“Your father and I are your real parents,” her mother said sharply. “But your
“I’m not yours,” Noelle said, trying on the fit of the words.
“Oh, you’re mine, honey. Please don’t ever say that again.”
“I’m not part Lumbee?” She felt the magic drain out of her. The Spanish moss hanging above the hammock suddenly looked like nothing more than Spanish moss, not the hair of an Indian chief’s wife.
“I believe you’re a mishmash. A little of this and a little of that.” Her mother had taken her hand and held it on her lap. “What you are,” she said, “is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Now, Noelle looked at James. “Yes, I’m adopted,” she said, as though the fact meant nothing to her. “But how did you know?”
He handed the folder to her. “Some papers fell out of this thing in the wind,” he said. “Ain’t nothin’ to me,” he said. “But maybe mean somethin’ to you.”
His soft brown eyes told her he’d seen something he shouldn’t have seen. Something she’d never been meant to see, either. And when he gave it to her, he touched her hand. Not like a man would touch a woman. It was the touch of a friend who knew that the papers in that folder just might change her world forever.
8
Tara
Oh, God, this felt strange.
I sat across the table from Ian at the Pilot House, wondering if I was on a date. It had seemed casual enough yesterday when he said he had two tickets for a film at Thalian Hall. Then he suggested we grab something to eat first, and when you put dinner on the waterfront together with a film at a place as nice as the renovated Thalian Hall, what else could it be but a date? I liked Ian. I’d known him for so long and in some ways I could honestly say I adored him, but I didn’t want to date him. I didn’t want to date anyone. The thought of kissing or even holding hands with someone other than Sam made me shudder—and not with desire. It was actually repellent. I felt a deep, deep loneliness in my bed at night, but it wasn’t for just any man. It was for my husband.
“This isn’t a date, is it?” I asked Ian after the waiter had poured my second glass of wine.
Ian laughed. “Not if you don’t want it to be,” he said.
“Were you thinking it was? Is?” I was smiling. I liked that I could talk easily to Ian. I needed a male friend much more than I needed a lover.
“I was just thinking it would be good to see you smile,” Ian said, “like you are right now.”
The moment he said that, I felt my smile disappear. There was something I needed to tell him. I’d planned to wait until tomorrow so that tonight we could both relax and unwind. Suddenly, though, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep my mouth shut.
After school that afternoon, I’d driven to Noelle’s to help Emerson start cleaning out the house. Emerson had been waiting for me on the porch, and as soon as I’d reached the top step she grabbed my hand and sat down with me on the glider. Her face was red and gleamed with perspiration, and I knew she’d already been hard at work inside the house. But the stress in her face was from more than physical labor.
“You’re not going to believe the autopsy report,” she said.
“She was sick,” I said. I wanted that to be the case. A terminal illness that Noelle could see no escape from. I could envision her making the choice to end her life then, not wanting to put any of us through a long drawn-out illness with her.
But that wasn’t it at all.
Now I looked across the table at Ian. “Noelle had a baby,” I said.
He stared at me, then laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Emerson got the autopsy report today. Cause of death was the overdose, as we’d expected. But the autopsy showed that, sometime in her life, she’d been pregnant and given birth.”
All signs of levity left Ian’s face.
“I don’t know.” I hesitated for just a moment, then asked, “Could it have been yours, Ian?”
He looked jarred by the thought. I was certain we were both remembering back to the abrupt end to his and Noelle’s engagement. Was there a connection?
“I don’t see how,” he said. “I—
“It must have happened when she was a teenager, then,” I said. “Before any of us knew her. Emerson and I figure that she relinquished the baby for adoption. Maybe she’s been dealing with sadness from that experience all these years and none of us knew.”
“Well,” Ian said, “maybe you’re right or maybe the baby died or… I guess we’ll never know. I just…I thought I knew her so well back when we were together. Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Why didn’t she tell Emerson or me?” I added. “Her best friends?” I looked down at my plate where a few bites of flounder remained. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. “Anyhow, it probably has nothing to do with why she killed herself,” I said.
“Unless it’s something she never got over.” He looked miserable.
“I’m sorry I brought this up tonight. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“No, I’m glad you told me,” he said.
I ate another bite of flounder without really tasting it. I was tired. Emerson and I had packed up everything in Noelle’s kitchen, filling boxes with items Ted would take to the women’s shelter. There wasn’t much. Noelle had
