The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes Part 26

"Go ahead. Open it."

He slid a finger beneath the flap and slit the envelope open, then peered inside.

"Holy c.r.a.p," he said, drawing out the bills. "They're fifties!"

"How many?" she asked.

He counted them onto the counter. "Twenty of them! A thousand dollars in cash." He frowned at her. "Who would send you a thousand dollars in cash?"

"Well," she said, "I don't really know. I've gotten several of those envelopes since Cory was born. The first one came to me at Marian's house and there was a note inside. Just a sc.r.a.p of paper. It said 'for your baby.' It was a few hundred dollars then. Now I get one a couple of times a year, and though there's no note with them anymore, I a.s.sume it's money meant for Cory."

Jack hadn't lost his frown. "What have you been doing with it?" he asked. He sounded not suspicious exactly, but more than curious. She didn't blame him. They were hard up for money, and here she was getting cash she hadn't told him about.

"I've put it in a bank account for her," she said. "In the beginning, I bought things she needed. Baby supplies. That sort of thing. But for the past couple of years, I just socked it away." She looked at the money on the counter. "This will make it close to four thousand dollars," she said.

"Why didn't you ever tell me this was happening?" Jack asked.

She couldn't look him in the eye. "I felt kind of weird about it," she said. "I wasn't trying to hide money from you, Jack. I hope you don't think that."

"Of course not," he said, "but I do wish you'd told me. Why do you feel weird about it?"

"Because I can't explain where it's come from. There's always a different postmark on the envelope. Oklahoma. Ohio. Where's this one from?"

He turned the envelope over and looked at it. "El Paso, Texas," he said.

"See what I mean?"

"Could it be someone in Cory's father's family?" he asked.

"That's what I figure," she said. "But who knows? Are you upset? Do you think we should use the money to pay our bills or get a better place to live or-?"

"No," he said. "Whoever sent it wants it to go to Cory, so that's who it should go to." He pouted, jutting out his lower lip like a little kid. "Our new baby's not going to have a crazy benefactor, though," he said. "He's going to be a poor little Gus."

She smiled. "We'll make it up to him-or her-somehow," she said.

She managed to go alone to her first appointment with the obstetrician. She scheduled it for a day when she knew Jack would be at a Dramatic Arts Conference in Was.h.i.+ngton, and she drove to the appointment with a heavy heart. She was hurting herself as well as him; she longed to have him at her side throughout her entire pregnancy. They should be sharing the experience together, just as he wanted, but she could think of no way to make that possible.

The doctor's name was Cheryl Russo. She had a thick New York accent that was out of place in Charlottesville, but her manner was soft and slow and Southern. She was so lovely, in fact, so easy to talk with, that for one brief insane moment, Eve considered telling her the semi-truth about Cory. My husband thinks she's mine, but she's really adopted, so please don't let on that this is my first pregnancy. My husband thinks she's mine, but she's really adopted, so please don't let on that this is my first pregnancy. But then Dr. Russo would think she was a terrible woman and terrible wife. She would ask questions Eve would be unable to answer. She'd wonder how a twenty-four-year-old woman happened to have an adopted six-year-old. Once Eve started down the path of telling half-truths to the doctor, she'd be dodging land mines right and left. So she opted for the simplest deception she could come up with: she would have to keep Jack away from her appointments, one way or another. That was all there was to it. But then Dr. Russo would think she was a terrible woman and terrible wife. She would ask questions Eve would be unable to answer. She'd wonder how a twenty-four-year-old woman happened to have an adopted six-year-old. Once Eve started down the path of telling half-truths to the doctor, she'd be dodging land mines right and left. So she opted for the simplest deception she could come up with: she would have to keep Jack away from her appointments, one way or another. That was all there was to it.

The deception, though, tore her apart. It was so unlike her to be manipulative with Jack. When he returned from the conference and was unpacking his suitcase in their bedroom, she told him that she'd seen the doctor, and he stared at her in disbelief.

"Please don't be upset," she said quickly. "When I made the appointment, I didn't realize it was when you'd be out of town, and I didn't tell you because I knew you'd feel terrible."

"I do do feel terrible." He stood with a pair of jeans in one hand, a shoe in the other, and he looked crushed. "Why didn't you change it?" feel terrible." He stood with a pair of jeans in one hand, a shoe in the other, and he looked crushed. "Why didn't you change it?"

