“It’s Coach Duncan, isn’t it?” Charlie said in a quiet but distinct voice.
Cameron froze. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn’t know what she was talking about, but he was done lying. Why did people lie to little kids, anyway? They always found out eventually, or they were never fooled in the first place. Besides, Cameron had carried this around long enough. He loved golf but hated playing for Duncan. He couldn’t figure out how to get out of it, though. What was he supposed to say to Sean? “I don’t want to play for Duncan because Mom slept with him.” Oh, that would be a wonderful thing to say to your father’s brother.
His throat felt dry and scratchy all of a sudden. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he said.
She looked up at him and then out at the wind-stirred yard. The first fat raindrops fell, spattering the pavement of the driveway. Babe returned with the ball again, and Cameron hurled it, all the fury inside him finding a way out. He threw it so far that it went into the next yard where the dog couldn’t
locate it. They could see the vertical feather of her tail tracking back and forth in the distant tall grass as she searched.
“I knew I was right,” Charlie said.
“How, um, when did you find out?”
“Mom said. Back in April.”
Cameron remembered the blood-test results he’d found in the car, dated the first Monday in April. He figured his mother had been checking out a hunch. Had she been shocked, or were the results exactly what she expected?
“You mean she told you?” he asked Charlie, incredulous.
“I don’t think she meant to, but she was all sad and she told me.”
Cameron felt a dart of rage at his mother, but the anger had nowhere to go.
“I’m afraid Coach Duncan will take Ashley away,” Charlie said.
“That’s not going to happen. She’s our sister, and I’ll be the one to take care of her, whatever it takes.”
Babe came roaring back and dropped the ball at his feet.
“That’s not the same ball you threw,” Charlie said.
“You’re right,” he said, stooping to pick up the shiny blue racquet ball the dog had yielded up. “Doesn’t matter. A ball’s a ball.” He didn’t throw it but held it gingerly in one hand and grabbed Charlie with the other. With Babe loping along, they went back inside just as marble-size hailstones began striking the roof. Almost the moment they got inside, the storm passed. As Cameron fixed his sister a bowl of cereal, he felt curiously relaxed. At peace. It wasn’t his job to spend each moment of his life worrying about this family. He wasn’t worried anymore. He had a plan.
L
ily had never invited Sean over to her house. Given the events of the summer, that seemed strange. She had let this man get closer than anyone into her life, perhaps even Crystal. There were things he knew about Lily’s heart that no one else had discovered, perhaps not even Lily herself.
It was time. Violet had insisted on keeping Charlie and Ashley for the evening and the girls were delighted to be back in the RV, this time with children to play with. Cameron was out with Becky; she was officially his girlfriend now. So when Sean called and asked to see her, she had invited him over—into her home, into her heart.
And she was a wreck. She’d straightened and cleaned all afternoon. She’d tried on and discarded four different outfits. What did you wear to tell a man you were in love with him?
She settled on a pink sundress and matching sandals and resisted the urge to pull her hair back into a ponytail, because he seemed to like it hanging loose. She put a six-pack of beer in the fridge. Then she paced and wrung her hands. She was setting herself up for all kinds of hurt, maybe even a rejec
tion. He’d never actually told her he loved her. Maybe their connection was based on their mutual concern for the children. And sex, of course. Like a hormonal teenager, she couldn’t stop thinking about that. True love had to be more than that, she thought. Didn’t it?
This was absurd. She shouldn’t be doing this. A few months ago, her life was going completely according to plan. Since Crystal had died, and Sean and the children had come along, she’d lost control of the reins. And now this? Now she wanted to bare her heart to him? Was she out of her mind?
In the midst of pacing the floor, she came up short in front of the framed photo of herself and Crystal at Haystack Rock. Those shining eyes and laughing faces seemed so terribly young to her, as though they belonged to two strangers. In that moment, the grief struck her like a fist in the dark, as intense as it had been the morning Sean told her about the accident. Lily wrapped her arms across her middle and sat down as the waves swept through her. It happened like this sometimes; just when she began to think she’d adjusted to her loss, the grief came smashing through again like a destructive storm, a natural disaster.
There was a knock at the door and she shot to her feet. As she hurried to answer it, she wiped at her eyes. She was an idiot. She had no business telling this man she loved him. It would only complicate the situation.
He seemed distracted when she greeted him; his kiss was perfunctory and his mind was clearly on something other than her. She studied his face and realized it was more than distraction. “We need to talk,” he said, striding into her living room. He seemed to fill the whole place with his presence.
Well, thought Lily. So much for romantic declarations. “All right,” she said, determined not to let him rattle her. “Sit down and we’ll talk.”
