“I talked to Smitty, the guy who owns the barge,” Kenny said as he neared them. “He wanted me to come check out the conditions up here.” He looked at the waves. “Whoa. Not looking too good for a salvage operation.”
“But underwater, where the lens is, wouldn’t it be calm?” Gina asked, still clinging to her optimism.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Kenny said. He was going to be one of the divers doing the underwater work. “If the barge is bobbing up and down, the lens will be bobbing up and down too when the crane lifts it up. Not a good thing.”
Gina didn’t respond. She wanted a miracle to occur. She wanted the waves to suddenly flatten and the sea to grow calm.
“I’m afraid this isn’t going to happen today,” Kenny told her. “I don’t want to get that barge out here and then have it turn around and go back. That would jack the price tag up considerably.”
Clay squeezed the back of her neck, the same gesture she’d seen Alec do to Olivia, and she leaned against him, giving in. She would have to wait one more day.
Worse news faced Gina inside the house. Logging on to the Internet, she found a long e-mail from Denise, and it contained the words she had been dreading: Rani and Denise’s daughter, Sunil, had been moved to the state institution on Thursday night, when their orphanage abruptly and chaotically shut its doors.
I wish I could tell you everything is fine, Gina, Denise wrote. And if you ever prefer that I do that, just let me know. But even in that short couple of days we got to know each other, I realized you are not the kind of person to hide from the truth.
The main problem with the state orphanage where our girls are now is that it is so institutional. The ayahs are overworked and just don’t seem to have the same warmth about them that we all got used to. The physical space is even grimier, if you can imagine that, and both our girls were infested with lice within a day.
A big problem now is that I can’t see Rani as much as I used to. She is in a different part of the orphanage from Sunil, and I’ve only been over to her part of the place a couple of times. She was weepy when I was there, but it may just be that she needed her nap. I have spoken with the director of this place, making sure they know that Rani needs special medical care, so maybe that will help.
I am getting the usual runaround from the courts, and the negative attitude toward foreign adoptions seems worse than ever. Can you tell I’m getting depressed? I can only imagine how you must feel, so many miles from your beautiful daughter. I will try to see her again tomorrow, Gina. Maybe they will let me take Sunil over to that part of the orphanage to visit with her.
The situation was getting worse and worse. Gina printed Denise’s message and carried it outside to Clay, where he was working on repairing the roof of the old outhouse.
He stopped his work to read the e-mail. He was shirtless and beautiful as he stood next to the ancient privy. The dappled shade from the trees sent patches of light across the face she had grown to love. God, it felt good to have someone to share this e-mail with!
Shaking his head as he read, he reached out to pull her to him. “It seems criminal,” he said into her hair. “Aren’t there authorities over there who can do something about this?”
She was accustomed to such questions. She used to ask them herself.
“Some of the authorities are the cause of it,” she said, drawing away from him. “I’m so afraid she’s going to die, Clay. If she does I’ll feel so guilty.”
“Why guilty?” he asked. “You’ve said there’s nothing you can do.”
“But I’ll always wonder if there was something more I could have done,” she said.
She was trying, though. She looked at the ocean, at the place where the waves billowed above the lens. She was trying everything she knew to try.
CHAPTER 48
Tuesday, July 7, 1942
I am fifteen and I am pregnant. There. I’ve put it down in writing. I think up until now I haven’t really believed it, but when I read those words back to myself, I have to admit they’re the truth.
With everything that’s happened, I didn’t realize I’d missed a period until two days ago, when I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly remembered I’d brought no sanitary napkins with me and that I’d better get out and buy some. And then I realized I’ve been here two months and haven’t needed any, and I began to panic. I told SueAnn, who I can talk to about that sort of thing, and she immediately took me to her doctor. He did a test on me that we won’t know the result of yet, but he felt inside me and said I am definitely pregnant. I thought I would cry when I heard the news, but I just went sort of still and stared at the ceiling above the examining table, pretending he had made a mistake and it wasn’t true. When we got home, SueAnn told Dennis, which was horribly embarrassing to me, but he just got very quiet and serious and said we would work this out somehow. That’s when I started crying. He could’ve yelled and said he’d warned me and what a tramp I am and all of that, but he didn’t say anything of the sort. And neither did SueAnn. Both of them being so Catholic and all, I felt like a terrible, sinful person. I heard the two of them talking till very late last night. I heard them mention my name a few times, but their voices were low. This morning, Dennis told me what they’d decided to do. He didn’t have to tell me I have no choice in the matter. I already know that.
First, he said, he would arrange to have a priest talk to me. I need to confess what I’d done and promise never to sin that way again. Even though, Dennis added, he knows that Sandy “used me and discarded me,” I am still not completely innocent. He is right. I most certainly am not. I feel like a stupid girl who has messed up her life. The thought of talking to a priest about that sort of thing is horrid, though. But I will do it.
Then Dennis said, “You and I will get married.”
I must have looked shocked out of my mind, and he raised his hand to keep me from saying anything, not that I could have.
“You can’t walk around pregnant out of wedlock,” he said. “And I don’t know if you noticed this, but I love you.”
