Decidedly Married. Carole Page Gift
an affair with some bimbo named Beth?”
The thought of Michael cheating on her left her feeling incredibly helpless and vulnerable, like someone sitting in the path of an oncoming truck. She wanted desperately to get out of the way before the careering vehicle struck, but she was powerless; her life was about to be shattered, and she couldn’t fathom a way to avoid the impact.
Julie stood and paced the floor for several minutes, her mind replaying Michael’s words over and over. Was there a clue she’d missed? No, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing she could get a grip on. Except Beth’s note. But try as she might, she was only going in circles, retracing the same confusing details until nothing made sense.
She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. She considered going straight up to bed, as Michael had suggested. It was tempting to let slumber obliterate her pain, her questions, her confusion. Why not? She would go upstairs, swathe her throat with that greasy, pungent stuff Michael hated and tie one of his large handkerchiefs around her neck, the way her mother had always done with her father’s handkerchiefs when she was a child.
Michael always teased her about her mother’s homemade remedies, but he wasn’t above trying them himself when he felt bad enough. And right now, more than anything in the world, Julie needed a touch of her mother’s tender, loving care, even if it was only in the form of an old handkerchief smelling of camphor and menthol.
But hold on; wait a minute! What was she thinking? She didn’t want Michael coming home from a date with some gorgeous blonde—for surely she would be gorgeous and surely she would be blonde—and finding his wife sleeping in her scuzzy flannels with a smelly hanky tied around her neck. No matter how lousy she felt, she would go upstairs, take a bubble bath, wash her hair, douse herself with Michael’s favorite perfume and maybe even put on a touch of makeup. She would slip into her most provocative negligee, and, by George, she would be awake when Michael arrived home, no matter how late it was’
Minutes later, as she lay in her oval tub up to her neck in warm water brimming with sweet-smelling, opalescent bubbles, she allowed her body to unwind while her mind traced the rocky, bittersweet history of her marriage.
She had lived for seventeen years with the knowledge that Michael had married her because she was pregnant with his child. Some women chose to abort their unwanted babies, but not Julie. She’d never considered it for a minute; all right, maybe half a minute. But she knew instinctively that this baby—Michael’s baby—was a treasure God had given her, and she would do whatever it took to nurture and protect it.
“I always wanted kids someday,” Michael conceded when she told him about the baby. “Maybe not this way and not this soon, but, hey, we’ll make the best of it. If it’s my kid, I want to give him a good home—with two parents who love him.” He managed a resigned smile. “So what do you say, Julie? We could drive to Las Vegas this weekend, tie the knot and be back in time for classes on Monday morning.”
Julie agreed, relieved that the revelation of her pregnancy had gone so smoothly and that Michael had taken it so well. They would be married and their child would have a normal home. Wasn’t that what she wanted?
And yet somewhere deep inside she felt a keen sense of disappointment—it was irrational, she knew—but it was there just the same. She and Michael had lost something precious, something they were just on the verge of finding. They had skipped some vital, foundational step in the larger scheme of things. Their relationship was no longer about the two of them and how they felt about each other; it was about what kind of parents they would be to their unborn child.
Julie hadn’t realized until years later, perhaps not even fully until now, how much she had missed the romance and thrill of a traditional courtship. Instead of bringing her roses and whispering words of adoration in her ear, Michael had brought her ads for cribs and layettes and talked about the house they would buy and the nursery they would decorate. She had never been quite sure whether Michael was more in love with her or with the baby she was carrying. And the question that plagued her most of all: would he have loved her enough to marry her if there hadn’t been a baby?
That question had haunted her all the years of her marriage, and, God help her, it still haunted her. Every time she watched Michael and Katie playing Rook or Monopoly or tennis together or laughing and joking in the easy, comfortable way they had with each other, she couldn’t help thinking, He loves her more than me. He married me so that he could have her in his life.
And now those old, nagging suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Michael had found another woman—Beth, whoever she was; some conniving witch named Beth. Maybe she would become the love of his life that Julie had never quite managed to be, for she had always felt a certain reticence with Michael, a reservation about giving herself too wholeheartedly to a man who didn’t love her enough.
It was a fear—primal, unarticulated—submerged somewhere at the deepest level of her subconscious: this fear of giving herself unreservedly to a man who didn’t want her. She had learned the lesson early, at her father’s knee. The childhood memories had dimmed in her mind to hazy, shadowed images, like fine stationery that has yellowed with time, flimsy as butterfly wings, the ink faded to pale, indecipherable scrolls.
But, for Julie, the memories still stung. Somewhere inside, at a core that could no longer be touched, she still recognized herself—a boisterous, exuberant youngster running with girlish glee to her daddy, expecting him to swing her up in his arms and tell her he loved her. But her father had been too busy to give her a hug, too preoccupied with his own problems to play with her or read her a story, too closemouthed to tell her he loved her. Throughout her childhood, his stock-in-trade answer was, “Can’t you see I’m busy, Julie? Go see your mother.”
“He loves you, baby,” her mother always assured her. “He just has a hard time showing it.” Her mother always had an excuse for her father’s lack of affection and attention. “You know how he’s been since he lost his job…you know how hard he has to work to put food on the table…you know he doesn’t say much, Julie—that’s just his nature…you can’t change him, Julie. He’s not a demonstrative man, but that doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there.”
“Who were you kidding, Mama—you or me?” said Julie as she pulled the plug on her bath water. The bubbles were gone now, the water tepid, and she was still sneezing. “You were always making excuses for Daddy, but I stopped believing them a long time ago.”
She felt the bitter irony as she wrapped herself in a thick, velvety towel. Growing up, she had dreamed of marrying a man who would give her the kind of boundless, unconditional love she had never received from her father. But the inauspicious circumstances of her relationship with Michael had ruined that possibility. She would always feel that he had married her out of a sense of duty—not because she was the one great love of his life.
And now there was this new complication: Beth.
Julie dusted herself with her most expensive body powder and slipped into a soft, clingy negligee. She took another decongestant and put on enough makeup to brighten her brown eyes and bring out the roses in her cheeks. She was running a brush through her saffron curls when she heard the door open downstairs. Her heart quickened. Michael—he’s home already!
Then she heard Katie’s voice calling up the stairs, “Mom, I’m home’ Where are you?”
“Up here,” Julie called back, pulling on her long, silk robe, stifling her disappointment.
Katie took the stairs two at a time and came sashaying into the bedroom looking disquietingly blissful. Her hair was mussed, her face glowed, and her glossy, cranberry red lipstick was gone—telltale signs that she and her new boyfriend of the moment had been necking. Or what did they call it these days? Making out? Macking? Playing tonsil hockey?
“Did Jesse enjoy the youth group?” Julie inquired.
“Yeah, he thought they were cool.”
“Sounds like you think Jesse is pretty cool,” noted Julie.
“He is He’s totally hot, Mom.”