He sat on the sofa but didn’t relax. Instead he leaned for
ward like a coach in a team dugout, wrists balanced on his knees, fingertips touching, a scowl on his face.
“Is everything all right?” Lily asked. Dumb question. She already knew it wasn’t. He was probably dumping her, that was it. Dumping her for twin tire models or a Hooters waitress. She reeled in the loopy thought and waited.
“Cameron told me something that I think you should hear.”
Lily’s mind ran through the possibilities. There were so many of them. “And?”
“He said…I mean, he’s known for a while now that Derek isn’t—wasn’t—Ashley’s father.”
It was the last thing she’d expected, and the sound that came out of her expressed wordless disbelief. She felt a terrible shift in the world. Here was the man she loved, telling her something that could change everything. No, she thought.
No.
“Did you know anything about this?” Sean asked her, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her in a way that was not altogether pleasant. In fact, it was singularly discomfiting to be regarded with suspicion and mistrust.
“Anything besides the fact that it’s patently untrue? No.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around the room, his gaze lighting on the photo of her and Crystal laughing, their arms around each other. “I was surprised, too,” he admitted. “Regardless of my opinion of Crystal, I never dreamed Ashley belonged to anyone but Derek. Neither did he. I know that for a fact.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Lily said. “She
is
Derek’s child. I have no idea why Cameron would say she’s not. He must be mistaken, must have misunderstood something—”
“Cameron’s not stupid. He didn’t make a mistake and he wouldn’t dream this up out of thin air.”
“It’s simply not true,” she said. “He’s not a liar, but he’s laboring under some misinformation—”
“I didn’t come here to debate this with you, damn it.”
“Then why did you come here?” Her temper rose right along with his. That was the crazy thing about love. It could turn in the space of a heartbeat. She should have respected her instinct not to trust it.
“To tell you something important about a family you supposedly care about,” he said.
“Supposedly? Oh, you mean the family I spent the summer with, in an RV with a dog? Gee, whatever gave you the idea that I care?”
He set his jaw, took a breath. “All right, so there’s no question about your commitment to this family. That’s the reason I’m here. You have a right to know. And I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t have proof.”
Lily sat down. “Proof?”
He stayed standing as he handed her the envelope. “This is a copy of a blood test Crystal had done the Monday before the accident. I picked up a copy from her doctor as soon as Cameron told me. The test removes any doubt. Derek’s blood type is AB, and Crystal’s is B. The baby’s is O, which any high school biology student will tell you means she can’t be Derek’s.”
Lily’s hand shook as she thrust the lab report away. Unfortunately, she remembered high school biology all too well, and she knew these test results were no lie. She nearly gagged on the next question. “Then who…?”
“The father’s Greg Duncan, the golf coach,” Sean concluded, “and he doesn’t know.”
Lily discovered that she’d stopped breathing. She started up again in panicky little gasps. Greg Duncan. She had worked with him, dated him. One time, she’d even kissed him. How could she have missed this? Crystal used to try to warn her away from him. He’s a player, she’d said. A user. You can do better. Lily assumed Crystal wanted her to find someone
to get serious with. Now she wondered if Crystal warned her off because she herself had been with Greg.
Somehow, Lily found her voice. “That’s completely absurd.” Even as she spoke, she was comparing Ashley to Greg in her mind. Brown hair, brown eyes, big deal. Ashley looked like she could have been fathered by Keanu Reeves, too, but that didn’t mean he was her father. Yet Sean had cracked open a door and she couldn’t resist peeking in. In her mind’s eye, she caught a glimpse of Crystal, who had been team mother three years in a row. Lily remembered this because she’d urged Crystal to give it up when her marriage fell apart, since she had enough to deal with, but Crystal had refused. Maybe, just maybe…She kept picturing Crystal’s shell-shocked expression when she had come over to Lily’s house one night and said, “Derek has someone else. And I’m pregnant.”
“She would have told me,” Lily said. “She told me everything.”
“Apparently not.”
“Even if it did happen like that, she would have told Greg.”
“Not Crystal. She needed to be the injured party in the divorce. Winning child support for three kids meant more money for her, and she knew she’d get more from a golf pro than a high school coach.”
“That’s a horrible, bitter thing to say.”
“Not nearly as bad as having one man’s child and attributing it to another.”
Lily felt queasy. “Crystal wouldn’t do that. She simply wouldn’t.” Lily stared at the dated test results and remembered that day with brittle clarity. It was a Monday, the same day Charlie had started stealing. Good God, she thought. Could Charlie have known? It was bad enough that Cameron was in on this. His mother and his coach. No wonder he vandalized the golf course.
“What’s your point, Lily?” Sean asked.
“Obviously, from the timing of the test, she wasn’t sure herself until just before she died. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Up until the blood test, she probably thought Ashley was Derek’s.”
