“You’re not planning to stay?”
“I’m not leaving. You don’t stay to find out what’s going on, I have to.” Jake sat down on the bed. “The way I see it, someone’s lying, or someone’s telling the truth. Either way, we got to ask ourselves why. We can’t pre tend it doesn’t matter.”
“Aurore Gerritsen was not my mother.” The bed was soft against Nicky’s legs. She felt Jake’s hand on her knee and realized she was sitting beside him.
“What do you remember about your daddy?” Jake asked.
“Little things. He was a good man.”
“And what did he tell you about your mother?”
“Nothing. He never said anything.”
“Could she have been a white woman?”
“How would I know what color she was?”
“Because you can put two and two together same as any reasonably well-educated person.”
“We’re talking shades? I’m supposed to guess my mother’s race by my father’s color? By mine? We’re not mixing a pitcher of chocolate milk here. Add a little more Hershey’s syrup, make it a little darker. People aren’t that simple, and you know it.”
“Your daddy didn’t tell you anything about your mama? Did anybody else?”
She was silent for a long time, wrestling with the things she couldn’t forget, wrestling with something too terrible to remember. “The place where I grew up was full of women as light or lighter than me, and all of them had colored blood. I always thought my mother had been one of them. Someone told me she’d died giving birth to me.”
“But it’s possible she could have been white?”
“No! Aurore Gerritsen was not my mother. There’s something wrong here.”
“Then stay and find out what it is.”
She stood and walked to the window. Dawn had been right. Nicky could see the Gulf. Now the waves were angry, and the water was a dark seaweed green. She thought of Phillip’s story, of a small boy and girl caught up in the water’s fury, of a woman screaming as her lover cut the thin tether that anchored her to the future.
She covered her ears. “I hate this place! How can you even think about staying? We weren’t welcome yester day, and we’ll be less so now. Once Ferris Gerritsen finds out what Phillip is saying, he’ll come after us with everything he’s got.”
“I’ll be looking forward to that.”
She faced him. “You think anybody in this state would take your side in a fight with the almighty senator?”
“I spent the first part of my life running from who I was, and the second part making peace with it. I plan to spend the last part standing up for what’s mine. You going to stand with me?”
“You’re not my conscience, Jake. If I stay, I stay be cause it’s right for me. For me!”
“I know. I’m just asking you to take a little time to let it all settle.”
“Give me some time alone before I have to face everybody again.”
He left quietly. He had been gone for a long time be fore Nicky was calm enough to think about her surroundings. The room was airy and feminine, decorated in a casual beach-house style with which she felt completely comfortable. Aurore Gerritsen no longer seemed a stranger. She had left her personal stamp everywhere. Nicky stood in the bedroom of the woman who had reached from the grave, claiming to be her mother, and she cursed Aurore for ever having been born.
Nicky didn’t look right or left. She held out her hand as Spencer stepped in front of her. Spencer’s wasn’t quite steady as he rested a jeweler’s box in her palm. “Aurore hoped that this might, in some small way, explain a great injustice.”
Nicky didn’t speak, and neither did anyone else.
Ben and Phillip exchanged glances. Phillip had told Ben the truth about Nicky and Aurore, and Ben knew that he had told Dawn, as well. Now, judging from the rigid set of her head, Nicky knew, too.
Nicky’s fingers closed around the box. She stood and left the morning room without a word. Jake followed.
“There’s nothing Aurore could have put in that box or anywhere else that’s going to make this any easier.” Phillip rose from his seat beside Ben and left the room, too.
“Just so you’ll know, we’re finished for the day,” Spencer told the rest of them. “We’ll meet tomorrow at the same time.”
Since he awakened that morning, Ben had wanted to talk to Dawn. He had wanted to talk to her even more after Phillip recounted what had passed between them that morning. But Dawn had eluded him. Now she stood between her parents and Spencer, a willowy guard dog of an old man.
As Ben watched, Cappy took Ferris by the arm and steered him toward the door. Ben was surprised that there hadn’t been another outburst from the senator, but he suspected Ferris was just biding his time. Cappy glanced back at Dawn, but Dawn, who was busy murmuring something to Spencer, didn’t notice. Dawn linked her arm through the old man’s and pointed outside. They walked to the window together, deep in conversation.
Ben knew better than to push her. They would talk when she was ready. She had already made that plain to him. Whatever happened between them now was on Dawn’s terms. He decided to settle for more reading. Perhaps, by the time they did talk, there would be even more to discuss.
Early in the afternoon, Nicky heard the door open and close. She didn’t turn away from the window. Strong arms enveloped her, and she leaned back, into her husband’s strength. “Where’d you go?”
“Pelichere told me about a bar down the road where I’d be welcome.”
She didn’t ask why he’d had to get a recommendation. She doubted it would ever be any different on the island.
He didn’t say anything else. He just tightened his arms and stood quietly looking out the window.
“I’m sorry I asked you to leave,” Nicky said.
“I had some thinking to do.”
“You’re not even curious what was in the box?” she asked.
“Never said I wasn’t curious.”
“You’re a good man, Jake Reynolds.” She bent for ward and lifted something from the nape of her neck and slipped it over her head. “Here.”
He kept her against him with one arm and dangled the necklace with his free hand. “This is it?”
The locket was old gold, mellowed by age and con tact with human skin. Diamond-studded roses were en twined on the front, etched skillfully by a long-dead craftsman. “There’s a picture inside.”
The catch was difficult to open; she could feel him struggling. She took it from him and pressed the edges until it spread into two identical
