The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes (35 page)

“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 passed, I assumed 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 sturdy 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,
” 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.”

J
ack 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.

“It was fine,” she said.

He paused. “Mom really wants to see you, Cory,” he said finally. “She
needs
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 hell 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 crappy 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 substitute for your real family.”

Touché,
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
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 substituted 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?
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.
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,
Cory. Please go see her.”

“No, and if you keep asking me, I’ll hang up on you, too.”

“All right, all right,” Dru said tiredly. “I won’t ask you any more. It’s just that…” Dru fell suddenly silent.

“Dru?” Corinne prompted her.

“They’re…” Dru was crying, unable to get the words out. Corinne knew how her little sister looked when she cried—her eyes scrunched up, her mouth open in an little inverted U-shape. It always broke her heart.

“Oh, Dru, honey, what?” It didn’t matter what Dru was crying about; her own tears started in sympathy for her.

“I’m so scared, Cory,” Dru managed to say. “They’re building a huge case against Mom. I miss her so much, and she’s going to be in prison forever. Maybe the rest of her life.” Her voice caught on a sob.

Dru was right. The case against their mother was strong and getting stronger by the day. While Vivian’s e-mails contained family trees bearing the names of relatives anxious to meet her, Russ’s were serious and angry, filled with vitriol toward Eve and descriptions of evidence his attorney planned to use against her.

“I’m sorry,” Dru said. “I know you probably feel she
should
be there forever. I might feel the same way if I were you. But she’s such a good person. CeeCee Wilkes deserves to be in jail, but Eve Elliott doesn’t.”

Corinne swallowed her tears. “They’re one and the same person, Dru,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

The night of Dru’s call, the WIGH news showed a tape of Eve limping from a police car into a building. There was resignation in her face, as though she knew she deserved whatever suffering she had to endure. Corinne was mesmerized by the footage, but Ken picked up the remote.

“We don’t need to see this,” he said.

She grabbed his hand. “No,” she said. “I want to.”

Her mother’s wrists looked as swollen as Corinne had ever seen them. Thank God, the guards no longer had handcuffs on her. Eve held her hands close to her body, the way she did when she needed to protect them from bumping into anything. A guard grabbed her arm to either help or hasten her up the steps into the building, and Corinne saw her mother flinch with pain. Someone else might not have noticed it, but Corinne had seen that quick alteration of her features too often to miss it.

The image played over and over again in her mind as she lay in bed that night. She would never sleep. Finally, at two in the morning, she shook Ken’s shoulder.

He rolled over to look at her. “What’s the matter?” He sat up quickly. “The baby?”

She had the sudden, horrible feeling that he would welcome a miscarriage. “No,” she said. “I’ve decided I want to see my mother.”

Ken groaned. “Your mother is dead,” he said.

“Stop that,” she said, annoyed. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“Why in God’s name do you want to see her? It’s just going to make you feel more…conflicted about this whole mess.”

“I guess I’m hoping it will make me feel
less
conflicted.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“I need to understand why she did what she did,” she said. “I want to see her, Ken.”

He sighed. “Be my guest.”

“Will you take me tomorrow? It’s Saturday. I don’t have to work.”

“I told you I think it’s a bad idea. How can you expect me to take you if I think it’s wrong for you?”

“Because you love me,” she said. “Because I want to go and you know I can’t drive there alone.”

Ken stared at the ceiling. “What do you plan to say to her?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t stand seeing those pictures of her on TV.”

“Even felons can look like vulnerable human beings,” Ken said. “Ted Bundy looked like the boy next door.”

“She isn’t Ted Bundy,” she said, and to her own surprise, started to cry.

Ken reached over to pull her into his arms. He stroked her hair for a moment, then sighed. “Okay,” he relented. “I’ll take you tomorrow.”

N
either she nor Ken said a word during the drive to the jail. He might have been angry with her or disappointed or simply tired. She didn’t care. Her mind was on the visit that lay ahead of her. It had been four weeks since she’d seen her mother. The image of her limping from the police car into the building, flinching as the guard grabbed her arm, played repeatedly in her mind. She felt like crying, but she didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to give her mother the gift of caring that much. She’d spent years hardening her heart to Eve Elliott. She needed to be tough with her today. All she wanted was information that would help her understand why everything had happened the way it did.

