really sorry about what I’m going to tell you, because I know how much it’s going to disappoint you…and everything.”

“What is it, Shannon?” I tried to imagine what she was going to say. Did she want to stay with Glen when she came home on holidays? Had she changed her mind about Oberlin and now wanted to go somewhere else? I was unprepared for her next words because they were so far from anything I might have guessed.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

I was dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. “You…you haven’t even been seeing anyone,” I said.

“Yes, I have,” she said. “I met someone during spring break, although I’d actually known him for months over the Internet.”

Oh, no, I thought.

“He’s from Colorado and he was here visiting friends and he and I have stayed in touch by phone and e-mail and I’m in love with him.” She smiled then and gave a happy little shrug of her shoulders.

I don’t know what she made of my silence. I was measuring my response, afraid of driving her away with anything I might say. I moved next to her on the love seat and took her hands in mine. Hers were ice-cold.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “This must be very difficult for you.” It was the best I could do. I would make myself support her, no matter what option she chose. I can understand a woman having an abortion early in her pregnancy—in some circumstances. So, I would let this be Shannon’s decision, let her be the grownup. She looked surprised by my reaction.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Did you just find out?” I asked. “Do you know how far along you are?”

“Eighteen—almost nineteen—weeks.”

“Oh my God,” I said, realizing that an early, first-trimester abortion was not even an option. “You’re…are you trying to decide…” I was stammering, and she stepped in.

“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.

“But what will you do?” I asked. “What about school? What about…you’re only seventeen!” I was losing it. I felt the control of my head and my heart and my tongue slipping away from me.

She shook her head and her voice was much calmer than mine. “I’m not going to go to school this fall,” she said. “Someday I will, but not right now.” She offered me an apologetic smile. “Mom, I’m so in love with him. His name is Tanner. He’s an awesome person. He goes to the University of Colorado in Boulder. And…Mom, don’t be mad,” she pleaded, “but I’ve decided to move there and start a life with him and our baby.”

I let go of her hands and stood up, simply unable to sit there another second. I ran my fingers through my hair. “All of this has taken me by surprise, Shannon,” I said. “And I’m going to need some time to absorb it, but the one thing I know right now is that you can’t move away.”

“Tanner and I have talked about this for hours and hours,” she said. “We want to do this right. We want to—”

“You cannot go to Colorado with a baby and a total stranger,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ve thought through what it’s going to be like for you to be a mother at seventeen.”

“I’ll be eighteen when the baby’s born.”

“You’re still more of a child than a woman,” I said, “and the fact that you got pregnant to begin with is proof of that.”

“Mother,” she said. “Don’t start.”

“I know you’ve been having sex,” I continued. “And I knew you were on birth control. I’ve seen your pills around—you’ve made no secret of it. I haven’t said anything to you about it and I’ve tried to be really…” I frowned at her in bewilderment. “How did you let this happen?” I asked. “Did you do it on purpose? Did you feel like you weren’t ready for school? What is going on with you, Shannon? I feel as though I don’t know you anymore.”

She stood up, toe to toe with me but two inches taller. “I am a woman who is going to have the baby of the man she’s deeply in love with,” she said. “That’s who I am, Mother.” There were tears in her eyes. “And there’s really nothing you can do about it. I just thought I should let you know. And now I’m going back to Dad’s.”

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, and I didn’t know what to say to stop her. I heard the door slam behind her and I sank numbly to the love seat. I couldn’t have said how long I sat there before I finally lifted the phone and dialed Lucy’s number.

“Hey, sis,” Lucy greeted me.

“Shannon’s pregnant,” I said.

There was silence on her end of the phone that went on for too long.

“You knew?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Lucy, damn it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I haven’t known long,” she said. “And I was going to tell you but wanted to give her a chance to talk to you herself first.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe my class president, straight-A, musically gifted daughter is pregnant by some guy in Colorado I’ve never even heard of. This is just insane.”

“I know,” Lucy said, and it scared me that she agreed, because there was very little that Lucy considered insane. “You know, the only thing that I find completely unbearable is his age,” she added.

“Which is…?” I’d figured he was a little older than Shannon, since he was already in college.

Again the silence from my sister.

“Lucy.”

“He’s twenty-seven,” she said. “I assumed she’d told you.”

“Oh, my God,” I said again. “Oh, Lucy. It’s statutory rape.”

“No.” Lucy sounded so damned calm. “She would have to be under sixteen for that.” I heard her sigh. “I just don’t know what to say, Julie. I don’t get this any more than you do, and I’m upset, too. The thing is, it’s happened, and she plans to have this baby. We need to check this guy out, of course, but I think that this is just going to happen and we have to do whatever we can do to be there for her.”

“How can we be there if she’s in Colorado?” I asked.

“I hope she’ll reconsider that,” Lucy said.

I thought of all the colleges we’d visited. The nerve-racking auditions. The waiting for acceptances. Her excitement at getting into Oberlin. “All her plans…” I said, my voice trailing off. There was not much to say about those plans. They had little meaning now.

“I know,” Lucy said. She hesitated, then finally spoke again. “On another cheery topic,” she began. “Did you tell Mom about Ned’s letter?”

“Yes,” I said. My voice had gone flat. I felt weary to my bones.

“Oh, Lord,” Lucy said. “What did she say?”

“She got really quiet. She went into the house and lay down. I was worried about her and I checked on her before I left, but she said she just wanted to sleep.” I looked at my watch. “I was going to call her in a few minutes, but I’m a little too shaken up to do it right now.”

“I’ll call her,” Lucy volunteered.

“Thank you,” I said. “Shannon could still have a safe abortion at eighteen weeks, couldn’t she?”

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that,” Lucy said. “Everything changes when it’s your own kid, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t lecture me, all right? Could she?”

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s not what she wants.”

“How does she even know what she wants?” I asked. “She’s not thinking straight. None of this makes sense. Do you think Glen knows?”

“She told me she’d tell him after she told you, so I guess he will know very soon.”

“I suppose he and I should talk.”

“Good idea,” Lucy said, then added, “I’m going to call Mom now. Will you be okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

When I got off the phone with Lucy, I started to dial Glen’s number, then hung up. I didn’t feel like hearing his voice or listening to his controlled and inevitably dispassionate reaction to the fact of Shannon’s pregnancy. I also didn’t want to tell him the news through my filter. Let him get it from Shannon, the same way I did.

I lifted the receiver again and dialed Ethan’s number. His was the one voice I did want to hear.

“Shannon is pregnant,” I announced when he answered the phone.

“Oh, no,” he said.

I told him the whole story, including Tanner’s age and the potentially botched college plans and it felt wonderful to vent to someone who simply listened. He didn’t speak again until I’d poured out every ounce of it.

“I know exactly how you feel,” he said then.

“You do?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Abby got pregnant when she was sixteen. I don’t think she’d mind me telling you that.”

“Oh, Ethan.” I felt empathy, both for him and from him. “What did she do?” I asked.

“She placed the baby for adoption,” he said.

Adoption. Of course. That made the most sense. That was what Shannon should do.

“Maybe Shannon would consider that,” I said.

“I bet Abby would be willing to talk to her about it, if you like,” he said. “It was an open adoption situation, and I have to say, as terrible as the whole experience was—and it was very hard for all of us—it’s turned out well. She has a relationship with her son, who’s nearly ten now. I even get to see him once in a while. His parents are great people.”

I was thinking about Oberlin. She would still miss the fall starting date if she placed the baby for adoption. I wondered if she could go in the spring or would she have to wait until the following year?

“I’ll talk to her about it,” I said, knowing the conversation would not be easy or welcome.

“I think you need me to come up there and give you a hug,” he said.

He was right. That was exactly what I needed.

“Could you come right now?” I asked, feeling a little brazen. I remembered him holding my hand on his thigh. I wanted him to do that again.

“How about Friday evening?”he asked. “Can you wait that long?”

There was a hint of sexual innuendo in his voice that both surprised and titillated me and, however briefly, made me forget about Shannon’s dilemma.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I’ll try.”

I got off the phone and sat smiling for a moment. Amazing, I thought, that I could smile after a day like this one. I leaned my head back against the love seat and looked at my ceiling fan, which was spinning lazily. Could I do it? I wondered. Could I make love to Ethan? I rested my hand on my belly and felt my nipples harden at my own touch. Yes, I thought, I could.

I stood up and left the office, heading for my bedroom, remembering that long-ago priest telling me I must never commit the grievous offense of masturbation. I laughed out loud as I walked into my bedroom. This afternoon, I thought, I am going to sin.

CHAPTER 28

Maria

The day after I received the news about Ned Chapman’s letter to the police, Shannon showed up at Micky D’s while I was working. I hadn’t seen her since her graduation. She waved to me as she walked in the door and got in line. One look at her, and the suspicion that had formed in my mind at her graduation was confirmed: My seventeen-year-old granddaughter was pregnant.

I waited until she had gone through the line and taken a seat at a table before going over to her. I’d needed a few minutes to collect my wits.

“Hi, Nana.” She stood up to kiss my cheek and I sat down across from her, observing the Big Mac and milkshake on her tray.

“You know, Shannon,” I said. “That food is not good for your baby.”

Her eyes flew open wide. “Did Mom tell you?” she asked.

I wondered how long Julie had known and how long she’d planned to keep the news from me. I supposed she’d wanted to drop one bombshell on me at a time.

“I’m old, Shannon, but I’m not stupid,” I said. “I know a pregnant woman—a pregnant girl—when I see one.”

She looked down at her Big Mac, peeking under the bun as though studying the meat for doneness, and I figured she was waiting for me to chew her out. She was afraid, and my heart broke a little for her. I made a quick decision to be a better grandmother than I had been a mother.

“How did your mother take the news?” I asked.

“Like you’d expect,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Like my life is over. Ruined forever. She’s so—” She cut off her own sentence, looking away from me. “All she cares about is my music career. She doesn’t really care about what I want.”

She took a bite of her hamburger, looking around the restaurant instead of at me. The way she talked about her mother sometimes, you would think she hated her. Shannon reminded me so much of Isabel in the early sixties, while Julie reminded me of myself during that same time period. I could see my mistakes being played out all over again.

“When did you tell her?” I asked.

She swallowed her bite of hamburger. “Yesterday,” she said.

“And your father?”

“I told him last night.” She shook her head. “You know Dad,” she said. “He said ‘Oh, Shannon,’ and that was it. At least Mom yelled. Dad just…he can be so totally lame sometimes.”

“I bet it wasn’t easy telling them, huh?” I asked.

Her eyes filled suddenly, and she went from hardened young woman to scared little girl. I handed her a napkin, but she only clutched it in her hand as a tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

“Who is the boy?” I asked.

A light came into her eyes, the first glint of joy I’d seen since she walked into the restaurant. She told me his name was Tanner, that he lived in Colorado, and that she planned to move out there with him. That nearly stopped my heart. Please, no, I thought. It was bad enough she’d been planning to go away to college. I wanted my granddaughter in my life. I loved when she stopped by McDonald’s just to say hello. How many more years did I have? If she moved across the country, when would I ever get to see her? But I quickly got a grip on myself.

“I tell you what, Shannie,” I said, using the nickname I’d given her when she was a toddler. “If those plans fall through and you end up staying here, I’ll be happy to baby-sit for you.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise. Then she smiled.

“Nana,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, darling,” I said.

She pushed her Big Mac aside. “I think I’m going to get a salad,” she said, rising to her feet. I told her to stay put, and then I went behind the counter and got her the healthiest salad we made.

As I drove home later that afternoon, I felt good about how I’d handled things with Shannon. I thought I’d given her what she needed—some loving kindness, free of judgment. That’s what Isabel had needed, too, but that was not what she’d received from me.

My good mood ended the moment I got in my door. The phone was ringing, and when I picked it up, there was Ross Chapman once again.

“Maria,” he said. Even speaking that one small word seemed to be a great effort for him. The three syllables came out slowly, sadly. “Has your daughter told you what’s going on?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. I was angry beyond measure at him. I believed he’d lied for his son, and now he was badgering me for forgiveness he was never going to get.

“You mean, did she tell me about Ned’s admission of guilt?” I responded, and then I hung up. I had let that man toy with my mind before. It was not going to happen again.

1942-1944

On the first day of my senior year at the New Jersey College for Women, I arrived in New Brunswick still able to taste Ross’s kisses in my mouth and feel his hands on my breasts. We had grown ever bolder during that summer, each of us seeing several other people in order to avoid leading one person on, as I was afraid I may have done with Fred. Many of the young men—Fred included—were fighting in the war at that time, so Ross had quite a few more dating options than I did, but I did my best. Ross had been drafted, but at his physical exam they discovered a minor heart problem and he was classified 4-F. Although I was patriotic when it came to the war and felt everyone should do his or her part, I was relieved he did not have to go.

My parents had made friends with another couple in Bay Head Shores and they often went to their house to play bridge, leaving our bungalow empty. When I knew they would be gone, Ross and I canceled whatever dates we had for that night and we would have the house to ourselves, free to satisfy the hunger we felt for each other. The summer had been filled with cunning, deception, and a fierce physical passion. I could barely tear myself away from him that last night at the shore.

The fraternity down the street from our sorority house had a “welcome back to school” party the night of my arrival. I went with some girlfriends who were anxious to meet some of the Rutgers boys, even if most of them were “4-Fers,” but my heart wasn’t in it. I was standing in a doorway, missing Ross and already writing a letter to him in my mind, when a young man approached me. He walked with a pronounced limp, and something about his eyes reminded me of Ross. That was the only reason I could think of for the instant, feverish attraction I felt toward him. He introduced himself to me as Charles Bauer.

“A lovely girl like you shouldn’t be standing here alone,” he said. “Would you like to dance?”

“Sure,” I said. I moved easily into his arms. He was an awkward dancer because of his limp, but he didn’t seem at all selfconscious about it and I didn’t care a bit, because he felt like Ross in my arms. He was the same height, his shoulders the same slender width, and he used Canoe aftershave, the same as Ross. I inhaled as I rested my head in the crook of his neck, near tears with missing my lover.

After a few minutes, he leaned his head away from mine. “Is something the matter?” he asked.

I started to cry. He let go of me, took my hand and led me outside. We sat on the front steps, the sounds of the party behind us.

“What does a beautiful girl like you have to cry about?”he asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said, then lied because it was the only way I could possibly explain my sorrow. “I recently broke up with someone.”

“And you still care about him,” Charles said.

I nodded.

“That happened to me, too,” he said, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to me.

“Recently?” I asked, pressing the handkerchief to the corners of my eyes. He was very attractive. A gas lamp burned in the front of the yard and I could see that he did not really resemble Ross one bit. He was brown-haired, for pity’s sake, while Ross was fair. His eyes were also brown, while Ross’s were a smoky gray. But he was handsome, all the same, and sitting there, I still felt drawn to him.

“We broke up a while ago,” he said. “When I was stationed in Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” I asked. I thought of his limp. “Were you at Pearl Harbor when…?”

He nodded. “That’s where I got this bum leg,” he said, patting his right thigh with his palm.

“That must have been terrible,” I said.

“Much worse for a lot of other people than it was for me,” he said. “I wanted to go back, but they wouldn’t let me. I hate feeling useless here at home.”

“But you’re in school now,” I said, admiring his patriotism. “That’s not being useless. What are you studying?”

“Medicine,” he said.

“Oh!” I was impressed. “You want to be a doctor.”

“I always have,” he said. “I thought it would have to wait until the war ends—if it ever does—but I guess that was the one bonus of getting injured. Now, my dream’s within reach. And how about you?”

“This is my senior year,” I said. “I’m going to teach.”

“That’s wonderful!” he said, as if I’d said that I, too, planned to become a doctor. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”

“Well—” I smiled “—I’ve actually always wanted to have a family, but I think it’s important for a woman to be able to support herself.”

He nodded. “You’re a very smart girl,” he said. “I want to raise a family myself, but I also want to be sure I can provide well for them.”

What a remarkable man, I thought. I liked that he didn’t denigrate my choice of career. Ross had made light of my studies as though they were inconsequential.

I smoothed my skirt over my legs and wrapped my arms around my knees. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?” I asked.

“A pediatrician,” he said. “I was sick when I was a boy and that’s when I decided.”

“So,” I said, “we’ve both chosen careers that will let us help children.”

He looked suddenly excited and turned toward me, reaching for my hand. “Maria,” he said, “you need to tell me something right now.”

“What?”

“Please tell me you’re Catholic.”

I laughed. “I am, but why?”

“Because in the thirty minutes since I first spotted you across the living room, I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said. “And you being Catholic will make it so much easier. Is there a chance you might like to go to mass with me tomorrow? Then maybe we could have lunch together afterward.”

