Summer's Child (24 page)

I
T WAS NEARLY FORTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE
Z
ACK DARED TO
come home, and Rory was waiting for him in the living room, still not sure what he was going to say.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad,” Zack said as he walked past him toward the bedrooms.

“Well, I do.”

Zack stopped walking and turned around, a look of resignation on his face, and Rory noticed for the first time that his son was nearly as tall as he was. When had that happened?

“Did you at least use a condom?” Something told him that was not the best way to start this conversation, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.

“Kara’s on the Pill,” Zack said.

“A fifteen-year-old girl on the Pill?” Rory asked. “That says something about her right there, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Zack said. “It says she’s smart and careful.”

“What it says to me is that she’s probably had a number of partners, which opens her up to all sorts of diseases. AIDS and a dozen others. You should have used a condom, anyway. What if she’s lying to you? What if she’s not on the Pill at all and is just trying to trap you? And, damn it, you’re too young
for this, anyhow.”
Whew
. He sounded judgmental. Irrational. Hysterical. But he couldn’t seem to shut up.

Zack simply stared at him. “What’s the problem, Dad?” he asked. “Are you telling me you did it for the first time on your wedding night, or what?”

Be understanding
, Daria had said.
Be kind
. With a heavy sigh, he sat down on the sofa.

“I know I’m not doing a good job of this, Zack,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I just worry about you, that’s all.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Zack said.

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I was fifteen once, too, hard though that may be for you to believe. And I know how you can be drawn into things without thinking through the consequences.”

“I’m thinking things through, Dad. Have a little faith in me, all right?” Zack turned to leave the room.

“I think it’s time I had a talk with Kara’s grandparents. The Wheelers,” Rory said.

Zack spun around.
“What?”

“Not to tell them about what happened tonight,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry about that. I just think I should get to know them a bit better, since you and Kara are seeing each other.”

“That is
really
not necessary.”

“I’d like to talk with them, anyway,” Rory said. He’d had a few short conversations with the couple this summer, reminiscing about old times on the cul-de-sac, but he hadn’t yet spoken with them about Shelly. “Now is as good a time as any.”

“What a coincidence,” Zack said. “You decide to talk to them right after you find Kara and me….”

“I told you, I won’t say anything about that,” Rory said. “That’s a promise.”

“I’m going to bed,” Zack said.

“It’s still early.”

Zack looked at him suspiciously. “You mean, you’d let me go out?”

“Of course.”

“If I go out, I’m going to see Kara.” It sounded like a threat.

“I’m sure you will,” he said. “I know there isn’t anything I can do about that, Zack. Just…use good judgment, please. That’s all I ask.”

The Wheelers’ cottage was swarming with grandchildren of all ages the following day, but the older couple invited Rory onto their screened deck, away from the noise and clutter. Rory remembered the Wheelers fondly from his childhood. Every evening, they would stroll arm in arm on the beach together, and he’d thought of them as a kind old couple, although they must only have been in their fifties then. Now, in their mid-seventies, Mr. Wheeler was tall and lean and looked fit, while Mrs. Wheeler had grown quite heavy and walked with a cane. He did not know their first names; they would probably always be Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler to him.

“We watch you every week on
True Life Stories
,” Mrs. Wheeler said as she poured him a glass of iced tea from a plastic, childproof pitcher. She handed the tea to him, then lowered herself into a deck chair.

“Well, thanks,” Rory said. “I’m sorry I haven’t stopped by yet this summer. I guess you’ve seen my son more than you have me.”

“He’s a sweet boy,” Mrs. Wheeler said.

“Thanks. He’s a good kid.” Rory took a sip of tea. It was overly sweet. “I do worry that he and Kara might be getting a bit too serious, though,” he said.

Mrs. Wheeler raised her eyebrows. “Do you?” Rory had the feeling she knew exactly what was concerning him.

“Oh,” Mr. Wheeler said, “it’s just a little summer romance. Nothing to get upset about.”

“Well, I just wanted to make sure you don’t mind how much Zack is around,” Rory said. “How much the two of them are together.”

“He’s about the nicest boy she’s gone out with,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “So, no, we don’t mind a bit.”

For a moment, Rory worried about what the other boys Kara had dated had been like—and what diseases they might carry—but he put those thoughts aside.

“I’ll tell you the girl we need to worry about,” Mr. Wheeler said. “That Bernadette. They say she’s heading straight for the Outer Banks now.”

“I didn’t know that,” Rory said. He hadn’t listened to the weather report yet that day.

“There’s still a chance she’ll veer off course,” Mr. Wheeler said. “I just hope we don’t have to evacuate. Remember doing that when you were a kid?”

