“You mean having a girl?”
She nodded her head which felt like it weighed hundreds of pounds.
“You won't think so when you see her.”
Catherine smiled a little bit. Her lips were very dry and he wished he had something to put on them for her.
“Clay?”
“I'm here.”
“Thanks for helping.”
She drifted into oblivion again, her breathing heavy and rhythmic. He sat on the chair beside her bed with his elbows on his knees, holding her hand long after he knew she was asleep again. Then with a heavy sigh he lowered his forehead against her knuckles and closed his eyes as well.
Grandmother Forrester's cane announced her imminent arrival. When she rounded the doorway, the first thing she said was, “Young lady, I am seventy-eight years old. The next one had better be a boy.” But she limped to the bed and bestowed an honest-to-goodness kiss upon the consummate perfection of her firstborn great-granddaughter.
Marie came, laughing as ever, with the announcement that she and Joe are going to get married at last, as soon as he graduated from high school in a couple of months. She added that she'd been inspired to “give it a whirl” by Catherine and Clay's success.
Claiborne and Angela came daily, never empty-handed. They brought dresses so absurdly frilly the baby would surely get lost in all those ruffles, stuffed toys so big they would dwarf an infant, a music box that played “Eidelweiss.” Although they both fawned over Melissa, Claiborne's reaction to her was heart-touching. He would stand at the nursery window with his fingertips against the glass as if transfixed. Walking away, his head was the last to be turned forward. He even stopped on his way home from work one day, although it was decidedly inconvenient for him to do so. He said things like, “When she's old enough to ride a trike, Grampa will see that she gets the best one in town.” Or, “Wait until she walks—won't that be something?” Or, “You and Clay will have to take a weekend away by yourselves soon and leave the baby with us.”
Bobbi came. She stood in front of the window with her thumbs strung up on her rear jeans pockets, her feet rolled over until she was almost standing on the sides of her shoes. “Well, wouldja look at that!” she exclaimed softly. “And to think I had a hand in it.”
Ada came with the news that she'd signed up for a course in driver's education so she could come to Catherine and Clay's house to see the baby now and then. Herb had disappeared.
Steve wired an enormous bouquet of pink carnations and baby's breath and followed it with a long-distance phone call in which his main message was that he'd be getting leave again in August, and when he got to Minnesota, he wanted to see Cathy and Clay and Melissa all living under one roof.
And, of course, there was Clay.
Clay, who was just across the river at the law school and popped in at any time of day. Clay, who stood at the end of Catherine's bed when they were alone together and couldn't seem to think of anything to say. Clay, who played the father's role well when other visitors were there, laughing at their jokes about waiting until Melissa was bringing boyfriends home, turning his smile on Catherine, exclaiming over the neverending stream of gifts, but spending long minutes at the nursery window alone, swallowing at the lump that never disappeared from his throat.
Ada came and helped out for three days after Catherine and Melissa went home. During that time Ada slept on the davenport. It became particularly hellish for Clay, sleeping with Catherine. Each night he would awaken to the tiny sounds of suckling from the other side of the bed and he wanted more than anything to turn the light on and watch them. But he knew Catherine would be bothered by both the light and his watching, so he lay silent, pretending to be asleep. How surprised he'd been at the news that she intended to breast-feed the baby. At first he supposed she made the choice out of a sense of duty, for there was a lot of propaganda on the subject. But as the days wore on, he realized that everything Catherine did for and with Melissa was done instead from a deep sense of mother-love.
Catherine began to change.
There were times when he came upon her with her face buried in Melissa's little tummy, cooing to her, talking in soft expressions of love. Once he saw her lightly suck on Melissa's toes. When she gave the baby a bath, there was a steady stream of talking and light laughter. When the baby slept too long, Catherine actually hounded her bedroom doorway, as if she couldn't wait for Melissa to wake up again and want to be fed. Catherine began singing a lot, at first only to Melissa, but then seeming to forget herself and singing absently when she worked around the house. It seemed she had found her source of smiles, too, and there was always a ready one waiting for Clay when he got home.