I liked his impulsiveness. It excited me, and I had to admit that I’d become a girl in need of excitement. A strange little tugof-war was going on inside me, though. Only two days before, I’d been secretly making love to a man. Now I was being invited to mass as a date. My family was Catholic, that was no lie, but we were holiday Catholics, attending church on Christmas and Easter and only occasionally in between. I felt as though God was intervening in my life at that very moment. He was giving me an opportunity to turn myself around and put an end to my deceitful and immoral behavior. I felt the sorrow over leaving Ross turn into a sort of relief and gratitude. This lovely man, Charles Bauer, who had fought for his country and longed to be a physician and raise a family, might be able to save me from myself.

“I would like that so much,” I said.

“Oh, wonderful!” he said, with an enthusiasm I would come to appreciate in him. “Was your boyfriend Catholic?” he asked.

“Yes, but not devout,” I said. An understatement if ever there was one.

“It was doomed from the start, then,” he said. “The gal I broke up with last year was a Methodist. My parents wouldn’t even talk to her. I should have known it wouldn’t work. The values are just too different, you know?”

I nodded, although I didn’t really know at all.

“She was…fast, if you know what I mean,” he said. “I found out she’d had…you know, relations, with the boy she’d dated before me, and I felt sick thinking about it.”

I knew right then that I would be starting this relationship off with a lie. I would never let Charles know the truth about Ross and me. Only a few of my girlfriends knew about Ross, so it would be a relatively easy secret to keep. I thought, though, that I’d better bring my ancestry out in the open before things went any further.

“I’m half Italian,” I said.

“I thought so.” He touched my hair. “You have that rich Italian hair and those big, dark eyes.” It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Charles and I attended mass the following day and I saw my religion in a new light. I felt the peace that came over him inside the church. The smell of incense, the ritualistic standing and kneeling, the haunting Latin chanting, and the taste of the host on my tongue struck me like never before. I thanked God for giving me what felt like a second chance.

When we left the church and were back in my car, Charles turned to me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded, wondering how he had known the impact that service had had on me. “I’ve never been to mass with a…” I started to say boyfriend, but it seemed too soon to give him that label. “With a date before,” I finished.

“You never went with your last boyfriend?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I understand,” he said with a smile. “That’s why it would never have worked out with my old girlfriend and with your old boyfriend. They would have been twiddling their thumbs in there, anxious to get it over with.”

We fell in love quickly. I think I was in love with him that first night outside the fraternity house. My relationship with Ross was becoming clearer to me: It had been based on the physical and the illicit and little more. This was so different. Charles met my parents, who instantly adored him and even attended mass with us the first weekend he visited. Charles and my father were New York Yankee fans, and they occasionally attended games together at Yankee Stadium, while my mother would marvel that I’d found such a wonderful man.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she said, her Italian accent flavoring the words.

“Why?” I’d asked her, surprised.

“You always flit from one boy to the other,” she said. “Never settled on any one of them. It worried me.”

“You didn’t have to worry,” I said to her with a smile. “I was waiting for the right one to come along.”

My relationship with Charles was entirely chaste. His kisses were passionate, but if his hands wandered toward my breasts or my thighs, he would pull back in apology. I craved more, and I found the craving exciting. I felt guilty for the lie of omission I was engaged in. He thought I was a virgin, and there was no reason to tell him anything different. The lie was so thorough that even I began to think of myself as virginal.

On Easter Sunday, 1943, Charles asked me to marry him. Of course, I accepted, but as summer grew near and my parents spoke of having him stay with us at the shore, I became increasingly nervous. The rule between Ross and I that we would be lovers during the summers was unwritten and even unspoken, but it existed nevertheless, and I feared his reaction when I showed up with Charles. I hoped it would be clear to him that I needed to put an end to our illicit relationship, and I prayed he did nothing that might arouse Charles’s suspicions. I was in for a surprise.

Charles and I followed my parents’ car as we drove down the shore, and when we pulled into the driveway of the bungalow, I could see that two cars were already present in front of the Chapmans’ house. My heart pounded as we unloaded the car and walked into our musty-smelling house. When I opened the French doors leading to the porch with its panoramic view of the canal, Charles gasped.

“It’s wonderful!” he said, walking across the porch and unlatching the screen door to step outside.

I could see people in the Chapmans’ yard, although I could not tell who they were, and I felt unprepared to walk into the yard with Charles if Ross was there. I’d wanted a chance to talk to Ross alone first. But with Charles already walking outside, I had little choice but to follow him.

“When will your father get the boat?” Charles asked, motioning at the dock as we walked toward the canal. The wooden bulkheads were in place by then, but it would be years before there would be a chain-link fence to mar our view.

“He’ll pick it up tomorrow, probably,” I said, my eyes on the Chapmans’ yard. Two figures stood in the far corner: Ross and a woman. I should have been pleased that he, too, would be preoccupied with a guest, but instead, a breath-stealing jealousy sprang up in my chest.

“Looks like you share your backyard.” Charles nodded toward the twosome.

Ross had his arm around the woman, but as he turned and saw us, his arm fell quickly from her shoulders. He was just as uncomfortable as I was, I thought.

“Hello, Maria!” he called. He put his hand on the woman’s elbow to turn her toward us. In his other hand, he held a cigar.

“Hi, Ross,” I said.

He said something I couldn’t hear to the woman, and they began walking in our direction. I felt Charles’s hand on my back, lightly pushing me forward until the four of us met in the middle of the yard.

Ross looked wonderful, a little trimmer than the year before. I had trouble meeting his eyes. The delicious, woody scent of his cigar surrounded us.

“This is Joan Rockefeller,” he said. “Joan, this is my neighbor, Maria Foley. And this is…?” He raised his eyebrows in Charles’s direction.

“Charles Bauer,” I volunteered. “This is Ross Chapman.”

The two men shook hands while I studied Joan. She was a blond stunner. Huge blue eyes, carefully coiffed hair, a dress that hugged a very slender frame.

“Any relation to the New York Rockefellers?” Charles asked the question I was thinking. How much was this girl worth?

“I’m about a fifty-first cousin, thrice removed.” Joan laughed. Then she turned to me. “Ross said that your family and his have been summertime neighbors since you were small.” Her highpitched voice was almost childlike.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Maria taught me how to dance,” Ross said.

“Oh, you did a wonderful job.” Joan nodded at me with a smile.

“And Ross taught me how to play tennis,” I said.

I thought of all the other things Ross had taught me that had nothing to do with tennis and felt myself blushing furiously. I couldn’t get a handle on my feelings. I loved Charles, of that I was certain, so it was ridiculous that my chest ached at seeing Ross with another woman. She would be the sort of girl his parents wanted for him. A Rockefeller, no less. I wondered if he felt jealous at seeing me with Charles. He didn’t seem to. He was smiling easily, touching Joan’s arm in an intimate way and I knew that she was the one receiving his fiery lovemaking these days.

We put Charles in the attic, which now contained two double beds and four twins, ready for the cousins and other company who would arrive during the summer. There was no privacy up there, which was not a problem as long as Charles was the only inhabitant, but the week before my cousins were due to arrive, he made a suggestion.

“What if I hung a system of wires up there,” he said over breakfast one morning. He pulled a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and drew on the back of a paper napkin. “Then we could hang curtains from the wires, so that there would be four cubbyholes around the beds, leaving this middle area open.”

“That’s a fine idea,” my father said.

“I can make the curtains,” my mother suggested, and I offered to help.

“And one other thing,” Charles said. He held his hands up in apology. “I hope I’m not overstepping my boundaries here, but what about adding a toilet and sink up there? I’d be happy to do it. My father taught me carpentry and plumbing.”

“Where would it go?” My mother stared at the napkin and its crisscrossed lines.

“I could build it right above the downstairs bathroom to make it easy to do the plumbing. It would be very small, of course, but then your guests wouldn’t have to climb down those stairs in the middle of the night. And we wouldn’t have to put a door on it. Just hang another curtain for privacy.”

I could tell my father was excited by the idea. “Let’s go to the hardware store as soon as we finish breakfast,” he said to Charles. “And I’ll pay you for your time and expertise.”

“Oh, my gosh, no,” Charles said quickly. “You’re giving me room and board all summer. It’s the least I can do to repay you.”

Both my parents were in love with Charles, as was I. He enjoyed fishing with my father in our motorboat, and in addition to building the upstairs bathroom, he reshingled parts of our roof and painted the trim on the house. He never saw my mother’s accent as something to be ashamed of, but rather as part of her heritage to be celebrated, in spite of the fact that he’d nearly lost his life in a war in which the Italians were our enemy. On her birthday in August, he shooed her out of the kitchen while we made her an authentic five-course Northern Italian meal. It was all his doing; I never would have thought of it. Mother cried when Charles presented the cannoli he’d made, completely by hand and with our carefully rationed sugar, for dessert.

We did not socialize with the Chapmans. Aside from Ross’s and my “friendship,” my family rarely had. We were the sort of neighbors who were there for each other if your car got stuck in the sand, but it was clear we were from different social classes, different worlds. Although our backyards were connected, they were divided by an invisible line drawn in the sand.

Ross and I did not have one single private conversation that entire summer. I was curious to know how he’d met Joan, but she was always standing or sitting right next to him and I never had the opportunity to ask. That was probably just as well.

A few weeks after our arrival at the bungalow, Charles and I were sitting in the backyard enjoying the evening when he suggested we talk to Ross and Joan about double dating with them sometime.

“They’re around our age,” he said, although Charles was technically six years Ross’s senior. “They seem nice. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a couple right next door to do things with?” I hesitated as I tried to think of a response, the idea of getting together socially with Ross and his new love horrifying to me. I settled on telling him a partial truth.

“Charles,” I said, “when Ross and I were in high school, he asked me out, but when his parents found out, they told him he was not allowed to date me.”

“Why not?” Charles asked.

“Because I’m Italian.”

Charles looked stunned. “That’s certainly small-minded,” he said, making me love him all the more.

“He and his family have never been friendly with us,” I said. “So, I really would rather not—”

“Of course,” Charles said. He looked over his shoulder toward the Chapmans’ house. “Was Ross in the military?” he asked.

“He was 4-F,” I said. “A minor heart problem.”

“Ah,” Charles said, and I knew I had just planted an immutable wall between my boyfriend, recipient of the Purple Heart, and Ross Chapman. A man who didn’t serve his country, yet nevertheless appeared to be hale and hearty, was a coward in Charles’s eyes.

“If he would just stop smoking,” Charles said, “that heart problem would probably go away.”

I think Charles was a bit disappointed to discover that my parents were not regular churchgoers, but he said nothing about it. I went to mass with him at St. Peter’s every Sunday and we’d stop at Mueller’s Bakery afterward and bring home rolls and crumb cake for a late-morning breakfast with my parents. I enjoyed going to church with him, never ceasing to be touched by the way such a strong and intelligent man was able to find peace and comfort there. He also prayed the rosary every night before falling asleep. I prayed, too, although not the rosary. I prayed for my small, jealous feelings about Joan Rockefeller to disappear. I prayed to be able to look at the blueberry lot without longing. I prayed to forget the ways Ross had touched me—taken me, really, for he could be rough in a way I’d enjoyed. He’d never hurt me, but he could ride me like I was a bucking bronco. A heart problem, my eye.

Charles was a believer in prayers being answered. I could only conclude that I did not pray quite hard enough.

Charles and I were married in June the following year. I feigned pain when we first made love, and to my great relief, he believed I was a virgin. We took our honeymoon in Niagara Falls, and then joined my parents at the bungalow, this time sharing the small downstairs bedroom that had always been mine. We unpacked our suitcases, then went onto the porch and I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound coming from next door: the cries of a baby.

“Whose baby is that?” I asked.

My mother was sitting at the table. “It’s Ross and Joan’s,” she said. “Sue Clements told me they got married last September and the baby was born just a few weeks ago. Ross’s parents retired to Florida, so it’s just the three of them in the house there now.”

I did the math in my head and felt a wave of disappointment that he had not married her simply because she was pregnant. He must have married her for love, then, the sort of love he and I could never have known because of all the forces against us. Would I ever get over it?

We saw the baby that evening. Joan carried him over to us in the backyard, cooing and showing him off. Although I didn’t ask to hold him, she carefully transferred him to my arms and I felt an involuntary pull of my nipples at cradling his beautiful warmth.

“His name is Ned Rosswell Chapman,” she said.

Charles leaned over and gently drew the blanket away from the baby’s cheek. Ned Rosswell Chapman sucked his fingers in his sleep.

“He’s adorable,” I said sincerely. I didn’t need eyes in the back of my head to know that Ross was approaching us from behind. It was some sort of sixth sense I had, so strong that I was not surprised when he suddenly appeared at Joan’s side, slipping an arm around her waist.

“What do you think of him?” he asked me, nodding in the direction of his son.

“He’s precious,” I said. I looked up at him and saw that he was gazing at me, the look in his eyes raw with desire. For me? For Joan? I didn’t know, and I looked quickly away from him, back to the face of his child.

We chatted a while about little Ned and about our honeymoon, and gradually the conversation shifted to the war, as it usually did in those days. Joan and I withdrew into silence as the men’s voices grew louder. Ross complained that the government was handing us propaganda about how well the war was going while hiding the truth about the number of casualties suffered. Charles argued back, showing a side of himself I had not known existed. Both men were strident and impassioned, and I could see the future mapped out ahead of us: Ross Chapman and Charles Bauer would never be friends. They were lawyer and doctor, on opposite teams. That night in our shared backyard, we forged the cool and contentious relationship with our neighbors that would remain for the rest of our years—even as our children became friends.

CHAPTER 29

Julie

I’d like you to see my obstetrician.

Would you like to go to my OB/GYN?

My obstetrician is the best in the area.

I’d practiced every way of saying it, trying to find the words that would offer the path of least resistance when I presented the idea to Shannon. I should have known it wouldn’t matter. My daughter had her own plans.

I called her Friday morning, timing the call so that I’d reach her before she had to be to work but late enough that I knew she’d be up.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, apparently seeing my number on the caller ID of her cell phone. I took it as a good sign that she’d answered despite knowing it was me.

“Hi, honey,” I said. I was sitting on my bed, cross-legged, leaning back against the sham. I’d changed the sheets after getting up that morning, just in case: Ethan was coming to Westfield tonight. “How are you feeling?”

“You mean because I’m pregnant?”

No matter what I said to her, she seemed to take it as an attack. “I mean, in general,” I said.

“Fine.”

“I thought I’d call to see if you’d like me to make an appointment for you with my OB/GYN. I know you’d like her. She’s—”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Shannon interrupted me. “I already have a doctor.”

“You have?” I asked. My daughter was living a completely secret life. “Where are you…are you going to a clinic?”

“Not a clinic. It’s Dr. Myers-Blake in Morristown. She’s good. A friend told me about her.”

“Myersblick?” I repeated. I’d never heard of her.

“Myers-Blake,” she said slowly. “It’s hyphenated.”

The name was still unfamiliar to me. “But how did you pay?” I asked. “Our insurance—”

“Tanner sent me money,” she said, “but she does take our insurance. I picked a doctor who did, so that once you knew, I could start having our insurance pay for her.”

I was quiet, amazed that she had thought the issue through so carefully and thoroughly when her other recent decisions seemed to have been impulsively made. Through my bedroom window, I could see the massive oak tree Shannon used to climb as a kid. I missed that girl. I missed her so much. But I looked away from the window. The future was here and now.

“I’m proud of you for getting prenatal care on your own,” I said. “But please consider going to my doctor.”

“No,” she said. “I’m in charge of my life from now on.”

“Well, listen, honey.” It was time for a new tack. “Abby Chapman, Ethan Chapman’s daughter who is about twenty-six, is willing to talk to you about how she handled getting pregnant when she was about your age. She—”

“I’m handling it just fine, Mom.” Her voice was filled with irritation; I was losing her.

“I know you are,” I said. “But, see…what she did…and maybe you haven’t considered this option…is that she placed her baby with adoptive parents, and she—”

“Mother, would you please respect my decision?” Shannon asked. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m keeping this baby? I didn’t mean to get pregnant. I didn’t set out to mess up my college plans. But it happened and now I’ll deal with it. And there’s something else I need to tell you.”

Oh, God. “What?”

“Tanner is coming here next week,” she said. “He’s staying with his friends in Morristown for two weeks, and then he has to go back to Colorado and I’m going to go with him. So, I’ll be going to a doctor there, ultimately, anyway.”

“You mean, you’d be going there now? To stay?”

“In about three weeks,” she said. “And I don’t know if we’ll stay there forever, but we’ll be there at least until he finishes his Ph.D. program. Then, who knows where we’ll end up.”

