Summer's Child (3 page)

“Why?” Chloe asked. “It’s not yours.”

“That’s true, but right now she doesn’t have anyone,” Sue said. “No one to hold her and rock her. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Can I go, Mom?” Daria stood up, the dragonfly forgotten. “I found her.”

Her mother tilted her head, as if considering. “Sure,” she said. “I think you should.”

The nurse instructed them to wash their hands with a special soap and put on blue gowns before they could walk into the nursery where the baby was lying in a plastic bassinet. They were not allowed to pick her up, however. They were just allowed to stare. And stare they did. Daria barely recognized the tiny infant lying in front of her. The baby was so small. Had she really been that small when Daria found her on the beach? Her skin was very pale, almost translucent, and her hair
was little more than a dusting of fine blond glitter on the top of her head. She was attached to several monitors by long wires taped to her chest.

Daria was surprised to feel tears fill her eyes as she looked at the baby. This baby was alive because of her. She moved, she breathed, because of her. It seemed unbelievable.

Daria’s mother took her hand, and Daria held on tightly, something she had not done in years. She glanced up at her mother’s face to see tears streaming slowly and silently down her cheeks, and Daria knew that for each of them, this baby was more than a small bundle of flesh and bone. This baby was already changing their lives.

“We’re going to stop at St. Esther’s,” her mother said once they were back in the car and driving across Currituck Sound toward Kill Devil Hills.

“To light a candle,” Daria said with conviction, proud she was able to read her mother’s mind.

“Yes,” her mother said. “But also, we’re going to pay a visit to Father Macy.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Daria’s mother stared at the road and clutched the steering wheel firmly in her hands. “Because if the mother doesn’t come forward, I believe that baby should be ours.” She turned to face Daria. “Don’t you? After all, she’s alive because of you, my sweet Daria.”

It had not occurred to her that they might be able to keep the baby, but instantly, Daria could imagine no other outcome. A little sister! She was going to do something a bit evil when she lit her candle: She was going to pray that the identity of the person who left the baby on the beach was never discovered.

St. Esther’s was nothing like the church Daria’s family attended during the rest of the year in Norfolk, Virginia. The
church in Norfolk was dark and cold and musty-smelling, and always made her shiver with a strange mixture of fear and awe. But St. Esther’s stood near the sound in Nag’s Head, a large wooden rectangular building that felt clean and new inside. It was open and airy, with huge windows near the high ceiling and pews made from light-colored wood. There was stained glass in some of the windows, a kaleidoscope of translucent glass cut into abstract shapes that sent beams of bright colored light through the air of the church.

St. Esther’s was empty that afternoon, and Daria thought their footsteps were entirely too loud as she and her mother walked across the hardwood floor to the tiers of candles in the corner. Daria’s mother took a long wooden taper from the holder, slipped it into the flame of one of the candles and used the lit taper to light a candle of her own. She handed the taper to Daria.

It did not seem quite as magical and mysterious to light a candle in here as it would have in their dark, cavelike church in Norfolk, but nevertheless Daria lit a candle in the bottom tier and knelt next to her mother to say a prayer for the baby.

Dear God, let that little baby live and be healthy
, she prayed.
And let her be ours
.

When they had finished praying, Daria and her mother walked out the side door of the church to the small attached building that housed the offices of the priests, as well as some classrooms where children attended day camp. They entered the building and began walking through the wide, cool hallway, its hardwood floor gleaming in the light from the skylights. Father Macy was just walking out of his office as they approached.

“Why Mrs. Cato. Daria,” he said with a smile. “What brings the two of you here?” He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and his hair was the color of the sea oats on the Kill Devil Hills
beach. He was a good match for St. Esther’s, as approachable and cheerful as the church itself.

Daria felt her mother put an arm around her shoulders. “Go ahead and tell him, honey,” she said.

“I found a baby on the beach,” Daria said.

Father Macy’s brown eyes grew wide. “A baby?” he repeated.

“Yes,” her mother said. “Daria had the courage to pick her up and bring her home to us, even though she was a newborn with the, uh…afterbirth still attached.” She squeezed Daria’s shoulder. “We would like to talk with you about her, if you have a minute.”

“Of course,” Father Macy said. He stepped back into his office. “Come right in.”

They followed him into the small room. A massive desk stood in front of the one large window. It looked out toward the sound, and in the distance, the grand, golden dunes at Nag’s Head. The priest sat casually on the edge of his desk, and Daria and her mother sat in two armchairs on the opposite side of the room. Father Macy’s easygoing demeanor irritated her father, Daria knew. “He’s too informal,” he had said, and she doubted that the Norfolk priests ever sat on the edge of their desks. But Father Macy was very young; it was his third year being a priest and his second year at St. Esther’s. Even Daria thought he was handsome, with those large, brown eyes and long eyelashes. He had an easy laugh that made her feel relaxed around him.

