The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes Part 44

She nodded.

"Isn't that amazing?" he asked. "Your mother was a teacher all her adult life. She didn't need to work, but she loved teaching and wouldn't give it up."

"I love it, too," Corinne said.

"And next year she'll have a special position training other teachers in a reading program," Ken boasted. "As long as she can get the travel phobia under control."

"I can," she said. She wished he'd stop trotting out her fears in front of her brand-new father and sister. She was more than her phobias. They had always been Ken's focus, she realized. He liked to think of himself as her savior.

"She had to separate herself from her mother to grow up," Ken added.

"What does that mean, you separated yourself from her?" Russ asked.

"We're...basically estranged," she said. "We've hardly spoken for the past few years. She came here with my father...with Jack...right before she was arrested to tell me everything, and that was the first time we've really talked in a long time." She winced, remembering that night. "If anything, she was too too good a parent to me. Too protective. She was suffocating and even my therapist told me to break ties with her for a while." good a parent to me. Too protective. She was suffocating and even my therapist told me to break ties with her for a while."

The Russells were quiet, and Corinne wondered if the word therapist, therapist, used so easily in the Elliott household, might be taboo in theirs. used so easily in the Elliott household, might be taboo in theirs.

"Well." Russ s.h.i.+fted in his chair and let out a long sigh. She thought there were tears in his eyes again. "I'm so sorry, Corinne. I feel like I failed somehow. Like there was something I should have been able to do to save you."

"Dad, what could you have done?" Vivian looked at Corinne. "He's always asking himself the 'what-ifs'," she said. "What if he'd picked Mom up from the university that night? What if he-"

"I hated her walking in the parking lot at night," Russ said, "but she always insisted I was being silly. I was making too much out of it, she'd say. And then if I'd agreed to commute that girl's sentence right off the bat, maybe they would have freed Gen-"

"You couldn't do that, Dad," Vivian argued. "You couldn't give in to that kind of terrorism or you'd have people kidnapping other people left and right to get what they wanted."

"I just wish I could have spared you." Russell leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, his gaze on Corinne. "I could have raised you the way you should have been raised."

"I think she turned out fine," Vivian said, as though she knew her well.

Corinne wondered how she and Vivian looked, sitting there like near-twins. They sat so close together, she was certain her hair was tangled with her sister's.

"I..." Russ reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a slim white envelope. "I want you to have this," he said, taking a few steps across the room to hand it to her. "I know this doesn't make up for all the lost years, but I would have sent you to the best private schools, like I did with Vivian. You would have had your pick of universities. So I want you to have this. And I'm giving it to you with Viv's blessing."

Vivian nodded. "Absolutely," she said.

Corinne opened the envelope and peered at a check made out in her name for three hundred thousand dollars.

She felt the color drain out of her face. "Oh, no," she said. "I can't possibly take this."

"You have to," Russ said. "Please don't be insulted by it. I know you're a teacher and your...Ken here is a reporter, and you're well able to support yourselves. That's not it. It's-"

"I went to all private schools," Vivian said. "And then to Sarah Lawrence and grad school. Dad would have done the same for you."

"I'm just not...comfortable with this," Corinne said.

"I'm sorry," Russ said. "I should have held off on giving it to you. I just...I want to give you everything I can." He smiled at her with such kindness. "Think about the money," he said. "You don't need to take it now. Just know it's yours whenever you want it."

"Thank you," she said. "That's so generous of you."

The men stayed in the living room, while Vivian helped her set the table.

"I've missed you," Vivian said, smiling. "I know you were raised with a sister and got to do all these simple sisterly things, like setting a table together." She nodded at the basket of croissants. "But I never had that and I knew what I was missing. Even though I was so young when Mom was pregnant with you, I fantasized about all the things we'd do together. They even let me help decide what to name you."

"What was I going to be named?"

"Lara," she said.

Corinne tried to imagine living her whole life with that name. "Pretty," she said. She started back to the kitchen, but Vivian caught her arm. "You have to understand something about Dad." She smiled. "He's like a lot of guys. He doesn't really know how to express his emotions, so he does it with money. With gifts. We thought you were dead, and we're so glad you're not, so now he wants to give you the world. It's the only way he knows to show that he loves you."

"He doesn't even know know me yet," she said. me yet," she said.

"That doesn't matter. You're his daughter. That's enough for him."

