Summer's Child (10 page)

“L
ET’S GO UP TO THE TOP
,” R
ORY SAID TO
Z
ACK
. T
HEY WERE
standing in the small parking lot near the Currituck Lighthouse, looking up at the red brick structure. Rory started walking toward it, but Zack didn’t budge.

“Come on,” Rory said to him.

“Is there an elevator?” Zack asked as he fell into step next to Rory.

“No, but the stairs in the lighthouse are really neat,” Rory said, trying to be patient and well aware that the word
neat
would make Zack roll his eyes. “It’s a spiral staircase. Gets tighter and tighter till you reach the top, and then you have a terrific view.”

“I’ll stay down here,” Zack said. He had spotted a bench in the small, green courtyard surrounding the lighthouse, and he walked over to it. With a sense of defeat that had been mounting in him all day, Rory entered the lighthouse alone.

He paid the entry fee to the young woman sitting at the table inside the lighthouse, then began climbing the stairs. This was not what he’d had in mind when he invited Zack to tour the Outer Banks with him that morning. He’d wanted to share the area with his son, to instill in Zack a love of the Barrier Islands. But so far, his plan had not worked. They’d
visited the Wright Brothers Memorial and Museum. Zack had sighed repeatedly, twisting and turning in his seat during the lecture, and he’d trudged about twenty paces behind his father as they walked up the grassy hill to the memorial itself. Zack saw no point at all in visiting the wildlife refuge and he had no interest in taking a boat ride to see the dolphins. Rory was afraid that what was really boring Zack was his company. Around his newfound friends on the beach, Zack was lively, active and perpetually smiling—nothing like the somber kid Rory was dragging from one attraction to another.

Rory had purchased memberships for both Zack and himself at the health club where Daria belonged, but even there, he’d felt distanced from his son. Zack liked the fastpaced classes—the cardio-kickboxing and the spinning class on the bikes. Rory and his knee could handle neither.

He was winded by the time he reached the balcony at the top of the lighthouse. The view was stunning: curlicues of land and water for as far as he could see. He spotted Zack sitting on the bench far below him, and he would have waved at him, had Zack been looking up, but that was not the case. Rory had the balcony to himself. He leaned against the railing and looked out to sea, and for the first time that day, let his mind drift away from his son to the woman he’d met on the beach. Grace. He’d called her that morning. She said she’d been hoping he would call, and those words raised his spirits. He asked if he could come down to Rodanthe to see her, but she said she would prefer coming to Kill Devil Hills. They made plans for the following day.

He’d thought about her often over the past few days, remembering the many questions she’d asked him and her genuine interest. It had not been the sort of fabricated, calculated interest women often showed in him, which he knew was meant to entice him. Since his divorce, he’d met many
women who were interested in him primarily because he was Rory Taylor. He had not felt that way with Grace. Her questions had not been about fame or fortune, but about his ideas, particularly his idea for the foundling episode on
True Life Stories
.

There were two ships far out in the ocean, tiny white specks in the distance, and he imagined what it would be like to have been a lighthouse keeper back in the old days, trudging up these stairs, making sure the huge lens was clean and the light inside burning. But his mind only rested on those images for a moment before returning to Grace.

He’d wanted to call her sooner, and the newness of her separation and Daria’s warning about his being too much of a caretaker were only part of his hesitation to do so. It was Zack who stopped him. How did you date when you had a fifteen-year-old son to set a good example for? He’d dated since his divorce, but not on the weekends and holidays when he had Zack with him. Of course, Glorianne had not only dated someone else, she had married him as well, and Zack had survived that upheaval in his life. Glorianne had not, however, set a good example for their son. Not by a long shot. That had to be Rory’s primary concern. Yet he wanted the chance to get to know Grace better.

He looked down at Zack, who was now stretched out on the bench, arms folded across his chest, and possibly even asleep. He was most likely thinking about the Wheelers’ granddaughter, Kara, that pretty little flirt who’d been glued to Zack’s hip since their arrival in Kill Devil Hills. Maybe
that
was how he could connect with his son: women. He’d tried sharing his memories of his own adventures at each of the sites they’d visited, and that had elicited only more of the eye-rolling and yawning. He might as well try some guy talk about women. He descended the circular staircase inside the lighthouse quickly, primed for his new approach.

Zack had indeed fallen asleep on the bench, and Rory nudged his shoulder. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Zack got up and walked with Rory to the parking lot.

“Well,” Rory said as he and Zack got back into the car. “Where to now?”

“How about Poll-Rory?” Zack suggested.

“Oh, come on, Zack,” Rory said. “One more spot. Why don’t we go down to the dunes in Nag’s Head? We can watch the hang gliders.” He realized his son had not yet gotten a good look at the dunes. Nor had he, in twenty years, although at one time they’d been the most alluring, most tantalizing part of the Outer Banks for him.

“Whatever,” Zack said.

They drove in silence for a couple of miles, Rory trying to find a way to begin the conversation. “So, tell me about Kara,” he said finally.

“Like what?” Zack asked.

“Anything.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Zack said.

“How old is she?”

“Fifteen.”

“Where does she live in the winter?”

“Philadelphia.”

“How long has she had that pierced navel?” Why did he ask
that
?

