Day 19

Jude stood suddenly, I felt a deep respect for him I’d never felt for a man before except my daddy, here was someone not afraid to protect others, “You’ve overstayed your welcome, Mrs Collins.”

Annie rose to go, cool and lean in her summertime linens by some expensive designer. But the hatred twisted her features scared me as she said, “We’ll take you to court if you don’t go along with this. Don’t think we wouldn’t enforce the agreement.”

“I think you’re going to have a hard time doing that, John never had me sign a contract this time. I guess he trusted me because he was in love with me.” I said softly, knowing this would hurt Annie but no longer caring.

“What?” she gasped, “He swore he had you sign it and it was in his office safe.”

I sat on the sofa trembling as Jude escorted her to the door. Just as she crossed the threshold I found my own angry voice yelling, “Tell your husband to stay away from me.”

The first thing I did after she left was to call down to the security officers at the front gate and tell them that under no circumstances were they to ever allow either of the Collins inside the gate. I was revoking their pass privileges.

Jude and I spent the rest of the day out on his patio in the sun shine talking about this situation, what I was going to do. What we came up with was that I was going to find a high risk pregnancy doctor right here in town and start going to him or her right away and in two weeks when I had my appointment with Dr Parley Jude would accompany to the appointment where we would get copies of my medical records before telling him I was switching to another doctor.

I still couldn’t imagine myself raising three babies but it looked likely that would happen. I knew in my heart that I could not give them up to another family and there was no way I was giving them up to the Collins. John could take me to court, force a paternity test, whatever, but I was going to fight him.

John told me he loved me many times. Was that a lie too?

I never said yes or not to Jude if I would allow him to be in my life in a romantic way but after that first night when he kissed me and I felt it to my toes I realized that resistance was stupid. Here was a man that really cared for me, protected me against the aggressors in the mess I was in and still wanted me no matter how ridiculous the circumstances were. He was a rare guy and I knew it.

Over the next few weeks I did everything we discussed, I found a doctor I trusted, I talked with the director at work, breaking the news to her that I would need a long maternity leave because chances are I’d be on bed rest soon.

I hired a reputable lawyer, who sat there and listened to my crazy tale of the state senator adopting my first child by pretending his own wife had given birth to Emmie and all the other things I had to say about the Collins. He agreed to represent me if the Collins ever tried to claim custody.

The most surprising thing to me was the silence from John Collins. But I knew no matter what his real feelings for me were Annie was obviously exerting considerable pressure on him to give me up. I must have really been a threat to their marriage more than all his other affairs.

The second most surprising thing was that Cynthia Rose. I took her to lunch one day away from the usual casino buffets than she insisted on. I splurged that day and took her to Mary Mahoneys Old French House, an elegant restaurant built in a older building that looked like it had been transported out of the New Orleans French Corner and dropped right down in the oldest part of Biloxi. There were starched white linens on the tables and we sat in the main dining room on delicate antique chairs. This place was famed for it’s atmosphere and elegant menus.

I’d chosen this place for a two fold reason. First I knew that Cynthia Rose would be too intimidated by the elegance of this place to make a scene. I wanted no repeat of the time we were asked to leave a casino restaurant because we were arguing. And secondly, she was my beloved sister and I wanted to treat her to something nice for a change.

It was easy to see that Cynthia was excited to be eating here, she was like a young girl. For the occasion she’d even gone easy on the makeup and worn a dress that was downright sedate. She looked at me over the top of the elegant menu and said softly, “Did you ever dream when we were kids that we’d end up eating in a place like this?”

Laughing I said, “No, I didn’t know places like this existed.”

Over a slowly savored lunch of seafood I told her about the big changes in my own life, that I was going to be keeping the babies, that I had a boyfriend, a genuine unmarried nice normal guy that wanted me in his life. I told her all things I had never confessed about the Collins, how I’d fallen in love with them and now things were tense. I kept waiting for her to object or explode at the things I was telling her but Cynthia Rose seemed in a dreamlike state, even when I mentioned I was going to travel up to Pennsylvania before the doctor could put me on bed rest and try to reconcile with our parents.

“You should,” Cynthia Rose said as she motioned to the waiter for another glass of white wine, “Although I must say it would be about a million times better if you showed up as Emily Greenburg. They’d just die if you married a Jew.”

“Actually,” I told her, “he’s now a Christian and we’re going to church together every Sunday, to a non denominational place near our condos. But I am bringing him with me back home. I need the moral support because I don’t know what type of reception I’m going to get.”

Cynthia Rose changed the subject abruptly, “I’m in love,” she confessed, almost blushing before telling me about a wealthy guy she’d met that had moved her into his luxury condo in the swanky Bayswater Biltmore complex. Somehow this miracle man had talked her out of stripping or dancing at the casino and was supporting her completely. This sounded too good to be true so I prayed it was so, that Cynthia had found someone decent for a change.

That was one of the best things to come out of my breaking off any relationship with the Collins family. I got my sister back. We started spending time together and I watched a lady try to emerge from her old dancer self.

It seemed like every day my waistline was getting bigger and I could hardly breath or eat because of the weight of the growing babies pressing on my internal organs. When I wasn’t working or sleeping I was with Jude and with every passing day his sweetness and kindnesses to me touched my heart even more. He wasn’t a bad kisser either.

Finally the day came when we drove up to Dr Parley’s office for my supposed appointment but in reality we were going to sever my relationship with the doctor. I still had heard nothing from the Collins except for receiving one tersely worded letter from John’s law office outlining the various legal things they could do to me if I didn’t care to cooperate.
I certainly wasn’t expecting both Collins to show up for my exam. In fact, they’d stopped doing that after the first one but lo and behold, there they both were, a hostile looking Annie and John, looking like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. John tried to greet me with a kiss on the cheek but I clumsily side stepped him. It was only then that John saw that standing behind me was Jude Greenburg. John’s eyes got wide, as though he’d heard of this but didn’t believe it until seeing the evidence with his own eyes. John looked like a man sucker punched in the gut. Annie smiled cruelly.