The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes (22 page)

C
ory was quiet on the dark drive home from camp, unresponsive to Eve’s gentle questions about her experience. Eve felt frustrated, as she often did with her oldest daughter these days. Why could she get the most recalcitrant teenagers to open up to her, while her own daughter shut her out? She was learning new counseling skills every day, but when it came to her own family, she might as well be studying carpentry.

Cory went directly to bed when they got home, and she was still quiet the next morning, though contrite enough to help Eve and Jack clean the house after church.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” she said to Eve as she ran a sponge over the bathroom sink.

“Why not?” Eve looked up from the tub she was cleaning.

Cory kept her back to her. “My friends are going to tell everybody what happened. They already think I’m a wimp.”

“Well.” Eve thought about how to respond. “I have an idea how you could handle it.”

“How?”

“You call the girls who were in your tent and tell them how embarrassed you—”

“Uh-uh, Mom!”

Maybe Eve could call their mothers, then, and ask them to talk to their daughters about compassion and kindness. Most likely, though, the damage was already done. Fourteen girls in the Scout troop plus fourteen telephones times fourteen different sets of friends would equal a bad day at school for Cory.

“Laugh at yourself tomorrow, Cory,” she said.

Cory turned from the sink to stare at her. “
Laugh
at myself?” she asked, as if she must have heard incorrectly.

“Don’t you admire people who can just admit their foibles and move on?” Eve asked.

“What’s a foible?”

“Their flaws. Their quirks. You just say, ‘I was really a chicken at camp, wasn’t I?’ If you say it first, it doesn’t leave them with much ammunition.”

Cory rinsed the sponge out under the faucet. “I can’t say that, Mom,” she muttered. “You must not know me very well if you think I can.”

It was seven o’clock that evening before Eve had time to read the Sunday paper. Cory sat at the table in the dining area of the living room, her head bent low over a paper she was writing for school, and Jack was in the girls’ room, reading Dru a story. Eve made a cup of tea and sat on the wing chair near the fireplace, her feet on the hassock and the paper in her lap.

The cover of the magazine section caught her eye. Two people were on horseback, one a stiff-spined man, the other a strawberry-blond teenager. The heading read: At Home With Former North Carolina Governor Irving Russell. Eve stared at the words for a full minute before returning her gaze to the picture. All her fantasies that Cory bore a strong resemblance to Genevieve had been accurate. In front of her was the proof—a teenaged girl who reminded her of both Cory and her mother. The long, slender limbs. The small pert nose and fair skin. The hair, though significantly blonder than Cory’s, framed her face in waves. She had to be fourteen. Vivian. Vivvie, Genevieve had called her. She opened the magazine and scanned the article.

Russell was now the CEO of a foundation in Northern Virginia and had recently bought property outside Charlottesville. She read that sentence twice; it seemed unreal. A cruel joke.
Please don’t let our paths cross,
she thought. She looked at the pictures and realized with relief that the chances of that happening were slim. Russell and his daughter were rolling in money. Their house was huge and white-pillared, with a massive portico above a circular driveway. There were stables on the property, and it was clear the Russells were part of the horse circle. There was one brief mention of Genevieve: His life changed after the 1977 kidnapping of his pregnant wife, Genevieve, who has never been found. Russell has not remarried, but has instead devoted himself to raising the couple’s daughter, Vivian, now fourteen.

There was another picture of Vivian with the article. She was hanging upside down by her legs from a tree limb, her long fingers just touching the grass below.

Eve sank low in the wing chair, her body crumpling in on itself. Her chest felt hollow, her muscles slack with an empty sort of sorrow. She looked at the vivacious blonde—Vivian had been a perfect name for her—and then at Cory, sitting at the table on the other side of the room. Cory’s bare feet rested on the rungs of one of the ancient, mismatched chairs. She wore hand-me-downs from Shan—a faded blue T-shirt and baggy cotton shorts. One hand was at her mouth as she chewed her stubby nails. Tomorrow she would face her classmates, who would mock her for her fears. Never before had Eve felt this degree of guilt over having stolen Cory from the life she’d been meant to live. Not just a life of riches, but a life filled with the self-confidence that graced her sister’s face. She could almost hear Vivian giggling as she hung from the tree branch. It was a sound Cory rarely made.