I was still speechless. I used to think Dennis loved me when he would talk to me at Kiss River, but since we’ve been here, he’s treated me more like a kid sister or even a daughter than a girlfriend. Now I know he has been avoiding treating me like a girl he’s interested in, not wanting to scare me off. The funny thing is, when he said he loved me, I got tears in my eyes and I realized that I love him back. Not the way I loved Sandy, not like a girl should love a man she’s going to marry, but I love him for all he’s done for me. He wasn’t the man I’d ever expected myself to marry, but he was right that I couldn’t be pregnant and unmarried or I’d be scorned by everyone in High Point.
“That is too much for me to ask from you,” I said.
“Well, it comes with a price,” he said. “I can’t raise another man’s child, especially not a man like Sandy. When you have the baby, you’ll have to adopt it out.”
Without thinking, I placed my hands on my stomach as if I was protecting the baby inside me, holding on to it. I hate the way Sandy treated me, and I hate how he’s hurt his own country, but deep in my heart I still love him. Is that crazy? He is a cowardly, money-hungry traitor. How can I still go weak in the knees when I think about him? The baby inside me is his, but is it the child of the gentle man who loved me so sweetly, or of the vicious criminal who caused the deaths of hundreds of good men out of greed? What I knew right then was that I couldn’t go through this alone. I could go home to Kiss River, possibly putting myself and my family in danger and then having to face my parents with what I’d done, but that would be a fate worse than death. If Sandy was still there and not arrested, I could confront him and tell him he was about to be a father, but I don’t think I could survive him being mean to me again, especially now. I need to stay here, and I need Dennis’s help. I will marry him, and I will give this baby up, when the time comes. Right now, thinking about that actually sounds like a relief. I know I look like a woman, no
t a girl. I can pass for much older than I am. But I am a girl, and I’m afraid of being pregnant and I can’t imagine being a mother. Damn. I have really messed up my life.
CHAPTER 49
It was turning into the sort of week that made the tourists wish they’d stayed home. Rain pelted the van as Alec drove through the outskirts of Elizabeth City, and although the trip had not been that long, he’d be glad when they reached their destination of the hospital. He felt like the chaperon on a field trip.
Brian Cass sat in the front passenger seat, but he’d been twisted around beneath the seat belt the entire time so that he could talk with Henry Hazelwood, who sat behind Alec. In the rear of the van, Gina and Clay sat holding hands like two teenagers. Gina was sullen, probably upset at the delay the weather was causing in raising the lens. It was obvious to Alec that Clay had become her support, her best friend and her lover. He was worried, though, about his son’s heart. Gina’s home and work were three thousand miles away, and Alec still nursed the suspicion that she was using Clay to get that lens raised. Clay refused to talk to him about it. “I’m taking things one day at a time,” he’d said.
Alec recognized the wisdom in that approach. Maybe Gina was simply helping Clay in the transition from inconsolable widower to a living, breathing male again, and he would be able to move on easily when she left. Yet he couldn’t help but worry.
In spite of his concerns, Alec was growing to like Gina. He still didn’t understand why she’d felt the need to lie about her connection to the Poors, but he was trying hard to overlook it. He’d seen her at work in Shorty’s, and he liked the way she treated her customers with a pleasant deference that was neither cloying nor insincere. She wasn’t provocative with the male customers the way some of the other waitresses were. With her beauty, she attracted a lot of attention. Men turned their heads to follow her when she walked past them, their forks forgotten halfway to their mouths. She had to be used to it. She dealt with the men easily, with just the right mix of appreciation and gentle condescension, and he could tell they respected her for it. He particularly liked the kindness she’d shown Henry and Brian since Walter’s heart attack. And his two youngest children, although they’d only met her a couple of times, talked about her constantly, as though they knew her well. So, he was ready to forgive her sullenness right now.
“Is this it?” Henry asked. In his rearview mirror, Alec could see Henry peering through the rain at the large building they were passing.
Brian scoffed. “That’s not it, old man,” he said.
“Not yet, Henry,” Alec said with a smile. He wondered if he and his friends would talk to each other like these guys did when they were old. “It’s a couple more blocks.”
“That does look like a hospital,” Gina piped up from the rear of the van, and Alec knew she was saying that in Henry’s defense.
Alec had spoken with Walter’s two sons, both of whom had arrived from Colorado shortly after their father’s heart attack. They were flying back today, so Walter would be alone again. It seemed like the right time to visit him.
They finally reached the hospital, and Alec pulled under the portico to let everyone out before he went to park the car. He caught up with them in the large waiting area on the first floor, where the four of them sat across from one another in the upholstered chairs.
“He’s on the second floor,” Alec said, waiting for them to stand up again. They paraded toward the elevators.
“I hate this place,” Brian said with a shudder as the elevator door closed on them, and Alec recalled that Brian’s wife had died here only a couple of years earlier.
They found Walter sitting up in bed, the wires of a monitor running beneath his blue-and-white hospital gown to his chest.
“Well, look at this!” he said, smiling broadly. “I must be dying for you all to come way out here to see me.”
Gina moved forward to kiss him on the cheek, but the rest of them surrounded the bed in an awkward circle.
