The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes (37 page)

“D
ru told me you asked Ken to leave.” Her mother sat on the other side of the Plexiglas, the phone to her ear. She’d had her first injection of her medication and already looked a little better.

“I did,” Corinne said.

“How are you managing alone?”

“So far, so good. I now have the most intricate alarm system on the block. And I changed all my locks.”

Ken had come back the night before, ostensibly to pick up more of his things, but really to beg her to take him back. The divorce from Felicia would be final in a couple of weeks, he said. They could be married the next day if she wanted. But although she’d had to have a friend do her grocery shopping for her, and she’d had to take a taxi to the jail rather than drive, she wasn’t going to budge.

“I’m proud of you, Cory,” her mother said.

“I think I’m ready to see a therapist,” Corinne said. “I’m starting a new position in September and it involves travel around Wake County and I want to do it, but I don’t see how I can if I can’t even drive to the grocery store.”

Her mother nodded with a smile. “Good for you,” she said. “What’s the new position? And how will the baby fit into taking a new job?”

Corinne described the job and the child-care arrangements she was looking into for the baby. “I’m scared I can’t pull this off,” she said.

“Talk about stress,” her mother agreed. “But I think it’s great you’re giving it a try and great that you’re planning to find a therapist. You want someone who—” She stopped herself. “Do you want me to tell you what I think you need or let you figure it out on your own?” she asked.

Corinne smiled. “Good catch, Mom,” she said. “But please tell me. All I know is that I don’t want to have to go back through my childhood and pick apart every little incident, like I did with the woman I saw when I was in college. Especially now that the whole world knows how my childhood started.”

“You’re right,” her mother said. “You don’t need that. You need someone who’ll work fast and focus on your fears. You’re very strong right now and you need someone who will make good use of your strength.”

Corinne recognized her mother’s “therapist voice,” and for the first time in years, she didn’t recoil from it.

“So how do I find someone?” she asked.

“Call Valerie,” she said, referring to a family friend who was also a student counselor at the university. “Ask her to do a little research to find someone for you in Raleigh.”

“Can I get well enough by next September?” she asked. “I’ve been so screwed up for so long.”

“You’re not screwed up, honey,” her mother said. “Not in the least. You have something to work out. Everybody has some issue to work out. Yours just gets in the way more than most. And look at all you’ve accomplished in spite of it. You’ll need to work hard. The therapist won’t be a magician, but if you get the right one and you put your mind to the task, you can do it.” Her mother looked delighted to be giving her guidance. She switched the phone from one hand to the other. Corinne knew that her hands ached when she held the phone too long. “Here’s my two cents’ worth of advice for now,” she said. “Can you think of a time you felt really brave?”

“No.” She laughed.

“A time when you felt self-confident and in control?” Her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Corinne leaned her head back and studied the ceiling, thinking. “In the classroom,” she said. “I know what I’m doing in front of twenty kids.”

Her mother smiled. “That would have most people shaking in their boots,” she said.

“I love it,” Corinne said, and she meant it.

“The next time you’re afraid of something, remember how you feel in front of a class of kids. Remember everything about it. How the classroom smells and sounds and especially that calm feeling you have inside.”

“It’s more like an excitement,” Corinne corrected her. “A good excitement.”

“Even better. Remember that positive excitement you feel and try to carry that feeling with you into the new situation. Think of this as a mantra—‘Carry the confidence.’ Say that to yourself when you’re afraid of something, and let it remind you of how you feel in front of a class of kids.”

“Hmm,” Corinne said. “Is this advice from Counseling One-O-One?”

Her mother shook her head. “It’s something I learned way before I was in college,” she said. She grew quiet, her smile fading.

“Mom?” Corinne didn’t like the sudden change in her.

“Oh, Cory,” her mother said.

“What’s the matter?”

Her mother let out a sigh. “Of all the skills and techniques I learned as a counselor, that one…” She hesitated again.

“What’s wrong?” Corinne asked.

“I’ve used this technique for so long, I’d forgotten where I learned it,” her mother said finally. “Before I helped kidnap Genevieve…your mother…Tim and Marty Gleason and I spent the night with some friends of theirs who were living underground, for a reason I never did know. The woman—her name was Naomi—talked to me about guarding your mother. I said I was afraid and she told me to think about a time I felt brave and take that feeling into the situation with me. It worked. It helped.”

Corinne leaned away from the Plexiglas, horrified.

“Of course, since that time, I’ve learned much more about the technique,” her mother said. “I’ve learned to make it much more elegant, but the basics are still the same. Take that old calm, confident feeling with you into the new situation. I used it or a variant of it with clients all the time.” She knit her eyebrows, looking hard at Corinne. “I used it for evil during the kidnapping,” she said. “Now you can use it for good.”

