Summer's Child

  Sean Macy looked up from his desk. Shelly was dusting the blinds in his office, while he pretended to straighten papers, shuffling them from one side of his desk to the other. Shelly had been chattering to him, but he had no idea what she’d said until this question about the blind.

  “Leave it open,” he said, although the sun was indeed in his eyes. “It’s fine.”

  “So, anyway,” Shelly said as she moved on to the next window with her duster, “I think they’d be perfect together.”

  Perfect together? Who was she talking about? Whoever it was, he couldn’t think about it now.

  It was almost three o’clock, almost time for him to hear confessions, but he was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he didn’t know how he would be able to focus on the sins of his parishioners. He was in deep trouble—with God and with his own conscience. He looked down at his hands where they rested on top of a sea of unfinished paperwork. His hands were large, well shaped and swept with delicate gold hair. They were the hands of a sinner.

  “Did you know him?” Shelly asked. “It seems like everybody knew him. Except me, ’cause I was too little.”

  “Know who?” he asked, struggling to catch up with her one-sided conversation. He couldn’t seem to give her his attention today. Usually when he was troubled, he found Shelly’s presence a comfort. He would share his concerns with her, enjoying her sympathetic ear—and the fact that she did not easily put two and two together. He could safely share things with her that he wouldn’t dare tell another soul. Being able to speak his problems out loud was somehow cathartic and helped him think through his options. He never named names, of course, and was always careful to tell her that she must keep what he said to herself. He was confident that she did. Shelly was nothing if not honest. Besides, the relationship was symbiotic: he was the keeper of her secrets, as well.

  “Rory,” Shelly said. She turned away from the windows, grinning at him with the devil in her eye. “I don’t think you’ve been listening to me, Father Sean,” she said.

  He tried to return the grin. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Shelly.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Shelly sat down in the chair near the window, the blue duster resting on her knees. “But I didn’t tell you the best part yet,” she said.

  “What’s that?” He leaned back in his chair, determined now to give her his attention.

  “Rory’s going to find out for me who my real mother is.” The expression on Shelly’s face was childlike. Ingenuous. Expectant. And Sean felt the floor of his office give way beneath his feet.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, completely attentive now. “Who is…do you mean Rory Taylor?”

  “Yes! He wants to tell about me on his True Life Stories program. Isn’t that cool?”

  Sean played with a pen on his desk, rocking it back and forth with his big, golden sinner hands. “And what do your sisters think about this?” he asked.

  “I don’t care what they think,” Shelly said, and Sean thought it was the first time he’d ever seen that look of stubborn rebellion on her face. He knew that the Cato sisters would not approve of Rory Taylor’s tinkering with the past. No way.

  Shelly suddenly groaned. “I almost forgot,” she said. “Ellen and Ted are coming tonight.”

  “Who?” He was momentarily confused by her abrupt change of topic, although after twenty-two years of knowing Shelly, he was certainly used to it. “Oh, your cousin Ellen,” he said.

  “Yes. And I still don’t really like her, Father. I keep trying, but I just don’t.”

  “You’re making a sincere effort, Shelly, and that’s what matters.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better get back to this paperwork,” he said. “And you to your dusting.”

  “Right!” She jumped up from her seat and began working at the blinds once more.

  Sean looked at the papers spread out in front of him, then shut his eyes. Rory Taylor.

  His hands trembled as he put the top on the pen and rested it on the desk. He would never be able to concentrate on hearing confessions now.

  14

  DARIA AWAKENED HUNGRY THAT SATURDAY MORNING. THE sunlight poured into her bedroom, where everything was white and blue and clean and bright, and she felt the blissful realization that she did not have to go to work or teach a class or do anything other than goof off all day. Perhaps she would go to the gym. Perhaps Rory would go at the same time. Then, suddenly, she remembered that Ellen and Ted were in the cottage, and her mood plummeted.

