Necessary Lies (37 page)

“Yes,” I said. Then, as if it explained everything, I added, “My husband’s a doctor.”

I parked the car in the driveway. “You wait here while I speak to my maid, all right? It’s better if I don’t introduce you.”

She looked past me toward the house. “You’ll be right back?”

“No more than five minutes,” I promised. I picked up my purse and briefcase from the seat and started toward the house, wondering what in God’s name I was doing. Had I just kidnapped Ivy? I felt like a teenager planning a wild party after her parents left for the weekend. Whatever I’d done, there was no turning back, and my legs were rubbery as I crossed the yard. How long before Ann got to the house and discovered Ivy was gone? How many questions could Nonnie endure before she gave in with the truth? I needed to call Gavin right away.

I walked in the front door to the foyer. Angeline peered out from the kitchen, her hand to her throat and her doe eyes round in her face.

“You gave me a start!” she said, then chuckled. “Why you home in the middle of the day? You sick?”

“No, no,” I said, setting my briefcase on the floor by the entry table. “I’m fine, but I decided to take some time off. And that means
you’re
taking sometime off, too.” I put my purse on the table and reached inside for my wallet. “I’ll pay you for the rest of the week, but I want you to take it off.”

“What do you mean, ‘take it off’?”

“You don’t need to work the rest of the week. It’s just me here, with Dr. Forrester out of town, so it’s silly for you to work.” I handed her the bills, double what I would have paid her for a week’s work, and she gave me a suspicious look.

“What you got planned?” she asked. She was too smart for her own good.

“A long bath followed by a long nap,” I said, “and I’m dying to get started, so collect your things and go on home.” Her purse was on the table and I handed it to her and guided her toward the door.

“My sweater,” she said, pointing to the foyer closet.

“Go ahead,” I said, hoping the impatience in my voice wasn’t too obvious.

“When you want me back?” she asked as she took her sweater from the hanger, and I realized she was afraid I was letting her go permanently.

“Sometime next week,” I said. “I’ll call you. You still have a job, Angeline. Don’t worry.”

She put on her sweater and was finally gone. I waited until she’d walked out of sight in the direction of the bus stop before heading back to my car. I pulled open the rear door where we’d put the grocery bag with Ivy’s clothes. “Come in,” I said to her, lifting the bag into my arms.

She was slow as she got out of the car, and seeing her now, away from the farm, she suddenly looked enormously pregnant. I rested my free hand across the small of her back as we walked. Once inside, I wouldn’t let her lift a finger. I needed to keep her safe and healthy.

She was a little out of breath as we climbed the few stairs to my porch and I kept a careful eye on her, remembering her seizure on the day we walked across the dunes, but she seemed fine. In the foyer, she stood and looked around her.

“I ain’t never seen nothing like this house,” she said. “It’s bigger than the Gardiners’ house and it’s so empty!”

“Empty?”

“There ain’t things everywhere. It’s clean, like.”

Remembering the Gardiners’ house with its knickknacks and quilts on every surface and the deer head on the living room wall, I thought I understood what she meant. The truth was, I didn’t spend enough time at home to clutter it up with anything. With Angeline instantly cleaning up any small mess we might make, our house looked like a museum.

“I’ll show you around and then we’ll get you settled in the guest room. Which is upstairs.” I was suddenly worried about my plan. “There are a lot of stairs,” I said, pointing to the staircase. “Please go up them very slowly. Nurse Ann said it’s important that you rest, so you can stay up there and I’ll bring you anything you need.”

Ivy was looking all around her. To the right was the living room, with its blue striped wallpaper. To the left the dining room, where we’d yet to entertain Robert’s colleagues and their wives around the big table. The cabbage-rose wallpaper was still up in there and I remembered saying to Robert, “That will be the first thing we need to change.” We’d changed nothing. I felt a stab of guilt, remembering Robert’s dream for our lives in this house and knowing they would not come true because of me. I wasn’t the right girl for the lifestyle he wanted. If only I’d realized that before I married him.

“It’s so pretty,” Ivy said as she took another few steps down the hall and peered into the pine-paneled den. “You have a television!” she said.

“Have you never seen a TV before?”

“Oh, sure I’ve seen one. I never seen one with a picture, though.”

