THE SANCTUARY (3 page)

“It’s more than that. It’s you. It’s those damn nightmares you’ve been having as long as I’ve known you. It’s your… It’s the way… I want… Look, I can’t do this anymore. I need to figure some things out. I’ll call you and let you know where I’ll be,” he said, grabbing a duffle bag out of the closet. She watched in disbelief as he shoved socks, underwear, and T-shirts into the bag.
And then he was gone.
John was gone.
What had just happened? John had walked out on her—and their kids. She had been so afraid that he would leave if he ever found out about the affair that it hadn’t occurred to her that he might leave for another reason.

It hadn’t been an affair, just a one-time thing. A stupid, stupid, stupid thing! What had she been thinking? Clearly, she had not. She had risked her marriage over Derek Duane! She had never even liked him in high school. Most of the girls in her class thought he was the stuff, but she had never seen the appeal. So how did she end up having intercourse with him?
Truth be told, she couldn’t recall. She remembered running into him at the Quik Chek. She was having a bad day and had stopped to get a candy bar to perk herself up. He was exiting the store as she was going inside. They did the usual “how’ve you been?” and “have you seen so-and-so?” and then she was taking a tour of his new RV dealership. He was so proud of his new business venture. He was telling her about all his plans and how he needed to make a go of it or he would be in real trouble. He laughed as he told her how indebted he was—from alimony to his ex-wife to the bank for multiple loans and mortgages. And then they were kissing, and his hands were cupping her breasts. It felt good to be touched. It had been longer than she could remember since John had touched her. And then her hand was on his crotch. She quickly figured out that he was well-endowed. She had never been with anyone but John, so she had never been able to make any comparisons. Perhaps curiosity led her into the small bed of one of the “deluxe models” with Derek Duane.

She had felt so ashamed afterwards that she went straight home and took an hour-long shower, scalding herself and scrubbing until she was the color of a ripe tomato from head to toe. She’d made all of John’s favorites for dinner (as if that would make up for what she had done). She never told anyone what she had done, not even Lydia. She was too ashamed, although she had to admit that she had briefly enjoyed herself. In a strange way, it had been liberating to do something so crazy and uncharacteristic. Perhaps that’s why she did things with Derek Duane that she wouldn’t even do with her husband. That was what she was most ashamed of, that she had betrayed John on so many levels. It was as if another side of her, Bad Julia, had taken over her mind and body that afternoon. Sweet Julia had always strived to be the perfect student, perfect daughter, perfect mother, and perfect wife. She knew she wasn’t perfect, but she had always tried her best and that’s what mattered. She had tried to put the incident out of her mind and not to examine the real reason she had done it. Even though she wouldn’t admit it, she had known that her marriage was in trouble all those months ago. They hadn’t made love in nearly three months. John didn’t seem to have any interest these days. They’d been married for seventeen years. Maybe he was just tired of her and their boring sex life. Maybe that’s why she had done it. She just wanted to be desired by someone and to do something that was completely wild and crazy. Well, mission accomplished!

Was their marriage over? Or would John cool down and come home tomorrow wearing a sheepish grin and carrying a bouquet of flowers, begging her to forgive him? Would she? Of course. They would agree never to talk about it ever again. Just pretend it never happened. That’s what she had done with everything else in her past, and that was best. Right?

Julia had wanted to ask him about the papers she had seen on his dresser. They looked like drawings for some sort of development. He had helped some of his contractor friends with construction projects over the years. He told her he liked being outside feeling the sun on his shoulders, getting his hands dirty, and seeing progress being made hour by hour, day by day. She noticed that he threw the papers in the trash as he stormed out. Julia wanted to chase after her husband and demand that he stay and talk, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid of what he might say, and the last thing she wanted to talk about was the recurring nightmare that had haunted her since childhood.

Three

SONYA

“T
he funeral’s on Friday, so I’m driving over to Julia’s on Thursday after work. I’ll probably stay there for two or three nights, maybe longer. We’ll see how it goes with Liddie. No one’s spoken to her yet, so who knows how she’s doing. Lydia’s tough, but this will be a test. David was her whole world,” Sonya said as she smeared a generous amount of cream cheese on her bagel. Then she reluctantly scraped off half of the cream cheese when she realized that the waistline of her pants felt a little too snug.

“This still gives us time to meet with the contractor before leaving. I hope the contractor shows up. I don’t have much confidence since he cancelled the last appointment
after
he was already supposed to be here. He does come highly recommended, so assuming he ever shows up, he should do a good job. We’ve got to get the addition built on this house soon, or it may come apart at the seams. Since you keep buying more inventory than you have space for at the store, we’ve simply got to have more space here. Did you hear me?” she asked her husband, who was sitting across the kitchen table from her.

“You’re going somewhere on Thursday,” Mike dutifully repeated. The crown of her husband’s head was all that could be seen over the top of the newspaper.