They'd given her several pictures of Genevieve to keep, and she carried them to the table and spread them out around her plate, unable to stop looking at her. Russ talked about the first time he saw her. He'd been the escort of another young woman at a country club dance, but he couldn't take his eyes off Genevieve. She wore a royal-blue dress, and between that and her red hair, he could find her anyplace in the room. His own date grew annoyed at him for his inattention to her. The next day, he called Genevieve and asked her out. Their first date was to the movies, where they saw Midnight Cowboy, Midnight Cowboy, and she'd cried inconsolably. He'd held her hand to comfort her and knew he wanted to be with a woman so free with her emotions. and she'd cried inconsolably. He'd held her hand to comfort her and knew he wanted to be with a woman so free with her emotions.

"The opposite of me," Russ said, "as Viv will tell you. I needed someone different from me to express that part of myself. When she was gone..." He ran a finger around the rim of his gla.s.s. "I withdrew for a long time. Just focused on work and on Vivvie. It was like I didn't know how to operate in the world without Genevieve. I was only half a person."

Vivian was wrong about her father. He did, too, know how to express his emotions. He was doing so right now in a way that brought tears to Corinne's eyes.

"And you didn't know what had happened to her," she said. "Or if she was dead or alive. That must have made it so much harder for you."

"Exactly," he said. No one said it, but everyone knew who was to blame for his grief. "When a year had pa.s.sed, I a.s.sumed she had...that she was dead. That they'd killed her. Along with our unborn baby. With you." He tried to smile at her, but the sadness in his face was too deep and too old. She wanted to wrap her arms around him. Her real father. In a stubborn corner of her heart, though, she felt the pinch of guilt, as if she were cheating on a lover, enamored by the newness of the affair. She remembered Jack's face when he left the house with Eve and the police. She pictured her mother carefully clipping newspaper articles for her, designed to protect and advise. She saw her vivacious sister, short and st.u.r.dy in comparison to the lithe Vivian. Her heart twisted in her chest. Their love for her was based on years of living together and had remained unchanged, despite her belligerent withdrawal from them. Could she live long enough to have that kind of love with Russ and Vivian? Why didn't she feel the instantaneous sort of love they seemed so capable of?

"It destroyed me, the kidnapping," Russ continued. "It destroyed my life. If it hadn't been that Vivvie needed me, I'm not sure if I would have gone on, despite my responsibilities to the state. This is between us, of course." He looked from her to Ken, and they both nodded.

"But you did go on, Dad," Vivian said. "You were a great governor."

"I'm good at losing myself in my work," he said.

Vivian laughed. "For sure."

"My sadness turned to a righteous anger over time," he said. "I wanted to kill those guys. I'm not the killing type. I-"

"He carries ants outside instead of killing them," Vivian said, and Corinne laughed.

"Right. But if I'd seen one of those men and had a gun in my hand, I would have done it. When they caught Timothy Gleason..." He shook his head. "I would love to have a chance to strangle the life out of him. Then your...so-called mother shows up with her version of what happened." He balled his hands into fists and growled, a sound that seemed to rise up from his toes. "I think about your life and how different it was from the way it should have been."

"Dad, you just have to be thankful that she's-that Corinne is alive and well," Vivian said, and Corinne had the feeling this was an ongoing conversation between father and daughter.

"I am," he said, "but that doesn't stop me from wanting to see Eve Elliott pay for what she did. Plus, she had the gall to work at the university while I've been president!" He shook his head. "Just unbelievable."

"Yes," Ken agreed, "like she was playing a game of cat and mouse."

"And winning, winning," Russ agreed. "But she's not winning now." He looked at Corinne. "You were raised by the woman who was responsible for your mother's death," he said, "but don't worry. My lawyer is going to make sure she pays for this for the rest of her life. The only job she'll ever hold from this day forward is making license plates."

Chapter Sixty.

Jack called her on the day she returned to work. Ken was at the store and Corinne stared at the caller ID display on the bedroom phone for a moment before deciding to answer it.

"Finally!" Jack said when she picked up the phone. "I was afraid Ken was never going to let me speak to you again."

"Have you been calling?" she asked as she sat down on the bed. She hadn't realized Ken had been censoring all of her calls, not just those from the media.

"About a half-dozen times," he said. "I've been down to Raleigh twice to visit Mom and I asked if I could stay with you and Ken. He said no, but I wasn't sure if he'd even checked with you or not."

She was glad Ken hadn't told her. She would have had a hard time telling Jack he couldn't stay with them. "He didn't," she said.

"Well, how are you?" he asked. "Have you gone back to work?"

"I'm okay." She thought of telling him about her visit with Russ and Vivian, but that could only hurt him. "And I went back today."

