Summer's Child (23 page)

I
N AN AREA WHERE A HUGE PERCENTAGE OF THE RESIDENTS
were tourists, it was amazing how quickly rumors flew among the locals. Daria first heard the rumblings on one of her construction jobs, the day after Father Macy’s funeral. She and Andy were installing kitchen cabinets when she overheard George and Billy talking about the investigation. His brother was a cop, so he was privy to information others might not know.

“It was such a weird sort of accident,” George said from his perch on one of the ladders. “I mean, does it make any sense to you guys? Here, Sean Macy’s been hang-gliding for a dozen years, maybe, and suddenly he crashes.”

“It was probably just a lapse in his concentration,” Daria said. She held the base cabinet tight against the wall, while Andy screwed it to a stud.

“That’s not what my brother thinks,” George said. He left Billy holding up the ceiling fan as he ticked off the facts on his fingertips. “First of all, it was a competition, not some everyday flight. If there’s any time Sean would have been paying attention to what he was doing, it would be then. Second, the weather was perfect. I mean, he would have to go out of his way to crash in that kind of weather.”

“So, what are you saying?” Billy asked. “You think someone wanted to off him?”

“They considered that,” George said, helping Billy with the fan again. “Maybe somebody didn’t like the penance Sean gave them after confession or something, and so they tampered with his hang glider. But the police have gone over the hang glider with a fine-tooth comb, and it was in perfect working order.”

“What do they think happened, then?” Andy asked as he backed out of the base cabinet.

“That maybe he took that nosedive into the sand on purpose,” George said. He waited for the drama of his words to sink in.

“That’s nuts,” Andy said.

“Well, there’s more.” With the fan secure, George climbed down from the ladder. “My brother and a couple of other cops have been talking to some witnesses—experienced pilots who were there. It looked to them like an intentional stall.”

“Maybe it was part of his performance,” Andy said. “Maybe he was going to—”

George interrupted him. “That other priest at St. Esther’s. The old guy, Father Wayne? He told my brother he’d been worried about Sean lately. He said Father Macy had been withdrawn and upset. He thought Sean might have been screwing…Excuse me. There’s a lady present. He thought Sean might have broken his vow of celibacy.”

Daria was incensed. How far had this rumor spread? The man had been dead only a few days, and already his memory was tarnished. “That’s all just speculation,” she said. “And it really bothers me to hear it. Why does everyone always have to look for the dirt? Sean Macy was a really good man and a good priest. He wouldn’t have—” She suddenly remembered Shelly’s prediction that the priest would kill himself, and an eerie sense of dread filled her chest.

“He wouldn’t have what?” George prompted her to finish her statement.

“I just wish you wouldn’t spread this kind of thing around until you have some facts to back it up.”

“Don’t listen, then, Miss Priss.”

George continued talking about Sean Macy and what the cops had or had not been able to uncover, but as Daria resumed her work on the cabinets, her thoughts were on Shelly. Shelly had always been unusual in her ability to see things others could not, but she’d never before displayed psychic powers. If Sean Macy had indeed killed himself, how had Shelly predicted it?

That night, Daria sat at the picnic table on the Sea Shanty porch with Chloe and Shelly, eating cold roasted chicken and potato salad for dinner. No one was talking much; neither Chloe nor Shelly was finished with her grieving. And although Daria knew the timing was poor, she had to bring the subject up.

“There’s a rumor going around that Father Macy might have killed himself,” she said halfway through the meal.

Chloe looked up from the chicken breast she had barely touched. “I’ve heard some rumblings to that effect,” she said, her voice flat.

Daria looked at Shelly, who kept her gaze fastened on her plate.

“Shelly?” Daria prompted.

Shelly looked up. “What?”

“I know you thought that might happen. That Father Macy might commit suicide.”

Chloe looked surprised. “You did?” she asked Shelly. “What would make you think that?”

Shelly shrugged and poked at her potato salad with her fork.

Daria looked at Chloe. “About a week ago, Shelly was
upset, and she told me she thought Father Macy might kill himself,” Daria explained. “I thought she was…I thought she’d misinterpreted something he’d said. Now I’m not so sure.”

Shelly began to cry. She pushed her plate away and pressed her napkin to her eyes. “I knew he was going to do it,” she said. “I should have done something about it.”

Daria leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Why on earth did you think he was going to do that?” she asked.

Shelly sat back on the bench, her nose already red from crying. “He said he was upset with himself,” she said. “He said he was a…sinner.”

“A sinner?” Daria repeated. “What did he mean by that? Did he say why he thought he was a sinner?”

Shelly shook her head. “He always talked like a puzzle to me. I was never sure what he meant about things.” She picked up her fork again and poked it into the potato salad. “He asked me if I thought it was wrong to kill yourself, and I said that I thought it was. And
he
said, that he thought God would forgive a suicide if it was done to save somebody else.”