  They had arrived the night before, and Daria had instantly felt her spirits sink when their car pulled into the driveway. She hadn’t had to deal with her cousin since the summer before, and only now did she realize how heavenly the year had been without Ellen’s opinions and interference. Daria had greeted the two visitors, then pleaded exhaustion and went to bed, feeling a little guilty leaving Chloe and Shelly to provide hospitality.

  Ellen, along with Aunt Josie, had spent all of her summers at the Sea Shanty until the year she married Ted. Since then, she and Ted and their two daughters came down on occasional summer weekends. They never waited for an invitation. Ellen would simply call and say they were coming, and after all these years, Daria felt unable to tell her no. Anyway, Chloe would never let Daria turn their cousin away. Chloe was able to view Ellen from an entirely different perspective. “We have to understand why Ellen is the way she is,” she would say. “Her father died when she was little. Aunt Josie wasn’t exactly the warmest, most maternal human being on earth. We need to have sympathy for Ellen. We need to show her love and compassion.” But it was hard to show someone love and compassion when all you received was sarcasm and insensitivity in return.

  Trying to recapture her good feelings, Daria got out of bed and pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. She glanced out her window at Poll-Rory, wondering if Rory was up yet. Then she walked down the stairs to face her guests.

  She found Ellen on the porch, pouring orange juice into glasses on the picnic table. A platter of waffles and sausages rested in the center of the table, and Daria knew that Shelly had busied herself cooking that morning, probably to escape from Ellen.

  “Well,” Ellen said, looking up from her task, and Daria noticed that her cousin’s hair was strewn with silver now. The color was actually pretty, especially in the sunlight pouring through the porch screens, but it looked as though a five-year-old had cut her hair with dull scissors. “You look a little more with it this morning.”

  Already, Daria felt her skin prickle. “I’m sorry I crashed so early last night,” she said, sitting down in one of the rockers. “It had been a long day at work.”

  “Well, no one held a gun to your head when you picked such a physical career,” Ellen said. She set the pitcher down on the table and arranged the glasses by the individual place settings.

  “Guess I’m just a masochist,” Daria said, unwilling to get into a fight. Better than being a sadist, she thought, remembering the mammogram she’d had the year before. A small cyst had appeared in her breast and her doctor had ordered the test to rule out anything serious. The mammogram had been simple, quick and painless, but she imagined the experience would be entirely different if a technician like Ellen were responsible for tightening that cold plastic vise.

  Chloe walked onto the porch and glanced at the table. “How come there are only four place settings?” she asked.

  “Guess,” Ellen said. “Ted’s going fishing.”

  As if on cue, Ted walked onto the porch, fishing pole in one hand, bucket in the other. “What’s been biting lately?” he asked Daria.

  Daria tried to remember the latest fishing report. It was impossible to live in the Outer Banks and not be aware of what was biting.

  “Croaker, I think,” she said. “Spot. Bring us home some dinner, okay?” She didn’t dislike Ted. He was overweight, with a belly that protruded farther over his waistband every year. He had kind brown eyes and a receding thatch of gray hair. He was bland, reticent an
d a doormat to his wife, but there was little offensive in his own demeanor. For as long as Daria had known him, Ted would take off for the fishing pier first chance he got, and she didn’t blame him for wanting that escape.

  He gave Ellen a peck on the cheek. “See you tonight, honey,” he said. “Be ready to fire up the grill when I get home.”

  “Why?” Ellen asked. “Are you picking up some steaks on the way back from the pier?”

  “Very funny,” he said as he left the porch to walk out to his car.

  Shelly carried a bowl of fruit onto the porch. “Let’s eat,” she said, and the four of them sat down at the picnic table.

  “How are your girls doing in France?” Daria asked Ellen, scooping some of the fruit onto her plate.

  “Oh, they’re loving it. It sounds like they’re doing more shopping and manhunting than studying, though.” Ellen laughed.

  “I’m going to miss not having them around this summer,” Daria said honestly. Ellen’s daughters were nothing like their mother, and they always tried to include Shelly in their activities, despite the fact that they were five years younger.