“I think we only had to do it once or twice,” Rory said. “I don’t remember where we went.” He supposed he and Zack would go to a hotel on the mainland somewhere, if they needed to evacuate.

“Oh, we usually end up in one of the shelters,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Cheaper than a motel, with our crew, and the kids wind up having a lot of fun.”

Rory took another swallow of tea. “Well,” he began, “I guess you know why I’m here this summer.”

Mrs. Wheeler nodded. “Shelly,” she said.

“That’s right. I’ve been talking to people on the cul-de-sac about what they remember. Do you two have any thoughts on who left Shelly on the beach that morning?”

“I always figured it was that Cindy girl who lived at the end of the street,” Mr. Wheeler said.

“Oh, it wasn’t Cindy,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “She was too thin. Remember? We talked about it back then. She was a skinny minnie.”

“Well, you were skinny back in your baby-having days, yourself,” Mr. Wheeler said, and his wife made a sound of mock annoyance.

“Cindy preserved her figure a heck of a lot better than I ever did,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “We see her every once in a while when we go up to Smokey’s restaurant in Corolla for the sweet-potato fries. She’s always so nice.”

Rory leaned forward. “You’ve seen Cindy Trump recently?” he asked. “Does she live around here?”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “She and her husband and kids own one of them huge houses in Corolla. Her last name is Delaney now.”

Rory made a mental note of the name, unable to believe his good fortune. He would be able to talk with Cindy after all.

“You know,” Mrs. Wheeler said, “I’d like to think of Shelly the way Sue—her mother—did—as a gift from the sea, with no parents other than the Catos. Shelly is such a sweet girl, and she gave Mrs. Cato such happiness in her last years. And Daria’s been a saint to take care of her.”

“Maybe it was that retarded girl,” Mr. Wheeler said suddenly. “Maybe she was Shelly’s mother.”

“Hush,” his wife said sharply. “That was Rory’s sister.”

Rory smiled. “I’m quite certain Polly had nothing to do with Shelly,” he said, although he was beginning to wonder why he was so sure of that fact. The thought of Polly having been taken advantage of sexually, the thought of her being confused about being pregnant and delivering a baby by herself, was too horrifying to ponder.

“Rory…” Mrs. Wheeler sounded hesitant. “Did you ever
consider that your own mother might have been Shelly’s mother?” she asked.

Rory masked the shock in his face. “No, I’d have to say my mother would be last on my list of suspects,” he said.

“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Wheeler said hurriedly. “And you’re probably right. But your mother and I had a lot of conversations back in the old days. She was very upset that she’d had a Mongoloid child and she’d been terribly worried when she got pregnant with you. She was afraid you might turn out to be slow, too, especially since she was even older when you were born than when your sister came. She told me how relieved she was when you were born normal.” Mrs. Wheeler ran her fingertip over the sweaty handle of the pitcher. “I always wondered if maybe she had gotten pregnant again. Maybe she was so afraid that she’d have another retarded child that she—” Mrs. Wheeler shrugged “—left the baby to the sea, thinking that was the best and kindest thing to do.”

“Do you really think that was a possibility?” Rory was incredulous.

“I guess I thought she was just as likely as anybody else on the street.”

Why not his mother? he thought. He’d considered nearly every other woman on the cul-de-sac. But this was one direction his thinking refused to take him.

He took a last swallow of the too-sweet tea. “Well,” he said, standing up, “I should get back to Poll-Rory.”

“Watch out for Bernadette,” Mr. Wheeler said.

“Cindy’s last name was Delaney, you said?” Rory asked.

Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler got to their feet as well. “That’s right,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “And wait till you see her. She hasn’t changed a bit.”

“I
THINK EVACUATION IS INEVITABLE
,” D
ARIA SAID
. S
HE WAS
sitting next to Rory on the widow’s walk. “They said there’s a high-pressure system that’s going to pull Bernadette straight toward us.”

“It’s hard to believe there’s a storm out there,” Rory said.

They were both sitting on the west side of the widow’s walk, facing the sea, and the water was calm, the glassy waves rolling toward shore with an easy, uniform rhythm. Daria had seen enough storms on the Outer Banks to know that this tranquillity was deceptive. It was difficult to worry when the air and the sea were this quiet, and she could understand how someone not familiar with the area could convince themselves the storm would veer off course and miss them. But she didn’t need the weather to tell her what was coming. She felt it in her gut, that churning apprehension she always had when a storm was heading their way. It
could
miss them. They might receive no more than a few sprinkles and some harmless wind. Or, the water could cover Kill Devil Hills, destroying the beaches and pulling the cottages out to sea. It was the not knowing that made her stomach churn. She needed to prepare for the worst scenario. She needed to think about lowering the storm
windows, closing the storm shutters, bringing the tools up from the workshop, and most important, keeping Shelly as calm and occupied as she could.

