In the Midnight Rain (35 page)

Wearily, she sat on the edge of the bed, aware that her thoughts were beginning to chase each other like squirrels, round and round and round. Enough. She closed the blinds to darken the room and fell on top of her covers, too tired to even take a shower.

She awakened, minutes or hours later, to someone's pounding on the door. It took a few minutes, given her disorientation, to discover the source of the sound, and even then, she simply rolled over, feeling the sweat gathering against her neck and along the length of her upper arms. She grew aware of the sound of a hard rain pattering, slapping, pouring on the roof and windows, and, befuddled, realized that it had been thunder she heard. Close and loud.

But no. The knock, very distinct, came again.

"Just a minute," she called, when it became clear whoever it was wouldn't go away. She stared at the ceiling for a minute, blinking hard, then swung her legs over the side of the bed, found a wrapper to put on, and padded to the door. She glanced at the digital clock on the desk as she passed: 1:10. A normal time to be awake if you belonged to the normal world, but for Ellie it meant she'd been sleeping for exactly four hours and twenty minutes.

She swung open the door and glared. "What is it?"

Then she saw who it was. "Marcus? Is Blue okay?"

"He's fine." The shoulders of his shirt were wet. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, if you have it."

She frowned, peered behind him at the downpour. "Man, it's really raining hard." Which made his presence on her porch seem even stranger. "C'mon in." Ellie left him to follow her, and headed for the coffeepot, which she'd prepared to start automatically. "Give me a minute, all right?" She rubbed her face and headed for the bathroom. "I don't wake up without coffee."

"If this is a bad time—"

Ellie waved it away. "No problem." She gestured to a chair. "Have a seat. I'll be back in a second."

She washed her face and tried to find something to wear—the laundry problem again—and settled for a pair of moderately wrinkled shorts and a black tank top that was ninety-seven years old. When she returned, the pot was half-brewed, and she poured a cup from the middle. "Want some?" she asked.

Marcus shook his head. "Ellie, I really didn't mean to intrude. I can come back."

Ellie cocked her head. Curiouser and curiouser. Marcus was perched on the edge of the chair, his hands twisting a tube of paper between his knees. He looked ill at ease, even a little apprehensive.

And he'd come through that hard rain to talk to her. She carried her coffee to the table and sat down. "Did you find something out about Mabel? Her disappearance?"

He pursed his lips, twisted the paper a little tighter, as if to hide it. "No." He raised those sober dark eyes and said abruptly. "It's about your father."

Ellie blinked. Straightened. "Oh."

"I knew your mama," he said at last. "She was as lost and sweet as any girl I've ever known, before or since, but she fell in love that summer she was here. Put a light in her."

"Who, Marcus?" Ellie leaned forward and winced a little. "I bet I guessed, though: Binkle, right?"

Marcus laughed.
Really
laughed. "I gotta ask why you settled on him."

"Don't laugh. I was very methodical. There couldn't be that many, right? So it was a process of elimination. He's dark. My mama was as fair as morning, and I had to get it from somebody.'' She frowned. " Or Connie Ewing's husband, maybe. I saw a picture of him, but haven't managed to explore that angle much."

His eye twinkled. "Your mama wouldn't have come within twenty feet of Binkle. And George Ewing was already in Vietnam that summer."

"Oh, of course." She nodded, still fuzzy from too little sleep and the abrupt awakening. Outside, a bright flash of lightning made the windows bright, and she mentally counted the time until the thunder came, distant and low. She was aware, faintly, that her heart was skittering a little. "Then who, Marcus? I really can't even imagine who else."

Marcus bowed his head. And she thought for a minute there was dampness in his eyes. "You look just like him. I don't how I missed it for so long." Another beat of hesitation, and he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph. "He's dark, all right."

Ellie took it with a hand that trembled faintly. "Oh, my God."

It was the same photo she'd seen a dozen times, in the yearbook and in Rosemary's attic and finally on Hattie Gordon's wall yesterday. "James Gordon?" she said aloud, and her voice was very soft.

