Second Time Around (31 page)

Long Island

Millie pulled the living-room curtain aside. “Deke…”

He was on the phone. “No comment!” He hung up and joined her at the window. “I don’t know how they found out, but they did.”

She pressed her fingers to her temples trying to think. No one knew her secret. No one.

She dropped her hands when a thought took hold:
Except Mom.

She walked toward the hall leading to the bedrooms. “Mother!”

Rhonda came out of her room, the essence of innocence. “You called?”

Millie tried to be calm but found it impossible. “We have a yard full of reporters and we’re getting calls. Somehow, they know I am David’s Millie and I didn’t die. How do they know that, Mom? How?”

Deke had slipped in behind her, and Millie saw her mother look in his direction, too. Gauging how united they were? Millie reached back and took her husband’s hand. “Deke and I agreed it was best to let this go.”

“I know. I heard. And I disagreed.”

It took Millie a moment to let it sink in. “So you
did
call them? You
are
the leak?”

She took hold of the doorjamb leading to her room. “I most certainly am. It had to be told. The truth had to come out.”

“It did not! Both of us—all of us—have lived happy lives without that particular truth ever being public knowledge.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Mom!”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. I’ll admit I’ve had a lovely life, but it galled me to hear Ray say you were strong-willed and headstrong—”

“I was.”

“You still are. But they’re making David out to be this attentive, grieving lover. They’re making it sound like you caused your own death because of some character flaw, not because
he
forced you to do it to gain your freedom.” She stepped toward Millie and placed a hand under her chin. “You were a hero to me, honey. So strong, so brave. You saved me as much as you saved yourself. I will always be grateful. Can I help it if I want the world to know what an amazing daughter I have?”

“Oh, Mom…” Millie hugged her, and they held each other until Deke brought them back to the present.

“What’s done is done,” he said. “I think you need to make a statement.”

She looked toward the door. “Go out there?”

“I’ll go with you,” her mother said.

“Me, too,” Deke said.

It was the only way. “Let’s get it over with.”

They moved to the front door. Deke put his hand on the knob. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“Not a clue.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Open it.”

Bangor

Dina popped off the couch and loomed over her television.

Millie was alive?

One of the reporters asked, “But why would you fake your death and live under an assumed name for over forty years?”

Millie looked at the man next to her, who’d been introduced as her husband. They held hands. “David was a good man, but he was obsessive, insisting on having a say about every tiny aspect of my life from what perfume I wore to how I spent my free time. Though I loved him at first, I found myself being smothered by him.”

“Then why not just call the marriage off?”

“You don’t understand… David worked for my father. They became close and my father, Ray Reynolds, who has also been interviewed lately, was intent on handing his business down to David. After all, I was unworthy of the task—being female and all. The best way to do that was to have David marry me.”

“So the marriage was arranged for a business connection?”

“It certainly wasn’t a love connection. Not on my part, and though he’d never admit it, not on David’s part either. Obsession and possession do not equal love. The point was, with my father and David showing a united front… and considering the limited power of women in 1958, I felt I had no choice but to take drastic action.”

“Would you do it again?”

She did not hesitate. “Yes, yes, I would.”

“What are you going to do if David Stancowsky comes back?”

Dina wondered the same thing.

Millie looked at her mother, then her husband. “I will let him live his life and hope that he will give me the same courtesy.” She turned right to the camera. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’d appreciate your leaving us alone.”

Dina turned off the set and sank onto the couch. Millie was alive. She’d said she didn’t want any contact with David, yet… if he came back… What Millie said was correct. David was obsessed. He’d insist on making contact. She would become his focus now as she was then.

Which meant Dina didn’t have a chance.

She shook a fist at the television. “It’s not fair! Why did you have to come forward?”

Then she remembered that she was scheduled to be interviewed tomorrow to clear up the Yardley Pruitt allegations.

But why should I?

It was a good question. She sank lower into the cushions, raked her hands through her hair, and let them sit on top of her head. She didn’t owe David anything beyond being a good employee. She didn’t need to go this extra mile for him, defending his reputation—especially when everyone else seemed intent on cutting him down.