“Why don’t you watch it while I call the lawyer?” I pointed to Robert’s chair and ottoman. She’d be able to put her feet up. “Have a seat and I’ll bring you a Pepsi Cola.” I remembered she’d been eating a sandwich when I arrived. “You must be hungry, too. How about a grilled-cheese sandwich?”

She looked up at me as she sat down. “I can make it myself,” she said, “but I ain’t really hungry. I’m too shook up.”

“No, honey, you just sit.” I turned on the television.
Guiding Light
was on. “This is a soap opera,” I said. “Do you know what that is?”

“Made-up stories about people? I heard of them.” She was looking out the window instead of at the television.

“Right. You can change the channel if you want with this knob”—I tapped the knob on the TV to get her attention back—“but it would be best if you didn’t get up, okay? I’ll be right back.”

I walked into the kitchen and stood leaning against the counter, letting out a long anxious breath. I was going to land in jail.
Please, Nonnie, please don’t tell
. Even if she did tell, she’d given her permission. That would be my defense, although I thought of Charlotte telling me to leave the office and knew that nothing I’d done in the last couple of hours was defensible.

My hands shook as I sliced the cheese. I smeared butter on the bread and cooked the quickest grilled-cheese sandwich I’d ever made in my life. I put it and a bottle of Pepsi on a tray and carried it back into the den, where I found her nibbling her thumbnail.

“First time I get to see television and I can’t pay no mind to it,” she said. “Did you call the lawyer?”

“I’m going to do that right now,” I said.

“He’ll make me do it, though, won’t he? Have the operation?”

I shook my head. “He can’t make you do anything.”

“But he’s got to do what the law says if he’s a law man.”

“He’s not … that’s not what a lawyer does. Don’t worry. He’s there to help us.” I hoped I was telling her the truth.

She looked hard at me. “I’m scared you brung me here to trap me,” she said. “You just made up about the lawyer helping me.”

I sat down. “Ivy,” I said, “I’ve been honest with you and I’ll continue to be honest with you. I promise you that. Mary Ella was sterilized before I got involved and I told her the truth, didn’t I? It hurt her and I’m so sorry about that, but I thought she should know the truth, even if it hurt. And I’ll tell you the truth, too.”

She looked at the TV for a moment and I could tell she was thinking about what I said.

“You took Baby William away,” she said. “That was the worst thing you could of done to Mary Ella.”

“I know, and I’m sorry about how much that hurt her, but William needed protection.”

“I ain’t forgiving you for that,” she said.

“You don’t have to, Ivy.” I stood up. “Time to make that call.”

Back in the kitchen, I found Gavin’s office phone number in the phone book, dialed the number, and sat down on one of the breakfast nook benches.

“Parker and Healy,” a receptionist answered.

“I’d like to speak with Gavin Parker, please. This is Mrs. Robert Forrester.”

“Mr. Parker is on vacation all week,” she said.

I pressed my hand to my mouth to keep from screaming.

“Ma’am?” she said. “Can I take a message to give him when he gets back?”

“I really need to speak to him,” I said. “This is an emergency. How can I get in touch with him?”

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t. He’s out of the country. Mr. Healy is here, though. Would you like to speak to him?”

Did I dare tell a stranger what I’d done? No. I couldn’t entrust this to someone I didn’t know. I didn’t even know Gavin very well. He was nice. He liked me. I was counting on those two facts to get me through this. To get
Ivy
through it.

“Ma’am?” the receptionist said. “Are you still there?”

I felt frozen on the phone. I wanted to call again and have her come up with a different answer. This one felt unreal.

“If you could call Mr. Parker and tell him that Jane Forrester needs to speak with him, I think he’d—”

“He’s on a cruise with his parents and daughter, ma’am,” she said. “There’s no way to reach him. But I’m sure Mr. Healy could help you.”

“No,” I said. “No, thank you. I’ll call back on Monday.”

I got to my feet and hung up the phone, staring at it for a moment as though it might tell me what to do. Today was Tuesday. Could I keep Ivy here nearly a whole week? I’d have to. The one thing I wouldn’t allow to happen was for Ivy to end up as Paula’s client.

“What’s wrong?”

I looked up to see Ivy standing in the doorway holding her tray.