"I didn't know how you'd take it, Ellie, or I'd've told you the night I figured it out, over at Rosemary's. And there're other people involved."

Her lungs felt pinched, airless. Ellie stared at the sweet, laughing face, and felt the strangest sorrow wash up through her throat. Into her eyes. "I can't believe it," she said quietly, and stared at the uptilted corner of his eyes and touched the corner of her own. The photo trembled in her hands. "I do look like him," she whispered, and the tears rushed up through her mouth and washed down her cheeks and she had no idea why it
hurt.

"I don't know why I'm crying," she said to Marcus, but that only made it worse. She put the picture down and put a hand over her mouth, trying to catch some of it. "Everyone who knew him loved him so much," she said. "You and his grandmother . . . the way she talked about him yesterday, you could tell she missed him still, all these years later."

He took her hand across the table. That giant and somehow elegant hand. "Your mama loved him, too. And he loved her back, Ellie." His mouth worked. "He didn't know she was pregnant, or—" He bowed his head. "I don't know. I don't know what might have been different. It wasn't easy, you know. He was shipping out, and she wanted him to go to Canada. . . ."He shook his head. "Wish he would have."

"When did he die?"

"June third, 1969. I wrote your mama. She must not have got it. I never heard from her."

"Oh, I think she did." The first wave of sorrow had eased, and Ellie felt only sad. "She left when I was six months old. That would have put it right about the time you wrote. Oh, my poor mother!" New tears, new grief, swelled. "It must have been terrible for her." She took a breath, stared at the picture. "I never considered him." She looked up. "I'm kind of shocked. Is it okay to say that?"

He gave her hand a squeeze. "Yeah."

She took a breath, let it go, tried to get her mind around this new information. Would Blue mind? Would it make a difference to him?

"I reckon you'll want some time to let it settle," Marcus said. "You want to ask me anything, you know where to find me."

Ellie nodded.

But as he stood up, the ramifications of James Gordon's being her father bolted through her. "Oh, my God, Marcus! That makes me Mabel's granddaughter!" She laughed. "How amazing."

But it also seemed sad. So very, very sad. And overwhelmed with all of it, Ellie put her head down on the table. "I'm sorry," she said, covering her face. "I think I might be pretty tired." She took a breath. "I never knew my mama, you know? And I thought I came here, looking for my father, and I did, but it's been finding my mother that's making me sad." Looking at him, she said, "They loved each other?"

He looked, for a single moment, like he might cry right along with her. "More than I can put into words, Ellie," he said soberly. "Like that song Mabel sings."

Ellie closed her eyes.

He touched her hair. "Get some sleep, girl. Let your heart come to terms with it."

Ellie nodded. Raised her head, pressed her mouth together and tried to wipe away her tears.

There was deep graveness on his face. "You're all any of us have left of him, Ellie. Lot of people are going to be happy to know it when you're ready to tell them—there's so much of him in you." He ducked his head and turned away. "You want to talk, you know where to find me."

"Marcus," Ellie said.

He turned back.

"Thank you."

A single nod, and he was gone.

* * *

After he left, Ellie simply sat there at the table, the photograph in her hand. A sense of unreality gripped her—after not knowing for so long, it seemed impossible that the puzzle should be solved. That she should know. Have a face, a name, a person.

That it should be this person. James.

She stared at the high slant of his cheekbones, Mabel's cheekbones, and touched her own. Touched her hair, which had always been the bane of her existence, so wild and curly and uncontrollable, and realized why. She touched her mouth, which had been her only good feature, ever, and remembered the photos she'd stolen from Rosemary's attic. She got up and scrambled through the mess on the desk to find them. There were James and Marcus, arms looped around each other's necks. And in the other, there was the whole group of them, including Diane, who was obviously staring right at James. Next to them was Rosemary.

Rosemary, who was . . . what? Mabel's niece, which would make James her cousin. And Ellie was her second cousin. Which made Florence and Brandon her cousins, too.

She'd never had a cousin. Never had much family at all.

Would they mind?

