From Glowing Embers (17 page)

He shook her in his fury, releasing her only when he realized what he was doing. “You’ve been poisoned by all that hatred you carry inside,” he said, his hands now clenched at his sides.

She was stricken with remorse. How could she have said anything so unconscionably cruel? In the worst ramblings of her imagination, she had
never
believed that Gray had been glad to have his own child die. She closed her eyes to shut out the rage in his and slumped against the railing for support.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Oh, Gray, I’m
so
sorry. You might not have wanted Ellie, but I know you didn’t want her to die, either.”

She was surprised seconds later to feel his hands on her arms again. “Open your eyes.”

She did, blinking back the tears she had never let herself cry.

“We almost destroyed you, didn’t we? My father, my mother... me.”

“We can both see I’m not the person I was.”

“You are,” he said softly. “You’ve survived this the only way you could, by keeping your hatred alive. But now it’s time to find out how deep it goes.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We have to talk about that day at the beach house.”

“I don’t want to”

“That’s too bad, Julianna. Because we’re going to.”

“What good is this going to do?”

“It’s called draining the wound.” He released her, but the expression in his eyes made it clear that he wouldn’t let her move away.

“What am I supposed to say? That I forgive you for leaving me alone to give birth to our child?”

“I don’t want forgiveness.”

“Then what
do
you want?”

“When you get on that plane to go back to Kauai, we’re both going to understand what happened at Granger Inlet, and why. You can keep hating me if you want, but you’re going to understand, and so am I.”

“I already understand.”

“I don’t.”

She turned back toward the darkness, and she felt him move closer. “Don’t make me do this.” Her voice broke.

“It’s way past time, Julie Ann.”

She wanted to tell him again that Julie Ann wasn’t her name, but even as she started to say the words, she knew they wouldn’t be true. Ten years fell away, leaving a young woman: frightened, desolate and alone. And the memories that had been frozen inside her began, slowly, to melt into decade-old tears.

AFTER A WEDDING
night that had taken their breath away with its promise, Gray and Julie Ann had gone back to Granger Junction to tell his parents of their marriage. Judge Sheridan, suspecting what was to come, had prepared his wife, and both had sat down with the young couple to discuss the future.

Gray’s mother cried poignant, decorative tears. Gray’s father told them that although he should throw them out for the shame they’d brought on the Sheridan family, he couldn’t hurt Gray’s mother that way. Since there was nothing to be done about the mistakes that had been made, it was up to everyone to make the best of them.

Julie Ann had said little, but every word was one too many. Eventually she’d just listened while the Sheridans decided her future. Gray was to stay on at Ole Miss and finish his senior year. Julie Ann was to stay behind in Granger Junction and live with her in-laws, where she could receive the medical care and rest she needed.

At first Gray refused, but eventually his parents convinced him of the wisdom of the plan. In Granger Junction there would be nothing for Julie Ann to do except rest and grow stronger. At college by himself, Gray could concentrate on his studies and earn the grades he needed for law school.

And he would not be so far away that he couldn’t come home some weekends to be with her.

When Gray turned to her for her opinion, Julie Ann knew she had little choice but to agree, although even then she had seen the hostility behind Judge Sheridan’s good-old-boy smile. She said yes, because she believed it was best for Gray and for their future. She had survived a lifetime of hostility; she could survive a little more.

After that the spurt of energy that had gotten her through the last days had quickly given way. She no sooner moved her few belongings into Gray’s room than she was stricken with nausea and exhaustion that topped anything she had known previously. She spent the rest of the Christmas holidays in the hospital. She was discharged just in time to watch Gray drive away.

The pattern for the next months was set in the two weeks before she saw him again. Her attempts at conversation with Gray’s mother were met with formal responses. Conversation with Gray’s father revolved around the plans he had once had for Gray and the way she had ruined them.

Julie Ann had no real friends in Granger Junction, and with the Sheridans watching every move she made, she had no chance of making any. She was confined to her room like a recalcitrant child, ostensibly for her own and the baby’s health. In actuality she was banished upstairs because the Sheridans couldn’t bear the living reminder that their son had married a Mason.