I felt panicky. “Let’s talk this over, Shannon,” I said, standing up from my seat on the bed. “Talking something over doesn’t make you any less a grown-up. I talk to Lucy about important decisions I have to make, and this decision is certainly important.”

She sighed. “I have to get to work, Mom, so maybe we can talk later, okay?”

“All right,” I said. What else could I say. “But please, Shannon. Please let’s talk later.”

I called Glen at work the moment I got off the phone with Shannon. I spoke quickly, telling him about her going to a doctor we didn’t know and her planned move to Colorado. He listened quietly. He was always quiet. I’d once appreciated his gentle, compliant nature. Now I hated it. “Can you exert any influence over her since she’s living with you?” I pleaded.

“I think we need to let her do it her way,” he said finally.

“You’re afraid to make waves with her,” I said. “You’re always afraid to make waves. I would probably still not know you were having an affair if what’s-her-face hadn’t called to tell me.”

Glen said nothing. He knew it was the truth.

“Do you want her to move away?” I asked, looking for some response. I would take any response at that point.

“I think if she’s old enough to get pregnant,” he said, “she’s old enough to deal with the consequences.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Eleven-year-olds can get pregnant, Glen.You think an eleven-year-old should deal with the consequences?”

“She’s not eleven.”

“Don’t you care that she’s leaving?”

“She would have left for college anyway,” he said, most likely with one of his c’est la vie shrugs.

I hung up. I couldn’t remember ever hanging up on anyone before in my entire life, but I could no longer tolerate his inability to confront difficult situations head-on. That’s what had cost us our marriage. I wasn’t going to let it cost me my daughter.

I got online to e-mail Lucy regarding Shannon’s latest plans and discovered a message from Ethan.

The police found Bruno Walker’s sister. She said he’s on a solo sailing trip around the world. The cop I spoke with said they’ll find him and “cut his trip short.”

And they questioned Dad.

See you tonight.

CHAPTER 30

Julie

1962

I loved to ride my bike around Bay Head Shores, but Lucy never felt very steady on hers. She would ride on our end of the dirt road, and that was about it. One day, though, I told her that if she would ride her bike to the corner store with me, I would buy her penny candy. She loved those strips of button candy, and I could tell she was tempted.

“It’s too far, though,” she whined.

We were sitting on the sand in our front yard, our bikes parked in the driveway.

“How about this,” I said, coming up with a way to shorten the trip. “We can walk our bikes across the blueberry lot, and that will cut off about a fourth of the distance.” It would probably be an even harder trip doing it that way, since we would have to carry our bikes over the deepest sand, but my suggestion seemed to work.

“All right,” she said, getting to her feet. She shuffled barefoot toward her bike, afraid of stepping on one of the holly leaves that sometimes blew over from the Chapmans’ yard. I had to admit, the points on those leaves hurt, but Lucy looked like a spaz walking that way.

We walked our bikes more easily than I’d anticipated across the blueberry lot, but I was perspiring anyway by the time we got to the street on the other side. We mounted our one-speed, low-to-the-ground bikes and began riding in the direction of the store, dense woods on either side of us. Although there were no cars on the road, Lucy still hugged the shoulder, causing her tires to slip off the pavement and into the sand from time to time, but I didn’t say a word. When we neared the corner of Rue Lido, she held her left hand up in a turn signal even though there were no cars in sight, and I had to stop myself from laughing. I didn’t want to discourage her from making this trip again.

We pulled into the lot next to the little store and parked our bikes. Inside, I bought eggs and milk for our mother, candy buttons and root beer barrels for Lucy, licorice lace and Mary Janes for myself and a pack of teaberry gum for Isabel, because I knew she liked to use it to cover up the fact that she’d been smoking. I put the bag containing our purchases in my bicycle basket and we got back on the road.

We were on the long stretch of Beach Boulevard when I heard the sound of a truck somewhere behind us. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Lucy was well to the side of the road and saw that she was practically riding in the woods. Then I saw the vehicle that was making the noise: It was the mosquito truck, coming toward us, just ahead of a dense fog of DDT.

The mosquito truck drove through Bay Head Shores every week or so. I liked the smell and I liked the way you could run through the cloud of insecticide with a friend, unable to see one another until you emerged on the other side. We were naive to the perils of DDT back then. If Lucy had not been with me, I would have welcomed the thrill of finding myself smack in the path of the truck, but I knew she would not.

“Hey, Luce!” I called behind me. “The mosquito truck is coming. Let’s pretend we’re in the sky inside a cloud.”

I had barely finished my sentence when the truck drove past us. The driver either didn’t see us or didn’t care that we were there, and we were instantly engulfed in the chemical fog.

“Help!” Lucy called. “Ack! Help!”

“It’s okay,” I shouted back to her. I didn’t want to stop. It was too exciting. I couldn’t see the road ahead of me. It was like riding my bike with my eyes closed, which I did occasionally when I knew I was someplace safe.

“Julie!” Lucy’s voice had grown fainter, and I figured she must have stopped and gotten off her bike.

I turned my bike around and rode back the way we had come, but even though the fog was lifting, I couldn’t see her on the road.

“Lucy?” I called.

“I’m over here,” she said. “I went over the handlebars.”

Then I spotted her in the woods, half sitting, half lying down. I jumped off my own bike, tossing it to the ground, and ran through the fog to reach her.

“Lucy!” I dropped to my knees next to her. “Are you hurt?”

She was flailing at the fog with her hands, her eyes squeezed shut, and I looked at her legs and arms, afraid I might see bones jutting through the skin. Except for a nasty scrape along the length of her forearm, she looked okay.

“Open your eyes,” I said. “C’mon. The fog’s almost gone.”

She opened her eyes, but she was crying, trying to catch her breath, and I figured she’d been holding it to avoid breathing in the spray. Now she was forced to drink in the odorous air in big gulps. Looking down at her wounded arm, she let out another scream. It was ugly, a two-inch-wide band scraped raw along her forearm, dots of blood breaking through here and there.

“It’s okay,” I said, but she held her arm to her as if it were a fragile thing and let out a wail.

I knew I was not going to be able to persuade her to get back on her bike. The fog was thinning, and I tried to find a landmark to tell me how far we were from the house. There were woods on both sides of the road but I could see the opening to the blueberry lot a distance ahead of us.

“Get up, and we’ll walk our bikes home,” I said. “We’re not that far.”

She peered down the street, then shook her head. “I don’t want to touch my dumb bike,” she said.

Where was her bike? I looked around, finally spotting it several yards away from where she’d landed. She must have flown over those handlebars, and I felt sorry for her. She was lucky a scraped arm was all she’d suffered.

“Okay,” I said, “then we’ll leave the bikes here and walk home.”

Sniffling, she got slowly to her feet.

“You’re an old lady in a girl’s body,” I told her, helping her up. “Grandma has more energy than you.”

“Shut up,” she said.

We heard the sound of another vehicle on the road and Lucy gave me a look of alarm before running a few feet into the woods.

I turned around to see a red car heading toward us. “It’s only a car,” I said. Then I realized what car it was: Ned’s red Corvette convertible! “Hey!” I called to Lucy. “It’s Ned!”

Lucy came out of the woods and stood by my side, still cradling her arm. I waved as Ned stopped the car in front of me. Bruno Walker was in the passenger seat, and the radio poured “Cryin’ in the Rain” into the air all around us.

Bruno grinned at me. “Hey, good-lookin’,” he said, and I wasn’t certain if he was being serious or just teasing me, so I kept a half smile on my face which I figured would work either way.

“What’s going on, Jules?” Ned asked. I liked that he used Isabel’s nickname for me.

“Lucy crashed into the woods on her bike,” I said.

Ned turned off the engine and he and Bruno got out of the car. They were both tan and gorgeous, slender Ned with his softlooking blond hair and Bruno with his sexy black ducktail and muscular build. I didn’t think there were two better-looking, non-movie-star guys in the universe and I wished I was with one of my Westfield girlfriends instead of with my little sister.

“Are you okay, Lucy?” Ned asked.

Still sniffling a bit, she stuck her arm out for him to look at. He held it gently in his hands, studying the injury, and for a moment, I wished it had been me who had fallen off her bike.

“It’s not broken, is it?” he asked her, carefully moving her arm this way and that.

Lucy shook her head. “Just bleeding,” she said.

“Not much blood,” Ned stated the obvious. “Your mom just needs to clean it up and put a bandage on it.”

I stood right next to Ned, feigning my own interest in Lucy’s arm but really just reveling in the cigarette-and-Coppertone smell of him.

Bruno had found Lucy’s bike in the tangle of weeds and vines at the side of the road. He lifted it up over his head as if it were made of feathers and set it down on the road, studying the front wheel as he moved it back and forth. A cigarette hung from one corner of his mouth, and I could see why some of the girls thought he looked like Elvis Presley. His eyes had that hooded look to them, and his lips were thick and pouty.

“You fucked up your bike pretty good,” he said to Lucy.

“Hey!” Ned said sharply. “Cool the language.”

I was both shocked and thrilled by his use of the forbidden word. I watched as he carried the bike to the back of the car and opened the tiny trunk. It didn’t look like either of our bikes would fit in there, but he managed to get them both in partway, cushioning the Vette’s shiny red paint with beach towels at Ned’s request. The trunk would have to stay wide-open, but we were only going around the corner. He handed me the bag of things we’d bought at the little store.

“Well,” Ned looked at his car with its two bucket seats. “Lucy, you sit on Bruno’s lap, and Julie, I’ll share my seat with you.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I couldn’t have dreamed up a better scenario. Ned sat far to the left of the driver’s seat, and I squeezed in next to him. My body was inescapably pressed against his. My legs were crammed into the passenger side along with Bruno’s and Lucy’s, but I was very comfortable.

Ned drove slowly so the bikes wouldn’t bounce around, and I wished we’d had farther to go.

“How’s that gorgeous older sister of yours?” Bruno asked me as we turned onto Shore Boulevard.

Why don’t you ask Ned? I wanted to say, but figured that wouldn’t be appreciated. Every time I saw Bruno at the beach, he said something to me about Izzy. He had a thing for her, that was clear, and I wondered if Ned had figured it out.

“She’s fine,” I said.

“She’s fine, all right.” Bruno laughed, holding his hands in front of his chest—as best he could with Lucy on his lap—and I realized he was alluding to Isabel’s breasts.

“Knock it off,” Ned said to him. Then he spoke to me. “Hey, Jules, I have something for you to give her.”

I wasn’t surprised when he reached down to the floor of the car and came up with the toy giraffe. He handed it to me, and I cradled it on my lap.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked. She reached for the giraffe with her uninjured arm, but I held the toy away from her.

“It’s for Isabel,” I said, and she withdrew her hand.

“Izzy and I appreciate your tight lips, Jules,” Ned said.

I twisted my neck to try to get a look at his face. The sun was a bright star in each lens of his sunglasses. I thought I would treasure that moment forever.

We pulled into the Chapmans’ driveway. I saw our car in our own driveway and knew that my mother and Isabel were home.

“You know,” I said to Ned, putting on the most grown-up voice I could manage. “If Bruno went with you, I think my mother would allow Isabel to go in your boat. Safety in numbers and all of that.” I’d heard my father use that term when he talked about Isabel going out with a crowd.

“Oh, yeah?” Ned exchanged a look with Bruno. Lucy walked across the yard, sliding her feet through the sand, holding her arm, already working up the tears she would show our mother.

I nodded. “Want me to ask?” I asked him.

“Would you?” he said. “If she can, you can send her over. Otherwise, come tell me yourself, okay?”

I nodded and tried not to look like a jerk as I walked carefully between the holly leaves that littered his yard.

In our living room, I found Isabel folding the clean laundry while my mother and grandmother clucked around Lucy and her arm. They painted it with Mercurochrome, which I knew had to sting like the devil, but to Lucy’s credit, she held her arm still and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Izzy,” I said, handing her the giraffe, which she quickly buried in the pile of clothes in the laundry basket. “Ned wants to know if you could go for a boat ride with him and Bruno.”

Isabel gave me a sharp warning look before turning back to the laundry.

“Bruno’s going, too,” I repeated.

My mother unwound a long piece of gauze from a box in the first-aid kit. She snipped it from the box with scissors, then looked over at us.

“I suppose that would be all right, Isabel,” she said. “Just a short ride, though. After you finish the laundry.”

“I can fold the laundry,” I said.

Isabel looked at me in astonishment. I had somehow, miraculously, won her a ride in the boat with Ned and was offering to take over her task, as well. I knew she wondered what I was up to, but she was so happy at the turn of events that she didn’t bother to ask me.

“Thanks,” she said, either to me or my mother, I was not sure which. Surreptitiously, she took the giraffe from the laundry basket and walked toward the porch. I knew once she was outside, she would break into a run.

I folded the laundry, burying my face in its clean smell as I tried to imagine what was happening in Ned’s yard. Izzy and Bruno and Ned would climb into his boat, and maybe something would change on that ride. Maybe she would notice Bruno’s handsomeness. He had certainly noticed her beauty. Maybe she’d realize that, compared to Bruno, Ned was a little dull.

I knew it was wrong to pray for small things, but I couldn’t help the prayer that ran through my head. Let Isabel forget about Ned and fall in love with Bruno. If that happened, then maybe Ned would realize what a wonderful girl I was. I knew he saw me as a kid and that if he were free, he would probably find some other girl his own age to date, but my fantasies ran rampant. I couldn’t bear that Isabel had him when I wanted him. He wasn’t perfect. He smoked cigarettes and I had the feeling he drank a bit too much when he was out with his friends, but maybe the love of a good woman—even if she was only twelve—could change him.

CHAPTER 31

Julie

There was not a single solitary sexual thought in my mind as I sat at my kitchen table stuffing giant pasta shells for the dinner I would serve Ethan. What had happened to my lusty yearning from the other day? It was gone. A fleeting hormonal aberration. I not only lacked desire, I didn’t care that I lacked it. It was almost a relief. I wouldn’t have to worry how I looked nude. My hips were bigger than they should be from too many days in front of the computer. My breasts seemed to hang a little lower every time I looked in the mirror. I didn’t have to worry about all that if I didn’t care about sex. But I was worried that I might have given Ethan the wrong idea during our last, faintly suggestive phone conversation.

An hour later, though, when I opened the front door to find Ethan standing on my porch, a bunch of flowers in his hand, the blue of his eyes matching the color of the sky behind him and his soft voice telling me how beautiful my neighborhood was, my body suddenly reacted as if it belonged to a twenty-year-old. I wasn’t sure how I would make it through dinner without dragging him upstairs to my bedroom.

I gave him a hug, and the press of his body against mine only intensified my feelings. I let go of him with a smile.

“I am really happy to see you,” I said.

“Me, too.” He leaned over to kiss me gently on the lips. “Do you have a vase I can put these in?” He held the flowers out to me.

I found a vase for the flowers and set them on the table on the porch. It would be cool enough to eat out there this evening.

In the kitchen, he looked at Shannon’s framed senior picture resting on the windowsill.

“This has to be your daughter,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, as I opened the oven door to peek at the pasta shells.

“I see your family in her,” he said. “That exotic beauty.”

I glanced at him as I closed the oven door. “She looks a lot like Isabel,” I said.

“I don’t remember Isabel well enough,” he said, grinning at me. “I only had eyes for her little sister.”

I smiled, handing him a knife and pointing him toward the cutting board. “Would you slice the tomatoes, please?”

We worked together easily in the kitchen. He seemed as comfortable in my house as he had been in his own. His selfconfidence was sexy to me. The way he touched my arm when I walked past him was sexy. Everything about him was sexy to me tonight.

We didn’t talk about anything heavy over dinner. I wanted to know about his father’s interview with the police, but that could wait. I didn’t want anything to break the mood, and he seemed to feel the same way. We sat at the table on the screened porch, eating in the fading light. I talked about what it was like growing up in Westfield, and he talked about learning carpentry as a teenager. Listening to him talk, I felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. I wanted to stand up, lean across the table and kiss him. I wanted to unbutton the buttons on his blue plaid shirt.

I made it through dinner and was carrying plates to the sink when Ethan came up behind me, put his arms around me and kissed my neck. My insides melted and I barely managed to set the dishes on the counter without dropping them.

“I’m so glad you’re back in my life,” he said, his lips against my ear.

I briefly remembered my mother’s words entreating me to disregard his “overtures.” Sorry, Mom, I thought, as I leaned back against him. I lifted his hand to my lips, letting his forearm brush against my breast.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said.

We made love for what seemed like hours. I’d had no lover other than Glen for the past thirty years, and although the newness of being with Ethan was alluring, so was the familiarity I felt with him, the sense of having known him for a very long time. It wasn’t until afterward, when we lay comfortably in each other’s arms, that we finally broached the topics that weighed heavily on each of us.

