It seemed to be exactly what she’d needed to hear, thank goodness, and her sobs began to subside. Again, she blew her nose.
“I was doing laundry and emptied the dryer to add the next load,” she said. “I knew he liked warm places, but I never bothered to check inside before I closed the door. I killed Boots.”
Boots, he thought. Got it. The cat was named Boots. Still, it didn’t make the rest of the story any clearer.
“When did this happen?” he tried again.
“Over the summer.” She sighed. “While I was packing for Chapel Hill.”
“Oh, we’re talking about when you went to college,” he said, feeling triumphant.
She looked over at him, obviously confused and irritated. “Of course I am. What did you think I was talking about?”
Jeremy knew it was probably best not to answer. “I’m sorry for interrupting. Go on,” he said, doing his best to sound sympathetic.
“Boots was my baby,” she said, her voice soft. “He was abandoned, and I found him when he was just a kitten. All through high school, he slept with me in bed. He was so cute—reddish brown fur and white paws—and I knew that God had given him to me to protect him. And I did . . . until I locked him in the dryer.”
She reached for another tissue. “I guess that he crawled into the dryer when I wasn’t paying attention. He’d done that before, so I usually checked, but for whatever reason, I didn’t do it that day. I just loaded the wet clothes from the washer into the dryer, closed the door, and hit the button.” The tears started again as Lexie went on, her words broken. “I was downstairs . . . half an hour later . . . when I heard the . . . the . . . thunking . . . and when I went to check . . . I found him—”
She broke down completely then, leaning against Jeremy. Instinctively, he pulled her closer, murmuring words of support.
“You didn’t kill your cat,” he reassured her. “It was an accident.”
She sobbed even harder. “But . . . don’t you . . . see?”
“See what?”
“That . . . I’ll be a . . . terrible mother. I . . . I . . . locked my poor cat . . . in the dryer. . . .”
“I just held her and she kept on crying,” Jeremy said at lunch the next day. “No matter how much I assured her that she’d be a wonderful mother, she wouldn’t believe me. She cried for hours. There was nothing I could say or do to console her, but she finally nodded off to sleep. And when she woke up, she seemed fine.”
“That’s pregnancy,” Doris said. “It’s like a great big amplifier. Everything gets bigger—your body, your tummy, your arms. Emotions and memories, too. You just go crazy every now and then, and sometimes you do the strangest things. Things you’d never do in other circumstances.”
Doris’s comment conjured up the image of Lexie and Rodney holding hands, and for an instant he wondered whether to mention it. As quickly as the thought came, he tried to dismiss it.
Doris seemed to read his expression. “Jeremy? Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Just a lot on my mind these days.”
“About the baby?”
“About everything,” he said. “The wedding, the house. All of it. There’s so much to do. We’re closing on the house at the end of the month, and the only permit Gherkin could get was for the first weekend in May. There’s just a lot of stress these days.” He looked across the table at her. “Thanks for helping Lexie with the wedding plans, by the way.”
“No need to thank me. After our last conversation, I thought it was the least I could do. And there’s not that much to do, really. I’ll be making the cake and bringing some finger food for the outdoor reception, but other than that, there wasn’t much left once you got the permit. I’ll cover the picnic tables that morning, the florist will put some flowers out, and the photographer is good to go.”
“She told me she finally picked a dress.”
“She did. For Rachel, too, since she’s the maid of honor.”
“Does it hide Lexie’s tummy?”
Doris laughed. “That was her only stipulation. But don’t you worry, she’ll look beautiful—you can barely tell she’s pregnant. But I think people are beginning to suspect anyway.” She nodded toward Rachel, who was clearing another table. “I think she knows.”
“How would she know? Did you say anything?”
“No, of course not. But women can tell when other women are pregnant. And I’ve heard people whispering about it over lunch. Of course, it doesn’t help that Lexie’s been browsing through baby clothes at Gherkin’s store downtown. People notice things like that.”
“Lexie’s not going to be happy about it.”
“She won’t mind. Not in the long run, anyway. And besides, she didn’t really believe she’d even be able to keep it a secret this long.”
“Does that mean I can tell my family now?”
“I think,” Doris said slowly, “you’d better ask Lexie about that. She’s still worried that they won’t like her, especially with the wedding being so small. She feels bad about not being able to invite the whole clan.” She smiled. “That was her word, by the way, not mine.”
“It works,” Jeremy said. “They are a clan. But now it’ll be a manageable clan.”
When Doris reached for her glass, Rachel returned to their table with a pitcher of sweet tea. “Need a refill?”
“Thanks, Rach,” Jeremy said.
She poured. “Are you getting excited about the wedding?”
“Getting there. How’d shopping go with Lexie?”
“It was fun,” she said. “It was nice to get out of town for a while. But I’ll bet you can understand that.”
Sure I can, Jeremy thought. “Oh, by the way, I talked to Alvin and he said to say hello.”
“He did?”
“He said he’s looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Tell him hey from me, too.” She fiddled with her apron. “Do you two want some pecan pie? I think there’re still a few pieces left.”
