by Rena Olsen
“This is our house, Julia; I want to fill it with our things, not your memories from another life.”
And so it went into boxes and into the donation bin at the church. I didn’t mention the items that he brought from his apartment. He had pointed out that my ex had been in my apartment, so the items from it could hold those memories, while he hadn’t brought a woman to his apartment before me. He made a good point, and I was glad to be rid of my things once I realized what they meant to him.
While going through his boxes, I found a lot of things that were easy to decide to donate. Old sports balls, some novels that he would have no interest in rereading, clothes that wouldn’t even fit his broad shoulders anymore. I held up one shirt, a simple green T-shirt, and was astonished at how small it was. He must have been a very slight teenager.
One box in particular caught my attention. Under piles of old clothes, buried deep at the bottom of the box, was a bundled stack of old letters, with postmarks from over fifteen years ago. All in the same flowery handwriting. All with the same return address, a small town named Meadowsville, which I’d never heard of.
I weighed the pros and cons of opening the letters. I should probably give them to Bryce, and respect his privacy. But what if they contained painful memories? He’d spoken so little about his family before coming to live with the Reverend. Part of me wanted to respect that privacy, but the other part of me was burning to know about his past, to know what his life was like before he found the Reverend. Before the Reverend found him. Rescued him.
Setting the letters aside, I repacked the box, wrote “Donate” on the top, and carried it downstairs to put in the back room. I had three more boxes to go through. I told myself that if I could focus on those, I could decide what to do about the letters. I prayed as I sorted out the last of Bryce’s things. There was about a box’s worth of items for him to look through to decide whether he wanted to keep them or not. The letters should have gone in that box. Better, I should hand him the letters as soon as he walked in the door that night, so he wouldn’t miss them, no matter what he wanted to do with them.
Instead, I tucked the stack under my arm and scurried to my parlor. Bryce rarely went into that room. They’d be safe there, and I could decide what to do later. I set the letters on the table and stared at them, thinking. Finally, with shaking hands, I untied the stack, took the letter on top, and slipped it out of its envelope. The same writing from the front of the envelope covered the sheet of paper inside.
Dear Bruce,
Thank you for the letter, and for the money. Sissy was able to get new shoes for school. The kids don’t tease her so much now. Daddy is back and still looking for a job, but he’s got a couple leads that look promising. Old Lady Sherman hired me to clean her house once a week, so that helps.
Everyone’s been asking about you. They still have questions about Dwayne. I told them it was an accident and you had nothing to do with it but they still want to talk. I wish you’d tell me where you really are. You know I’d keep it a secret. I haven’t told anyone about your letters. We miss you here. You can come home, you know. I’d protect you. Daddy wouldn’t let anything happen to you. He told the cops you were with him that night.
Please come visit soon. Sissy says she doesn’t remember what you look like anymore.
Love, Mama
I sat back in the chair, short of breath though I’d been sitting. Who was Bruce? Was that Bryce? Why would he change his name? Was this his family? If so, it sounded as if Bryce had continued taking care of them even after he’d left, which was very much like him. Scenarios raced through my brain about why Bryce had left this family, why he had changed his name, assuming this letter was even for him, and I wished more than ever that he would open up to me, share about his childhood. But I couldn’t ask him now.
Standing up to pace the room, I searched for a suitable hiding spot. There was a basket on the top shelf where I kept extra stationery. The envelopes would fit in perfectly there. I pulled a stool to the shelf to reach, and soon the letters were hidden. Out of sight. But not out of my mind. I breathed deeply and tried to call back the feeling from the Gathering last weekend. It had been the most intense experience yet, but Susie was right. I was getting better at living with it in the back of my mind instead of fixating on it throughout the week.
Sending up a prayer asking for forgiveness, I hurried downstairs to start dinner. When Bryce came home an hour later and asked about my day, I lied to my husband for the first time. “Same as ever. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Best if he didn’t know for now.
* * *
—
The following week, after the Gathering, we were settling in for lunch with the Reverend when Nancy turned to me. “Julia, Bryce says that since you’ve organized the house, you’ve been eager for more to do.”
I smiled. “I have been. I had thought to maybe look for a part-time job, one that won’t take away from my time here at the church.”
When I had mentioned it to Bryce, he’d been upset. He didn’t want me working outside the home, especially with my new discovery of Oneness. He thought it was important to stick close, away from outside influences. But I was going stir-crazy, and even the plans I tried to set up with Van always seemed to fall through. She’d been pretty distant since the wedding, but every time we set up for lunch, something seemed to come up for her work or for me at the church. We had plans to go out for drinks this week, but I hadn’t told Bryce yet. He was adamant about these “outside influences,” but I was pretty sure he didn’t mean Van. Still, I scheduled it for a night when I knew he had a meeting so it wouldn’t take away from any of our time together. He would be proud of my efficiency when I told him.
“Well,” Nancy was saying. “It so happens that we have need of a tutor at our school. Nothing too strenuous, but I think you’d be great as a mentor for some of our girls.”