She’d created a fearful child. The beauty was Genevieve’s doing. Maybe they could share the credit for her sharp, incisive brain. But the fears were her responsibility entirely, and she didn’t know how to undo whatever she’d done to create them.

1988

“W
hat’s a milkman?” Cory asked, when Eve picked her up from school.

“Well,” Eve said, looking over her shoulder as she pulled away from the curb, “in the old days, even before I was born, they used to deliver milk to people’s houses. People had metal boxes on their porches and the milkman would leave bottles of milk in the boxes. Sometimes eggs, too, I think. And cottage cheese.”

“Oh,” Cory said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Caitlin said my father must have been the milkman, because I don’t look like anybody in my family.”

Eve silently cursed Caitlin’s mother, a woman who spent too much time sticking her nose into other people’s business.

“That was a rude thing for her to say,” Eve said.

“Was I adopted, Mom?”

Eve glanced at her. Cory’s face, her eyes wide and serious, was raised to hers as she waited for her answer.

“Do you remember we talked about this when you were much younger?” Eve asked. “You’re my daughter, and when Daddy and I got married, he adopted you.”

“So…do I look like my real father?”

“Yes,” she said. “You look like your biological father.” She thought of telling her he’d had red hair and her fair skin, but couldn’t embellish the lie any more than was absolutely necessary.

“What does that mean? Biological?”

“The man whose sperm fertilizes an egg is called a biological father.”

“Oh. You said he died, right? In an accident?”

“That’s right.”

“Were you married to him?”

Ugh.
“No, honey, I wasn’t. I was very young and I got pregnant.” She’d explained the birds and the bees to Cory, but she wasn’t certain how much of the explanation she’d understood.

“Did he ever meet me?”

“No, he died before he had a chance to meet you.”

“Was he nice?”

“Yes, he was nice. But he was wild. He rode a motorcycle and that’s how he was killed. In a motorcycle accident.”

“I wish I could’ve met him,” Cory said, deep sorrow in her voice.

Eve reached over to brush Cory’s hair away from her cheek. “He would have loved you very much,” she said.

Nearly eleven, Cory was not much younger than she’d been when her mother died. She suddenly felt sorry for the little girl she’d been. It was horrible to imagine Cory parentless and alone. Was she doing as good a job with Cory as her own mother had done with her? She didn’t think so. With a longing that made her chest ache, she remembered her mother’s wonderful letters. What strength she’d had! And poor Ronnie. What had she done with that huge box of letters?

“What was his name?” Cory asked.

“Patrick Smith.” Eve had christened Cory’s father with the name years earlier. Smith seemed like a smart, untraceable choice for a surname.

“Why did he ride stupid motorcycles?”

“He was young, and young men tend to do things that are risky sometimes.”

Cory was quiet for a moment. “So you did sex with him before you were married?” she asked.

“Yes. That was really dumb of me and I hope you never do that. Although if I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have you and I just can’t imagine that.” She smiled at her and Cory smiled back.

“Daddy is Dru’s real father, isn’t he?” she asked.

“He’s
your
real daddy, too, honey. Once someone adopts a person, that makes him or her a real father or mother.”

“But he’s not my
real
real father.”

She decided not to play dense. “That’s right. But I hope you know he loves you every bit as much as he would if he was your
real
real father.”

Cory fell silent again, and Eve waited for another question.

Instead, though, Cory let out a sigh. “I’m really glad Dru gets to have Daddy for a real father,” she said. “Otherwise she might feel very sad.”

“Do you feel very sad, honey?”

“No,” she said, “but Dru’s just little and it would be harder for her than for me.”

Eve had to pull the car over to the curb, because she needed to hug her daughter.

“What are you
doing?
” Cory recoiled a bit from the sudden embrace. “What’s that for?”

“You’re a kind girl,” Eve said. “You’re a wonderful big sister, and Dru’s lucky to have you.” She pulled back to look at her with a smile. “And so am I.”

