Breakwater Bay (25 page)

He shook his head slightly. “Laura Calder. I don’t recall that name. Was she a friend of Riley’s?” A small hesitation before he pronounced Riley’s name.

And that’s when Meri finally saw the pictures on top of the bookcase and on the filing cabinets. Family pictures. Wife, several children, all teenagers or older now. He’d gotten on with his life. Well, of course he had. Riley was dead. Did he even know? Or care?

He cleared his throat as if it hurt. “Riley died when she was seventeen. On a trip to Europe.”

Meri heard his words, and she heard something else. Regret? Doubt?

Meri kept still. She was used to working with volatile materials, but this was the most fragile moment she’d ever held responsibility for.

She opened her mouth, had to clear her throat. “And this is Riley Rochfort in the photo?”

He nodded.

He looked so sad that Meri began to regret coming here. Did she really need to open all this old history?
Too late for changing your mind now.
Whatever came next, she would have to accept it.

“And it’s you?”

Simmons let out a long slow breath. “Where did you get this?”

He didn’t sound suspicious, just bemused.

“It was in a box of things my mother . . . Laura . . . left me, along with her, Laura’s, diary.”

“How did your mother get this?” He templed his fingers, his cross-examination mode, she guessed. It gave him a psychological edge. Meri supposed he deserved it. This was all new to him. She’d had a few days to let it settle in.

“From Riley’s backpack.”

“A blue one?”

Meri thought back. “I don’t think the color was mentioned, but it had her school ID, this picture, a change of clothes, and a book of mythology.”

An exclamation, quickly swallowed.

“But she didn’t find it until after Riley was gone.”

“To Europe?”

“If this really is Riley, she never went to Europe.”

His face went slack. “Just a minute.” He reached for the telephone. “Paula, hold my calls. What appointment do I have next? See if you can postpone him until tomorrow or next week. No, I do not want to be disturbed.” He didn’t wait for an answer but hung up.

“How do you know this?”

And Meri lost her nerve. “I—I just do. She died here in an accident. Listen, I just wanted to know who was in the photo. And now I do. Thank you for seeing me.” She stood so fast that she swayed and had to catch the desk to steady herself. “Sorry to bother you.” What had she been thinking? This had been a mistake. She should have thought beyond her own need to know, about how this would affect her family and God help her, how it would affect Everett Simmons’s family.

She reached blindly for the photo. But he plucked it out of her reach.

“You can’t leave until you tell me how you know this. And why do you want to know about Riley?”

“That’s all I know. I’m sorry if I upset you, but could I have my photo back, please? You’ve answered my question, and now I’ll let you get back to work. Thank you so much.” She held out her hand. It was trembling. She snatched it back. “Please?”

“Look at me.”

Slowly she looked up.

Something flickered in his blue eyes. “Why do you want to know? You can tell me.”

Could she? Should she? She wished to heaven she could take all this back. Alden had been right, and she’d refused to listen. And now it was too late. The man standing across from her, patiently waiting, was no dummy. It was better just to say it and be done with it.

“Because Riley was my mother.”

T
here was a terrible silence while Everett Simmons stared at Meri and she stared back at him. He glanced down at the photo then back to her, then again to the photo.

Still he didn’t believe. His eyes flicked to her face, startling her into saying, “I don’t want anything from you. I just—just wanted to know.”

“Are you trying to say I’m your father?”

Meri shrugged. “You would know that better than I. I’m just on a quest for information.”

“If this is some kind of charade or joke, it’s a very cruel one.”

Meri shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just needed to know if you already knew. Or if you knew all along. If you didn’t, I thought you might want to know the truth. And if you did, I don’t really care if I hurt you.”

He braced his elbows on his desk and lowered his head to his hands briefly then sat straighter. “None of this is making sense. Where did she find the backpack?”

“I think I’d better start at the beginning.”

“Yes, I think you should.”

Meri told him about a neighbor boy—she wouldn’t drag Alden’s name into this unless she had to—seeing Riley trapped on the breakwater. How she delivered her baby at the Calder house. How she was so afraid of something or someone that she left her baby and ran away.

