B000FC1MHI EBOK (36 page)

“My mind was made up before I ever called his office,” Julia said, holding her ground. She was actually getting into the swing of it, answering him point by point.

“Is it Zoe?” he asked now. “Has she brainwashed you? She hates men.”

“A, she doesn’t hate men. B, I haven’t spent enough time with her to be brainwashed. C, she doesn’t know I’m doing this.”

He looked confused. “But—I don’t
want
a divorce.”

Monte didn’t want a divorce, Julia reflected and thought, What about me? Who am I? I’m a woman who is tired of being walked on. I’m a woman who has more to give than lip service to a marriage that ceased working years ago. Sensibly, she said, “Of course you don’t want a divorce. It’s very nice to have someone seeing to all your needs, so that you can spend time on the sly with women like the one in there. I know you don’t want a divorce. But I do.”

He stiffened. “I’ll fight you.”

“I have credit card bills
and
phone bills.” And that shoe. Caught in the act.

He drew himself up straighter. “You went through phone bills, too?”

“Yes. I knew you’d try to talk your way out of it if I didn’t have proof.”

“What about Molly? Have you thought about how this would affect her?”

“Have I
thought
about it?” Julia burst out, losing a bit of composure then. “I might have done this
years
ago if it hadn’t been for Molly. She’s a grown woman now. She knows what she saw that night, but you’re her father, so she’ll believe your tale. If you’re really concerned about Molly, you’ll keep this as civil as possible.”

He put his hands on his hips, raked his teeth over his lip, frowned. Quietly, seeming for the first time to actually care, he said, “What happened up there? Did you meet someone?”

“Yes. Me.”

He looked peeved. “I’m serious.”

So was she. She wasn’t telling him about Noah, because although Noah was pretty momentous, he wasn’t the most important part of what had happened to her. “I found out that what I think and feel matters. It’s something I’ve overlooked all these years.”

He lowered his voice to a whisper and hitched his chin toward the bedroom. “Give me five minutes, and she’s history. She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry for you. Maybe you’ll find someone who does.”

He looked at her, but it was a different look from what she had seen. He looked at her as though he saw a new person. More curious than accusatory, trying to figure things out, he said, “Is this why you went up there in the first place? You must have collected those bills before you left.”

“I didn’t know I’d use them.”

“It was the accident, then?”

“I think yes,” she said, reflecting his own quiet. In the same tone, she revised that. “I
know
yes. Accidents like that turn your world upside down.”

“Maybe all you need is therapy.”

She smiled, but not in anger. She was feeling relief. Of all the times over the years when she had imagined this confrontation, she had felt dread. But the worst was over now. She felt mellow, even sad. “Therapy won’t fix what’s wrong. You have needs, Monte, but I have them, too. Do you know what a woman feels when her husband has affairs? She feels hurt. She feels angry. She feels ugly. She feels used.”

“What if I promised—” He stopped short when she held up a hand. She shook her head and let her eyes say what she didn’t want to say aloud. His promises weren’t worth a thing. Trust was gone.

“I’ve felt unloved for too long,” she finally offered.

“I do love you.”

“In your way. But it isn’t enough.”

“You
said
that to him?” her friend Donna asked a short time later.

“I did,” she confirmed, sinking lower on the sofa, legs sprawled in an unladylike way that she didn’t have the strength to change. Walking the five blocks to Donna’s small place through streets that were emptier now, she had been hit by the shakes. She was grateful to arrive, grateful that Donna had waited up, grateful for warm arms, a generous heart, and a place to sleep. She was terrified by what she had done. She was also suddenly, overwhelmingly exhausted.

Donna wore a robe, hair rollers, and a face shiny from soap. The successful real estate lawyer? Hard to believe. Just then, she was simply a friend whom Julia was blessed to have.

“Thank you for Mark,” Julia said. “He might not have taken me on if you hadn’t made a call.”

“Lawyers listen to lawyers. He’ll do right by you.”

“What is right? I’m not sure that I want a whole lot of what Monte has.”

“No,” Donna said, regarding her thoughtfully, “you never did.”

Julia yawned. She listened to the city night. She turned her head on the sofa. “So, did you all know?”

“About the affairs? We suspected.”

“Did you think I was a fool not to see?”

“Julia,” Donna chided, “no one of us has
ever
taken you for a fool. Women are pragmatists. We do what we have to at a given time. When times change, we have a window in which to act. Not all of us are brave enough to do it. You are. When the others hear, they’ll admire you as much as I do.”

Julia loved Donna. She loved Charlotte and Jane. What she most loved about them—impressive women, all three—was that they loved her, too.

She reached for her friend’s hand. “And if I leave New York?”

“Leave New York?” Donna cried lightly. “
Leave
New York? No one leaves New York. Not for good. You may live somewhere else, but you’ll be back. And do you think we won’t want to visit you wherever you are? Think again, sweetie.”

Under a blanket on the sofa, Julia slept soundly until Donna woke her at the agreed-upon time. She showered and dressed, then picked up her wedding band and turned it in her hand. Stones circled the front half; the back was pure platinum. The stones were shiny, the platinum scuffed—polished outside, bruised inside.

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?”