Sixteen

The next morning, after a night of little sleep in an uncomfortable chair, Carly drove home, tired and cranky. She let herself in the front door.

“Where have you been all night?” Aunt Dorothy asked sternly. “Up to no good. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Then you would be dead.” Carly had noticed her cousin’s bike missing from the garage, so she felt it safe to speak. “I was at the hospital; Leslie went into labor last night and had a baby this morning—a girl. Seven pounds, eight ounces.” Carly delivered her words in a monotone, her thoughts jumping ahead. “Now I have a question I’d like answered.”

Her aunt’s facial muscles tensed.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Aunt Dorothy closed her mouth, looking away. Hearing footsteps, Carly turned to look as her uncle came from the kitchen, his newspaper still in hand.

“Is it because I’m his daughter?”

Her aunt gave a sharp intake of breath, but her uncle’s expression told Carly what she needed to know. Shock, followed by a strange mix of remorse and relief gentled his brown eyes.

Carly gave a stiff nod. “I thought so.” Without another word, she trudged upstairs to her attic room.

She sat on the bed and stared at the wall, barely aware of the tap at her door. She turned to find it slowly opening, her uncle on the threshold. They stared at one another as the old-fashioned clock on her bedside table ticked away the seconds.

He stepped inside, looking awkward. “We thought it best not to tell you until you were grown. Later, we decided not to tell you at all.”

Numb, Carly hugged herself and nodded.

“We didn’t think Dorothy could have children; when your mother asked us to take you in, she agreed.”

“And you?” She nailed him with a look. “Did you even want me?”

“I caused so much pain to both Dorothy and your mom; I only wanted what was best for everyone involved.” He hesitated, then walked closer to sit down next to her. “But especially you. You were the innocent in all this.”

Carly snorted. “Not according to Aunt Dorothy!”

“She’s very bitter, and I honored her wish that you not be told. But Carly. . .” He moved as if he would take her hand, then sat back as if he’d changed his mind. “I have always cared and wanted what’s best for you. I know I’ve been stern with you and not the best of uncles—we don’t see eye to eye a lot of the time because we’re too much alike. But if I hadn’t cared about you all these years. . .”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.” Carly felt uneasy at this switch in their relationship, though she’d always suspected it.

He blew out a heavy breath. “That may be, but it’s something I should have said long ago. You’re special to me, Carly, my firstborn. I even had a hand in naming you, more or less.”

Carly wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold herself together and didn’t respond, hoping he would go away. Yet this had been something she’d always wanted, to know her father, to talk to him.

He must have read the pain-filled indecision on her face. “It appears to me this isn’t a good time, but now that you know the truth, we need to talk. We can go to Milton’s Pantry and discuss things over dinner this weekend.”

She had to know. “Were you ever planning to tell me the truth? Or would you have been content just to go on pretending you were my uncle?”

“As a matter of fact, Dorothy and I have argued about this for a long time. I felt you should know when you hit twenty-one, but I refrained from saying anything then. Now, at least that disagreement between us has been settled.”

“I don’t want Trina knowing.” Carly made the decision. She didn’t want her little cousin’s hatred, too.

He sighed. “Let’s just take this as it comes. This past hour has been full enough already.”

Carly nodded, watching distantly as he patted her hand, then rose and left the room. She swiped away the tears that dripped down her cheeks. Though she felt tired, she needed action, and she knew she would never be able to sleep.

Moving to her desk, Carly turned on her computer to check her e-mail. A brief, lighthearted post bursting with smiley faces, hearts, and dancing animated kittens and puppies came from Kim, and Carly smiled. When they’d crossed the Canadian border at the end of the trail, even as weary as all of them were, Kim had thrown off her backpack and done a series of cartwheels, exuberant that she’d made it to the end—that she’d lived out her dream.

Carly dashed off an equally silly reply to the teen’s post, sent it, and tapped her finger against the keyboard, deep in thought. Piercing the corner of her lip with her teeth, she looked at the folded page Jill had given her at church weeks earlier.

“Come on, Carly girl,” she muttered to herself. “Where’s your backbone? You just braved your aunt with a question that’s revolved inside your head for years and discovered the truth. This could never be as bad.”