“So tell me more about this baby you found, Daria,” he said.

“I was on the beach very early this morning to watch the sunrise and to beach-comb,” Daria said. “And I kicked over a horseshoe-crab shell, and underneath was the baby.” She didn’t want to tell him about the blood.

“And obviously, it had been born quite recently?” He looked at Daria’s mother for confirmation, and she nodded.

“Someone had simply given birth to her right there or very nearby, and left her to die,” Daria’s mother said.

“My, my.” Father Macy looked gravely concerned. “Is the baby…alive?”

“Yes, by the grace of God, she is,” she said. “She’s at the hospital in Elizabeth City. We just visited her and she’s doing well, and in a few days she should be able to go home. But she
has
no home, and that’s why I’m here.” Daria’s mother looked uncomfortable for the first time since they’d entered the priest’s office. She looked into her lap and played with the clasp of her purse, and Daria wished she would just get to the point.

“My husband and I would like to adopt her,” she said finally. “That is, if no one claims her. And I was wondering if you could help with that. If you could intercede on our behalf.”

Father Macy looked thoughtful. “Do you realize what a miracle this is?” he asked. “That Daria found this baby in time to save her? That the baby was found by someone who belongs to a family as devout, as holy and blessed as the Cato family?”

For the second time that afternoon, Daria felt close to tears.

“Yes,” her mother said softly. “Yes, we’re very aware that the Lord selected us.”

“I’ll be in touch with the hospital,” Father Macy said, standing up. “And I’ll be in touch with the state adoption agency. I’ll do whatever I can to plead your case. I can think of no better home for that little one.”

One week later, the baby arrived at the Sea Shanty, and became the instant celebrity of the neighborhood. Everyone from the cul-de-sac stopped by to stare at the little blond-haired infant and to shake their heads over her rude beginning in life. Daria’s mother named the infant Michelle, calling her Shelly for short. The irony of that name had seemed lost on everyone except Daria, who had delighted in how fitting a name it was.
People often commented, though, on the other irony: that this tiny, blond, brown-eyed child was now part of the dark-haired, Greek Cato clan.

All that summer, Daria’s mother would sit on the porch, rocking the tiny baby in her arms and telling all who approached that Shelly was her gift from the sea.

“Daria?”

Daria started at the sound of Chloe’s voice. She sat up on the bed, freeing herself from the memories.

“Shelly’s back,” Chloe called from downstairs. “Come have some cake.”

“Coming!” Daria called, relieved that Shelly had returned safe and sound. She ran her fingers through her hair and headed downstairs to hug the young woman who was both her joy and her heartache, her blessing and her burden.

T
HE PLANE CAME TO A STANDSTILL AT THE GATE, AND
R
ORY
unfastened his seat belt and stood up to reach into the overhead bin. He pulled out the backpack and handed it to his son, who was still buckled into his seat and looked disinclined to leave the plane. Zack stared out the window, tapping out an imagined drumbeat on his knee. He was fifteen years old and annoyed at the prospect of spending the entire summer with his father on the East Coast. It had been a painful flight, at least for Rory, who had vainly tried every ploy he could think of to get his son to talk to him.

“Come on,” Rory said. “Let’s go find our rental car and get on the road.”

With a loud sigh, Zack unbuckled his seat belt and followed Rory down the aisle.

“Welcome to Norfolk, Mr. Taylor,” the flight attendant said as Rory passed her to leave the plane. She’d chatted with him off and on during the flight from Los Angeles, telling him how
True Life Stories
was her favorite show on TV. He doubted that was true, but as host and producer of the popular show, he was accustomed to the adulation. Women tended to know him from television, men from his days on the football field. Either
way, he attracted attention, and even that seemed to irritate Zack. “We can never go anywhere without people staring at us,” he’d said when the third or fourth passenger on the plane had approached Rory for an autograph.

“Welcome to Nor-fuck,” Zack said now, under his breath, and Rory pretended not to hear him.

They checked in at the car-rental counter, and there was a subdued flurry of excitement between the two female clerks as they recognized their customer.

“You reserved a Toyota FJ Cruiser,” one of the clerks said as she checked his reservation.

“You did?” Zack sounded incredulous.

“Sure,” Rory said. He’d specifically requested a Cruiser. It would give them room for their considerable luggage, plus, he knew a Cruiser would please Zack. If Zack was pleased, though, the boy was determined not to show it.

The Cruiser was cobalt blue and looked new. Rory spread his map over the steering wheel and studied the route they would take to the Outer Banks. “It’s an easy drive,” he told his son, who said nothing in reply.

It was only an hour and a half from Norfolk to Kill Devil Hills, and Zack was no easier to talk with in the car than he had been on the plane. Rory gave up after a while, deciding to simply enjoy the scenery on this much-changed road, with its antique stores and vegetable stands. Zack pressed the scan button on the car radio, hunting for a station that was not too “pitiful.”