“So,” I said, smoothing my hand across his chest, “tell me about your father’s talk with the police.”

Ethan pressed his lips to the top of my head, and I pulled closer to him. I loved the feeling of being cradled in his arms.

“He didn’t seem all that upset, actually,” he said. “I was relieved. But you know, he’s an amazing guy. He can still turn this switch and get back in his old judge-and-lawyer mode to handle a situation. He said he’s sure he satisfied their doubts about Ned’s alibi.”

“That’s good,” I said. I would not mar the moment with my own thoughts about Ned’s guilt. What mattered most to me right then was that Ethan no longer seemed worried about his father.

“I think they went easy on him,” he said. “And they would probably go even easier on your—” He stopped talking, lifting his head from the pillow. “Did you hear something?” he asked. I raised my own head to listen. There might have been some movement in the hallway outside my room, but I wasn’t sure.

“Mom?”

I was up in an instant. “Oh, shit!” I whispered, using a word that rarely passed through my lips. “It’s Shannon,” I said, uncertain whether to reach for my jeans or run to my closet for my robe. I opted for the jeans, balancing on one foot as I pulled them on.

“Mom?” Shannon knocked on my door.

“Just a minute, Shannon,” I said. “I’ll be right out.”

Ethan was up and dressing, too.

“Stay here, please,” I whispered to him as I pulled my T-shirt over my head. I opened the door and walked, braless, into the hallway.

I found Shannon in her own room sorting through her bookshelves, putting some of the books into a cardboard box on her bed.

She looked over at me. “Were you asleep?” she asked. “Your hair’s a mess.”

“Yes, I took a little nap.” I combed my fingers through my hair. I felt winded as I sat down on the corner of her bed. “It’s good to see you,” I said.

“Did you have friends over for dinner?” she asked. “I smell tomato sauce.”

“Yes,” I said. “I made stuffed shells and there’s plenty left if you want to take some with you.”

“Maybe I will, thanks,” she said. She looked at the hardcover book in her hand. “I came over to start packing,” she said.

“Packing?”

“For my move.” She didn’t look at me as she returned her attention to the bookshelf. “It’s still a few weeks away, but I thought I should start going through my stuff.” She pulled out a book, looked at the title and slipped it back onto the shelf again. Her belly seemed to have grown enormously in the past few days.

“Shannon,” I said, “have you really thought this move through?”

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past few months, Mother.” I hated it when she called me Mother.

“Please don’t go, honey,” I pleaded. “Please. At least stay here until after you’ve had the baby.” I was not going to let this happen. I wondered if there was something I could do legally to keep her here.

“I want to be with my baby’s father, Mom,” she said, pulling out a book and dropping it into the box. “That’s the way it should be.”

“When can I meet him?” I asked. Maybe I could reason more easily with him than I could with my daughter.

“I was thinking about that,” she said. “It might be better if you didn’t meet him right now, since you’re so—”

There was a slight thud from the direction of my bedroom, as if Ethan had bumped his knee on the dresser in the darkness.

“Daddy?” Shannon looked up, her eyes suddenly those of a hopeful child. She started for the hallway and I quickly grabbed her arm.

“Daddy’s not here,” I said, shocked that she might think that was a possibility.

“Then who’s in your bedroom?”

I thought of lying, of pretending she had imagined the sound, but I knew that was not going to work.

“Mother,” she said. “Who is in your bedroom?”

“I have company,” I said awkwardly. “Ethan Chapman.”

I thought she was going to hit me. The look she gave me was nothing short of murderous.

“How could you do that?” she asked. “I leave and you start screwing around? You and Dad haven’t even been apart that long. You’re not giving getting back together a chance!”

“There is no chance of us getting back together, Shannon,” I said. I felt terrible that she’d been nursing that fantasy for the past two years and I hadn’t known. “Ethan is an old friend, someone I feel very close—”

“Shut up!” She put her hands over her ears. “Just shut up.”

She pushed past me and ran down the hall. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall as I listened to her race down the stairs and out of the house, and I only jumped a little bit when the front door slammed shut behind her.

CHAPTER 32

Lucy

I was playing the violin in the turret room of my apartment, trying to learn a piece the ZydaChicks hoped to perform next season, when I heard thumping on the stairs. Except for my violin practice, the house I lived in was always quiet. My neighbors were not the type to have friends who would clomp up the stairs, so I stopped playing and listened, knowing that if the thumping continued to the third story, it was someone coming to see me. Sure enough, I heard the footsteps reach my landing, and I pulled the door open before my visitor even had a chance to knock.

Shannon burst into the room, her face red with bottled-up tears that exploded as soon as she threw herself onto my couch. I was frightened by her demeanor. I thought something was wrong with the baby, or that Tanner had broken up with her, or that Julie had been hurt in an accident. I knew that sort of thinking was more like Julie’s than mine, but I couldn’t help myself. Something traumatic had happened, and Shannon was sobbing so violently that she couldn’t get the words out.

“Tell me,” I said, sitting down next to her, grasping her hand. “What happened?”

She shook her head, nearly hyperventilating, tears flying from her cheeks. I thought I was going to start crying myself. Anything that could hurt my niece that badly was bound to hurt me, too.

Finally she caught her breath long enough to speak.

“I went home,” she said, “to Mom’s…to start packing and I heard this noise coming from her bedroom and I thought maybe Dad had come over and they were…” She shut her eyes. “You know, having sex. But it wasn’t Dad.” She looked at me. “It was that Ethan Chapman guy.”

Relief washed over me, followed quickly by a joy I did not allow to show on my face. All right, Julie! I thought. You go, girl!

“And that’s what has you so upset?” I asked.

“I’m angry.” She pulled her hand from mine to punch it into my sofa cushion. “I’m furious at her. She was a shitty wife to Dad and then she makes this like, totally major dinner for someone else and then actually has sex with him. She never appreciated Daddy, and it pisses me off to see her treating some other man like he’s a god or something. Ethan Chapman, Ethan Chapman. She hasn’t shut up about him since she saw that letter.”

I hurt for Shannon. I knew the divorce had been hard on her—harder, I thought now, than any of us had realized. She loved both her parents—her hardworking, worrywart of a mother and her reserved and gentle father—and as much as the end of the marriage had been a surprise to Julie, it had been a far greater shock to Shannon. She’d cried for a month when Glen moved out, and I knew she’d blamed Julie then, just as she was blaming her now. Julie took on that blame rather than say anything that might tarnish Shannon’s feelings about Glen. I was not feeling quite that noble.

“What has your father told you about why he and your mother got divorced?” I asked.

Shannon leaned back against the couch with a groan, looking at the ceiling.

“Not this again,” she said. “I’m sick of talking about it, and it doesn’t matter. He said he still loves her, but she was too wrapped up in her work. Mom never got it…that her marriage was more important than her stupid Granny Fran. If she’d figure that out, they could get back together.“

“Your dad said that?”

“Not exactly, but I think it’s obvious,” she said. “He never dates. I think he’s just waiting for Mom to get her priorities straight and put her stupid career second instead of first all the time.”

I was starting to get angry myself and had to work to keep my voice level. “Her stupid career bought you your car, your cello lessons, your summers at music camp, and is going to pay for your college,” I said. “Or at least, it was going to pay for your college.”

She rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling again. She’d figured out whose side I was on.

“Listen to me, Shannon,” I said. “I understand how much you love your parents and want them to get back together, but that’s little-girl kind of wishful thinking. It’s not going to happen. And although your mother may have spent more time working than was healthy for her marriage, that divorce was in no way her fault. Your mother loved your dad. Try to remember the things she did do for him. The surprise trip to France, because she knew how much he loves it there? How she canceled part of her book tour to nurse him through pneumonia that last year? How she stuck little love notes to him all over the house? And who did the cooking, even though she was working all day just like he was?”

Her face was turned away from me, but I saw her swallow hard.

“And she did all of that in addition to making a really beautiful home for him.Yes, she was busy with her work, but so was he.Your mother wasn’t a bad wife.” I steeled myself, knowing I was coming close to blowing her world apart. “The truth is,” I said, “your father had a typical midlife crisis.”

She turned her head to look at me then, frowning. “No, he didn’t,” she said.

“Yes, he did.” I was emphatic. I wondered how much I should tell her. “Your mother has let you blame her for everything, but your father was the one who wanted to end the marriage. He wanted to—”

“Are you saying he cheated on her?” She was obviously prepared to argue that point with me. There was a deep furrow between her eyebrows.

I hesitated. “I think that he should be the one to talk to you about that, not me.”

“I don’t believe it.” She folded her arms across her chest, on top of her ever-expanding belly.

“Yes, he had an affair,” I said. “The woman he was seeing called your mom to fill her in. Do you know what that did to your mother? Do you care? Her heart was torn out. Imagine if someone you loved…imagine if you suddenly found out that Tanner, who you obviously trust and who is your friend, if you suddenly realized he was seeing someone else behind your back. Imagine that pain. Then multiply it by a thousand, because that’s what it was like for your mother.”

Shannon stared at me, stunned. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me that?” Her voice was quiet, a whisper.

“Why do you think?” I asked.

“So I wouldn’t turn against Dad?”

“Of course.”

She looked away from me, gnawing at her lower lip. “I can’t believe Dad could do something like that,” she said.

“He’s human, Shannon. It doesn’t make him evil.” Glen would kill me. Julie might, too. “He was going through a screwed-up time and sometimes people think an affair will solve their problems. But the bottom line is that your mother is not in love with him anymore. She was hurt too badly and that trust is gone, and I think it became clear to both of them that they weren’t right for each other any longer. The main thing they still have in common is that they love you, and they always will. Your mother’s struggled the past couple of years, trying to learn how to be a single woman again when she’d expected to be married to your father for the rest of her life. Finally she’s met someone who’s both a friend and a…romantic interest. Let her have that, Shannon. She needs that companionship. Please don’t be selfish.”

The tears were back in her eyes again, but they were soft tears this time, just lying along the base of her thick lower lashes. “Do you think I’m selfish?” she asked.

I hesitated. “I think it’s normal for someone your age to be wrapped up in herself,” I said. “Which is why it’s usually hard for a teenager to be good mother material. You’re really going to have to work at it if you keep this baby.”

She blinked, and one of the tears trailed slowly down her cheek.

“I told her I didn’t want her to meet Tanner,” she said.

“Well,” I said as I brushed the tear away with my hand, “why don’t you fix that?”

CHAPTER 33

Julie

Last night, two amazing things happened. While talking with Ethan on the phone, I complained about my writer’s block and how Granny Fran’s latest adventure was eluding me. He asked me to tell him about the story, and I found that as I described the problem I was having with Chapter Four, I began to get excited about writing the scene. It was a relief to talk about something unrelated to Isabel’s death or Shannon’s pregnancy for a change, and I was grateful to him for the inspiration. I knew I had to be cautious, though. Writing had always been my refuge, and I didn’t want to use it as my escape any longer. I wanted to find a balance between my life and that of my characters. It was time for me to let reality in.

The second amazing thing was a phone call from Shannon in which she’d apologized for her reaction to discovering that I was seeing—and sleeping with—Ethan.

“It’s okay with me if you want to date,” she said. “I’m sorry I made a scene.”

I wondered where her change of heart had come from but decided to enjoy it rather than analyze it.

“Thank you, hon,” I said. “That means a lot to me.”

“And I want you to meet Tanner when he gets here,” she added.

“And I want to meet him,” I managed to say.

We decided to have a barbecue at my house once Tanner arrived so that he could meet my mother and Lucy and me all at once.

“Would that make him uncomfortable, though?” I asked. “I mean, would he be overwhelmed having to meet so many people at one time?”

“No, Mom.” A little of her usual testiness was back in her voice and I knew our truce was fragile. “He’s very cool about social situations and stuff.”

“Okay,” I said, and then I ended the conversation, afraid that if I dragged it out too long, we could move into dangerous territory—such as her proposed move to Colorado—and lose the ground we were gaining.

So I felt good as I drove to Bay Head Shores to visit Ethan this morning. Since it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, the Parkway was not clogged with traffic, but I wouldn’t have cared one way or another. I would have made that drive to spend twenty minutes with him, if that’s all the time either of us could spare.

Ethan had told me that his father would be visiting him, so I picked up sandwiches at the deli for the three of us, wondering what it would be like to see Mr. Chapman again after all these years and what safe topics we might find to talk about. The day was lovely, if too hot, and the smell of the sandwiches in the bag on the passenger seat was enticing. The only twinge of anxiety I felt was when I turned onto Shore Boulevard and spotted the canal between two of the houses on my right. It was an involuntary reaction, a little twisting of something in my gut, but it had nearly disappeared by the time I reached Ethan’s house.

I saw a car behind Ethan’s truck in his driveway and assumed it was his father’s, so I parked in front of the house on the street. As I got out of my car, I noticed that a plump, dark-haired woman was sweeping sand from the stoop in front of my old bungalow. How many hundreds of times had I performed that same task on that same front step?

“Hi!” I called, waving with a bit too much enthusiasm.

She looked up and returned my wave, an uncertain smile on her face as she resumed her sweeping. She probably thought I was strange.

I started to knock on Ethan’s front screen door, but I could see straight through the house to his backyard and spotted him and his father sitting near the fence, facing the canal. I went into the house, dropped the sandwiches on the tiger-maple counter in the kitchen and walked outside. They didn’t see me as I approached and my eyes were drawn to the yard next door, where two little boys played noisily in the circular, above-ground pool under the shade of the oak tree. It bothered me that the mother was sweeping out front instead of in the yard watching them. Something could happen to them in a heartbeat.

“Hello!” I called as I neared the men.

Ethan stood when he saw me. Smiling, he moved forward, his hands on my arms as he planted a kiss on my cheek. “Good to see you,” he said.

Mr. Chapman was getting to his feet. It appeared to be a struggle for him.

“Don’t get up,” I said, walking toward him. He was already standing, though, and he took the hand I offered in both of his, his smile warm and kind. His fingers trembled as he held my hand. He seemed so much older than my mother. I understood why Ethan had wanted to protect him from Ned’s letter and the resulting investigation.

“Little Julie Bauer,” Mr. Chapman said. “How good to see you. You’ve grown into a handsome woman. Hasn’t she, Ethan?”

Ethan grinned at me. “Extremely handsome,” he said. He dragged a chair through the sand and set it behind me. “Have a seat,” he said.

“It’s good to see you, too, Mr. Chapman,” I said as I sat down, and the elderly man lowered himself once more onto his chair. “I was very sorry to hear about Ned,” I added.

“Thank you,” he said with a nod. He was wearing sunglasses in dated, horn-rimmed frames and I wondered how long he had owned them.

“How was the drive?” Ethan asked. He was still standing, leaning against the back of his chair, arms folded across his chest. He had on his jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt, Chapman Joinery stitched in red across the pocket. He looked terrific.

“No problem at all,” I said. “I brought sandwiches and left them in the kitchen.”

“Great,” Ethan said. “You hungry, Dad?” He raised his voice a little when he spoke to his father, and I guessed the elderly man was hard-of-hearing.

“Sure.” Mr. Chapman nodded.

“Shall I get them?” I started to stand up, but Ethan put his hand on my shoulder.

“Stay here with Dad,” he said. He took our drink orders and left me alone with his father.

“Well, Julie.” Mr. Chapman folded his hands across his belt buckle. He looked relaxed now that he was not having to exert himself physically. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself, haven’t you?”

“Oh, a bit,” I said, smiling. I shifted my chair a few inches in the sand, ostensibly so that I could see Mr. Chapman better, but I really wanted to keep an eye on the two unsupervised boys in the pool next door.

“I see your books at the library and always tell the librarian, ‘I knew that author when she was just a little girl,’” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I bet you don’t know it, but I remember you the best of your siblings,” he said.

“Really?” I was surprised. “How come?”

“Because you—” he pointed one long, slightly gnarled finger at me “—you had the most spunk of the three of you,” he said.

“You think so?” I asked. I thought that Isabel had had the most spunk of the three of us, but I wasn’t prepared to dive into the subject of my older sister.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “And you were the smart one, too.You always had a book in your hands and you weren’t afraid of anyone or anything.You went over there—” he waved his hand toward the opposite side of the canal “—with the blacks and befriended them. Who else would do something like that? No one living on this side of the canal, that’s for sure,” he said, answering his own rhetorical question.

“I got in a lot of trouble for it,” I said. The boys next door were riding on a big, blow-up alligator, and they yelped with glee as they splashed water out of the pool with the wake they created.

“You tried to figure things out for yourself and I liked that about you,” Mr. Chapman said. “I know that was hard to do in your family, but you weren’t the sort to simply accept your parents’ values without questioning them first.”

I’d had no idea he had been observing me so keenly when I was a child, and although I couldn’t help but enjoy the compliments, I knew my “spunk” had turned out to be more of a liability than an asset.