“She might not have known whose DNA the baby has, but she sure as hell knew who she was sleeping with.”
“My God, you really did hate her, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “This conversation is going nowhere,” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have had it in the first place.” He headed for the door.
“Wait,” Lily said, her voice very low. Too low, perhaps, for him to hear. If he didn’t hear and kept going, she wouldn’t call him back.
He did hear. He stopped and turned around.
She squeezed her hands together until they hurt. “We have to tell him.” She startled herself with her own words, because by saying them, she acknowledged the truth. Queasiness swelled inside her, tangling with questions that would never be answered. The trouble with being angry with a dead person, she reflected, was that you could never sit down with her, talk things out, get an explanation, make amends.
“That’s not what I want to hear from you,” he said.
“It’s not my job to tell you what you want to hear. That will never be my job, do you understand?” Her eyes burned with tears of fury. What did he expect, coming here and telling her this about her best friend, a woman she had loved and trusted and respected all her life?
“Cameron and I have already discussed this. We’re not telling him.”
She winced at the thought of Cameron discussing his mother’s infidelity. How could you, Crystal? Lily wanted to scream. How could you, with your son’s coach? “Sean, you can’t fix
this with a lie or another deception. Greg deserves to know, and so will Ashley when she’s old enough to understand.”
“You’re not thinking this through, Lily,” Sean said. “The baby is with me because I’m the kids’ blood relative. If Duncan’s the father and not my brother, then I’m not related at all to Ashley. He is. So don’t you tell him.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat. You have no right. You were Crystal’s friend. Big deal. I’m the guardian of this family and the decision’s mine to make.”
She wondered what it was she saw in his eyes besides anger. Fear, perhaps? Then she told herself she didn’t have to worry about what he was thinking or feeling. It was a far different conversation from the one she thought they’d have this evening. And this angry, autocratic man was a far different person than the one she thought she knew. Clearly, she was only a part of this family so long as she agreed with Sean. She got to her feet, crossed the room and held the door open. “I think you should go.”
“Fine.” He strode out the door, then hesitated and turned back. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
Only a few minutes ago, she’d wanted to tell him she was in love with him. They should be having dinner together, sharing a glass of wine, making love deep into the night. She swallowed a knot of bitterness that had lodged in her throat.
Thank goodness she hadn’t told him yet. At least she hadn’t given him the hammer to crush her with. Then she realized she felt crushed all the same. “Not really. Nothing important, anyway.”
After he was gone, Lily sat very still. Darkness crept in, but she didn’t bother getting up to turn on a light. She wondered how long she would sit here, just like this, before someone no
ticed her absence. Would she be like one of those forgotten, friendless people you sometimes read about in the paper? She used to savor her independence and solitude. Now that she’d had a taste of family life, she wanted something else. And it had been so close, within her grasp. Sean had wanted just one thing from her, just her cooperation in dealing with Greg Duncan. Why hadn’t she given him that? Love was supposed to be about compromise. Surely they could have found a solution that worked for everyone.
A dozen times she reached for the phone, then changed her mind. She was terrible at this. She didn’t know how to be a woman in love, and she certainly didn’t know how to deal with the aftermath of a quarrel.
The thirteenth time she picked up the phone, the doorbell rang. Lily nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she laughed aloud. He’d come back.
With a broad smile on her face, she flipped on the porch light and opened the door. “Oh,” she said, her heart plummeting. “Hi, Mom and Dad.” She offered them dutiful hugs and invited them in.
“We decided to drive down for the tournament,” her father said. “Violet told us it was a big deal.”
“Vi told you to come?”
Her mother made a sound of impatience. “No, your father said she told us it was a big deal—for you. So we decided to come.”
“We have a room at the Hampton,” her father added. “Have you had dinner yet?”
Dinner. She had fixed dinner for Sean but they hadn’t gotten that far tonight. “Tell you what,” she said with false brightness. “Let’s see what we can scrounge up here.”
The three of them went to the kitchen. When Lily put out the dinner she’d prepared—caprese salad, pasta with a lob
ster and cream sauce—Sharon raised her eyebrows. “This doesn’t look like scrounging to me.”
Lily’s father nodded. “You’re overdressed for scrounging, too.”
She gave a short laugh. “I can’t believe you’re criticizing me for that.” Two years ago, when she’d declared to the world that she would never marry, Lily had started a collection of colorful Italian dishes from Scala. She served her parents in the dining room, treating them like honored guests. She herself had no appetite whatsoever, and it didn’t take her mother long to notice.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Lily struggled to put up the old wall, the one that used to protect her, but she’d lost the knack.
“You’ve always said that, all your life,” her father pointed out.