She was sitting on one of the beach chairs, a stack of stationery resting on its broad arm.
“Hi,” he said, walking toward her through the beach heather. He felt sand slip into his shoes.
She smiled up at him, the sun catching the gold and red in her hair. Her cheeks were pink and the dark hollow look was beginning to fade from her face. She looked pretty again.
“Catching up on letters?”
“They’re not too easy to write.”
He nodded. “I need to talk to you.” He’d been thinking about this all afternoon, how he would tell her. He still wasn’t quite sure.
“Have a seat.” She gestured toward a vacant chair.
He looked out at the beach where Rennie and her girlfriends were sprawled on blankets. “Do you mind if we go in the house?”
A look of concern came over her face, and he said nothing to erase it. She got to her feet slowly. Still weak from not eating, he thought. He’d been stunned when she told him she’d been flushing her food down the toilet.
In the library, he pulled the two ottomans close together, and she sat on one while he shut the door.
“You look very serious and I’m getting very nervous,” she said.
He sat down on the other ottoman. “I’m the one who needs to be nervous. I don’t quite know how to tell you this.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I called Sandy this morning, like you asked me to, to tell him about Alison. He said he was just about to call you. His wife’s been having trouble conceiving so he had a sperm count done last week and they told him his sperm were too few and far between for him to impregnate anyone.”
She frowned. “How could his sperm count drop off that quickly?”
“It didn’t,” he said. “You’re not following me. I asked him if he knew his blood type. He said it’s AB. Blood type doesn’t usually prove anything but I had Alison’s autopsy report on my desk so I figured I might as well check. Kit, Alison’s blood type was O. So is yours. It’s impossible for her father to be AB.”
There was a crease between her eyebrows as though it was a strain to follow him. “But . . . Sandy was the only possibility.”
“Not if that period you had in December wasn’t actually a period. I remember you saying it was light.” He sat back and watched her face as his words sank in.
“Oh my God.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
“I’m O.”
She couldn’t speak. He could guess at the things racing through her mind, since they’d been in his own hours earlier. They should have been partners in this whole thing from start to finish. Instead she’d gone through it alone. He cursed that night; he’d never forgive himself for it.
“You didn’t even get to mourn,” she said.
“Mourning’s the last thing on my mind. I can’t even adjust to the idea that I . . . fathered a child.” The word father wrenched his heart.
They sat in silence for several minutes, their knees touching. “Kit.” He looked out the window. He wasn’t certain how she would take this. “I can’t keep this to myself.”
She nodded. “Of course not. You had a child. How can you pretend something like that didn’t happen?”
He smiled at her. “I was hoping you’d understand. All day I’ve been feeling sentimental and thinking how ridiculous that is. But who knows if I’ll ever have another child. I don’t think it’s a secret I can carry around with me for the rest of my life.”
“Who do you want to know?”
He sighed, folded his hands on his knee. “Jay already knows. I had to talk to someone. Sorry.”
“What did he say?”
“After ‘holy shit’? He was sad, I think. Sad that we didn’t know from the start. And a little amazed that I would do something like that when I was still with Estelle.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“No, but I want to tell Janni and Maris.”
Kit nodded. “We have to keep it from Rennie, though,” she said. “She’d never understand.”
He nodded. “Absolutely.” He would keep it from Rennie at all costs.
It was warm out on the bay, and oddly quiet, the only sound the hum of the Sweetwater’s motor as Jay steered her toward the setting sun. The houses along the water’s edge looked as though they’d been painted there, still and peaceful. It was quiet inside the boat as well. They’re mulling over the news, Cole thought. He stretched out on the seat at the back of the boat, watching them. Janni and Maris sat next to each other on the Sweetwater’s left side. He’d told them about the baby only an hour ago and surely there could be nothing else on their minds. Janni caught his eye now and winked. She was making it easy for him. She’d cried when he told her. He’d seen the curiosity burning in her eyes, all the questions she was longing to ask. He knew it was hard for her to refrain from probing deeper. That she didn’t pry the slightest bit touched him.
And Maris had surprised him with her look of delight. “I’ve never understood why we don’t all make love to each other whenever we feel the need,” she said. “Sure would keep me happy.” Then she’d put her arms around him and kissed him. “Come on, Cole. Give me an aquamarine-eyed black baby.” She’d diffused a lot of his guilt right then, joking about it.
Kit sat on the right side of the boat. She’d wrapped a white sweater around her shoulders and she sat up straight, letting the breeze whip her hair around her face. Rennie sat next to her, looking miserable. They’d all be talking about the baby right now if it weren’t for her. She hadn’t wanted to come with them, but Kit insisted. “Please, Ren, I want everybody with me tonight.”
It had been Kit’s idea, the evening boat ride. They doused themselves with insect repellent and walked the two blocks to the pier in silence, Rennie lagging behind.
What was wrong with Rennie? He watched her now. She stared at the deck of the boat, the tips of her blond-streaked hair grazing her thighs.
“Do you have a lot of homework tonight, Ren?” he asked, trying to get her talking.
She didn’t answer. From where he sat, her eyes looked glassy, her nose swollen.
“Cole asked if you have much homework,” said Kit.
Rennie looked up at Kit. “Was Cole your baby’s father?”
He sat back against the plastic cushion and felt the vibrations of the engine up his spine. How could she know? “Why do you ask that?” he said.
“Was he?” Rennie repeated to Kit.
Kit gave him a resigned look over Rennie’s shoulder. “Yes,” she said, “he was.”
Rennie clapped her hand to her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was going to get sick. Apparently Kit did too. She turned Rennie’s shoulders to face the water. “Over the side, Rennie,” she said.
But Rennie twisted free of her. She lifted her feet onto the seat and hugged her knees, her eyes glued to the horizon. Jay cut the engine and the Sweetwater started to drift.
“How did you know?” Cole asked. He looked at Janni and Maris for the answer but they shook their heads.
“I heard you talking on the phone.”
His mother. He tried to remember exactly what he’d said to her, what his end of the conversation would have sounded like to a just-turned fifteen-year-old girl, around whom he acted as if he’d taken a lifetime vow of celibacy.
“I was talking to my mother, Rennie. And you must have heard me tell her that I didn’t realize the baby was mine until after she was born.” He hoped that would somehow make him more innocent in Rennie’s eyes.
“How could you do that to Kit?”
“It was a mutual decision,” Kit said quickly. “Cole’s not to blame.”
“No one’s to blame.” Janni moved closer to him and rested her hand on his knee. “It’s just a fact, plain and simple. It happened. Kit and Cole made a baby together. You’re getting tangled up in right and wrong.”
“But Kit got so sick. She almost died because of . . . him.”
So, he was suddenly reduced to a him.
“It’s not Cole’s fault that Kit got sick,” said Jay.
Rennie turned to Cole again. “If you’d known it was your baby, would you have married her?”
She was offering him a chance to redeem himself, but the thought of marriage had never entered his head. He looked at Kit and saw with relief that she was smiling at him. “It’s impossible to say what we would have done,” he said.
“You should still marry her if you had sex with her,” Rennie said solemnly.
Maris laughed. “Yeah, Cole, make an honest woman out of her.”
Rennie scowled. “Jay, can we go back?” she asked abruptly.
Jay nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
The motor started up again, and the Sweetwater cut back across the bay, toward Mantoloking and the Chapel House. No one spoke, and he wondered how he could ever erase the look of betrayal in Rennie’s eyes. He’d presented himself to her as a good man. Now she knew the truth.