Rory had his hopes pinned on this summer. He’d been divorced from Glorianne, Zack’s mother, for nearly two years, and he and Glorianne had joint custody of Zack. Technically, at least. Rory was supposed to have Zack for weekends, holidays and summers. But several months ago, Glorianne had married the movie producer with whom she’d been having an affair during her marriage to Rory, and she now had a house
in Beverly Hills, along with every other material possession she could desire. Rory found himself unable to compete with the glitzy, seductive new life-style Zack was enjoying in Glorianne’s home. Zack was at that age where possessions and grandeur mattered. He was slipping away from his father, and Rory hoped that this summer would bring him back. Rory knew that behind his son’s offensive, defensive adolescent facade, Zack was still hurting from the divorce and angry with both his parents for letting it happen. Intellectually, Rory understood all that. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

“So,” Zack asked dryly as he poked at the scan button, “are we there yet?”

“Another twenty minutes, I’d guess,” Rory said. “This road we’re on used to be narrow and sleepy, with just a few vegetable stands along it.”

“It still looks narrow and sleepy to me,” Zack said. He was a true Southern California kid. Anything tamer than the San Diego Freeway was going to look sleepy to him.

Rory didn’t bother to argue. He knew Zack hated hearing about the way “things used to be,” and he supposed he hadn’t cared for that sort of conversation, either, when he was Zack’s age.

“I miss L.A. already,” Zack said, gazing out the car window.

“Well, we haven’t reached the Outer Banks yet.”

“I still don’t get why we had to come here,” Zack said.

Rory thought he’d explained his reasons for spending the summer in Kill Devil Hills to his son, but either Zack hadn’t heard them or they hadn’t been persuasive enough for him to remember.

“Well, you know I spent my summers here when I was a kid,” he said.

“Right. And it’s got some kind of nostalgic pull on you or something.”

“That’s true.” Rory tried not to sound defensive. “It was a very special place for me. I still own my family’s old cottage there, and I haven’t seen it since I was seventeen.”

“You mean the cottage has just been standing there, empty all this time? Won’t it be rotted out by now?”

“I sure hope not,” Rory said. “I’ve had a real estate agency looking after it. They’ve rented it to people visiting the beach, and supposedly they’ve taken care of the upkeep, as well. I guess we’ll see about that soon.” That was something he was worried about.

“You could have come back for, like, a week or even just a couple of days to check on the cottage,” Zack said. “Instead we have to stay here the whole stupid summer.”

“I have a good reason for wanting to stay the summer,” Rory said, glancing at his son. This part of his plan he had not told him. “There’s an old incident I want to research here for
True Life Stories
. Want to hear what it is?”

Zack shrugged.

“When I was fourteen, a baby was found on the beach close to my cottage. She was a newborn. The little girl across the street found her early in the morning and brought her back to her cottage. The police got involved, of course, but they were never able to figure out who had left the baby there. A few months ago, I received a letter from the baby, who’s grown up now, of course.”

“What did she want?” Zack actually sounded interested.

“She said she knows I try to solve old mysteries on
True Life Stories
and that I’d lived near where she was found. She said she always wanted to know who her mother was and asked if I could try to figure it out.” He glanced at Zack again. “The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it,” he continued. “I’d always wondered about that incident, especially lately. You know how we’ve been hearing about all these
teenage girls having their babies and trying to flush them down toilets or leave them in Dumpsters as if they were nothing more than a Popsicle wrapper? Doesn’t it make you angry when you hear things like that?” He didn’t wait for a response from Zack; he didn’t expect one. “It’s impossible for me to imagine that sort of cruelty. When I hear those stories on the news, it makes me remember that baby. Shelly, her name is.”

“So, where does this…Shelly live?” Zack asked.

“She was adopted by the family of the girl who found her, and apparently she still lives in the house on the cul-de-sac.” He tried to remember the name of that cottage, but failed. “At least, that was the return address on the envelope.” Shelly had given him very little information. It had been a short letter—more of a plea, actually. “She was only about three years old the last time I saw her.” Rory remembered a slender little girl with long platinum hair and large, brown eyes. Even as a teenager, he’d thought it was odd to see that leggy little waif living in the midst of the dark, exotic-looking Cato family. He’d forgotten her name until receiving the letter, remembering only that it was Sandy or Shelly, something to do with the beach. “I never wrote back to her,” Rory said. “I thought I’d surprise her, instead.”

The long bridge across Currituck Sound was directly ahead of them, and Rory felt a rush of excitement. “Kitty Hawk is on the other side of this bridge,” he said to Zack. “And right next to Kitty Hawk is Kill Devil Hills.”

