Keeper of the Light

Lacey lowered her hands to her lap and looked at Olivia.

“You have to tell your father.”

Lacey’s red eyes opened wide. “Tell him what?”

“That you thought you might be pregnant.”

“But I’m not. Why should I get him all upset? There’s absolutely no reason for me to tell him.”

“There’s a very good reason. He’s your father. He needs to know how serious things are with you.”

“What if I don’t tell him?”

“Then I will.”

Lacey jumped from the chair. “I thought I could trust you.”

“You can trust me to do whatever I feel is best for you.”

“Oh, God, you’re a bitch.” Lacey dropped to the chair again. “He’ll kill me, Olivia. He’ll…” She shook her head, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

Olivia stood up. “He needs to know, Lacey.” She took her car keys from her purse. “Let’s go.”

Lacey followed her with a heavy air of resignation. She stared out the window of Olivia’s car on the drive to Southern Shores, shooting occasional, evil-eyed looks in Olivia’s direction. “But I’m not even pregnant,” she’d growl. “I thought I could trust you.”

Lacey let herself into the house ahead of Olivia and brushed past her father on the way upstairs to her room. Alec looked expectantly at Olivia.

“Could we go in the den?” she asked.

He nodded, leading her into the den and taking his usual seat at the desk. She sat down at the work table.

“She was afraid she was pregnant,” Olivia said.

Alec looked surprised for an instant, then shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said.

“She’s not. I had her tested this morning at the ER. She knows I’m telling you this and she’s not happy about it, but I thought you needed to know.”

He nodded. “Christ.” He looked up at the ceiling, and when he spoke there was anger in his voice. “Okay, Annie,” he said, “so what would you do now?”

Olivia stood up. “Forget what Annie would do or what Annie would think or what Annie would feel. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Annie was wrong?” Olivia grabbed her purse from the work table and stalked to the door of the den, where she turned back to look at him. “Your barely fourteen-year-old daughter who’s been raising herself all these years thought she was pregnant. Forget about Annie. Lacey needs you right now. She needs Alec.”

She let herself out the front door, nearly knocking Tripod over in her rush to leave. From her car, she looked up at the window she knew was Lacey’s, wondering if in the last hour she had lost both Alec and his daughter.

Alec sat alone in the den for a long time, aware of the stillness in the house. She’s afraid of what it will be like when it’s just the two of you. Wasn’t that what her school counselor had told him? He rose to his feet and started up the stairs.

He knocked on the door and pushed it open. Lacey sat cross-legged on her bed, clutching a dark-haired china doll to her chest. She looked horrid, her two-toned hair uncombed, her cheeks tear-streaked. She smelled like stale beer.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said.

He sat down on the bed and pulled her into his arms, and for the first time in far too long she didn’t struggle to get away from him. She wept against his shoulder, her back shivering beneath his hands. He stroked her hair, afraid to speak, afraid his voice would give out.

Finally he drew away from her. He pulled a tissue from the box on her night table and held it to her nose.

“Blow,” he said, and she did. Then she looked up at him, with Annie’s blue eyes, waiting for him to speak.

“You must have been terrified to think you were pregnant,” he said.

She nodded, lowering her eyes quickly, and her tears flicked from her long lashes onto the back of his hand.

“Would it have been that boy’s? Bobby’s?”

She didn’t lift her head. “I don’t know whose it would have been.”

Something rolled over in his gut, and he struggled to keep his voice soft. “Oh, Lace,” he said, pulling her close again. He waited for her tears to stop before he finished his thought. “There are some changes we’re going to have to make,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I want you in at twelve on Friday and Saturday nights and ten on weekdays.”

She pulled away from him, staring at him in bruised disbelief. “Dad. It’s summer.”

“There’s still no reason for you to be out later than that. And I want to know where you’re going to be. I want phone numbers, and I want to meet the kids you’re going out with, too.”

“I knew you’d do this. You’re going to make me into a prisoner. You can’t keep me