“You look really good,” Alec said. He did. His color was far better than it had been the last time he’d seen him, when he was being carried out of Shorty’s, that was for sure.
“I understand you and the missus saved my life.” Walter reached a hand toward Alec.
Alec took his hand, and the elderly man held it more than shook it. “I’m just glad we were there,” he said. It had been something, working together on a patient with Olivia. He’d been aware of both the depth of her skill and her trust in his.
“Thank you,” Walter said. “And tell your wife thank you from me, too, okay?”
“I’ll do that,” Alec said.
Walter turned to Henry. “Sorry I ruined your party, Henry,” he said.
“You always did like being the center of attention,” Henry said, and everyone chuckled.
“You were out for a while,” Brian said with his usual lack of tact. “Hope it didn’t kill none of your brain cells, or you’ll be a lousy chess player.”
“My brain cells are just fine, you old son of a bitch,” Walter laughed. “So don’t think you’re going to have an advantage on me when I get outta here, ’cause it ain’t going to happen.”
Walter told them that he’d be going into an in-patient rehab program straight from the cardiac unit, and that he planned to do everything he was instructed to do to get home quickly. They chatted a while longer, then said their goodbyes and filed out of the room. All the way down in the elevator and across the waiting area, they talked about how good he looked, and Alec could see the unspoken relief in Brian’s and Henry’s eyes.
The rain had stopped, although the air was still thick with it, and the drive back to the Outer Banks was not as grueling. He dropped Brian and Henry off at Shorty’s and then drove Gina and Clay to the keeper’s house.
“Whose car is that?” Alec asked as he pulled into the parking lot. Lacey’s car was there, along with Gina’s car and Clay’s Jeep. But a fourth car, an old, amazingly well-preserved woody, was parked next to the Jeep.
“Very cool!” Clay was out of the van as soon as Alec brought it to a stop. He and and Gina joined him next to the car. It was an aquamarine-colored Mercury station wagon, and the wood siding was in remarkable condition. Alec ran his hand over it. The last place he’d bring a car like this would be the beach, with the humid, salty air.
“I know whose car it is,” Gina said. “It belongs to a guy who comes into Shorty’s sometimes. I don’t know his name, though.”
“Why would he be here?” Alec asked.
Neither Gina nor Clay was quick to answer. Clay looked toward the keeper’s house. “My best guess is that he’s visiting your daughter.” There was disdain in his voice.
Alec remembered the chartreuse discoloration on his daughter’s cheek, still visible that morning at the animal hospital, a week and a half after Brock had hit her. Was the woody’s owner another potential abuser?
“At least this one has good taste in cars,” Clay said.
“Seriously, Clay,” Alec said. “Is she…is she taking care of herself?”
Clay glanced at Gina, then at the keeper’s house again. “Dad, I don’t know what it is with Lacey,” he said. “She tries so hard to be like Mom, but…I’m sorry, Dad. She’s got this slut routine going on that I just don’t get.”
Alec dropped his hand from the smooth wood of the car. Olivia was right. It was time to tell them, whether he wanted it to be or not.
“I need to talk to you, Clay,” he said. “To you and Lacey.”
Clay frowned at his serious tone. “What about?”
“I’ll tell you when I have you both together. And I’d like that to be right now.” He turned to Gina and rested his hand on her arm. “Gina, I have to ask you to excuse us for a while. Would you mind?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I need to make a run to the grocery store, anyway. I just have to go into the house for a minute to get my backpack.”
“That’s fine, thank you,” Alec said. “While you’r
e in there, would you please tell Lacey I need to talk to her?”
“She might be busy, Dad,” Clay said.
“I don’t care what she’s doing.” He knew he sounded angry. He was angry, but more with himself than with his daughter. “I need to talk to her now.”
“I’ll get her, then,” Clay said, obviously wanting to spare Gina from having to interrupt whatever Lacey was up to.
Alec followed them into the house, his own pace slow. How was he going to tell them? The words would come, he reassured himself as he waited for them in the living room. He would find a way.
Gina left for the grocery store, and a moment later, Lacey appeared in the room. “Are you all right, Dad?” she asked. She looked worried, and he realized he might have given them the impression he was ill. She walked over to him and hugged his arm to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Strangely, he felt himself tear up. Lacey’s concern, her little-girl hugging of his arm, touched his heart. She looked so much like Annie. And he was about to change her world. Hers and Clay’s.
“I’m fine,” he assured them, “but there’s something I should have told you long ago, and I want to tell you now, okay?” He looked from Clay to Lacey and back again, as if asking for permission. They offered small, apprehensive nods in unison.
“Let’s sit down, then.”
He sat on one end of the sofa with Lacey at the other, while Clay sat on the ottoman, leaning his elbows on his knees.
“Your mom was a wonderful person, as both of you know,” he began. “She was an incredible mother. But she was troubled, too.”
“About what?” Lacey asked.
“She was…promiscuous,” he said.
“You mean, before she was married, right?” Lacey asked.
He shook his head. “I mean, throughout her entire adult life.”
“Mom?” Clay asked in disbelief.
Lacey wore a deep frown. “Are you saying…more than just with Tom?” she asked.
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