After crossing the bridge, Rory spotted one of the milepost markers along the road and smiled. “People here locate things by the milepost markers,” he said. “Watch the side of the road, there. The next marker should be 3. Our cottage is between milepost 7 and 8.” He was secretly glad of the markers. He wasn’t sure he could remember where to turn,
especially since the landmarks had changed drastically since he’d last been here.

“There’s 3,” Zack said.

“Uh-huh.” Rory could not help but feel some disappointment at what he was seeing. This portion of the Outer Banks was overgrown. The landscape was dotted with the trademark cottages on stilts, the main road was littered with shops and restaurants, and there were far too many people and cars.

“What’s that?” Zack pointed ahead of them in the distance and Rory saw the obelisk jutting up from one of the hills after which Kill Devil Hills was named.

“It’s the Wright Brothers’ Memorial,” Rory said. “This is where they took their first flight, over a hundred years ago.”

“That’s cool,” Zack acknowledged, as if finally admitting there might be some small reason to like this place.

After passing milepost 7, Rory turned the Cruiser toward the ocean and drove a short distance to the beach road. He turned right, hoping that was the correct choice, and in a moment he saw the cul-de-sac on his left.

“Here we are,” he said, turning into the short, broad cul-de-sac. After the jarring sights on Route 158, he felt enormous relief. The cul-de-sac looked the same as it had when he was a child, and nostalgia washed over him. The same handful of cottages was there—less one. The cottage at the end of the cul-de-sac, the one built right on the beach, was gone. Cindy Trump’s cottage. He could picture her even more readily than he could her cottage. She’d been a couple of years older than him, with sun-bleached hair, a killer tan and the skimpiest bikini in Kill Devil Hills.

His eyes were drawn to his old summer home, the last of the three cottages on the right. He laughed. “Well,” he said to his son, “looks like we now own beachfront property. There used to be one cottage between ours and the beach, but that’s gone.”

“Gone where?” Zack asked.

“Into the sea, I’d imagine,” Rory said. “Probably went in during a storm.”

Rory pulled into the driveway of his old home. The cottage looked the same, except cleaner, freshly painted. The rental agency was doing a good job taking care of it.

“Poll-Rory.”
Zack read the sign above the front door. “Was that you and Aunt Polly?”

Rory looked at the sign himself. It was not the same old wooden sign from his youth; this one had white lettering on a blue background. But it surprised him to see any sign at all after so many years.

“That’s right,” he said. “My parents named the cottage after us.” He felt a pinprick of pain in his heart. Staying here was going to bring back many memories of his sister.

Looking across the cul-de-sac at the Catos’ cottage, he saw that a sign still hung above their porch door as well. The Sea Shanty.
Yes
. That had been the name of their cottage. It was no shanty, though. It was the largest cottage on the cul-de-sac, rising three stories above its stilts, and stained a light taupe color. Above the third story was the widow’s walk, where he and Daria used to play when they were small.

“God, we’re right on the beach,” Zack said, opening the car door. “I’m going to go check it out.” He took off toward the water, and Rory let him go.

Getting out of the Cruiser, Rory noticed the two cars in the Sea Shanty driveway and wondered who they belonged to. Were Mr. and Mrs. Cato still living? How did they feel about Shelly’s desire to track down her roots? Would Chloe be around? Growing up, Chloe had been clearly out of his league. She’d had a bunch of boyfriends, all of whom Rory, in his adolescent yearning, had envied. Three years older than him and in college by the time she was sixteen, Chloe had been
knockout gorgeous, with dark eyes and long, wavy black hair. All the Cato girls had that same thick, dark hair. Ellen—she was the cousin, if he was remembering correctly—had been pretty as well, but her cute facade had hidden a mean-spiritedness that had scared him at times. He suddenly remembered an incident he hadn’t thought about in years. He’d been about thirteen, sitting with Ellen and a group of kids on the beach. He was watching an attractive girl walking along the water’s edge, when Ellen saw fit to point out to the rest of the group that he had an erection. He’d rolled rapidly onto his stomach, hating Ellen and her big mouth. Even now, he cringed remembering that moment.

Then there had been Daria, his little buddy, the girl who could run faster, swim better and catch bigger fish than he could. She’d been three years younger than him, but she’d been his competitor, nevertheless. He’d always pretended that he was letting her win at whatever they attempted. Inside, though, he’d been filled with admiration for her. He wondered what had become of the three Cato girls.

He opened the back of the Cruiser and pulled out two of the suitcases. He carried them up to the porch, then took a moment to look toward the ocean himself, breathing in the still-familiar scent of the beach he loved. It would be a good summer. He was in one of the finest places on earth, about to delve into an intriguing story, and he had Zack with him. Zack would come away from this summer with a healthy tan, sun-kissed hair and his good values restored. And with, Rory hoped, renewed love for his father. He could hope for the moon, couldn’t he?