Train Station Bride (17 page)

Julia’s lip trembled. “You must have been so angry with me for letting mother run rough shod over me. Over my life. Over my daughter’s life.”

“Not mad at you. But ashamed of myself. I thought I was helping you, trying to nudge you on. Little bits at a time. Give ya some faith in yourself. I shoulda sat ya down years ago and told ya straight out there was no way to get what was rightfully yours without standing up to your mother. Weren’t never right what she done. I shoulda screamed and hollered till you up and stole Miss Jillian in the dead of night.”

“I’m the one to be ashamed, Eustace. I’ve been hiding all these years from my mistakes. I’d still be hiding if not for Jake.” Julia could barely speak. She had never felt this way about a man. Never thought she would. Their parting, his final words to her would haunt her till the day she died. She loved him so desperately. Julia swiped her cheeks. “Jake showed me a whole new way of living and thinking. He showed me love.” She whispered, “And he hates me now.”

“I don’t believe it, Miss Julia. Don’t believe it at all. This Mr. Shelling sounds like a fine man. A fine man indeed. Raising his sisters and all.” Eustace stood and bustled around the kitchen. “I won’t believe a fine man like that fell out of love. Chances of falling in are so rare; I don’t believe a smart man like that don’t still love you.”

Julia shook her head and stared out the window. Voicing in a whisper, Julia repeated the most horrible portrayal of her Jake could have rendered. “He said he was glad I wasn’t carrying his baby. That he didn’t want me for his child’s mother.”

Chapter Fourteen

Sunday at Flossie’s for Millie’s birthday was dismal. The children questioned him relentlessly about when Julia was coming home. Will and Harry would not look at him square on, and Flossie and Gloria barely spoke to him. Jake had made Millie a miniature cradle for her rag doll. Millie fingered the carved wood.

“Thank you, Uncle Jake,” she said quietly.

Jake picked the girl up and sat her on his lap. “What’s the matter, sweet pea? Don’t you like the cradle?”

Millie nodded and looked at him dejectedly. “I like it just fine, Uncle Jake. It’s just that Aunt Julia was teaching me to say thank you in French. I wanted to say thank you in French like her.”

“Silvo plat, or something like that, Millie. Stop your whining,” Danny said.

“But I wanted to say it,” Millie said. “When’s she coming home?”

Jake picked up the ragged doll and stared at it. “I don’t know that she’s ever coming home.”

Gloria harrumphed. Flossie muttered under her breath. He couldn’t believe it. His own family had turned on him. He knew the reason things had been quiet all day, why no one would meet his eye. They blamed him for Julia leaving. Jake wasn’t the one to abandon a child, and he shouldn’t have to bear the responsibility for Julia’s leave taking.

“What did you say, Flossie?” Jake asked.

Flossie banged a dirty pot in the sink. “Said who can blame her?”

Jake’s ears were bright red and burning. He could feel his neck swelling and his veins bulging in his temples. “Fine thing to say. From my own sister, nonetheless,” Jake said.

Harry and Will put coats on Millie and Danny and hurried them outside. Little Joshua was asleep in Flossie’s bedroom. The kitchen was silent. Gloria clucked and puckered her lips. Flossie faced Jake head on.

“I have a few more things to say to you, too, Jake Shelling.”

“Go on. Say your peace then. Get it out,” Jake shouted.

“Oh, I intend to. I intend to, by God,” Flossie said and slapped a spoon down on the table. “You’re not always right. And you don’t have the right to judge.”

Jake stood and leaned over the kitchen table. “She left me, Flossie. First she gave up her own child to the same people that made her miserable all her life. Then she comes out here to hide from her shame. Marries me and then leaves faster than a jackrabbit.”

“Do you think she wanted to leave her child, Jake? I know now why she cried every time she held Joshua,” Gloria said. “She doesn’t know any better. It’s how she was raised.”

“What do you mean how she was raised?” Jake asked.

“Julia’s been held down by her mother all her life. Made to feel as though she was the ugly child, the fat child. You should have heard how she talked about herself to Gloria and I when she first came here. Said her sisters were the pretty ones. Why she wasn’t married. You got eyes in your head, Jake. Julia’s beautiful. What kind of ridicule did that girl carry to make her see herself that way? Then the first man that pays attention to her gets her pregnant.” Flossie threw her hands in the air. “And the mother marries the man off to the virgin sister while Julia stands beside her.”