The guard at the jail wouldn’t let her take her purse into the visiting area with her, so she left it in the car with Ken. He hadn’t offered to go in with her, and that was just as well. She didn’t want him there, even though she could feel her heart speeding up as she sat behind the Plexiglas partition, waiting, hands tightly folded in her lap.

Then she saw her. She was in a wheelchair, being pushed by a guard. She’d aged in the last month. She was only forty-three, but she looked a decade older. When she spotted Corinne, she tipped her head back to say something to the guard, who stopped pushing her. Then she stood up and limped over to the booth.

Mommy.
The word rose in her throat and she choked it back. Eve smiled at her as she sat down, and Corinne saw some of the mother she’d always known in that smile. Eve nodded toward the phone as she picked up the receiver on her side.

“I’m so happy to see you, Cory,” she said.

“You look like you’re in a lot of pain,” Corinne said.

Her mother shrugged. “It’s not too bad. I’ll get my medication soon.”

“I don’t understand how they can keep it from you,” Corinne said. “Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment?”

“Something with the paperwork.” Her mother tucked a lock of her dark hair behind one ear. “I’m sure I’ll be better once I get it. There’s a little too much stress in my life at the moment. And I know there’s been way too much in yours, too,” she added. “Dru told me you’ve met Irving Russell and his daughter.”

“I need to understand why you did what you did.” Corinne didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation about the Russells.

Her mother looked confused. “You mean why I turned myself in?”

“No, Mother. I mean why you kidnapped a woman and stole her baby. Stole
me.
”

Her mother flexed her free hand, open, closed, open again. “From my adult perspective, it’s even hard for me to understand,” she said. “And I doubt I can make you understand. All I can do is tell you.”

“Then tell me.”

Her mother licked her lips, which looked dry and chapped. “I’ve thought a lot about it over the years,” she said. “About why I let myself get involved in the whole mess.” She studied her swollen knuckles. “I think the bottom line is that I wanted to be loved.” She looked through the glass at Corinne. “You know I lost my mother when I was twelve and then spent time in foster homes, right?”

Corinne nodded. She’d known that once but had forgotten.

“My own mother was very loving and…just a wonderful mom,” her mother said. “When she died, I felt lonely for someone who would love me the way she did. The one person who treasured me unconditionally was gone.” She looked past Corinne’s head as though she could see into the past. “When I graduated from high school at sixteen, I went to work as a waitress in a little coffee shop in Chapel Hill.”

“In Chapel Hill?” Corinne asked. “When you brought me to school at Carolina, you said you’d never been there before.”

“One of many lies I told to cover my tracks,” her mother said. “So, I worked as a waitress. I’d never had a boyfriend and I was very…needy. I don’t think I could have put it into words at the time, but I was desperate to have someone love me. Validate me.”

Corinne tried to imagine what it would be like to move from twelve to sixteen feeling love from no one. That was one thing she’d been sure of: love. Sure enough of it that she could, at times, abuse it and know it would still be there for her.

“One day, Tim Gleason came into the coffee shop,” her mother said. “He was twenty-two to my sixteen. He was attentive to me. He took me out and bought me things and was fun to be with. He told me he loved me. No one had said those three words to me since my mother.” Her mother frowned. “I’m not making excuses for anything I did, Cory. I’m just trying to explain why I did it.”

Corinne nodded. “Go on,” she said.

“He made me feel beautiful and smart and…happy. I felt so happy. Shortly after I met him, I received a package containing five thousand dollars in cash.”

“From him?” Corinne was confused.

“I’m sure it was, because his family was wealthy, but he would never tell me. Anyhow, that would have been plenty for me to go to Carolina and not have to work. He’d encouraged me to go and knew I was trying to save enough money to do that. So you can see that he was manipulating me in many different ways.”

Corinne nodded.

“Then he started talking to me about his sister, Andie,” her mother said. She told Corinne how Tim Gleason had lied to her about Andie’s murder of the photographer. “He asked me if I could do a favor for him and his brother and warned me it would be dangerous. They wanted to save their sister the only way they could think of. First I said no, but I was so—”

“No to what?” Corinne cut her off. “What did he ask you to do, exactly? I don’t understand.”

