From Glowing Embers
Chapter 11
Gray took the stairs of his parents house two at a time. “Julie Ann!” he yelled. “Where the hell are you?” He heard his mother’s shocked gasp behind him, but he was too angry to care. He’d sat through the long, grueling graduation ceremonies, seething over Julie Ann’s absence. He’d spent the next morning throwing clothes into suitcases and books into boxes; then he had driven home at breakneck speed to confront her.
For five months he had worked harder than he’d known it was possible, and for what? For a marriage Julie Ann evidently didn’t give a hoot about. She hadn’t written once; half the time she hadn’t even come to the phone when he’d called. She’d spent the last months sulking because their living arrangement was less than perfect. She had never once tried to understand that he was doing the best he could both for them and their child.
By the time Gray flung his bedroom door open, he was furious. The room was so dark that for a moment he thought he was alone. He found his way to the dresser and flicked on a lamp, and it was then that he saw Julie Ann for the first time in a month. She was sitting in a chair in the corner, her hands folded. His heart lodged in his throat at the sight.
Her delicately boned body was distended and swollen, her complexion a pasty white. Her hair, which she had begun to grow longer for him, hung lifelessly around her face, but her eyes were the greatest shock. Behind her wire-frame glasses, they stared at him as if he were a stranger.
“What are you doing sitting in a dark room?” He punctuated his question by going to the window to open the blinds.
“Is that one of the things I’m not supposed to do?” It was the same voice he remembered and loved, but there was a wistful quality to her question that frightened him.
“You can do what you want, Julie Ann. I just wondered why.”
“In the darkness I can disappear.”
He sat down on the bed opposite her. His anger was gone. This wasn’t a sulking child. Something was terribly wrong. “If you disappear, what will I do?” He reached for her hand.
She looked surprised when he touched her. Her gaze dropped, as if she had to see his hand covering hers to believe it. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“Didn’t my parents tell you?”
She smiled a little, and it was the strangest smile he had ever seen. “Your father told me you’d be home later this week.”
“You must have misunderstood him.”
She raised her eyes to his, and he was shaken by the sadness in them. “Of course,” she murmured. “I misunderstood.”
“Why didn’t you come to my graduation?”
“I wasn’t well enough.”
He nodded. “What does the doctor say?”
“He doesn’t talk much to me. He talks to your parents.”
“My father told me you’d had a few setbacks, but that you were coming along fine. He said he tried to talk you into coming to graduation.”
For the first time Gray saw a spark of life in her eyes. “Your father is a liar,” she said, pulling her hand away from his. “Among other things. He told me he didn’t want me there, and that you didn’t, either.”
Gray felt his anger returning. “My father’s given you a home,” he reminded her. “If it weren’t for my father, I wouldn’t have my degree now, and I wouldn’t be able to support you and the baby in any kind of comfort!”
She shut her eyes, and when she opened them, they were carefully blank. She didn’t answer.
Gray forced himself to speak calmly. “I don’t want to fight about my father. I don’t want to fight about anything.”
“That would be easiest,” she agreed.
“I had an apartment for us in Oxford for a few days. I thought we needed some time alone.” He paused. “We won’t have any time alone again for a long time after the baby comes.”
“The baby’s not due for two months. After we find a place to live, we’ll have that time.”
He was hurt by the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. She was simply stating the facts. He got to his feet. “I wasn’t planning to find another place to live. My parents told me that we can stay here as long as we want. My father’s offered me a job in his office.”
“I won’t live here, and I won’t let them raise my child.”
He didn’t understand the last part of her statement, but the first part was perfectly clear. “You won’t even talk about it?”
“I won’t live here.”
He wanted to yell at her, to break through the barriers she’d erected, but he knew if he did, his parents would hear every word. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Let’s go for a drive.”
“I’m not feeling well.”
“One minute you tell me you don’t want to stay here, and the next I can’t get you to leave.”
She stood, too, and she clasped her swollen belly as if to protect it. “Where did you want to go?”
She looked so defenseless that his anger turned into frustration. He had to find a way to get through to her. The pregnancy had drained everything good out of her, leaving her filled with fears and suspicions. He wanted the old Julie Ann back, and he knew the one place that might help revive her.
“Let’s go down to the beach house. We’ll stay a couple of days. You can lie out in the sun, and I’ll take care of you. It’ll be good for both of us.”
“The beach house?”
He smiled and reached over to touch her cheek. “Yeah, remember? We spent our wedding night there.”
She flinched.
He jerked his hand back. “Fine. Forget I asked.” He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.
“Gray?”
He faced her again. “Yeah?”
“I’ll go.”
He wanted to tell her that he didn’t want to go anymore, that her disinterest had killed his pleasure in being alone with her, but her eyes were so sad he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her any more.
The drive down to Granger Inlet was silent. Julie Ann looked out the window as if she was counting every passing mile. Gray concentrated on his driving, trying not to think about the problems between them. He still had faith they could fix whatever was wrong. If he could just be alone with Julie Ann for a few days, he knew he could get through to her.
They stopped once, for groceries, and it was dark by the time they drove up to the beach house. Sometime during the last few miles Julie Ann had fallen asleep, and when Gray turned off the engine she didn’t wake up. He got out and came around to help her, stooping after he’d opened her door to caress her cheek. “Julie Ann,” he called softly. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
When her eyes opened she smiled at him, reaching out as if for a hug, but at the last moment—as if she had finally woken up—she stopped, and her hands dropped into her lap.
Gray stepped back to give her room to get out, but not before he’d realized just how much he longed to have her love and trust again. He had missed her these last months, missed her more than he’d expected and in ways that surprised him. He had wished many times that the circumstances of their marriage were different, but never once, through all the difficult times away from her, had he wished that they hadn’t gotten married.
Somewhere along the path of their precarious relationship, he had given her his heart.