Chapter 30
JULES
Birds chirp and butterflies flutter by. A warm breeze stirs the scent of freshly-cut grass in the air around us.
Great-Grandma leans forward and takes a sip of her white soup. “Isn’t this delightful?”
“Yes. So delightful.” I bring my own spoon to my lips and swallow heavily.
Another day, another mouthful of flavorless beans.
When I called Josephine this morning about returning the pearls she loaned me for my wedding, she invited me to have a late lunch with her today. One-on-one.
So now, we’re in the garden gazebo, enjoying the lovely spring afternoon. And yes, we’re having that damn soup again.
Yet still, I’m grateful for the time with my great-grandmother.
I hardly ever get to spend time alone with her.
I only ever see her at family dinner when the rest of the Lannister evil spawn-dom is around, poisoning the atmosphere with their vitriol and their bad vibes toward me.
I’ve got to admit that hanging out alone with Great-Grandma is nice.
Despite the soup.
She offers me a pleased smile across the table. “Congratulations again on your marriage, Julissa. Lincoln seems to be a responsible man. A good choice. I’m proud of you.” She nods solemnly.
I run a clammy hand down my thigh, smoothing out the fabric of my short dress. “Thank you for saying that, Great-Grandma. Lincoln loves me dearly. And I love him.” I swallow again. This time, it’s a mouthful of acidic guilt.
How is this marriage lie not going to backfire? Terribly?
The elderly woman nods, holding a level of confidence in me and my new husband that we clearly don’t deserve. “You’ll have a good life with him. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“Like Great-Grandpa did for you?” I dare to ask, suddenly curious about the husband my great-grandmother never talks about. “I hope Lincoln and I can have a fairytale romance like yours.” I sigh theatrically.
I wait for a forlorn, nostalgic look to appear on her face. Longing. Grief. Mourning. Something along those lines.
Instead, the woman blatantly rolls her eyes. “Financial security was all your great-grandfather ever offered me. Well, that and chlamydia.”
I exhale in a rush of surprise and my soup spit-rockets out of my mouth, flying across the pristine embroidered tablecloth. “Huh?!”
“Oh, clean yourself up!” Josephine scolds, elegantly handing me a cloth napkin.
“Ex-excuse me…” I use the napkin to blot my chin and the corners of my lips.
At that moment, Humphrey passes by, slowly pushing a wheelbarrow of freshly-trimmed branches.
He tips his straw hat in greeting, and I don’t miss the concern on his face.
Clearly, he overheard my great-grandmother’s confession.
When she gives him a scolding stare, he picks up his pace, wandering off to the other side of the yard.
“Your great-grandfather was a woman’s worst nightmare,” the old lady continues her confession. “He was mean. Unfaithful. Disloyal. A pain in the tookus. His shenanigans embarrassed me on a regular basis.”
For a moment, I’m stunned. Shocked. Speechless. At an absolute loss for words. This is not the family fairytale that’s been replaying in my mind all these years.
“I’m…I’m…Wow…I had no idea that you were in an unhappy marriage,” I say when I can finally speak again.
She nods slowly, her rueful stare falling to the side and revealing a heavy sadness I’ve never seen on her face before.
Now, I have questions. A lot of questions. But I start with the one that feels most obvious. “So, why are you so insistent that your great-grandchildren get married now?”
She briefly purses her thin lips. “For stability, girl. For security. To ensure that your children will always have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. To ensure that they will have decent clothes on their backs. To ensure that they can go to school. ”
Martha comes to refill our orange pekoe. She lingers, pretending to wipe crumbs from the tablecloth. Because the tea great-grandmother is spilling is hotter than anything that’s brewing in that teapot.
Great-Grandma shakes her head. “My mother never married. If she knew who my father was, she never told me. And every day of that woman’s life, I saw her work hard. And when she couldn’t work anymore, she left me in an orphanage and she never came back.”
“Oh my god…” I gasp, grabbing the old lady’s hand before I can think better of it.
She stares down at my hand like it’s some extraterrestrial object that just dropped from the sky and landed on her patio table.
Josephine’s not the touchy-feely type. She never has been. I love her. I respect her. But always from afar. Always at a distance…until this very moment.
I expect her to pull away. She shocks the shit out of me when she delicately wraps her fragile hand around mine instead.
“Did you ever forgive her?” I ask.
Great-Grandma just shrugs, and I can almost see the hurt little girl that still lives somewhere inside of her.
“I never blamed my mother. She led a miserable life. All that work, just to get nowhere. I didn’t blame her for giving up.
And at the same time, I swore that would never be me.
My children would never get left behind. So when my husband left me—”
“Left you? What do you mean he left you?” I spew out. “You mean, when he died?”
“Died?” She cracks up, her narrow shoulders shaking with amusement. “Cockroaches like him don’t die. Not even in a nuclear explosion.” We laugh together. Even Martha struggles to suppress a snicker. “That man left me and ran off with my seamstress.”
“Your seamstress?!”
“My doggone seamstress,” she confirms. “I should have seen it coming. That darn floozy,” she says under her breath.
Martha snort-laughs, then quickly straightens her posture. “Excuse me. Seasonal allergies.” But something in her expression tells me that she has heard this seamstress story before. Maybe a few dozen times over the years.
“Shoo! Go! Go, you nosy woman!” Great-Grandma smirks, even as she waves her housekeeper away.
Martha scurries back to the house, giving us our privacy. She’s still snickering as she goes.
The interaction makes me smile. I’m coming to discover that Josephine’s house staff loves her. Clearly, they’re protective of her. Behind her tough exterior, she must not be that much of an evil dictator after all.
“So, Great-Grandpa ran off?” I continue.
“Yes, he ran off.” Josephine nods solemnly.
“First, he tried to get me to leave. But I made it clear I wasn’t leaving this house.