The idea sounded more palatable when put that way. “I’ll try,” she said. “When you used it for…the kidnapping, what did you choose as the time you felt brave?”

“Staying with my mother while she died.”

“Oh, Mom. You were only…twelve?”

Her mother nodded. “I was brave then,” she said. “And that’s the feeling I’m using to get me through every day in here.”

Corinne stared at her small, courageous mother. There was so much about her she didn’t know. So much she’d never taken the time to know. What if her mother was locked up forever and she never got the chance?

A
FedEx delivery woman was on the front steps of the house when Corinne got out of the taxi after visiting her mother.

“Glad I caught you,” the woman said as Corinne walked toward her. “You need to sign for this.” She held out a package about the size of a shoe box. Corinne noticed the Charlottesville return address as she signed the form.

“Thanks,” she said, handing the clipboard back to the woman.

She carried the package into the house and opened it in the kitchen. Inside were three small boxes and an envelope. In the envelope was a short note from Irving Russell and a check for three thousand dollars.

If you won’t take your money in one lump sum, I hope you’ll take it in bits and pieces,
he’d written.
The contents of the boxes belonged to your mother.

For a brief, surreal moment, she felt perplexed over how he had gotten hold of anything belonging to her mother. Then she realized he was referring to Genevieve.

She opened the first box to find an emerald-and-diamond ring. The second held a sapphire necklace. The third, a strand of seed pearls. The jewelry was exquisite, and she spread it out on the ceramic tile top of the kitchen table. She studied it for a while, wondering if she could ever wear it. She wanted to. She wanted to feel the jewelry that had touched her birth mother’s skin against her own.

The check lay in the center of the table, and she pulled it toward her, studying Russ’s illegible signature. Would he forgive her if he knew what she was about to do with his money? Would Genevieve?

It was growing dark out, so she checked all the doors and windows in what had quickly become her evening ritual. Then she sat down on her bed and dialed her parents’ number.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, when Jack answered.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said. “I hear you saw Mom today. She’s thrilled that you’re visiting her, you know.”

“She looked a little better.”

“Finally got her meds,” her father said.

Corinne hesitated a moment, then plowed ahead before she changed her mind.

“I have three thousand dollars I want to contribute to Mom’s legal expenses, Dad,” she said. “And, also…” She tried not to think about the confines of the witness stand, the tension of a courtroom. “I want to testify in her defense.”

T
alking to Jack was one thing. Talking to her biological father would be another. It took her until nine o’clock that night to get up the nerve. She sat at the kitchen table, the jewelry still displayed in front of her, and dialed his number.

He answered the phone himself.

“Hello, Russ,” she said, “this is Corinne.”

“Corinne! Hi!” He sounded excited to hear from her. “Did you get the package?”

“Yes, and thank you very much. The jewelry is beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like to have something that belonged to your mother.”

“Did she wear these pieces a lot?” She fingered the emerald ring. She felt anxious. She should have tried that carry-the-confidence technique in this conversation.

“The sapphire necklace most of all,” he said.

“I love them,” she said. “And I’m very grateful for the money. But I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” he asked. “I hope you know you can ask me for anything.”

She doubted he’d still feel that way when he heard the purpose of her call.

“I know.” She drew in a breath. “I’ve been talking to my…” She wasn’t sure how to refer to Eve. Adoptive mother wasn’t accurate. “To Eve,” she said. “And I’ve realized that she was very young when everything happened, and I really don’t want her to suffer.” She cringed, worried that her words sounded hollow and somehow insulting.

Russ didn’t respond right away, and she guessed she was right.

“Have you forgotten what she did?” he asked finally.

“No, of course not,” she said. “But I also can’t forget all the years she’s been my mother.”

“You yourself said she’d been a bad mother.”

“I don’t think I said that,” she said. Had she? “I think I said that her overprotectiveness caused me problems, but that’s not the same as being—”

“Has someone gotten to you?” Russ interrupted her. His voice was sharper now. “Has her attorney called you? Or your adoptive father?”

“No.” She felt as if she were shrinking. Her voice grew smaller as his grew louder. “No one’s gotten to me,” she said. “I’m just calling to ask you not to be too hard on her. I know you’re furious at her and I understand that,” she added quickly, “but I—”

“I’m disappointed, Corinne,” he said, and she shut her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I’m expressing myself very well.”

“I’d like you to think about what it was like for me to lose my wife the way I did,” he said. “What it was like for Vivian to lose her mother that way. How it was for us to live with uncertainty for twenty-eight years. And most of all, I’d like you to think about what it was like for your mother—your real mother—to die that way and that young. Imagine being eight months’ pregnant and being kidnapped and going into labor with a teenaged kidnapper the only person there to help you. And you know you’re at high risk for dying, as is your baby. You imagine all that, all right? Then call me back and tell me how you think I should treat your so-called mother.”