Especially when he was going to come home, find Millie alive, and have tunnel vision in her direction. He wouldn’t even notice Dina. What chances she’d had were used up. Over. Gone.

Was it really time to move on and let him go?

She laughed at herself. At age seventy-four she was finally realizing this? How pitiful was that?

She sat upright. “I won’t go to the interview. Let David deal with it. I don’t owe him anything.”

It sounded good. But Dina, more than anyone, knew that old habits died hard.

THIRTEEN

Listen to advice and accept instruction,
and in the end you will be wise.
Many are the plans in a man’s heart,
but it is the L
ORD
’s purpose that prevails.

Proverbs 19:20-21

Atlanta—1976

Vanessa’s plan was to get up very early, sneak out of her father’s house, and head back to campus so they couldn’t argue anymore. So he wouldn’t be able to yell at her for being insubordinate in front of their dinner guest, Mr. Stancowsky. But her plans were ruined when her father woke her at eight.

“We’ll be leaving for church in a half hour, Vanessa. Hurry up.”

She turned onto her back. Great. If only she hadn’t overslept.

You could still leave.

She shook her head. To leave now would be a blatant, walk-the-plank mutiny.

“Vanessa? Did you hear?”

“I heard.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

He opened the door. “We can’t be late. My name’s going to be in the bulletin as one of the top three benefactors of the new wing, and I need you to be there with me.”

To hear the accolades. To play the part of the proud daughter.

“Gimme a half—” She was suddenly overcome by morning sickness and bolted past him toward the bathroom down the hall. She barely made it.

He appeared in the doorway. “Aren’t you glad that tomorrow you’ll be done with that?”

A second wave took her body captive.

“How long does it usually last?”

She sat back on her heels and pulled a towel off the rack to wipe her mouth. “An hour or so. Crackers sometimes help.”

“Good. You can grab some on our way out.”

And he was gone. And she was alone.

So be it.

Vanessa did
not
want to be in the car with her father all the way to church, so she made the excuse that she needed to drive separately so she could go back to school right after the service. She lied and said she had a test to study for. Hey, life was a test. She just hoped she didn’t fail.

She stood by her father in the narthex, looking pretty and proud while he accepted the accolades of some of the elders and deacons. One man with a shock of Elvis hair and an awful avocado tie, slapped her father on the back but winked at her. “Yes indeed, this church owes a lot to your father, Vanessa.”

“I know.” Then, out of nowhere, she was assaulted with a new bout of queasiness.

Elvis’s wife touched her arm. “Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

Her father flipped a hand. “She’s fine. She’s just—”

“Pregnant. If you’ll excuse me.”

She ran to the restroom.

When Vanessa came out of the restroom, her father was not in the narthex. Obviously, the truth of her condition was not an appropriate topic of conversation when Yardley Pruitt held court.

She looked toward the exit. Now would be an excellent time to leave. He had to be furious. Today’s faux pas, added to yesterday’s rebellion…

As the prelude sounded on the organ, she walked toward the door but was intercepted by Reverend Mennard, ready to make his entrance. “Vanessa?”

“Good morning, Reverend.”

He looked into the sanctuary. “I see your father’s already inside. Go ahead and join him. I’ll wait.”

With Reverend Mennard blocking her escape, she slipped into the pew beside her father. He did not even look at her but kept his face forward. His jaw was set, his arms crossed.

A sure sign that she’d pay. Dearly.

Vanessa went through the service by rote. She stood when it was time to stand, read aloud when it was time to read aloud. She heard little and felt nothing.

Nothing in regard to church, that is.

Her heart ached. Her mind throbbed. Her stomach churned. In the past few days, she had systematically chopped away at the one piece of stability she had in her life. Daddy. Father.

And there
had
been a change in his title. Just as she’d progressed to calling her mother “Mom,” Yardley Pruitt no longer deserved the “Daddy” title of endearment. He was Father now. Yet oddly, it wasn’t because of anything new
he’d
done. The change in his status had occurred solely because of something new inside herself.

But what was this new something? What was different in her now that hadn’t been there a few days previous?