The Wedding Tree (27 page)

But he woke up and got dressed and acted just as nice and pretty as you please, playing with the children and making them both laugh. He even helped hide the eggs for Becky's Easter egg hunt and changed Eddie's wet diaper. I thought he might have been in a blackout the day before, because he didn't mention a thing about a baby or another woman. I figured he probably just made the whole thing up to terrify me.

After church, we all gathered at his mama's house for Easter dinner. My mother and father were there, along with my grandmother, and, of course, Charlie's parents and grandmother. I took both a peach pie and a butterscotch pie. We all sat and ate ham and green bean casserole and carrot and raisin salad. Right before we served the desserts, Charlie stood up.

“I have an announcement to make.”

My heart thudded hard in my chest.
Oh, no. Please, God, no.
Maybe it was something to do with his father's business. I looked at my father-in-law, but his face looked just as puzzled as I felt.

“Adelaide and I are havin' another baby.”

Everyone broke into excited chatter. “When?” Mama asked.

“In September,” Charlie said.

“Why, Adelaide. You're not showin' at all!”

“We wanted to keep it a secret because she's been having a bit of a hard time,” Charlie said.

“Oh, my dear!” my mother exclaimed, turning toward me. “What's the problem?”

“I—uh . . .” I was literally speechless. I couldn't believe that he'd just announced such a falsehood like that, so publicly, with no warning.

“Woman troubles,” Charlie said. That was code for bleeding.
And no one—not even mothers and daughters—talked about that back then. Why, when I'd started my period at age thirteen, I'd thought I was dying. My grandmother on my father's side had died of colon cancer, and I thought that's what I had. My mother noticed blood on my underwear the next day when she did the laundry. She handed me a sanitary napkin, told me women had this happen every month, that it was a woman's curse, and I'd just have to wear a pad and bear it.

“What does Dr. Henry say?” Charlie's mother's face was scrunched with worry. I suddenly recalled Charlie telling me she'd miscarried several times after his birth. My own mother had had a difficult labor with me and was unable to have any more children.

“She's not seeing Dr. Henry. She saw a specialist in Mississippi when we went to the lake a few weeks ago.” Charlie turned to his father. “We'll be opening the branch store in Jackson in September and I'll want to be there, so I figured we'd rent a place for a few months. I wouldn't dream of being away from her at a time like this.”

My mother cocked her head and looked at me oddly. “You went to a doctor on a Saturday?”

“Yes. This doctor sees patients six days a week,” Charlie said smoothly.

“You don't have to go to Mississippi, son,” Charlie's dad said. “I can handle that store opening.”

“No, this expansion is my responsibility. I'll go get it started, hire a manager to run it, and then after the baby is born and things are running smoothly, we'll come back here.”

Charlie's father pushed back his chair. “Well, I think this calls for a toast!”

He went to the cupboard in his study, and returned with a bottle of sparkling wine. And everyone toasted and drank to my health, and I sat there, miserable, the lie lying like a boulder on my heart.

“Do you want me to come and stay with you in Mississippi?” my mother asked.

“Thank you, but no,” Charlie said before I could even open my
mouth. “We've talked about it, and we don't want to take you away from Grammie. What would be most helpful would be if you and Mom could take turns keeping Becky and Eddie for us once we get close to the due date.”

“Of course. We'd be thrilled to do that.”

Oh, he was smooth. I never knew how smooth he could be. This wasn't the same Charlie I knew, the insecure, bumbling Charlie. Evil had made him a silver-tongued devil.

I wondered if the other woman had taught him how to lie so adroitly. How many times had he lied to me when he was seeing her? I'd always thought I could see right through him. Somewhere along the line, he'd turned into a world-class deceiver. If I hadn't known he was lying now, I would have been as sucked in as my family; he was just that smooth.

“Mommy—you're havin' a baby?” Becky asked me.

I swallowed. This was the point of no return. It was one thing to lie to my parents, quite another to lie to my child.

Charlie did it for me. “Yes, honey. You're going to have another baby brother or a baby sister.”