“I can’t imagine how horrible that was for her. At seventeen yet,” Gloria added.

“Julia told me all that the night we got married. She seemed fine about it after she told me. Her parents visit upset her, that’s for sure, but what’s that got to do with all this?” Jake asked.

“Women don’t think the same as men, Jake. We put more stock in what we look like than we probably should, but we do it anyway,” Gloria said and plopped her head in her hand. “Look at me. Josh’s three months old, and I’m still big as a barn. Will thinks I’m a big fat cow.”

“Will doesn’t think you’re a big fat cow, Gloria. What a stupid thing to say,” Jake said.

“I’ve lived with this scar on my face for ten years, Jake. Most times I don’t even think about it anymore. Harry, well, Harry says he would never change one thing about me,” Flossie said. “But when Julia’s mother stared at me that day in the foyer, I felt like the first time you made me go into town after I got cut. Like everyone was staring. Like it was the only thing anybody could see.”

“And the only thing Julia could hang on to was loving you and having your babies. Being worthy of you,” Gloria said, tears on her lashes. “And you go and say what you said. Nothing could have hurt her worse.”

“What are you two talking about?” Jake asked slack jawed. His sisters, capable farmwomen that they were had themselves in a tizzy about carrying baby fat and what some old Boston bitch thought of them. He was shocked.

“You’re loyal and honest and would die for us, Jake. I know that. You’re also stubborn and bull-headed and think your way’s the only way,” Flossie said hands on her hips. “And I know you were angry and shocked when you found out Julia has a daughter but to say you hoped she wasn’t pregnant. That she wasn’t worthy to have the children of the man she loves. My God, Jake. Nothing you could have said could have hurt that girl more. Nothing.”

“She left her own flesh and blood there. Like she never had the girl,” Jake said. “I can’t imagine what would make a person do that. Things were hard in the beginning when Ma and Pa died. I would have never dreamed of leaving either of you.”

“We know you wouldn’t have, Jake,” Gloria said. “But maybe Julia thought so little of herself that she thought she was doing the right thing? She was seventeen, Jake. Did you ever think that she loved the girl so much she thought life with her parents was better for Jillian than life with her?”

“Jake, it’s hard for us to understand. I wouldn’t do it. Gloria wouldn’t do it. But by damn, it’s not for you to judge her,” Flossie said. “And she’s not Valerie Morton. Right now, Julia’s all alone in Boston, trying to set things right between her and her daughter.”

Jake slumped down in a chair. He had not thought about Julia back with her family. No one would defend her there. “What did she say in her letter?”

“Said she was going home to Boston and get her daughter. Said she’d never forget the time she spent in our family. She didn’t feel clumsy or stupid or ugly while she was here. But that she loved you more than anything besides Jillian, and she couldn’t bear to live looking at your face everyday, knowing you thought so little of her. Julia said it was high time she started being responsible for herself and her daughter. And that she would have never understood any of it if it hadn’t been for you. That she would be grateful to you to her dying day for forcing her to take a long hard look at her life.”

Jake took a shaky breath.

Gloria unfolded the letter.
“I know what real love is now. I saw it in you and your sister’s face. And for a brief, wonderful time saw it in Jake’s. Tell him to get a divorce or whatever he wants to do.”

Jake stood slowly, feeling the weight of the passing years more heavily than ever before. He had some thinking to do. Some deciding to do. But there was one item not up for discussion or thought. “There’ll be no divorce, damn it.”

Flossie and Gloria eyed each other and then their brother.

“Well, right now Julia is facing that shrew of a mother of hers alone.”

* * *

Julia dressed carefully for her trip to Ramsey. She and Eustace had talked endlessly about her strategy during her stay. No matter how much encouragement her friend offered, Julia began to realize the fact that Jillian may want nothing to do with her. Her plans, ten years in the coming, may fall irrevocably apart. There may be no cozy home and shared lives with a daughter she adored. Was it selfish to want to be with her daughter? Raise her? Dream for her and about her? Julia decided it might not be selfish to want those things for herself. But if her daughter rejected her, as Turner and Jake had, would she have the strength to keep trying.