I wasn’t giving up this legacy. If he wanted to run around like the stray dog he was, I wouldn’t try to stop him.
But he wasn’t going to upheave our children’s lives.
When he left, I didn’t miss him for a day.
I just made it my mission to preserve this fortune for all the generations of Lannisters to come.
I never wanted my children or my children’s children to experience the insecurity of an unstable household. The way I did.”
I feel tears building in my eyes. I wipe them away with my knuckles.
“Great-Grandma, I admire you so much for what you did to protect the family.” I suck in a sharp breath, not sure how my next words will land.
“But times are different now. A woman doesn’t have to stay in a loveless marriage just to secure her future.
Thanks to the sacrifices made by the women of your time, my generation has options.
We can pursue the things we want—businesses, careers, higher education, traveling, or sitting by a lake and reading novels all day.
Money and marriage and stability can co-exist independently in this day and age. ”
She looks skeptical. Like feminism is a theory she’s vaguely heard of, but she’s not quite convinced it would ever stand up to the test.
Right then, Humphrey ambles by again, shooting Great-Grandma that same protective stare. A soft smile touches her face before she shoos him away again. Her attention returns to me.
She reaches across and taps my shoulder. “Oh, enough of this independence talk. You’re a newly wed. True love can be a fleeting thing. So bask in the joy of these early days.”
“Right,” I mutter, sensing that this moment of vulnerability between us is coming to an end.
When Martha determines that the coast is clear, she returns to carry our used dishes away. I take the opportunity to reach into my purse and retrieve the string of pearls Great-Grandma loaned me.
“Thank you again for letting me wear these on my wedding day,” I say, setting the jewelry box on the table between us. “It really meant a lot to me to be allowed to use a family heirloom on my special day.”
She tilts her head to the side, pondering for a moment. “You know what? I want you to keep it.”
I blink. “Really?”
She nods. “Yes. Really. Consider it a wedding gift.”
I thank her profusely, hardly able to believe that this is happening. All the same, I quickly tuck the jewelry box back into my purse, before she can change her mind. Or before Hilary can jump out from between the hydrangea bushes and stake her claim to the family jewels.
With my hand still inside my purse, my fingertips search for my marriage contract.
Confusion flutters through my mind when I don’t find it.
Shit. Did I misplace it? Why do I always keep losing things?
I need the razor-sharp edge of the paper to sting me.
To remind me that I’m a traitor. A liar. A deceiver.
This isn’t just about the pearls. My great-grandmother just shared a sacred chapter of her history with me. And in return, I’ve given her nothing but lies.
My marriage to Lincoln is fake. It’s a business deal meant to swindle this poor woman out of her money. The whole thing is an absolute farce.
I can’t go through with this any longer. I just…can’t.
“Can I make a confession?” I ask tentatively.
She shrugs a shoulder. “You can try. We’ll see how it turns out.”
I laugh.
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh.
Because this is a side of Josephine I’ve never seen before. The funny side. The sensitive side. The human side.
And I can tell that she needed this moment of bonding as much as I did.
Because when was the last time she was able to speak this openly?
When was the last time she had someone (who isn’t on her payroll) sit and listen?
When was the last time one of her great-grandchildren showed up at her door without looking for a handout?
I can’t snatch this moment away from her. Even if it’s built on a lie.
She sits across from me, eyeballing me with anticipation as she waits for my big confession. I can’t bring myself to tell the truth.
“The soup is awful,” I blurt out instead.
She barks out a sound of disbelief.
“It’s awful, Great-Grandma. Awful.”
“It is not,” she huffs defensively, but I see the way her eyes are alight with amusement.
“It very much is,” I insist.
“How rude!” she says, barely restraining her laughter as she slams her crumpled napkin on the tabletop. “You are a guest in my house and you insult the meal I offered you?”
I shrug, rounding the table to help her out of her seat. “Next time, I’m bringing pizza.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she gasps, horrified as she loops her arm through mine.
I nod. “Pepperoni.”
“Julissa, that would not be proper.”
“With three kinds of cheese.”
“Absolutely preposterous.”
“Mmm…With Italian sausages,” I continue. “And banana peppers.”
“What on earth are banana peppers?”
“You’ll see.” I grin in her face.
We stare at each other. It’s a stand off.
“Fine.” She huffs. “I’ll make you a deal.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Go ahead.”
“I’ll try your pizza, if you promise to come back soon.”
My head bobs solemnly. “I promise.”
Her expression relaxes into a contented smile. She gently pats my cheek. “Wonderful.”
As we continue our stroll back to the main house, I make eye contact with Humphrey who is now off to the side of the gazebo, raking a section of the lawn that has clearly already been raked today. Maybe more than once.
He nods at me in approval, and I’m starting to realize that there’s more going on within the walls of this estate than anyone realizes.
When I make it to my new home later in the evening, Lincoln and Cameron are waiting for me. They’ve already made dinner, and it’s keeping warm on the stove. I can smell it all the way from the front door.
Residual white soup bubbles in my stomach.
Cameron hops off the couch with an excited shout, darting over to give me a strong hug.
My heart flutters when Lincoln rises to his full height and smiles at me, too. “Hungry?” he asks me.
“Starved.” My lips wobble when I return his smile.
I follow them into the kitchen, a feeling of ease washing over me. No one’s ever been excited to welcome me home before. I can’t remember the last time someone even cooked me a hearty home-cooked meal.
And Cameron’s hugs? Gosh, this kid is going to be a heartbreaker.
It all feels so nice.
I do want to bask in this feeling. Suddenly, that life of love Alba described a few weeks ago doesn’t seem so impossible.
Maybe I would actually like to experience that myself.
And despite what that marriage contract says, when Lincoln smiles at me, it feels like maybe I could.