I had taken a quick tour of the school once, before Bryce and I were married, but hadn’t been back since. Much of the time I forgot it was there, and in this moment I felt a little guilty about that. These were mostly girls whose mothers couldn’t take care of them. It was a private alternative placement to foster care or, in some cases, juvenile detention. Each girl was sponsored by a family in the church, and the school was staffed entirely by church members, mostly on a volunteer basis, with a few paid employees. As I’d been told my first weekend at the church, everyone in the church took their tithe of time and Acts of Service very seriously.
“What would I need to do?” I asked. “I mean, do you think I’d know enough to tutor?”
Nancy waved a hand, dismissing my concerns. “You’d be given the material ahead of time to study and understand. You’ll have access to the teachers as well, to make sure that you have a resource if you come across difficult material. But in general, it’s pretty basic. We’re training these girls to be able to function in the world as wives and mothers. Most won’t go to college, and you won’t be tutoring any of those on that track.”
I was slightly taken aback at her casual tone, as if being a wife or mother didn’t require education and dedication. They’d spent months drilling into me the importance of being a wife, my irreplaceable role within my family and the church family, and now Nancy spoke of these girls and their futures as if they were inconsequential. My shock must have shown on my face.
“Please don’t misunderstand, Julia,” the Reverend jumped in. “We hold these girls in the highest regard. We want the best life for them. That’s why they’re training to be wives and mothers. Unfortunately we can’t afford to send most of them to college, and we don’t want to start them out with massive debt from loans.”
“But what if they don’t find anyone?”
“We have plenty of groups here at the church, and we help set them up with jobs and an apartment in our buildings until they find their spouses.”
I nodde
d slowly. “I guess that makes sense.” I thought for a moment. “What if they really want to go to college?”
“If that’s what they want, and we think it’s a good fit, we work with them to make it happen. But most are content with the path we’ve set for them.”
I wondered if the girls truly felt the same way. Immediately I mentally slapped myself. I remembered the person I was before meeting Bryce and compared her to myself now. I was much better off now than I had been, and some of the decisions I’d made I would never have considered before.
“When do I start?”
Chapter 21
I searched the bar for Van’s familiar curls in the crowd at Mickey Finn’s and had a flashback to the last time we were here. Karaoke night almost a year ago, when I’d first started seeing Bryce. Amazing what changes a year could bring.
“Julia!” I barely had time to register Van’s smiling face before she crushed me into a hug. “I didn’t think you were going to make it!”
“I’m here!” I said. I didn’t tell her that I almost had to cancel. Bryce had decided to come home for dinner before his meeting. He usually ate with the Reverend if he had a meeting at the church, so I was already getting ready to go out when I heard him come in. I’d wiped my face and rushed downstairs, smiling as he brandished takeout containers.
“I figured you wouldn’t have planned dinner,” Bryce said. “But I wanted to surprise you so you didn’t have to cook for one!”
It was a very sweet gesture, but his presence pushed my timeline back. I hadn’t lied to him exactly, but for some reason I hadn’t told him about my plans to see Van. I wrote a note in case he returned home before me, but mostly I planned to drop it into casual conversation later, as we got ready for bed. He wouldn’t be upset, most likely. Maybe a little, since I didn’t tell him ahead of time. Still, I hadn’t wanted to risk having to cancel, as seemed to happen a lot. I didn’t want to jinx it.
Van pulled me to a booth in the corner and looked me up and down. “You look different.”
I fussed with my hair and smoothed my skirt. Stacy had taken me shopping before the wedding, insisting that I needed a new wardrobe to be Mrs. Bryce Covington. She’d also talked me into getting my hair lightened. “Just some subtle highlights,” she’d said, but the effect on my dark auburn hair was striking.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“Sure,” Van said. “You’re gorgeous as ever, just different. More like those rich folks you’ve been hanging out with.”
I laughed. “Van, those people are my friends! And my church family. Be nice.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be good. But fill me in! Tell me about your honeymoon. And your job!”
I winced, remembering that I’d never actually told Van that I’d left my job at the marketing firm. Before the wedding, I’d been worried about her reaction, and in the weeks since, our short text conversations never opened up the opportunity to really talk about the big things. Thinking about it now, I realized how bad it looked, how strange that I hadn’t mentioned it. She was supposed to be my best friend, but I had kept this monumental news from her. I wasn’t ashamed of quitting, but I knew what she would say.
“The honeymoon was amazing,” I said, my cheeks warming as she gave me that look. “Stop it, Van, you’re not getting details.”
“Party pooper,” she joked. “So how about that job? That fancy promotion working out?”
I bit my lip. “Actually . . . I left the firm.”
“What? When? Why?”
“Um, before the wedding.”
Van sat back as if I’d punched her. “And you didn’t tell me? Why the hell would you leave? All you ever wanted was that promotion!”
