Linda laughed.

“Even didn’t know it back then. I just knew I was different.”p>

“Like I know I’m different,” Shelly said. She hoped Linda didn’t think she meant that she was a lesbian. She knew for a fact that she was not. It was hard for her to understand how a woman could want to be the lover of another woman, but she liked Linda and Jackie, and if that’s what they wanted to do, that was okay with her.

“You are wonderfully different. Shelly,” Linda said. She called to one of her dogs, who was sniffing at the overturned shell of a horseshoe crab, and the dog trotted obediently to her side for a biscuit she had hidden in her shirt pocket.

Shelly wanted to tell Linda that Daria was madly in love with Rory, but knew her sister would not appreciate her blabbing that fact around the neighborhood. It was so wonderful, though, to see some life in Daria’s eyes again. even if Rory had not yet gotten the message that she was beautiful and available. Shelly hoped he would figure it out soon, or else she would have to bop him over the head with it. Daria had seemed almost dead since Pete broke off their engagement and she’d stopped being an EMT, and Shelly longed to see joy in her sister’s face. She would do anything for Daria, no matter what the cost.

“Do you know what Rory is here for?” Shelly asked.

“What?”

“He’s going to try to find out who my real mother is.”

Linda took a step away from Shelly, her eyes wide behind her round glasses.

“And how, pray tell, does he expect to do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but that’s what he plans to do. He wants to tell my story on True Life Stories. You know, about Daria finding me on the beach and all.”

Linda was quiet for a moment, doling out treats to her dogs, but not really paying much attention to them. Her lips were pursed in thought.

“Do you want to know, Shelly?” she asked finally.

“I always thought of you as just a member of the Cato family.”

“Yes, I want to know.” Shelly felt her eyes bum. Why did this surprise everyone?

“It was my idea. I wrote to him and asked him to help me.

Wouldn’t you want to know who your real mother was? “

“Yes, I guess. But what if your… real mother turns out to be a person you despise?”

“I don’t despise anyone,” Shelly said. Except maybe Ellen, she thought, and felt guilty for even thinking it.

One of the gold ens relieved himself near the horseshoe-crab shell, and Linda bent over to scoop the mess up in a plastic bag.

“Well,” Linda said as she knotted the bag and set it near her feet on the sand, “what if she turns out to be someone you feel no respect for and don’t want to spend time with or have anything to do with? How would you feel then? I mean, maybe it’s best to leave things the way they are.”

“You sound just like Daria and Chloe.” Shelly was exasperated. “The only one who wants me to find out who my mother is is Rory. I’m so glad he’s here.”

“I think Daria and Chloe… and I… are just trying to protect you from being hurt.”

“Well, I’m already hurt. Somebody dumped me on the beach when I was a baby, and my brain never got as good as it should have. So, now I’d like to meet the woman who did that. I’d like to understand why she did that to me.”

“Could you ever forgive her for doing that?”

“I can forgive anyone for doing anything,” Shelly said with certainty.

Father Sean always says that forgiveness was the most important quality a person could possess.

Linda shook her head, a smile on her lips.

“Iwish I could be a little more like you. Shelly,” she said. She whistled for her dogs, and they ran up to her. She gave them treats, then picked up the full bag.

“I’ll stop over in the next couple of days to pick out a piece of glass for the necklace, okay?” she asked.

“Okay. Is it a surprise? Should I be careful what I say around Jackie?”

“Please do,” Linda said.

“And … tell Rory not to make you agree to anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Shelly rolled her eyes.

“Right, Linda.”

She watched as Linda and the dogs walked up the beach toward the cul-de-sac, then she continued her own slow and purposeful journey. It was hard to concentrate on the shells, though, after her conversation with Linda. She wished everyone would lighten up about her trying to find her real mother. Maybe it came as a surprise to them that she even cared. She’d always known that expressing interest in the identity of her birth mother was somehow forbidden, as if that meant she hadn’t appreciated all the Catos had done for her. But suddenly Rory was giving her the freedom to say that she did indeed care. He was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time. If only he would be the best thing that happened to Daria, as well.

Let’s go up to the top,” Rory said to Zack. They 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-kick boxing 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 wear-in” 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.