The baby will be fine. She’ll have a better life than she would have with you—you have to admit it. And then you can get on with your own life. “

It bothered her that Bonnie could not understand. “You weren’t pregnant with this baby for eight months,” she said, starting to cry.

“You didn’t carry her around right beneath your heart. You didn’t feel her moving around inside you. You talk about the baby like she’s some… nuisance, or something. She’s my child. I may not be able to give her every single toy she sees or dress her in perfect, matching little outfits, but I’m going to give her so much love and attention that she’s never going to feel deprived of anything.”

Bonnie sighed tiredly.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Go next door and ask Nancy to bring the baby over so I can finally see her, and then I can talk to her about how I can get the baby into foster care while I’m getting on my feet.”

“All right,” her friend said, standing up.

“Remember, we have to get out of here by one. And we don’t have a thing to eat, so after I get Nancy, I’m going to go to the store and get some bread and some sanitary napkins for you. Nancy said you’d need them.” “Okay, but bring the baby over first, please?”

“Okay.”

Grace got out of bed, slowly, after Bonnie left the cottage. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom, and she was horrified to see several bloodied towels in the wastebasket. They would have to remember to get rid of them before they left. She improvised a sanitary pad for herself out of a washcloth and got dressed. She couldn’t wait to see her baby.

She walked out of the bathroom to find Bonnie in the doorway of the bedroom. Her face was white.

“They’re gone,” Bonnie said.

“Who?” Grace asked, although she was afraid she knew the answer.

“Nancy and Nathan,” Bonnie said.

“The cottage is deserted Their car and suitcases and everything are gone.”

Struck instantly by an overwhelming grief. Grace sat down on the bed.

Her mind raced.

“I don’t even know their last name. Do you?” she asked.

Bonnie shook her head.

“I don’t think they ever told us,” she said.

“Oh, God, Bonnie. My baby. They took my baby.” She began to cry, and Bonnie moved to the bed and put her arms around her.

“I know. I’m sorry. But she’ll be all right. I’m sure they left early so they could get to the hospital to make sure the baby was fine and healthy. Nancy seems like a really good nurse to me. She’s going to make sure everything’s perfect for your baby.”

“But I’ll never get to see her!”

Bonnie was crying, too.

“I shouldn’t have agreed with Nancy last night,” she said.

“I didn’t realize you’d change your mind, though. It seemed to make such good sense.”

Grace cried for a long time in Bonnie’s arms. Then, finally, she looked down at the pillow on her bed. It was inviting. She lay down, facing the wall, and pulled the covers over her head. She felt Bonnie’s hand on her back and closed her eyes.

“I’m going to the store,” Bonnie said.

“I’ll get you the pads. Is there anything else you want? Soup or anything?”

Grace didn’t bother to answer. She’d barely heard the question.

JVly God, Grace,” Eddie said. He was sitting next to her on the sofa, having moved there sometime while she was speaking.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” ;

“It was something I was trying to forget,” Grace said.

“So… I’ mtrying to understand. Was it Pam’ sdeath that made you start thinking about this other baby? Realizing | that somewhere out there you had a child living with her :

adoptive parents? And I still don’t get it the part about Rory Taylor.

What’s going on between the two of you? “

So many questions, so much he still didn’t know.

“I , haven’t told you everything yet,” Grace said. God, she | hated saying all of this out loud. She’d gone over it in her own mind too many times to count, and, of course, she and Bonnie had revisited the experience over the years, ;

but to recite it this way gave it a terrible credibility. “Bonnie went to the store that morning,” she said, “and when she came back, she was very quiet. I thought maybe she just felt guilty about her role in getting me to give the baby to Nancy. She tried to get me to eat something, but I just couldn’t. I’d never felt so despondent. I wanted to die.” She looked at Eddie.

“It was the same as I felt after S Pamela died.”

Eddie covered her hand with his, and she didn’t pull J away.

“Me, too,” he said. The two words cut through her. | She had given him no comfort, no sympathy after Pamela | died. Only blame and recriminations. <|

“Bonnie finally started talking,” she said.

“She told me that when she was in the little market, everyone was talking about a newborn baby girl that had been found on the beach very early that morning.”

“Oh no.” Eddie tightened his grip on her hand.

“The store clerk told Bonnie the baby had been found dead. When Bonnie told me that” -Grace shut her eyes at the memory “—I was torn apart, Eddie. I’d wanted that baby. I’d been willing to turn my life inside out for her. But I thought the nurse might be right, and I’d trusted her. And she went and left my baby on the beach to be washed away like a piece of driftwood.”

“Oh, Grace,” Eddie said.

“How awful.”

“So, Bonnie called me early this summer and said that she’d found out that Rory Taylor wanted to do an episode on his True Life Stories show about that baby. He was going to look into how she came to be on the beach that morning.”

“So, you contacted him and told him you thought you were the mother?”

Eddie asked.

“No,” Grace said, horrified by the thought.

“I didn’t dare do that.

I.

manipulated a meeting with him to try to find out what he knew.

And what I found out was. the baby had not died. A little girl found her, and her family adopted her. And now she lives in the house right across from the house where Rory Taylor is staying. She lives with her sister. She had some brain damage from that night. It’s mild, but she really does need someone to look out for her. Her sister seems to have done a good job of that. “

Eddie stood up and began to pace, something he always did when he was upset.