She hoped.

Smoothing out the page, she spotted Nate’s address and began to type.

❧

Nate packed up the last of the moving cartons, glad to be getting out of the dump he’d called his apartment for a year. He was taking to the road, uncertain of his destination and planning to wing it. Once he found a place he liked, he might settle. He winced when the telephone rang—again—and Brittany left her sixth message. He’d met her at the singles’ dinner weeks earlier, had taken her out twice, but knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere and had tried to tell her so. But she wouldn’t listen. Nor, it seemed, would Susan, who now wanted back in his life and called just as often.

Glancing at his laptop, he wondered if he should boot up one final time and check his e-mail in case anyone had contacted him from the hiking group. He mocked himself.

“What for? You don’t need to hear from her; you don’t want to hear from her. Remember?” Besides, if she did contact him and he learned she still hadn’t found Christ, it might kill him. He wondered just how long it would take for these feelings to dissolve.

Spotting a library book he’d checked out during his quest of deciding where to go—one filled with information on Vermont’s towns—he groaned. He should drop it off before he forgot and maybe pick up a fast-food meal on the way. After all that packing, he was hungry.

Twenty minutes later, library book in hand, he approached the front desk. The young librarian smiled at him as he handed her the book.

“Yoo-hoo, Nate!”

At the loud stage whisper, he looked into the adjoining glassed-in room where a few computers sat at a long table—and also Mrs. Greenwich, the keyboard player at his church.

“I’m so glad to see you. Be a dear and watch this for me, will you?”

Puzzled, Nate pulled his brows together. “You want me to watch a computer?”

“Yes, I have to make a quick trip to the ladies room, and those school boys over there jump on whenever a computer is unmanned and no one’s looking. We’re on a scheduled time with these you know. I don’t want to lose my slot or my article.”

“Sure, okay.” He glanced at the open screen of the Internet article she’d been reading about crochet patterns.

“Feel free to use it while I’m gone—just don’t lose my window.”

Once she’d left, he stared at the screen, tempted to look at his e-mail account. Loud whispers and muffled laughter drew Nate’s attention to the three boys—brothers, judging from their red hair. They pretended to pore over a book, and as Nate watched, one of the boys made spitwads from his notebook paper on the table and stuck it in a straw. Nate shook his head as one of the paper cannonballs went flying into an unlucky bystander’s hair. The boys fairly fell over themselves with quiet laughter as the woman continued to peruse the books, heedless that a white glob sat in her teased, sprayed hair. A stern, elderly librarian approached the table, and the boys quickly behaved like docile angels, again poring over the book.

Nate shook his head at their antics and glanced at the computer screen again, then at the keyboard. As long as he was here and the thing was sitting in front of him, why not look?

He opened a new window and brought up his e-mail account, his eyes going wide when he saw he had a post from Carly. His heart tapped out a crazy dance, and he felt as if he were caught up in some slow-moving dream as he moved the mouse to click her message open.

“I told you I’d be back in a flash,” Mrs. Greenwich suddenly said as she approached him.

Nate quickly closed the window and rose from the chair.

“Thanks for watching things. Will we be seeing you at church this Sunday? It’s so lovely you could make it to the singles’ outings. My Joey enjoys them so, and from what he said, it appears to me that girl Brittany likes you.”

He refrained from wincing at her obvious attempt at matchmaking. “No, actually I’m leaving town tomorrow.”

“Is that a fact?”

Nate smiled. “I’m going to see a little of the world—Vermont anyhow. I need to get back to packing. Good-bye, Mrs. Greenwich.”

Nate moved toward the front doors, his curiosity heightened by Carly’s post. If he hadn’t wasted time watching those unruly boys, he would have had a chance to read it. What could she have to say to him? What did she want? It had been almost a month and a half since they’d parted ways, and she’d never written before this.

Nate toyed with the idea of signing up for some Internet time to check it out. But he didn’t want to get sucked into a lengthy conversation about Brittany or his family with Mrs. Greenwich, and Mrs. G was, as Jill would say, a real ear basher. The woman loved to talk up a storm.

Exiting the library, Nate shook his head at his stupidity of how easily he’d almost fallen into the trap of reopening contact with Carly.