Julia's Daughters (8 page)

Chapter 13

Julia

 

I close Izzy's door quietly behind me and lean against it. I stayed until she fell asleep. She felt so good in my arms, warm and soft. It reminded me of when she was a baby, snuggled, asleep in my arms. Izzy is the baby I remember the most, not because she was the most important to me, but because I had known she would be my last. I had my tubes tied after she was born, so I was more aware of her milestones, more aware of my
last times:
the last time I would hold my own newborn, the last time I would breast-feed, the last time I would watch my baby walk for the first time.

Izzy had been so happy to see me tonight, happy to have me climb into bed with her. Standing here in the dark hallway, I realize how much I've missed my Isobel. Obviously she's missed me.

Guilt washes over me. I've been so lost in my own pain, I realize, that I haven't been giving much attention to my youngest. It's funny how the thought comes to me so suddenly. I don't think I've gotten into bed with Izzy or invited her to get in bed with me since Caitlin died almost two months ago. How have I not seen her needing me?

The obvious answer is that I've been in too much pain to see Izzy. That makes me feel terrible. I've always prided myself on the fact that I'm a good mother. What kind of mother emotionally abandons her little girl in the middle of such a tragedy? Caitlin was my daughter, but she was also Izzy's sister.

I walk down the hall and stop at Haley's door and listen. Sometimes I hear her on her cell talking to friends this late, but not tonight. It's quiet. Too quiet? I feel a sudden sense of panic. Is she in there or has she taken off again? Should I have had bars installed on her window? I open her door without knocking. It's dark. No light filtering in around the blinds like in Izzy's room. Haley's added heavy drapes to her windows. I walk over to her bed and as my eyes adjust, I begin to make out the shape of her form. She's asleep on her side, her arms wrapped around a throw pillow. I listen to her soft, steady breathing and I remember her as a baby in my arms. She was my screamer. She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. She was my problem child from the minute she was born. I had the episiotomy to prove it.

But she was such a beautiful baby when she wasn't screaming. So inquisitive and full of life. I smile sadly and back out of Haley's room, closing the door behind me. I need to sit down with her and have that talk. I need to figure out where we need to go from here. But not tonight. I won't do that to her. I won't steal her away from the peace only sleep brings.

In the hall, I hear the sound of the TV. I see the flash of light in the dark, coming from the living room. Ben arrived home from his mom's house about an hour after we did and went straight to his recliner, taking two beers with him.

I stand in the hallway in indecision. Do I go to bed? Or confront my husband and ask him if he's been having sex with someone else? It's quite a dilemma. My bed is calling me. I haven't cried in hours. And do I really want to know if he's screwing someone else? Because honestly, there really is a certain bliss in ignorance. And if I find out he is, then what? I'm pretty certain I can handle only one catastrophe in my life at a time.

The hardwood floor is cool beneath my bare feet. I gaze in the direction of the living room. I really do just want to climb into bed and hide. Possibly pull the blanket over my head and deny everything that's going on in the other rooms of this house right now. I've lost a child. I shouldn't have to deal with anything else ever again, should I? No family problems. No boss that keeps e-mailing me and leaving me voice messages. In all fairness, I should never have to stand in a line again. Or pay for my sushi.

I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and walk toward the dancing light of the television.

In the living room, I stand behind the couch. Ben's watching something on how dams are built. The narrator is talking about the San Roque Dam in the Philippines. Images of its gated spillway flash across the screen.

I glance at Ben. He's awake. I take a deep breath and walk around the couch. I'm not sure if I have the emotional fortitude to do this right now, but I can't let it go. I can't go to bed without asking him about what his mom said. Or didn't say. “Hey,” I say softly.

He looks over at me, almost seeming surprised to see me there. Like it's not my living room. Which I guess, in a way, it hasn't been in a while.

“Hey,” he answers, sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Okay . . .” Right away he has a guilty look on his face. I know that look; it's his “what have I done now?” look. But all men have that in their repertoire, don't they?

I sit down on the edge of the couch next to him. It's funny, at a time like this, you would think I'd be loud. Accusatory. I'm neither. When I speak, I sound very calm. “Your mom cornered me in the bathroom. In the
bathroom,
Ben. She walked right in on me.”

He groans. “I'm sorry. I know she's not always good with boundaries. She means well. It's just that she's worried to death about Haley.”

I don't think Linda does mean well, but I don't say so. I learned a long time ago to pick my fights and that isn't my fight tonight.

“She just wants what's best for Haley,” Ben goes on. “Anything she says, she says—”

“She said you were having an affair,” I blurt.

“What?” He grabs the remote off the end table between us, knocking over an empty beer bottle.

I pick up the beer bottle. He hits the mute button. An enormous dam fills the TV screen, making it brighter in the living room.

“I am not having an affair, Jules.” He grabs my hand, which surprises me.

I look into his face, wanting to believe him. The extra pounds aren't doing anything for his rugged good looks, but when I look into his eyes, I still see the man I fell in love with all those years ago.

“I swear to God I'm not,” Ben tells me. “What the hell would make her say such a thing?”

My fingers curl around his. My first impulse is to believe him. Ben has his faults, but he's not a liar. And he's not good at lying. Early in our marriage, when he tried to get away with a few things, petty things, we both learned quickly that dishonesty wasn't going to work for him.

I exhale. So I believe him, but I don't want to be stupid about this. There are plenty of wives who see only what they want to see. I don't want to be that woman. I won't be. “Why would she say such a thing if there's no truth to it?” I ask, looking at him.

I hear him swear under his breath. “She actually
told
you I was cheating on you?”

I think about what was said in the bathroom tonight. “No,” I confess. “But she wanted me to think she was saying you were cheating on me,
had
cheated on me. Something like that. You know your mother. You know that thing she does, insinuating without actually coming out and saying it.”

“I'm not, Jules.” He holds my gaze. “I've never cheated on you. Not in twenty years. I swear.” He frowns. “She was drunk. You know she was drunk.” Now a scowl. “What the hell were you talking about that such a thing even came up?”

I'm too tired to look away. I want to, though. I don't want to say it to his face. Admit it to him . . . because then I'll be admitting it to myself. “The poor state of our marriage. I think it was her idea of a pep talk. She was telling me how your dad cheated on her and they were able to get through it and make the marriage work.”

“Maybe she just meant we could get through this, you know, losing Caitlin.”

“Maybe.” I glance at the TV. We both do.

There's a commercial with a woman and a man in a convertible looking romantically into each other's eyes. I wonder why the erectile dysfunction advertisements always feature young women and older men.

“But why would she even insinuate such a thing, if there was no truth to it?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “I don't know, Jules.”

“Have you been flirting with someone? At work? A client? Maybe someone flirting with you?”

He's still shaking his head. “Nothing like that. Me, cheating on you? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I would never do that. You know me, Jules.” He sounds hurt now. “You know I would never do something like that.”

“It was a lot of information crammed into one bathroom,” I tell him. “She also said that she told you not to marry me. That she warned you our marriage would never last.”

He groans, closes his eyes, and runs his hand over his face. But he's still holding on to my hand. And I feel a tiny glimmer of hope. I've felt so far removed from Ben, from our marriage, for so long. I'd forgotten what the intimacy of talking together in a dark room could be like. It's actually kind of funny that the accusation that he's been cheating on me is what brings this about.

He lowers his hand. “I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. It was her birthday. She had too much to drink. You know she has a mean streak when she has too much to drink.”

I look at him. We've been married long enough for him to know what I'm thinking. We've had this discussion about his mother's drinking before. Many times before. Either he denies she has a drinking problem or he says there's nothing anyone can do about it until she's ready to admit she has a problem. Either way, it's a dead subject between us.

“That was mean of her to tell me that.” I press my lips together. “I don't know why she wants to hurt me, Ben.” My voice catches. “Doesn't she know how much I'm already hurting?” Tears fill my eyes, but, thankfully, they don't spill over. I don't want to cry. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of feeling the way I feel.

“Come here,” Ben whispers, pulling on my hand.

I sort of climb into his lap and lay my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around me and just holds me. We used to do this all the time; I can't remember when the last time was.

“You didn't have sex with another woman?” I whisper.

“Think about it logically for a second. With whom? When? You know what kind of hours I work. I know. With Margie,” he teases.

Margie is one of the women who work in the front office at the Maxton lawn-care business. She's pushing seventy-five and has a mouth like a dockworker. I can't bring myself to laugh, but I smile. “Oh, Ben.”

He kisses my temple. Not exactly a romantic overture, but it's the most physical we've been in a while and it feels good. It makes me feel like I'm still alive. Like I want to be.

“You've lost weight,” he whispers, curling his hand around my hip and down over my butt. “You need to start eating. Keep up your strength.”

“It's not like I couldn't stand to lose a few pounds,” I murmur.

He sighs and strokes my back. I close my eyes.

“We still haven't talked about Haley,” Ben says after a few moments of silence. “We need to figure out what we're going to do with her.”

I lie there with my eyes closed, curled up in a ball on his lap. “I know. I just can't—I don't—” I take a deep breath. “Whether it's the best thing for Haley or not, Ben, I . . . I can't let her go. I can't send her to Switzerland to school.”

“Switzerland? What the hell are you talking about?”

I open my eyes to see him looking down at me. “Izzy's idea. She wants to go skiing in the Alps.”

“I still have no idea what we're talking about.”

I sigh and close my eyes again, resting my head on his shoulder. I can smell the beer on his breath, but I don't mind. “I'm not sending Haley to boarding school. There's no way I can do that, but Linda might be right in suggesting that Haley needs a change of scenery.”

“What? A vacation?” He sounds ticked. Just like that and the gentleness in his voice is gone. “She gets kicked out of school for drug possession and we're going to go on a European vacation? I can't get away from work, Jules. You know this time of year is bad. It's spring and—”

“Ben,” I interrupt. “I wasn't thinking about taking Haley on a
vacation.
” I sit up. Now
I'm
a little ticked. We're never on the same page anymore. Why are we never on the same page? What would make him think I think a vacation is a solution? Does he not know me any better than that? And why does the conversation move so quickly from the serious problem with our daughter to his work and what he can't do?

I give myself a second because I know that getting angry with Ben isn't going to help us come up with a plan on how to help Haley. “I was talking to Laney and . . . she suggested sending Haley to stay with her. I can't do that. I wouldn't do that to Laney, but maybe . . .” I'm thinking out loud now. “Maybe Haley and I should . . . I don't know. Go see Laney.”

“What? Fly out for a weekend or something?”

“I guess. Maybe. I don't know.” His arms aren't around me anymore and I feel awkward. I climb clumsily out of his lap and turn to face him. “Probably longer than that. Or . . . we could drive.”

He looks at me like I'm an idiot. “Drive three thousand miles to Maine?”

“It's twenty-eight hundred,” I say. “I checked on Google Maps.”

“You've never made a cross-country trip like that. No. I wouldn't be comfortable with that.” He shakes his head. “It doesn't sound like a good idea, Jules.” He thinks for a minute. “And what about Izzy? It would take you at least a week to drive cross-country. What would you do with Izzy?”