“My parents were very conservative,” I said. I reached down to slide off my sandals, then dug my toes into the warm sand.

“Especially your father,” Mr. Chapman agreed. “And you were willing to buck him, weren’t you? You were a lot like your mother that way.”

My mother never bucked my father, as far as I knew, but I didn’t bother to say that. This conversation was social, and I didn’t need to delve into my family’s dynamics with him.

“I always forget that you and Mom were friends when you were kids,” I said. The sun was hot on my arms. I’d put on sunscreen before leaving the house, but I would have to borrow more from Ethan if we sat out here much longer.

“Yes, we were good buddies, just like you and Ethan were,” he said. “It’s nice you two are back to being friends again.” He looked out at the canal. Not a single boat had passed by us since I’d sat down. “I’d like to be friendly with your mother again,” he said, “but she doesn’t even want to talk to me.”

I hesitated, not sure what to say. “You know, Mr. Chapman,” I began, “it’s just that anyone from those days reminds her of a very difficult time for our family.” Well, there. We were into the subject now, and it was my own doing.

“Yes,” he said. “I realize that. Have the police spoken with her yet?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“It must be very hard for your family to have this opened up again,” he said.

“Well, and yours, too,” I said.

A fishing boat, loaded with men and gear, glided north through the water in front of us, probably headed for the inlet. We watched it in silence for a moment.

“Do you think Ned killed your sister?” Mr. Chapman asked, and I was taken aback by the directness of the question.

I looked toward my old yard again. The boys were quieter now, their heads bobbing below the edge of the pool where I couldn’t see them, then popping up again. They were probably playing the “who can hold his breath the longest” game. I hated that game. I’d forbidden Shannon ever to play it, a rule I’m sure she broke many times when I was not around. What kid wouldn’t?

“I don’t know what to think, Mr. Chapman,” I said. “I can’t imagine what else he might have meant in that letter to the police.”

He licked his dry, chapped lips. His face looked gaunt to me and I wondered if he were ill, although Ethan had denied that.

“I think Ned’s letter may be one of those things we’ll never be able to figure out,” he said.

“Could Ned have slipped away during the time you said you and he were together that night?” I asked, trying not to sound accusatory.

Mr. Chapman looked disappointed that I’d asked the question and didn’t respond. He licked his lips again, looking out at the water.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m just trying to puzzle it out.”

“He was with me at midnight,” he said. “That I know for certain. And that’s when you said…it happened.”

“Well, I was never completely sure of the exact time,” I said.

“Ned was with me out here,” Mr. Chapman said. “We were watching a meteor shower. And then he went to bed. It had to have been long after midnight by that time. Besides, what possible motive did he have? He adored your sister.”

I couldn’t tell him my suspicions about his son’s relationship with Pamela Durant. I would have to trust that the truth would come out in time.

“I guess you’re right,” I said.

I was relieved to hear the screen door bang shut as Ethan walked into the yard, and I stood quickly to help him. He was balancing three full glasses, stacked plastic plates and the sandwiches on a tray. I handed Mr. Chapman his glass of cream soda.

“I remember how you used to zip around the canal in your little runabout,” he said, as Ethan and I sat down and began to eat. “Back and forth, between here and the bay.”

“That’s as far as I was allowed to go,” I said.

“I bet you grew into a hellion of a teenager,” Mr. Chapman said. He did not seem to be hungry. He had not touched his sandwich.

“Well,” I said, “I really didn’t. After Isabel died, I became a lot more afraid of things.”

Mr. Chapman looked saddened by that news. “That’s a shame,” he said.

“She won’t even go in the boat,” Ethan said.

“No?” Mr. Chapman inquired. “Oh, you should. I’m leaving after lunch and I think the two of you should take a ride. It’s a beautiful day, not at all crowded on the water.”

“How about it?” Ethan raised his eyebrows at me.

“No, thanks,” I said. Next door, the boys climbed out of the pool and ran into the house, and I was relieved to be able to give up my self-imposed lifeguarding.

“You’ve got yourself labeled again, don’t you?” Mr. Chapman said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, you used to call yourself ‘the Nancy Drew Girl,’” he said. “‘The Adventure Girl.’ Now you’re ‘the Scared Girl.’ You don’t have to stay that way, you know.”

“He has a point,” Ethan said.

It was strange the effect Mr. Chapman’s few simple words had on me. You don’t have to stay that way.

“Maybe I’ll go,” I said, not quite ready to commit to the possibility but suddenly ready to consider it.

Mr. Chapman left right after lunch, and Ethan and I stood in the front yard, watching him drive away.

“You ready for that boat ride?” Ethan asked, putting his arm around me.

I made a face that clearly said I don’t think so.

“How did you feel when you were a kid and went out in your boat?” he asked.

I thought about it for a minute. “Free,” I said. “Until that last night. That changed everything.”

He used his arm to turn me around and we headed through his side yard toward the dock. “That was 1962,” he said. “It’s a new century now. Come on.”

I let myself be led to the edge of the dock. Ethan began to untie the boat from the hooks on the bulkhead. I watched, remembering how my runabout’s damp, fibrous rope used to feel in my fingers. Grandpop had taught me many different knots. I bet I still remembered them all.

Ethan was on the other side of the dock. “Go ahead and hop in,” he said. “I’ll be right in after you.”

I looked down at the boat’s camel-colored interior. It swayed slightly on the wake of a motorboat that had just passed through the canal, and watching the seats move up and down made me light-headed. But I did it. I sat down on the bulkhead, caught the gunwale with my bare feet and slipped in. My heart was pounding as if I were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I lowered myself quickly to the front passenger seat and clutched the side of the boat.

Ethan jumped into the boat with ease and took his seat behind the wheel. The smell of oil and gasoline mixed with the scent of the water. I used to like that smell. I breathed it in, wondering if I could learn to like it again.

“You okay?” Ethan smiled at me.

I nodded.

Putting the boat in Reverse, he backed into the canal, then took off in the direction of the river. I was quiet and anxious, one of my hands still holding on to the side of the boat as we approached the new—to me, anyway—Lovelandtown bridge. This bridge was higher than the old one and the pilings were much farther apart, so that we sailed beneath it with ease. We passed houses that were unfamiliar to me, having been built or remodeled since the last time I’d traveled the length of the canal, and I welcomed that unfamiliarity. We exited the canal and sped into the open water of the Manasquan River. The hot, damp air whipped my hair around my face and a spray of water cooled my eyes, and I found that those sensations brought back not the night I lost my sister, but rather the hours upon hours of fun I’d had in my little boat.

I studied Ethan’s face as we cut across the surface of the water. In his profile, I could still see the boy who’d dissected crabs and kept eel guts in alcohol and lay on his stomach in the reeds, examining marine life in the shallows. Who could have guessed I would be here with him now, enjoying him, wanting him, loving him?

I swallowed hard, suddenly hoping that Ned would not be found responsible for Isabel’s murder after all. It was going to hurt Ethan far too much.

He glanced over at me and smiled.

“You’re lovin’ this, aren’t you,” he said. It was not a question.

I moved closer to him, putting my arm across the back of the seat.

“I’m lovin’ you,” I said into his ear, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.

CHAPTER 34

Julie

Two nights later, my mother, sister, Ethan and I gathered at my house for a barbecue, the main purpose of which was to meet Tanner Stroh. I’d told everyone to arrive at six. It was now six thirty-five, and Shannon and the guest of honor had not yet arrived. I felt wound up as the minutes ticked by. If someone touched me in the wrong spot, I was going to unravel.

I carried the bowl of potato salad from the kitchen out to the porch. My mother sat at the head of the long, glass-topped table, slicing a few of the beautiful Jersey tomatoes she’d plucked from her garden and arranging them on a platter next to lettuce leaves and pickle slices. Outside on the patio, Ethan, who was wearing a blue-and-white-striped apron he’d brought with him, turned chicken and burgers on the grill. Lucy stood near him, nursing a glass of beer and chatting. I could tell she liked him—she’d given me a barely concealed thumps-up sign the moment he walked in the door—and I was glad.

My mother had greeted Ethan warmly in spite of the fact that I knew she had not wanted me to nurture a relationship with him. She seemed her usual feisty self tonight, which relieved me after the somber way she’d reacted to the news of Ned’s letter the other day.

“Do you think it’s too warm to eat outside?” I asked her now. It had seemed cooler earlier, but I was probably in the midst of a hot flash.

“It’s fine.” She transferred the last tomato slice to the platter and set the knife on the cutting board. “What time did you tell Shannon to come?” she asked.

“Six,” I said, lifting the cutting board and knife from the table.

“This young man of hers is going to make a poor impression, strolling in here late.” She took a sip of beer from the glass in front of her. She always said she liked to drink a cold beer about once a year, and apparently tonight was the night. “I can’t wait to grill him,” she said. She actually rubbed her hands together, as if she was talking about devouring some choice morsel of food, and I had to laugh.

“Well, let’s try not to be too obvious about it,” I said over my shoulder as I carried the cutting board into the house.

I was back on the porch with the hamburger buns when I heard a couple of car doors slam out on the street.

“Maybe that’s them now,” I said, placing the plate of buns on the table.

I heard voices in the side yard, and then Shannon appeared on the patio holding the hand of a tall, slender man. Mom and I walked outside to greet them. Tanner Stroh looked freshly showered with short, neatly cut dark hair. He wore khaki Dockers and a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt in a muted blue pattern. There was a preppy look about him that I knew would be a turnoff to Lucy but which offered me some small bit of reassurance.

He held his hand toward me. “Hi, Mrs. Sellers,” he said. “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m sorry we’re late.”

“Not a problem,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’m glad to meet you, too.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that I’d been expecting him to have numerous body piercings, baggy pants and long greasy hair. He did not look like the artsy sort of guy Shannon was usually drawn to, but he was an attractive man nonetheless. Way too old for her, though. His hair was actually beginning to recede and I could see creases at the corners of his eyes.

Introductions were made all around, and I caught Shannon giving Ethan the same sort of scrutiny that I was giving Tanner, a fact which, I had to admit, made me smile. Everyone shook hands and uttered greetings in a respectful interchange. Tanner was cordial and courteous, and I thought of Eddie Haskell, the kid on Leave it to Beaver who hid his sociopathic tendencies behind impeccable manners.

The food was ready. Ethan brought the platter of burgers and grilled chicken onto the porch and Lucy and I took drink orders. Tanner wanted a beer; Shannon, lemonade. I would be sure to monitor Tanner’s alcohol intake. I realized it would be more than three years until Shannon could legally join him in a drink. She hadn’t even had her driver’s license for a year yet.

Once we were all seated at the table on the porch, it was my mother who got right down to the nitty-gritty.

“So,” she said, her attention squarely on Tanner. “How did you let this happen?”

Surprised, Tanner opened his mouth to speak, but Shannon rescued him. Even I felt ready to rescue him. My mother could sometimes lack tact.

“It was my fault, Nana,” Shannon said. “I forgot a pill.”

“It’s not the best way to start out a future together, Mrs…” Tanner blanked on my mother’s last name.

“Bauer,” she said.

Tanner nodded. “Mrs. Bauer,” he said. “But I love Shannon and we’re going to do our best to have things work out.”

“She’s my only grandchild,” my mother said, “so I’m going to hold you to that.”

“I promise,” Tanner said, looking uncomfortable for the first time since his arrival.

“Where are you from originally, Tanner?” Ethan tried to shift the conversation to something neutral.

“Southern California,” Tanner said. “My family’s still there.”

“How do they feel about…” I waved my hand through the air, encompassing both him and Shannon. “About everything,” I said.

He hesitated. “They’re not happy about it,” he said, and I respected his honesty, “but they’ll accept Shannon. They’ll love her once they meet her.”

Where would he and Shannon spend their vacations? I wondered. With his family or with hers? East Coast or West? Would I ever get to see my daughter?

“Shannon said you’re working on your doctorate,” Lucy prompted him.

“Yes.” Tanner added a second slice of tomato to his burger. “It’s sort of my own independent study program. Part history, part social science.”

“Have you started your dissertation?” Lucy asked.

He nodded. “It’s on the children of Holocaust survivors meeting the children of Nazi perpetrators. I’m half German and half Jewish, so the subject had a natural fascination for me.”

“Wow,” Lucy said, with genuine interest. “How cool.” She engaged him in one of the intellectual, academic discussions that she adored, and her enthusiasm was matched by Tanner’s. Ethan added his own contribution; he’d recently seen something about the children of the Nazis on the History Channel, and my mother talked about a Holocaust survivor who was a regular customer at McDonald’s. Shannon piped in from time to time, showing that she knew something about the topic herself and that their relationship was not just about sex. Why, oh why, couldn’t he be a decade younger or Shannon a decade older? I would have felt so much better about the entire situation.

I seemed to be the only person at the table who could think of nothing to say about Tanner’s dissertation. My mind was elsewhere, and when there was a long enough lull in the conversation, I spoke up.

“Tanner,” I said, “I think Shannon really needs to stay here at least until the baby is delivered and she has her feet on the ground and gets into the routine of caring for—”

“Mother.” Shannon nearly stabbed me with her eyes. “We’ve already discussed this.”

“I’ve got a doctor lined up for her, Mrs. Sellers,” Tanner said, wiping his lips with his napkin. “I have some money put aside that will hold us until I’m out of school and teaching. We’ll be okay. I know it’s upsetting to you, and I was sort of upset, too, at first. I thought Shannon was a lot older when I met her. She looks older, she acts older. She’s so intelligent and…” He looked at my daughter and smiled. “She’s amazing.”

Shannon smiled back, almost shyly. He was gaga over her, of that I was certain, but I didn’t think he had a clue what he was getting himself into.

“Mom said your daughter got pregnant when she was my age, too,” Shannon said to Ethan.

I winced, but Ethan seemed undaunted.

“She did,” he said. “She was sixteen, and her baby was adopted by a wonderful couple who couldn’t have kids.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Shannon said.

“Well, her situation was different.” Ethan took a sip of his beer. “She didn’t have a real relationship with the boy. She’d been out with him a couple of times and on this particular occasion, he forced himself on her.”

“Date rape?” my mother asked, and I was surprised she even knew the term.

“Exactly,” Ethan said. “Abby was afraid to tell us at first, but she did and we helped her press charges against the boy. He had to serve time and do some community service.”

“At least we don’t have that problem,” Shannon said, for my benefit, I thought. See? she was saying. Things could be worse.

I liked what was happening. Not the topic of conversation, of course, but I liked the fact that we were sitting around like adults, talking. I liked that Shannon was, for the most part, not acting in an openly hostile way toward me. I knew now that I owed that to Lucy, that they’d been talking. I didn’t know what Lucy had said to her, but I was grateful to her for saying it, whatever it was. I tried to look at Shannon in a new light, as an adult, but no matter how hard I tried, she still looked like a pregnant child to me.

The conversation continued through dessert, and only when we’d finished eating and everyone was helping me clear the table did I realize that my mother had grown very quiet. She hadn’t said a word while we’d eaten our ice cream and cake.

I watched her as she stood at the counter, transferring the left-overs into plastic containers, and I leaned over to speak into her ear, “Are you okay, Mom?” I asked.

She nodded. “Beer makes me tired, though,” she said. “I think I’ll go home.”

She’d walked the two blocks to my house. It was still fairly light out, but I didn’t want her walking home alone if she wasn’t feeling well. I studied her color, which was her usual healthy olive tone, pink-tinged by her time in her garden.

“Why don’t you take a nap here and one of us will drive you home later?” I suggested.

“All right,” she said, setting down the lid for the container she’d filled. I was surprised that she gave in to me without a fight.

“Bye, Nana!” Shannon, oblivious to the conversation, plowed between us to give her grandmother a hug. “We’ve got to go.”

“Goodbye, darling,” my mother said, hugging Shannon tightly and kissing her cheek.

We all said goodbye to the couple, Lucy the only one able to muster up a sincere hug for Tanner, and once they were gone, I turned to my mother again.

“You can use my room,” I said. I was reminded of the other day when I’d told her about Ned’s letter. She was behaving the same way now as she had then. “Do you want me to come with you?” I offered.

My mother didn’t respond. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, shaking her head slowly back and forth. She was actually scaring me.

“Mom?” I said, with enough concern in my voice that Lucy and Ethan turned to look at us.

“Nobody said one word tonight about Shannon and her cello,” my mother said. There were tears in her eyes. “As long as that girl’s been able to speak, all she’s ever cared about was music. And tonight it was like that part of her didn’t exist.” She pointed toward the door through which Shannon and Tanner had made their exit. “That boy cares about himself and his own…his Nazi children, or whatever they are,” she said, waving a hand through the air. “I bet he’s never even asked to hear her play.”