The line went dead.
Ouch.
She was no match for him, and her mother’s attorney would probably be no match for his.

She lay in bed that night, her hand on her belly and did what he’d asked her to. She imagined herself five months from now, when she’d be eight months’ pregnant. She imagined being stolen from the parking lot at Carolina by two strange young men, driven in the dark hours to a cabin in the woods and left in the care of a sixteen-year-old girl. She imagined herself going into labor, but found it very hard to get in touch with what that would be like. It didn’t matter, because the person she found herself feeling sorriest for was the teenage girl, in so far over her head that she had no idea what to do.

Dear Corinne,

Dad and I are hurt and confused. We understand that you still care about Eve Elliott, but how can you testify for her when we are trying so hard to have justice served in the wrongful death of my mother? Your mother. I don’t understand this. I’m asking you to refrain from testifying for her so that justice can be served.

Vivian

S
he didn’t bother to respond to the e-mail Vivian sent her late that night. She and Vivian would have bickered nonstop as kids, she decided. And she would have rebelled against Irving Russell. She might not have had panic attacks if she’d grown up in that family, but she doubted the three of them would be on speaking terms by now.

She turned on the television in the bedroom while getting dressed the next morning. The
Today Show
was on and Matt Lauer was interviewing an attorney she’d never seen before.

“You know, there’s the issue that Eve Elliott was only sixteen at the time of the kidnapping,” the attorney said, “and that she’s been a model citizen as an adult, but the prosecution is mounting a massive offense. You’ve got to feel for the Russell family. They just went through this with Timothy Gleason and they thought everything was wrapped up tight. Then Eve Elliott shows up with her own part of the story.”

“She didn’t have to confess, though,” Matt Lauer said. “Does she get points for that?”

“Oh, sure. She won’t get the death penalty. Her attorneys can make the case that she was under the control of Timothy Gleason. But her real blunder, if you want to use that word, was that she stole the baby. She knew what she was doing and she had twenty-seven years to correct the mistake. The prosecution’s going to use that to their advantage.”

“So what do you think?” Lauer asked. “Life in prison?”

“That’s a good bet,” the attorney replied.

So, her mother’s life had become something to bet on. Corinne imagined office workers standing around the water coolers, wagering on the outcome of tomorrow’s preliminary hearing.

She walked into the kitchen, started the coffee brewing, poured cereal into a bowl and sat down at the table. She had a plan, and she thought briefly of calling Ken to help her with it, but that would be a cop-out. This was something she had to do alone.

Closing her eyes, she imagined standing in front of a classroom of twenty kids at the start of a new reading lesson. She could smell the crisp-air scent of the squirmy fourth-grade bodies and see their rosy skin. She imagined looking down at the stack of new textbooks resting on her desk. Her breathing was even, her heart rate a little elevated with the excitement of teaching a new lesson. She knew exactly what she needed to do and how to do it.

Standing up, she left her cereal on the table and turned off the coffeemaker without pouring herself a cup. “Carry the confidence,” she said as she picked up her car keys from the counter. “Carry the confidence.”

It was one hundred and fifty highway miles from Raleigh to Charlottesville. She hadn’t driven on the highway since that day she’d managed to take the 540 expressway to work. Cars whizzed past her as she pulled gingerly into the traffic, stealing her breath away. She was going far too slowly, and she felt the wind from the other cars smacking into the side of her little Honda. The trucks were worse. She felt as if she were choking. How often had she felt that way? Yet had she ever actually choked? No. Never.

“Carry the confidence.” She repeated the mantra to herself. It helped, but even so, she had to pull off four times in the first thirty miles to gather her courage around her again. At the side of the road, she’d tell herself that her staccato heartbeat was the same as she felt when about to teach a new lesson. She’d imagined being in front of the class again. She was getting good at picturing the scene, feeling herself a part of it. It became easier each time she did it.

For the last twenty miles, she didn’t need to pull off the road at all, and soon she was in the familiar territory of Charlottesville. She thought of stopping home to see if her father was there. He’d be stunned to know she’d driven a hundred and fifty miles alone! She could hardly believe it herself. There was no time to stop anywhere, though, and frankly, she didn’t want to let anyone in on her plan. She couldn’t risk being told it was foolhardy. She didn’t care if it was. It was what she had to do.

She knew the grounds well, and she parked in the lot closest to Madison Hall. She felt so much older than the students as she walked toward the building. Older and wiser. Once in Madison Hall, she quickly found the president’s office, and she walked inside.

The receptionist was on the phone, but she looked up when Corinne entered.

“Oh my God,” she said into the phone. “I’ll call you back.”

