The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes Part 31

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

"I was thinking we should move," Eve said to Jack after Dru and Cory were in bed that night. She was sitting on the sofa, Jack's head in her lap as they listened to the soundtrack from was thinking we should move," Eve said to Jack after Dru and Cory were in bed that night. She was sitting on the sofa, Jack's head in her lap as they listened to the soundtrack from Les Miserables, Les Miserables, and his eyes flew open at her suggestion. and his eyes flew open at her suggestion.

"What did you say?" he asked. "Did you just say we should move? move?"

She'd felt s.h.i.+very with anxiety since getting the news about Irving Russell that afternoon and the only thing she could think of doing was to escape. In her early years on the run, she'd expected to have to keep moving. That hadn't happened, and she'd grown complacent. Maybe now, her life of peace and comfort was coming to an end. How did you run, though, when you had the welfare of two children and the professional needs of a spouse to consider?

"Don't you think a change would be nice?" she asked. There was a deep line between Jack's thick eyebrows, and she ran a finger over it, wis.h.i.+ng she could erase it. "We've been here so long."

"But you love it here, Evie," he said. "We both do."

"I was thinking of someplace with better medical care," she said. "That's selfish of me, though, I know." She was playing the guilt card and cringed at her own audacity.

"I thought you were happy with the medical care here," he said. "You've got the med school at your back door."

"I know."

"If you feel you could get better treatment someplace else, we can travel to get it for you. Leave the girls with Lorraine and Bobbie and go."

Eve looked across the room toward the living-room windows. They never bothered to pull the blinds. Suddenly she felt exposed, as though Irving Russell himself might be standing out there in the darkness, peering in at her.

"I have tenure tenure here, Eve," he said, as if she'd forgotten. "And you love your job. Or at least, I thought you did." here, Eve," he said, as if she'd forgotten. "And you love your job. Or at least, I thought you did."

"I still do."

"Oh," he said, as if he finally understood her motivation. He reached his hand up to touch her lips with a fingertip. "You want to move to Chapel Hill so you can be near Cory."

She smiled sheepishly. He was so wrong. Chapel Hill was the last place she wanted to live, but she would let him think that. There was no other way out of a conversation she never should have started.

"You got me," she said. "It's just going to be hard to see her go."

"She'll be back." Jack rolled onto his side, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his head against her stomach. He sounded relieved that the conflict had been so easily resolved. "They always come back."

Eve, Jack and ten-year-old Dru drove Cory to Chapel Hill in late August. For Eve, it was like being in a dream in which everything was the same, only different. The face of Franklin Street had changed; many of the shops and restaurants had been replaced. The coffee shop where she'd worked with Ronnie was now a clothing store. The students were the same age they'd been when she left them, and she remembered the rush she'd felt at the possibility of being one of them, of belonging on the campus. She found herself looking for Ronnie in the faces of the few thirty-something-year-old women she saw on the street. She was anxious, afraid of running into someone who might remember her. Even in Cory's dormitory, she avoided other parents in the lounge and hallway.

They helped Cory unpack and met her roommate, a girl named Maggie-short for Magnolia-who had jet-black hair and a pierced tongue. Eve wasn't sure whether to hope that Cory and Maggie got along or hope they didn't.

"You're the sorority type, aren't you?" Maggie asked Cory with barely masked disappointment.

"Actually, no," Cory said as she pulled clothes out of her duffel bag. "I'm more the shy, retiring type."

Maggie laughed, and Cory laughed with her, as though she was joking.

The hardest part of the journey was leaving Cory behind when they'd left for the return trip home. It reminded her of Cory's first day in kindergarten. She was that same little girl in the navy blue-and-white sneakers, screaming for her mommy when the door of the cla.s.sroom closed between them.

Jack insisted they make up songs in the car on the way back to Charlottesville, an attempt, Eve knew, to keep her from crying. She went along with it for Dru's sake.

By the time she got home, there was already an e-mail waiting for her from Cory.

