Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
JULIE
I never went home. I slept at Jamie’s place, the two of us side by side in her big comfy bed watching Murder She Wrote reruns. Now I’m standing in the back of our store wearing my sister's clothes and working on a batch of moisturizing body oil spray.
The double boiler is working, steam rising as the shea butter and coconut oil melt together into something smooth and golden.
I add the sweet almond oil, watching the mixture blend, and the scent fills the small production room at the back of our shop.
It's normally comforting. Today, it's not.
Nothing is. Everything I'm doing is by rote and the disconnect I'm feeling isn't right. But this is my life now.
The sound of the back door opening causes me to tense.
Shit. Next come the footsteps. Not my sister Jamie's light, quick steps.
Heavier. Slower. It's a man, which only leaves one option.
And I don't want to see him right now. But if I've learned nothing else about life lately it's that what you want is often not what you get.
My husband clears his throat as he enters the room, and I turn to face him.
Asher stands in the doorway between the shop floor and my production room, one hand braced against the frame.
He's wearing his work clothes: a black suit with a white shirt and an emerald green tie, his hair still slightly damp.
"Julie," he says.
I used to greet him with a smile and a kiss. Now, I just want him to leave.
"What are you doing here?"
"You didn’t come home last night.”
“Well, if you were worried, you could have texted or called,” I point out. Because yes, it hurts like hell that he didn’t care enough to check in on me.
He sighs. “I knew you’d run to Jamie’s to process. I figured you wanted to be left alone.”
Run to Jamie. Jesus. Who is he? “Okay.”
It’s far from okay. But there’s nothing else to say.
“Anyway, that’s why I’m here. I had to see you before I went to work."
He hasn't done this in so long I can’t remember the last time he just showed up at the shop to see me.
To be near me. There was a time when he'd stop by a few mornings each week to bring me coffee and steal a kiss while I was elbow-deep in a project.
There was a time when seeing him in my doorway would make me smile.
Now it just spikes my anxiety because there’s something off about it. Performative, maybe. Or perhaps he’s just taking my temperature. Either way, I don’t like it.
He steps into the room, and I'm suddenly aware of how small the space is. How close he is. But how far away he feels. I used to look forward to my husband’s nearness. I don’t anymore.
His eyes move over the counter at the rows of empty bottles waiting to be filled, the melted butter mixture in the double boiler, the bottles of essential oils lined up like soldiers. He's looking at everything except me.
"Smells good in here," he says.
"Sweet almond oil."
"Oh. It's nice.”
Nice. God. How fucking benign. Nice is a pair of new curtains, your neighbor dropping by with a pie, or the bagger at the grocery store helping you load your trunk. How did we become this?
The silence stretches. I turn back to the double boiler, checking the temperature even though I just checked it thirty seconds ago. Behind me, I can feel him watching. I can feel the weight of whatever he came here to say pressing against the air between us.
"Julie."
"I need to keep an eye on this," I tell him, gesturing at the mixture. "The timing is critical." It's not critical. But I need something to do with my hands, something to focus on that I'm not sure how much more of this I can stand.
"I really am sorry about last night," he says.
No, he's not. If he was, this wouldn't keep happening. Period. "It's fine," I say.
"Clearly your attitude tells me that it's not fine."
He’s got nerve putting so much salt into what he just said. My attitude. Mine. He’s out of his mind. If I had any fight left in me, I might snap and start yelling. But I cried it out at my sister’s last night so now, this is just another nail in the coffin.
I turn. He's closer than I expected, just a few feet away, and the look on his face is regretful. I’m just not sure he means it. Sometimes I think he’s just going through an arsenal of facial expressions he’s making to appease me.
I wipe my hands on the towel beside me, the one with the faded logo of our shop embroidered in the corner. "I understand that she’s mentally fragile."
He winces, and I know he wants to argue. But if he does, his reason for leaving dinner last night will collapse beneath him.
After a beat he says, "You just need to hang in there.”
Oh, yay. Now he’s tossing out motivational poster slogans. I’m tempted to tell him to grow a set.
"She lost her mother and stepfather," I say, repeating the words I've been telling myself like a mantra. "She's traumatized. She needs support."
"That’s true, but you aren’t doing well. You’re imagining things, you’re angry, you’re suspicious. This competition you imagine you're in with her isn't right. You feel more like a warden than a wife.”
If his intention is to hurt me, mission accomplished. Only the fact that we’re in my store keeps me from lashing out. But if I do, he’ll just use it against me anyway. So I’m fucking trapped.