She set down the phone, then stood up and grasped Corinne’s hand.

“You’re Corinne,” she said, smiling. “I’ve seen your pictures, but I didn’t realize how much you looked like Vivian until now.”

“Is President Russell in?” she asked.

The receptionist glanced at the blinking buttons on her phone. “He’s on a call. You have a seat and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Was there a chance he would refuse to see her? She saw the door to the receptionist’s left, the name Irving Russell on a plaque next to it.

“I need to see him right away,” she said, moving toward the door.

“Wait!” The woman put out an arm to stop her, but Corinne dodged it. “Let me call him and—”

Corinne pushed the door open. Russell was indeed on the phone and he looked up in surprise.

“I’ll have to get back to you,” he said into the receiver. “Right. Goodbye.” Setting the phone on its cradle, he stood up. “Corinne,” he said.

“I need to talk with you.”

“Good.” He motioned toward a chair. “I think we do need to talk in person. E-mail and phone calls don’t do the job sometimes, and I apologize for hanging up on you last night. You touched a raw nerve in me.”

She sat down across the desk from him, knowing she’d be touching the same nerve again today. She had to take control of this meeting. If she didn’t, he would run right over her. She folded her hands in her lap. Her palms were damp.

“You and Vivian talk about love like it’s automatic,” she began. “As though one day I know you as the president of UVA, the next day I know you’re my father and I’m supposed to automatically love you.”

“I would never ask or expect that of you,” he said, “but for me, it
is
automatic. You’re my flesh and blood. That’s enough for me. That’s why I want to give you…” He held his hands out to his sides. “I want to give you the world,” he said. “I want to give you more of the jewelry that belonged to your mother. Vivian has most of it, and some of it went to Genevieve’s sisters—your aunts. But I saved some pieces because…I guess I hadn’t given up on Genevieve still being alive. I hoped that someday she’d be able to wear it again. It never occurred to me that I would have the opportunity to give it to my daughter.” He smiled, and she felt deeply sorry for him. He’d been through so much, but she couldn’t be deterred from her reason for this visit.

“I apologize that love isn’t so automatic for me,” she said. “I need more time for that.”

“That’s fine, Corinne,” he said kindly. “I understand. Vivian does, too.”

“I think you see me as someone I’m not,” she said. “You see me as your daughter. Not as Corinne.”

He cocked his head at her. “True,” he said. “You
are
my daughter.”

“But I’m not going to be your fantasy daughter.”

He laughed. “Few children turn out to be our fantasy children,” he said.

“I want you to try to understand who I
am.
” She leaned forward in the chair. “I’m a good person. I’m a really great teacher. I appreciate the money you sent, because I know that you want me to have it because you care about me. About your daughter. And I would love to own and wear my mother’s jewelry. I appreciate all of that. But if you really want to do something for me, it would be to help me free my…free Eve.”

He lost his curious smile.

“I
love
her,” she said. “I need her in my life. She did a terrible thing. She—”

“Things,” he said. “Plural.”

She wouldn’t argue with him. “She did terrible things,” she agreed. “She knows that and she’s lived an exemplary life to try to make up for it. What purpose does it serve to keep her locked up?”

“It’s payment, Corinne,” he said calmly. “You commit a crime, you have to pay.”

Crying had not been part of her plan, but she felt the tears well up in her eyes. Her throat tightened around her vocal cords, so that her words came out in a whisper.

“She
is
paying,” she said. “If you could see her right now, you’d know that. She can hardly walk.” She took a tissue from the leather tissue holder on his desk and pressed it to her eyes. She thought of the long trip here, of having to turn around and make it again to get home. A sliver of panic ran through her and she pushed it away. She’d gotten here; she could get home again. “My mother…Eve Elliott’s in pain, but she doesn’t complain. I think she’s paid for this her whole adult life.”

Was something shifting in him? She saw a new softness in his eyes.

“Please don’t cry, dear,” he said.

“If you love me…if you have this automatic love you say you do, then please don’t hurt her anymore. I don’t want your money or jewelry.
This
is the gift I really want.”

He frowned, deep lines visible across his forehead. “You don’t seem to understand what you’re asking of me,” he said. “And of Vivian.”

“I think I do,” she said. “I know I’m asking a lot. I’m asking you to love not only the daughter…the child…you longed for all those years ago. I’m asking you to love
me.
Corinne Elliott.”

He stared at her, then shook his head, and as if finished with the discussion, he changed the subject.

“I thought you didn’t drive long distances,” he said.

She sat back in the chair, thrown off guard temporarily by the abrupt change of topic.

“I don’t,” she admitted. “I’m terrified of driving on the highway. I was scared the whole way here and pulled off the road a dozen times.” She looked squarely into his eyes. “But some things are just too important to let fear stand in the way.”