Page 97 of Inferno

“Yes.” Celeste was weeping again, and so was Prissy.

Minutes passed without either of them speaking. The raw outpouring of grief was too much.

Celeste was the first to finally regain her composure.

“About eleven years ago,” she whispered brokenly, “I was going to ask Sterling for a divorce. We’d been unhappy for a while, and I just thought it was time for us to go our separate ways. And then I found out I was pregnant with Marcus. No way could I leave Sterling after that.”

While Prissy was still reeling from this new revelation, Celeste continued in a low, haunted voice, “Every time I think I’m done with Sterling Wolf, something else happens to keep me tied to him. Once again I tried to leave him, and once again I wound up pregnant. Thathasto mean something, doesn’t it, Pris?”

Prissy shook her head sorrowfully. “I don’t know, Celeste.”

Celeste sighed. “Maybe wearemeant to be together. Maybe when it’s all said and done, time will reveal that Sterling and I are truly soul mates.”

“Maybe,” Prissy murmured.

A long, mournful silence passed between the two women.

“You know,” Celeste said reflectively, “we used to say that if we ever had a girl, we’d name her Savannah because some of our happiest times together were at Mama Wolf’s house. This summer when we were driving home from there, do you know what Michael said? He was staring out the window, and all of a sudden he cheerfully announced that if he had a daughter someday, he would name her Savannah because it was one of his favorite places in the whole world. Sterling and I just looked at each other and smiled.”

Prissy smiled, too.

“Why don’t you come here for Thanksgiving, Celeste?” she gently cajoled. “Michael and Marcus are already here, and everyone else is coming on Tuesday. You need to be around family right now.”

“I know, and I’d love nothing more than to spend the holiday with my boys. But I can’t come. I…I can’t be around Sterling right now. It’s too painful.”

Prissy nodded with sympathetic understanding. “Are you going to tell him…about the baby?”

After a prolonged silence, Celeste answered quietly, “There’s no point now,isthere? If I tell him that Imiscarriedour third child, he’s going to be as devastated as I am. Why hurt him any more than I already have?”

Prissy closed her eyes on a heavy sigh. “You have a point, but aren’t you tired of keeping secrets, Celeste?”

“Yes,” she admitted sadly. “But this is one I’m willing to take to my grave to spare Sterling any more pain.”

Prissy nodded slowly, accepting her decision. “I won’t tell a soul, either,” she promised.

“Thank you, Pris,” Celeste whispered.“For everything.”

Prissy swallowed tightly. “Get some rest, sweetie, and I’ll check up on you tomorrow.”

“All right.And Pris?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you kiss my boys for me?”

Prissy had already intended to do just that. She smiled softly. “I sure will.”

After she hung up the phone, she padded to the bathroom to rinse her face and blow her nose. When she felt sufficiently composed enough to face her nephews, she ventured downstairs to the basement.

Michael and Marcus were playing with the pinball machine, their boyish laughter blending with the noisyping-ping-pingsounds radiating from the flashing contraption. Although Prissy had told them to change when they all returned from church, the two brothers still wore their white dress shirts, which were untucked from their dark pants with the sleeves rolled to their elbows.

For several moments Prissy just stood on the stairs watching them, these beloved boys who looked so much like her own that she could have given birth to them.

Marcus was the first to glance up and notice her.“Hey, Aunt Prissy!Are theybackyet?”

She smiled indulgently. “No, baby, not yet. There’re six of them, so it usually takes a while.”

“Yeah.That’s whymeand Mike decided not to go with them.” Marcus made a disgruntled face. “It takesforeverat the barber shop.”