Lucy tried to put an arm around her shoulders, but our mother brushed it away.

“I’m tired, Lucy,” she said. “I’m going to take a nap. Then maybe later you could drive me home.”

“Of course,” Lucy said, dropping her arm to her side.

Ethan came to stand next to me, and we watched my mother disappear down the hallway.

“Whoa,” Lucy said. “What’s with her?”

I remembered Shannon as a little girl. She didn’t want to listen to the funny little songs that other kids found entertaining. “I wanna hear YoMaMa!” she’d say, cracking Glen and me up.

“She’s right,” I said. “No one said a word.”

CHAPTER 35

Maria

1944

Date Rape.

I knew many people my age ridiculed that term, believing it was a way of pinning the rap on a boy when a girl later had regrets, but I embraced the concept, because it eased my guilt about what happened toward the end of the summer of 1944.

That was the first summer that Charles spent his weekdays in our new home in Westfield while I remained at the bungalow with my parents. Charles was doing his residency at a veterans’ hospital, choosing it over pediatrics because he was passionate about continuing to serve his country in whatever way he could. The war permeated every aspect of our lives, from the constant newscasts on the radio to the rationing that affected our food and our gasoline and nearly everything else we needed to exist.

I’d considered staying in Westfield with Charles, only going to the bungalow during the weekends as he did, but he insisted there was no point in my staying in the heat of the suburbs when he would be able to spend so little time with me there. His hours were long and grueling, but he loved what he was doing and the contribution he was making. I was very proud of him, yet I missed him during the week. I missed sleeping next to his warm body and our long, happy conversations about the future. We’d talk about the children we would have and all the things we wanted to be able to provide for them. And we made love, though not as much as I would have liked. I knew he was tired, but I often wondered if I simply had a stronger sex drive than most women. My friends and I never talked about that sort of thing, so I was not sure if I was normal.

My parents had developed a thriving social life as more people who were tolerant of my mother’s heritage moved to Bay Head Shores, so they were often out having fun, and my old girlfriends were either working or busy with new babies. Many of their husbands were enlisted men, some of them fighting in Europe. I knew I was lucky that my husband was safe on American soil. But without Charles or my friends around, I was lonely, and loneliness could be a dangerous thing. In the fall, I would begin my second year as a teacher, but that summer was nothing but one lazy day after another. I read a great deal and thought about Charles and had far too much idle time on my hands.

One weekday night when my parents were out, I was on the porch reading A Bell for Adano when I spotted Ross sitting alone on the bulkhead in his backyard. Dusk was quickly falling, and I could see the burning tip of his cigar. He’d flick the ashes into the canal from time to time, and I felt mesmerized by the red glow arcing through the darkness.

I watched him smoke for the longest time, my book forgotten. I imagined how his mouth would taste—like wood and leather—and then, as if on automatic pilot, I stood up from the rocker and walked outside. I let the screen door slam behind me so he would not be surprised when I appeared in my own yard.

I walked toward the canal and sat down on the bulkhead, bending my legs and wrapping my arms around them. The water was as smooth as gelatin, and the reflection of the nearly full moon was a brilliant white disk floating on its surface. I was perhaps four yards away from Ross, and although he had put out the cigar, the scent of it was still strong in the air.

“Beautiful night,” I said, turning to look at him. I could see him more clearly than I’d expected, the moon was so bright. His eyes were on me, his hand rubbing his jaw lightly as if he were deep in thought.

“It is,” he agreed.

“How come you’re able to be here during the workweek?” I asked.

“I took the summer off from law school to be with Joan and the baby,” he said.

I turned to look back at their darkened bungalow. “Where are they tonight?”

“Joan has some friends in Brielle,” he said. “She took Ned over there for a visit.”

“Ah,” I said. He, too, was alone.

“I imagine it’s hard not having Charles here during the week,” Ross said.

“Yes,” I said. “But it could be worse. He could be overseas.” I thought of how, without Charles at the bungalow, I felt like the single girl I used to be, ready to go to Jenkinson’s at night with my gang of friends or to the movies with a date.

Ross stood up and stretched, and for a moment, I feared he was going to go into his house. But he walked toward me and my head felt light as he sat down next to me, letting his legs hang over the bulkhead.

“I’m glad you found someone like Charles, Maria,” he said. “His politics are screwy, but he’ll be able to lift you up. Your social status, I mean. The wife of a doctor.”

“That was not why I married him,” I said.

“No, of course not,” Ross said. “But that’s a nice bonus for you.”

“I really don’t care about that sort of ‘bonus,’” I said.

He smiled. “You’re still a feisty one, aren’t you.” He lifted his hand to my chin, turning my head toward him. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Not just…you know, the physical part of our relationship. I’ve missed you. All of you. The friendship we used to share.”

I wasn’t certain how to answer. Did I miss him? Yes, I did, but it was the physical part of our relationship I missed. Charles met my needs for adult conversation and companionship, but there was a puritanical quality to his infrequent lovemaking that left me wanting more. I longed for the stolen, impassioned sex Ross and I used to enjoy in the blueberry lot.

“I miss…” I gently pushed his hand away. “I miss things I have no right to miss,” I said.

Ross glanced toward my house. “Where are your parents?” he asked.

“Out,” I said.

He stood up and held out his hand. “Come with me,” he said.

I stood up, not stopping to think, and took his hand, which was smoother than Charles’s, the skin softer, cooler. I had almost forgotten the feel of it. We walked through my small yard, then along the path between our two houses and past the bedroom window through which I used to escape to meet him. We continued down my short, packed-sand driveway and only then did I admit to myself where we were headed. I felt the cool orange dirt beneath my feet as we crossed the narrow road, and then we were on the white, moonlit sand of the blueberry lot.

“We shouldn’t do this, Ross,” I said.

He didn’t reply, and I didn’t let go of his hand. I could feel my heartbeat—or perhaps I was feeling his—where our hands were pressed together. The delicious sense of doing something forbidden and daring propelled us, as it always had, and soon he was pulling me down inside the half circle of blueberry bushes. He plucked a few of the berries from one of the bushes and held them to my lips. I took them in, rolling them around in my mouth before biting into them. I would never again be able to taste blueberries without feeling the rising tide of guilty pleasure.

He lay me back in the sand, then leaned over to kiss me. Briefly I thought of Charles, of how the feral hunger I felt in my body at that moment was something he had never experienced from me. I returned Ross’s kisses as I unbuttoned his shirt. He took off my blouse, my shorts, my bra, my panties, leaving me nude and aching with desire for him. I felt the moonlight reflect off my skin as he sat back on his heels to look at me.

“I’ve missed your beautiful body,” he said. He leaned over to run his tongue across my nipple. “Joan has a boy’s body,” he said. “Even when she was pregnant, she had no breasts to speak of.”

The words were his mistake. At the mention of Joan, my body went cold. I could not do this to her. I could not do it to Charles.

Ross pressed his thigh between my legs to spread them apart, and I gripped his thigh with mine to stop him.

“Let’s not do this, Ross,” I said.

“Don’t be crazy,” he said. Somehow, he’d managed to get both his legs between mine. I felt the pressure of his penis against my pubic bone.

“Ross, I mean it,” I said, trying to squirm out from beneath him. “I don’t want to do this.”

He drew back slightly, letting his penis find its mark. No matter how desperately I wanted to keep him from entering my body, the earlier hunger I’d felt had left me wet and vulnerable, and he slipped inside me effortlessly. Furious, I pushed down on his shoulders. I bit his collarbone and dug my fingernails into his back. My attempts to stop him only seemed to increase his ardor, and he thrusted harder and deeper, his breath ragged in my ear. I started to cry, my body going limp, my own breath coming out in small gasps.

“Please, Ross,” I begged. “Please stop.”

He finished quickly, and for that much I was grateful. He pulled out of me, then rolled onto his back, and I sprang to my knees as I searched the sand for my underwear.

He caught my arm as I picked up my bra. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t get dressed yet.”

I stared down at him, incredulous. “I told you to stop,” I said.

“I didn’t think you meant it,” he said.

I swatted his chest with my bra. “I did mean it. You forced yourself on me.”

“Maria,” he said. “Come on. You were an animal. Just like you used to be.”

“I was trying to fight you off.” My voice broke.

“If you really wanted to fight me off, you could have.”

“You’re a thousand times stronger than I am,” I said.

“I don’t remember any objections when I kissed you,” he said. “Or when I undressed you.”

He was right, and I was so filled with shame that I wished I could rewind the night back to the moment I spotted him from my porch. I would have chosen differently if I’d taken two seconds to think about Charles and Joan—and the little baby, Ned.

I put on my brassiere while he watched.

“Let me do that for you,” he said, when I struggled with the hooks.

I stood up, nearly leaping away from him as I tossed my blouse on over my unfastened bra.

“Are you really upset?” He sounded perplexed.

“Yes!” I said. “I’m extremely upset.”

I pulled on my shorts; I could not find my panties.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up. He reached for my ankle and missed. “I’m very sorry, Maria,” he said. “Honestly.”

I ran through the lot, kicking sand behind me, and I didn’t stop until I was in the bungalow. I sobbed as I heated water on the stove to bathe in. I wanted to clean any trace of Ross Chapman from my body. I changed into my robe, shook the sand out of my hair, then stood barefoot in the kitchen watching the water slowly warm up. I felt crazy. Insane. And I repeated over and over again, “I’m sorry, Charles, I’m sorry, Charles.”

I never really got over that night or forgave myself for it. Even at eighty-one years of age and with the knowledge that what happened could well be considered date rape, I would sometimes still wake myself up in the middle of the night, chanting that phrase of apology and guilt.

CHAPTER 36

Julie

1962

I knew the day everything went wrong. It was August fifth, a Sunday. It was also the day Marilyn Monroe died.

That morning after church, all of us except Isabel took our seats at the porch table, ready to dig in to our usual hearty Sunday breakfast.

“Isabel?” My mother leaned back from her chair so she could see into the living room. We would not be allowed to start in on the eggs and bacon and rolls and crumb cake until my older sister was at the table and grace had been said.

We heard Isabel’s bare feet skitter across the linoleum in the living room. She zipped onto the porch and sat down in the chair next to me.

“Marilyn Monroe is dead,” she announced, just as we all reached for one another’s hands to say grace.

“What?” My mother took Lucy’s hand in hers. “What are you talking about?”

“I just heard it on the radio,” Isabel said. “She killed herself.”

“Oh, what a shame,” my grandmother said.

My father made a sound of disgust. “It figures that she would die committing a sin, since that’s the way she lived,” he said.

“How did she kill herself?” I asked, curious.

“I don’t want to hear about it!” Lucy plastered her hands over her ears and hummed loudly as my sister started to answer.

“Not now, Isabel,” Grandma said. “Lucy doesn’t want to hear it.”

I knew little about Marilyn Monroe, only that she was blond and beautiful and extremely sexy. Men swooned over her and women envied her. Why would someone like that kill herself?

“Let’s say grace,” my father said, reaching for my hand on one side of him and my grandmother’s on the other. We bowed our heads, reciting the words by rote, and then settled down for some serious eating. My father was the chef on Sunday mornings and his scrambled eggs were always doctored with onions and peppers and tomatoes. Sunday breakfasts were one of my favorite times with my family.

“Tonight,” Grandma said as she cut her eggs with the side of her fork, “Grandpop and I want to take you girls to the boardwalk.”

I whooped with joy, but I wasn’t surprised when Izzy begged out.

“Thanks, Gram,” she said, “but I already have plans.”

“Will you come, too, Mom?” Lucy asked.

My mother poured herself a second cup of coffee. “No, honey,” she said. “I’ll stay home and catch up on housework.” It would be years before I realized how much my mother probably welcomed an occasional respite from having us all underfoot.

It wasn’t until halfway through the meal that the topic of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide came up again.

“Girls,” my father said, “there’s a lesson in Marilyn Monroe’s death.”

“Daddy.” Lucy set down her juice glass and looked at him indignantly. “We’re not supposed to talk about it now.”

“You’re not too young to know these things,” he said to her. He looked at me, then at Isabel. “She lived in sin in many, many ways. Not only didn’t she care about how she was hurting God, she didn’t care about how she hurt other people, either.”

“I don’t think she was that bad, Charles,” Grandpop said as he buttered his second hard roll.

“Look at the facts,” Daddy said. “She had affairs with married men. Many of them. She broke up marriages. She posed…without clothes on for calendars and magazines.”

“They found her nude,” Isabel added, and my father shook his head, as if to say See what I mean?

“Probably the worst thing she did was have abortions,” he said. “Several of them.”

I cringed. I’d been taught so well by my father. How could any woman take the life of her unborn child?

“What’s an abortion?” Lucy asked.

“You don’t need to know that.” My mother sent my father a look of exasperation above Lucy’s head.

“And many people believe that she’s been having an affair with President Kennedy,” my father added.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” my grandmother said. “You’re filling these girls’ heads with rumors.”

“I believe it’s true,” Daddy said, tapping his fingertips on the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m sorry to say it, but I believe Jack Kennedy’s capable of breaking his marriage vows, and Marilyn Monroe was certainly capable of tempting him to do so. Nothing good could come of the sort of behavior she was known for.”

I thought of my impure thoughts, reassuring myself that they were mild in comparison to the things Marilyn Monroe had done.

“I heard about a girl who cheated on her husband.” Isabel had one elbow on the table, her hand holding a piece of crisp bacon that she waved a little in the air as she spoke. “She went off on a vacation with her boyfriend and they were in a helicopter and when they got out of the helicopter, the propeller was spinning around and it cut off her head.”

“Oh, Isabel!” my mother said.

“I am not listening to another disgusting word!” Lucy got up, lifted her plate from the table and carried it into the house.

But Isabel, as usual, had won my father’s affection. He looked across the table at her, nodding.

“Exactly,” he said.

My father was so blind. I wished I had the guts to tell him that Isabel and Ned met on the platform in the bay every night. My attempts to push Bruno and Isabel together had failed so far, and on those nights when I snuck out on the boat, there they were—Isabel and Ned, hugging and kissing…and much, much more.

My father left for Westfield later that afternoon and I saw that Wanda and her family were still on the other side of the canal. They usually fished only in the morning, but the weather was cool and I guessed they had simply decided to make a day of it. I thought I would join them.

I got my fishing gear from the garage, then walked around the side of the house to grab a dry towel from the clothesline. Isabel’s wonderful giraffe towel hung there among the plain old beach towels. I assumed that Izzy was already at the beach, so as long as I returned the towel to the line before she got home, she would never know that I’d borrowed it. I tossed the towel over my arm, then headed around the house to the backyard.

My fishing line had snapped the last time I’d used it, so I sat on one of the Adirondack chairs to repair it. Next door, Ned, Ethan and Mr. Chapman were in their boat in the dock. I could see the tops of their heads and I could hear conversation, some of it heated, but I could not make out the words.

Suddenly Mr. Chapman’s voice rose. “I said no!” he shouted.

Ned yelled something back at him, his words unintelligible.

“Go in the house, Ethan,” Mr. Chapman said, and I guessed that Ethan was either being punished for something or—more likely, from the sound of it—the conversation was not meant for his ears. I buried my head close to the fishing line, pretending to be engrossed in my task in case one of them glanced in my direction, but I was actually straining to hear what was being said.

Once the door to the Chapmans’ porch had slammed shut behind Ethan, Mr. Chapman spoke up again. “You’re not going to see her tonight,” he said.

Curiosity and hope welled up in me. If I couldn’t break Ned and Isabel up, maybe Mr. Chapman could. My nose was so close to the fishing line that I could smell the briny scent emanating from it.

“If you’ve known all this time,” Ned said, “why are you cracking down all of a sudden?”

Mr. Chapman lowered his voice, and although I leaned my head a few inches closer to their yard and pushed my hair behind my ear, I could not hear what he said. Their conversation lasted only a few more minutes before Mr. Chapman went into the house. I felt sorry for Ned. I knew what it was like to be chewed out and how powerless and angry it could leave you feeling.

I had long since finished working on my fishing line, so with the excitement over next door, I carried my pole and bucket and the giraffe towel to my own dock. I descended the ladder and was about to jump into the runabout when I heard Ned softly call my name. I peered over the bulkhead to see him walking toward me, and I dropped everything into the boat and rushed up the ladder to the sand.

I started to call hello to him, but he put his finger to his lips.

I nodded. I understand, I was saying to him. He didn’t want his father to hear.

He waited until he was right next to me before he spoke again, his voice very low. “Is Izzy home?” he whispered. He glanced toward his house as though afraid his father might be watching him. I could just about smell the fear on him.

