Summer's Child

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 lunch—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.”

Daria knew what a virgin was. The Virgin Mary had gotten pregnant with baby Jesus without ever having had sex. It had never occurred to her that Ellen or her sister or Polly or any of the other teenage girls on the cul-de-sac could be anything other than a virgin. She lowered her eye to the microscope again to keep the shock from showing on her face.

“What makes the cops so sure it was a teenager, anyhow?” Ellen asked.

“They’re probably pretty certain it’s Cindy Tramp’s baby,” Chloe said, “but they don’t have enough evidence to force her to have an examination. I bet they’re hearing all about her at every cottage they go to. She’s been doing it since she was twelve.”

“Twelve?” Ellen looked astonished.

“Twelve,” Chloe said with certainty. “Just one year older than Daria.” Both of them looked at Daria, and she raised her head from the microscope, feeling color blossom on her cheeks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daria said, although she did. She could not imagine having sex one year from then. She looked across the street at Poll-Rory, thinking of Rory inside that cottage. He was the only boy she could imagine kissing, but even with Rory, she couldn’t picture doing anything more than that. She wasn’t certain exactly how it was done, anyway.

“I know who it was!” Ellen said excitedly. “I bet it was that girl, Linda.” She laughed, as though she’d said something wildly amusing. Chloe laughed, too, and Daria laughed along with them, pretending to understand.

The police suddenly walked out Poll-Rory’s front door, with Rory close on their heels. Rory was yelling at them, and Daria leaned closer to the screen, as did Chloe and Ellen, trying to hear.

“…just confused her!” Rory shouted. “What was the point?”

The policemen kept walking toward the street, ignoring him.

“Don’t come back again!” Rory yelled after them, a threat in his voice. The sun shimmered on his blond hair, and after only one rainy week at the beach, he was already tan. His voice was deeper than it had been a year before. Yelling at the policemen, Rory suddenly seemed more like a man than a boy, and Daria was both enticed and humiliated, seeing at once how ridiculous she was for hoping he might still want to hang out with her this summer.

“Rory!” Mrs. Taylor opened the screen door of Poll-Rory and called to her son.

Rory did not turn around. He stared after the policemen as they walked down the street, and even from across the cul-de-sac, Daria thought she could see the daggers in his eyes.

Mrs. Taylor came out of the cottage and into the sandy yard, where she spoke with him softly, putting her arm around his shoulders. Finally he turned and walked with her back into the cottage.

“Rory is looking hot this summer,” Ellen said, fanning herself with her hand.

“He’s only fourteen,” Chloe scoffed. “Though I guess that’s about right for you.”

Daria’s mother came out onto the porch. She had on a dress, unusual attire for Kill Devil Hills. “We’ll go out for pizza tonight,” she said, stroking her hand over Daria’s hair. The touch felt nearly alien. It had been a while since her mother had touched her that way. “For your birthday, Daria,” she added. “And then to the miniature-golf course. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” Daria said, pleased that her mother had not forgotten her birthday after all. Chloe and Ellen looked at Sue Cato as if she’d grown two heads.

“And right now—” Daria’s mother smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress “—I’m going to the hospital in Elizabeth City to visit the baby.”

“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.

2

THE PLANE CAME TO A STANDSTILL AT THE GATE, AND RORY 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.