“He asked me to help with the kidnapping of Governor Russell’s wife. Not the actual kidnapping, but guarding her in that little cabin outside New Bern while he and Marty negotiated with Governor Russell.”

“And you said yes?” Corinne couldn’t picture anyone in her right mind agreeing to the scheme. But then, she wasn’t sixteen years old and desperate for love, smitten by someone who seemed to adore her.

“I did. He made it sound neat and simple. I was weak then. I needed him and would do anything I could to please him. To keep him, I guess. I don’t think I knew what I was getting into until they actually brought…Genevieve to the cabin and I realized she was not a character in a play but a real, live human being. And she was pregnant.” Her mother looked into her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cory,” she said.

Corinne turned her head away from her, afraid she was going to cry. What more was there for either of them to say? She already knew the rest of the story. She wanted it to end differently. She wanted to change the unchangeable.

“Did you keep me to have someone to love you?” she asked after a moment.

Her mother bit her lip and looked down at the counter in front of her. “Not consciously,” she said. “All I know is that I was desperate to keep you safe. Your mother said to me, ‘Don’t let her die,’ and I—”

“She did?” Corinne asked. She felt soft inside, hearing the only words her biological mother may ever have spoken about her.

“Yes,” her mother said. “When she knew she was dying…and I believe she knew it…she asked me not to let you die. I fell in love with you very quickly. I’d helped bring you into the world and survive your first few days of life. It gave me a huge emotional attachment to you. I was barely past the age of needing a teddy bear to cuddle with, and you were so much better than that.” She smiled. “It’s hard to describe how desperately I needed to keep you safe. I wanted to be with you every single moment to make sure you were still breathing. I stayed awake all night sometimes to make sure you were. You were so many things to me. You were the most important and most priceless thing in my world. And you were my responsibility. I owed it to your mother to keep you safe. I know I went overboard, honey. I know I created fears in you and I’m so sorry for that. Maybe you needed to cut yourself off from me to make your own path. Maybe that was the right thing for you to do, no matter how hard it’s been for me.”

“Why didn’t the guy—Timothy Gleason—tell the police about you? Why did he protect you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he developed a conscience somewhere along the line and knew he’d been wrong for involving me in the first place. I just don’t know.”

“You could have stayed quiet,” Corinne said. “You didn’t need to admit to anything.”

“I had to,” her mother said simply.

“But, Mom,” Corinne said, “how will you survive this? You can’t go to prison. You’re sick. They won’t give you your medication.”

“I’m all right, honey. I’ll get my meds and I’ll be okay.” Her mother paused for a moment. “Tell me what’s going on with
you,
” she asked.

Corinne couldn’t shift gears that quickly. She looked down at the counter, uncertain what to say.

“You mean besides learning I’m not who I thought I was?” she asked.

Her mother gave her a rueful smile. “I guess there isn’t much room for anything else, is there,” she acknowledged.

“Well, actually, there is,” Corinne said suddenly. “I pressed Ken to let us set a date. And guess what? He told me he never got divorced from Felicia. His wife.” The words spilled out of her, and she was surprised to be taking her mother into her confidence.

“What?” Her mother’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “Oh, honey. Do you mean he’s been lying to you all this time?”

“Lying through the omission of some crucial information,” she said. “He said she was sick and it would have been too hard on her if he divorced her.”

“How about too hard on you if he didn’t?” Her mother looked angry. “Oh, Cory, I’m sorry. I know how it feels to be betrayed by the man you love.”

“I want to have this baby, Mom.”

“Will you still marry him?”

Corinne hesitated. Did she even love him anymore? She wasn’t sure she could ever live alone, with no one to turn to when she needed to drive more than a few blocks from her house. She started to say that she needed him, but wasn’t it need that had pulled her mother to Timothy Gleason? She thought of Ken waiting outside in the car and was filled with resentment.

“I’m so afraid of being alone,” she said.

“Cory,” her mother said, “as long as I’m alive, you’ll never be alone.”

Her mother pressed her palm against the Plexiglas, and almost without thinking, Corinne lifted her own hand and pressed it to the glass as well. Her hand looked smooth and youthful against the misshapened knuckles and swollen wrist of her mother’s. Aside from that, though, their hands were a perfect fit.