But pride, she realized, would not feed and clothe her child. Nor would it provide a respectable standing on which that child could build a life. Her unborn baby deserved much more than Vivian could supply on her own.
After all the damage she had unwittingly caused, she could do this. If Gene was willing, she would do this.
With a single nod, she acquiesced and the two resumed their ascent. She followed him through the doors, into the corridors of justice, and prepared to say her vows.
Before long, the papers were signed and scripted words recited. The official pronouncement was made. There was even an official kiss, though it passed with all the warmth and length of a pinprick. Gene paid two extra dollars for strangers to stand as witnesses. Luanne and an Army buddy had long since left the courthouse by the time Vivian and Gene arrived.
“I’ll call them tomorrow,” he had intoned when Vivian asked about updating the others to explain the delay in the ceremony. She imagined he would create a plausible excuse, perhaps cab trouble or temporary cold feet, but he did not confirm this. In fact, he said nothing more.
At the hotel, she soaked in the tub until the water had cooled her to a shiver.
Dressed in her white, silken nightdress-she had packed only this for sleepwear-she left the haven of the bathroom. Gene was lying beneath the covers on the far side of the bed. One hand under his head, he gazed at the ceiling. Lamplight outlined the bare surface of his chest, the muscles she had felt only through a layer of fabric.
“I see there’s a bottle of champagne on the bureau,” she said. She craved conversation of any kind, the slimmest sense of connection. “Are you thirsty?”
He flicked her a glance. It was the same attention he had extended during the ceremony and every minute since. “No,” he said.
Vivian simply nodded.
She clicked off the tasseled lamp on her nightstand and slid beneath the covers. Moonlight slanted between the drapes, drawing a line across the carpet and over the fluffy down bedding. The room was relatively spacious, by Manhattan standards, the decor elegant in soft yellow and cobalt blue. She could understand why Gene had chosen it for their first intimate encounter. Their first night of marital bliss.
She lay there for several minutes, clasping the pressed sheets covering her chest. From the hallway came the laughter of a couple passing by the door, an enviously happy sound. Then it went quiet, save for the city noises below. It was the sort of quiet that could turn a person mad.
At last, Vivian rotated her head toward Gene. Her groom, her husband. The pillow rustled like cellophane in her ear.
“Gene,” she said, before considering what would follow. There was so much to say, but with endless doubts of how to phrase it.
“Does anyone else know?” he said.
It took her a second to comprehend the question. “No. Agent Gerard is the only one I’ve told about Isaak.”
“What about the baby?”
How stupid of her. Naturally, that’s what he’d meant. “No one but the doctor knows,” she assured him. “And now you.”
Gene angled his eyes in her direction. She strained to read the emotion beneath them, veiled by the dimness. “For now we keep it that way,” he told her. “And the secret of its father, that stays with us for good.”
She nodded and whispered, “Of course.”
His gaze lingered over her face. It already seemed an eternity since he had truly looked at her. After a notable stillness, she uncurled her stiffened fingers. She edged them over to touch his shoulder, needing even scant reassurance that he did not despise her.
Barely had she brushed his skin when he rolled the other way.
That’s how they remained through the long hours of night, together in their solitude, both grieving over a life that would never be theirs.
57
Everything had changed in a day.
The custody case had been officially dropped, releasing Audra from the bindings of a darkly tenuous future. She and Jack could at last continue on a path with promise, the fresh start they would launch together.
Now, if only Tess would share her enthusiasm.
“You do realize you don’t absolutely have to move,” she said to Audra, emphatically pointing with a potato chip from lunch. It was the umpteenth time she had stated the reminder since the legal development a week ago.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve mentioned it.” Audra put a fifty-cent price sticker on an old purse. She returned it to the spread of garage-sale items covering her bedroom floor, where she and Tess were seated cross-legged.
“Seriously, though. Why would you want to live where people say things like ‘shiesty’ and ‘wicked good’? Those don’t even make sense. It’s like a bad translation of a foreign film.”