“Is Daria in?” he asked.
“She’s up in her room,” Chloe said.
“Would it be all right if I went up?”
“Why not?” Chloe said. “I guess there’s not much mystery left between the two of you, huh?”
Ouch. “Chloe…” he began, not sure what more he could say.
Chloe sighed and leaned on the broom. “Don’t listen to me, Rory,” she said. “It’s just that my sisters are getting jerked around right now, and it’s upsetting me.”
“I’m not jerking Daria around,” he said.
“What would you call it?” she asked. “In spite of the fact that you’re involved with someone else, you have sex with a woman who loves you dearly, who would do anything for you. I’m not excusing Daria’s behavior, but at least her motivation was noble. She did it because she’s crazy about you.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, just walked past her into the cottage and up the stairs.
The door to Daria’s room was open. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, architect’s drawings spread out in front of her. He knocked on the open door, and she looked up.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I thought I’d come see how you’re doing,” he said.
She bit her lip and lowered her eyes to the drawings, pushing them around with the tips of her fingers. He walked across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, rescuing her hand from its futile wandering across the drawings and holding it on his knee.
“I’m sorry, Daria,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “I started it. I shouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t prepared to accept the consequences.”
“You know I care about you, don’t you?” he asked.
She uttered a small laugh, and he knew his words sounded pale, meaningless and, he feared, patronizing.
“I didn’t know how you felt,” he said. “And…it caught me off guard when you told me.” There was more he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her he needed time to sort out his feelings for her, to figure out why, if she were to kiss him at that moment, he would do it all over again. But he knew it wouldn’t be fair to say that to her right now. It would only ease his burden and add to hers.
She looked at him squarely. “Shelly’s pregnant,” she said. And then she began to cry, drawing her knees up to her chest and burying her head against them.
“Oh, no.” He wanted to pull her into his arms to comfort her, but remembered that was how things had gotten out of control the night before. Instead, he held her hand tighter. “What is she going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “She wants to marry Andy and have the baby. I just can’t see it.”
“How…pregnant is she?” He thought of Shelly’s slim figure. “She must not be very far along.”
“Only a matter of weeks,” she said.
“So there’s time to—”
“Yes.” She sighed, as though tired of the discussion. “There’s time.”
He hesitated. “Look,” he said. “I’m on my way up to Corolla to see Cindy Trump. Why don’t you come with me?”
She shook her head. Tears still streamed down her cheeks, and he reached up to smooth them away with the back of his fingers before standing up.
“I’ll see you later,” he said. “Take care.”
The beach road was littered with shingles and shutters and the branches of small trees. Water pooled in spots, and traffic was thick with people returning to their homes and vacations. The landscape of Corolla was washed clean, its huge houses sprawling from the road to the sea. These were true houses up here, not cottages. Many of them could be considered near-mansions.
He followed the directions Cindy had left on his machine, and found her house on, of all things, a cul-de-sac. He parked in the driveway, and had to skirt an uprooted tree as he walked to her front door. Before he had a chance to knock, the door was opened, and there stood Cindy Trump in an orange bikini, looking very much as she had twenty years ago.
“Rory!” She stepped back to let him in and gave him a hug. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “You look even better than you do on TV.”
“Thanks,” he said. “And you haven’t changed a bit.” The trite words were the truth. Of all the people he’d met from the cul-de-sac that summer, Cindy had changed the least. She was tan, slender, blond and still did a bikini justice. She reminded him of some of the women he knew in Hollywood, and wondered if she’d paid a visit or two to a plastic surgeon or if she’d just been lucky with her genes.
She led him out to the stone patio behind her house and handed him a glass of iced tea.
“Sorry about the noise,” she said, pointing to the house in the lot behind her, where workers were repairing storm damage on the roof. “It’s usually very quiet here.”
Rory looked at the house under repair and was reminded of the day he saw Daria working on the roof. All of these workers were men, but in his mind’s eye, he was seeing Daria up there, and he felt that same rush of desire that had gotten him into trouble the night before.
“Did you evacuate?” he asked as they sat down at a glass-topped table.
“No,” she said. “We’re back so far from the beach, and nothing’s going to blow this house away.”
He was glad she didn’t ask him if he had left the Outer Banks. He didn’t feel like recounting last night’s events yet again.
Cindy was a chatterbox. She told him about her husband, who sold real estate, and her two boys, who were just entering their teens. They commiserated for a few minutes about teenage boys, while Rory explored her face for hints of Shelly. There were none. The blond hair, he had to admit, was about it.
He explained the reason for his visit: he was researching Shelly’s past, trying to uncover her parentage. “So,” he said, “who do you think Shelly’s mother might have been?”
Cindy laughed, crossing one long brown leg over the other. “Why, me, of course,” she said. “Isn’t that what everyone thought?”
He smiled. “Well, you were the right age and your cottage was nearest to where she was found,” he said, as if those were the only reasons she’d been under suspicion.
“You’re being very kind, Rory,” she said. “Cindy Tramp. Wasn’t that what the kids called me?”