When Gray drove in for their first weekend together, she took one look at his exhausted face and knew she couldn’t burden him with her misery. In addition to school, he had taken a job so he could save money for the baby’s arrival, and his schedule was taking a heavy toll. She assured him his parents were taking good care of her and that she didn’t lack for anything.

He fell asleep beside her that night after the briefest of love-making, and she held him to her, silently promising not to add to his problems more than she already had. Somehow both of them would get through the next months.

Judge Sheridan seemed to sense Julie Ann’s decision not to tell Gray about his campaign to make her feel unwanted. He escalated it slowly, mentioning more often how sad it was that Gray would never have a chance to achieve his full potential, mentioning more often “that pretty little gal, Paige Duvall,” who was such a good friend to the whole Sheridan family, but particularly to Gray. He began to tear at her self-confidence in other ways, commenting on the way pregnancy was distorting her body and draining the color from her cheeks, wondering out loud how she could possibly be a good wife or mother considering the lack of role models during her own childhood.

The next time Gray came home, Julie Ann told him how much she missed him. Wasn’t it possible, she suggested, that she might be a help to him at school? She could cook his meals, keep his apartment clean, wash his clothes. Perhaps she could even find a part-time job so he could quit his and concentrate on his school work.

Gray had gently shaken his head. She was in no shape to do any of those things, and besides, he shared his apartment with three other men, none of whom would appreciate another roommate. If she came, he would have to find a more expensive place to live. “I miss you, too,” he told her, “but for now this is best.”

This time, when he left, she cried. They had spent so little time together, and now he was gone again. It would be weeks before she saw him.

That night, before she went to bed, Judge Sheridan told Julie Ann that he had run her sister out of town. “Just so you don’t have to hear it from anybody else,” he added. “We don’t want Masons in Granger Junction.”

Subtle psychological manipulation turned into all-out warfare. The judge began to insult her in front of others; he refused to eat his meals if she was at the table; he doled out spending money in such small increments that she had to ask for more every time she needed shampoo or toiletries, and then she had to listen to lectures about gold-digging. Even Mrs. Sheridan seemed appalled by what was happening. She tried to soften his actions by helping Julie Ann avoid him, but the judge made a point of seeking her out to humiliate her.

When Gray came home the next time, Julie Ann could no longer keep her misery to herself. She told him that his father hated her. “I can’t stay here,” she pleaded with him. “He’s trying to destroy me!”

She never knew what transpired when Gray talked to his father that night, but when he came out of Judge Sheridan’s study, his eyes were guarded. “I think things will be better now,” he told her, putting his arms around her to comfort her. “He means you no harm.”

Julie Ann knew just the opposite was true. She pleaded with Gray to take her with him when he went back to school, but he was resolute. The physician treating her in Granger Junction was a family friend. She would get better care here than she would someplace where she was just another student wife. “And we’ve got to save every penny,” Gray reminded her. “For the baby.”

Julie Ann had lived with hostility and neglect, but she had never lived with sadism. After Gray drove away Sunday afternoon, she took one look at the expression on Judge Sheridan’s face and knew she had no choice except to leave his house. She waited until everyone else was asleep that night before she slipped downstairs with one small suitcase.

The trip to Oxford where Ole Miss was located took all that night and most of the next morning. She sat for hours in bus stations in Hattiesburg and Jackson, debating whether to call Gray or just show up on his doorstep. She compromised when she reached Oxford, calling him from the bus station because she was so exhausted she knew she couldn’t walk to his apartment and so broke she couldn’t afford a cab. He wasn’t home, and she left the number of the pay phone at the bus station with one of his roommates. It was past dinnertime when the phone finally rang.

Julie Ann had hoped she could make Gray understand, but the tense set of his mouth as he ushered her into his car destroyed her hope of that. They sat across from each other at a pizza place, and she sipped a Coke, trying to explain. “You told me once that your father enjoys killing things,” she reminded him. “He’s trying to kill me.”