“Damn him!” The words exploded out of him. He stood up abruptly, and his leather desk chair wobbled. He took two steps around the desk, and for a moment Meri was afraid he was going to attack her.

But he merely strode past her to the door, stopped, turned around, and strode back again. He stopped at her chair and glared down at her.

“Are you telling the truth?”

Meri nodded, tears suddenly threatening to stop her voice.

Why hadn’t she listened to Alden to leave well enough alone? “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“Well, you did. What else did this diary say?” He dragged a second chair away from the wall, pulled it close, and sat facing Meri.

“It doesn’t matter. I just thought you had a right to know.”

“To know what? That they sent her to Europe to get her away from me? And she died there? Can you imagine the guilt I’ve lived with?”

Meri reared back. “No,” was all she could manage.

She’d been acting under the assumption that the Rochforts had lied about their daughter dying in Europe to prevent a scandal. But now she realized it was also to keep her away from Simmons. He probably was her father.

It really made absolutely no difference to her, but it did to him. She had disrupted his life, opened old wounds that she hadn’t imagined. For better or worse, she would have to deal with his feelings now.

She took a deep breath, rubbed her palms on her skirt, while she tried to collect her thoughts. It wasn’t easy. Had she really thought she could just walk in here and say, “Riley was my mother, are you my father?” say thanks, no biggie and leave again, without leaving a catastrophic wake?

“Look, it’s water over the dam. The past.”

“Then why did you come here?”

She thought about it. Why had she come? Curiosity? Closure?

“Do you want recognition?”

She shook her head.

“If you think to blackmail me—”

She just looked at him. How could he think—but hadn’t Gran and her mother been treated with the same arrogance? What was wrong with these people that they were so sure people wanted to take advantage of them?

“Because if you think you can, just let me make it—”

“Don’t bother. You’re just like them, aren’t you? I hoped maybe you were different. That you were a victim like Riley. Don’t worry. I told you before I didn’t want anything from you. I don’t.”

She pushed her chair back, but before she could stand he said, “Not even a paternity test?”

“Not even that. It doesn’t matter to me at all. Sorry to have bothered you.” She didn’t attempt to shake hands but groped her way to the door.

“Wait.”

She turned. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I have a wonderful family. One that loves me unconditionally. And worth a million times more than you or the Rochforts.”

She opened the door but shut it again. “There is one last thing. Any genetic diseases I should know about?”

He shook his head once. “No.”

This time when she opened the door she kept going, not bothering to maintain any semblance of composure as she stormed across the waiting room and outside to the street.

She didn’t know how she found her car and drove to the site. She was carrying her bag of work clothes into Gilbert House before her stomach revolted and she fled into the first-floor bathroom to expel the two cups of coffee she’d drunk to fortify her nerves.

She heard a knock on the door and hurried to splash water on her face.

“Meri?”

Carlyn’s voice.

“I heard you come in. Are you all right?”

“No.”

“Open up.”

Meri staggered to the door and unlocked it. Carlyn pushed inside.

“It was awful,” Meri cried and fell into Carlyn’s arms.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. Come on and have something to eat. I bought donuts; I thought you might need something sweet.”

She led Meri across the hall and sat her down at the kitchen table, where she opened a box and lifted out a double chocolate cake donut and placed it in front of Meri.

Meri shook her head.

“Trust me. Chocolate will make it better.”

Meri’s stomach rebelled, but she dutifully took a bite.

“Are you up for coffee?”

Meri took another bite of donut, and, strangely enough, her stomach did feel better. She nodded. Carlyn poured a cup, refilled her own, and sat down next to Meri.

“Want to talk about it?”

Meri put down her donut. “I shouldn’t have gone.”

“Didn’t go well, I take it?”

“He accused me of trying to blackmail him. My own—”

“What a cretin!”

Her vehemence startled Meri into a laugh—which quickly morphed into tears.

“Aw, sweetie.” Carlyn put her arm around Meri and gave her a hug. “You did what you needed to do. And you don’t know, he might come around. It might have been a big shock.”

