“I mean, hadn’t you ever considered it?”
“No,” he said vehemently, “not at all.” He looked at Jackie.
“My sister had Down’s syndrome.”
“And that’s just it,” Linda said.
“It would have been easy for someone to take advantage of Polly, and if she’d gotten pregnant, she might not have had any idea what was happening to her body. She might not have known any better than to try to get rid of the baby.”
Rory smiled tolerantly. “Even Polly would have known how cruel and inhumane that would be,” he said. It disturbed him that Linda would think otherwise.
“Well,” Linda said, sitting back in her chair.
“I can assure you it wasn’t me. And if it wasn’t Polly, and if it was someone on the cul-de-sac, then you’d better try to track down Cindy Trump.”
-Lrom the livingroom window in her small apartment above the garage.
Grace could see her house. It was after ten in the morning; surely Eddie had gone to the cafe by now. She was avoiding her husband to the best of her ability. She had to see him when she went into work, of course, but even there, she limited conversation to those words that had to be said to keep the cafe and shop running smoothly.
She descended the outside apartment stairs and entered the house by the back door. Since moving above the ga rage, she only went into the house when she knew Eddie wouldn’t be there, and the house always seemed too still and empty to her. Quiet as a tomb. Today, she had only one quick task to do there, and then she would head up to Kill Devil Hills.
She went upstairs and opened the door to the room she had been avoiding for months. Pamela’s room. It gave her a jolt to see the bare mattress on the bed, the walls stripped of posters and photographs.
Eddie must have cleaned out the room, and it angered her that he had not asked her permission. Had he cleaned out her closet, too?
She walked quickly across the room to the closet and slid open one of the doors. Pamela’s clothes were indeed gone, but there were a few boxes of items left on the closet shelf, along with the large glass jar containing the shell collection. Grace reached up to pull the jar into her arms.
Its lid was dusty, and she cleaned it off with a swipe of her hand as she walked out into the hallway. Shutting the door behind her, she realized she’d been holding her breath, and she stood still for a moment, trying to breathe normally again.
She was downstairs in the living room, nearly to the front door, when she was startled by the deep, very familiar voice of her husband.
“What are you doing with Pam’s shell collection?” Eddie asked.
She nearly dropped the jar as she turned to face him.
“How come you’re not at work?” she asked.
“Sally opened for me,” Eddie said, referring to one of the waitresses.
“And I think I’m going to have to hire someone else, too. You’ve been… not too reliable recently.”
“I know,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” “Where have you been lately, Grace?” he asked. “Why haven’t you been at the cafe? I don’t mind doing most of the work, but it would help if you could at least let me know when you’re going to be there.”
“I had a number of doctors’ appointments,” Grace lied, and immediately regretted it. A look of worry crossed Eddie’s face as he took a step closer to her, but he seemed to know better than to touch her.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, and her heart betrayed her by filling with love for him. He looked very tired. New gray streaks marbled his dark hair, and there were bags beneath his blue eyes. These past few months had been rough for him, too.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to shake off the feelings of warmth for him.
“I’ll be back at the cafe later this afternoon.” With that, she clutched the jar closer to her chest and left the house, wondering if he’d noticed she was wearing the short seersucker robe she always wore over her bathing suit. She hardly looked as though she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment.
She found Rory on the beach by the cul-de-sac.
“Hi!” he said when she set her beach chair in the sand next to his.
He looked pleased to see her, and that pleasure tugged at her guilt.
She was not being very kind to the men in her life.
“Hello.” She took off her robe, sat down and pulled a tube of sunscreen from her beach bag. “How are you?”
“Better, now.” Rory said.
“I didn’t expect to see you today.” “Well, I had some time before I have to go in to work, so I thought I’d come up here for a while.”
“Here.” He leaned over to reach for the sunscreen.
“Let me put that on your back for you.”
She held the tube away from him.
“I can do it,” she said. She squeezed some of the lotion onto her hand and tried to transfer it to her back.