1991

I
n late August, Eve and Jack finally were able to buy their first house, a quaint arts-and-crafts-style bungalow not far from the grounds. Although the house was on a busy street, it sat in a veritable cocoon of greenery and had a small, private backyard. Jack laid a curved line of pavers from the back door to a bench beneath the boughs of a magnolia, and the yard became a little haven from the hubbub of the university.

They walked to work every day, since Eve was now a counselor with the Counseling and Psychological Services on the grounds and Jack continued to teach in the Drama Department. It made Eve nervous, though, not having a car at work in case there was an emergency with one of the girls. Still, it was nice to have that time with Jack and the exercise was good for her, though her feet occasionally protested the walk, much as they did when she got out of bed in the middle of the night.

Their first night in the house brought a terrific thunderstorm that kept Eve awake with its unpredictable thunderclaps and flashes of light illuminating the unfamiliar bedroom. She wasn’t surprised when Dru came into their room at one in the morning.

“Can I sleep with you and Daddy?” she asked.

Dru was six and fearless, but for the first time, she had her own room. That, along with the storm, was too much for her.

“Sure,” Eve said. “Hop in.”

Dru scrambled into the bed and lay down between her and Jack, who had not stirred once since coming to bed. In a few minutes, Dru, too was sound asleep.

At three, Eve got up to use the bathroom. Her feet felt as if she were walking on gravel as she crossed the room. The pain had definitely worsened in the past few months and she knew she’d have to break down soon and see a doctor.

She opened the bedroom door and nearly tripped over Cory, who lay on the hardwood floor, her pillow under her head.

“Cory?” Eve whispered. “What are you doing here?”

Cory jerked to a sitting position as if caught doing something wrong. She looked around the hallway as though trying to place her surroundings. “I don’t know exactly,” she said.

Eve lowered herself to the floor across the hall from her. The hardwood felt cool beneath her aching feet. Summer was coming to an end.

“Some storm,” she said.

Cory nodded. She was wearing underpants and a sleeveless pajama top shaped by small, new breasts. She’d gotten a bra in May and her period in June, but Eve had not yet grown accustomed to the changes in her daughter’s body. Cory was still a little girl in her eyes.

A flash of lightning cut through the bathroom window into the hall, and Cory winced. She hugged her knees. “Mom?” she asked.

“What, honey?”

“I don’t want to go to Darby.”

Darby was the private school Eve and Jack had gotten her into for the fall. They’d used the money in Cory’s secret bank account to pay her tuition.

“Why not, hon?” The move to Darby was a good one, she felt certain. It would get her away from the kids who had known and taunted her for years and it would put her into a more intellectually challenging environment. She was far ahead of her public school classmates academically, but no one wanted her to skip a grade because she lagged so far behind her peers socially.

“I don’t know,” she said again, words Eve was hearing regularly from her lips these days.

“It’s going to be good for you,” Eve said. “You liked it when we visited.”

“Yeah, but now it’s almost time to go and I’m changing my mind.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid,” Cory said. She balked at that question these days, coming up with excuses other than fear when she didn’t want to do things.

“Then why don’t you want to go?”

“I won’t know anyone,” she said.

“Think of that as a
good
thing,” Eve suggested. “You can be a clean slate there. You can be the person you’ve always wanted to be. It can be fun to reinvent yourself sometimes.”

Cory pondered that. “Maybe,” she said.

“Come on.” Eve winced at the pain in her feet as she stood to open the bedroom door. “Dru’s in the bed, so you’ll have to make yourself comfortable on the rug.”

As it turned out, Cory liked Darby from the first day. The kids were nice and very smart, she reported, and the teachers joked with them instead of being “all serious and everything.” Eve thought the Darby students were actually a bit nerdy, but then, so was Cory. Her beauty was a front for a hungry, scholarly mind. The classes were rigorous, and that was a challenge Cory could rise to.

“I have four hours of homework!” she announced when Eve picked her up that first afternoon. She sounded sincerely thrilled by the prospect. And Eve was equally thrilled that she’d received no calls during the day from a teacher or a school nurse, asking her to pick up her anxious, frightened daughter.