“No thanks,” Jeremy said. “I’m stuffed.”
“None for me,” Doris said.
As Rachel headed toward the kitchen, Doris put her napkin on the table, returning her attention to Jeremy. “I walked through the house yesterday. It looks like it’s coming along.”
“Does it? I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’ll be done,” she reassured him, hearing his tone. “People may work at a slower pace down here, but it all gets done eventually.”
“I just hope it’s finished before the baby heads off to college. We just found out that there’s some termite damage.”
“What did you expect? It’s an old house.”
“It’s like the house in the movie The Money Pit. There’s always something else that needs to be fixed.”
“I could have told you that beforehand. Why do you think it had been on the market so long? And come on, no matter how much it costs, it’s still cheaper than anything in Manhattan, isn’t it?”
“It’s certainly more frustrating.”
Doris stared at him. “I take it you’re still not writing.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said, her voice soft. “You aren’t writing. That’s who you are; it’s how you define yourself. And if you can’t do it . . . well, it’s kind of like Lexie’s pregnancy in that it amplifies everything else.”
Doris was right, Jeremy decided. It wasn’t the cost of the new house, plans for the wedding, the baby, or the fact that he was still adjusting to life as a couple. Any stress he felt was due largely to the fact that he couldn’t write.
The day before, he’d sent off his next column, leaving only four prewritten columns left, and his editor at Scientific American had begun to leave messages on Jeremy’s cell phone, asking why Jeremy wasn’t bothering to keep in touch. Even Nate was beginning to get concerned; where he used to leave messages about the possibility of coming up with a story that might appeal to television producers, he now wondered whether Jeremy w
as working on anything at all.
At first, it had been easy to make excuses; both his editor and Nate understood how much had recently changed in his life. But when he offered the standard litany of excuses, even Jeremy realized they sounded exactly like that: excuses. Even so, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Why did his thoughts become jumbled every time he turned on the computer? Why did his fingers turn to mud? And why did it happen only when it came to writing something that might pay the bills?
See, that was the thing. Alvin e-mailed regularly; Jeremy could pound out a long response in only a few minutes. The same thing happened if his mother or father or brothers e-mailed, or if he had to write a letter, or if he wanted to take notes about something he found on the Internet. He could write about the shows on television, he could write about business or politics; he knew, because he’d tried. It was easy, in fact, to write just about anything . . . as long as it had nothing to do with topics he had any expertise in. In those instances, he simply went blank. Or worse, he felt as if he would never be able to do it again.
He suspected his problem was a lack of confidence. It was an odd feeling, one he hadn’t ever experienced before moving to Boone Creek.
He wondered if that was it. The move itself. That’s when the problem started; it wasn’t the house or the wedding plans or anything else. He’d been blocked from the time he’d rolled back into town, as if the choice to move here had come with a hidden cost. That suggested that he would be able to write in New York, however . . . but could he? He considered it, then shook his head. It didn’t matter, did it? He was here. In less than three weeks, on April 28, he’d close on the house and then head off to his bachelor party; a week later, on May 6, he’d be married. For better or worse, this was home now.
He glanced at Doris’s journal. How would he start a story about it? Not that he intended to, but just as an experiment. . . .
Pulling up a blank document, he began to think, his fingers poised on the keyboard. But for the next five minutes, his fingers didn’t move. There was nothing, nothing at all. He couldn’t even think of a way to begin.
He ran his hand through his hair, frustrated, wanting yet another break, wondering what to do. There was no way he was going to the house, he decided, since it would only put him in a worse mood. He decided instead to kill some time on the Internet. He heard the modem dial in, watched the screen load, and scanned the main page. Noting that he had two dozen new messages, he clicked on the mailbox.
Most of it was spam, and he deleted those messages without opening them; Nate had sent a message as well, asking if Jeremy had noticed any of the articles concerning a massive meteor shower in Australia. Jeremy responded that he’d written four columns about meteors in the past, one as recently as last year, but he thanked him for the idea.
He nearly deleted the last message, which lacked a subject heading, but thought better of it and found himself staring at the screen as soon as the message appeared. His mouth went dry, and he couldn’t turn away. Nor, suddenly, could he breathe. It was a simple message, and the blinking cursor seemed to taunt him: HOW DO YOU KNOW THE BABY IS YOURS?
Seven
HOW DO YOU KNOW THE BABY IS YOURS?
Jeremy knocked back his chair as he rose from the desk, still focused on the message. Of course the baby’s mine! he wanted to scream. I know because I know!
Yes, the message seemed to ask, you say you know. But how do you know?
His mind raced for the answers. Because he and Lexie spent a wonderful night together. Because she told him it was his baby and she had no reason to lie. Because they were getting married. Because it couldn’t be anyone else’s. Because it was his baby. . . .
Wasn’t it?
Had he been anyone else, had his history been different, had he known Lexie for years, the answer would have been obvious; but.
That was the thing about life, he knew. There was always a but.