Please call to tell me you got home safely, she'd written. Eve stared at the words. How many new freshmen wrote that sort of message home? she'd written. Eve stared at the words. How many new freshmen wrote that sort of message home?

We're home, honey, she wrote back. she wrote back. Dad made us sing Dad-type songs all the way. I hope you're having fun. Let me know how you and Maggie get along. Love, Mom. Dad made us sing Dad-type songs all the way. I hope you're having fun. Let me know how you and Maggie get along. Love, Mom.

There was another e-mail, this one from the screen name Barko, with the subject line simply Eve. Eve. She opened it. She opened it.

Dear Eve, Friend of N and F's needs place to start over. If you can help, reply. If not, peace.

She stared at the message a long time, first in confusion, then in fear, before finally hitting the delete key and wiping it from her screen.

Chapter Forty.

Every school year at the university began with a faculty get-together held in one of the buildings on the grounds, and the very first person Eve met when she arrived was Irving Russell himself.

She literally fell into him in the foyer when she tripped over a book bag someone had left on the floor. He caught her fall, and she looked into his face with a start of recognition.

"Excuse me," she said, fl.u.s.tered. "I'm sorry."

He smiled, and behind the smile she imagined a life filled with loss and fear and sleepless nights.

"And I'm Irving Russell." He held out his hand. She usually offered her less painful left hand for a handshake, but she was so caught off guard by the abrupt meeting that she gave him her right and was instantly sorry. He was a squeezer, his hand clamping down on hers so hard and for so long that it brought tears to her eyes.

"I'm Eve Elliott, President Russell," she said, once she'd rescued her hand from his. "I'm a therapist with Counseling and Psychological Services. Welcome to the university."

"I'm delighted to be-"

Someone pushed in front of her to meet the new president, and she was only too happy for the interruption. She went into the ladies' room and stood in the stall, holding her throbbing hand close to her chest and crying, though from pain or guilt, she couldn't have said.

She heard from Cory several times a day, usually through e-mail and occasionally by phone. The e-mails were easier to bear, because she couldn't hear her crying. Cory begged to come home. She hated Carolina. Everyone was into sports, she said. The kids were wild. They all drank. She hated Maggie and was afraid of Maggie's friends.

"Stick it out," Eve told her. "It's normal to be homesick for a while." But it broke her heart to picture Cory so far away, feeling isolated and scared.

When Cory's situation hadn't improved by November, Eve and Jack agreed it was time to bring her home.

"You've got to see a therapist when you come home, though," Jack told her on the phone, as if it were a condition of her homecoming, and Cory readily agreed. Eve started thinking about family counselors she knew in the area, but caught herself. Cory's issues were all about breaking away. Much as she wanted to be a part of Cory's therapy, this time she would have to let her go alone.

Chapter Forty-One.

1998.

Eve woke up early the second Sat.u.r.day in September and knew immediately that something was different. She lay in bed and raised her hands in the air above her, making fists, then spreading her fingers wide. Nothing hurt. Nothing hurt. Her wrists and fingers were still disfigured, but not nearly as swollen as usual. Beneath the covers, she moved her feet. A little pain, but barely noticeable. Her wrists and fingers were still disfigured, but not nearly as swollen as usual. Beneath the covers, she moved her feet. A little pain, but barely noticeable.

"Jack?" she said.

He grunted.

She shook his shoulder. "Jack?"

He rolled onto his back. "What's up?" he mumbled.

"I'm not hurting," she said.

He sat up. "What did you say?"

"The drug's working."

Two weeks earlier, she'd started a new drug for RA that had the medical world abuzz. It required Eve to give herself injections, but that was a small price to pay for this result. "I thought I've been getting better a little each day," she said, "but I was afraid to say anything until now."

"Oh, Eve." Jack was truly awake now. "That's the best news!"

For a moment, she thought he would leap to the mattress and do his happy dance, but he was forty-five years old now and, although he was still trim and fit, his leaping days were behind him.

