Julia
Iplaced my hand in Van’s, his long fingers wrapping around mine. During the ride, I’d been lost in my own thoughts, but now, seeing him, alarm bells sounded within me. There was a change in his expression that I couldn’t read. “Is something wrong?”
He helped me from the car and wrapped me in his arms. On the sidewalk, for all the world to see, we stood, me against him, his embrace tightening as the muscles beneath his shirt relaxed. His words were muffled.
As he finally loosened his hold, I looked up. The air was white with our breath. Beyond the vapor, I saw the man I loved.
“I’ve been worried about you,” he said.
Taking my hand in his, we entered the hotel. As we mingled through the other guests on the way to the elevator, I leaned against his arm, taking comfort in his strength. “It didn’t go well with Mom.”
“That’s what I gathered from your text,” Van said before we entered the elevator, standing with other guests.
I was fine with our conversation waiting. I’d cried on the way to my parents and again while there, packing my things.
It wasn’t until we stepped into the security of our suite and Van helped me with my coat that I began to explain. “I’m not sure how or when it went south.”
Again, he wrapped me in his arms, one hand against my lower back as with his other, he lifted my chin. “Did you need the letter?”
I nodded as best as I could. “I hate that you were right. I didn’t think…” I wasn’t sure what I thought. “I don’t understand what’s happening or why. My gut tells me that you were right with your theory: Mom and Dad are tired and passing the mantle to me was their way of abdicating the responsibility for Wade’s failure. But that leaves so many questions—the house, Grandfather’s will, the SPACs. I just don’t know.”
The darkening sky filled the windows as the lights of Chicago came to life, one by one around the city, as if instead of a cold January evening, this was summer, and fireflies were flashing their lights.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get back sooner,” I said. “I do want to get back to Ashland, but right now I’m exhausted.”
Van shook his head. “There’s no need to rush. We’ll leave tomorrow. I was waiting to hear from you before calling Andrew and Ruth. Do you want to talk more about what happened?”
Tears blurred my vision. “I don’t know.” Stepping away from his embrace, I walked to the dining room, to the long table cluttered with all the information I’d tried to decipher. “She tried to dismiss me.” I spun back to Van. “She said we could go to tea. Mom didn’t…doesn’t think I am capable. So…tea.” I closed my eyes as my nostrils flared. “The last year working at Wade was a charade. It was busy work that made me think I was doing something, but I wasn’t.”
“Not because you weren’t capable.”
Taking a deep breath, I took in the man watching me, leaning against the archway with his arms folded over his chest, his long legs extended and crossed at the ankles. “How can you, someone who has known me for less than a month, think that and my parents don’t?”
Van’s lips twitched into a grin. “I’ve only known you as more, Julia. That’s what you are. I don’t see you as they do because…” He lowered his arms and came closer. Running his fingers through my hair, he said, “I didn’t know the girl with pigtails and the Disney princess obsession.”
I inclined my face to his hand.
“I only know the beauty and the warrior. I only know the woman who’s rocked my world. I’m serious, Julia, you’ve tilted the axis and disrupted the orbit. There’s no possible way for me to see you as anyone else, as someone capable of bringing a man like me to his knees.”
I could get lost in the depths of his eyes. The golden flecks glistened like snowflakes under a streetlamp, swirling in the depths of green. “I tried to be that person today. I failed.”
“I won’t believe you failed.”
Shaking my head, I walked toward the windows, not seeing what was before me. “At first, she placated with tea at the Drake and then coffee in her office.” The words rolled out, one after another. The flow increased as if the dam I’d tried to hold since leaving Mom’s office had burst.
And through each word, Van listened, truly listening to not only my sentences but my emotions. I continued recounting what happened from the appeasement, to the vocabulary regarding research that was meant to speak over me, all the way to the suggestion that my motivation hinged on being married to Van. As each word, phrase, and sentence came forth, my sadness morphed into disappointment and resolve.
“She said you’d be more willing to let Wade fail if you were married to Butler?” Van asked, repeating what I’d said.
Turning away from the windows, I looked at him and nodded. “She said my attitude is jaded because I’m marrying you.”
“How did I jade your attitude?”
A smile curled my lips. “In many ways, Mr. Sherman. But she meant because of your wealth.” I sighed. “I’ve given that a lot of thought while I packed my things, and I decided she’s right and she’s wrong. You see, me knowing that you can financially back Wade gives me a safety net I wouldn’t otherwise have had.”
“How is she wrong?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you to throw good money after bad. I won’t ask you to spend another cent to support Wade.”