Diane Chamberlain - Summer's Child

“Not if,” Grace said.

“Her. And I’ve thought about what I said last night. What I agreed to. I don’t want her to have the baby adopted out. I was feeling crazy last night. If Nancy could find a foster home or something until I can figure out what to do, then I can take the baby.”

“Oh, Grace, you’re still not thinking clearly.” Bonnie sat down on the bed.

“You have to do what’s best for the baby. And also, what’s best for you. You haven’t even ever had a boyfriend. Grace. You haven’t even gotten to live. I’ve always thought it was crazy that you were going to tie yourself down with a baby, but I knew that was what you wanted, so I went along with it. But this is such a perfect solution.

The baby will be fine. She’ll have a better life than she would have with you—you have to admit it. And then you can get on with your own life. “

It bothered her that Bonnie could not understand. “You weren’t pregnant with this baby for eight months,” she said, starting to cry.

“You didn’t carry her around right beneath your heart. You didn’t feel her moving around inside you. You talk about the baby like she’s some… nuisance, or something. She’s my child. I may not be able to give her every single toy she sees or dress her in perfect, matching little outfits, but I’m going to give her so much love and attention that she’s never going to feel deprived of anything.”

Bonnie sighed tiredly.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Go next door and ask Nancy to bring the baby over so I can finally see her, and then I can talk to her about how I can get the baby into foster care while I’m getting on my feet.”

“All right,” her friend said, standing up.

“Remember, we have to get out of here by one. And we don’t have a thing to eat, so after I get Nancy, I’m going to go to the store and get some bread and some sanitary napkins for you. Nancy said you’d need them.” “Okay, but bring the baby over first, please?”

“Okay.”

Grace got out of bed, slowly, after Bonnie left the cottage. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom, and she was horrified to see several bloodied towels in the wastebasket. They would have to remember to get rid of them before they left. She improvised a sanitary pad for herself out of a washcloth and got dressed. She couldn’t wait to see her baby.

She walked out of the bathroom to find Bonnie in the doorway of the bedroom. Her face was white.

“They’re gone,” Bonnie said.

“Who?” Grace asked, although she was afraid she knew the answer.

“Nancy and Nathan,” Bonnie said.

“The cottage is deserted Their car and suitcases and everything are gone.”

Struck instantly by an overwhelming grief. Grace sat down on the bed.

Her mind raced.

“I don’t even know their last name. Do you?” she asked.

Bonnie shook her head.

“I don’t think they ever told us,” she said.

“Oh, God, Bonnie. My baby. They took my baby.” She began to cry, and Bonnie moved to the bed and put her arms around her.

“I know. I’m sorry. But she’ll be all right. I’m sure they left early so they could get to the hospital to make sure the baby was fine and healthy. Nancy seems like a really good nurse to me. She’s going to make sure everything’s perfect for your baby.”

“But I’ll never get to see her!”

Bonnie was crying, too.

“I shouldn’t have agreed with Nancy last night,” she said.

“I didn’t realize you’d change your mind, though. It seemed to make such good sense.”

Grace cried for a long time in Bonnie’s arms. Then, finally, she looked down at the pillow on her bed. It was inviting. She lay down, facing the wall, and pulled the covers over her head. She felt Bonnie’s hand on her back and closed her eyes.

“I’m going to the store,” Bonnie said.

“I’ll get you the pads. Is there anything else you want? Soup or anything?”

Grace didn’t bother to answer. She’d barely heard the question.

JVly God, Grace,” Eddie said. He was sitting next to her on the sofa, having moved there sometime while she was speaking.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” ;

“It was something I was trying to forget,” Grace said.

“So… I’ mtrying to understand. Was it Pam’ sdeath that made you start thinking about this other baby? Realizing | that somewhere out there you had a child living with her :

adoptive parents? And I still don’t get it the part about Rory Taylor.

What’s going on between the two of you? “

So many questions, so much he still didn’t know.

“I , haven’t told you everything yet,” Grace said. God, she | hated saying all of this out loud. She’d gone over it in her own mind too many times to count, and, of course, she and Bonnie had revisited the experience over the years, ;

but to recite it this way gave it a terrible credibility. “Bonnie went to the store that morning,” she said, “and when she came back, she was very quiet. I thought maybe she just felt guilty about her role in getting me to give the baby to Nancy. She tried to get me to eat something, but I just couldn’t. I’d never felt so despondent. I wanted to die.” She looked at Eddie.

“It was the same as I felt after S Pamela died.”

Eddie covered her hand with his, and she didn’t pull J away.

“Me, too,” he said. The two words cut through her. | She had given him no comfort, no sympathy after Pamela | died. Only blame and recriminations. <|

“Bonnie finally started talking,” she said.

“She told me that when she was in the little market, everyone was talking about a newborn baby girl that had been found on the beach very early that morning.”

“Oh no.” Eddie tightened his grip on her hand.

“The store clerk told Bonnie the baby had been found dead. When Bonnie told me that” -Grace shut her eyes at the memory “—I was torn apart, Eddie. I’d wanted that baby. I’d been willing to turn my life inside out for her. But I thought the nurse might be right, and I’d trusted her. And she went and left my baby on the beach to be washed away like a piece of driftwood.”

“Oh, Grace,” Eddie said.

“How awful.”

“So, Bonnie called me early this summer and said that she’d found out that Rory Taylor wanted to do an episode on his True Life Stories show about that baby. He was going to look into how she came to be on the beach that morning.”

“So, you contacted him and told him you thought you were the mother?”

Eddie asked.

“No,” Grace said, horrified by the thought.

“I didn’t dare do that.

I.

manipulated a meeting with him to try to find out what he knew.

And what I found out was. the baby had not died. A little girl found her, and her family adopted her. And now she lives in the house right across from the house where Rory Taylor is staying. She lives with her sister. She had some brain damage from that night. It’s mild, but she really does need someone to look out for her. Her sister seems to have done a good job of that. “

Eddie stood up and began to pace, something he always did when he was upset.

“This is unbelievable,” he said.

with one hundred percent certainty, that she is my daughter. It seems crazy that in the middle of a storm, the nurs would take her out to the beach, but”” —How many babies could have been born that night i;

Kill Devil Hills? ” Eddie asked.

“I know, I know. I just can’t make myself tell he] though, Eddie. What if I’m wrong?”

“Does she look like you?”

“Not really. She’s very blond, but then, so was her father.” She said the word other as though it tasted bad i: