The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Chapter 9

Late Monday afternoon, Julia was walking home from the post office, a bundle of mail in her arms. She was reeling from the news she’d just received.

As she turned the corner to Shelby Road, she lifted the postcard from the top of the bundle again.

She still couldn’t believe it.

The postcard was from Nancy, one of her best friends in Baltimore. Because Julia couldn’t afford a phone in her apartment while living here, once a month or so Nancy would write with what was going on with Julia’s old group of friends-a rowdy group of young professionals who drank cocktails and talked a lot without saying very much. Julia had suspected that they’d been popular kids in high school, and she liked that they thought she was one of them. This particular postcard had thrown Julia for loop. On it, Nancy-whom Julia didn’t even know was seeing anyone-had written that she had suddenly gotten married. She’d also written that their friend Devon had moved to Maine and their friend Thomas was taking a job in Chicago. Nancy promised to give Julia all the details as soon as she got home from her honeymoon in Greece.

Her honeymoon.

In Greece.

Julia hadn’t expected everything to remain static while she was away, she just didn’t think things would change so much. And all at once. She thought there would be more to come back to. But now, when she left Mullaby and moved back to Baltimore, there would be hardly any friends to reconnect with. That had been part of the plan, part of what had been keeping her going.

She tried to rally. She still had her Blue-Eyed Girl Bakery dream. The bakery, after all, was the whole reason she was doing this, the reason she had confined herself to this hell for two years. Growing apart from her friends had always been a risk. Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.

So she would just deal with this.

She’d dealt with losing much worse.

She heard a splashing sound, and looked down the sidewalk to see Emily in front of Vance’s house. There was a sudsy bucket by her feet, a sponge in her hand, and a large old car at the curb, a car that was steadfastly refusing to get clean despite Emily’s effort. And it was a lot of effort. Work-off-your-frustration effort.

Julia tucked the postcard into one of the catalogs in her bundle of mail, then walked over to Emily. She hadn’t seen her since Saturday and wondered if she and her grandfather were communicating any better, if Vance had finally told her everything. She stopped a few feet away from her. “Nice car.”

Emily looked up. Her fine blond hair, as usual, seemed suspended in midair, half up in a ponytail, half hanging down around her face. “Grandpa Vance is letting me drive it. His mechanic is picking it up tomorrow morning, but I pushed it out of the garage so I could wash it first.”

“I didn’t know Vance still had this.” Julia walked over to the car and leaned down to look in a dusty window. “It belonged to his wife, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Julia watched Emily scrub the hood for a few moments. “Have you talked to your grandfather?”

“Yes.” That one word conveyed all Julia needed to know. Emily used her forearm to push some hair out of her face, then resumed scrubbing. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this. But my mom knew. I’m sure that’s why she never came back, and why she never told me about this place. I’m beginning to think she wouldn’t want me here.”

Julia looked from Emily, to the car, and back again. If Julia had had a car at Emily’s age, she knew exactly what she would have done. Hell, she was even thinking about it now. “Planning to leave?”

Emily looked surprised that Julia had caught on so quickly. She shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Well, if you’ll hold off for a little while, the Mullaby Barbecue Festival is this weekend. It’s a pretty big deal around here. Do you want to go with me?”

Emily didn’t look at her. “You don’t have to do this, Julia.”

“Do what?”

“Try so hard to be friends with me. My mom was cruel to you. You don’t have to be nice to me.”

Oh, hell. “So Vance told you that, too?”

“He said my mom used to tease you. What did she do?” Emily finally met her eyes. If she were any more sincere, she would dissolve into fresh air and blow away.

Julia shook her head. “You shouldn’t worry about it. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Please tell me.”

“It’s not exactly my shining moment, Em,” Julia said. “But, if you must know, aside from the pink hair, black clothes, and black lipstick, I used to wear a studded leather choker that looked like a dog collar to school every day. Your mother would bring dog treats to school and throw them at me in the hallways. Once, she even gave me flea powder. When she didn’t have anything on hand, she simply barked at me.” She paused at the memory. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time. “To be fair, I gave her a lot to make fun of. You’ve seen the photos. I probably brought it on myself.”

“Don’t. Don’t justify it. No one should ever compromise the dignity of another human being.” She shook her head. “My mom taught me that. Can you believe it?”

“Yes, actually,” Julia said. “I can.”

“You told me she was popular.”

“She was popular.”

“But no one liked her?”

Julia thought about it for a moment. “Logan Coffey did.”

Emily dropped the sponge she was holding into the bucket at her feet. “I’m sorry for what she did to you.”

“I would never blame you for something your mother did, sweetheart. No one worth your time would. You’re not who your mother was. In fact, I’m beginning to think you are who your mother became. It might be worth staying, if just to prove that to everyone.”

