Magnolia Wednesdays (36 page)

Melanie pushed past Vivien.

“You?” Melanie whispered, shaking her head. “And J.J.? I don’t believe it.”

Shelby turned on her mother. “Which part, Mom? That your husband was gay? Or that he was in love with Clay?” She spat the words out, infuriated by her mother’s ignorance. “What kind of woman doesn’t even know she’s married to a . . . a
homosexual
?”

“But I don’t understand. How did this happen? How long did it go on?”

Clay looked at Melanie, and Vivien thought she’d never felt so much pain in one place. Except possibly in her stomach. Which had seized up so tightly she could hardly breathe.

“We were always attracted to each other,” Clay said. “From the time we met in college. But J.J. didn’t want to admit it. He wanted a . . . conventional life.” His jaw tightened. “And a career in politics.” He searched Melanie’s face, looking for something, though Vivi couldn’t imagine what.

“So you both got married and played it straight,” Vivien said. “Until J.J. decided to run for office and you had your opportunity.” It was all so clear now. She’d had all the pieces but she’d refused to see how they actually fit together. “Grady Hollis thought you were in love with Melanie. Professor Sturgess said you always came in second. I thought maybe you resented J.J. and were jealous of his life.”

He turned to her as if only now noticing that she was there. “You talked to Phil and Grady? Why would you go to all that trouble?” he asked. “What was the point?”

“At first I thought you’d somehow killed J.J. and made it look like an accident, because you coveted his wife and family, because you were tired of coming in second.”

Melanie turned terrible eyes on Vivien. “You had to dig into things that were better left alone. You couldn’t just mind your own business and let us get on with our lives.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Shelby asked, her voice trembling.

“Of course not,” Clay said. “I loved him.” The sheen of tears filled his eyes, turning them a wintry gray. His face contorted in an effort to hold them back.

Melanie stepped forward and slapped Clay Alexander across the face. Shelby buried her face in her hands. Her sobs filled the air as she rushed from the room.

Vivien’s stomach roiled again; heat rushed through her body.

“I was married to someone I never even knew,” Melanie said. “The great love of my life wasn’t even in love with me.” Her words were as cutting as her tone. “Because he was in love with you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never wanted you to know.”

“I can’t even look at you,” Melanie said, turning away and heading for the door, calling after Shelby.

Vivien studied Clay Alexander’s haggard face, the mixture of regret and relief apparent on it.

“How did J.J. really die?” she asked quietly. “He didn’t really kill himself cleaning a gun . . . did he?”

Clay was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “He couldn’t live with the guilt of loving me, of living a double life,” he finally said. “So he ended it. He killed himself.”

He broke eye contact and dropped his head. Vivi waited while he retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and withdrew two tattered pieces of paper from it.

“I’d gone outside, I don’t even remember why. I was on my way back in when I heard the gunshot. He’d written a note of apology to Melanie.” He gave the scrap of stationery to Vivien. “And he left one for me asking me to look after his family.”

Vivien unfolded the paper and read J.J.’s final words to his wife.

I just can’t go on living this way. It hurts too much. And it’s not fair to you and Shelby and Trip. All of you deserve so much more than I’m able to give. Don’t ever question that I love you all. But I can’t change who or what I am. Or how I feel about Clay.

“I removed the notes,” Clay said. “So the insurance would pay out, so Melanie and the kids would be taken care of.” His voice was unbearably sad. “I’ve done my best to look out for them.” He straightened, but there was a hunch to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. “So now you know the truth. That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it?”

Vivi reread J.J.’s plea for forgiveness and realized what she now held in her hand. A legislator engaged in a homosexual affair with his campaign manager? A suicide to end it? A stunned family who’d had no idea? Those were the kinds of story elements that any network would pay big bucks for, that any investigative journalist worth her salt would kill for. This story was an automatic ticket back to the top of network news.

Not long ago she wouldn’t have hesitated to cash in that ticket.

But she wasn’t that person anymore, was she? She tucked J.J.’s suicide note into her purse.

Clay turned and began to walk away. At the doorway he carefully sidestepped the Melnicks, who blustered in with a still-hysterical Shelby and Melanie between them. Ira called after Clay, demanding to know what was going on, but Clay Alexander kept walking.