I nodded. “That’s what I thought, but it wasn’t what I expected it to be.” I paused, trying to figure out how to summarize everything that had happened at work leading up to my resignation. “I was stressed-out all the time, the hours were grueling, and I wasn’t at my best in any area of my life. Bryce thought it was important . . .” I trailed off at the look on Van’s face, like she’d stepped in something nasty. “What?”
“You let Bryce tell you to quit your job?”
“It’s not like that, Van. He and the Reverend just helped me focus on where I wanted my priorities to be, and they weren’t at that firm.”
This time Van actually rolled her eyes. “That smarmy ‘Reverend’”—she used air quotes—“could sell ice to a Canadian in the dead of winter. I can’t believe you fell for that.”
My stomach felt like it was filled with rocks. I got that she wouldn’t understand why I left the job at first, but that was my family she was talking about. “He only wants what’s best for me. I thought you would, too.”
Van leaned forward, her expression earnest. “I do, Jules, that’s why I’m worried. You’re so different since you got with Bryce, and I should have said more before you were married, but you need to be careful.”
“I know I’ve changed, but I think it’s for the better.”
“I liked who you were before.”
“Maybe I didn’t.”
She looked at me. “Was it you who didn’t, or was it Bryce who told you that who you were wasn’t good enough?”
Pressure built behind my eyelids. I couldn’t believe this was Van, my best friend, talking this way about my husband. Maybe Bryce had been right about outside influences. Maybe Susie had been right about Van in particular. She went to church, but she didn’t get it. She wasn’t Chosen. I wilted at the thought.
“Hey.” Van reached across the table. “I’m sorry, okay? I just want you to be happy. Are you happy, Julia?”
I nodded. “I am.”
“Okay, then.” She smiled. “That’s that.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. So tell me about you.” We could move past this. We believed different things, but the core of our friendship was solid. And I would need to learn to deal with outside influences at some point. I couldn’t stay sequestered in the church and at home forever.
Van was in the middle of an epic tale about her failure to read the directions on a cake box correctly, when my phone buzzed. My heart sank when I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Bryce.
“Hold on a sec,” I said to Van. “Hey,” I said into the phone, turning a bit away so I wasn’t looking directly at my friend as I spoke to Bryce. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” Bryce’s voice was measured. Not angry, but it held none of its usual richness.
“Ummm, Mickey’s? With Van. I left you a note.”
“You left a note saying you’d gone out with Van. You’re at a bar?”
“Yeah, the same one we came to the night we first kissed. I sang karaoke, remember?”
He was silent for a moment. “I remember.” His voice was husky, and I hoped it was because he was remembering our kiss on the rooftop just like I was.
“I’ll be home in a while.”
“I need you to come home now.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it for a moment before putting it back in place. “What? Why?”
“Because I don’t like the idea of you being at a bar. Are you drinking?”
“Just some wine.”
“And what happens if you get drunk and some guy takes advantage of you?”
“Bryce, that won’t happen. It’s one glass, like we have almost every night.”
“Yes. Every night while we’re home. Safe.”
I turned even further in the booth, feeling the weight of Van’s stare on my face. “I’ll switch to water. I just need some more time—”
“Julia Covington, come home right now or I will come there and bring you home myself.”
Suddenly I felt like I was being scolded by my father. “Bryce.”
“Now.” He hung up.
There was no doubt in my mind that
if I wasn’t home in twenty minutes, he would come after me. “I have to go,” I said to Van.
She raised an eyebrow. “When hubby calls, you answer, no questions asked?”
Pulling out money to cover our drinks and the tip, I shrugged. “You would go if Austin called.”
“The difference is that Austin wouldn’t call to demand I come home.”
It was clear she had overheard the conversation.
“I’ll call you next week,” I mumbled, scooting out of the booth. “Maybe we can all go out together.”
“Sure,” Van said, but I heard the doubt in her voice. The look on her face as I left seared itself into my brain. Confusion, pity, sadness . . . terror. Like she was watching me walk away for the last time. That was just dramatic, though. We’d see each other again soon. I’d make sure of it.
When I got home, Bryce was waiting in his study. “Thank you for coming home,” he said. “And so quickly.”
“I didn’t want you to jump in the car and come after me,” I said. “We could have passed each other on the road.”
“I knew you were on your way,” he said calmly.
I squinted at him. “How? You hung up before I could tell you I was coming.”
“Your phone. I looked up where it was.”
“You tracked me?”
“It’s precautionary, Julia. Don’t be dramatic. It’s part of the phone plan, and it was useful tonight. I knew where you were before I called, and I’m very pleased that you told me the truth.”
“What reason would I have to lie?”
He steepled his fingers under his chin and looked at me, that piercing look he gave as if he were trying to see into my soul. “I’m not sure, Julia. What reason would you have for not telling me your plans before my meeting?”
It was my turn to be defensive. Or maybe I was the only one being defensive. He certainly didn’t seem at all ashamed of any of his behavior tonight. “I didn’t want to jinx it,” I said. “Every time I plan something with Van, something else comes up.”