Page 39 of Our Unexpected Beginning
“I didn’t say anything wrong. You’re not getting any younger, now would be the time to lock someone in.” Baby trap. As if the universe whispered to her mother she was already pregnant.
“No, you think I didn’t hear what you meant. Graham and I are together.” Of course, her mother would take away the joy of declaring the possibility of a relationship.
Julia tightened her jaw and looked up at the ceiling. She couldn’t be disrespectful in Aunt Elaine’s house, Uncle Steven wouldn’t have let it come this far.
“Just, stop. Stop insinuating that because of my relationship status and the possibility that my uterus could one day maybe be occupied, I’m ‘cured’ or out of a phase.”
Sexuality wasn’t a mood or a fling. She’d felt the same things for men as she did women. It was who the personwas and how they made you feel, not what was under their clothes.
Her mother’s accusation invalidated any non-hetero relationships Julia had and was an insult to the man sitting next to her as if he was a purchased settlement prize.
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were.”You always come after me.This time there was an audience.
Aunt Elaine wiped her hands on a towel. “Can we not, please?”
Julia sighed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “You know what, it’s fine. Mothers are supposed to be your biggest supporters, but you’ve always been my bully.” She won’t raise her kid like that. Alone or otherwise.
“That’s enough.”
“Laine, you always stick up for her.”
“Someone should.” Aunt Elaine deadpanned. “I’m tired, this is enough. You were the one that insisted on coming over.”
Julia barely registered Graham’s hand on her thigh, squeezing her knee for comfort.
“I had to hear from someone else that my own daughter was here. I only have one child left. Your brother–”
“Oh, Jules told me about her brother, Devin right?” Of course, he was right, he remembered every detail he could about her. Down to her aversion to seafood because you don’t eat your friends.
Graham continued to divert the conversation. “I heard he was interested in the Marines.”
Julia’s knuckles cracked against her grip on the seat. Wishing she could magic dust zap everyone to new corners of the state. Maybe even the continent.
“I don’t know what she told you, but my son Devin was going to med school. He wanted to study oncology. He’s such a smart boy.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, no mother should have to bury a child. But you can’t predict an accident. The train derailment was a fluke, you don’t hear about them much these days.” Cassandra sighed and wiped her wet eyes. “He was a good boy, a great brother. My son Devin was the light of my life. Devin was…” She tuned out the rest of her mother’s words, already knowing it by heart.
Julia’s stomach twisted. She got up from the table and tossed her napkin in her seat. “I’ve a headache.” She waved a hand of surrender to Aunt Elaine with a nod. Leaving Graham who was too polite to leave to listen to the twisted perfect version of her brother that did him no justice.
*
Julia stood out on the attic balcony overlooking the trees with her elbows and forehead on the railing. The cold night air did nothing to soothe her anxieties.Thirty-two years old reduced to a belittled preteen every time.
Dinner was the shitshow she expected it to be and so much more.
The door opened and she wasn’t surprised to see Graham standing with an unreadable look on his face.
“I’m impressed, I didn’t think you’d last another twenty minutes.” If she took slow breaths from deep in her belly the way she was taught when the panic attacks started when she was fourteen.
“Jules.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She shook her head against the cold railing. “I’m sorry I left the room. I can’t.”
For the first time, Graham grunted in a way she hadn’t heard from him. He was clearly agitated with the situation and she wished she could run. “Fuck.”