The opening strains of the Wedding March were audible from the small ballroom but had barely established itself when the music screeched to a halt in midchord. There was some sort of announcement on the sound system and an agitated hum of conversation. It sounded as if Angela might actually have called off the wedding. Or maybe James had.

Could the day
get
any worse? Ira’s face was flushed with anger, but he seemed unsure where to direct it. Vivien’s stomach actually rippled with the pain that tore through her, and her skin felt clammy as her sister said, “Are you happy now? Now that you’ve got a nice juicy story?”

“No,” Vivi said. “No, I wouldn’t . . .” She doubled over to clutch her stomach. “Not now. Not . . .”

“Melanie,” Ruth asked. “What happened? Has she done something to you?” She asked this even though Vivien was the one bent in half, trying to halt the pain. “Ira,” Ruth said. “Do something!”

Ira turned to Vivien. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

Vivien would have answered, but there was another burst of pain and her knees began to buckle. She looked into Ira Melnick’s face and saw that it had turned a pale and ghostly white. A throbbing vein zigzagged starkly against his forehead. The blaze of anger in his eyes turned to confusion and then surprise as he clutched his chest and sank to his knees at Ruth’s feet.

“Ira,” Ruth gasped. “What are you doing down there? What’s wrong?”

Vivien looked up into her sister’s drawn face. She looked down at Ira in a heap on the floor. And she felt something inside her rip loose.

Something warm and wet trickled down the inside of Vivi’s leg.

“Call nine-one-one!” Vivi cried as she clutched her heaving stomach and stared down at the amniotic fluid seeping out of her. “I think Ira’s had a heart attack!”

She swallowed as the fluid pooled at her feet and formed an amoebalike stain on the plush red carpet. “And I think I’m finally going to have this baby.”

36

E
VERYTHING HAPPENED SO quickly after that that Melanie could hardly absorb what was taking place. The ambulance arrived and the paramedics carried Ira out, racing him to Saint Joseph’s Hospital, with Ruth at his side.

Melanie, who felt as if her own guts had been torn out and stuffed down her throat, gathered up Shelby, located Trip, and got them and Vivien into the car for the ride to Northside, where Vivi was apparently going to give birth.

Vivi managed to reach Dr. Gilbert’s emergency service between labor pains and passed much of the ride bemoaning the fact that she’d sloughed off Lamaze classes and trying to remember how long it took for an epidural to kick in. When her fingers grew too clumsy to perform, she passed her phone to Shelby and asked her to text Stone that Vivi was on the way to the hospital to give birth to his child.

“You never even told him he was going to have a baby?” Shelby asked in midtext.

Vivi, who was busy huffing unsuccessfully through another contraction, shook her head.

“Could we
be
any more dysfunctional?” Shelby demanded. “Jesus! What’s with this family and all the secrets?”

It might have been a great teaching moment or a chance to at least explain things to Trip, but Melanie was far too freaked out to do any of those things. The truth about J.J. kept hammering at her brain while she tried her hardest not to let it in.

But she couldn’t forget Shelby’s shriek, “What kind of woman doesn’t even know she’s married to a . . . a
homosexual
?” But she hadn’t. J.J. had been kind and gentle. And their lovemaking had been like that, too. Not a blaze of passion but a warm and encompassing thing. Should that have told her what she should have known? Had she simply been too cowardly to face facts that were difficult? Not now, she told herself. Just drive, don’t think.

She made it through several stoplights and onto 400 south when thoughts of Ira and Ruth crowded in; was he okay? Was he even still alive? How would Ruth cope? With a shake of her head, she pushed those worries aside, too.

She drove as fast as she dared, tuning out Vivi’s panting and the groans that became whimpers. Her anger at her sister was the one thing she could grab hold of—so much of this could be laid at Vivi’s feet—and so she stoked it until it became a solid and tangible thing, something she could cling to. She would see her sister through labor as she’d promised, but she could hardly bring herself to look at her.

