Judith McNaught (5 page)

Never again would she get to go to church with her new

family and sit in the front pew with them and listen to Reverend Mathison talking gently about "the Lord"

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while the entire congregation listened in respectful silence to everything he said. She hadn't liked that part

at first; church services seemed to go on for days, not hours, and the pews were hard as rock, but then she'd started really listening to what Reverend Mathison said. After a couple of weeks, she'd almost started
believing
that there was really a kind, loving God who actually watched out for everybody, even trashy kids like Julie Smith. As she stood in the snow, Julie mumbled, "Please" to Reverend Mathison's

God, but she knew it was no use.

She should have known all this was too good to last, Julie realized bitterly, and the tears she'd been fighting not to shed blurred her vision. For a moment, she allowed herself to hope that she'd merely be

given a whipping instead of being sent back to Chicago, but she knew better than that. In the first place,

her foster parents didn't believe in whippings, but they did believe that lying and stealing were grievous

offenses that were totally unacceptable to "the Lord"

and to them. Julie had promised not to do either one and they'd trusted her completely.

The strap of her new nylon book bag slipped off her left shoulder and the bag slid to the snow, but Julie was too miserable to care. Dragging it by the remaining strap, she walked with numb dread toward the

house and up the porch steps.

Chocolate chip cookies, Julie's favorites, were cooling in trays on the kitchen counter as she closed the

back door. Normally the delicious aroma of freshly baked cookies made Julie's mouth water; today it made her feel like throwing up because Mary Mathison would never again make them especially for her.

The kitchen was strangely deserted, and a glance into the living room confirmed that it, too, was empty,

but she could hear her foster brothers' voices coming from their bedroom down the hall. With shaking hands, Julie looped the strap of her book bag over one of the pegs beside the kitchen door, then she pulled off her quilted winter jacket, hung it there, and headed down the hall in the direction of the boys'

bedroom.

Carl, her sixteen-year-old foster brother, saw her standing in their doorway and looped his arm around her shoulders. "Hi, Julie-Bob," he teased, "What do you think of our new poster?" Ordinarily, Carl's nickname for her made her smile; now it made her feel like bawling because she wouldn't hear that again

either. Ted, who was two years younger than Carl, grinned at her and pointed toward the poster of their latest movie idol, Zack Benedict. "What do you think, Julie, isn't he great? I'm going to have a motorcycle

just like Zack Benedict's someday."

Julie glanced through tear-glazed eyes at the life-sized picture of a tall, broad-shouldered, unsmiling male

who was standing beside a motorcycle, his arms crossed against a broad, deeply tanned chest with dark

hair on it. "He's the greatest," she agreed numbly.

"Where's your mother and father?" she added dully.

Although her foster parents had originally invited her to call them Mom and Dad, and she'd eagerly accepted, Julie knew that privilege was about to be revoked. "I need to talk to them." Her voice was already thick with unshed tears, but she was determined to get the inevitable confrontation over with as

soon as possible because she honestly couldn't endure the dread another moment.

"They're in their bedroom having some sort of private powwow," Ted said, his admiring gaze fastened

on the poster. "Carl and I are going to see Zack Benedict's new movie tomorrow tonight. We wanted to

take you with us, but it's rated PG-13 because of violence, and Mom said we couldn't." He tore his eyes

from his idol and looked at Julie's woebegone face.

"Hey, kiddo, don't look so glum. We'll take you to the first movie that—"

The door across the hall opened and Julie's foster parents walked out of their bedroom, their expressions grim. "I thought I heard your voice, Julie," Mary Mathison said. "Would you like a snack before we start on your homework?"

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Reverend Mathison looked at Julie's taut face and said, "I think Julie's too upset to concentrate on homework." To her he said, "Would you like to talk about what's bothering you now or after dinner?"

"Now," she whispered. Carl and Ted exchanged puzzled, worried glances and started to leave their room, but Julie shook her head so they would stay.