Gray simply shook his head, as if pregnancy had destroyed her common sense.

“Not physically,” she tried to explain, “but emotionally. I think he hopes I’ll lose the baby if he keeps things stirred up.”

“The baby is his grandchild.”

“He wanted me to abort the baby!” Julie Ann threw her napkin on the table. “He tried to pay me to do it before you even knew I was pregnant. Then, when I wouldn’t, he tried to pay me to get out of town and give the baby away. Don’t you remember?” She tried to stand, but she was overcome with a wave of dizziness. She rested her head in her hands. “Please, Gray. I can’t go back there. Make any arrangements you want, but I won’t go back.”

They spent the night in a motel, and for the first time, he turned away from her. The next day Gray put notices all over campus for someone to take his place at his apartment. He chased down potential leads on places he and Julie Ann could share and applied for other part-time jobs to supplement the one he already had. They stayed at the motel for two more nights, but it was apparent that whatever savings Gray had been able to accumulate was going to be quickly depleted.

Inexpensive housing, jobs and students eager to sublet Gray’s portion of the apartment were in short supply. After their third night together, Julie Ann realized their choices were few. She could go back to Granger Junction, or Gray could quit school and find a permanent job to support them. She knew Gray would do the latter if she stayed in Oxford, but he would resent it, and resent her for making him. When he went to class that morning, she checked them both out of the motel, left his clothes in a bag at the front desk and took a bus back to Granger Junction.

GRAY COULD FEEL
the warmth of Julianna’s body as he stood behind her. She had been quiet for a long time, but he sensed she wasn’t stubbornly refusing to talk. She was remembering, and he knew how hard it must be.

“I never had any idea how bad things were at home until my mother told me after Ellie’s death,” he said at last.

Julianna nodded, not surprised that now he knew. “I tried to tell you in Oxford. You didn’t want to hear it.”

“The few times I came home after that, you were so withdrawn.”

“Withdrawing was the way I coped.”

“By the time I got home after graduation, I was furious. I’d been working so hard for you and the baby, but when I looked out into the crowd, all I saw was my mother and father. You weren’t there.”

“And you thought I would be?”

“I’d asked you to come in every letter I wrote you.”

“I didn’t read your letters.”

“Why not?”

“What could you say that wouldn’t hurt me more?”

Her voice belonged to the eighteen-year-old girl she had been then, wounded and bleeding from the abuse she’d suffered. Gray shuddered. “I didn’t understand. I thought you were just being petulant. I’d spoken to my father after you complained the first time, and he’d admitted he’d been harder on you than he should have been. But he apologized and...”

“And?”

“And he told me that pregnant women are always oversensitive. He promised to try to make it up to you. Then you took off for Oxford without even giving him a chance.”

“Oh, but he got his chance after I went back, Gray. He changed, all right. He got worse. He even gave away your little secret.”

“Secret?”

“He told me you were planning to divorce me and get custody as soon as the baby was born.”

“And you believed him?”

“I don’t know if I did or not. I didn’t want to, but every time he saw me, he’d ask if I’d heard from you, ask if you’d talked to me about the divorce yet.” She heard Gray’s muttered curse. “I tried to stay out of his way, but sometimes I had to come out of my room, and when I did, he’d be waiting and—”

“Don’t.” Gray cut her off. “I know now. But I didn’t then. It was all lies. He was a cruel, sick man.”

“Was?”

“He died last year.”

She couldn’t find the words to say she was sorry. “I wonder if he ever found out what it was like to be totally at the mercy of another person.”

Gray didn’t know. At the end he had gone to his father’s bedside, but it was the first time since Julie Ann had fled that he had been in the same room with the man who had treated her so brutally.

She continued, and she still sounded as if she were reliving the nightmare of those days in the Sheridan household. “When your mother confessed, did she tell you that he used to come into my room on cold days to turn off the radiator? He would laugh, and then he’d say, ‘Gal, you aren’t worth the money it costs to heat this room.’“ She stopped. “But of course, she wouldn’t have told you that. He tried to hide the full extent of his torture until we were alone.”