“Where is my epidural?” Vivi gasped as the nurse helped her into the hospital gown, then walked her to the delivery room bed. “I need that epidural now!” She gasped again when another contraction grabbed on to her and refused to let go. “And a doctor!” Vivi added, frightened. “Where is Dr. Gilbert?”

She looked to Melanie, who didn’t meet her eye and who clearly wanted to be anywhere but here. The contractions were growing stronger and coming faster. Vivien felt her eyes glaze over with pain and fear.

“I know you’re upset right now,” Vivi panted from the bed. “And I totally get it, Mel. But I need you.” Another pain grabbed hold of Vivi and held on with all its might. She wished she’d taken the time to learn where and how to breathe. She wished this was already over. She wished Melanie would speak to her, but her sister was glaring at her now. Like it was Vivi’s fault that J.J. was gay and that Melanie hadn’t known that he’d been in love with Clay Alexander.

“Mel, please,” she said, horrified to realize she was begging. “I am completely sorry I ever started looking into J.J.’s death. I’m even sorrier that you found out things you didn’t want to know. And that Shelby had to hear it.”

Melanie looked at her then, but she didn’t speak. And she didn’t leave the room to drag someone in with an epidural, either.

“I am also sorry that Ira had a heart attack over it. That I wrote those articles as Scarlett Leigh.” She gasped her way through another contraction, then sent Melanie an imploring and, she hoped, contrite enough look to break through the logjam of anger. “Although I only did it because I had no alternative. And I never, ever, thought of you as being like that. You were completely excepted because . . .”

“Oh, shut up!” Melanie said. “You always have an excuse for what you do. Everybody does. But that doesn’t make the people they shit all over feel any better!”

“I would shut up, Mel, if you would just get me that epidural. And a doctor. I’d definitely shut up for a doctor. These labor pains are”—she gasped as another one took hold and shook her from the inside out—“painful!”

“I believe that’s why they call them labor pains and not labor ‘owies,’ ” Melanie said. “You’re just lucky that Scarlett Leigh didn’t poke fun at the act of giving birth or I’d turn all the other laboring women loose on you.”

“Mel, please! If I had a white flag, I’d wave it. I can’t fight with you and give birth at the same time.” She panted. “Oh, God, don’t they have surrogates for this? I could really use a stand-in right now.”

“All right,” Melanie said and moved closer. “But later you’ll have a lot to answer for.”

“What do we have here?” The voice was male and jovial, but it did not belong to Dr. Gilbert. The doctor who strolled in, not at all in a rush as far as Vivien could see, was Dr. Summers. And he was looking not at Vivi, who lay panting and miserable on the bed, but at Melanie.

“I need an epidural,” Vivi said through the useless panting and breathing. “Now!”

“Well, now,” he said, barely able to take his eyes off Melanie. “Why don’t we take a look and see what’s what?”

A nurse appeared to help Vivi into position, and a sheet was drawn up over her knees as Dr. Summers sat down on a stool and slid into place.

“It won’t be long now,” he said. “You’re dilating nicely. You may not even need . . .”

“Doctor,” Vivien said through teeth that were clenched against the oncoming locomotive of pain. “I want the epidural. Now. Sooner would be even better.”

Melanie moved closer, but which one of them she was approaching was unclear. “Maybe you don’t need it, Vivi. Maybe Bruce is right and . . .”

“I want my epidural now!” she repeated and mercifully an anesthesiologist appeared. Careful not to look at the large needle she’d made the mistake of reading about, Vivi let him lean her forward and swab a spot near the base of her spine.

After that the pain went away and left her alone. She could still feel the contractions, could tell something was happening, but it was all happening at an acceptable distance, muted and manageable. Her mind cleared, now that it wasn’t running in fear from the onrush of pain, and she actually conversed with the doctor whom her sister kept calling Bruce and who tried, rather unsuccessfully, to act as interested in her and the baby he was delivering as he was in Melanie.

VIVI LAY WITH her son cradled against her chest. He was tiny and perfect and he had a wizened face that looked an awful lot like a prune.

“He’s beautiful,” Melanie said. She and the kids stood next to Vivien’s bed, peering down at the two of them.
Her and her son
. She thought the words for the first time and they didn’t frighten her as she’d thought they would.

