Summer's Child Read online

  “Teenagers sleep the sleep of the dead, I swear,” Aunt Josie said.

  Chloe and Ellen would probably blame her for not waking them, but Daria thought it best to be obedient just then. She stepped close to the table again and watched as her mother slipped the blades of the kitchen scissors into the boiling water for a moment, then snipped the cord coming from the baby’s belly button. Finally, the baby was free of the horrible, pulpy mass. Aunt Josie brought a towel from the downstairs bathroom and Daria’s mother wrapped it around the newly bathed baby and lifted the bundle to her chest. She rocked the baby back and forth. “Poor darling little thing,” she said softly. “Poor little castaway.” Daria thought it had been years since she’d seen so much life in her mother’s eyes.

  The policemen and rescue squad arrived within minutes. One of the rescue-squad workers, a young man with long hair, nearly had to pry the infant from Daria’s mother’s arms. Still wearing her robe and slippers, she followed the baby to the ambulance. She stood watching the vehicle as it drove away, and she stayed there for several minutes after the ambulance had turned onto the beach road from the cul-de-sac.

  Meanwhile, the policemen were full of questions, mainly for Daria. They sat with her on the screened porch of the Sea Shanty and went over and over the details of her discovery until she herself began to feel guilty, as though she had done something terribly wrong and would be hauled off to jail any moment. After questioning her for nearly half an hour, they sent her inside while they spoke with her parents and Aunt Josie. Daria sat on the wicker chair in the living room, the one right next to the window that opened onto the porch, so she could listen to whatever the grown-ups had to say.

  “Can you tell us what teenage girls live on this cul-de-sac?” one of the policemen asked.

  Aunt Josie began ticking them off. “That cottage there on the beach,” she said, “There’s a fast girl lives there. Cindy Trump. I’ve heard the boys call her Cindy Tramp, because she’s easy, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t say that, Josie,” Daria’s mother scolded.

  “But I saw her yesterday,” Daria’s father said. “She didn’t look pregnant to me.”

  Daria leaned her cheek against the wicker back of the chair, positioning herself to hear better. This was fascinating talk.

  “I saw her, too,” Aunt Josie said. “She had on a big white shirt, like a man’s shirt. She could have been hiding anything under there.”

  Daria could almost hear her father’s shrug of defeat. Aunt Josie had been married to his brother, who had died five years ago, and she always seemed to get her way with Daria’s dad.

  Aunt Josie began speaking again. “There’s that girl Linda, who—”

  “She’s only fourteen,” Daria’s mother protested. “And she’s so shy. Why, she can’t even talk to the boys, much less…” Her voice trailed off.

  “We’d still like to know what girls are on the cul-de-sac,” one of the policemen said. “Whether you think they could be the mother of that baby or not. How about in this cottage? Any girls besides Supergirl? Daria?”

  Supergirl? Daria grinned to herself.

  “Yes,” Daria’s father said, “but they’re good Catholic girls.”

  “My daughter, Ellen, is fifteen,” Aunt Josie said. “And I can assure you she was not pregnant.”

  “Same for our daughter, Chloe.” Daria’s father sounded insulted that Chloe might be considered a suspect. “She goes to Catholic University. Got in when she was only sixteen, so you can guess she spends most of her time hitting the books.”

  Daria wasn’t so sure about that. Chloe was smart enough to get good grades without doing much studying.

  “Anyone else?” one of the officers asked.

  “In this cottage?” Aunt Josie asked. “No, but there’s a couple more girls on this block. There’s Polly across the street.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Josie,” Daria’s mother said. “She’s mentally retarded. Do you really think—”

  “She’s right to tell us,” one of the policemen said. “Who else?” He and Aunt Josie sounded like old buddies.

  “I think the only other one is that Jill girl,” Aunt Josie said.

  “She’s the Fletcher girl.” Daria’s mother’s sounded resigned. Every girl on the cul-de-sac was going to be on that list, whether she wanted them to be or not.