“Michael Ellis, are you even listening to me?” Sonya complained as she pulled the newspaper aside to make him look at her. She was ready to let him have it, but when she looked into his bright blue eyes, she couldn’t get mad.

He put down the newspaper and spoke. “Sorry, dear. It’s just that you know mornings are not my best times. I can’t even think until after I’ve had my coffee and read the paper,” Mike admonished.

“Well, do me a favor and try. I’ve got a million things to do today, and I don’t want to keep repeating myself. Men say that women talk all the time, but the truth is that we have to because we have to keep saying the same things until what we’ve said finally sinks in!”

“I know. Men are selfish, foolish brutes,” Mike agreed.

“Amen! Seriously, I just want to make sure that you know I’ll be gone. I don’t know how long yet. I’ll call and let you know how it’s going.”

“Roger that. Who did you say died?”

“This is what I’m talking about. I’ve already told you ten times that Liddie’s husband died, so I’m going to the funeral, and I’ll be staying with Jules for a few days,” Sonya said.

“Oh yeah, I remember now. So all of you—what do you call yourselves, the CGFs?—will be there?”

“Everyone but Liz. We haven’t been able to get in touch with her yet,” Sonya said.

“She was your roommate in college, right?”

“No. Lydia was my roommate and this freaky hippie girl named Swookie was Jules’s roommate. And then I was roommates with Julia, and Lydia got stuck with a weirdo roommate, Alisha something, who made Swookie look good. Liz lived in a loft on Third Street. We wanted the four of us to be roommates, but Liz wouldn’t even consider moving into the dorm. She said that she liked living alone off campus. Truthfully, I can’t even picture Liz in a dorm room,” Sonya said before taking a bite of her bagel.

“Lydia and Julia have been friends since kindergarten. They met Liz at summer camp, and they became best friends. By the time I moved to Georgetown, Liz’s family had moved to Atlanta. Her dad got a big promotion, I think. I didn’t meet Liz until later. I had heard Lydia and Julia talk about her, but no one can prepare you for Liz. She’s…well, she’s one of a kind. Crazy. Impulsive. Hilarious. Anyway, I’m sure I’ve told you all this before. Obviously, you weren’t listening. Right now, I have to start packing, and I haven’t a clue what to take,” Sonya said.

“It’s a funeral. You’ll only be gone a few days, and you’ll be with old friends. You just need a black dress and a pair of jeans.”

“You don’t understand,” Sonya said as she left the room.

She didn’t want to explain to her husband that she sometimes felt inferior around her friends. One of the things that she had never gotten over was her background. She had come from a broken home and even though her mother worked hard, they had always been poor. She was the only CGF on a scholarship. For that matter, she was the only CGF that ever had to worry about money. The others came from wealthy families. Being a scholarship student was nothing to be embarrassed about, yet she always had been. If she tried to explain this to her husband, he would think she was silly or tell her to get new friends if they made her feel that way. Telling her that she was being silly wouldn’t change how she felt. Nor was it their fault. She was the one with the self-esteem issues. But who wouldn’t have issues in comparison to them? Liz was gorgeous. Petite and perky. She had gone from a beautiful collegian to a sexy, sophisticated woman. Lydia was nearly six feet tall, with long, slender legs and a beautiful mane of gold and honey blond hair. More than her good looks, Sonya had always envied Lydia’s unwavering self-assuredness.

Even Julia, with her long list of neurosis and phobias, didn’t seem to have any self-esteem issues. She wondered if it was because of her chiseled features and slightly freckled, porcelain skin that resembled a Marie Alexander doll, or maybe it was because Julia could trace her lineage all the way back to England. Her ancestors had been given land grants by King George II, which is how they came to settle in Georgetown. Some had fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War, alongside the legendary Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion and George Washington.

It must be nice to know who your forefathers were, especially if they had helped shape history. What little Sonya knew about her ancestry, she wished she didn’t know. Her mother had done the best she could, but it wasn’t like her mother had good role models in her parents. Her grandfather had been an alcoholic, a mean drunk who had affairs throughout his marriage. Her grandmother had to endure this abuse and neglect. It was no wonder that Sonya and her mother had made bad choices while looking for love. Three divorces had certainly not helped her self-esteem issues.
Please God, let me have gotten it right this time.

“Dr. Hooper’s office,” the receptionist answered.

“Hi, this is Sonya Ellis. I’ve been a patient of Dr. Hooper for years. I really need to see her as soon as possible. It’s rather urgent.”

The receptionist listened as Sonya explained her situation. “We could work you in this afternoon at three thirty, but be prepared to wait. We’re usually well behind schedule by then,” the receptionist warned.

She laid the cell phone down beside her and looked out the car window for her husband. He had said he was going to work when he left that morning, but when she stopped by the furniture store to remind him about their dinner plans, he wasn’t there. She had spoken to one of his sales reps, Lonnie, who had informed her that Mike wasn’t expected until late afternoon.

“Don’t even mention I was here,” Sonya
said before leaving. “Mike will just get mad if he thinks I didn’t trust him to remember our plans.”