“Perhaps some of them,” he said diplomatically, but he could tell from Cindy’s smile that her skin was quite thick.
“Well, I can assure you that I was not Shelly Cato’s mother. I have to admit, though, it was probably pure luck that it wasn’t me. I look back now and shudder over the kind of girl I was. I’m glad my kids are boys instead of girls. I would lock the girls up.”
“I’m tempted to lock Zack up myself, sometimes,” he said.
“It was probably just a tourist, Rory,” she said. “That’s why the police never came up with a suspect. Although…” She wrinkled her nose, looking out toward the ocean.
“Although?” he prompted her.
“I’ve always had a nagging suspicion,” she said. “I really hesitate to say this. I hate to speak ill of another woman. I know how it feels.”
Rory leaned forward, thinking that Cindy had truly not changed: she was still a tease. “You can’t tell me that much and not tell me what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I always thought it was Ellen,” she said. “You remember Ellen? The Catos’ niece?”
He nodded.
“Well, I don’t know how well you remember her, but she was pretty loose with the boys.” Cindy shrugged. “Not as loose as me, I admit, but still…She could be nasty. Do you remember that?”
He remembered it very well. He’d been exposed to it only a few weeks ago.
“There was something mean about her. One time, my aunt and uncle were visiting us. They had two little kids, my cousins, and my brother and I were going somewhere, so they hired Ellen to baby-sit for them. Well, she smacked one of the kids
around pretty viciously. The little girl had a couple of bruises on her arm. I know my aunt and uncle spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Cato about it, and probably to Ellen’s mother, as well. That was the end of it, as far as I know. But I think about that incident from time to time. There was no denying that Ellen had been abusive. I could see her leaving a baby on the beach and not giving it another thought.”
Now that she said it, so could he. “Ellen doesn’t look anything like Shelly, though,” he said.
“Well, I haven’t seen Shelly since she was tiny,” Cindy said. “But I remember she had brown eyes. Very light hair, but big brown eyes, like Ellen’s.” Cindy suddenly sat up straight in her chair and looked toward the sky. “Don’t go by what I’m telling you, Rory,” she said. “It’s a big stretch from hitting a child she was baby-sitting to leaving a newborn to die on the beach.” He sensed her trying to backpedal and knew that speaking her hunch out loud had made her uncomfortable. “I was probably right with my first guess. It was most likely a tourist. Maybe if you do a show about it, that person or someone who knew her will come forward with the truth.”
“Maybe,” he admitted, but he was still thinking about Ellen, about how she was always trying to interfere in Daria’s parenting of Shelly.
“How is your sister?” Cindy changed the subject. “Polly? I remember her so well. She was the first mentally retarded person I ever really got to know. I liked her a lot.”
Her words touched him. “She died a few years ago,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Rory. How unfair. You know, my strongest memory of you was of your devotion to her.”
“She was special to me.”
“It wasn’t just Polly,” Cindy said. “You were always so nice to everyone. Remember that boy who couldn’t catch any fish, and you—”
“Yes, yes.” His claim to sainthood.
“That was unusual for a boy, to be so sensitive to other people. If I’d had to predict what you would have become, I would have guessed a social worker.”
“A social worker!”
“Yeah, think about it. That’s really what you do on True Life Stories, isn’t it?” she asked. “I always get the feeling your heart breaks for the people whose stories you tell on your show. I bet some viewers think it’s an act, but anybody who knew you when you were a kid would know that you’ve always been a sucker for people in need.”
He thought suddenly of Grace. He’d been a sucker, all right, seduced by her neediness. Was that why he’d been drawn to her?
It had been the same with Glorianne. He remembered what his ex-wife had been like when he first met her, how unsure of herself she’d been, how desperate to find someone to lean on.
And then there was Daria, who didn’t seem to need anyone at all. He’d been so smitten by Grace’s beauty, so seduced by her need for him, that he’d failed to see the loving woman standing right in front of him.
“Cindy,” he said, abruptly standing up, anxious now to get back to Kill Devil Hills. “I have a feeling you just did me a big favor.”
45
DARIA CAME HOME FROM TEACHING HER EMT CLASS THAT night to find Rory waiting for her on the Sea Shanty steps.
“Isn’t it a beautiful night?” he asked as he got to his feet.
She hadn’t noticed. She’d gone through her class in a fog. Everyone had wanted to talk about the hurricane and the real-life drama that had played out on Andy’s pier, easily the most exciting rescue of the night. She’d tried to shift the discussion to the need for emergency readiness during the heart of a storm, but no one was interested. Instead, they wanted to know how she’d gotten two people from beneath an overturned boat, with the sound rising and whirling around her feet. Supergirl, they thought, was back.
Now she looked up at the sky and saw that it was filled with stars.
“Come out to the beach with me,” Rory said. He was carrying a blanket. “There’s a meteor shower tonight. We can watch the sky.”
Her heart was saying yes, her head, no. “I don’t think so, Rory,” she said.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “Just for a while.”