Better to get it all over with in front of everyone, all at

once, she felt. When her foster parents were seated on Carl's bed, she began in a quavering voice,

"Some money was stolen at school today."

"We know that," Reverend Mathison said dispassionately. "Your principal has already called us. Mr.

Duncan seems to believe, as does your teacher, that you are the guilty party."

Julie had already decided on the way home from school that no matter how painful or unjust the things

they said to her might be, she wouldn't beg or plead or humiliate herself in any way. Unfortunately, she hadn't figured on the incredible agony she would feel at this moment when she was losing her new family.

She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans in an unconsciously defiant stance, but to her horror, her shoulders started to shake violently and she had to wipe away hated tears from her face with her sleeve.

"Did you steal the money, Julie?"

"No!" The word exploded from her in an anguished cry.

"Then that's that." Reverend Mathison and Mrs.

Mathison both stood up as if they'd just decided she was a liar as well as a thief, and Julie started begging and pleading despite her resolve not to do that. "I s-swear I didn't take the lunch money," she wept fiercely, twisting the hem of her sweater in her hands. "I

prom-promised you I wouldn't lie or steal again, and I haven't. I
haven't!
Please! Please believe me—"

"We do believe you, Julie."

"I've changed, really, I have, and—" She broke off and gaped at them in blank disbelief. "You …

what?"

she whispered.

"Julie," her foster father said, laying his hand against her cheek, "when you came to live with us, we asked you to give us your word that there would be no more lying or stealing. When you gave
us
your word, we gave
you
our trust, remember?"

Julie nodded, remembering that moment in the living room three months ago with crystal clarity, then she

glanced at her foster mother's smile and flung herself into Mary Mathison's arms. They closed around her, wrapping Julie in the scent of carnations and the silent promise of a whole lifetime filled with good-night

kisses and shared laughter.

Julie's tears fell in torrents.

"There now, you'll make yourself ill," James Mathison said, smiling over Julie's head into his wife's

shimmering eyes. "Let your mother take care of dinner, and trust the good Lord to take care of the matter of the stolen money." At the mention of "the good Lord," Julie suddenly stiffened, then she dashed

from the room, calling over her shoulder that she'd be back to set the table for dinner.

In the stunned silence that followed her abrupt, peculiar departure, Reverend Mathison said worriedly,

"She shouldn't be going anywhere right now. She's still very upset, and it'll be dark in a bit. Carl," he
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added, "follow her and see what on earth she's up to."

"I'll go, too," Ted said, already yanking his jacket from the closet.

Two blocks from the house, Julie grabbed the freezing brass door handles and managed to drag open

the heavy doors of the church where her foster father was pastor. Pale winter light shone through the high windows as she walked down the center aisle and stopped at the front. Awkwardly uncertain of exactly how to proceed in these circumstances, she raised her shining eyes to the wooden cross. After a moment, she said in a shy little voice, "Thanks a million for making the Mathisons believe me. I mean, I

know You're the One who made them do it, because it's a real-life miracle. You won't be sorry," she promised. "I'm going to be so perfect that I'll make everybody proud." She turned, then turned back again. "Oh, and if You have the time, could you make sure Mr. Duncan finds out who really stole that money? Otherwise, I'm going to take the rap for it anyway, and that's not fair."

That night, after dinner, Julie cleaned her bedroom, which she already kept neat as a pin, from top to bottom; when she took her bath, she washed behind her ears twice. She was so determined to be perfect that when Ted and Carl invited her to join them in a game of Scrabble before bedtime—a game they played at her level in order to help her practice her reading skills—she did not even
consider
peeking at the bottom of the tiles so she could choose letters she was most able to use.

* * *

Stuffed in the empty six-pack carton was a distinctive tan envelope with the words "Lunch Money—Miss

Abbott's Class" written on it in Julie's teacher's handwriting.