“This is unbelievable,” he said.

with one hundred percent certainty, that she is my daughter. It seems crazy that in the middle of a storm, the nurs would take her out to the beach, but”” —How many babies could have been born that night i;

Kill Devil Hills? ” Eddie asked.

“I know, I know. I just can’t make myself tell he] though, Eddie. What if I’m wrong?”

“Does she look like you?”

“Not really. She’s very blond, but then, so was her father.” She said the word other as though it tasted bad i:

her mouth. It did.

“But she’s tall and slender, just like me Just like Pamela was. And she has seizures, Eddie.”

“Marfan.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. And to make matters worse now she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, she doesn’t know sh has Marfan’s syndrome, her child might have it, it might go undiagnosed, and” — “You’re being tortured by this.” Eddie sat next to be and took her hand again. He touched her cheek.

“Iwis you could have told me what was going on with you thi summer. I would have been there for you.

Grace. “

“I know,” Grace said.

“I was too angry with you.”

“I loved Pamela, too, you know.”

“I know you did,” she admitted.

“As much as I die And you didn’t know she was sick, just like I didn’t kno^ it. She loved flying—I can’t deny that. You might have encouraged her to do it more than I would have liked, bi it was her choice. You only gave her that choice.”

Eddie lowered his head, and she knew he was strugglin for composure.

“Thanks for saying that,” he said. H leaned back against the sofa.

“The girl,” he said.

“What’ her name?”

“Shelly.”

“Shelly. If you truly believe Shelly is your daughtej and if she and her unborn baby are… at risk, then you have to tell her. Or, at least tell her sister so she can get her evaluated and started on any treatment she might need. You have to do that.

Grace. “

“But what if she’s not my child?” Grace asked.

“She’s a bit fragile. I don’t want to confuse her.”

“Does Shelly have a widow’s peak?” Eddie asked.

Grace shook her head.

“Don’t all the women in your family have one?”

“Most, but not all.”

“Did you ever try to find the nurse?” Eddie asked.

“It seems that she’s the missing link in all of this.”

“There’s no way to find her,” Grace said.

“All I remember about her was that her name was Nancy and she worked in the oncology department of a hospital in Elizabeth City, twenty-two years ago. That’s not much to go on.” Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation.

“I was using a… friendship with Rory Taylor to stay close to Shelly,” she admitted.

“I can’t believe I did that, but I did. But now he’s involved with Shelly’s sister, so I have no reason to go up there anymore. I want to see Shelly again. I miss her already.”

“Let me help you with this,” Eddie said.

“Let me take on some of the burden you’ve been carrying around all summer, okay?”

She didn’t know what he could do to help, but she was far too tired to fight on her own anymore.

“Okay,” she said.

He gently pulled her closer, lowering her head to his shoulder, and for the first time since before Pamela’s accident, she let her body relax against his.

Uaria rolled onto her back, still trying to catch her breath She stared at the ceiling of her room, while Rory tracec her profile with the tip of his finger.

She had cried out. That was a first. No one had eve:

elicited that from her—surely not Pete—and she’d wondered if that sort of intensity ever truly happened fo:

women outside of books and movies. Now she knew. Shf had never thought of lovemaking as a talent before, bu Rory certainly had it, and she was glad no one else hac been home at the Sea Shanty when he’d revealed it to her “Well,” Rory said, the tip of his finger circling her lips “I think Zack is on to us.”

“You mean … that we’re lovers?” Zack certainly knew she and Rory had been seeing each other for the past tw( weeks, but Rory had been careful about concealing th physical side of their relationship from his son.

“Uh-huh. This morning he asked me if I’d been sure t( use a condom when I was out with you last night.”

She laughed.

“Touche, huh? What did you say?”

“I said I’m an adult in an adult relationship and that i wasn’t appropriate for him to ask me a question like that Then he called me a hypocrite and went out to the beach Not sure I handled it the right way.”

“I think you did,” she said.

“He needs to know then are some boundaries between you and him.”

The past two weeks had been a mixture of joy an worry. Being with Rory, being able to openly acknowledge her feelings for him, had been glorious. Everyone on the cul-de-sac knew about them and approved. Shelly was delighted. Only Chloe seemed less than enthusiastic.

“He’ll be leaving in a few weeks,” she’d say to Daria.

“Don’t throw yourself into this so freely.” Chloe was only trying to protect her from being hurt, Daria told herself. Yet she felt as though there was something less noble in Chloe’s admonitions, and she wondered at times if Chloe was simply jealous. After all, Chloe’s lover was dead, her life in a serious state of disarray.

And that’s where the worry came in. Chloe’s silence and irritability were evidence of the war going on inside her, and although Daria could think of no way to ease her sister’s suffering, that didn’t stop her from worrying about her. Then there was Shelly, who grew more attached to her unborn baby with each passing minute. Daria would never be able to persuade her to have an abortion, that much was clear, so some other arrangements would have to be made. She felt no rush to do that.

Right now, she wanted to focus her time and attention on Rory. With her sisters’ turmoil swirling around her, she had found a safe harbor in his arms.

“So, when do Ellen and Ted get here?” Rory asked her.

She rolled onto her side, resting her head against his shoulder.

“Early tomorrow morning,” she said, then added sarcastically, “I can hardly wait. They hadn’t planned to be here this weekend, but when I stupidly mentioned that the bonfire was scheduled for tomorrow night, they changed their minds.”