“Most, but not all.”
“Did you ever try to find the nurse?” Eddie asked. “It seems that she’s the missing link in all of this.”
“There’s no way to find her,” Grace said. “All I remember about her was that her name was Nancy and she worked in the oncology department of a hospital in Elizabeth City, twenty-two years ago. That’s not much to go on.” Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation. “I was using a…friendship with Rory Taylor to stay close to Shelly,” she admitted. “I can’t believe I did that, but I did. But now he’s involved with Shelly’s sister, so I have no reason to go up there anymore. I want to see Shelly again. I miss her already.”
“Let me help you with this,” Eddie said. “Let me take on some of the burden you’ve been carrying around all summer, okay?”
She didn’t know what he could do to help, but she was far too tired to fight on her own anymore.
“Okay,” she said.
He gently pulled her closer, lowering her head to his shoulder, and for the first time since before Pamela’s accident, she let her body relax against his.
48
DARIA ROLLED ONTO HER BACK, STILL TRYING TO CATCH HER breath. She stared at the ceiling of her room, while Rory traced her profile with the tip of his finger.
She had cried out. That was a first. No one had ever elicited that from her—surely not Pete—and she’d wondered if that sort of intensity ever truly happened for women outside of books and movies. Now she knew. She had never thought of lovemaking as a talent before, but Rory certainly had it, and she was glad no one else had been home at the Sea Shanty when he’d revealed it to her.
“Well,” Rory said, the tip of his finger circling her lips, “I think Zack is on to us.”
“You mean…that we’re lovers?” Zack certainly knew she and Rory had been seeing each other for the past two weeks, but Rory had been careful about concealing the physical side of their relationship from his son.
“Uh-huh. This morning he asked me if I’d been sure to use a condom when I was out with you last night.”
She laughed. “Touché, huh? What did you say?”
“I said I’m an adult in an adult relationship and that it wasn’t appropriate for him to ask me a question like that. Then he called me a hypocrite and went out to the beach. Not sure I handled it the right way.”
“I think you did,” she said. “He needs to know there are some boundaries between you and him.”
The past two weeks had been a mixture of joy and worry. Being with Rory, being able to openly acknowledge her feelings for him, had been glorious. Everyone on the cul-de-sac knew about them and approved. Shelly was delighted. Only Chloe seemed less than enthusiastic. “He’ll be leaving in a few weeks,” she’d say to Daria. “Don’t throw yourself into this so freely.” Chloe was only trying to protect her from being hurt, Daria told herself. Yet she felt as though there was something less noble in Chloe’s admonitions, and she wondered at times if Chloe was simply jealous. After all, Chloe’s lover was dead, her life in a serious state of disarray.
And that’s where the worry came in. Chloe’s silence and irritability were evidence of the war going on inside her, and although Daria could think of no way to ease her sister’s suffering, that didn’t stop her from worrying about her. Then there was Shelly, who grew more attached to her unborn baby with each passing minute. Daria would never be able to persuade her to have an abortion, that much was clear, so some other arrangements would have to be made. She felt no rush to do that. Right now, she wanted to focus her time and attention on Rory. With her sisters’ turmoil swirling around her, she had found a safe harbor in his arms.
“So, when do Ellen and Ted get here?” Rory asked her.
She rolled onto her side, resting her head against his shoulder. “Early tomorrow morning,” she said, then added sarcastically, “I can hardly wait. They hadn’t planned to be here this weekend, but when I stupidly mentioned that the bonfire was scheduled for tomorrow night, they changed their minds.”
“I’m not going to be able to look at Ellen the same way now,” Rory said.
“Well, I don’t think she was one of your favorite people to begin with.”
“Shelly was really lucky that you were the one to raise her, and not Ellen.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Daria said. “And I was lucky, too. I can’t imagine my life without Shelly.”
“She hasn’t asked me if I’ve uncovered any more information about who left her on the beach,” Rory said.
“How have you explained to Zack or the neighbors why you suddenly stopped researching Shelly’s background?” she asked.
“No one’s asked me yet,” he said. “When and if they do, I’ll tell them I wasn’t able to come up with enough information to make it worthwhile. The person I worry about telling that I failed in my research is Shelly.”
“I know.”
“Have you thought about whether Shelly should know the truth?” Rory asked. “I think I would want to know the truth if I were in her shoes, no matter how hard it might be to hear.”
Daria smoothed her hand across his chest. “Well,” she said, “I’d have to confront Ellen with it first, and I have no desire to do that. I hoped that someday she would come forward herself, but that’s never going to happen. It’s not Ellen’s style. Ellen has one person on her mind, and that’s Ellen. I sometimes think she’s in denial about Shelly being her daughter. In a different sort of world with a different sort of mother, I would say that Shelly should be told the truth. But Ellen is such a bitch to her, that I can’t see how it would do Shelly any good to know.”
“Maybe Ellen is a bitch to her, as you say, because she resents her. Shelly was unwanted. The pregnancy got in Ellen’s way.”
“I don’t know, Rory,” Daria said. “I’ve tried analyzing Ellen over the years, and I’ve never come up with any very charitable perspective on her. I try to remind myself that she was only fifteen. If something like that had happened to me when I was fifteen, I might have done the same thing.”