I took the tray from her and set it down next to the sink. “Sit down, honey,” I said, motioning to the breakfast nook.

She looked at the bench. “I don’t think I’ll fit,” she said. “This belly don’t fit too many places no more.”

I saw that she was right. The table and benches were built snugly into the small space. “We’ll go back in the den,” I said.

“You ain’t got no color in your face at all,” she said as we walked. “What did he say?”

“He’s not there,” I said. “He’s on a cruise.”

“Like a ship?”

“Exactly.” I guided her back to Robert’s chair in the den and turned off the TV. “He won’t be back until Monday, so you and I need a plan.”

She looked frightened. “If I go back, you said Nurse Ann will come take me away.”

“You can’t go back,” I said. “First, Nurse Ann plans to take you to the hospital, and second, Paula—the caseworker taking over for me—will definitely think you should be sterilized.”

“But what do I do?”

“Well, you’ll stay here. That’s the one thing … maybe the only thing … we know for sure. You stay here until I can talk to Mr. Parker. The lawyer.”

She hugged her arms around her baby. “I’m so scared,” she said.

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I am, too. But we’re in this together,” I added. “You’re not alone.”

*   *   *

She watched TV while I made up the guest room bed. I’d have to buy groceries tomorrow. I hadn’t planned to shop this week, knowing Robert would be gone. I’d be happy with a bowl of cereal or a can of soup, but now I needed to cook. Maybe I could also buy some games for us to play or a jigsaw puzzle Ivy could put together.

I was rooting around in the refrigerator for something to cook for dinner when I heard a car door slam in the driveway. I looked out the kitchen window to see my mother walking across the yard, carrying a white paper bag.

“Mrs. Forrester!” Ivy called from the den. She sounded afraid, and I guessed she’d heard the car door, too.

“It’s all right, Ivy,” I said as I walked past the den to the front door. “It’s my mother. I won’t let her in.”

“Hi, Mom,” I said when I opened the door. I knew she was on her way home from work. Her reading glasses hung on a chain around her neck and the skirt of her green dress was creased.

“I was at the bakery and saw that bread you like so I picked up a loaf for you,” she said, handing me the white bag.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I didn’t expect to see you home from work this early. I thought I’d have to leave it by the door.” She was peering past me, and I knew she expected me to invite her in.

Instead, I walked out onto the porch and shut the door behind me. “My, it’s a beautiful day!” I said. “I had the afternoon off so I’ve been straightening up inside and didn’t notice how nice the weather is. Want to sit?” I motioned to the rockers. I couldn’t just tell her to go.

She gave me a look that told me I was not behaving exactly like myself, but I ignored it and took a seat in one of the rockers.

She sat down in the rocker next to me. “Where’s Angeline?” she asked. “Why are you doing the straightening up? There can’t be much to straighten with Robert gone.”

“Well, he only just left,” I said, “and I decided to give Angeline the week off. I really don’t need her with him gone.”

“Why don’t you have dinner with me all this week?” She looked excited by the suggestion. “I’ll cook. The only day I have to work late is Thursday. It’s better than both of us eating alone.”

If Ivy hadn’t been with me, I’d welcome the invitation. My mother was lonely and I was a mess. We needed each other right now. But I couldn’t do it. I rarely lied to her, even when I was young. Our parents always listened to Teresa and me without judging. They made it safe to tell the truth. Today, though, I was going to have to lie.

“Mom,” I said, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but this week I have so much to catch up on. Letter writing and all the things I don’t have time to do when Robert’s here.”

“Hmm.” My mother looked out at the sidewalk where a little boy was riding a bicycle with training wheels. “I guess I’m too used to having evenings to myself,” she said. “Ever since your father died, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to crave a little time to yourself. I have too much of it.”

I reached over to rest my hand on hers. I felt horribly cruel. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “How about we pick one night this week to do something together?” Ivy would have to be left on her own one night. I thought I should make it later in the week so she’d be more comfortable and trusting. “How about Friday night?”

“We could go out to dinner and a movie,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

“Something to look forward to.” I smiled. I loved her so much. I hated that I couldn’t tell her what was happening. It would have felt so good to pour it all out to her, but I didn’t dare. I’d have to keep everything to myself until I spoke to Gavin.