Emily seemed to be thinking it over when they both heard a car door slam. They turned to see Sawyer standing beside a white Lexus hybrid parked behind Julia’s truck next door.

He took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the collar of his shirt, then walked toward them.

“Is he here for your date?” Emily asked.

Julia turned to her. “What date?”

“He asked you out for Monday night. When we were at the lake.”

Julia threw her head back and groaned. “Oh, damn.”

Emily laughed. “You forgot? You forgot you had a date with him?”

“Sort of.” Julia looked at her and smiled, glad that at least Emily was finding some humor in this.

“Hello, ladies,” Sawyer said from behind her.

“Hi, Sawyer. Julia didn’t forget you were going out,” Emily said. “She’s… just running late. It’s my fault. She was going to change when I stopped her to show her my car. Right, Julia?”

Julia looked at her strangely before realizing that Emily thought she was helping. “Right,” Julia said. “Let me know about going to the festival on Saturday, okay?”

“I will.”

Julia turned and took Sawyer’s arm and led him next door. “She thinks you’re here to take me on a date,” she leaned into him and whispered. “And she just went to a lot of trouble to help me save face because she thought I forgot. Go along with it, okay?”

“Okay,” he said amiably as they walked up the steps to Stella’s house. “But I am here to take you out. And obviously you did forget.”

They entered the house and Julia set her mail on the table in the foyer. “I’m not going on a date with you,” she said.

“You accepted in front of Emily. And she just covered for you. What kind of example are you setting?”

“That’s a low blow. Just wait here until she goes inside.”

He went to the living room window and pushed the curtain aside. “That might take a while. That car is filthy.”

Julia smiled. “She seems thrilled with it.”

“How was she when you took her home Saturday? She seems okay now.”

“She’s coping. Her grandfather finally told her some things about her mother’s time here. I think she’ll be better prepared for snubs from the Coffeys now.”

“She really is nothing like Dulcie.” He let the curtain fall, then walked over to Stella’s striped silk couch-the one she didn’t let people sit on-and sat, crossing his legs and stretching his arms over the back. She found herself staring at him. He was just so perfect. “You do realize that the longer I stay in here, the more likely she is to think we’re doing something scandalous,” he said.

“Like what? Stealing Stella’s furniture?”

“You’re being obtuse.”

“And you’re being manipulative.”

He shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, then I have no problem with it.”

“Careful, Sawyer, you’re acting a lot like you did when you were sixteen. And here I was thinking you’d improved so much.”

“And there it is,” he said with satisfaction.

“What?”

“Exactly what I want to talk about.”

She’d walked right into that. “No,” she said. “Stella will be home any minute.”

“She won’t be home for an hour or more.” He locked eyes with her, holding her there on the spot. “You said you’ve forgiven me. Is that true?”

“I’m not doing this. I’m not having this conversation.” She shook her head adamantly.

“Why?”

“Because it’s mine, Sawyer!” she said. “It’s my memory and my regret. It’s not yours. I’m not sharing it with you. You didn’t want it then. You can’t have it now.”

The words were strung in the air like garland. She could almost see them.

Sawyer stood and she thought for a moment that he was walking toward her, and she hastily took a few steps back. But she soon discovered that he was walking to the fireplace mantel in Stella’s living room. He stopped there and put his hands in his pockets, staring into the empty fireplace. “Holly and I couldn’t have kids.”

Julia paused at this sudden change in subject. Sawyer and Holly had gotten married right out of college. Her father had told Julia about it in passing one year. It had hurt a little, but hadn’t surprised her much. Sawyer and Holly had dated since middle school. What had surprised her, when she moved back to Mullaby, was discovering that their marriage had lasted less than five years. Everyone, including her, thought they’d be together forever. Julia in particular knew all that Sawyer had done to preserve his relationship with Holly when they were teens.

“The ironic thing is, I was the problem,” Sawyer continued. “I contracted chicken pox my senior year in college and had an unusual reaction to it. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t think of what happened between us, Julia, and how I responded. My fear and my stupidity not only made what was already a horrible time in your life worse, it destroyed what turned out to be my only chance to father a child. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I knew the moment I saw you again that you were holding on to what had happened, that I was still, in your eyes, that stupid, stupid boy. Maybe this will make you feel a little better.”

“Feel better?” she asked incredulously.

He shrugged. “To know that I got what I had coming.”

For the first time, Julia realized Sawyer might be just as messed up as she was about what had happened. He was simply better at hiding it. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “How could you possibly think that would make me feel better?”

“It doesn’t?”

“Of course not.”

Still staring into the fireplace, he said, “I’ve read that an abortion rarely affects a woman’s ability to bear more children. Is that true?”