"It took me so long to get," she said. "I'm really sorry."

"Well, what did the doctor say?" he asked.

"It was all very unexciting," she said.

"That's because you've been through this before." Jack dropped the jeans back into the suitcase, not only hurt but angry. "It's new for me. me. I think you forgot that." I think you forgot that."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." She had the feeling she would be saying "I'm sorry" throughout the course of her pregnancy.

In June, they decided it was time to tell Cory.

Cory had, as that other mother had predicted on the first day of school, come to love Mrs. Rice, who had capitalized on the little girl's reading skills to help her feel important and self-confident in the cla.s.sroom. She was still shy with the other children, still afraid to join in their rough-and-tumble activities on the playground. Looking at her, it was almost understandable. Even at six, she possessed a fragile beauty. She was tall and long-limbed, with pale blue eyes, delicate fair skin and small, feminine features, and she looked as though she might shatter into a thousand pieces if she fell from the jungle gym.

"We have some exciting news for you," Jack said, as he and Eve tucked Cory into bed.

Outside the window next to Cory's bed, fireflies twinkled in the trees, and Cory had to tear her attention from them to her father.

"What?" she asked.

"You're going to have a little brother or sister," Eve said.

The night-light on the wall illuminated Cory's look of surprise. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. Then she grinned.

"When?" she asked. she asked.

"Sometime in November," Eve said.

"It'll be like a special birthday present for you," Jack said. Cory would turn seven November twenty-second.

Cory's gaze dropped to Eve's belly. "Is the baby in your tummy now?" she asked. "It doesn't look like it."

Eve laughed, resting her hand on her stomach. "Uh-huh," she said. "She or he is very tiny now, but in a few months, you'll see a big difference."

"I can't wait!" Cory clapped her hands together. "This is the best news since I was four," she said.

Eve laughed again. "What happened when you were four, honey?" she asked.

Cory looked up at Jack, admiration in her face. "That's when I got my daddy," she said.

Somehow, Eve was able to go alone to her prenatal appointments. Although she and Jack never talked about it, he seemed to guess that she was uncomfortable about having him at the appointments with her, and he stopped badgering her about them. She did bring him to her sonogram appointment, hoping there would be no reason for the technician to mention the fact that this was her first pregnancy. She told Jack that she'd had no sonogram when she was pregnant with Cory, so he had no reason to be surprised by her tears of amazement when the technician pointed to the baby's beating heart on the monitor.

He took her to a romantic restaurant for dinner afterward. They held hands across the table, then went home and made love, and Eve wept as she told him how much she loved him. She told him that regularly, worried that he might interpret her need for privacy as something more than not wanting him around when her feet were up in stirrups.

After the first few months of her pregnancy, she felt very well. But then, suddenly, the nightmares started. In them, she gave birth to a baby girl and then started to hemorrhage, blood flowing out of her while she lay in a hospital bed trying to scream for help but unable to make a sound. Several times a week, she'd awaken in the middle of the night gasping for breath, scrambling out of bed and throwing back the covers as she turned on the light to check the sheets for blood. Jack would hold her, sing to her, and whisper words of comfort in her ear. Still, nothing could erase the image in her mind of Genevieve Russell lying pale and cold on the bed in the cabin, the life ebbing out of her body.

She knew she'd never be able to keep Jack away from her labor and delivery, nor did she want to. She needed him by her side. He went through the childbirth cla.s.ses with her, and when people asked if this was her first pregnancy she would always answer that it felt like it, because she'd been so young and naive the first time around.

"It must have been so hard for you when Cory was born," he said as they drove home after one of the cla.s.ses. "You had no support at all."

"I barely remember it," she said. "I mean, I remember pain, of course, but they must have knocked me out, because all I really remember is holding Cory in my arms."

"Well, I hope it's that easy for you this time." Jack reached over to squeeze her hand.

She hoped he wouldn't say anything about her "first pregnancy" during her labor and delivery, when the medical staff would be there to hear him. As jittery as she was growing about delivering a baby, she was even more afraid that her lies might come cras.h.i.+ng down around her.

Chapter Thirty-One.

