Big Summer(83)

“Well, you were a little guy. But it happened. I promise you, it did.”

Barbara told us about how she and Christina would take their children to the beach. How they’d take turns, one of them watching the babies and the other one napping in the sun (“being single moms, working, then up in the night with a baby who was teething, we wanted sleep more than we wanted sex,” Barb said, then put her hand over her mouth, blushing). She told us how they’d babysit for each other when Barbara got called in to cover a waitressing shift, or if Christina had to meet a deadline for an article, or some project she’d undertaken. “But I know that’s not what you’re here to talk about.” She rocked forward, clasping her hands at her heart. “His daughter… my God, what a mess.” Looking at Nick, she said, “I think your mom had the right idea. She never wanted to tell you anything about your dad.”

“She didn’t exactly live long enough for us to discuss it,” Nick said.

“No, but she talked to me. I remember telling her that I wanted Emmie to know her father, and Christina saying that she thought Robert would lose interest in you in a year or two, and that she’d never tell you his name. ‘No good can come of it,’ she said. And she was right.” Barbara’s face sagged, and her blocky body drooped. “Emma grew up knowing exactly who her father was, and that didn’t get her anything, except a broken heart.” Barbara pressed her lips together. “And Christina was right. When Emma was ten or eleven, he stopped coming around.”

“Why?” Darshi asked. Barbara shrugged.

“Got bored, I guess. Or maybe he had another baby by then.”

“So how did Emma end up catering Drue’s wedding?” I asked.

Barbara Vincent got very interested in the cords of her hoodie, first tugging the left one out to its full length, then tugging at the right. “She works for Angel Foods. She’s been part of their summer crew for years. They call her when there’re big parties.”

“Did she have any idea who the bride was when she got called for this wedding?” I asked.

Barbara gave a nod that looked reluctant.

“Did she talk to you about it? Like, ‘Here’s my big chance to finally meet my half sister’?”

Barbara’s neck flushed pink. She pressed her lips together as one of the terriers by her foot gave a low, warning growl. “She didn’t go there to hurt anyone,” she said. “As to whether she’d planned on trying to meet Drue, I couldn’t say.”

“The police found pictures of Drue in Emma’s car,” Darshi said. “And a gun.”

Barbara lifted her chin, settling her eyes on the wall just over Darshi’s head. “When Emma was thirteen, after she found out that she had a sister almost exactly her age, she was wild to meet Drue. I told her that wouldn’t be happening. I’d given Robert my word. I promised him that we’d never bother him, or embarrass him. But, with the Internet, I couldn’t keep Em from finding out about him, and his real family. She knew where Drue went to school, what she did on vacation, the kinds of clothes she wore…” Barbara shook her head. “It would have been better if Robert’s real family wasn’t so public. If there hadn’t been so much out there for Emma to learn.” She shook her head again, picking up her mug and setting it down. “Robert gave us money. Enough for me to put a down payment on this house and go from full-time to part-time so that I could be home with Emma. But there wasn’t going to be any la-di-da Lathrop Academy for her.” I jumped, a little startled at the sound of my school’s name coming out of this stranger’s mouth. “No house in the Hamptons, no debut at the Whatever Club. No Harvard. Just public schools and Cape Cod Community College. Robert told us money was tight ever since the markets crashed in 2008. By then, we hadn’t seen him in years.” She smiled, very faintly. “Christina and I used to say that he loved the babies more than the moms. He’d keep coming around to see them, even after he stopped being… you know… interested in us that way. He’d bring Emmie toys, or dolls, or dresses from the fancy places in P-town. For her birthday, he’d take her to high tea at the Chatham Bars Inn. But by the time she got to be ten or eleven, he’d moved on, I guess.” She pressed her hands against her thighs, smoothing the denim. “Emma felt like she’d been cheated. Like she should have been the one who lived with him, and worked with him, and got to be in the newspapers and travel the world.” Another sigh. “She kept track of Drue. Her social media, her pictures. She bought yearbooks from the schools that Drue went to, from eBay. Magazines she’d been in. Everything.”

“So Emma never even met Drue,” I said.

“No. Or, not that I know of, I should say. I know she went to New York once—just as a trip, with friends, she told me. They were going to get tickets to see something on Broadway, hold up signs in front of the Today show. At least, that’s what Emma said.” Barbara’s shoulders slumped. “Did she try to find Drue? Did she go to Robert’s office, or his home? I can’t imagine they’d have let her in. And if she’d actually managed to meet Drue, would Drue even have believed Emma when she told her who she was?”

I tried to imagine Drue being confronted by a stranger, a stranger with dark hair and her father’s eyes, claiming to be her half sister. I couldn’t picture such a meeting ending well.