“A sister! I want a sister.”

Later, as we were cleaning up, my mother looked me up and down. “My word, child—you're not showing at all. And you must be four months, give or take.”

“You know, Beula was like that,” said my grandmother. “She carried her second baby toward her back. The doctor said he was sitting near her spine. Guess that's what's going on with Adelaide here.”

She reached out her hand to touch my stomach.

Charlie grabbed her arm, stopping her. “The doctor said people should keep their distance from Adelaide's stomach, that she and the baby might be vulnerable to, um, electrical impulses from other people. He said just patting her belly can cause a transfer of electricity that can be harmful.”

“Why, I never heard of such a thing!” my mother exclaimed.

My grandmother and Charlie's mother murmured in agreement.

“Me, neither,” said Charlie, “but this doctor says it's a brand-new medical theory, and since Adelaide's had problems, we want to follow his advice to the letter, no matter how odd it sounds. Can't be too careful.”

“Well, I guess that's right,” my mother said. “But what about the children? She's going to be holding them and picking them up.”

“The doctor said that children don't have near as much of an electrical current as the hands of adults, so that should be all right.”

adelaide

A
nd they believed that?”

I opened my eyes to find myself in the rocker in my bedroom. I'd forgotten Hope was there. I'd forgotten I was talking aloud. It seemed so real, like was I back in the past, just living it all over again.

I nodded. “Antibiotics and X-rays and all the things you take for granted now were brand-new back then, so discoveries about electrical impulses didn't sound like too much of a stretch. But then, no one expected Charlie to lie about a thing like that.” I know I sure hadn't. I hadn't known Charlie was that imaginative.

“What did you use for padding?” Hope asked.

“An old quilt. I cut it up and made a small lump, and sewed tie strings to it. I added little pieces to it as the months went by, making it bigger. Lordy, but it was hot that summer! I was careful, but Becky walked in on me one morning as I was getting dressed. I turned away, flustered, but she'd already seen.

“‘What's that?' she'd asked, pointing.

“I tried to stay calm. ‘It's a bumper for the baby. To keep it from getting hurt. Because the doctor said it's sickly.'

“Becky ran to greet Charlie with the news when he got home. ‘Guess what, Daddy! Mama's wearin' a pad over the baby to keep him safe.'

“Charlie grabbed her. ‘Who else have you told this to?'

“‘No one,' Becky had said.

“‘Well, be sure you don't.'

“‘Why not, Daddy?'

“‘Because we don't talk about undergarments.'

“But I reckon he felt that it was unlikely she'd keep quiet, because he made me go over to my mama's house that night and casually mention I was wearing a pad to protect the baby from electrical impulses. The next day, he went to Jackson to find a rental house. He moved us there at the end of the week, and there we stayed for the next three months.”

•   •   •

That night, I dreamed of my mother. I'd been worrying about facing her in the afterlife. I didn't know what she knew about the non-pregnancy.

“Oh, I knew something was wrong,” she said. In my dream, she was sitting on the back porch swing, pulling beans from a paper bag and snapping them into a red ceramic bowl. “You didn't look a bit happy.”

“Why didn't you say something?”

“I couldn't, dear; it wasn't my place. That would have been meddling in your marriage, and folks just didn't do that. But I knew you two were having problems.” Mother reached into the bag. “Truth is, I was afraid you'd been . . .” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “. . . raped.”

“Mother!”

“Well, you'd occasionally go off by yourself to places a woman shouldn't go without an escort. There were a couple of times you asked me to watch the children, then Mildred Pilcher told me she'd seen you at the lakefront, taking photos of pelicans or geese.” She snapped a bean clean in half. “I was afraid the baby wasn't Charlie's.”

Truth be told, a similar worry had crossed my mind.

“How do you know the baby is even yours?” I'd asked Charlie
when we'd gotten back home from that fateful Easter dinner and the kids were down for a nap.

“I just do.”

“But if this woman slept with you, she might be sleeping with fifty other men, as well.”

“I could say the same thing about you.” Charlie had gone straight for the kitchen cabinet where I'd hidden the scotch, a thundercloud of a scowl darkening his face.

