Nobody's Baby but Mine(48)
“It sounds great.” She suspected the old woman wasn’t eating as well as she should, and she stood. “Why don’t I fix us a little lunch? I’m getting hungry.”
“Now that’s a real good idea. Amber Lynn’s back from her trip, and she done brung over some of her bean soup yesterday. You can heat that up. ’Course she don’t make it like I taught her, but, then, that’s Amber Lynn for you.”
So Cal’s parents had returned. As she headed to the kitchen, she wondered how he was explaining not bringing her to meet them.
Jane served their soup in one china bowl and one plastic. She accompanied it with squares of corn bread from a pan on the counter. As they ate at the kitchen table, she couldn’t remember enjoying a meal more. After two weeks of isolation, it was wonderful just being around another person, especially one who did more than bark out orders and glare at her.
She cleaned up the dishes and was bringing a mug of tea to Annie in the living room when she noticed three diplomas among the clutter of paintings, ceramic ballerinas, and wall clocks hanging next to the doorway.
“Those belong to my grandsons,” Annie said, “but they give ’em to me. They knowed it always bothered me the fact I had to quit school after sixth grade, so each of ’em give me their college diplomas the same day they graduated. That there’s Calvin’s hangin’ at the top.”
Jane fetched her glasses from the kitchen table and gazed at the top diploma. It was from the University of Michigan, and it stated that Calvin E. Bonner had received a Bachelor of Science degree . . . with highest distinction.
Summa Cum Laude.
Jane’s hand flew to her throat. She whirled around. “Cal graduated summa cum laude?”
“That’s what they call it when a body’s real smart. I thought you, bein’ a professor, would of knowed that. My Calvin, he was always smart as a whip.”
“He—” She swallowed and fought to go on as a roaring sounded in her ears. “What did he get his degree in?”
“Now didn’t he tell you that? Lot of athletes, they take real easy classes, but my Calvin, he wasn’t like that. He got hisself a degree in biology. Always liked roamin’ in the woods, pickin’ up this ’n’ that.”
“Biology?” Jane felt as if she’d just taken a punch in the stomach.
Annie narrowed her eyes. “Strikes me strange you don’t know any of this, Janie Bonner.”
“I guess the subject never came up.” The room began to sway, and she felt as if she were going to faint. She turned awkwardly, sloshing hot tea over her hand, and stumbled back into the kitchen.
“Janie? Somethin’ wrong?”
She couldn’t speak. The handle broke off the mug as she dropped it into the sink. She pressed her fingers to her mouth and fought a rising tide of horror. How could she have been so stupid? Despite all her conniving, she’d brought about the very disaster she’d tried so hard to avoid, and now her child wasn’t going to be ordinary at all.
She clutched the edge of the sink as hard reality overcame her rosy daydreams. She’d known Cal had attended the University of Michigan, but she hadn’t believed he’d been serious about it. Didn’t athletes take the minimum number of courses to get by and then leave before they graduated? The fact that he’d majored in biology and graduated with honors from one of the most prestigious universities in the country had such brutal ramifications she could barely take them in.
Intelligence tended toward the mean. That fact screamed at her. The one quality she prized in him—his stupidity—was nothing more than an illusion, an illusion he had deliberately perpetuated. By not seeing through it, she’d condemned her child to the same life of isolation and loneliness she’d lived herself.
Panic clawed at her. Her precious child was going to be a freak, just like her.
She couldn’t let that happen. She’d die before she’d permit her child to suffer as she’d suffered. She’d move away! She’d take the baby to Africa, some remote and primitive part of the continent. She’d educate the child herself so that her precious little one would never know the cruelty of other children.
Her eyes stung with tears. What had she done? How could God have let something so cruel happen?
Annie’s voice penetrated her misery. “That’ll be Calvin now. I told you he’d come after you.”
She heard the slam of a car door, the pounding of footsteps on the front porch.
“Jane! Where is she, dammit?”
Jane charged into the living room. “You bastard!”
He stalked forward, his face twisted. “Lady, you’ve got some explaining to do!”