But while Catherine's contentment increased, Clay's virtually disappeared. He astutely refrained from getting involved with the baby, though it was beginning to have a growing, adverse effect on him. His temper flared at the slightest provocation while Catherine's seemed as unassailable as Melissa's—for Melissa was truly a satisfied baby with a flowery disposition. As graduation neared, Clay blamed his crossness on the pressure of finals, and the bar exams coming up shortly.
Angela called and asked his permission to plan a little Sunday brunch on the weekend following his graduation. When she said she'd already received Catherine's approval, Clay snapped into the phone, “Since the two of you already have the whole thing planned, why are you bothering to ask me!”
Then he had to do some fancy skirting to get around his mother's demand to know what on earth was eating him.
Clay graduated from the University of Minnesota law school with honors when Melissa was two months old. Now he held a degree, but he had never held his daughter.
Chapter 27
The day of the brunch would have been well-suited to a June wedding. The sprawling backyard of the Forresters was at its finest. The view over the flaming chafing dishes on the semicircular terrace was lush with color. The terrace itself was delineated by carefully pruned global arborvitae, which in turn were edged with alternating clumps of marigold and ageratum, the purple and gold contrast creating a stunning effect. The yard stretched in falling terraces to the far reaches of the property where a file of blue spruce marked its boundaries. The rose gardens of phalanx symmetry were in full bloom, in full scent. Shapely maples and lindens dotted the grass with vast splashes of shade. It was like a pastoral scene from an impressionist's brush: ladies in filmy dresses drifting from the terrace across the lawn, men sitting on the parapet of the terrace, everyone nibbling on melon and berries.
Catherine was sitting on the grass when a shadow fell over her and she glanced sunward, blinded at first and unable to make out who stood above her.
“All by yourself?” It was Jill Magnusson's rich, lazy voice. “May I join you?”
Catherine held up a forearm to shade her eyes. “Of course, have a chair.”
Dropping to the grass, Jill doubled up her Thoroughbred legs and folded them elegantly to the side—like a ballerina in a swan scene, thought Catherine. Jill tossed back her thick mane and smiled directly at Catherine.
“I guess I should apologize for not sending a gift when the baby was born, but you know how it is.”
“Do I?” Catherine replied sweetly—a little too sweetly.
Jill's gaze drifted over Catherine before she smiled archly. “Well . . . don't you?”
“I don't know what you're getting at.”
“You know precisely what I'm getting at, and I won't be a hypocrite about it. I'm completely jealous of that baby of yours and Clay's. Not that I'd want one, you understand, but it should have been mine.”
Catherine controlled the urge to slap her. “Should have been yours? Why, how gauche of you to say so.”
“Gauche maybe, but we both know it's true. I've been damning myself ever since last October, but I've finally decided to lay my cards on the table. I want Clay; it's as simple as that.”
Some stirring of pride made Catherine answer, “I'm afraid he's already taken.”
“Taken for a fool maybe. He's told me what kind of relationship you two have. Why do you want to hold a man you don't love and who doesn't love you?”
“Maybe to give our daughter a father.”
“Not the healthiest reason, you'll have to admit.”
“I don't have to admit anything to you, Jill.”
“Very well—don't. But ask yourself why Clay asked me to wait for him until he could get this mess straightened out.” Then Jill's voice became quite purring. “Oh, I see this is news to you, isn't it? You didn't know that Clay asked me to marry him right after he found out you were pregnant? Well, he did. But my silly pride was shattered and I was totally wrong in turning him down. But now I've changed my mind.”
“And what does he have to say about it?”
“Actions speak louder than words. Surely you know that while you turned a cold shoulder on him all last winter he knew where to find a warm one.”
Catherine's stomach was aquiver. “What do you want from me?” she demanded coldly.