“I doubt that very much.” Rory rolled over and leaned on his elbows. He smiled down at her. “Not my Daria,” he said. “You would have been too smart to get pregnant in the first place. But if you did, you would have probably delivered the baby yourself, cut the cord with your teeth and breast-fed her while saving three swimmers caught in an undertow.”
She laughed. “I think you have me on a bit of a pedestal,” she said.
He was quiet a moment. “You haven’t talked about your EMT position,” he said finally. “After the incident on Andy’s pier, I thought you might want to get back into it.”
She drew in a long breath. “I feel less afraid,” she admitted. “I haven’t had a nightmare about the pilot in a few weeks. But I still lied, Rory. I was involved in a cover-up, and I just can’t get past that.”
“What would happen if you admitted what you did?” he asked.
“I’ve thought about it. You know, plead temporary insanity and beg for mercy. But the system doesn’t work that way. There would have to be an investigation. This sort of thing is taken very seriously, and it should be. I did it to protect my sister, and you and I both know she had no idea what she was doing and that she truly needed that protection. But if I can get away with doing that, then someone else should be able to protect his brother for having done something else, and maybe that something else wasn’t quite so innocent. So, it can’t simply be erased and forgotten. At some point, I’ll have to deal with it, because I truly do want to be an EMT again. For the rest of the summer, though, I just want to forget about it and have steamy sex with you. Okay?”
He laughed. “Glad I can help with your escape from reality,” he said.
Finished with that topic, she flipped onto her back again. “I have to buy the ingredients for my baked beans today,” she said. “What are you bringing to the bonfire?” Everyone on the cul-de-sac was expected to bring food to share.
“Jill suggested I bring the paper plates and napkins and plastic silverware,” he said. “I guess she figures I don’t look like much of a cook.”
Daria could already imagine the smell of the bonfire. Once the daytime crowd had left the beach, Jill and her husband and children would set up two fire rings, one for the adults, a second for the teenagers. Everyone from the cul-de-sac would slowly make their way to the fires, to eat and talk and bemoan the fact that summer was nearly over. The bonfire was always the prelude to summer’s end.
Rory glanced at the clock on her night table. “Well, I guess I’d better get back to Poll-Rory,” he said. “Time to face more of my son’s probing questions about my love life.”
He sat on the side of the bed as he dressed, and Daria ran her hand across the warm empty space on the bed where his body had been.
The bonfire. The end of summer.
“Rory?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I haven’t asked you this, because I’ve been afraid of the answer,” she said. “But when exactly are you going back to California?”
He looked at her over his shoulder, hesitating for a moment before answering. “Let’s not talk about it now,” he said.
She accepted his answer willingly, not truly wanting to know.
49
“MMM,” SHELLY SAID AS SHE WALKED IN THE BACK DOOR OF the Sea Shanty. “You’re making the beans.”
Daria looked up from the stove, where she was adding brown sugar to the pot of beans. “How was work?”
“Okay. Where are Ellen and Ted?” she asked.
Daria turned the heat down under the beans. “Ted managed to talk Ellen into going fishing with him today,” she said, and she was tempted to add, Isn’t that great? It was a true pleasure not having Ellen at the cottage all day. She knew Shelly felt the same way, although neither of them would say it.
Shelly sat down at the kitchen table. “I don’t like working at St. Esther’s as much without Father Sean there. Nobody else talks to me like he did. I liked talking to him.”
Daria leaned against the counter. “Did Father Macy know about you and Andy?” she asked.
“He knew everything about me,” Shelly said bluntly.
Daria wiped a spot of molasses from the counter with a sponge. So, Sean Macy had known about Shelly’s relationship with Andy and had said nothing about it to her or Chloe. She was momentarily angry with the priest, but knew that wasn’t fair. Shelly had not felt able to talk with her sisters about Andy; it was good she’d at least been able to confide in the priest. No wonder Father Macy’s death had been such a loss for her.
Setting down the sponge, Daria walked over to the table and gave her sister a quick hug. “You must really miss him,” she said.
“Tons.”
Daria looked at her watch, then lifted her purse from the table and rooted around inside it for her car keys. “Could you keep an eye on the beans for a few minutes while I run some errands?” she asked, keys in hand.
“Sure.”
“I just have to go to the drugstore and the drive-through at the bank,” Daria said. “You got paid today, right? If you want, I can deposit your check for you.”
“Oh, I don’t have it anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was walking home from the church, I met this girl,” Shelly said. “She’s only fifteen, and she doesn’t have any family.”
Daria felt her shoulders stiffen. She had a terrible feeling where this was going; they’d been down this road before. “How do you know she doesn’t have a family?” she asked.
“Well, actually she does have one.” Shelly’s large brown eyes were filled with concern. “She has a mother and a stepfather, but they treat her terrible. So, she’s in the Outer Banks all by herself. And she didn’t have any money, Daria. No money at all! She hadn’t had anything to eat all day today and no dinner last night. So, there was a bank right there, and I cashed my check and gave her the money.”