  “I can’t say that I miss them,” Ellen said. “It’s finally peaceful at our house. No loud music. No teenagers running in and out of the house day and night.” She suddenly looked at her watch. “How come you’re not working today?” she asked. “You always used to do your EMT work on Saturdays, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I’m taking a break from it,” Daria said.

  Ellen looked surprised. “Supergirl’s getting too old for that regimen, huh?” she asked.

  “Something like that,” Daria said, taking the easy way out.

  “And where’s Pete?” Ellen asked. “Feels strange not to have him hanging around here.”

  “We broke up,” Daria said.

  “You’re kidding.” Ellen looked genuinely sympathetic. “You were so perfect for each other,” she said. “He was your type, I always thought. You need that supermasculine sort of guy, you being the athletic type yourself. You only look feminine next to a man like Pete.”

  “Well, it just wasn’t meant to be,” Daria said, thinking that Ellen had even managed to turn her condolences into an insult.

  Daria heard the slamming of the porch door across the cul-de-sac and instantly turned in the direction of the sound, as if she’d been waiting for it. Rory was walking across his yard to his car. Daria extracted herself from the picnic-table bench and opened the porch door.

  “Hey!” she called. “Do you want to go to the athletic club later?”

  Rory stopped to look at her, his car door half-open. “I have company coming today,” he said.

  “Oh, okay. See ya.” She closed the door and took her seat at the table again, trying to mask her disappointment. She wondered if “company” meant Grace.

  Ellen was staring across the cul-de-sac. “Is that…?”

  “Rory Taylor.” Shelly finished the sentence for her.

  “Well, my, my, my,” Ellen said. “After all these years.”

  “He’s going to find my real mother,” Shelly said.

  “He’s going to try, hon,” Daria corrected her. “You know he might not be able to.”

  “Well, that’s an asinine waste of time,” Ellen said.

  “What does asinine mean?” Shelly asked.

  “Oh, come on, Shelly, you know that word,” Ellen said. “Stop playing stupid.”

  “I don’t know it,” Shelly protested.

  “It means, what on earth is the point in him trying to find your mother?” Ellen said. “What will you do with her once you find her? Take her on some tell-all reality show so you can yell at her for screwing up your life?”

  “Ellen.” Chloe made a very un-nunlike face. “Be kind.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Shelly said.

  Daria knew that when her younger sister’s voice took on that tinny edge, she was two seconds away from crying. “We would all rather Shelly didn’t pursue this,” she said to Ellen, “but it’s important to her.”

  Shelly looked surprised at her sudden support. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Well, good,” Ellen said. “Shelly’s finally being allowed to make a decision on her own. After twenty years of you telling her when to blow her nose.”

  Daria could think of no suitable retort that would not upset Chloe, so she kept her mouth shut. Ellen had always complained about Daria’s overprotectiveness toward Shelly. Right from the start, she’d tried to change Daria’s approach with her. Shelly should have been in regular public-school classes, she’d argued. She would have learned to keep up eventually. She should be forced to live on her own and get a real job like everyone else. Daria babied her too much. Shelly had never learned to stand on her own two feet. And on and on.

  Ellen had no sympathy for Shelly’s fears. Even at Sue Cato’s funeral, when Shelly was beside herself with grief and battling a whole new crop of fears precipitated by the loss of her mother, Ellen saw fit to torment her. After the funeral, everyone went back to the Catos’ house for a dinner of sandwiches and salads. Shelly was sitting on an overstuffed chair in the living room, and Ellen, knowing full well her cousin’s irrational fear of earthquakes, snuck up behind the chair and shook it, sending eight-year-old Shelly flying out of the room in terror. Daria, then nineteen, had smacked her older cousin across the face, starting a brawl that left few physical injuries but plenty of hard feelings.

  Chloe suddenly stood up. “I have to go over to St. Esther’s,” she said. “Do you mind cleaning up?” She was looking at Daria.