Julie received a formal apology in front of her classmates from her teacher and a more grudging private

one from the dour-faced Mr. Duncan.

That afternoon, Julie got off the school bus in front of the church and spent fifteen minutes inside it, then she ran the rest of the way home to share her news.

Bursting into the house, red-faced from the icy weather, desperately eager to offer the hard proof that would completely exonerate her from theft, she raced into the kitchen where Mary Mathison was preparing dinner. "I can prove I didn't take the lunch money!" she panted, looking expectantly from her mother to her brothers.

Mary Mathison glanced at her with a puzzled smile, then continued peeling carrots at the sink; Carl scarcely looked up from the floor plan of a house he was drawing for his Future Architects of America project at school; and Ted gave her an absentminded grin and continued reading the movie magazine with Zack Benedict on the cover of it. "We know you didn't take their money, honey," Mrs. Mathison finally

replied. "You said you didn't."

"That's right. You told us you didn't," Ted reminded her, turning the of his magazine.

"Yes, but—but I can make you really believe it. I mean I can
prove
it!" she cried, looking from one bland face to another.

Mrs. Mathison laid the carrots aside and began to unfasten Julie's jacket. With a gentle smile, she said,

"You already did prove it—you gave us your word, remember?"

"Yes, but my word isn't like real proof. It isn't good enough."

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Mrs. Mathison looked straight into Julie's eyes. "Yes, Julie," she said with gentle firmness, "it is.

Absolutely." Unfastening the first button on Julie's quilted jacket, she added, "If you're always as honest with everyone as you are with us, your word will soon be proof enough for the entire world."

"Billy Nesbitt swiped the money to buy beer for his friends," Julie said in obstinate protest to this anticlimax. And then, because she couldn't stop herself, she said, "How do you
know
I'll always tell you

the truth and not swipe stuff anymore either?"

"We know that because we know
you,
" her foster mother said emphatically. "We know you and we trust you and we love you."

"Yes, brat, we do," Ted put in with a grin.

"Yep, we do," Carl echoed, looking up from his project and nodding.

To her horror, Julie felt tears sting her eyes, and she hastily turned aside, but that day marked an irrevocable turning point in her life. The Mathisons had offered their home and trust and love to
her,
not to some other lucky child. This wondrous, warm family was hers forever, not just awhile. They knew all

about her, and they
still
loved her.

Julie basked in that newfound knowledge; she blossomed in its warmth like a tender bloom opening its

petals to the sunlight. She threw herself into her schoolwork with even more determination and surprised

herself with how easily she was able to learn. When summer came, she asked to go to summer school so she could make up more missed classwork.

The following winter, Julie was summoned into the living room where she opened her very first gift-wrapped birthday presents while her beaming family looked on. When the last package had been opened and the last piece of torn gift wrap picked up, James and Mary Mathison and Ted and Carl gave

her the most exquisite gift of all. It came in a large, inauspicious-looking brown envelope. Inside was a long sheet of paper with elaborate black printing on the top that read,PETITION FOR ADOPTION.

Julie looked at them through eyes swimming with tears, the paper clutched against her chest. "Me?"

she

breathed. Ted and Carl misinterpreted the reason for her tears and started talking at the same time, their voices filled with anxiety. "We, all of us, just wanted to make it official, Julie, that's all, so your name could be Mathison like ours," Carl said, and Ted added, "I mean, like, if you aren't sure it's a good idea,

you don't have to go along with it—" He stopped as Julie hurtled herself into his arms, nearly knocking him over.

"I'm sure," she squealed in delight. "I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure!"

Nothing could dim her pleasure. That night, when her brothers invited her to go to the movies with a group of their friends to see their hero, Zack Benedict, she agreed instantly, even though she couldn't see

why her brothers thought he was so neat. Wrapped in joy, she sat in the third row at the Bijou Theater with her brothers on either side of her, their shoulders dwarfing hers, absently watching a movie featuring