Daria dropped her purse onto the table. “Shelly, you can’t do things like that!” she said. “First of all, the girl could have been lying to you. Maybe she’s using your money right now to buy drugs.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Shelly said. “She was really skinny. I believe that she hasn’t eaten in—”
“Even if she hadn’t eaten, even if she needed a few bucks for a meal, you didn’t have to give her your whole check.”
“Daria, I wish you could’ve seen her. You would’ve given her your whole check, too. She’s poor. We’re not poor. She needed that money a whole lot more than I did.”
“We’re not as wealthy as you seem to think,” Daria said, although that was hardly the issue. “And now you’re expecting a baby. And babies cost money.”
Shelly looked stricken. “I won’t give any more money away, then,” she said quickly. “But really, Daria, she said her stepfather beat her and everything. You wouldn’t want her to go back to that kind of home, would you?”
“No, of course not. But there are other ways of handling a situation like that and getting her help.” Daria looked toward the ceiling in frustration. “We’ve been through this so many times, Shelly. You can’t save the world, honey.”
“I know that. I just wanted to help this one single girl. I don’t think that was so wrong.”
“It was really…foolish.” She had started to say “stupid,” but caught herself in time. Tears were already brimming in Shelly’s eyes. “This is why I worry about you, Shelly,” she said. “This is why I don’t believe you’re mature enough to have a baby. Your judgment is not always good. I know it’s hard to hear that. I know you don’t really understand it. But there is no way you’re ready to get married and have a child.”
Shelly didn’t respond. Her eyes suddenly went blank in an expression Daria knew all too well, but hadn’t seen in a while. She rushed to her sister’s side just as her body stiffened and dropped to the floor.
Shelly began to writhe with convulsions. Daria quickly turned her onto her side, then pulled a cushion from one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it beneath Shelly’s head. As she held on to her sister, waiting for the convulsions to run their course, she wondered if the seizure could hurt the baby. If it did, if the baby suffered damage, would Shelly then agree to an abortion? Daria squeezed her eyes shut, horrified with herself for even entertaining the thought.
“Daria?”
She glanced up to see Rory standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
“I think it’s almost over,” she said, looking down at Shelly, whose body no longer twitched and jerked. She shifted Shelly’s head slightly on the pillow to be sure she could breathe easily.
Rory walked across the room and knelt down by Shelly’s head. Moaning, Shelly curled herself into a fetal position and slipped her thumb into her mouth. Rory smoothed his hand over her silky blond hair, and Daria fell even more deeply in love with him.
“Could the seizure hurt her baby?” Rory asked.
“It’s possible, but this one was very short,” Daria said. “I doubt it did any damage.”
“Is this the first one she’s had all summer?”
“The first in about six months, actually,” Daria said. “And I’m afraid I might have brought it on. I yelled at her.” She leaned over and kissed Shelly’s temple. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Rolling onto her back, Shelly opened her eyes. She pulled her thumb from her mouth. “Seizure…?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” Daria nodded. “How do you feel?”
“Did I hurt my baby?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Shelly rolled back onto her side and closed her eyes again. “Tired,” she said.
“You can’t sleep here on the kitchen floor,” Daria said. “Stay awake just another minute, honey, so Rory and I can get you to the couch in the living room.”
They managed to raise Shelly to her feet, and with their help, she stumbled through the house to the sofa in the l
iving room. She lay down, her thumb back in her mouth.
“Let’s go out on the porch,” Daria whispered to Rory.
They sat down in two of the rockers, side by side. Rory reached out to hold her hand. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “I am now,” she said.
Shelly had never felt this tired, yet she was awake. Awake enough to hear voices coming through the open window above the sofa. Her eyes were still closed, her head heavy, and it took her a few minutes to recognize the voices as those of Daria and Rory. They were speaking softly. Daria was telling Rory about what she’d done with her paycheck. It seemed like days ago that she’d given the money to that girl. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Had she been foolish? Would Andy have been angry with her, too?
“Sometimes lately,” Daria was saying, “I think Pete might have been right about Shelly needing more supervision than she’s been getting.”
Shelly frowned, concentrating on the words coming from the porch. She needed to listen, especially if the words were about her. But she must have slipped into sleep again, because the next thing she heard was the sound of the ocean, the backdrop for Rory’s voice.
“Yeah, I’m down,” he said.
“Why?” Daria asked.
“Well, last night you asked me when I was going back to California, and I put you off. I just didn’t want to think about it. But I know I have to.”
“So…when?” Daria asked, and Shelly knew she was having trouble getting the question out. “When do you go back?”
“September third,” he said. “Less than two weeks from now. I have to get Zack back for school. I could kick myself for wasting so much of the summer without you when we could have been together.”
“That wouldn’t make your leaving any easier,” Daria said.
“I know.”
For a minute, neither of them said a word. Shelly heard some kids yelling out on the beach. Then Rory spoke again.
“I’m pretty sure I know how you feel, Daria, although I guess I need to hear it, anyway. But I can tell you that I don’t want this to be the end. I have to go back—that’s where my life and job and my son are. But I don’t want that to mean we can’t still be together.”