Against her better judgment, she walked with him out to the dark beach and helped him spread the blanket on the sand. She lay next to him, and the instant her head touched the blanket, three stars sailed across the sky.
“I told you it would be worth it,” he said.
How did he think she could simply lie there with him after what had happened the night before?
“How was your visit with Cindy?” she asked.
“Interesting,” he said. “She looks just like she did back in the old days. Even had on a bikini.”
“Did she shed any light on your story?”
“Oh, she has her theories, just like everyone else.”
“What are they?”
“She has kind of a crazy one,” he said. “Don’t laugh. Her primary suspect is your cousin Ellen.”
Another white diamond, this one with a tail, shot across the sky, but Daria barely registered its existence. She was too stunned by what Rory had just said. “What makes her think that?” she asked.
“Well, first of all, I got the sense that Cindy couldn’t stand Ellen, so this probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt. She said that Ellen once baby-sat for Cindy’s cousins, and she apparently hit one of the kids a few times. That made Cindy think that Ellen was capable of dumping a baby on the beach. Seemed kind of a stretch to me.”
Daria shut her eyes. This was it. Time for the truth. “Cindy’s very perceptive,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean she’s right. Ellen is Shelly’s mother.”
Rory sat up abruptly, turning to look at her, and she could barely see his face in the darkness. “Do you know this for certain?” he asked. “Have you known all along?”
“Shelly wasn’t the only thing I found on the beach that morning,” she admitted. “I also found a pukka-shell necklace that I knew belonged to Ellen. It was lying on the beach right next to the baby.”
“My God, Daria. Did you ever tell anyone?” he asked.
“No one,” she said. “I was horrified to realize that Ellen could have done such a thing, but she was family, and she was also one of the older kids. I wouldn’t dare say anything to anyone about her.”
“Did you ever talk to Ellen herself about it? Does she know that you know?”
She turned her head to look at him. “I’ve never said a word to anyone, until now. Ellen doesn’t have a clue that I know. It’s one of the reasons why I have such a hard time tolerating her. She’s always trying to tell me what to do with Shelly, and she makes me feel as though everything I’ve done with her has been wrong. But I don’t believe she really cares about Shelly; sometimes she’s even cruel to her. And she’s a rotten mother to her own two daughters, as far as I’m concerned.”
Rory stared out at the ocean, his arm resting on his knee, and she could only imagine how he felt about her having kept this from him. Reaching up, she touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said. “I simply didn’t want you to find out. I didn’t want anyone to know.”
Rory lay down again and let out a sigh. “No one will know, Daria,” he said. “Revealing the fact that Ellen is Shelly’s mother can bring no good to anyone, least of all Shelly. I’ll just have to be satisfied that the mystery is solved for me, personally.”
Daria’s eyes burned with relief. “Thank you for understanding,” she said.
“Come here,” he said, slipping his arm beneath her shoulders and pulling her closer.
“No, Rory,” she resisted. “I can’t go through that again.”
Rolling over, he propped himself on his elbows and looked at her. “Remember when I told you that I saw you working on a roof?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Well, I didn’t realize it was you at first,” he said. “All I knew was that I wanted the woman who was up there. I wanted her bad. When
I realized it was you, I was sort of shocked that I could have those feelings for you. I’d always thought of you more like a kid sister.”
“I know you did,” she said.
“This has been a wonderful summer, even without getting a story for my show,” he said, “because I’ve gotten to know you again.” He smiled at her, and she couldn’t resist reaching up to touch the tips of her fingers to his lips. He turned his head instantly to kiss her hand, then looked at her again. “Our old pal Cindy and I had a little chat this afternoon that opened my eyes,” he said. “You were right about me being a caretaker. Glorianne needed that. Grace did, too. You don’t. And I think it’s time I broke out of that role. Time I had an equal partner. I’m not quite sure how to run a relationship with someone as strong, if not stronger, than I am,” he said, “but I’d like to try. If you’re willing, that is.”
That made her smile.
“I love you, too, Daria,” he said. “The feelings snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking. I’m sorry I was so blind.” He pulled her close to him, and this time, she gave no thought to resisting.
46
GRACE FOUND RORY AT HIS COTTAGE, WHERE HE WAS repairing some of the siding that had been damaged by the storm. She had come without calling, afraid that if she’d called first, he might have told her he was busy, and then she would have no opportunity to see Shelly. It had been too long since she’d seen her.
Rory spotted her as she walked toward him. “Hi.” He stood up, and she knew she’d surprised him.
“I was out all morning and didn’t have a chance to call,” she said, “so I hope you don’t mind that I just stopped by.”
“No,” he said. “I’m just about finished up here. Why don’t you wait for me on the porch?”
“Okay.” She turned and walked around the cottage to the front steps. From Poll-Rory’s porch, she studied the Sea Shanty. There were no cars in the driveway; Daria and Chloe were probably at work. Shelly might be at work, as well. She hoped not; she had no good reason to stop by St. Esther’s today.
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