  “No problem.” She thought Chloe was rather brave to leave her there with Ellen, when she had to know Daria was ready to rip her cousin’s throat out. But she managed to get through the washing and drying of the dishes without incident, and then she escaped to the athletic club, alone.

  15

  RORY HANDED GRACE THE GLASS OF LEMONADE, THEN SAT down in one of the other chairs on Poll-Rory’s porch. They had the cottage to themselves. Grace had arrived just as Zack left for the water park with Kara and her various siblings and cousins. Rory had felt nervous about this meeting between Zack and Grace, when it would be apparent she was there for some purpose other than to borrow the phone. Zack had merely mumbled a greeting to Grace, then left the cottage with Kara. He seemed truly indifferent to whatever Rory wanted to do. Maybe he was even pleased that Rory had someone to keep him occupied and off his back.

  Grace was wearing an emerald green sundress, sandals and the blue see-through sunglasses. Her light brown bangs were long and sexy. He liked looking at her.

  “Well,” Grace said, “tell me more about the child who was found on the beach.”

  He was hoping she would ask that question. They’d talked about the shop she ran in Rodanthe—it was part sundries and part café, she said—and they talked a bit about Zack, and he began to wonder if his story about Shelly was not all that compelling after all. But now she seemed interested, her gaze focused on the cottage across the cul-de-sac.

  “What would you like to know?” he asked. “What do you think people would want to know about her?”

  “What her life has been like,” Grace said. “What she looks like. You said she’s beautiful?”

  “She’s a beauty, all right,” Rory said. “Tall and blond.”

  “And brain-damaged.” Grace pursed her lips as though this fact made her angry.

  “She’s just a little…” He didn’t want to say simple. Somehow that word was not appropriate. “She’s…ingenuous, if you know what I mean. I don’t know her well, I’ve only spoken to her a few times, but she seems very trusting in an innocent sort of way.”

  “Was she treated well by her adoptive family?” Grace asked.

  “She’s loved,” he said. “Her mother died when she was eight, though, and one of her sisters took over her care.”

  “Oh…” Grace frowned. “Poor little thing. She lost two mothers.”

  “I think Daria took terrific care of her, thou
gh.”

  “What about…holding a job? Can she work? How did she do in school? What about socially? Did she—”

  “Whoa.” Rory laughed, pleased. He should be writing down her questions so he’d be sure to address them in the program. “One question at a time. I think she had some special classes. I guess I’ll have to find out more about that. And she works as a housekeeper at a Catholic church, but Daria—her sister—told me she needs a lot of supervision. Shelly is pretty dependent on her.”

  “The brain damage…what do they attribute that to?”

  “Something to do with her birth, I guess, or with the time she spent abandoned on the beach. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone really knows.”

  “I don’t see how you can possibly find out who left her on the beach after all this time,” Grace said. “I mean, I’m a little worried about you being disappointed. It seems like an impossible task.”

  He was not worried. All he had done so far was sift through the police records, but he was making a list of people to talk to, including the detective involved in the case and everyone on the cul-de-sac. He didn’t feel rushed. He had the whole summer.

  “You’d be amazed the things we’ve found out through researching incidents for True Life Stories,” he said. “Sometimes the mysteries are solved during the research itself, like the time we figured out who had murdered a little boy, even though the police and FBI had been on the case for years and had turned up nothing. Our researchers brought a different perspective to the case and were able to uncover the real murderer.” He guessed that Grace was not a regular viewer of True Life Stories or she would have known the incredible success the program had had in solving the unsolvable.

  “That’s amazing,” Grace said. “But how exactly will you try to find out who the baby’s mother is?”

  “By questioning people. Sometimes people remember things now that didn’t seem important enough to report to the police at the time. And they’ll disclose those things to me. Another way we’ve solved mysteries is by presenting all the details of the story on the show, and then people come forward with the truth. You’d be surprised at how often that happens.”