It was time. Tucking the ring in her purse, she joined Donna for a bagel and coffee, but she didn’t linger. She had driving to do.
Saturday morning traffic was light. The trip to Baltimore would take three and a half hours. It was a buffer; she needed the time to sort through her thoughts. The significance of what she had done was all the more stark in the light of day. A major life change, legal action ahead, emotional ups and downs—she didn’t take it lightly. Each time she turned the steering wheel and saw her naked finger, she felt a jolt.
Hearing Noah’s voice would have calmed her, but she refused to call. She wasn’t divorcing Monte for Noah. She was doing it for herself.
After cutting over from the East Side, she drove down Ninth Avenue thinking about the life she had known in New York. Once out of the Lincoln Tunnel, though, she focused on Janet. That meant gearing up to buck a pattern of behavior that had been forty years in the making.
Who am I? she asked over and over again in what amounted to a three-hour pep talk. I am a strong woman. I am capable. I am sensible and thoughtful and thorough. I am an independent woman who has her own convictions and is willing to act on them.
Phrases became part of a mantra, because Julia knew that first appearances mattered. Janet had to take one look at Julia and see the change.
She took a steadying breath when she entered Baltimore and repeated the mantra as she negotiated the familiar route. I am a survivor, she added. I have a responsibility to speak up for what I think is right. I won’t be minimized any more.
Her parents’ tree-lined street, with its large brick homes and lush green lawns, was as elegant as ever. She pulled into the paved driveway and parked behind the garage that held his-and-her sedans. The humidity hit her the instant she stepped from the car, more a flash from the past than anything oppressive, but it unbalanced her. Going up the bluestone walk, she wondered if her hair was too long, her capris too wrinkled, her wedged sandals too low and islandy. These qualms were another flash from the past. Her mother was an opinionated woman who didn’t shy from saying what she thought.
I have a responsibility to myself, Julia insisted. Shoulders back, she rang the bell. She did have a key, a relic of childhood, not to mention of later years when she had raced back from New York to cover for Janet. It was another on the key chain that had been rescued from the sea. Instinct told her, though, that this wasn’t the time to open the door herself and walk in.
The sidelight curtain shifted. Her mother’s startled eyes appeared. The door opened quickly—and, just as quickly, Julia forgot about being aggressive. This was a Janet she hadn’t seen before, slim as ever though less tall, wearier, and older, far older. She wore faded knee-length shorts, an untucked blouse, and no makeup, and her normally striking silver hair wasn’t combed—not at all the appearance of a woman who did “important work.” Julia couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother looking disheveled. She couldn’t remember when she had seen her mother looking anything but perfectly put-together. Unsettled—because this was her mother—Julia lost all taste for a fight.
Janet’s eyes flew to the car, then back. “Is your father all right?” she asked in alarm.
“He’s fine.”
“Molly, then?”
“She’s fine.”
“You?”
Julia managed a smile. “I’m fine, too. Can I come in, Mom?”
Seeming startled by the question, Janet stepped aside. “I was on the patio. I didn’t expect anyone. I was just sitting there with the paper. It’s been a week from hell. This is the first time I’ve been able to catch my breath.” She closed the door on the heat and started down the cool hall, then turned and eyed Julia with unease. “Did he tell you to come?”
There was no mistaking whom she meant. “No. He doesn’t know I’m here.”
She turned and continued on, only to stop several paces later. Her eyes were somber this time. “If you’ve come to argue his case, please don’t. He needs to do that himself.” She went on through the kitchen and out a pair of French doors to the patio. Crossing the flagstones to the sun, she lowered herself into a lounge chair with more care than she would have taken if she had been twenty years younger. The paper was on a table by the lounger. Pages pristine, it looked unopened.
Julia’s heart broke. Her mother was clearly unhappy.
Pulling up a chair, she said, “I’m not arguing his case, Mom. I just want you to know that there is nothing going on between Zoe and him. There was that one time however many years ago, but nothing since and nothing now. He went up there because I was there, and because he was angry at you and knew that going there would be the most hurtful thing.”
“That was childish of him.”
“Yes.”
Janet closed her eyes. Julia was fearing that was the end of it, when her mother said, “How do you know nothing’s happening?”
“I’ve seen them together. There’s no chemistry.”
“Would you be able to tell if there were?”
“I think I would.”
“You didn’t notice anything last time.”
“I was fifteen then.”
Janet said nothing. Lacing her fingers together over her waist, she lay in the sun for a time. Her nails were polished—she had a manicure every Thursday at noon—but everything else about her hands looked tired and tense.
“There’s nothing,” Julia insisted. “Trust me. Twenty-five years have passed. They’re both different people from who they were then. Dad is bored. She’s put him to work in the barn, but she doesn’t want to be anywhere near him, so he’s there alone, and he has only so much patience for that. He hangs out at the Grill, waiting for Molly to come out of the kitchen and say hello. He hangs out at the dock and talks with anyone who’s there.”
“He’s living in the house with her,” Janet argued, but wearily.
“That’s my fault. Neither of them wanted it, but there was one other place to sleep, and I took it.”
Janet sighed. She turned her face to the sun.
“Are you wearing sunscreen?” Julia asked.
“No.”
“Aren’t you supposed to?” Several suspicious spots had been treated in recent years.
Janet slit open an eye and said without humor, “I’m living dangerously.” She closed the eye. “If you’re staying somewhere else, how do you know he isn’t sneaking down the hall to see her at night?”
“Zoe told me.”
“And you believe her?”
“Why would she lie? If she was at all interested, she would be gloating. But she isn’t. She has never forgiven herself for what happened. There’s no way, no way she would ever let it happen again.”
Janet said nothing for a while. Then, “If he’s bored, why’s he staying there?”
“Because you haven’t called!”
Her mother raised her head and met her gaze. “He hasn’t called me, either. What if I fell down the stairs and lay at the bottom needing help? What if I died in my sleep? Doesn’t he care?”
“I was in an accident that could have taken my life, but you didn’t call,” Julia cried. “Didn’t you care?”
“I knew you were well. You called and told us so.”
“I also told you I was upset!”
“Yes. Can we get to this later?” It was typical Janet, scheduling things in. “Right now, we’re discussing your father.”
Julia sighed in exasperation. “Of course, he cares.”
“I told your brothers I sent him up there to be with you. I didn’t know what else to say. Does he plan to come back?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the holiday weekend.”
“Tuesday? Wednesday?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Why don’t you call him and ask?”
Janet shot her a caustic look and returned her head to the chair.
Julia let it go. She needed a breather. She consciously relaxed her hands, then lifted her hair off the back
of her neck. She had forgotten the heat and humidity of Baltimore summers. Island air could be warm, but there was always a breeze. Here, nothing moved. If the past was any indication, half of the neighborhood was at the shore for the Fourth of July weekend, if only to escape the heat. Not that Julia minded either the heat or the neighbors’ absence. Both were childhood memories. Revisited now, as she stood on the brink of a major change in her life, they brought a surprising comfort.
“The yard is beautiful,” she said. “Do you still have the same gardener?”
“Yes. He’s very loyal.”
Julia sighed. “So is Dad.”
“Well, it would be nice to think so, but once a man cheats on his wife, it is hard. You have no idea what it’s like to live with that fear all these years.”
Julia held her breath. It was time. If Janet was going to fight her on this, she wanted it over and done.
Carefully, she said, “I know what it’s like, Mom. I’ve lived with it myself.”
Janet opened one eye, saw that Julia was serious, and opened the other—and for the first time since seeing her mother looking so vulnerable at the door, Julia let loose with the defiance she had drummed up during her drive from New York.
Chapter 19
I’ve just come from New York,” Julia said in a rush of courage. “I’m divorcing Monte.”
Janet raised her head off the lounge. “Divorcing?”
“It isn’t working. It hasn’t for a while. Monte’s had a string of affairs. I walked in last night and caught him in bed with the latest.”
She was so braced for an I-told-you-so about having left Monte alone and run off to Maine that when Janet said a simple, “Oh Julia,” she was already on to the next point.
“Molly saw the same thing when she flew back from Paris and showed up unannounced.” She realized that Janet was looking stunned—actually sympathetic—but still she hurried on. Janet was a big one for “studies.” She liked statistics telling about the people her charity served and the success of the service. Julia needed to bolster her case. “All the signs pointed to it. He was relieved when I said I wasn’t coming home after the accident, and relieved when Molly decided to stay on Big Sawyer. I think back on how he urged her to spend the summer in Paris instead of New York. He knew I planned to be in Maine for two weeks. He had been counting on that time to play on his own.”
“A string of affairs?” Janet asked archly. “Going back how long?”
Julia was quickly defensive. Old habits died hard. “Well, I don’t know, Mom. I didn’t come home from my honeymoon expecting it.
Maybe it started way back then. I didn’t monitor his comings and goings. I’m not that kind of wife.”
“I know.”
“I had suspicions, but only because he seemed disinterested in some regards—”
“Sex.”
“—and I really didn’t want to believe it. What woman does? I’ve only documented the past three years—and yes, I put up with it,” she hurried to say before Janet-the-activist could scold, “for all the usual reasons. But it’s gotten harder to look the other way.”
“And then there’s the fear,” Janet said quietly.
“Oh, yes,” Julia agreed indignantly, and was about to tell Janet that she knew very well what the fear was about, when she realized that Janet was commiserating with her. Commiserating. The archness had been directed at Monte, not at Julia. “You’ve felt that fear?” she asked more meekly.
“I have.”
Gratified, Julia relaxed some. As she did, though, the pain emerged. “It was sharpest the first time I realized what was going on. I was convinced he had fallen in love with someone else and would divorce me. I learned to live with the fear, but there was always a new doubt. Did I look young enough? Did I dress stylishly enough? Was I deferential enough and agreeable enough and interesting enough? Was I accommodating enough? Did I do enough for him, so that he would need me?”
Janet slid her feet to the ground and sat up. “You were far better at all those things than I was.”
“I doubt that,” Julia said. “I pale next to you. But Dad’s different from Monte. He’s proud of your career, and anyway, he’s a background kind of guy. Monte’s not. He wants to be up there on a pedestal. He likes being seen and admired. He likes being coveted. So I worked harder to be deferential and agreeable and interesting. I knew that if I became a negative asset, he would sell me off.”
“Buy you off,” Janet corrected.
“That’s an awful pressure to live with. After the accident, it just seemed self-defeating.”
“What will you do? Where will you live?”
Julia hadn’t thought that far. All she knew was that having slept with Noah, she had to end her marriage. “For now, I’ll stay on Big Sawyer.”
“You need a lawyer.”
“I have one. I met with him yesterday, before I saw Monte.”
“How did Monte take it?”
“He tried arguing, but I caught him red-handed. I honestly think this is the first time I’ve ever won an argument with him. Toward the end, he was almost looking sad.”
“Almost?”
“I’d say ‘truly,’ if I didn’t know what a good actor he is. That’s the saddest thing of all.”
“The lack of trust.”
“Yes.”
Janet sat back in the lounger again, eyes focused on the pair of tall oaks at the end of the yard. After a bit, without looking at Julia, she said, “You think you’re above it. I run an organization that deals with people who are down-and-out, dysfunctional, impoverished on so many levels, and it’s been easy to feel superior, because I’m none of those things.” She aimed stricken eyes at Julia. “The hubris does you in. Suddenly you see that you’re not above anyone or anything, because right in your own home, things aren’t so good.”
“But they are,” Julia countered. This was part of the awakening she’d had after the sinking of the Amelia Celeste. “We’re alive. We’re healthy. What a gift that is.”
Pensive, Janet looked at her dogwoods. Closer to the patio than the oaks, they had lost their blossoms but were lush in size and rich in color. An old wrought-iron bench sat under one. Julia had spent many summer days on that bench, many quiet moments. With so much changing in her life, being here with her mother was a cushion.
After a time, Janet faced her. “You’ve had reason to think about death.”
Julia had. Mere mention of it brought back all the hurt she had felt. In the comfort of the setting, she found the strength to say, “I needed you, Mom. You didn’t have to visit. A call would have been enough.”
“I know.”
“You have an aversion to Big Sawyer, but this was me, not Zoe. I’m your daughter.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Julia heard the apology. Being Julia, though, she couldn’t make her mother grovel. So she went on, reasoning, “It’s been a growing experience for me. I managed on my own. I’m better off for that. Actually, Mom”—there was more to say, but she needed a time-out—“I’m hungry. Are you interested in lunch?”
Janet looked nervous. “I don’t have much; it’s just your father and me, and now with him gone…”
What she didn’t say was that George did the shopping, and that with his being gone nearly a week, the refrigerator was bare. “I’ll run to the market,” Julia offered. “Want anything special?”
Janet insisted on coming, and it was a first. Julia couldn’t remember a time when she and her mother had walked these aisles together. From the way Janet studied the array of food, she wondered when her mother had last been here, period. Cleaned up and dressed now in a skirt and blouse, she looked more her usual composed self.
Julia chose to take credit for that—and found that it felt good. She was, after all, a nurturer. Yes, the nurturing had been one-sided and she had neglected herself in the process. That had to change. But if she took pleasure in caring for others, she didn’t see why she had to stop.
Understa
nding that, she relaxed with Janet, who pushed the carriage and pointed at things she wanted to buy, things that went well beyond lunch. But then, lunch wasn’t the point.
“Do they have a market up there?” Janet asked after they had picked up lettuce and fruit in the fresh-produce aisle.
“Not a supermarket, per se,” Julia replied, “just the island store, but it’s upscale.”
“Zoe was never a picky eater. Raisins, Julia. Over there. Is she still slim?”
“Very,” Julia said, putting the raisins in the cart as Janet rounded the corner into the next aisle.
“Too thin?”
“No. She’s just right.”
“Um, that cereal, I think. Your father never buys that one. But I like it.”
Julia took the cereal off the shelf, put it in the cart, and they went on.
“She probably hasn’t turned gray, either,” Janet remarked, but questioningly.
“She has. But she colors it. She looks good. She likes her life.”
“Zoe and the rabbits.”
Snide? Julia didn’t know. Giving Janet the benefit of the doubt, she said, “The rabbits are a means to an end. They connect her with people. Some of those people buy the babies, some buy the wool.”
“We need bottled water,” Janet said. She took the bottles as Julia handed them to her, and neatly lined them up in the cart. “Does she smell of rabbit?”
“No, she does not. Angoras don’t smell.”
Janet pointed at coffee, then, in the next aisle, applesauce. They turned onto the pasta aisle. Janet picked up a box of tortellini and read the directions on the side. “Have you ever made this?”
“Not that brand.”
Janet replaced the box and pushed the cart on. When they started down the detergent aisle, she said, “What about men?”
“What about them?”
“Fabric softener sheets, please. Yes, those. Isn’t she interested?”
“She has many male friends.”
Softener sheets went beside applesauce, and the cart moved on. “That’s not what I meant.”
“She’s been with men. Two were long-term.”
“What happened?”
The Summer I Dared: A Novel Page 32