“No,” I said. I looked at his hands expecting to see the toy giraffe, but he didn’t have it with him. “She’s gone to the beach with Mitzi and Pam, I think.” I watched his face to see if the mention of Pam sparked any reaction in him, but he barely seemed to notice. I was one-hundred-percent certain George had either mistaken someone else for Ned that day in the river or else he’d just been teasing me.

“I was wondering if you’d give her a message for me?” Ned asked.

“Sure.” I would do anything for you, I thought. It was great that he was talking to me on a Sunday. My hair always looked pretty and wavy on Sundays because I washed it and set it for church. I wondered if he noticed how good it looked. I tossed it over my shoulder as we talked, hoping the gesture was as sexy as I thought it was.

“Tell her I can’t see her tonight, okay?” he asked.

I nodded. I felt so adult. So proud to be trusted with their secrets. “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’ll tell her.”

“Thanks.” He reached toward my head and I gritted my teeth, expecting him to tousle my hair as if I were a kid, but instead, he rested his hand on the back of my head and looked into my eyes. “You’re the most, Jules,” he said.

I wanted to stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. It would have been easy. He was so close, so handsome. But I kept my bare heels glued to the sand and simply smiled at him, acknowledging the compliment. Then I headed for the ladder once again.

I was still elated by the thrill of his touch a short time later, as I cast my line into the water from the other side of the canal. I’d hung Isabel’s towel over the fence in front of me so that the giraffe was watching us with his big, long-lashed eyes. Wanda loved the towel so much that I wished I could give it to her.

“You ever seen one of them for real?” she asked me, pointing to the giraffe.

“Sure,” I said. “At the zoo in New York. Haven’t you?”

“Uh-uh,” she said, and as we started fishing, I began hatching a new plan. I could save some money and take Wanda—and maybe George, if he was nice to me—on the train to New York and we could spend the whole day at the zoo. If Wanda had never seen a giraffe, she’d probably never seen an elephant or a rhinoceros or any other wild animals. It would be so much fun to introduce her to that whole new world. I was trying to figure out how I could get away from the house for an entire day when George interrupted my thinking.

“So,” he said as he baited his hook, “why’s your big sister’s boyfriend talkin’ to a raggedy little child like you?”

I guessed he had seen Ned and me talking in my yard.

“He happens to think I’m the most,” I said, my nose in the air.

“The most what?” he asked, laughing.

I ignored him. “What if someday soon, the three of us go to the zoo in New York?” I suggested.

“How you gonna get your daddy to let you do that?” Wanda asked, and George shook his head.

“You two on your own,” he said. “I ain’t gonna get my ass caught taking some white girl across the state line.”

Our banter went on that way for nearly an hour, with me plotting our trip and the two of them telling me why it wouldn’t work. Salena and the men were a distance away from us, and I could hear them singing along with the songs on the colored radio station they listened to. Nothing was biting, but none of us minded.

The canal provided plenty of entertainment with the Sunday swarm of boats in all shapes and sizes. A few of the taller ones rocked in place in front of us as they waited for the bridge to open and let them through. More and more of the larger vessels clogged the canal, and finally, the bridge began making its familiar clanking sound as the roadway above the water slowly swung open. I wasn’t used to seeing the bridge from that side of the canal, and I was watching in fascination when a speedboat pulled up alongside the bulkhead right in front of me.

“Hi, Julie!”

I looked down, surprised to see Bruno Walker sitting below me in his boat.

“Hi, Bruno,” I said. His nearly black ducktail was a bit windblown which made him look even sexier than usual, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. You could see every bulging muscle outlined beneath his tan skin. Even lifting his cigarette to his mouth was enough to turn his arm into a brawny network of hills and valleys.

“What are you doing over here?” He looked at Wanda, then George, then back at me again. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses and he could barely mask the surprise in his eyes at finding me fishing with colored people.

“Fishing,” I said, not answering the question he was really asking. “These are my friends, Wanda and George. That’s Bruno,” I said, nodding toward him.

Wanda and George said nothing. They knew my world did not mesh well with theirs.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Bruno said. His boat bobbed on the wake of a passing ship, but he held it steady in front of us. “Are you and Isabel real close?”

I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said. “Why?”

“How serious do you think she is about Ned?”

Although the boat ride I’d arranged for my sister, Ned and Bruno didn’t seem to have sparked the triangle I’d been hoping for, I could see another possibility opening up in front of me. “I think she’s losing interest in him,” I said.

“You don’t say.” He barely moved his lips when he spoke, like the words weren’t very important to him. But I knew that was just his style, and I grew bolder.

“You should talk to her about it,” I suggested.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I’m her type.”

“Well, maybe she hasn’t really figured out her type yet.” I sounded like Dear Abby, giving advice to the lovelorn.

“It’s hard to get to talk to her, though,” he said. “I hardly ever see her without Ned or one of her girlfriends around.” He was playing right into my hands.

“I know how you can talk to her alone,” I said.

“How?”

“Sometimes around midnight, she swims out to the platform in the bay and just sits there, thinking,” I said. “She likes that alone time, you know? Just to think about things.” Isabel actually hated being alone. I was really talking about myself, how I relished my time in the runabout on the bay at night. But it didn’t matter. This conversation was not about the truth.

“That’s weird,” he said. I doubted Bruno was the type to appreciate moments of quiet introspection, either. He and Izzy would be perfect for each other.

“She just likes to be alone sometimes,” I repeated with a shrug. “You could find her there tonight. Then you’d be able to talk to her without anybody else around.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Ned’s a good buddy.” He looked toward the open Lovelandtown bridge, the sun in his gorgeous green eyes as he gnawed his lower lip. It was funny to see such a powerful guy look so unsure of himself. “It’s a neat idea, though,” he said, nodding as the plan grew on him. “She goes almost every night, you said?”

“Uh-huh. And I’m sure she’ll be there tonight.”

“Why are you so sure?” he asked.

“It’s Sunday night,” I said. “Dad goes home to Westfield on Sunday, so she always feels a little freer.You know, like she won’t get caught.”

“Well, thanks, Julie,” he said. “You’re okay.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

He looked behind him to see if it was safe to pull away from the bulkhead, then waved as he took off, heading toward the bridge. When the sound of Bruno’s boat could no longer be distinguished from all the other sounds on the canal, George turned to look at me.

“You up to no good, girl,” he said.

I never gave Isabel the message from Ned. Lucy and I went to the boardwalk with our grandparents that evening, and Izzy went out with some of her girlfriends. I knew that she would eventually leave them to meet Ned on the platform. Her curfew was eleven-thirty, but I doubted she’d bother coming home first, because she knew Mom would be asleep by then. I was excited about my plan and it was all I could think about as I rode the merry-go-round and Tilt-A-Whirl and ate the cotton candy Grandpop bought us. I thought I was so clever.

After we got home from the boardwalk, I went upstairs with Lucy to wait for her to fall asleep. I lay on my own bed, rereading The Clue in the Jewel Box behind the curtain, but I couldn’t read more than a sentence before my mind turned to Isabel and what might happen at midnight. I hoped Bruno would come on a little smoother than he usually did. I pictured him pulling the boat up to the platform, saying, “Isabel, is that you?” as though he was surprised to see her. I hoped he would act surprised and not say something stupid like, “Julie told me I’d find you here.” God, if he did that, I’d kill him.

Then I imagined that Isabel would look over her shoulder toward the beach, wondering why Ned hadn’t yet arrived. Maybe it would make her nervous to have Bruno there as she waited. It probably would, because she wouldn’t want Ned to catch her with another boy. Maybe she and Bruno would talk for a few minutes, though, and she’d begin to relax. She’d realize that, for some reason, Ned wasn’t coming. Something had gone wrong with their usual arrangements. And maybe she would look at Bruno in a different way. There was only a little sliver of a moon out tonight, so it was unlikely she’d be able to see his pretty green eyes, but maybe she’d still be attracted to him. My fantasy did not go so far as to have her invite him onto the platform, but at least they would start talking. At least she would begin to compare him to Ned and, with any luck at all, find Ned lacking.

Lucy fell asleep quickly, as she often did when I was present, and I piled up the bedspread beneath the covers. Then I padded quietly across the attic floor and down the rickety steps.

Grandpop was already in bed—I could hear him snoring as I passed through the living room—and I joined my mother and grandmother on the porch for a game of canasta. I could not concentrate on the cards any better than I’d been able to on my reading.

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” my mother said, after I dealt twelve cards to each of us instead of eleven. It was the third or fourth mistake I’d made.

“I’m tired, I guess,” I said.

Grandma pressed her palm against my forehead.

“I’m not sick,” I said with a laugh.

“The two of you make a fine pair,” Grandma said, shaking her head. “Julie’s tired and Maria can hardly see.”

My mother’s eyes were red and teary. She’d told us that she’d shaken out a beach blanket before washing it and sand had blown in her face.

“I can see just fine,” she said. She sounded a little annoyed.

Grandma returned her attention to her cards. “I bumped into Libby Wilson at church this morning,” she said.

“Yes, I saw you talking to her.” My mother drew a card from the stock. “How’s she doing?”

“Oh, who knows,” Grandma said. “You never hear about how Libby’s doing from Libby.You just hear about everybody else’s problems, never her own.” She was talking fast, and I loved how cute and hard to follow her Italian accent could be when she was on a roll.

“What did you learn about everybody else’s problems?” Mom asked. She placed a four of spades onto the discard pile, then pressed a tissue to the corner of her red and watery left eye.

“Betty Sanders is sick again,” Grandma said.

“Oh, dear,” my mother said. “This is what? The third time. Do they think it’s…?” She let her voice trail off. People didn’t mention cancer in those days, as though speaking the word aloud might cause you to catch it.

I was trying to see my mother’s watch. It looked like it was around ten thirty-five, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Probably,” My grandmother placed four queens on the table in front of her. “But no one’s saying. They took all her female parts this time.”

“Ugh,” I said, my big contribution to the conversation. My mind was elsewhere and I didn’t know who Betty Sanders was, anyway.

“I’ll send her a card,” Mom said.

“Libby said that, last fall, Madge’s boy got arrested and you’ll never guess why,” Grandma said.

“Why?” my mother asked.

“Rape.” Grandma whispered the word.

“Oh, my goodness,” my mother said. “Is he in jail?”

“They couldn’t pin it on him because the girl was a tramp,” Grandma said. Then she nudged me with her elbow. “It’s your turn, Julie.”

“I think that’s terrible,” my mother said, as I drew a card from the stock. “Rape is rape, whether the girl is a tramp or not.”

I liked that they were talking about something to do with sex in front of me. I felt like I had crossed some kind of threshold when I got my period and was no longer considered a child in their eyes. I knew rape meant sex forced on a woman, but I couldn’t understand how that could happen. How did a man do that? How did he pry a woman’s legs open? Imagining sex—even mutually desired sex—was so hard for me. I remembered trying to force that tampon inside myself. It had been impossible. If sex was so difficult to accomplish to begin with, then how could rape occur?

“Well, she did have a reputation,” Grandma was saying. “Libby said Madge was furious that anyone would think her son would do something like that.”

My mother laughed. “And the last thing anyone wants to see is Madge Walker furious,” she said. “Remember the time her husband accidentally spilled a drink on her at the clubhouse?”

It took a moment for the name to sink into my distracted mind. Madge Walker.

“What’s her son’s name?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Grandma said. “But she only has one.”

Oh, my God, I thought. How many Walker families could there be in our tiny community?

“Bruce,” my mother said. She looked at Grandma. “That’s it, isn’t it? Bruce?”

“Maybe,” Grandma said with a shrug.

My heartbeat kicked into high gear and I stared at my mother’s face. She was concentrating on her cards, not making the connection between the Bruce Walker who was a possible rapist, and Bruno, the boy who hung around with Isabel’s crowd of friends. Mom had even allowed Isabel to go for a boat ride with Ned because Bruno was with them!

And now I’d sent him out to visit my sister, who would be alone with him, in the dark.

“So the police decided he really didn’t rape that girl, right?” I asked as I discarded a seven of clubs. I didn’t care what card I got rid of.

“The girl was…loose,” my grandmother said, “so they couldn’t prove it one way or another. Even though she had bruises. That’s why you always have to keep your reputation clean.” She wagged a finger at me.

“Well, even if it wasn’t actually rape—” my mother pressed a tissue to her eyes again “—he’s doing things he shouldn’t be doing.”

“It was rape,” my grandmother said. “Libby was sure of it.”

My grandmother and mother continued talking about the neighborhood gossip, while my mind drifted even farther away. I remembered how unsure of himself Bruno had looked on his boat that afternoon when I suggested he talk to Isabel. He’d seemed intimidated and vulnerable. A rapist wouldn’t look so unsure of himself, I thought. He had to be innocent. The girl probably lied just to get him in trouble. But when I went to bed for real at around eleven o’clock, I couldn’t sleep. Was there a chance I had set Isabel up to be harmed? Was she still at one of her girlfriends’ houses? Should I sneak out and try to find her? I wished I could use the phone, but it was on the living-room wall, too close to my parents’ bedroom.

I moved over to the other bed in my curtained cubicle so that I could peer through the window. It was as dark as dark could get; I could barely make out the canal. The water and the woods and the sky were all the same shade of navy-blue. I sat there, listening to the crickets in the woods next door, feeling my options slip away from me as the minutes passed. I suddenly remembered Bruno talking about Isabel in Ned’s car, using his hands in a wordless allusion to my sister’s breasts. Oh, God.

It would be all right, I told myself. Maybe Bruno wouldn’t even show up. Then Isabel would come home, angry with Ned. That would be good. Maybe that would be an even better outcome for me—until Ned told her he’d entrusted me with the message that he would not be able to meet her. I hadn’t thought about that, about how annoyed Ned would be with me when I said I’d forgotten to give her his message. That would probably mess up any tiny chance I’d had with him to begin with.

The word rape kept slipping back into my mind. Was Bruno really a rapist? I thought of the girl who’d accused him. She had bruises, Grandma had said.

I got off the bed, unable to stand it anymore. The clock on my night table read eleven forty-five. I’d spent too much time thinking and not enough time acting. I was going to the beach. I quietly descended the pull-down stairs, thinking that if the current was moving in the direction of the bay, I would take the boat. If not, I would run to the beach. I wished I could take my bike, but it was in the garage and if I opened the garage door, I would wake up everyone in the house.

I should get Ned, I thought as I walked onto our porch. I should admit to him what I’d done and have him go with me. This was important enough, serious enough, for me to come clean with him.

I quietly left my house, then raced across the sand to the Chapmans’ back door. I lifted my hand to knock, but hesitated. The Chapmans’ house was dark, not a light on. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t knock on the door, wake up his parents, and have to explain my stupid scheme to all of them. Certainly they would get my own parents involved and that would just waste time. I turned around, and although the night was very dark, I could see the outline of their Adirondack chairs, four in a row, as I ran back to my own yard and our dock.

The current was lazy, probably on its way to slack tide, but it was still pulling in the direction of the bay, and the water sparkled with phosphorescent jellyfish. I’d seen that glittery display of light before, but not yet this summer, and I decided it was a good sign, for no reason other than that I needed to think positively about what lay ahead. I untethered the boat and climbed down the ladder, then used the oars to push out of the dock.

The current caught the runabout and carried it slowly toward the open water of the bay. I sat near the motor, clutching the tiller handle to keep from being pulled against the bulkhead. How much time had passed since I’d checked the clock? Five minutes? Ten? The second I hit the end of the canal, I would start the motor and head toward the platform. Bruno probably wouldn’t be there yet if it was not quite midnight, and I would tell Isabel that I’d forgotten to give her Ned’s message. She’d get in the boat. I’d bring her home. And what if Bruno was already there? I’d make up something on the spot. Anything. I just wouldn’t let her stay there alone with him.

“Come on. Come on.” I urged the boat as it neared the bay. I was certainly far enough from the house to start the motor now. I pulled on the cord but received only a sputtering reply. I yanked again. And again. The motor was behaving as it had the day I took Wanda and George to the river, only this time I didn’t have George to get it started for me. I drifted into the bay as I fought with the motor. A slim finger of panic ran up my spine as the dark expanse of water surrounded me, and an unexpectedly stiff breeze pushed me away from the beach that was my destination. I had to get the boat started. I yanked several more times, my arm aching with the effort, my fingers burning, probably blistered. For a moment, I stopped pulling the cord. I looked in the direction of our beach, trying to see the platform. Without the sound of my sputtering motor, the air was quiet, blowing lightly and steadily into my face. And then I heard it: a scream.

I stood up, nearly toppling overboard, spinning my arms to stay upright. “Isabel!” I called, but I felt the breeze steal the words from my mouth and carry them behind me.

One more scream cut through the air, this time forming a word: “Help!” It was Isabel’s voice. I was sure of it.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Izzy!” I shouted. “Izzy!”