She hesitated. “I assume so.”

“I’m glad,” he said softly.

This had been hers, and only hers, for so long. She didn’t think he cared, or even deserved, to know what she’d been keeping so close to her heart, this hope she’d been carrying around for so long. “You bastard. I was happy being mad at you. Why couldn’t you have just left it at that?”

He smiled slightly. “Because I get such a kick out of telling beautiful women that I’m sterile.”

At that moment, the front door opened and there was Stella. She always smelled like carnations from her florist shop when she came in from work. The scent ran ahead of her into the room, like an excited pet.

“I told you she’d be home any minute,” Julia said.

“Am I interrupting something?” Stella asked hopefully, looking back and forth from Julia to Sawyer. “I can come back later. As a matter of fact, I don’t have to come back at all. I can be gone all night.”

“You’re not interrupting anything. Good night.” Julia turned and jogged up the stairs to her apartment.

“Night?” Stella said. “It’s barely five o’clock.”

Julia locked the door behind her and went straight to her bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed, then she fell back and stared at the long yellow squares of daylight stretching across the ceiling.

She suddenly had a very big decision to make, one she thought she’d never have to make.

Coming back here had messed up everything.

HER FIRST six weeks at Collier Reformatory in Maryland were hard. There were some tough girls there. Julia spent a lot of time crying in her bed in the dorm, and using all her allotted phone time trying to call Sawyer. His maid always said he wasn’t home. Julia refused to call her father, or talk to him when he called, for doing this to her. Her therapist didn’t pressure her. Her therapy sessions were odd at first, but then she started looking forward to them.

In fact, her therapist was the second person she told when realized she was pregnant.

Julia was thrilled when she found out. In her mind, it meant she could go home and be with Sawyer. They would get married and move in together and raise their child. He could make her happy. He could make her better. She knew he could. He saw her. He was the only person who did.

She called his house incessantly until she obviously wore the maid down. When Sawyer got on the phone, she was taken aback by his tone.

“Julia, you have to stop calling here,” he said brusquely.

“I… I’ve missed you. Where have you been?”

Silence.

“This place is horrible,” she went on. “They want to put me on medication.”

Sawyer cleared his throat. “Maybe that’s a good idea, Julia.”

“No, it’s not.” She smiled, thinking how wonderful this was going to be. “It might hurt the baby.”

Silence again. Then, “What baby?”

“I’m pregnant, Sawyer. I’m going to tell my therapist, and then my dad. I should be home soon.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said quickly. “What?”

“I know it’s a surprise. It was for me, too. But, don’t you see? It’s really the best thing that could have happened. I’ll come home and we can be together.”

“Is it mine?” he asked.

She felt the first string tighten around her heart, thin and sharp. “Of course it’s yours. That was my first time. You were my first.”

He waited so long to say something that she thought he’d hung up. “Julia, I don’t want a baby,” he finally said.

“Well, it’s too late for that,” she said, trying to laugh.

“Is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sixteen!” He suddenly exploded. “I can’t be a parent! And I’m with Holly. This is the worst thing that could happen to me right now! I have plans.”

A second string, then a third, tightened around her insides, making it hard to breathe. “You’re with Holly?” She knew he’d been dating Holly, but she’d assumed, after what had happened on the football field… the way he’d looked at her and touched her…

How could he do that to her and still be with Holly?

“I’ve always been with her. You know that. We’re going to get married after college.”

“But that night-”

He interrupted her, saying, “You were upset.”

“It’s not just the baby, then?” she almost whispered. “You don’t want me?”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I thought you knew.”

You thought I knew? Her eyes started filling with tears and her breathing was heavy. She thought she might hyperventilate.

He was supposed to save her.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said, turning to hang up the pay phone. Sawyer might not want the baby, but she did. She would take care of it by herself.

Sawyer misunderstood. “That’s good. It’s the right thing, Julia. I know it’ll be hard, but it will be over before you know it. Just get an abortion and everything will be fine. Let me send you some money.” His voice was so nice now, so relieved. She felt a wave of hatred so strong that it popped off her skin and caused a crinkling noise in the phone receiver.

An abortion? He wanted her to get an abortion? He didn’t want the baby, but he didn’t want her to have it either. How could she ever have thought she was in love with such a person? “No. I can do it by myself.”

“Let me do something.”

“You’ve done enough,” she said, and hung up.

Telling her father was horrible. When her therapist made her call him, he wanted her to come home right away, thinking she’d gotten pregnant at Collier. But she admitted that it had happened before she left Mullaby. Though he demanded to know who the father was, she never told him. In the end, everyone agreed that she should stay at Collier. She wasn’t the only pregnant girl there, after all.