“Awhile, I guess.”

“Does she have any hobbies?”

Zack rolled his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, she seems very nice,” Rory said lamely. He had no idea if she was nice or not. She hadn’t said a single word to him, and surely Zack knew that.

Silence fell between them once again. For some reason, Rory
remembered carrying three-year-old Zack around Disneyland on his shoulders. He remembered how Zack would try to emulate his every move when they played softball at the local playground or kicked the soccer ball around the backyard together. He remembered Zack wearing little-boy pajamas, giggling when Rory tickled him, laughing at Rory’s goofy jokes.

Rory kept his gaze steady on the road, but he felt a wholly unexpected desire to cry, and the sensation took him by surprise. He was not the crying type. He’d shed a tear or two when Polly died, and came close when he found out Glorianne was having an affair, but why now? He swallowed hard and stared at the road. Zack was all he had. Why couldn’t they have a warm, amiable, father-son relationship? What was he doing wrong? He’d already lost today’s battle; unless something changed soon, he was going to lose the entire war.

The massive gold dunes rose in the distance, and he felt Zack perk up next to him at the sight.

“They’re the tallest dunes on the East Coast,” Rory said.

“Pretty cool,” Zack admitted.

“When I was little, developers were just about to demolish the dunes to make room for new homes,” Rory said. “Some woman stopped them and turned the area into a state park.”

“Check out the hang gliders,” Zack said.

Rory turned into the crowded parking lot. “Let’s go see them close up,” he said.

They got out of the car and began walking. Gradually, the sand grew steeper until they were climbing up the slope of the first dune. People were scattered across the face of the dunes, some of them perched on the crests, and children rolled and tumbled down the sandy hills. Above them, a couple of hang gliders floated in the air; a few more were poised for takeoff on the side of the tallest dune—the dune Zack was most intent on
climbing. He charged ahead of Rory, whose bad knee gave a warning twinge as he neared the crest, and he was breathing harder than he had in years. Either the dunes had grown a lot taller over the last twenty years or he’d grown a lot older. He never remembered being winded when he climbed them as a kid.

He had so many memories of these dunes. He’d been one of the small children who rolled down the sand hill, standing up dizzily at the bottom, only to scamper up the slope again. He’d been a wild preteen, flinging himself from the top of the dunes into a slide to the bottom, where he’d have to empty pounds of sand from his shorts and sneakers. And he remembered being a teenager out here, in the daytime with the sun and the heat. At night with the stars.

A string of people were seated along the crest of the dune, watching the gliders, and Zack and Rory joined them. The sun beat down on them, but there was a soft, refreshing breeze that blew grains of sand gently against their cheeks. From where they sat, they could see both sound and ocean, and the cottages down by the beach were so minuscule, it was like viewing them from a plane.

“I think those people are just learning how to hang-glide,” Zack said, pointing to a group surrounding a hang glider, which rested on the sand.

Rory tapped the shoulder of the young woman sitting next to him. “Do you know if that’s some sort of class?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” the woman answered. Her blond hair blew across her face and she brushed it away with her hand. “It’s a beginners’ class. My cousin’s in it.”

“Which one is your cousin?” Zack asked.

“The guy that just landed,” the woman said. “Or, I should say, the guy that just got dragged across the sand on his face.”

The woman’s cousin, who looked quite young from this
distance, appeared none the worse for wear from his rough landing. All of the would-be pilots were wearing harnesses and helmets. Rory and Zack watched a few more takeoffs and landings, and no one seemed to get terribly high in the air or fly for very long, but the smooth glide a dozen feet or so above the sand was inviting.

Zack was clearly mesmerized. Finally, something besides the beach and Kara was getting a rise out of him.

“Why don’t you and I take a lesson one day?” Rory suggested.

Zack looked at him, disbelief etched on his face. “A hang-gliding lesson?”

“Sure.”

“Are you talking about here? This summer?”

“Why not?” He could do this, he thought. It looked safe enough. He’d watched enough of the beginners crash-land on the cushion of sand and get up unscathed to feel confident that he and Zack could handle this. He did wonder how his knee would fare; it was still aching from the walk up the dune. But this was finally something they could do together.

“I can’t believe you’re serious,” Zack said. “I just can’t see you—”

“I was at one time a professional athlete, you know.” Rory felt quite the old man at the moment.

“Let’s do it,” Zack said. “When?”

“Well, how about I…” He stopped himself. He should give this responsibility to Zack. “How about
you
call the school and find out when they have beginners’ classes. You can sign us up.

“You probably think I won’t call,” Zack said with a grin.

“I hope you will,” Rory said sincerely. “I’d really like to do this with you.”

The emotional edge to his voice must have been a little too
much for Zack, because he stopped talking, turning back to watch the gliders sail off the dune. And Rory turned to his own thoughts, his own memories. Did teenagers still climb these dunes at night, he wondered, after the park was closed and it was not allowed? He remembered one particular night out here. The dunes may have shifted over the years, but that memory was planted firmly and forever in his mind.

It was one memory he would never share with his son.

“S
HOULD
I
LEAVE THIS BLIND OPEN FOR YOU
, F
ATHER
?” S
HELLY
asked. “Or is the light in your eyes?”

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.