I dropped to my knees in the boat again, tugging with all my might at the cord to the motor. I was barely aware that I was sobbing—sobbing, shouting, calling for my sister—and all the while fighting with a boat that carried me deeper and deeper into Barnegat Bay.

CHAPTER 37

Lucy

1962

The moment I woke up in the attic, I knew I was alone. The reading light was on in Julie’s curtained bedroom, but the silhouette in her bed was a bulbous mountain that could not possibly have been her body unless she’d gained fifty pounds since the evening before. The windows were all open, the night sounds of crickets and lapping water sifting through the screens on a breeze. The curtains had not yet been pulled around Isabel’s bed and I could see that the white chenille spread was still tucked neatly beneath the pillows. I stiffened with the panicky feeling that was my companion when I found myself alone in the attic. I held my breath, trying to listen. Was someone behind the chimney that rose up through the middle of the attic? Or maybe in the bathroom, standing behind the curtain?

I tried not to lift my eyes to the ceiling, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. And there it was: the man’s head. I wouldn’t scream like I did that one embarrassing night. I was going to get out of there, but I wouldn’t scream like a baby while I was doing it.

I must have lain there for three or four minutes, my body paralyzed by fear, before I was able to sit up. I moved slowly and quietly, so as not to alert anyone who might be hiding behind the chimney or in the bathroom. I tiptoed to the door, but I nearly fell down the stairs in my race to get away from the attic. In the living room, I stood in the darkness, heart pounding. Where was everyone? The whole house was dark. What time was it? Julie was probably sleeping out on the porch, and Isabel must have stayed over at Mitzi’s or Pam’s house.

I walked down the hall and stood outside my parents’ room. Daddy was in Westfield, but I could hear the comforting sound of my mother’s even breathing. That was all I needed. I went back to the living room and lay down on the soft cushions of the sofa, inhaling the musty smell of the old upholstery as I drifted off to sleep.

“Lucy.” My grandmother’s voice woke me up. She stood in the living room with a pile of plates, ready to set the porch table for breakfast. “Did you sleep here all night?”

I opened my eyes, confused for a moment, then sat up on the couch. “Uh-huh,” I nodded. “Isabel wasn’t home and Julie slept on the porch.”

“What are we going to do with you?” she asked, walking out to the porch. I watched her glance in the direction of the bed. “Where’s Julie now?” she called back to me as she set the plates on the table.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She must have gone upstairs.”

“Go get her and tell her it’s breakfast time,” Grandma said. “Are you sure she slept down here? The bed doesn’t look like it’s been touched.”

Still feeling groggy, I climbed the attic stairs. Julie wasn’t in her bed. Her night-table lamp was still on and I walked behind her curtained cubicle to turn it off. I could see where she’d sloppily piled her bedspread beneath her sheet to try to fool me. I was not in the least worried. She’d probably slept on the porch, gotten up early and made the bed—which I had to admit was unusual for her—and then headed out to go crabbing or fishing.

I put on my bathing suit and pulled my shorts on over it, then went downstairs again. The morning smells of coffee and bacon were already strong in the air and I could see my mother taking her seat.

My grandfather carried a plate of bacon through the living room.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, tousling my hair with his free hand.

“’Morning, Grandpop,” I said, following him out to the porch.

“Where are Julie and Isabel?” My mother looked at me as I took my seat at the table.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought Isabel slept over at one of her friends’ houses.”

My mother frowned. “Whose house, do you know?” she asked. “I don’t remember giving her permission.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Is Julie upstairs?” my mother asked.

“Uh-uh. I thought she slept out here.”

My mother glanced at the bed, as my grandmother had twenty minutes earlier. I watched her frown deepen. “I made that bed the day before yesterday,” she said. “It looks untouched.”

Grandpop stood up so suddenly the table shivered as his thighs brushed against it. He was staring toward the dock. “The runabout’s gone,” he said. We all turned as he pushed open the screen door and walked into the yard. We watched him look right and then left when he reached the fence by the canal. From where I was sitting, I could see two small sailboats heading in the direction of the bay.

Grandpop walked briskly back to the house and onto the porch. “I don’t see her,” he said. I felt frightened by the worry in his voice, and I dropped my slice of bacon onto my plate, no longer hungry.

Mom stood up. “I’m going to call Mitzi’s house,” she said. “Although…” She looked puzzled, turning to Grandma. “Why would they both be missing? And the boat? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t get worked up,” Grandma said to her. “There’s a logical explanation, I’m sure.”

My mother called Mitzi’s house, then Pam’s. Isabel was not at either one, and the girls claimed not to have seen her since late the night before when she’d left Mitzi’s to come home. I watched as my mother hung up the phone after speaking with Pam. She was facing the Chapmans’ house, and although there were several walls between her and Ned Chapman, I knew that was who she was seeing in her mind.

She took off her apron and walked quickly out the back door. Grandma and I sat at the table, not touching the food. “We’re all getting worked up over nothing,” Grandma said.

Grandpop stood at the screen door, his gaze on the canal as he waited for my mother to return. In a moment, I saw her run across the yard toward our porch. I’d never seen my mother run before and I knew something terrible had happened.

Grandpop pushed open the screen door for her and she rushed onto the porch.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Ned hasn’t seen her since yesterday morning. And Joan Chapman said she was up at sunrise this morning sitting in their yard, and she noticed that our boat was gone even then. She thought you’d taken it out for an early fishing trip.”

I stood up, starting to cry, wringing my hands together like an old woman.

“We should call the Marine Police,” Grandpop said.

My mother looked toward the Chapmans’ yard, where I could see Ned untying his boat from their dock. “Ned’s going to take his boat out to look for them,” she said.

Grandpop pushed open the screen door again and stepped outside.

“Where are you going?” Grandma asked.

“With Ned,” he called over his shoulder to us.

“I’m calling Daddy.” My mother started toward the French doors that led into the house from the porch. “He needs to come here—”

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Grandma said. “Don’t you think—”

My mother spun around to face Grandma. “Mother!” she said, sounding more like Isabel than herself. “They are both missing. The boat is missing. It makes no sense. Something is wrong.”

Grandma had gotten to her feet, her arm tight around my shoulders. “You’re upsetting Lucy,” she said.

“Well, maybe she should be upset.” My mother walked past us into the living room.

My grandmother let go of me, muttering something in Italian as she began clearing the forgotten food from the table. I walked to the screen door until my nose was right up against the wire mesh. It smelled like dust and metal, a smell I would always equate with that moment, as I watched my grandfather and Ned in the Chapmans’ boat, speeding toward the bay.

CHAPTER 38

Julie

1962

Sometime during that horrible night, my boat hit land. I’d hoped I’d run aground on one of the small shrubby islands in the head of the bay, but I was so disoriented by darkness and anxiety that I wasn’t sure. The water barely made a sound as it lapped against my boat, and crickets and frogs created a steady barrage of white noise behind me. The mosquitoes were invisible and insatiable, buzzing in my ears and dive-bombing my arms and legs and face. I was so rarely afraid of anything in those days, but I was filled with fear that night.

I cried over what Bruno might have done to Isabel, and I prayed that she’d managed to escape from him before he could hurt or rape her. I pictured her running home, barefoot and possibly naked, never stopping to catch her breath until she’d reached the safety of the bungalow. If she was unharmed, I promised God, I would never have another impure thought, never tell another lie, never again disobey my parents. I needed to change my ways. I was a terrible girl.

I sat in my boat, afraid to get out of it because I did not know what I might step on in my bare feet. Suddenly my world was not safe. For the first time, I thought I knew how Lucy felt in the dark attic. I would not make fun of her again. I would treasure my sisters. Please, please, God, let Isabel be all right!

When it was apparent I was going nowhere, I lay down on the bottom of my boat. I wished I had a towel to cushion the hard and unyielding floor, and that’s when I remembered that I’d left Isabel’s towel on the other side of the canal. I cursed myself; I’d made one mistake after another that day. I tried to get as comfortable as I could with the mosquitoes trying to eat me alive. Above me, a few stars shot across the dark bowl of the sky, but I could take no pleasure in being a witness to them, and I drifted into a fitful sleep, the sound of my sister’s scream echoing in my head.

I awakened beneath a pink sky, the rising sun just beginning to heat the air above the bay. I jerked up suddenly, remembering where I was and why, and yelped with the pain in my neck from sleeping on the hard surface of the boat. I had to turn my whole body to look around me, to see that I was indeed on one of the small islands in the head of the bay, so far from our beach that I could not even see the platform in the water. If my boat had missed this island, who knew where I might have ended up?

There were a few other boaters in the water. I could see a couple of sailboats in the distance and a runabout like mine with two men in it, probably fishing. I stood up, balancing carefully, and waved my arms.

“Help!” I called. “Please help me!”

The fishermen didn’t seem to hear me, and the sailboats never changed direction.

I heard the sound of a motor and turned around to see a ski boat shoot past my little island. I waved my arms frantically, screaming “Hey! Over here!” as I tried to get the attention of the four people in the boat. I thought I’d failed, but then the boat circled around and headed toward me.

The young man at the wheel stopped the boat about ten yards from the island, obviously afraid he’d run aground if he came any closer.

“You stuck?” he called to me. There was another guy in the boat with him, along with two girls. A pair of skis jutted up from the floor.

“Yes,” I said. “I couldn’t get the motor…I mean, I stalled and can’t get it started again.” I didn’t see the need to tell him how long I’d been out there. I was itching all over from the mosquito bites. God, I wanted to go home! I would gladly take whatever punishment was meted out. I just wanted away from the mess I’d gotten myself—and my sister—into. I wondered if she’d had to go to the hospital. Did you go to the hospital if you were raped?

The guy in the boat pulled off his T-shirt, jumped into the waist-high water and waded over to me. He came on shore, then climbed into the runabout. He was much younger than I’d thought, probably only sixteen or seventeen. He worked at the motor, yanking the cord over and over again, but with even less luck than I’d had.

“It’s dead,” he said. He stood up, looking down at my motor, shaking his head. “Get in our boat and I’ll take you to…where do you want to go?”

“I live on the canal,” I said. I wanted to be home in the worst way.

He grunted as though he wasn’t crazy about my answer. “Okay,” he said. “Your boat’s not going anywhere. Come on.”

I waded back to his boat with him, and as his fellow sailors were helping me in, I spotted the Chapmans’ Boston whaler not more than fifty yards away. I saw my grandfather in the boat with Ned, and I was so exhausted and confused that it didn’t even register as odd to me that the two of them would be together.

“Hey!” I yelled, startling the people in the boat. “That’s my grandfather,” I said to them. “Hey,” I yelled again, and the guy who had tried to help me start my boat laid on his horn.

My grandfather looked toward us and I waved my arms over my head again. Instantly, Ned’s whaler changed direction and headed for me. When the boats were side-by-side, I thanked my rescuers and transferred to the whaler, my grandfather holding my arm. I sank down onto one of the seats, so relieved to have my ordeal over that I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t do that in front of Ned.

“Where’s Isabel?” Ned said as the other boat pulled away from us.

“What do you mean?” I asked. A slow horror began to fill my chest.

“We woke up this morning and you were both gone,” Grandpop said.

I froze. Instinctively I started thinking of lies to protect myself.

“I…I forgot to tell her you couldn’t meet her last night,” I said to Ned. “And I…” I remembered my prayer of the night before. Keep Isabel safe and I’ll stop lying. “I didn’t forget,” I admitted. “I didn’t tell her because Bruno wanted to talk to her, so I told him she’d be on the platform at midnight.”

Ned stared at me. It was so early that he didn’t yet have his sunglasses on, and for the first time I could remember, I saw anger in his blue eyes.

“You set her up with Bruno?” He looked at me with disbelief.

“What’s this about a platform?” my grandfather asked.

Ned took a step toward me. He put his hands on my waist, lifted me up and threw me overboard.

I shot through the water like a stone, then sputtered to the surface. Ned leaned over the edge of the boat. “You little bitch,” he said.

“Hey, hey,” my grandfather said. He held his hand in the air to stop Ned’s words, then he leaned over to help me climb back into the boat. I was shivering, although the air had to be eighty degrees and the water was not much colder. My stiff neck sent shards of pain up the back of my head. “All right, you two,” my grandfather said, taking charge. “Whatever differences there are between you, put an end to them now. This is serious and I want the truth.” A larger boat sailed by and the wake lifted us up and then let us fall. I felt sick. Ned and I looked at each other. We both had things to hide, and I could tell that he knew as well as I did we could hide them no longer.

“Isabel and I meet on the platform at the beach sometimes,” Ned said. “At midnight.”

I could see my grandfather struggle with his anger, not letting it show on his face. “All right,” he said. “And what happened last night?”

“I asked Julie to tell Isabel that I couldn’t meet her last night.”

“And Bruno stopped by and asked where he could find Isabel and I said I didn’t know right then but I knew he could find her on the platform at midnight. And I was out here then, and I…” I was afraid to say the words out loud.

“You what?” Ned asked.

“I heard her scream. I heard her call for—”

“Hit your horn!” Grandpop said to Ned, but he stepped past him and blew the horn himself, waving with his other hand. Ned and I turned to see the Marine Police clipper he was trying to flag down.

We were quiet as the clipper came beside us. “We’ve got the twelve-year-old—Julie,” Grandpop said to them, and only then did I realize they’d had the Marine Police out looking for me. “But the older girl’s still missing.”

“They weren’t together?” one of the officers asked.

Grandpop shook his head. “Check the platform at the Bay Head Shores beach,” he said. “This one heard a scream there around midnight last night.”

We followed the clipper in the direction of the beach. Grandpop stood next to Ned, holding on to the windshield, staring straight ahead.

“Grandpop,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t reply. Maybe he hadn’t heard me over the deafening sound of the engine as we sped toward the beach. Ned slowed his boat when we reached the water near the empty platform. The only person on the beach was a woman walking a large brown dog.

The Marine Police clipper pulled alongside the platform, but Ned was staring toward a clump of sea grass at the edge of the beach. Suddenly he stood up.

“Oh, God,” he said. He pulled off his T-shirt and dove from the boat. I grabbed Grandpop’s arm as we watched him swim toward the reeds and cattails, and it took me a long time to realize that there, among the low grass and seaweed, was the body of my sister.

My strongest memory from the rest of that day was of a dull pain in my chest and throat. I thought I was having a heart attack. It was the day I learned what the word keening meant. And the day my mother hit me. She’d never before laid a hand on me, but she slapped me hard across my face when she learned about my part in my sister’s death.

“How could you do such a terrible thing to her?” she asked me.

My cheek stung and tears flowed freely down my cheeks.

“You sat on the porch with your grandmother and me last night,” my mother said. “You heard us talk about the Walker boy being a rapist, and you said nothing! How could you do that? Why didn’t you tell us?” She tried to strike me again, but Grandpop had moved next to me and he raised his arm to catch the blow.

“Maria, don’t,” he said to my mother.

“Why didn’t you tell an adult what was going on?” my mother screamed at me. Grandpop put his arm protectively around my shoulders, but my mother could not stop yelling. “How could you do this?” she cried. “How?”

I had no answers and the words I’m sorry would be so weak, so useless, that instead, I said nothing. I hung my head, trying to lean into my grandfather’s chest, but even he seemed distant from me in spite of his arm around my shoulders. I felt my insides coiling up like a snake ready to squeeze the life out of me.

“I’m going to throw up,” I said, and pulling away from my grandfather, I ran to the bathroom.

I did not throw up; I had nothing inside me to come up. I sat hunched over on the closed toilet, sobbing, listening to the wailing of my mother and grandmother in the living room. No one came to comfort me. I must have sat there for forty minutes, afraid to leave the room, afraid to face my family.

I heard my father arrive, heard him with my mother in the hallway outside the bathroom. I pictured them embracing. His sobs were as loud as hers, and I cried harder, hugging my arms, rocking back and forth, knowing that I had stolen his favorite daughter from him. I heard car doors slamming and leaned forward to look out the window. A police car was parked on the dirt road in front of our house, and two men in uniform were walking up the sidewalk.

I closed my eyes, listening to the voices in the hallway. There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Julie?” It was my grandfather. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” My voice squeaked.

“You need to come out,” he said. “The police want to talk to you.”

I wanted to stay in the small, safe room, but I stood up and opened the door. I looked at my grandfather’s basset-hound face. His eyes were red. “Grandpop,” I said. I wanted to say that I never meant for this to happen, but that was an excuse for what I’d done, and there were no excuses big enough to cover this particular multifaceted sin. He put his arm around me again and led me down the hallway. I could see all the way through the living room and porch to our yard, where the police were talking to my father. And I could hear voices coming from my parents’ bedroom. My mother and grandmother and Lucy were in there, hushed voices cut with sobs. I heard my sister hiccup.