When she got home that night, she called Bonnie, even though it was quite late. She lay on her bed and told BonI me, in perfect detail, what Brad had said to her. “I’m in shock,” Bonnie said when Grace had finished her story.

“And I’m mixed up,” Grace said.

“I think it’s neat that he’s interested in you,” Bonnie said.

“He’s really cute, don’t you think?”

No, she didn’t think Brad was “cute.” Bonnie’s seventeen-year-old boyfriend. Curt, was “cute.” Grace longed for Bonnie’s normal, teenage-girl life.

“Can you picture going to bed with him?” Bonnie asked.

‘ We,” Grace said, although she had never even kissed a boy, so it was difficult to imagine actually sleeping with one. And Brad was no boy.

There was a knock on her bedroom door.

“Grace?” Her mother opened the door and poked her head inside.

“Hang up,” she said.

“I want to talk to you.”

Something in her mother’s voice told her not to argue.

“I have to go, Bonnie,” she said. She hung up the phone and waited as her mother sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I happened to overhear your conversation with Bonnie,” her mother began.

“And I heard what you said about Brad.”

Grace had been in her bedroom with the door closed while talking with Bonnie. Her mother must have had her ear pressed against the door, eavesdropping. Either that, or she’d been listening on the extension.

Grace swallowed her rage; it would do no good to express it.

“I was talking to Bonnie,” she said, “not you.”

“I think it’s wonderful.” Her mother ignored the barb.

“Do you realize how lucky you are? Do you know how many women would give their right arm for a man like Brad Chappelle? He has money. He has power.”

“But I’m not in love with him,” Grace said, shocked that her mother would want her involved with a man as old as Brad.

“Love can come later. Love can grow,” her mother philosophized.

“You just have to be willing to allow it to happen.”

“He’s too old for me,” Grace said.

Her mother leaned toward her, clutching Grace’s arm in her hand.

“You owe him a great deal. Grace,” she said.

“Have you thought about that?

About how much he’s done for you? You need to keep him happy. “

“You sound like you’re more concerned about Brad’s happiness than you are about mine,” Grace said, freeing her arm from her mother’s grasp.

“I don’t think you know yet what will make you happy,” her mother said, standing up.

“I want you to think seriously about this, all right? You need to give Brad a chance.”

Grace lay back on her bed after her mother left the room. She shut her eyes, remembering Brad’s kind, open face as he admitted his feelings for her. She was afraid. Afraid of needing Brad’s approval so much that she’d hurt him to get it.

She never realized that she was the one who would end up being hurt.

1 he pilot’s eyes were brown. Brown and huge and terrified as her face slipped into the black water. Daria clung to her arm, trying to hold her above the water’s surface, but the plane was going down. She turned to see Shelly hanging by her hands from the propeller, dragging the plane and the pilot under. She screamed at Shelly to let go, but Shelly hung on.

“You don’t really want me to let go,” she called out to Daria. And the plane slipped under, taking the pilot with it, dragging Daria beneath the water’s surface as she tried vainly to pull the pilot up again.

Daria sat up in bed, gasping for air as if she had in fact been underwater for far too long. Her sheets were soaked with sweat, and it took her a moment to get her bearings. She was in her bedroom at the Sea Shanty, and the room was dark and eerily still. She could barely hear the waves breaking on the beach.

Relief washed over her at finding herself on dry land, but it was relief tainted with sorrow: it had been a dream, yes, but a dream too rooted in reality.

Sleep would never come now, she knew, and she didn’t dare close her eyes again for fear of the pilot’s return. Getting out of bed, she pulled on her robe, then walked barefoot downstairs and out onto the front steps of the Sea Shanty. The night was warm and balmy, the sort of Outer Banks summer night she had treasured all of her life, but the soft air and rhythmic lapping of the ocean on the shore didn’t soothe her the way it usually did. She leaned back against the porch door and looked up at the stars.

Poll-Rory’s porch door squeaked open, and in a moment Rory was walking across the cul-de-sac toward her. She sat up straight.

“What are you doing up?” His voice was quiet, as though he didn’t want to wake anyone. He sat down next to her on the steps.

“I could ask you the same question,” she said.

“I’m a night person,” Rory said simply.

