“Yes, we did,” Julia said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at one, Mr. Azelle. Promptly.”
Julia nodded and walked away. It was a moment before she realized that Ellie hadn’t followed her.
She glanced back. George and Ellie were talking.
Peanut came up to her, nodded back toward Ellie and George. “That’s trouble,” she said, crossing her arms. “Your sister can turn to Jell-O around a good-looking man.”
“I hope not,” Julia said, feeling exhausted suddenly. “But maybe you should go eavesdrop.”
“Glad to,” Peanut said, and she was off.
Sighing, Julia walked to Max, who was waiting for her at the back door.
TWENTY-THREE
MID-AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT, AS UNCERTAIN AS TOMORROW, shone through the small barred window and landed in a puddle on the hardwood floor.
The girl on the narrow twin bed whined like any other child at naptime. “No sleep. Read.”
From his place just outside the bedroom door, Max heard Julia say, “Not now, honey. Sleep.”
Very quietly, she began to sing a song that Max couldn’t quite hear.
It made him recall another life; in that one, the woman sitting on the bed would have had dark brown hair and the child would be a boy named Danny.
One more story, he would have said, that little boy they’d called One-More Dan and Dan the Man.
Max went downstairs. In the kitchen, he rifled through the cupboards until he found coffee. Making a pot, he then returned to the living room and made a fire.
He was on his second cup of coffee when Julia finally came downstairs. She looked worn; he would have sworn her cheeks were streaked by tears. He wanted to go to her, hold her in the way she’d held Alice and promise her that everything would be okay, but she looked too fragile to be touched. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” he said instead.
“Coffee would be great. Lots of milk and sugar.”
He went to the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, doctored it for her, and returned.
She was sitting on the hearth, with her back to the fire. Her blond hair had come free from the twist she’d had it in. Now, pale tendrils fell around her face. The area below her eyes was puffy and shadowed, her lips were pale.
“Here.” He handed her the coffee.
She gave him a fleeting look, a flashing smile. “Thanks.”
He sat down on the floor in front of her.
“I want him to be guilty.”
“Do you? Really?”
Her face crumbled at that. She sighed and shook her head. “How can I want it?” she whispered. “It would make her dad a monster. No child deserves that. As her doctor, I want him to be a loving parent, wrongly convicted. As her mother . . .” She sighed.
He had no words to give her. They both knew that either way, Alice—Brittany—would be wounded. She would either lose the woman who’d become her mother or be taken away from her biological father. Maybe that wouldn’t hurt her now, when she couldn’t understand what it meant, but someday she’d feel the loss. She might even blame Julia for it. “She needs you; that’s all I know, and you need her.”
Julia’s gaze met his. She slid off the hearth and knelt in front of him. “I want to wake up and find that this was all a bad dream.”
“I know.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. He felt turned inside out by that kiss, broken.
Now that he’d started feeling again, he couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. He drew back just enough to look at her, and whispered, “You told me once I could have all or nothing from you. I choose all.”