Part 32 (1/2)
”Okay.” Julianne nodded and reached for the gla.s.s of orange juice Mara held out in trembling hands.
Julianne watched her with wary eyes.
”What would you like to do after breakfast?” Mara asked.
”I don't know. I can't go anyplace. I don't have any clothes.” She took a sip of juice. ”If you're going to make me stay here, you're going to have to get me some clothes to wear.”
”I'll ask Annie when she gets back,” Mara told her.
”Why do you have to ask her?” Julianne frowned. ”Can't you take me?”
”I've been having problems with my car. She'd have to drive.” Mara averted her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to tell her daughter that she was afraid to let her leave the house.
Maybe we can get Miranda to come along. She has a gun. Annie doesn't carry a gun. . . .
”Do you work?” Julianne asked.
”Yes.”
”What do you do?”
”I'm a lawyer. I work with the courts. I'm what they call a child advocate. When there are custody disputes in families, I represent the child or children.”
Julianne stared at her, then said, ”So if my dad came for me and went to court with you, they'd give you custody because they know you. That won't be fair.”
Mara bit her lip. She wasn't going to get into what could be an ugly discussion with Julianne. She wanted to tell her daughter that the courts would give her, Mara, custody because her father had broken the law, but she couldn't let her feelings for Jules surface to sour this time with Julianne. So she said nothing. She poured herself another cup of coffee and sank into a chair at the table.
”Does she work?” Julianne pointed out the window to where Anne Marie stood chatting with Aidan.
”Yes.”
”What does she do?”
”She works for the FBI.”
”Oh.” Julianne watched Annie for a few minutes, then asked, ”Who is that man?”
”His name is Aidan s.h.i.+elds. He's a friend of mine.”
”Why is he here?”
”He works with Annie.”
”He's an FBI man?”
”Yes.”
”He's waiting for my father to come for me, isn't he? He's going to arrest my father, and they'll let you keep me because you work with those people.” Julianne threw the gla.s.s of juice across the room. It hit the cabinet above the stove and shattered.
”Julianne . . .” Mara jumped out of her chair.
”I'll tell them I want to be with my father. I'll tell them how you had those people steal me away. How my father had to keep me away from you because you were a bad-”
”Stop it,” Mara said softly. ”You know that isn't true. I have never stopped loving you. I never stopped praying that you'd come home.”
”Then why did it take you so long to find me? If you were looking so hard, why did it take you so long?” Julianne sobbed and rushed from the room.
Mara followed her daughter to her room and opened the door that had just been slammed in her face. She leaned against the doorjamb and watched as Julianne threw herself facedown onto her bed. Hesitating for just an instant, Mara went to her, sat down on the side of the bed, and gently rubbed her daughter's back, trying to think of the right thing to say.
h.e.l.l, how could anyone know the right thing to say?
When no words came, she lay down next to the sobbing girl and held her. Brus.h.i.+ng Julianne's blonde hair back from her face, Mara cried tears of her own.
”Why are you crying?” Julianne demanded.
”Because I don't know what else to do,” a weary Mara told her, her emotions worn to the quick. ”I don't know what to say to you, or what to do for you. I want to tell you that everything your father told you about me was a lie, but I know I'm not supposed to say that, because it would make you feel conflicted. But obviously he didn't tell you the truth about things. Look at me. Certainly I'm not dead. And I was a good mother-I was a very good mother-but if I start telling you all the ways in which I was a good mother, then I'll be wrong for showing your father up as a liar. I am d.a.m.ned if I do, and I'm d.a.m.ned if I don't.”
Mara sat up and exhaled. ”I'm sorry, Julianne. I shouldn't have said that. Not any of it.”
She rubbed her temples, tried to rub away the throbbing pain that had settled in and kept announcing itself, over and over and over. Neither she nor Julianne seemed able to look at the other. The storm of emotions had been so swift and so strong.
”My room is the same,” Julianne said after a few very long minutes. ”I remember a lot of the dolls. And the stuffed animals there on the shelves.”
She got up and went to the bookshelves and touched the spines of several books.
”I looked at a lot of these last night. I remember some of them. I remember you reading to me at night.”
”We always read together at night.”
”Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree.” Julianne took one from the top shelf. ”I liked this one. The rhymes. I liked the way the tree kept getting smaller and smaller.” Julianne took one from the top shelf. ”I liked this one. The rhymes. I liked the way the tree kept getting smaller and smaller.”
She smiled as she flipped through the pages. ”I liked how the mice had the tiniest tree at the end. . . .”
”You used to make me crazy, wanting me to read that over and over and over.” Mara managed a smile.
”I remember.” Julianne skimmed the last page of the book, then slid it back onto the shelf.
”Why didn't you get rid of my stuff?” she asked. ”You didn't change anything.”
”I wanted your things to be here for you when you came home.”
”What if I was twenty when I came back? What if I was in college?”
”It would still all be here.”
”What if I never came back?”
”It never occurred to me that you wouldn't come back someday. I wasn't sure how old you'd be, but I knew one day, I'd find you and you'd come home.”