In a daze, she stood up and went to the small bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror, feeling as if she'd never seen it before. The same high forehead, the same tilted green eyes, the same mouth and chin and teeth. It was a face she'd thought, all of her life, was black Irish. From her grandpa. Connor. Conn of the Hundred Battles, he always told her. She'd based an entire framework of heritage on being Irish. It wasn't something she thought about every minute, or even once a month. But it was there, always.

And of course, it still was. She could still claim those people who'd crossed in desperate hunger to come to the promised land where they might finally have enough food in their bellies. The stories her grandfather had told her always made her so proud.

But there was more now on her face. In her bones. Other sea crossings. Other stories.

Now that she knew, it was apparent in a thousand small details of her person. How was it
possible
she'd never noticed? That not one person in her entire life had taken her for black, or mixed race?

A voice from
The Point
came to her: "You see what you want to see."

Right. She looked hard into her eyes and wondered how this made her feel. To be suddenly black. She wasn't sure. Wasn't sure if it was pleasant or unpleasant. If it scared her. If suddenly, now that she knew, other people would know, too. And would that make any difference to her?

Would she feel different, now, walking into Hopkins' by herself? And if she did, wasn't that kind of a falsity?

Stop.

Abruptly, she shook her head and moved into the small bedroom area of the cottage, feeling overwhelmed with the revelations of the past twenty-four hours. Too many. She'd done too much thinking.

Right now, she needed to do something physical. With a burst of energy, she grabbed the duffel bag from the corner on the floor and started shoving clothes in it—underwear and socks and T-shirts and shorts, then hauled it outside, getting soaked in the process, and dumped it in the back seat of the car. April watched curiously until Ellie picked up her purse, then jumped up in a rattle of rabies tags. "Come on," Ellie said. "Let's get some clothes washed."

The Laundromat was located in a small strip mall at the edge of town, and it was fairly busy this time of day, even in bad weather. Ellie wiped rain from her face with a sleeve and nodded to the young mothers keeping watch over tumbling loads, and found a free washer toward the end. Only half of her clothes fit into one, and for a minute, Ellie felt flummoxed, trying to decide how to handle the dilemma. She needed to wash
everything.

An older woman on the other side of the bank of appliances said, "I'm about to finish up with this one, hon, if you need it."

Ellie glanced up, nodded. "Thanks."

Get a grip, Connor. She took a deep breath and separated out the darks from the lights, started the load of lights on this side, then carried the duffel around to the other machine and started shoving them in, and rooted around in the bag to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

Only a box of tampons and a spare comb rattled around in the bottom, and Ellie poured in detergent, stuck in the quarters, and started the second load. She wasn't about to wait around, going crazy in the hot, noisy building, so she flung the bag over her shoulder and stood at the windows, looking for someplace to while away a half hour. A Dairy Queen perched across the parking lot. If they sprinted, they wouldn't get too wet, though April wouldn't like it much.

Perfect. "Let's get some ice cream, April. Vanilla for you. Maybe a root beer float for me."

April lowered her head and followed Ellie out, giving her a miserable look when they stepped out into the rain. And there, with rain falling on her head, Ellie froze.

The tampons in the bottom of her bag. They were still there, instead of being moved to the bathroom at some point, as they should have been.

A cold wash of terror made her feel slightly nauseated. God, how long had she been here? She counted back, thinking of the day she looked at the calendar in the cottage the first night she came. Five weeks. Almost two months. How was that possible?

April barked, sharply, and Ellie realized she was standing in the rain like a crazy person. "Come on, baby." They dashed for the shelter of the DQ and stood beneath an overhang to shake themselves off.

When had she and Blue first made love? More than a month? Maybe a little more than that. Or a little less.

No. She shook her head, sensibly. They'd used a condom every single time. Well, except once.
Every
time. None had ever broken or come off that she could think of.

The thought eased her mind. Often when she traveled, she'd had an extra period. She'd decided a long time ago it was some kind of urgent message from her body to hurry up and settle down, get with it. She'd almost taken it for granted. She couldn't remember ever skipping one, but it was the flip side of the extra, she supposed.