“Maybe.” Meri reached for a paper napkin and wiped her face.

“At first he seemed nice enough. He
was
shocked. Of course he would be, but he seemed to think Riley had really gone to Europe, but then he just turned on me, threatened that if I thought I could blackmail him . . .”

“He’d do what? Sue you? Put you in jail?”

“I—I don’t know. I didn’t give him a chance to finish. I asked him if there were any genetic diseases I should know about. He said no. And I stormed out. I’m so stupid.” She dropped her head on her arms and moaned.

“Hey, you two! I heard it through—”

Meri jerked up at the sound of Joe Krosky’s singing.

He took one look at her, said, “Oops.” And backed out the door.

“Poor Joe,” Carlyn said.

“What did he hear? You didn’t tell him—”

“No. He heard that I finagled two thousand dollars from old Knightbridge to replace the pipes. I almost offered to name the men’s room after him but opted for a plaque on the contributors’ wall.”

“You’re amazing.”

“All in a day’s work . . . or two.”

Meri reached for the now partially smashed donut. Took a whooshing breath. “Okay, I’m done. I did it. It’s finished. Onward and upward.”

“Good girl, but what about the grandparents?”

Meri shook her head. “One encounter with that past was enough. Gran and Mom already confronted them thirty years ago. I doubt if anything has changed. And you know . . .” She crumbled a portion of her donut. “I’m angry for Riley’s sake. But for my own? I really don’t care. Yeah. I don’t care at all.”

“And Everett Simmons?”

Meri shrugged. “Mainly I just wanted the truth, kind of like getting to the ground layer of a paint analysis.” She breathed out a soft laugh. “Not exactly like that, but I really don’t want anything from him, except to know about the inherited disease thing.

“And I wouldn’t have even been thinking about that except I thought Peter and I were going to get married. With everything up in the air, it isn’t really something that’s all that important.”

“You’re giving up on Peter because he’s going to be gone for the summer?”

“No. It’s just with so much happening, I guess I’m not as upset as I should be.”

“Tell me that mid-July.”

“Yeah, well, there is that. Now I better change and get to work. Congratulations on the plumbing donation. We’ll piecemeal this beauty together yet. You’re going to dinner with me and Nora tonight, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Are you going to invite the TDH dad?”

“Stop calling him tall, dark, and handsome. I mean he is, but I don’t want to think that every time I look at him.”

“But are you going to invite him?”

“I can do that.” But first she’d have to tell Alden about going to see Everett Simmons. She wouldn’t be able to sit through a meal without blurting the whole story out and she wasn’t sure of how much she should tell Nora. She may have opened a can of worms today—a legal can of worms.

Meri changed into jeans, got her tool bag out of her locker, and checked out a hard hat from the equipment closet. But before she climbed the scaffolding to finish her tracing, she made a call.

It went to voice mail. “Hi, Dad. You’re probably teaching or making some amazing discovery. Just called to say I love you bunches.” Her voice began to wobble so she hung up.

How could she even care about another family who didn’t know or care about her? The family she had grown up with was all she would ever need.

Meri stopped long enough to shout a hey to Krosky, who was stretched out on the floor of the parlor, intensely outlining the bottom few inches of wallpaper. The wires of his earbuds wrapped around shoulders and disappeared into his shirt, and his toes were tapping the rhythm on the floorboards.

She climbed the ladder to the ceiling.

I
t was after four o’clock when Joe called up to Meri that he was quitting for the day. The two woodwork-stripping interns who were working on the second-floor bedrooms had clattered down the stairs an hour before. Meri was starving—the donut had been her only meal of the day—but she had completed a two-foot-square tracing of the ceiling.

She wrapped up a few minutes later and went down to the kitchen.

Not only Carlyn was there, but Joe Krosky and Nora and Alden.

Nora turned an eager face toward her as she walked in. Alden even smiled. They must have had a good week so far.

“Hey, you two,” Meri said, layering on a tad too much enthusiasm.