“Giving up’s the easy way, Miss Julia. Whatever happens, you can’t give up,” Eustace said to Julia the night before Julia’s trip to Ramsey.

“I’ve taken the easy way all my life, Eustace. I just realized that,” Julia said.

“No, no, Miss Julia. You did what you thought was right. What was right for that precious girl of yours.”

“I used to think so. Not anymore. I was always looking for someone’s approval. Someone that didn’t care what I looked like or what mistakes I’d made. I had that in Jake. He never took the easy way all his life. Didn’t care what people thought of him other than his family.” Julia stood and walked to the sink in Eustace’s kitchen to stare out the frosted window. “I’ve made my mistakes. I don’t have anyone to blame other than myself. But I can’t do the right thing now because of what Jake thinks. I’m alone in this, Eustace.”

“You’re not alone, child. I’m here. Your Aunt Mildred said you and the girl could come and stay for as long as you want or need. And a prayer or two probably wouldn’t hurt none either.”

Julia looked at the intricate pattern the ice made on the windowpane. “I’m terrified, Eustace.”

“Go ahead. Be scared. I would be too. It’s all right to be scared, Miss Julia. But don’t let it stop you now. You’ve come too far to let that fear stop you.”

Julia turned to Eustace. “I have come too far, Eustace. I can’t quit now, can I?”

Eustace shook her head and smiled. “You left and got married. Come back and got your money from the bank. You’re heading to see Miss Jillian tomorrow. One foot in front of the other is all you can do now, girl.”

* * *

Julia clung to those words of encouragement as she climbed down from the carriage at the steps of the Ramsey School for Young Ladies. The slow march to the door of the brick building felt to Julia as though she were being led to an executioner. A prim matron answered.

“May I help you?”

“I would like to speak with Miss Abernathy if I may.”

The woman tilted her head. “I don’t believe the headmistress had any appointments for this morning.”

If Julia could not get past this woman there was little hope. “I don’t have an appointment. But I am a graduate of this school, and my sister attends currently. I was hoping to visit with her after chapel.” The woman made a quick decision after eying Julia’s most costly outfit.

“Come in and have a seat. I will see if Miss Abernathy can meet with you.”

Julia sat on the velvet settee near the door. Her palms were sweating and her hands shaking by the time Miss Abernathy appeared.

“Miss Crawford. What a surprise,” the tall thin woman said to Julia.

Julia had been terrified of the headmistress as a student. Her adherence to proper behavior made the Ramsey school sought after for their daughters by Boston’s first families. Her unsmiling, unbending ways terrifying generation after generation of girls. Her belittlement of students she deemed unworthy, legendary.
I am no longer a child, Julia said to herself. I’m an adult.
The chant did not diminish the quiver in her voice.

“Good morning, Miss Abernathy. I was hoping to have a visit with Jillian this morning.” The woman’s lips disappeared in a smile.

“We do hate to disrupt the lives of our girls with unexpected visits. I’m sure you remember the rules, Miss Crawford. Your mother was here last week. She made an appointment.”

Julia swallowed and repeated the well-rehearsed lines. “I do beg your forgiveness on that count. But I’m only here in Boston for one day. I’m sure a few moments with a sister is well within school rules.” Julia smiled as pleasantly as possible. “
Family first
is the motto of Ramsey after all.”

Miss Abernathy’s brows raised and her lips pursed. “It is hardly necessary to remind me of our school motto. I have endeavored my entire life for the good of the school. As you well know.”

Julia shook her head. “My goodness, I meant no disrespect, Miss Abernathy. I would never dream of being so brash.” Julia dropped her eyes. “I have spent my life living the lessons I’ve learned here.” When Julia looked up, she saw the headmistress’ smile of victory.

“We hope that for all our graduates.” She tilted her head. “I suppose a few moments with your sister could do no harm.” Miss Abernathy turned and began to stride down the hall. When she and Julia came to the door of a room, she turned. “Perhaps you can enlighten your Jillian on the importance of those lessons. She is undisciplined and headstrong. Humility is a trait needed for our young woman as they enter the world of marriage.”

Julia was conversely elated to get through the gates of Abernathy and worried what censure Jillian had brought upon herself. And truly the moment of truth had come. She would face her daughter as a mother, momentarily. Miss Abernathy knocked briskly on the door.