  Daria saw Chloe descending the stairs from the second story and put her finger to her lips. Chloe frowned as she reached the living room. She walked over to her sister on bare feet.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered, trying to peer out the window onto the porch.

  “Don’t let them see you!” Daria grabbed a fistful of her sister’s wild black hair to pull her head down.

  “Ouch.” Chloe extricated herself from Daria’s grasp. “Why are the cops here?”

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

  “You found what?”

  “Shh,” Daria said. But before she could explain further, their father stepped into the room.

  “Chloe, good, you’re here,” he said. His hair was mussed now. He could never keep it looking neat for long. “I was just coming in to get you. You and Ellen need to answer a few questions for the police.”

  “Why?” Chloe looked surprised. Her usual olive complexion had a waxy cast to it in the pale morning light, and Daria guessed she was nervous about having to talk to policemen.

  “It’s all right,” Daria said. “I talked to them for a long time. They’re pretty nice.” Of course, though, I’m Supergirl.

  “Get Ellen,” her father said to Chloe, who rolled her eyes and offered him a look of disdain before stomping up the stairs. That defiant attitude was brand-new. Chloe had been away at college all this year, only joining the family at the Sea Shanty a few days ago, and Daria had not yet adjusted to the change in her sister. Chloe had always been her parents’ pride and joy, with her straight-A report card and adherence to their rules. Suddenly, she was acting as though she didn’t need parents at all.

  “And you.” Daria’s father looked straight at her, and she knew she’d been caught eavesdropping at the window. “You go on upstairs now. You must be tired. It’s already been a long morning for you.”

  Daria did not want to go upstairs; she wanted to hear what the police would say to Chloe and Ellen, and she should be able to. She was eleven now, not that anyone seemed to have remembered. And if it hadn’t been for her, this whole commotion wouldn’t be happening at all. But her dad had that stern look on his face that told her she’d better not argue.

  She passed Ellen and Chloe on her way up the stairs. Ellen wore the same pale-faced look as Chloe, and they said nothing to her as she passed them. But when she was nearly to the second story, she heard Chloe call out to her.

  “Hey, Daria,” she said. “Happy birthday, sis.”

  When she reached the upstairs hallway, Daria sat down on the top step, trying to remain within hearing range of the voices downstairs. She could tell who was talking, but little of what was said, and her mind began to wander. She thought about what she’d told the police, playing the interview over and over in her mind. If you lied to the police, could you be arrested? Would they arrest an eleven-year-old girl? She had not actually lied, she reassured herself. She had simply left out one fact—one small, probably insignificant piece of the story: the baby was not all she had found on the beach that morning.

  1

  Twenty-two years later

  DARIA’S THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY WAS NOT MUCH DIFFERENT from any other early June day. Life was slowly returning to the Outer Banks as vacationers trickled into the coastal communities, and it seemed the air and sea grew warmer by the hour. Daria spent the day with her co-worker and fellow carpenter, Andy Kramer, remodeling the kitchen of a house in Nag’s Head. She installed cabinets and countertops, all the while battling the melancholia that had been her companion for the past month and a half.

  Andy had insisted on buying her l
unch—a chicken sandwich and fries at Wendy’s—as his birthday gift to her. She sat across the table from him, nibbling her sandwich while he devoured his three hamburgers and two orders of fries, as they planned their work agenda for the afternoon. Despite Andy’s appetite, he was reed slender. His blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that reached the middle of his back, and a gold hoop pierced his left earlobe. He was only in his mid-twenties, and Daria figured that was the reason he could still eat as he did and never gain an ounce.

  “So,” he said to her as he polished off the last of his burgers, “are you going to party tonight?”

  “No,” Daria said. “I’m just going to have some cake with Chloe and Shelly.”

  “Oh, right,” Andy said. “It’s Shelly’s birthday, too, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh. She’s twenty-two.” Hard to believe. Shelly still seemed like a child to her.

  Andy drank the last swallow of his soda and set the empty cup on the tray. “Well, I think you and Shelly should go out on the town tonight and do it right.”