She started craving cakes around her third month. The sensation was unbelievable. There were times she thought she would go crazy with it. Her therapist told her it was just a normal pregnancy craving, but Julia knew better. This child growing inside her obviously had Sawyer’s magical sweet sense. When Julia couldn’t get enough sweets during the day, she started sneaking out of her dorm to go to the cafeteria. That’s where she baked her first cake. She became pretty good at it after a while, because it was the only thing that settled the baby. It had an unusual effect on the rest of the school, too. The smell of cake would slowly waft through the hallways while she baked at night, and girls in their dorm rooms, even the girls whose dreams were always dark, would suddenly dream of their kindhearted grandmothers and long-ago birthday parties.

Julia’s therapist started talking to her about adoption options in her fifth month. She adamantly refused to consider it. But every session her therapist would ask, How do you plan to care for this child on your own? And Julia began to get scared. She didn’t know how she was going to do it. Her only choice was her father, but when she brought it up, he immediately said no. Beverly didn’t want a baby in the house.

In the spring, in a flood of pain and fear so great she doubled over in French class, Julia went into labor. It came on so quickly that she actually gave birth in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She could feel the baby’s frustration, her impatience, as she maneuvered her way to freedom. And Julia couldn’t stop her. As much as she wanted to, there was nothing she could do to keep this child physically bound to her any longer. Her daughter had a mind, and an agenda, all her own. After it was over, the baby proceeded to fuss about how hard her journey had been to anyone who would listen, the way old ladies in tweed coats liked to fuss about long, hot train rides into the city. It made Julia laugh, holding the squawking infant in her arms in the ambulance. She was perfect, with Sawyer’s blond hair and blue eyes.

Julia’s father came to Maryland to see her in the hospital the next day, and she asked him one last time to take her and the baby home.

Standing at the foot of the hospital bed, his ball cap in his hands, looking shy and out of place, he again said no. She gave up on ever having a real relationship with her father after that. Nothing would ever be the same.

It was the hardest decision Julia had ever made, giving up her little girl. Now that the baby was independent of Julia’s body, she knew she couldn’t take care of her alone. She could barely take care of herself. She hated Beverly for not wanting a baby in the house, and she hated her father for being so weak. But most of all, she hated Sawyer. If only he had loved her. If only he had been there to help her. Then she could have kept the baby. He was depriving her of the one person in the world who would ever need her completely, the only person in the world she knew she would love for the rest of her life. No questions. No limits.

She was told that a couple from Washington, D.C., adopted the baby. Julia was given two photos. One was the official hospital photo, the other was of Julia in the hospital bed holding her-warm and soft and smelling pink. Julia put the photos away immediately, because it hurt too much to look at them, only to find them years later in an old textbook when she was packing to move after college.

It took a long, long time to feel fine again. She started cutting herself again not long after she was released from the hospital. Her school therapist worked tirelessly to get her admitted into a summer program sponsored by Collier because Julia wasn’t ready to go home. Julia still felt too vulnerable to go back to Mullaby after the summer, so her father agreed that she should stay at Collier for her senior high school year.

She applied to and was accepted to college the next year. Though she hadn’t baked since she was pregnant, those months of practice made her proficient enough to get a job at a grocery store bakery to help her father pay for her college tuition. By this time, with the help of continued therapy sessions, Julia was able to think of Sawyer without the world turning a furious ember red around her, and she remembered what he’d told her about following the scent of his mother’s cakes home. It became a symbol to her. Maybe one day in the future, baking cakes would bring her daughter-who had a sweet sense like her father-back to Julia. Then she would explain why she gave her up. At the very least, it would carry Julia’s love to her.

Wherever she was.

Nearly twenty years later, Julia was still calling out to her. Knowing she was out there in the world somewhere was what got Julia through every single day. She couldn’t imagine a life without knowing that.

Sawyer was living that unimaginable life.

It was then that she knew she had to tell him.

She thought she’d been miserable here before.

The next six months were going to be hell.

JULIA HEARD a light tapping at her door. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see that the sky was blackberry blue and the first star of the night was out. She got up and went to her bedroom doorway.

“Julia?” Stella called. “Julia, are you all right? You’ve been awfully quiet up here. Sawyer’s gone, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” There was a pause. “Okay. I’ll be downstairs if you need me. If you want to talk.”

She heard Stella walk back down the stairs.

Julia rested her head against the doorjamb for a moment, then she walked into the hallway. She paused at the door to the stairs, then walked past it and into the kitchen.

A hummingbird cake, she decided as she turned on the kitchen light. It was made with bananas and pineapples and pecans and had a cream cheese frosting.

She would make it light enough to float away.

She reached over to open the window.

To float to her daughter.