Daria and Chloe exchanged looks of confusion on their side of the table. “Who would he be saving?” Daria asked. “I think you must have misunderstood him.”

Chloe slipped off her side of the bench and moved around the table to sit next to Shelly. She rested her hand on her younger sister’s arm, and Daria saw tears brimming in Chloe’s eyes.

“I think Daria’s right, honey, and you misunderstood what Father Sean was saying,” she said. “So, I think that what you just told us has to stay between the three of us. Understand? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and if you were to spread it around, I’m afraid it would just fuel the fire right now.” Chloe pressed her lips together, her glistening eyes fixed on the picnic
table. “The thing we need to keep in mind is that Sean was a good man. Maybe he
did
do something that would make him a sinner in the eyes of the Church, but not in the eyes of God, and that’s what counts. God could never think of such a person as a sinner. So, maybe you got confused in what you heard, or maybe Sean himself was confused by what he was thinking or feeling. Either way, we need to keep what he told you in this house. Okay?”

Shelly nodded, and Daria could see that she was relieved to have told them what she knew and that she’d been comforted by Chloe’s words. Chloe stood up, leaning over to give Shelly a hug.

All three of them looked up at the sound of a car door slamming. Across the cul-de-sac, Grace was walking from her car toward the front door of Poll-Rory. Daria wondered if she had a clue what was waiting for her inside that cottage. She fervently hoped Rory could get to the bottom of the game she was playing.

Chloe looked down at Daria, who had not yet told her what she knew about Grace.

“And how about you, sweetheart?” Chloe said to her, nodding in the direction of Rory’s cottage. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now,” she said. At Chloe’s disbelieving look, she repeated to herself with a smile. “Really, Chloe,” she said. “I’m fine.”

Rory let Grace into the cottage. He’d been both dreading and looking forward to this moment since his talk with Daria the day before. Grace greeted him with a smile, obviously unaware that she had been unmasked. What truly lay beneath that mask, he couldn’t say, but he planned to find out in the next few minutes.

She stood inside the cottage door, and she must have seen the seriousness in his face, because her smile quickly faded.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You and I need to have a talk,” he said.

The apprehension in her eyes was instantaneous. “What about?” she asked.

He walked into the living room, and she followed him, but remained standing when he sat down in a chair.

“I know you’re not really separated,” he began, “and I know you had a child who was killed in a plane crash in April.”

Grace let out her breath. Shutting her eyes briefly, she sat down on the sofa. “How do you know all that?”

“Did you know that Daria was one of the EMTs involved in trying to rescue your daughter?” he asked.

The color drained from her face so quickly that he was certain she had not known. She probably knew nothing about Shelly’s involvement, then, either. “I had no idea,” she said.

“Well, she was,” Rory said. “And the fact that she wasn’t able to save your daughter really distressed her. It got bad enough that she quit being an EMT, and she was so upset about it, that she decided to track down your daughter’s family to speak with them about it. So, she went to Rodanthe and talked to your…husband.”

“Oh my God…”

“And I guess your husband mentioned you, and Daria put two and two together and realized that you and the pilot’s mother were one and the same person.”

Grace lowered her head to her hands. “Oh, Rory, I’m so sorry. This must all seem insane to you. I had no idea Daria was involved in that accident. That’s just a crazy coincidence. I lied about not having children because I didn’t want to talk about Pamela. It’s too painful to talk about. She was my baby.” Grace began to cry in earnest, and Rory felt the hard edges of his heart begin to soften. “And I only partly lied about being separated,” she said.

“Daria said you live on the same property as your husband.”

Grace nodded. “I live above the garage,” she said. “I’d live somewhere else, if I could afford to. But right now, I can’t. If Eddie doesn’t know we’re separated, then he’s in denial.”

Her lower lip trembled, and Rory knew that Daria was mistaken about Grace’s ulterior motives. This was a woman who had recently lost a child, and she obviously did not have support from her husband in grieving for that child. Plus, she’d recently had a serious illness. He could only imagine the emotional pain she’d been suffering. So she’d gone a little crazy. He’d been crazy after his separation, and that had not been coupled with the loss of a child. His throat tightened at the thought of losing Zack.

He moved to the sofa, sitting down next to her, close to her. “I have one more question I need an answer to,” he said.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, waiting.

“What kind of illness did you have?” It was time he knew. He was tired of her secrets and evasiveness.

She swallowed hard and a look of panic came into her eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She stood up, swaying, and he stood, too, holding her arm to steady her. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she walked unsteadily toward the bathroom.

He waited what seemed like a long time, and was about to check on her when she emerged from the bathroom, holding a wet washcloth to her throat. He stood up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She offered a wry laugh. “Oh, I’m just great,” she said, taking her seat again.

