Finished with that topic, she nipped onto her back again.
“I have to buy the ingredients for my baked beans today,” she said.
“What are you bringing to the bonfire?” Every one on the cul-de-sac was expected to bring food to share. “Jill suggested I bring the paper plates and napkins and plastic silverware,” he said.
“I guess she figures I don’t look like much of a cook.”
Daria could already imagine the smell of the bonfire. Once the daytime crowd had left the beach, Jill and her husband and children would set up two fire rings, one for the adults, a second for the teenagers.
Everyone from the cul-de-sac would slowly make their way to the fires, to eat and talk and bemoan the fact that summer was nearly over. The bonfire was always the prelude to summer’s end.
Rory glanced at the clock on her night table.
“Well, I guess I’d better get back to Poll-Rory,” he said.
“Time to face more of my son’s probing questions about my love life.”
He sat on the side of the bed as he dressed, and Daria ran her hand across the warm empty space on the bed where his body had been. ;
The bonfire. The end of summer. | “Rory?” I “Uh-huh.” | “I haven’t asked you this, because I’ve been afraid of| the answer,” she said.
“But when exactly are you going| back to California?”
He looked at her over his shoulder, hesitating for a moment before answering.
“Let’s not talk about it now,” he said.
She accepted his answer willingly, not truly wanting to know.
JVImm,” Shelly said as she walked in the back door of the Sea Shanty.
“You’re making the beans.”
Daria looked up from the stove, where she was adding brown sugar to the pot of beans.
“How was work?”
“Okay. Where are Ellen and Ted?” she asked.
Daria turned the heat down under the beans. “Ted man aged to talk Ellen into going fishing with him today,” she said, and she was tempted to add. Isn’t that great? It was a true pleasure not having Ellen at the cottage all day. She knew Shelly felt the same way, although neither of them would say it.
Shelly sat down at the kitchen table.
“I don’t like working at St.
Esther’s as much without Father Sean there. No body else talks to me like he did. I liked talking to him. “
Daria leaned against the counter.
“Did Father Macy know about you and Andy?” she asked.
“He knew everything about me,” Shelly said bluntly.
Daria wiped a spot of molasses from the counter with a sponge. So, Sean Macy had known about Shelly’s relationship with Andy and had said nothing about it to her or Chloe. She was momentarily angry with the priest, but knew that wasn’t fair. Shelly had not felt able to talk with her sisters about Andy; it was good she’d at least been able to confide in the priest. No wonder Father Macy’s | death had been such a loss for her.
Setting down the sponge, Daria walked over to the table and gave her sister a quick hug.
“You must really miss him,” she said.
“Tons.”
Daria looked at her watch, then lifted her purse from the table and rooted around inside it for her car keys.
“Could you keep an eye on the beans for a few minutes while I run some errands?” she asked, keys in hand.
“Sure.” “I just have to go to the drugstore and the drive-through at the bank,” Daria said.
“You got paid today, right? If you want, I can deposit your check for you.”
“Oh, I don’t have it anymore.”
“What do you mean?” “When I was walking home from the church, I met this girl,” Shelly said.
“She’s only fifteen, and she doesn’t have any family.”
Daria felt her shoulders stiffen. She had a terrible feeling where this was going; they’d been down this road before.
“How do you know she doesn’t have a family?” she asked.
“Well, actually she does have one.” Shelly’s large brown eyes were filled with concern.
“She has a mother and a stepfather, but they treat her terrible. So, she’s in the Outer Banks all by herself. And she didn’t have any money, Daria. No money at all! She hadn’t had anything to eat all day today and no dinner last night. So, there was a bank right there, and I cashed my check and gave her the money.”
Daria dropped her purse onto the table.
