“And you to your dusting.”

“Right!” She jumped up from her seat and began working at the blinds once more.

Sean looked at the papers spread out in front of him, then shut his eyes. Rory Taylor.

His hands trembled as he put the top on the pen and rested it on the desk. He would never be able to concentrate on hearing confessions now.

Daria awakened hungry that Saturday morning. The sun light poured into her bedroom, where everything was white and blue and clean and bright, and she felt the blissful realization that she did not have to go to work or teach a class or do anything other than goof off all day. Perhaps she would go to the gym. Perhaps Rory would go at the same time. Then, suddenly, she remembered that Ellen and Ted were in the cottage, and her mood plummeted.

They had arrived the night before, and Daria had instantly felt her spirits sink when their car pulled into the driveway. She hadn’t had to deal with her cousin since the summer before, and only now did she realize how heavenly the year had been without Ellen’s opinions and interference Daria had greeted the two visitors, then pleaded exhaustion and went to bed, feeling a little guilty leaving Chloe and Shelly to provide hospitality.

Ellen, along with Aunt Josie, had spent all of her summers at the Sea Shanty until the year she married Ted. Since then, she and Ted and their two daughters came down on occasional summer weekends. They never waited for an invitation. Ellen would simply call and say they were coming, and after all these years, Daria felt unable to tell her no. Anyway, Chloe would never let Daria turn their cousin away. Chloe was able to view Ellen from an entirely different perspective.

“We have to understand why Ellen is the way she is,” she would say.

“Her father died when she was little. Aunt Josie wasn’t exactly the warmest, most maternal human being on earth. We need to have sympathy for Ellen. We need to show her love and compassion.” But it was hard to show someone love and compassion when all you received was sarcasm and insensitivity in return.

Trying to recapture her good feelings, Daria got out of bed and pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. She glanced out her window at Poll-Rory, wondering if Rory was up yet. Then she walked down the stairs to face her guests.

She found Ellen on the porch, pouring orange juice into glasses on the picnic table. A platter of waffles and sausages rested in the center of the table, and Daria knew that Shelly had busied herself cooking that morning, probably to escape from Ellen.

“Well,” Ellen said, looking up from her task, and Daria noticed that her cousin’s hair was strewn with silver now. The color was actually pretty, especially in the sunlight pouring through the porch screens, but it looked as though a five-year-old had cut her hair with dull scissors.

“You look a little more with it this morning.”

Already, Daria felt her skin prickle.

“I’m sorry I crashed so early last night,” she said, sitting down in one of the rockers.

“It had been a long day at work.” “Well, no one held a gun to your head when you picked such a physical career,” Ellen said. She set the pitcher down on the table and arranged the glasses by the individual place settings.

“Guess I’m just a masochist,” Daria said, unwilling to get into a fight. Better than being a sadist, she thought, remembering the mammogram she’d had the year before. A small cyst had appeared in her breast and her doctor had ordered the test to rule out anything serious. The mammogram had been simple, quick and painless, but she imagined the experience would be entirely different if a technician like Ellen were responsible for tightening that cold plastic vise.

Chloe walked onto the porch and glanced at the table.

“How come there are only four place settings?” she asked.

“Guess,” Ellen said.

“Ted’s going fishing.”

As if on cue, Ted walked onto the porch, fishing pole in one hand, bucket in the other.

“What’s been biting lately?” he asked Daria.

Daria tried to remember the latest fishing report. It was impossible to live in the Outer Banks and not be aware of what was biting.

“Croaker, I think,” she said.

“Spot. Bring us home some dinner, okay?”

She didn’t dislike Ted. He was overweight, with a belly that protruded farther over his waistband every year. He had kind brown eyes and a receding thatch of gray hair. He was bland, reticent and a doormat to his wife, but there was little offensive in his own demeanor. For as long as Daria had known him, Ted would take off for the fishing pier first chance he got, and she didn’t blame him for wanting that escape.

He gave Ellen a peck on the cheek.

“See you tonight, honey,” he said.

“Be ready to fire up the grill when I get home.” “Why?” Ellen asked. “Are you picking up some steaks on the way back from the pier?”

“Very funny,” he said as he left the porch to walk out to his car.