“What’s your excuse?”

She rested her head on her arms.

“Nightmare,” she said. “That plane crash. The pilot drowned in front of my eyes one more miserable time.”

He put his hand on the back of her neck, massaging lightly, and she closed her eyes, willing him to keep it there.

“You can’t get away from that night, can you?” he said.

“Shelly was a bitch in this one,” Daria said, shuddering at the memory of her sister’s belligerence.

“She wouldn’t let go of the propeller.

She said I didn’t want her to. What the heck does that mean? “

Rory’s fingers dug a little deeper, slipping beneath her hair.

“I’m not much of a believer in the deep meaning of dreams,” he said.

“I

think you still have some unfinished business regarding that night.

That’s all. “

He was right.

“I keep wondering about the pilot’s family,” she said.

Her cheek rested on her knee, and the words slipped slowly from her mouth.

“I don’t know anything about her life. I don’t know how she came to be a pilot at eighteen. I don’t know if she had sisters and brothers, or a boyfriend who thinks he can’t live without her. I don’t even know her name, although I probably knew it at the time of the accident. I wish I’d made an attempt to get in touch with her family. I was the last person with her. If I’d lost someone close to me, I’d want to know what their last minutes had been like. Although, in this case, it sure wouldn’t be comforting information. And I couldn’t tell them what really happened, just like I haven’t told anyone else.”

“Except me,” Rory said.

She opened her eyes and raised her head to smile at him.

“Except you,” she agreed.

He dropped his hand from her neck to his lap.

“Well, it isn’t too late, is it?” he asked.

“Don’t you think they’d appreciate hearing from you, even after all this time? If I were in their shoes, it would make me feel good that the EMT still cared so much about what happened. And maybe it would help you, Daria. Maybe you’d stop being haunted by it all.”

“I hadn’t really thought of doing that,” Daria said.

“I guess I’m afraid to, since I’d have to lie about what happened.”

“But wouldn’t you feel better to see that they’ve been able to go on with their lives? Assuming, of course, that they have been able to go on,” he said.

“I guess that would be the risk you’d take by getting in touch with them. But no matter what you found out, at least you’d be dealing with reality instead of your fantasy. I bet it would put an end to your nightmares.”

“Maybe I will,” Daria said, and the idea gave her some relief. Rory was right. It would be good to know, in concrete terms, exactly how the pilot’s family was faring.

They both started at the sound of a bark and turned toward the beach to see Linda and three of her dogs crossing the dune to the cul-de-sac. Linda waved when she saw them and continued walking toward her cottage, the panting of the dogs loud and harsh in the still air.

“Someone else is having trouble sleeping tonight,” Rory said.

ivory had planned to call Father Macy to speak with him about Shelly’s adoption, but the priest beat him to it. He called Rory and invited him in to “have a talk,” as he put it. Rory gave Shelly a ride to the church the morning of his appointment, since she was to start work at the same time. She was her usual, bubbly self in his car, chatting mostly about Zack, as if realizing his son was one of Rory’s favorite topics.

“He’s a terrific volleyball player,” Shelly said as Rory turned the car onto Route 158. “Not as good as me, but still pretty good.”

Rory had to laugh.

“You’re just like your sister, you know that?” he asked.

“She could beat me at anything. And she wasn’t too modest about it, either.”

“You turn right in there.” Shelly pointed to the parking lot as they approached St. Esther’s.

“You can park in any space you like.”

The lot was nearly empty, and he pulled into a parking space near the small office building. He wondered if Shelly understood the reason for his visit with the priest. If she did, she’d said nothing about it.

The front door to the office building was open, and they walked into a wide corridor. Sunlight spilled onto the hardwood floors from the skylights and the large window at the far end of the hallway and the

clean, open, sunny feel n ing of the building made him even more optimistic about a comfortable, amiable visit with the priest.

“Come on.” Shelly grabbed his hand and drew him down the hall.

“I’ll introduce you to Father Sean.”

The door to the priest’s office was open, and Rory saw Father Macy sitting at his desk, his back to the door. He was sandy-haired and wearing a blue plaid shirt.

“Father?” Shelly rapped lightly on the open door.

The priest turned in his swivel chair to face them. He stood up when he saw Rory.