“You know me, Charlie. How well could you possibly know this woman?”

“How well did you know Joe? For all you know, he's actually married.”

The words had shocked me. I'd stared at him for a moment. He was out of his head. When it came to Joe, he was crazy.

But in my dream, my mother calmly swung on the porch swing and pulled another bean from the bag. I reached in and took one, helping her. “It would have meant so much, Mother, if I could have talked to you about things.”

“I know, dear.” She carefully snapped the bean, her face a picture of peace and serenity. “But ladies didn't talk about those things back then.”

I woke up covered in sweat. My mother's beatific expression, her lack of remorse or regret, her apparent complete acceptance of whatever she'd done or not done . . . How could she feel that way about her mistakes, yet be so insistent I fix mine?

I guess it was because she was on the other side. I still had to struggle to get there.

I pushed down the covers and rolled over. It wouldn't be much longer—a couple of months, a year maybe—certainly no more than two or three. Death was growing inside me like a baby waiting to be born. I could feel it, getting stronger. Sometimes the hairpins in my bun vibrated with the knowledge like tuning forks.

I glanced at the alarm clock glowing on the bedside table. Three thirty. There was still a lot of night left to get through. I closed my
eyes and tried to fall back asleep. I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not, but Mother's voice seemed to come out of the air-conditioning vent. “You need to clear everything up before you join us, sweetheart. Becky is counting on it.”

Becky—my beautiful, precious, brilliant Becky, taken from me far too soon. The daughter I'd loved more than life itself, yet never really had understood. I'd always thought that the secret about her real father was the reason there always seemed to be some distance, some friction, between us.

She and Charlie didn't have that problem, not until she was older and determined to be a career woman. To Charlie's credit, he treated her just as well as he treated Eddie when she was little—better, actually. Becky was smart as a whip and serious and hung on Charlie's every word. Eddie, however, was easily distracted and emotional, and Charlie had been harsher with him, trying to toughen him up.

I understood Eddie. I could always read him, always empathize with his emotions. Becky and I, though, seemed to be on a different frequency. Communicating with her was like trying to listen to a radio program and getting lots of static interference. Was the secret about her conception somehow blocking us, or were we just ill-fitting personalities who couldn't really tune in to each other's hearts and minds? Was it my fault? Or did some mothers and daughters, through no fault of their own, just never seem to be tuned to the same channel?

matt

I
'd had a hell of a week at work, so I was glad to just chill with the girls on Saturday. Unfortunately, their idea of chilling involved having me braid their hair so they could look like Von Trapp siblings. Apparently they'd watched
The Sound of Music
with Peggy while I was at the fete.

“Ow, that hurts!” Zoey said as I finished tightening the elastic band in her hair.

“Sorry, sweetie.”

Her eyes filled with dismay as she regarded herself in the hallway mirror. “It's all crooked and lumpy.”

Sadly, it was true. One pigtail was lower than the other, and a clump of hair was pouching up above the other one. I took the comb and tried to smooth the lump to no avail. “Maybe we should go across the street and let your grandmother do it.”

“No. I want Jillian.”

“She's not here.”

“She would be if you'd marry her.”

I was spared from having to answer by a knock on the kitchen door. Sophie opened it.

“Snowball!” she exclaimed. “You came!”

I followed Zoey around the corner and saw Hope holding her grandmother's little dog. My heart picked up speed. “Hey there.”

“Hey.”

“Snowball wanted to come see me,” Sophie said. “She was barkin' through the fence and Hope was in her backyard, so I asked if she could come over.”

“Sophie, you shouldn't be bothering the neighbors.”

“It's no bother,” Hope said. “And she's exactly right. Snowball wanted to pay a visit.” She set the dog on the floor and held out a small ball to Sophie. “I'm sure she'd love to play outside with you.”

“Me, too!” Zoey said. Both girls ran out the back door, Von Trapps forgotten, the dog following happily behind.

“They've been begging me for a dog of their own,” I said, just to have something to say. Seeing Hope scrambled my thoughts.