He held her hand on his knee, not caring whether she wanted him to, not caring if she had a husband, or if she had lied to him. Her palm was clammy and cool. She pressed the washcloth to her forehead with her other hand, then lowered it to her lap.

“I had heart surgery just before Pamela died,” she said, drawing away a bit to look at him. “I have a condition called Marfan’s syndrome. It’s hereditary and can sometimes affect the heart. Pamela had it, too. She’d just been diagnosed with it, although she hadn’t had any obvious symptoms—until the seizure she had on the plane. That’s why the plane went down. My husband always pushed her to fly.” She suddenly looked angry. “If it hadn’t been for him, she would have taken up some normal hobby, like softball or…a musical instrument, or something. And she’d still be alive.” She closed her eyes tightly, and the tears started again. “I’m sorry, Rory,” she said. “When I lied to you that first day on the beach, I didn’t know I was going to become friends with you. Or that I’d even see you again. And once the lie was out…”

“Shh.” He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him, and she did not resist. She wept against his chest, tangled up in her lies and grief. He was not certain what impact all those lies would have on their relationship. All he knew was that, right now, she needed a friend. He was more than willing to play that role.

D
ARIA AND
C
HLOE ARRIVED HOME FROM WORK AT THE SAME
time, when the sky above the ocean was pewter-colored and cloudless and there was no hint of menacing weather.

“Did you hear about the hurricane headed this way?” Daria asked as she and Chloe walked onto the Sea Shanty’s porch.

“No,” Chloe said. “That’s just what we need.”

“It’s a big one,” Daria said. In the living room, she clicked on the TV to wait for the weather report. “It’s still pretty far out,” she said, “so maybe it’ll weaken as it nears shore. Or it might even turn out to sea. You never know, at this stage.”

“You’d better not say anything to Shelly about it.” Chloe looked at her watch. “I just came home to change,” she said. “I have to go back to the church to help Father Wayne with a meeting tonight.”

Chloe would be working longer hours for a while, taking on extra duties at St. Esther’s in Father Macy’s absence. Daria sat down in front of the TV as Chloe went upstairs to change.

All day, while she and Andy had been paneling a condo in Duck, she’d been wondering how Rory’s talk with Grace had gone. As soon as Chloe left, she’d go over to Poll-Rory to find out.

But, as the meteorologist was giving his uncertain report about Hurricane Bernadette, Rory knocked on the porch door.

“Daria?” he called.

“Come in,” she said, looking up as he walked into the living room. “I was going to come over a little later.”

Rory sat down on the other end of the sofa. “Is that Bernadette?” he asked, eyeing the perfect white doughnut of clouds on the weather map.

“Uh-huh. She’s a monster.”

“When do they predict it will hit us?”

“They’re not sure it will.”

Chloe came downstairs and into the room, wearing a skirt and blouse in place of the shorts and T-shirt she’d had on earlier.

“Hello, Rory,” she said, her voice so cool that Daria felt irritated with her.

“Hi, Chloe.” Rory turned on the sofa to face her, his arms folded across his chest. “You know, I’ve been hearing some rumors.”

“About?” Chloe asked, and Daria cringed, fearing she knew the rumors Rory was alluding to. He would not win any points with Chloe by bringing them up.

“Some people are saying that Father Macy’s accident might actually have been a suicide,” he said. “Had either of you heard anything like that?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.

“Where did you hear that?” Daria asked.

“Zack said he heard some kids talking about it,” Rory said.

“It’s ridiculous, Rory,” Chloe said. “And it’s not helpful to give any credence to that sort of gossip.”

“I don’t know,” Rory said. “I think it’s kind of suspicious. I mean, he died just a few days after I spoke with him, and he’d been very upset during his conversation with me. Maybe
he knew something about Shelly’s background, and that’s why he killed himself. He wanted to take that information with him to the grave.”

Daria noticed that the tops of Chloe’s ears were red, a sure sign of anger that she had not seen in her sister in many, many years.

“I’m certain your conversation with him had nothing whatsoever to do with it,” Chloe said coldly. Her hands were on her hips, her eyes blazing. “You think everything revolves around you and your damn TV program. Probably now you’ll decide to do one of your shows on this new mystery, huh? ‘The Secret Agony of Sean Macy.’” She turned abruptly to Daria. “I need to get over to the church,” she said. “I hope none of the parishioners has heard any of this slander.”

Turning on her heel, Chloe marched out the front door, slamming it shut behind her.

“Whoa,” Rory said. “Why do I get the feeling she’s not pleased with me?”

Daria sighed, leaning against the back of the sofa. “We had a conversation with Shelly last night about the same thing,” Daria said. “I think hearing about the rumors again was just too much for her.”

“Maybe I should go after her,” Rory said, looking toward the front door. “Apologize.”