He put his arm around her and she snuggled close.

"I have to tell you," he said, "I was worried that Cory leaving again would make you worse."

They'd taken Cory back to Carolina the day before. After two years living at home while attending UVA and nearly three years in therapy, she was ready to try UNC again and Eve was as ready to let her as she was going to get. She'd gone to see Cory's therapist in April, at Cory's invitation.

"There's a lot of love in your family, Eve," the therapist had said. "But you and Cory have a cla.s.sic co-dependent relations.h.i.+p and I'm sure you know that. Now, Cory's ready to swim away, and you need to stop trying to reel her in."

Eve taped a note to her bathroom mirror. Stop reeling, Stop reeling, it read. it read.

"I'm okay," she said now to Jack. "She-and I-have both grown up a lot the past few years."

She got out of bed, wincing as her feet touched the floor. The new drug was no miracle cure. The doctor had warned her that it wouldn't erase the damage already done in her feet and hands, and she had plenty of it. Still, after battling this disease for more than five years, she would settle for any improvement she could get.

Cory was not only swimming away, she was gradually disappearing beyond the horizon. Her e-mails, which came daily at first, quickly fell off to a couple of times a week, and sometimes she was not in her dorm room when Eve called in the evenings. Eve pictured her out with girlfriends. Maybe with men, her beauty always a lure.

In October, Cory asked Eve not to call so often.

"I need to break away from you, Mom," she said. "You know that. Help me out, please?"

Eve felt guilty. Cory sounded like an adult. She could take care of herself now, and that was a good thing.

"Should I let you you call call me me when you want to talk, then?" She didn't want that! She might have to go weeks without knowing what was happening in Cory's life. when you want to talk, then?" She didn't want that! She might have to go weeks without knowing what was happening in Cory's life.

"No, that's okay. Just, not every few days. How about once a week."

"Sure," Eve said. "All right."

"And slow down on the articles."

Eve grimaced. She was always seeing things in the paper about good nutrition and getting enough sleep and the harm loud music could do to one's hearing. Nearly everything she read made her think of Cory, and it took only a minute to tear out an article and pop it in the mail to her. "All right," she said.

Jack communicated with Cory by forwarding jokes sure to make her groan and roll her eyes. Dru e-mailed her regularly, and Cory was faithful about keeping in touch with her. Thirteen-year-old Dru missed her big sister. They were as different as night and day, both in looks and in personality. Outgoing Dru now wore both gla.s.ses and braces. She had Eve's wild, dark hair and Jack's thick eyebrows, while introspective Cory had never even suffered a blemish. But there was a sisterly bond between them Eve hoped would always be there.

In early November, Cory e-mailed Eve to say she'd met "someone very special." Eve stared at those words for a moment. She'd never heard Cory say anything of the sort before. As far as she knew, Cory had never even had a date. She wrote that Ken Carmichael was a TV reporter for a Raleigh news program and that she was falling in love with him.

Eve picked up the phone. She had had to hear more. How could Cory give her so little information? to hear more. How could Cory give her so little information?

"I want to hear all about Ken," she said when she got Cory on the line.

"He's a wonderful guy," Cory said nonchalantly, and Eve could picture her shrugging her shoulders as if to say, What more do you want to know? What more do you want to know?

"Where is he from?"

"Rocky Mount. Which brings me to another subject." Cory hesitated. "I'm going to go to his family's for Thanksgiving this year." She didn't add an "all right?" or "okay?" at the end of that sentence, the way she usually did. She was not asking for permission.

"Oh, okay." Eve swallowed her disappointment. "We'll miss you."

"I know," she said. "I'll miss you, too, but thanks for being so understanding. Dru said you would be. That you're really not tearing your hair out about me being gone this time."

"I'm trying not to." Eve laughed. Her medication was making her hair fall out enough as it was. "When will we get to meet Ken, though?"

"Maybe winter break," Cory said.