“You should get them one. It'd be good for them to have a pet.”

I noncommittally lifted my shoulders.

Hope's eyebrows rose. “Don't you like dogs?”

“I think they're great. It's just . . . Christine wasn't a dog person.”

To her credit, Hope didn't say “So?” She didn't even look at me like I was an idiot. She didn't need to. I heard how ridiculous my comment sounded as soon as I said it.

“I guess it would make me feel . . . disloyal or something,” I tried to explain. “As if the girls were being raised contrary to the way she would have done it. I don't know if Peggy and Griff . . .” I stopped myself. I ran a hand down my face. “I'm realizing how lame my reasoning is as I'm talking. Guess it's time to move on, huh?”

Her gaze was like being wrapped in a blanket taken straight out of a warm clothes dryer. “There are no timelines for these things.”

When was the last time I'd felt okay after sounding like a dunderhead in front of someone? I hated sounding sappy or being wrong, and yet Hope made me feel all right about it. I gave a self-conscious smile. “Yeah, well, I guess old habits die hard. I'll give it some thought.”

We stood there, just looking at each other for a moment. “It's good to see you,” I said.

“Good to see you, too. I hope I'm not interrupting. Gran's taking
a nap, and I thought I could use the chance to touch up the mural and hang the hardware for the canopies. I'm nearly finished.”

“The girls will be so thrilled. But I'm going to miss having you over here so much.”

“Even though you're hardly ever here when I am?”

“I like the idea of you being here,” I said. “I think about you a lot.”

The air around us heated. Her mouth curved in a smile. “What do you think?”

“About doing this.” And just like that, I bent down and kissed her. It seemed like the most ordinary thing in the world, but the sensations it stirred in me were anything but ordinary. Her mouth was soft and succulent, and when her arms wound around my back, it felt like time and place just melted away.

The patter of small feet warned of a child's imminent arrival. We both pulled back as the back door opened.

Hope's lips were red, her cheeks rosy. “I, uh, better get to work on the mural.” She turned and fled up the stairs to the girls' bedroom as Zoey walked in.

Zoey looked at me accusingly. “Why were you standing so close?”

I didn't think she'd seen us, but I didn't dare deny it. “None of your business,” I said.

“Well, I don't think that's 'propriate.”

“What?”

“My teacher taught us about 'propriate and in'propriate behavior. Like how you don't yell and run around indoors, and how you don't let strangers get too close and 'vade your personal space. An' I don't think that you and Hope were being 'propriate, 'cause you were 'vading personal space.”

I have to say, I was flustered. “I, um . . .”

“Besides, I want you to marry Aunt Jillian,” Zoey continued.

This refrain was getting tiresome. “I've told you, sweetheart. I don't like Jillian like that.”

“Maybe if you kissed her, you would,” Zoey persisted.

Damn. Maybe she
had
seen us. “It just doesn't work that way.” I rubbed my hand across my face. “Hey—I thought you wanted to play with Snowball. What are you doing in here?”

“I came in to get her a bowl of water in case she's thirsty.”

“That's very responsible of you.”

She nodded solemnly. “I'm responsible enough to take care of a dog of my own.”

Zoey had the makings of an excellent attorney. In the span of less than a minute, she'd thrown me off balance and made her case. I would hate to come up against her in court. I pulled a disposable plastic bowl out of the cabinet and handed it to her.

She carried it to the sink and stood on tiptoe to fill it. “Come outside and play with us.”

I thought about Hope upstairs in their bedroom and was tempted to decline—but I couldn't trust myself not to invade her personal space again. Besides, Zoey was watching me closely.

“Are you playing Von Trapp family?” I asked. “Because I refuse to wear lederhosen and sing.”

“What's lederhosen?”

“Shorts with suspenders.”

Her face broke into a sunshine smile. “Well, you don't have to wear that, but I bet we can make you sing.”

It was not a bet I was willing to take. Because the truth was, my girls could coerce me into doing just about anything.

Anything, that is, except get involved with Jillian—or keep my distance from Hope.