Sonya studied herself critically in the rearview mirror. Those early years basking in the summer sun were starting to cost her now. She could see tiny wrinkles around her eyes when she pushed her bangs out of the way. She had been a blonde since her late twenties. She had been blessed with good teeth, so she had a nice smile and her pageboy haircut with spiky bangs was flattering to her face.

Still, she gave herself a rating of six out of ten. She was average-looking and needed to lose a few pounds. She needed to start watching what she ate. She had gained a good bit of weight lately. Too much. As she jiggled the flab on her upper arms, she winced. She should dig out that number for the personal trainer she used a couple of years ago and call him ASAP!

All this fuss wouldn’t be necessary if she hadn’t married a hottie ten years her junior. An average-looking woman closing in on forty who marries a thirty-year-old hunk is just asking for trouble. But she wanted to share her life with someone and why couldn’t that someone be a thirty-year-old hunk? She didn’t have to marry for money and security, so why not find someone who was young and fun?

She had left a good marketing job to become a business consultant seven years ago when her second marriage was circling the tank. She was bringing in a quarter of a million dollars in business by the time she met her third husband. He had proven to be her worst choice. The marriage had only lasted eighteen months.

Sonya’s company offered a comprehensive list of services for small businesses and 501-C corporations, including marketing, publicity, fundraising, and business plans complete with growth projections and cost analysis. That’s how she met husband number four. Michael Ellis owned a furniture store. It was just a little place, but he had big plans. A mutual friend had introduced them at a Chamber of Commerce event. They made an appointment to discuss his business goals and objectives. They met several more times to finalize the business plan. The meetings began taking place after work over a drink or dinner. They found themselves lingering and talking after their business was concluded. Their relationship turned romantic. In less than a year, Mike asked her to marry him.

And now she sat in her car, feeling pathetic for stalking her
own
husband. She was parked a block away from his furniture store to make sure that none of his employees saw her. She felt ridiculous enough spying on her own husband, but to be caught doing so would be humiliating. At three o’clock, he pulled into a reserved space in front of the store and got out of his sporty, silver convertible, smiling broadly. Was she imagining it or did he have the look of a man who had found a little afternoon delight? With trembling hands, Sonya started the car and headed to her meeting with Sally Hooper.

It bothered Sonya that the doctor was as worried as she was. Sonya could tell the physician had some concerns, even though Dr. Hooper said all the right things.

“Let’s not borrow trouble. It could be anything. The symptoms you’re experiencing lend themselves to several possibilities. I’m sure it is probably nothing. You’re getting to an age when the body becomes more predisposed to acid reflux, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, and lots of other pesky little things. Don’t jump the gun and start thinking the dreaded C-word. We’ll run a few tests and have our answers soon enough.”

“But what about the nausea and spotting? That’s not normal and certainly not acid reflux,” Sonya said.

“No, it’s not. But it’s not necessarily uterine or ovarian cancer either. It could be hormonal or possibly fibroids,” Dr. Hooper said.

“But what if it is cancer? What are my odds? I’d have to undergo surgery and weeks of chemotherapy, right?”

“There are a lot of variables that make it too hard to answer until we know what we’re dealing with. It would depend on the kind of cancer—if indeed we’re even talking about cancer. It would depend on how advanced it is, if it has metastasized, etcetera. I just don’t feel comfortable having this conversation until we have your test results,” the doctor said.

It would be several days before all her lab results were in. Sally Hooper advised her patient not to give it another thought. “Go home and enjoy that darling husband of yours,” the fifty-four-year-old doctor said enviously.

Sonya stopped by her office after she left the doctor to pick up some paperwork. She would work at home that night since she had been out of the office most of the day. Next, she went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner items. She had promised to make a special dinner since it was their last night together before her trip.

She swigged Pepto Bismal as she marinated Michael’s steak and put the twice-baked potatoes in the oven. No way could she digest a steak the way her stomach felt, but she felt reasonably sure she could handle the potato. If her suspicions were correct and her husband was having an affair, she doubted that she would win him back with a nine-ounce sirloin. But ever the optimist, she prayed she was wrong.

“Did that woman come back for the Georgian desk and chair?” Sonya asked her husband when he finally came home. She tried to sound casual.

“What woman? Oh yeah, Angela. No, she didn’t stop by, and I didn’t get a chance to call her. It was so busy all day at the store that I didn’t even have time for lunch. I’ll call her tomorrow and set something up. I think she’ll pull the trigger if I sweeten the deal by throwing in the antique pen set she’s admired several times,” Mike said.

LIAR.

“Was she buying it for her husband?”

“Angela’s not married. She’s engaged and her family is thinking about buying the piece as a gift for her fiancé. That is, if she settles on something—and if she actually goes through with the wedding. She’s so young and indecisive. I bet she’s not a day over twenty-three, and I swear she changes her mind daily. She’s come in four or five times but can’t seem to make up her mind what she wants.”