  “I have to teach a class at the fire station,” Daria said, as if that was the only thing keeping her from “going out on the town.”

  “You do?” Andy looked surprised. “I thought you weren’t—”

  “I’m not working as an EMT,” Daria finished his sentence for him. “I still want to be an instructor, though. This will be the first class I’ve taught since…in a while.”

  He had to know she meant it was her first class since April, when the seaplane went down in the ocean and changed everything in her life, but he wisely said nothing. Daria was anxious about teaching again. Tonight would be the first time she’d faced the other emergency medical technicians since turning in her resignation from the volunteer force, and she knew she had left them confused—and short-handed—by her sudden departure. She feared she had lost credibility with them, as well.

  She left the restaurant with Andy, wondering how he felt about her quitting. Andy longed to be an EMT. He’d failed the exam twice, and Daria knew it was unlikely he would ever pass it, although he seemed determined to keep trying. He had been at the plane crash back in April, though, and he surely understood how horrendous that situation had been for her. But even Andy didn’t know the entire story.

  The class at the fire station that evening proved that Daria had been right to be nervous about teaching again. No one seemed to know what to say to her. Were they angry with her for leaving so abruptly, or just disappointed in her? Most of them probably thought she had left because her fiancé, Pete, had resigned, and she allowed them that misperception. It was easier than telling them the truth. A few of them, those who had known her for many years, were aware that her leaving had something to do with the crash of the seaplane, but even those people did not understand. After ten years as a volunteer EMT, with a reputation as the “local hero” who possessed exceptional skills and steely nerves, it was unthinkable that one failed rescue attempt could flatten Daria to that extent. As she stood in front of the class that evening, she couldn’t blame any of them for their confusion or sudden distrust of her. After all, she was teaching them to perform tasks she was no longer willing to perform herself. She wondered if she truly had the right to be teaching at all. Walking out to her car after the class, she was painfully aware that no one was following her to ask questions or even to chat. They all hung back in the classroom, probably waiting until she’d left the building to begin talking about her.

  It was a bit after eight o’clock as she drove home from the station. Although it was only Thursday night and still early in the season, the traffic on the main road was already growing thick with tourists. She knew what that meant: accidents, heart attacks, near drownings. Shuddering, she was glad she was no longer an EMT.

  She pulled into the driveway of the Sea Shanty, parking behind Chloe’s car. As of this week, all the driveways in the cul-de-sac were full. Seeing the cars, Daria suddenly missed the isolation of the winter months, when she and Shelly had the cul-de-sac entirely to themselves. They’d lived in Kill Devil Hills year-round for ten years, and usually she looked forward to the cul-de-sac’s coming to life in the summer. But there was too much explaining to do this year. “Where’s Pete?” everyone would want to know. And “Why did you quit being an EMT?” She was tired of answering those questions.

  Chloe was sitting in one of the rockers on the porch, reading a book by the porch light. “I’ve got an ice-cream cake in the freezer,” she said. “Now all we need is Shelly.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Out on the beach, where else?” Chloe said. “She’s been out there for a couple of hours.”

  Daria sat down on another of the rockers. “I don’t like her to walk on the beach at night,” she said.

  “She’s twenty-two years old, sis,” Chloe said.

  Chloe didn’t get it. She was only with them during the summer months, when she directed the day-camp program for kids at St. Esther’s Church. She wasn’t with Shelly enough to know how poor the young woman’s judgment could be. Shelly could pick up some stranger on the beach, or some stranger could pick her up. It had happened before.

  Daria brushed her hand over a spot on her khaki shorts, where glue from the installation of the countertops had found a permanent home. One more ruined pair of shorts. She must have sighed, because when she looked up, Chloe was staring at her. The extremely short haircut Chloe was sporting this summer made her huge brown eyes seem even larger, the dark velvety lashes longer. For a second, Daria was mesmerized by her sister’s beauty.

  “I’m a little worried about you, Daria,” Chloe said.