“I can already feel Shelly tensing up,” Daria said. “I don’t think she’s eaten anything all day.”

“Did you give her a hard time about letting Zack and Kara use her room?” Rory asked.

“Not too hard,” Daria said. “By the time she got home last night, she was already getting nervous about the storm. I didn’t have the heart to upset her more.”

“Where do we go if we have to evacuate?” Rory asked. “Where do
you
usually go?”

“We’ll go to a motel in Greenville,” Daria said. “As a matter of fact, I’d better make reservations now, just in case we need them. Would you like me to make reservations for you and Zack, too?” She hoped he said yes. She wanted him close by.

“That would be great,” he said. “I guess I should get some plywood, huh? I’ve never done this before. I remember my father nailing wood over the windows, though.”

“Yes, you should. And take down the Poll-Rory sign so it doesn’t blow away. Move the porch and deck furniture inside.” She looked across the cul-de-sac at his cottage. “Put your garbage can inside, too, and anything else that might turn into a missile in the wind.”

“You’re starting to make
me
nervous now,” Rory said.

“I know.” She laughed. “My stomach hurts just thinking about it.”

They were quiet for a few minutes. She could see Zack and some of the other kids playing volleyball on the beach. Rory finally broke the silence.

“I had a talk with the Wheelers today,” he said.

“Oh. About Kara?”

“Well, I skirted the issue of Kara and Zack,” he said. “They think my son is a great guy. I’d best leave it at that.”

“He
is
a great guy,” Daria said. Then she realized what he had spoken to the Wheelers about. “Shelly,” she said. “You talked to them about Shelly.”

“Uh-huh.” Rory slouched down on the bench, his hands locked behind his head. “You’ll be pleased to know that they weren’t much help. As a matter of fact, all they succeeded in doing was rattling me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Mr. Wheeler thinks Shelly’s mother was Polly,” Rory said. “And guess who Mrs. Wheeler thinks is Shelly’s mother?”

Daria felt momentarily unnerved. What did Mrs. Wheeler know? “Who?” she asked.

“
My
mother.”

Daria laughed. The thought was bizarre. “You’re kidding. Why would she think that?”

Rory shrugged. “Well, she made a good point. My mother, I’m sure, was afraid of having any more children after Polly and I were born, fearing that another child might have Down’s syndrome. Mom would have been in her late forties by then, so if she had been pregnant, that would have been a realistic concern. Mrs. Wheeler suggested that my mother might have gotten pregnant and decided that leaving the baby on the beach was the way to go.”

“I don’t remember your mother all that well, but I can’t imagine her doing something like that,” Daria said.

“I don’t know,” Rory said. He unlocked his hands from behind his head, and leaned his elbows on his knees, looking out to sea. “It’s been bothering me all day,” he said. “She
did
have some psychological problems later on in her life. I didn’t think she had them then, but maybe they were already
brewing. I mean,
someone
did it.
Someone
was a little crazy that night. I guess it could have been my mother as well as anyone else.”

He sounded despondent, and Daria rested her hand lightly on his back. The gesture felt awkward and alien to her, but it was the sort of thing
he
would do, and she knew how good it felt to be comforted that way. It was the least she could do for him—or the least she was willing to do, at any rate. She had the ability to put his doubts to rest, completely and forever, but there was no way she could tell him what she knew.

“What would you do if you found out that it
was
Polly or your mother?” she asked. “Would you still do the story?”

“Are you kidding?” He turned his head to look at her. “No way.”

“Then I’m asking you,” she said gently, “to remember that the woman you’re trying to expose might also be someone else’s sister or someone else’s mother, and people can be hurt by the information you uncover.”

Rory studied his bare feet. She could not see his face.

“Most likely it was Cindy,” she continued, “and she probably has a family who would be devastated by learning about Shelly. You need to—”

“Oh,” Rory interrupted her, sitting up straight again. “I found out where Cindy is.”

“You did?” This was news Daria did not want to hear.

“Right. The Wheelers said she lives up in Corolla with her husband and kids.”

“I didn’t know that.” Daria had no idea Cindy still lived in the Outer Banks. “Are you going to talk with her?”

“Absolutely,” Rory said. “I’d get on it right now, if it weren’t for the storm coming up. But I figure I’d better spend tomorrow battening down the hatches.”

“Good idea,” Daria said, still shaken by the news about
Cindy. It had been easy to pin the blame on Cindy when she was little more than a hazy figure from the past. Knowing that she was a living, breathing woman just up the coast a few miles was something else again.