In early October, Eve was working at the Cartwright House when one of the other counselors knocked on the door of her small office. She was in the middle of a session with a boy whose tough facade and pink Mohawk disguised a tender soul, and she was surprised anyone would interrupt her.

"Eve?" the counselor said through the door. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but your daughter's school is on the phone. They said it's urgent."

Eve managed to say "excuse me" to the boy before racing out of the room as quickly as her huge belly would allow. She ran down the hall to the main office and the telephone. In the s.p.a.ce of thirty seconds, she pictured broken bones. Blood. Worse. The last couple of months had been so easy with Cory, her transition to the first grade seamless compared to the early days of kindergarten. Cory liked her teacher, Mrs. Judd, a short, dark-haired woman who resembled Eve, which seemed to give the little girl comfort. Her grades were good, and she now had her own library card. It was hard to keep her supplied with books, she zipped through them so quickly.

In the office, she grabbed the receiver from the desk.

"This is Eve Elliott," she said, winded. "Is something wrong?"

"This is Mrs. Judd, Mrs. Elliott," Cory's teacher said. "I don't know how concerned we should be, but I needed to let you know that Cory didn't return to the cla.s.sroom after recess. I thought maybe you or your husband came to pick her up?"

Eve ran a hand through her hair, trying to think. Had she forgotten an appointment? Might Jack have gone to the school to get her for some reason? She looked at her watch. "I didn't pick her up, and her father's in cla.s.s right now," she said. "Are you sure she's not in the restroom?" Cory occasionally got stomach cramps when she was nervous about something.

"We've checked everywhere," Mrs. Judd said. "None of the other children noticed her leaving the playground, but...she tends not to hang around with them, anyhow, so they might not have been paying attention. Usually she just sits on the gra.s.s and reads during-"

"I'll be right there," Eve said. She slammed the phone down, asked her co-worker to apologize to the boy she'd been counseling, then took off for the school.

Please, G.o.d, let her be there, she prayed as she drove through Charlottesville. It was so unlike Cory to wander off on her own. She was not that courageous. she prayed as she drove through Charlottesville. It was so unlike Cory to wander off on her own. She was not that courageous.

Eve was trembling by the time she reached the office of the elementary school.

"Did you find her?" she asked as she burst into the room.

A police officer stood near the secretary's desk, and he looked up from the notepad in his hand. "Mrs. Elliott?"

"Yes. Have you found her?"

"No," he said. "We need to know how to reach your husband. Is there a chance she could be with him?"

Eve shook her head. "He's in cla.s.s."

"Is there anyone else who might have picked her up from school?"

She shook her head. "I've got to find her," she said. "She's only six years old!"

"Her teacher said she was wearing green pants and a white cardigan sweater today, is that right?"

"Yes." Her hand shook violently as she brushed her hair away from her face. "She-"

"You sit down, ma'am." He interrupted her, his eyes on her stomach. "I don't want you to have that baby right here."

She sank into the seat and pictured Cory as she'd looked that morning when she walked her to school. "She had on sneakers and was wearing a green backpack. Unless that's still in the cla.s.sroom. You said she's-"

"They found her!" The secretary suddenly ran into the room. "One of the police officers has her. He's bringing her here."

"Oh, thank G.o.d." Eve stood up again. "Is she okay? Where was she?"

"I don't know any of that, Mrs. Elliott," the secretary said. "Can I get you some water?"

Eve shook her head.

The officer closed his notebook. "Sounds like a happy ending." He smiled at her. "Sit down again, Mrs. Elliott. Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," she said, but she clutched the edge of the counter.

Cory walked into the room, holding the hand of a police officer. The moment she spotted Eve, though, she let go of the officer and sprang toward her mother.

"Mommy, Mommy!" she cried, grabbing Eve's hand.

Eve wrapped her arms around her. "I'm so glad to see you," she said, bending down to kiss the top of her head. "Oh, baby, I'm so glad."

"We found her three blocks away, by the Piggly Wiggly," the officer said.

Eve lowered herself onto the chair again to be eye level with her daughter. "Who took you there, Cory?" she asked.

"I walked there."

Eve shook her head at the officer. "She wouldn't do that," she said. "She'd be afraid to go off on her own like that."

"I was going to the Carter house," Cory said.

"The Carter House? You mean the Cartwright House? Where I work?"