“I want you to do the right thing, turn Clay free before he falls in love with his daughter and stays for the wrong reason.”
“He chose me over you. That's hard for you to swallow, isn't it?”
Jill tossed her hair behind a shoulder. “Kiddo, you didn't fool me with that trumped-up wedding of yours. This is Jill you're talking to. I was there that night and it's no hallucination that Clay kissed me far more intimately than grooms are supposed to kiss other women.” Jill paused for dramatic effect, then finished, “And he told me he still loved me. Strange for a man on his wedding night, huh?”
The memory of that night came back to Catherine, but she hid her chagrin behind a mask of indifference. She turned now to see Clay sitting on the terrace, deep in conversation with Jill's father.
Jill went on. “There's no doubt in my mind that if this . . . mistake”—Jill's pause seemed to denigrate the word further—”hadn't happened between you, Clay and I would be planning our wedding right now. It was always implicitly understood that Clay and I would eventually marry. Why, we've been intimate since the days when our mothers plunked us naked together into our little plastic backyard pools. In October when he asked me to marry him, he admitted you were nothing more than a tragic mistake to him. Why not do him a favor and bow out of the picture?”
It was clear that Jill Magnusson was used to getting what she wanted, by fair means or foul. The woman's manner was insolent and rude. There was no note of appeal in her attitude, only brazen self-assurance.
Oh, she was as cool as Inella's tomato aspic up there on its bed of crushed ice, thought Catherine. But Catherine disliked tomato aspic too.
“You assume a lot, Jill,” Catherine said now with a little ice of her own.
“I assume nothing. I know. I know because Clay has confided in me. I know that you've thrown him out of his own bed, that you've encouraged him to live a life of his own, to keep his old friends, his old pursuits. The baby's born now, she has a name, and Clay is financially responsible for her for life. You got what you wanted out of him, so why don't you free him?”
Catherine rose, brushed off her skirt and pointedly raised an arm to wave at Clay, who waved back. Without looking again at Jill, she said, “He's a big boy. If he wants to be free, don't you think he'd ask?”
Catherine headed in the direction of the terrace, but before she could get away, Jill threw one last parting shot, and this one hit its mark: “Where do you think he was while you were in the hospital having his baby?”
Insane thoughts came to Catherine, childlike in their vindictiveness. She wished that Inella's superb tomato aspic was made with Jill's blood. She wanted to shave Jill's head, roll her naked in poison ivy, feed her chocolate laced with laxative. These thoughts didn't strike Catherine as immature. She felt hurt and degraded; she wanted revenge and could think of no way to get it.
And Clay! She felt like taking a handful of melon balls and firing them at him like artillery. Like overturning the chafing dishes, getting everyone's attention, telling everyone here what a liar and a libertine he was! How could he! How could he! It wasn't bad enough that he'd continued his sexual relationship with Jill, but the thought of him confiding the intimate truths about their marriage cut deeper than Catherine ever thought possible. Painful memories came back, bolder than ever: New Year's Eve and Clay kissing Jill with his little finger under her spaghetti strap; the night he hadn't come home at all while she'd fixed supper and waited; and worst of all—four nights while she lay in a maternity ward . . .
It was several days after the brunch.
Catherine had submerged her anger until it lay at the base of her tongue like bile, waiting to be spewed. He'd known for days that she was seething and would soon erupt. What he didn't know was what would trigger it.
All he was doing was standing beside the crib watching Melissa sleep. Suddenly, behind him, Catherine hissed, “What are you doing! Get away from her!”
His hands came halfway out of his pockets and he turned, surprised by her vehemence. “I didn't wake her up,” he whispered.
“I know what you're thinking, standing there staring at her all the time, and you can just get it off your mind, Clay Forrester, because it won't work! I'll fight you till my dying day before I let you take her from me!”
With a quick glance to make sure the baby hadn't been disturbed, he moved toward the hall.