  “Why?”

  “You seem so down,” Chloe said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a smile on your face since I arrived.”

  She hadn’t known her unhappiness was that obvious. “Sorry,” she said.

  “You don’t need to apologize,” Chloe said. “I just wish there was something I could do to help. I don’t understand Pete, frankly. Does he ever call you?”

  Daria stretched her arms out in front of her. “He’s called a couple of times, but it’s definitely over,” she said. On the phone, Pete sounded relieved to be away from her, and the few times they’d spoken, he’d lectured her about putting herself first for once. It was painful to hear from him, and while part of her wished he would call again, she knew prolonging that relationship would only hurt her in the long run.

  “Can you tell me why he broke off the engagement?” Chloe asked gently. She had avoided that question so far, probably hoping Daria would provide the answer on her own.

  “Oh, a bunch of reasons,” Daria said evasively. “Shelly was part of it.” Shelly was all of it, actually.

  “Shelly! What did she have to do with it?”

  Daria drew her feet up onto the seat of the rocker and wrapped her arms around her legs. “He thought she needed more supervision than I was giving her,” she said. “He thought I should put her in some sort of home or something.”

  Chloe’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “That’s crazy,” she said. She leaned toward Daria, covering her hand with her own. “I’m so sorry, honey. I had no idea Shelly had been that taxing on your relationship with Pete.”

  Shelly had always been an issue between her and Pete, but after the plane crash it had come to a head. Daria didn’t want to discuss that with Chloe. There was no one she could discuss it with.

  “It’s Pete’s problem, not mine.” Daria got to her feet. “I’m really tired,” she said. “I’m going to lie down for a while. Call me when Shelly gets here and we can do the cake, okay?”

  Upstairs, she lay on her bed, but didn’t sleep. She stared at the dark ceiling, listening to the night sounds of the ocean and the shouts of the Wheelers’ grandkids from the yard next door. Since the summer she turned eleven, every one of her birthdays brought back memories of the day she’d found the infant abandoned on the beach. She closed her eyes, saying a quick prayer that Shelly was safe out on the beach, then let
herself remember the day twenty-two years ago—the day that had shaped the rest of her life.

  The baby had been the talk of the neighborhood all that day, and for many days to come. The police had questioned everyone on the cul-de-sac, as well as people on neighboring streets and the other side of the beach road, but Daria had been aware only of the little world on her street. As the police made their rounds that afternoon, Daria had sat on the porch with Chloe and their cousin, Ellen, pretending to play with her bug-catching kit while listening to them talk about all the girls in the cul-de-sac. Ellen and Chloe sat in the rocking chairs, their long, bare legs stretched in front of them, their bare feet on the molding beneath the screens of the porch. Daria sat at the picnic table, hunched over her microscope, pretending to be absorbed in studying the wing of a dragonfly. She understood only bits and pieces of the conversation between her sister and cousin. They were talking about sex, of course. She knew that if she asked questions, they would stop talking completely, so she kept her mouth shut and feigned great interest in the dragonfly.

  “The cops are in the Taylors’ cottage now,” Ellen said.

  Daria braved a glance across the cul-de-sac at Poll-Rory, the Taylors’ cottage.

  “I am so white,” Chloe said, examining her legs. Her legs were hardly white; like Daria and Ellen, Chloe was of Greek descent and had inherited the trademark thick black hair and olive skin of the Cato side of the family. Nevertheless, Chloe would complain all summer long about her inability to tan, even as she grew darker week by week.

  “I don’t know why they’re bothering to talk to Polly,” Ellen said. “I mean, who’s going to get a mongoloid pregnant?”

  “Well, she is fifteen now,” Chloe said. “But I really don’t see how she could hide being pregnant from Mrs. Taylor. Polly’s always with her.”

  “Well, I’m fifteen, too,” Ellen said. “And I’m a whole lot better-looking than Polly, but I’m still a virgin.”

  Chloe laughed. “Right,” she said, “and I’m the Queen of Sheba.”