“He looks kind of like a little old man,” Trip said. “Or a wrinkly peanut. Why is he making that face and scrunching all up like that?”

“He’s going to the bathroom, stupid,” Shelby said. She put a finger out, and the baby grasped it instinctually in one of his tiny hands.

Vivien looked up at them. They all appeared as shell-shocked as she felt. In so many ways their lives had caved in today, the bedrock on which their family had been built crumbling all around them. When she looked into her sister’s eyes, she saw fresh pain mixed with an old sadness, and she had to look away.

“I called Mom and Dad. I just thought they should know they had a new grandson,” Melanie said, reaching out to cup the baby’s head. “And I left another voice mail for Stone. And one for Marty, like you asked me to.”

“Has Stone called back?” Vivi asked.

“No. Not yet.”

“How’s Ira?” Vivi had forgotten in the throes of labor and then she’d been afraid to ask.

“He’s in CCU; they’re trying to get him stabilized. Ruth couldn’t come to the phone, but I spoke to their son. Their daughters are flying in tonight.”

“I hope he’ll be all right,” Vivi said as the nurse came to take the baby back to the nursery. She was so tired she could hardly speak but oddly exhilarated at the same time.

“Me, too,” Melanie said and in just two words managed to remind Vivi that she held her personally responsible for Ira’s heart attack. “I’ll probably stop by there before I come see you tomorrow. Saint Joseph’s is just around the corner. And I’d really like to get hold of Angela.” The tight-lipped look she shot Vivi made it clear that the canceled wedding had been chalked up to her, too.

“Good night, Mel,” Vivien said, too tired to address all that was between them. Her limbs grew heavy and her thoughts slowed. “Have to have a name for him before we leave the hospital,” she murmured. “Wanted to wait for Stone, but . . . you guys’ll have to help.”

Melanie snorted as Vivi’s eyes closed. “Only you could go through an entire pregnancy and never even think about what you were going to call your child.”

Vivi half smiled at the truth of it. Denial certainly was a bitch, but those days were over. And then she was off and dreaming. But like her life her dreams were a mixed bag of soft baby smells and her sister’s pinched face and stark stories from the nightly news that didn’t come with guaranteed happy endings.

RUTH SAT IN the tiny room in CCU watching the blip of Ira’s heartbeats on the monitor. Her children and three of her grandchildren waited out in the waiting room. In the first few days while they’d waited for Ira to stabilize she’d thought she’d lose her mind. Then there’d been the angioplasty, and after that a coronary artery bypass graft. Ruth could hardly keep up with the medical jargon and was grateful that she had a son-in-law who could.

Through it all Ira had floated in and out of consciousness. He was there, but he was not. And although the doctors talked in purposefully cheerful tones and described what they were doing in what should have been reassuring detail, Ruth had the horrible feeling that everyone was convinced Ira was going to die.

“Don’t you dare,” she said to him on the morning of the fourth day as she held his hand and watched the blips pulse across the screen. “After all these years, I finally got you to dance. I’m not letting you wiggle out of it now.”

There was a slight movement beneath Ira’s eyelids and his lips jerked slightly, but even she wouldn’t call them more than reflexive movements. No matter how long she held his hand or how hard she prayed, he rarely even opened his eyes.

“Come on, Ma,” Josh stood in the doorway, his eyes sliding over his father and then scurrying away. None of them could bear how quiet and still Ira was, how small he looked in the hospital bed. As if his life force had already departed and only the husk of him remained.

She had coffee in the coffee shop, with a daughter on either side of her, and sat in the waiting room with whichever family member or friend happened to be there at the time. But she refused to go home until Ira could go with her. When she was allowed back into his cubicle, she held his hand and watched the monitor, refusing to even consider a life without him. After all these years, surely God would not let that happen. Not now when they’d finally settled their differences, when Ira had promised to sell the business and had declared that he was ready for them to sail off into the sunset together. They had places to go and people to meet. Dance competitions to enter. Ruth decided then and there that she would not let Ira off the hook. She would not let him slip away. She explained this to him in no uncertain terms over the next days.