She looked down at his flushed face, her discreetly made-up eyes scanning him.
"Cute kid," she said, and I exhaled silently. "You sure he's Regina's? I'd have put money on her telling me if she was expecting, Martin. It just seems incredible that someone as - well, dependent, as Regina would do something as monumental as having a baby without telling the people who care about her." I noticed Cindy didn't say it was unthinkable that Regina would stoop to such a deception.
"But we haven't seen her for the past few months, darling," Dennis rumbled. He had a voice that matched his size. "To tell you the truth, Martin, I didn't encourage Regina to come by here. She was always hitting Cindy up for money, or asking us to give Craig a job... you get the picture. And since Cindy wasn't exactly a family member any more ..."
"Just the mother of Regina's cousin," Martin interjected quietly.
"Well, that, but not really Regina's aunt..." "How long had it been since you saw Craig or Regina?" I asked hastily, and Cindy looked a little surprised, as if she'd assumed I couldn't speak without permission.
"Oh... what? Three months or so?" Cindy looked up at Dennis. "Regina came by the house," she continued.
"That was about the Fourth of July, so it was at least four months ago," Dennis said. "We were getting ready for our pool party." "We were," Cindy confirmed with a reminiscent grin, and I could feel my smile get broader. Cindy was apparently partnered with this hunk not only in a business sense, but also in a personal sense, and it certainly sounded like they were living together.
"She came by?" Martin prompted. "To the house on Archibald Street?"
"No, I moved. We moved. Dennis and I live on Grant." I rolled my eyes. Gettysburg Street. Grant Street. "You people," I muttered into the fuzz on Hayden's head.
"Did you say something, Aurora?" Dennis asked, bending down to me. "No," I said, smiling with all the sugar in my system. "We're just having us a time, taking care of this little baby."
"Oh my gosh, Aurora, this must be awful for you!" I felt every muscle in my body tighten as her pitying tone alerted me to what she was about to say. "Is it true that you can't have your own? Martin, I think Barby told me you'd said that?" Cindy asked, and right then and there I decided I would kill my husband slowly, painfully, maybe publicly.
"Of course, with us never seeing Barrett, Martin was thinking of having more children," I said, as slowly and deliberately as I could manage. "But I said, 'No, Martin, that wouldn't hardly be fair to poor of Barrett. I know it doesn't look good, him never visiting you even though you've been sending him money for years, him never showing me the courtesy of shaking my hand - much less hugging my neck. But us having another child would just make Barrett feel so bad. So displaced." I stopped then, afraid I was over the line into parody. Cindy turned an uneven kind of red.
Martin was looking at me with a kind of horrified fascination. I hoped he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.
"So, where are you staying while you're in Corinth?" Dennis asked hastily. "Ah - out at the old farm," Martin said, not taking his eyes off me. Evidently, he had enough sense. "We've been at the Holiday Inn, but with the baby ... I think we would be better off out at the farm."
"It was nice of you to let Craig and Regina live there," Dennis said, since I was elaborately fussing with the baby and I had the strong feeling that Cindy was still staring at me.
"Yes," Martin said senselessly. "Well, we better be on our way. You wouldn't happen to know where Craig's brother Dylan lives, would you?" Dennis said, "Let's step outside, Martin; I can give you better directions that way." They were out the door with suspicious alacrity. As Dennis pointed down the street, apparently counting stoplights, Cindy and I gave each other quick glances.
"Barrett really hasn't come to see you at all?" she asked in a subdued way. "No. He doesn't acknowledge that I'm alive." To my pride, my voice was calm and dispassionate. "Now, I can see that is loyalty to you, which of course you'd expect from a son. But it does make Martin feel bad that Barrett never visits him and seldom calls."
His mother sighed