Shelly carried a bowl of fruit onto the porch.

“Let’s eat,” she said, and the four of them sat down at the picnic table.

“How are your girls doing in France?” Daria asked Ellen, scooping some of the fruit onto her plate.

“Oh, they’re loving it. It sounds like they’re doing more shopping and man hunting than studying, though.” Ellen laughed.

“I’m going to miss not having them around this summer,” Daria said honestly. Ellen’s daughters were nothing like their mother, and they always tried to include Shelly in their activities, despite the fact that they were five years younger.

“I can’t say that I miss them,” Ellen said.

“It’s finally peaceful at our house. No loud music. No teenagers running in and out of the house day and night.” She suddenly looked at her watch.

“How come you’re not working today?” she asked.

“You always used to do your EMT work on Saturdays, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m taking a break from it,” Daria said.

Ellen looked surprised.

“Supergirl’s getting too old for that regimen, huh?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Daria said, taking the easy way out.

“And where’s Pete?” Ellen asked.

“Feels strange not to have him hanging around here.”

“We broke up,” Daria said.

“You’re kidding.” Ellen looked genuinely sympathetic.

“You were so perfect for each other,” she said.

“He was your type, I always thought. You need that super masculine sort of guy, you being the athletic type yourself. You only look feminine next to a man like Pete.”

“Well, it just wasn’t meant to be,” Daria said, thinking that Ellen had even managed to turn her condolences into an insult.

Daria heard the slamming of the porch door across the cul-de-sac and instantly turned in the direction of the sound, as if she’d been waiting for it. Rory was walking across his yard to his car. Daria extracted herself from the picnic-table bench and opened the porch door.

“Hey!” she called.

“Do you want to go to the athletic club later?”

Rory stopped to look at her, his car door half-open.

“I have company coming today,” he said.

“Oh, okay. See ya.” She closed the door and took her seat at the table again, trying to mask her disappointment. She wondered if “company” meant Grace.

Ellen was staring across the cul-de-sac.

“Is that…?”

“Rory Taylor.” Shelly finished the sentence for her.

“Well, my, my, my,” Ellen said.

“After all these years.”

“He’s going to find my real mother,” Shelly said.

“He’s going to try, hon,” Daria corrected her.

“You know he might not be able to.”

“Well, that’s an asinine waste of time,” Ellen said.

“What does asinine mean?” Shelly asked.

“Oh, come on, Shelly, you know that word,” Ellen said.

“Stop playing stupid.”

“I don’t know it,” Shelly protested.

“It means, what on earth is the point in him trying to find your mother?” Ellen said.

“What will you do with her once you find her?

Take her on the Jerry Springer Show so you can yell at her for screwing up your life? “

“Ellen.” Chloe made a very un-nun like face.

“Be kind.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Shelly said.

Daria knew that when her younger sister’s voice took on that tinny edge, she was two seconds away from crying.

“We would all rather Shelly didn’t pursue this,” she said to Ellen, “but it’s important to her.”

Shelly looked surprised at her sudden support.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Well, good,” Ellen said.

“Shelly’s finally being allowed to make a decision on her own. After twenty years of you telling her when to blow her nose.”

Daria could think of no suitable retort that would not upset Chloe, so she kept her mouth shut. Ellen had always complained about Daria’s over protectiveness toward Shelly. Right from the start, she’d tried to change Daria’s approach with her. Shelly should have been in regular public-school classes, she’d argued. She would have learned to keep up eventually. She should be forced to live on her own and get a real job like everyone else. Daria babied her too much. Shelly had never learned to stand on her own two feet. And on and on.

Ellen had no sympathy for Shelly’s fears. Even at Sue Cato’s funeral, when Shelly was beside herself with grief and battling a whole new crop of fears precipitated by the loss of her mother, Ellen saw fit to torment her. After the funeral, everyone went back to the Catos’ house for a dinner of sandwiches and salads. Shelly was sitting on an overstuffed chair in the living room, and Ellen, knowing full well her cousin’s irrational fear of earthquakes, snuck up behind the chair and shook it, sending eight-year-old Shelly flying out of the room in terror. Daria, then nineteen, had smacked her older cousin across the face, starting a brawl that left few physical injuries but plenty of hard feelings.