He shook the thought away, focusing on the message, trying to get control of his emotions. There was no need to get worked up about this, he told himself, even if the message not only was offensive, but bordered on . . . evil. That’s how he viewed it. Evil. What kind of person would write such a thing? And for what reason? Because he thought it was funny? Because he wanted to start an argument between Lexie and Jeremy? Because . . .
He went blank for an instant, fumbling, his mind racing, knowing the answer but not wanting to admit it.
Because . . .
Because, the little voice in his head finally answered, whoever sent it knew that deep down, there was an instant when you wondered, too?
No, he suddenly thought, that was a lie. He knew the baby was his.
Except, of course, that you aren’t able to get a woman pregnant, the little voice reminded him.
With a flash, it all came rushing back—his first marriage to Maria, the difficulty they’d had getting pregnant, the trips to the fertility clinic, the tests he’d taken, all culminating with the doctor’s words: It’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever be able to father a child.
It was a kind choice of words: Jeremy had learned during that visit that for all intents and purposes he was sterile, a reality that eventually led Maria to ask for a divorce.
He remembered the doctor telling him that his sperm count was low—almost negligible, in fact—and those he did produce showed very little motility. Jeremy recalled sitting in the office in shock, grasping at any option. How about if I wore boxers? I’ve heard that helps, or How about treatments? There was nothing they could really do for him, the doctor explained. Nothing likely to be effective.
That day had been one of the most devastating of his life; until that point, he’d always assumed that he’d have children, and after the divorce, he’d reacted by becoming someone else entirely. He had more one-night stands than he could count and assumed he would lead the life of a bachelor forever. Until he met Lexie. And the miracle of her pregnancy, a child created out of passion and love, made him realize how pointless those years had been.
Unless . . .
No, scratch that, Jeremy thought. There was no unless. Of course the baby was his. Everything—from the timing, to Lexie’s behavior all along, to the way Doris treated him now—assured him that he was the father of the baby. He repeated those thoughts like a mantra, hoping to drown out the reality of the doctor’s words so long ago.
The message continued to taunt him. Who sent the e-mail? And, he wondered again, why?
Years of investigative research had taught him quite a bit about the Internet, and though the sender used an address Jeremy didn’t recognize, he knew that all e-mails could eventually be traced. With a bit of persistence and the right phone calls to a few contacts he’d made over the years, he could trace the e-mail back to the server and, from there, to the computer from which it had originated. He noticed that the message had arrived less than twenty minutes earlier, right around the time he was getting back to Greenleaf.
But again, the question was Why? Why would someone send it?
With the exception of Lexie, Jeremy had never told anyone—not his parents or his friends—about his inability to father children, and though there had been an instant when he’d wondered how the pregnancy had happened despite the odds, he’d shrugged that thought off. But if only Maria and Lexie knew—and neither one, he was sure, had sent it—then again, what was the reason? Was it a prank?
Doris had mentioned that some people had begun to suspect that Lexie was pregnant—Rachel, for instance. But he couldn’t picture Rachel being responsible for the e-mail. She and Lexie had been friends for years, and this wasn’t the sort of prank friends played on one another.
But if it hadn’t been meant as a prank, the only conceivable reason to send the e-mail was to cause trouble between Jeremy and Lexie. But again, who would do that?
The real father? a voice inside whispered, suddenly making him remember Lexie and Rodney holding hands.
Jeremy shook his head. Rodney and Lexie
? He’d gone over that a thousand times, and it simply wasn’t possible. It was ridiculous even to consider it.
Except that it does explain the e-mail, the voice whispered again.
No, he thought, this time more adamantly. Lexie wasn’t like that. Lexie wasn’t sleeping with someone else that week; Lexie wasn’t even seeing someone else. And Rodney wasn’t the kind of man who would write an e-mail; he would have confronted Jeremy in person.
Jeremy pressed the button to delete the e-mail. When the screen flashed the confirmation, however, his finger seemed to freeze. Did he really want to delete it now, without finding out who had sent it?
No, he decided, he wanted to know. It would take some time, but he’d find out and speak to whoever sent it, make him see how tasteless it was. And if it was Rodney . . . well, not only would Jeremy confront him, but there was no doubt that Lexie would give him a piece of her mind as well.
He nodded. Oh, he’d find out who did it all right. He saved the message, with the intent to begin the search immediately. And once he learned anything, Lexie would be the first to know.
Spending the evening with Lexie assuaged any doubts he had that he was indeed the father. At dinner, Lexie chatted away as usual; in fact, over the next week, Lexie acted as if nothing was bothering her at all. Which, in all honesty, Jeremy considered somewhat strange, considering that the wedding was now only a little more than two weeks away, they would close on the house a week from Friday—though it was still a long way from being habitable—and Jeremy had begun to wonder aloud where he was going to work in Boone Creek, since he’d obviously forgotten how to write an article. He’d sent another prewritten column, leaving only three left to submit. He hadn’t been able to trace the e-mail yet; whoever had done it had covered his tracks well. The address was not only anonymous, it had been routed through a series of different servers—one offshore and another that was unwilling to divulge information without a court order. Luckily he knew someone in New York who thought he could hack in, but it was going to take a little time. The guy freelanced for the FBI and they kept him busy.
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