“Catherine, you're imagining things. I told you I—”
“You told me a lot of things you wouldn't do, like keep your affair going with Jill Magnusson, but she certainly set me straight about that! Well, if you want her, what's holding you up?”
“What did Jill say to you Sunday anyway?”
“Enough that I know I want to see you gone from this house, and the sooner the better.”
“What did she say?”
“Do I need to repeat it? Do you want to rub my nose in it? All right!” Catherine marched into the master bedroom, slammed a hand against the light switch and paraded to his chest of drawers, flinging clothes out to punctuate her words. “You've been sleeping with her all the time you lied to me and said you weren't, so why not move in with her permanently? Do you think everybody doesn't know what's been going on between you when you stood at your own wedding reception and French-kissed her in front of everybody there? Did you tell your mother you'd stepped out for air when you disappeared with Jill on New Year's Eve? How dumb do you think I am, Clay? And why are you hanging around here like a stray dog? I'm not going to take you in and feed you and ask you if you'd like to live with me, because I want this farce to be over. I don't want your phony condescension or your two-bit psychoanalysis about my being emotionally crippled! I don't want you coming in here fawning over my daughter—the one I had while you were staying nights at Jill's house. All I want is what you agreed to give me. Child support for Melissa and my college education paid for. And I want you out of here—out!—so I can get on with my life!”
The pile of clothes lay in disarray between them. The air seemed thick, as if her shouting had actually raised dust.
“She told you a pack of lies, Catherine.”
Catherine closed her eyes, but the lids quivered. She raised both palms up to Clay.
“Don't . . . just don't. Don't make it worse than it already is.” Her voice shook.
“If she said I've been sleeping with her, it's a goddam lie. I've seen her, yes, but I told you I wouldn't sleep with her and I haven't.”
“Why are we arguing? This is only what we knew was coming all along. Do you want me to go so you can stay? Okay—” she grew obstinate—”okay, fine.” She started dumping armfuls of his things back in the drawers. “Fine, I'll go. I can easily go back home now that Herb is gone.” She headed for her own dresser and yanked the drawers open.
“Catherine, you're acting childish. Will you stop it! I don't want you to go! Do you think I'd toss you and Melissa out?”
“Oh, then you want to go.”
<
br /> She marched back to the bureau and stubbornly began to empty it again. He caught her by an arm and swung her around none too gently.
“You're an adult now. Will you start acting like one?”
“I . . . want . . . this . . . over!” she said with emphatic pauses. “I want your parents to know the truth so I don't have to listen to your dad babbling about us leaving Melissa at their house. I'm sick of your mother giving her Polly Flinders dresses that cost forty dollars apiece and making me feel guilty as Judas! I'm sick of you standing over her crib plotting how you can get her away from me! Jill doesn't want her. Don't you understand that, Clay? All she wants is you! And since you want her, too, why don't we cut through all the crap and give little Jill what she wants?”
Something inside Catherine cringed at her rudeness, her gutter language so like her father's, but she couldn't stop it. The need to hurt Clay like he'd hurt her was too strong.
“I can see Jill really did a number on you. She's very good with words, but did she ever actually say I slept with her, or did she imply it? I have no doubt she made me sound totally conniving and guilty.”
“You told her!” Catherine raged. “You told her I threw you out of your bed when it was you who chose to sleep on that davenport. You picked out that . . . that damn long davenport, I didn't! And you had no right to tell her such private things about us!”
“I told her we were having problems; she must have guessed the rest.”
“It doesn't take much guessing, does it? Not when a man sleeps with one woman while another is in the hospital having his baby!”
Clay's eyebrows lowered ominously. He ran a hand through his hair. “Goddam that Jill.” Then he swung around with a palm up entreatingly. “Catherine, it's not true. I saw her the second night you were in the hospital. She was waiting outside in her car when I came home, and she followed me in.”
“You had her here?” Catherine's voice cracked into a high falsetto. “Here in my house?”
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