Quickly, she scanned the note. R.C. had never wanted their marriage to end, and he had consented only to please his dad. He had their apartment, and she was to come to Boston. No one need know. It was all an act. He loved her. He wanted to hold his bride again. The money was for travel expenses. He was counting the minutes until he could love her again. Love her, but not defend her, he could have added.
"Pitiful," Alyssa muttered as she shook her head. "It's over, my dear husband. And thank you for the travel allowance. You go to Boston and wait for me." She laughed as she knelt, gathered, and stacked the ten bills. Ben Franklin faced upward on each bill as she pressed them together and straightened the edges. She took one and held it to the light.
"I'll make my way to the West Coast, as far from you as I can possibly go. I've always wanted to see San Francisco. Don't wait up for me, darling," she mumbled, feeling giddy.
It was sad to have failed at marriage, she supposed, but at least they weren't quarreling over silver trays and heirloom china and...and...child custody. It was an involuntary shudder, and she shook it off. This would be a clean break. She laughed again. "Maybe I should leave my husband with a souvenir of our days together. But, alas, there's nothing I have good enough for a Wetherington. So be it."
Stuffing the envelope and money into her pocket, Alyssa checked off mentally the days before her freedom. She knew she wasn't thinking straight. After she locked the door and headed down the steps, Alyssa noticed the white Mitsubishi parked around the corner, and she knew R.C. was watching her. She shifted her bag from one arm to the other. She ran slender fingers through curly blond tangles. A chipped nail snagged in a mass of curls. She could tell rain was in the forecast. She reached the sidewalk and glanced in the direction of the familiar vehicle. The sun roof was cracked open. Just as she opened the door to her sedan and slid in, the Mitsubishi crept forward and headed left onto her street. It was a nasty thing to do, and Alyssa knew she should have been ashamed of herself, but she grinned broadly, pulled the envelope from her pocket, and waved it at R.C. R.C. gave a thumbs up, and Alyssa blew him a kiss.
"See you in Boston," Alyssa said sweetly.
"In Boston." R.C. gave a two fingered salute, grinned, and gunned the engine. She watched the tail lights through the side mirror.
"In your dreams, R.C. Wetherington III, in your dreams."
Alyssa would have had a good laugh on the day R.C. was to arrive at their apartment in Boston, but she wasn't up to it. At first she attributed the nausea, loss of appetite, and fatigue to the stress of the cross country auto trip, the change in water, the hustle to find a place to live, land a job, and apply for admission to Berkeley.
It was at a clinic that the diagnosis was made. She was three months pregnant. Her jeans had grown snug. She was very late. Alyssa hardly needed to doctor to tell her what she already knew. The "unfortunate" had happened. She was carrying R.C. Wetherington III's baby whether Richard I or Richard II wanted it or not. From what she knew of Richard I, he might not be lucid enough to know his own name.
Walking the streets, Alyssa considered calling R.C. He had a right to know, and he had an obligation to support and nuture his child. Alyssa wouldn't be the only single mother, and there was hardly any shame nowadays to unwed motherhood, except to Alyssa. A woman wasn't meant to go it alone. She needed R.C. She cried out to him in the solitude of her apartment. She slammed her fists into the pillows until she could lift her arms no more. She didn't want to go it alone. She wanted a husband; she wanted her baby to have a father. Brochures and fetal development charts lay strewn across her bed. An embryo was a funny looking critter with transparent skin and a disproportionately large head, and it all developed miraculously into a baby.
She and R.C. had been inexperienced and careless. That was water over the dam. Alyssa was now reaping what had been so easily sown. It would take a good job and money to raise this child. The father need never know. Alyssa didn't have time to assess her feelings, whether she was courageous, vengeful, or simply a fool. There wasn't time to analyze. She knew what she must do.