“I’d leave her alone right now.” Chloe’s anger was so out of character that Daria could not predict how her sister would react to Rory’s apology. “Maybe in a few days, when the wounds aren’t so fresh, she’ll be more receptive. Right now, though, I want to hear about your visit with Grace last night.” She drew her bare feet onto the sofa and turned to face him.

“Well,” Rory began, “she’s screwed up, I’ll grant you that, but I don’t think she had a clue about Shelly being involved in her daughter’s death.” He went on to tell Daria about his
conversation with Grace, and Daria listened quietly. She didn’t feel as trusting of Grace as he did.

“I felt really sorry for her,” Rory said. “I think she just got caught up in the lies about the separation and having no kids. She told me those things the first time I met her, and she didn’t know that we were going to end up having a relationship. Once we did, I guess she figured it was easier to stick with her original story. She didn’t have a mastectomy, like we thought. She had heart surgery. She has a disease called Marfan’s syndrome.”

“Pamela—the pilot—had that.”

“Yeah, Grace said it’s hereditary. She’s in a lot of pain over her daughter. I think that’s why she’s drawn to Shelly. Shelly’s close in age to her daughter. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.”

“I hope you’re right,” Daria said. “It still seems like a pretty amazing coincidence that she stumbled into our little cul-de-sac.” She heard the callous tone of her words and wished she could take them back. It was obvious that Rory felt sympathy for Grace. She had not wanted that, or expected it. Why couldn’t he see that, for whatever reason, Grace was manipulating him?

“If you could have seen her last night, I think you would stop worrying about it,” Rory said.

“So,” Daria said, “where do things stand now with the two of you?”

Rory laughed. “Funny you should ask,” he said. “I was thinking to myself that I was an adulterer for having had an affair with a married woman. But there
was
no affair. Grace had made sure of that. It was only an affair in my fantasies. So, to answer your question, I don’t know.” He locked his hands together and stretched his arms out in front of him. “I still want to see her. I’m not angry with her. I just—”

A sudden noise came from upstairs, and Daria cocked her head to listen. “I didn’t think Shelly was home,” she said in a near whisper, her heart beating a little faster.

There was a thud, followed by the sound of voices. One of them was a man’s, and Daria was instantly alarmed. “It’s coming from Shelly’s room,” she said. “Who could be with her?”

Rory looked toward the stairs. “Does she have any male friends?” he asked.

Daria shook her head. “None that she should have in her bedroom,” she said. “God, Rory, what if it’s someone she picked up? Some stranger? She befriends everyone. What if it’s some psychopath?”

“Calm down,” Rory said. “The likelihood of that is pretty slim. But…maybe you should go check on her, anyway.”

“I don’t want to humiliate her,” she said, looking toward the stairs, “but I’d never forgive myself if somebody was hurting her.”

“I’d say her safety is more important than her pride right now,” Rory said.

Daria stood up. “Call the cops if I start screaming,” she said, walking toward the stairs.

In the upstairs hallway, she knocked on Shelly’s door. “Shelly?”

There was an ominous silence from behind the door, then hushed voices and the rustling of sheets.

“Shelly, are you all right?”

She heard footsteps, and the bedroom door was opened a few inches…by Zack. Daria could see Kara in Shelly’s bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin, and she was too surprised to speak.

“I’m not Shelly,” Zack said with a sheepish grin. “Shelly said we could use her room while she was out on a walk.”

Daria heard Rory’s footsteps on the stairs. It sounded as
though he was taking them two at a time, and Zack’s grin faded. “Is my dad here?” he asked, eyes wide, and Daria nodded.

“Zack?” Rory called as he neared the top of the stairs.

“Oh, shit.” Zack started to shut the door, but Rory had already reached the hallway. He pushed past Daria to hold the door open with his hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said to his son, the question so idiotic and unanswerable that Daria almost laughed. She remembered having asked the same thing of Shelly years earlier, when she’d caught her in bed with one of the sleazy guys she used to see.

“Shelly said we could use her room,” Zack said weakly.

“Well, I think you two better get dressed and get out of here,” Rory said. “I’ll see you at home in a few minutes.” He pulled the door shut, ran his hands through his hair, then looked at Daria. “Yikes,” he whispered, and she stifled a laugh.

She followed him down the stairs. “I apologize for my sister’s lousy judgment,” she said.

Rory opened the living-room door and looked up at the ceiling. “What do I do now?” he asked, although he didn’t sound as though he actually expected an answer.

“Be understanding,” Daria said. “Be kind. Be all the things I wasn’t when I caught Shelly doing the same thing.”

Rory smiled. “I’ll try,” he said. He turned and left the Sea Shanty.

Treat Zack with the same kind of sympathy you so easily lavish on Grace
, she thought as she watched him walk across the cul-de-sac and into Poll-Rory, where he’d wait to have it out with his son.