"Was it all right?"

Define "all right," she wanted to say. A couple of reporters stood across the street from the school that morning, filming her as she got out of her car and walked to the entrance. Students and faculty alike talked about her behind her back. She caught them staring. Whispering. Her strange life no longer belonged to her alone. she wanted to say. A couple of reporters stood across the street from the school that morning, filming her as she got out of her car and walked to the entrance. Students and faculty alike talked about her behind her back. She caught them staring. Whispering. Her strange life no longer belonged to her alone.

"It was fine," she said.

He paused. "Mom really wants to see you, Cory," he said finally. "She needs needs to see you." to see you."

"She's not my mother," Corinne said.

Jack was quiet. "She loves you as much as any mother could love a daughter."

"Dad, do you realize that she might have killed my real mother and cut me out of her?"

"What? Who the h.e.l.l put that idea in your head?" Who the h.e.l.l put that idea in your head?"

"Maybe it's true," she said. "How can we believe anything she says at this point?"

"She's telling the truth," he said. "Did Ken suggest she might have killed-"

"No," she interrupted him. "Why do you always blame Ken for everything?"

"He's your keeper, isn't he?" Jack asked. "Your defender and protector?"

"Ken protects me, just like you're trying to protect Mom. The big difference is I'm not a felon."

"No," Jack said, "you're a selfish little girl."

His words stung, and she was suddenly afraid of losing him. "You've stopped loving me," she said.

"I love you with all my heart, Cory," he said. "But it's time you took responsibility for who you are, all right? Yes, your mother was overprotective. You got dealt some c.r.a.ppy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them."

"So what am I supposed to do? Just forgive her for killing my mother and stealing me from my family?"

"She didn't kill your mother. She made some extremely poor decisions. Are you the same person you were when you were sixteen?"

"I would never have made the choices she made."

"Well, maybe that has something to do with the upbringing you had in our terrible subst.i.tute for your real family."

Touche, she thought. she thought.

"Dad, I'm pregnant, have you forgotten that? When I think about my baby, and I imagine what it would be like to be kidnapped and pregnant..." She couldn't couldn't imagine it. It was too awful. imagine it. It was too awful.

"I know this must be terribly hard for you, Cory, but you need to think for yourself for once," he said. "You believe Ken saved you from your mother's overprotectiveness, but he just subst.i.tuted his set of rules for hers. Not only that, but he doesn't have one one-hundredth of the love for you that your mother does. He's self-serving. He cut you off from us so he could control you himself. Can't you see that? You complained that Eve didn't let you grow up. Well, you still haven't grown up, and it's about time you do."

She hung up on him, then slammed the phone down on the bed. What was with her father? Terribly hard for her? Terribly hard for her? An understatement. He had no idea how it felt to suddenly discover you were not who you thought you were. He was so busy defending Eve that he'd forgotten who had paid the dearest price for her crimes. An understatement. He had no idea how it felt to suddenly discover you were not who you thought you were. He was so busy defending Eve that he'd forgotten who had paid the dearest price for her crimes.

The phone rang again after a few minutes, and this time the caller ID display read Virginia. Virginia. It had to be either Dru or Russ. She lifted the receiver to her ear. It had to be either Dru or Russ. She lifted the receiver to her ear.

"Why did you hang up on Dad?" Dru asked.

"He made me angry," Corinne said. "That's why."

"Well, that's a good way to resolve a conflict," Dru said.

"This is a conflict with no possible resolution, Dru," she said. "Are you at the house?"

"No. Dad called to say you hung up on him."

"And he said you should call me to tell me Eve Elliott needs to see me, right?"

Dru paused. "Do you always call her Eve Elliott now?" she asked. "That's so cold."

"It helps me keep some emotional distance."

"I wish you'd go see her," Dru said. "She wants to see you. I'll come down there and go with you if you're afraid. Is it a bad drive from where you live?"

Corinne hesitated. All drives were "bad drives" these days, but it was not that far and she didn't want to admit to Dru that she couldn't make it by herself. But walk into a jail? She shuddered. Unimaginable. "It's bad enough," she said.

"She hasn't gotten her meds yet," Dru said.

Corinne was surprised by her own indignation. "Why not?" she said. "They have to provide medication to a prisoner who needs it, don't they?"

"Yes, but she needs some kind of approval that's taking too long, so she's flaring really badly," Dru said. "You're right there, right there, Cory. Please go see her." Cory. Please go see her."

"No, and if you keep asking me, I'll hang up on you, too."