You think I’d be used to it by now. I’m not. I’m a caged animal wanting to break fucking free and find freedom, but I can’t. I’m angry but not stupid, so I just stare at him in silence. He thinks I’m a warden? Fuck him.
He waits several seconds to see if I’ll respond. I don’t. His eyes search my face. "What would make you happy? What do you need, Julie?"
Out, I think. I need out.
But there’s a sword hanging over my head that means I can't say that. Truthfully, I also can’t imagine staying for another few years of this.
In my heart of hearts I know I made a horrible mistake marrying Asher.
I just don’t know how to extricate myself from the situation without losing everything.
So the best option at the moment is silence.
"I need to finish this batch," I answer, turning back to the double boiler.
Behind me, I hear him exhale. It's a sound that might be frustration or resignation or both. Maybe he’s annoyed that I’m not engaging. I don’t care. I just want him gone. "Julie."
"I need to focus on work, Asher. Not on this constant drama that I didn’t sign up for.”
"Right." His voice is flat now. Annoyed. "Of course. I know how important your little shop is."
Only the fact that I instinctively knew he'd go low keeps me from tensing up even more. It's like his father is in the room with us. Hell, it's like my father is here, too. Only the best men, I think darkly.
I don't rise to the bait. My shop is important to me. If it weren’t, I would burn this marriage to the goddamn ground and move to Fiji or Italy or somewhere far, far, FAR away. Maybe I should care that he’s annoyed. But I don’t. So I stay silent.
"Listen. There’s a reason I’m here. Devon has requested that you take her to her therapy appointment tomorrow," he says quietly.
My body goes from tense to stiff as a board. I want to scream. He didn’t come here to check on me. He came here for this. To ask for something for her. Tone-deaf, thy name is Asher Stevens. "Why would I do that? She has a car.”
A Mercedes G Class SUV. Top of the line. When you add in the custom paint job, the damn thing cost more than a lot of starter homes. Asher’s dad bought it for her as a bribe to do well in school. My father-in-law bought a lot of things for a lot of people as a way to control their actions.
“She’s anxious about driving right now and wants you to take her.”
That’s preposterous. She loves driving that status symbol on wheels and she's never anxious around me. There’s something else happening here. I don’t know what, but I know she doesn't want to be in a car with me alone. “She asked for me specifically?"
"Mm hmm. Yeah. She said she'd feel more comfortable with you."
It’s laughable. I don’t know why he’s saying this or why she would have told him that, but it’s straight up bullshit. Maybe he's trying to force us into spending time together alone to try and forge a bond. Because there’s no way she wants to hang out with me for even five seconds.
Devon hasn't felt comfortable with me since she moved in.
She's been cold, distant, making little comments that sting like paper cuts.
Last week she told me my body butters were "cute" in a tone that made it clear she meant stupid.
One time, she wrinkled her nose at one of my bath bombs and said she preferred high end brands from "real" stores.
I've never wanted to slap a teenager before.
I wanted to then. She lies, manipulates and causes problems. And with each passing day, I'm more and more certain that she's doing it on purpose.
So this, wanting me to take her somewhere?
It rings false. I bet it's a way for her to turn the screws on me by setting up an impossible situation. If I say yes, I’m stuck spending time alone with her, which will give her an opportunity to needle me, which will piss me off, which will then cause more tension in my marriage, not that we need any help with that.
If I say no, I’m a monster. If I say yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.
Of course, I can't say any of this to Asher.
Because no one can say anything about his poor stepsister.
Devon is grieving. Devon is traumatized.
Devon lost everything, and I'm supposed to be understanding.
Devon is an angel. Devon is a broken eighteen-year-old who needs help, and I'm a fully grown woman who needs to push it all down and keep my head up for as long as I can. "Whatever. Fine. What time?" I ask.
"Two o'clock. I have a meeting and I can't move it."
The apologetic way he says that doesn’t ring true at all. He says it like he’s trying to project that he knows what he's asking. Like he understands that this is just one more thing, one more way Devon comes first. But if he really understood, he wouldn’t be asking. "Okay."
"Thank you. Really, Julie. You’re a big help."
A big help. Thank you. Like I'm a fucking babysitter or helpful friend instead of his wife. Like taking his stepsister to therapy is some generous act instead of just another day in the slow erosion of our marriage. I want to scream. But I don’t. I push it down. "Okay."
Behind me, I hear him move closer. For a moment I think he's going to touch me, really touch me, the way he used to, the way that made me feel seen and wanted and loved. I think if he did, I’d slap him silly.
And that scares the shit out of me. Instead, he just squeezes my shoulder.
A gesture that feels more like gratitude than affection. More like goodbye than hello.
"I'll see you later," he says.
And then he's gone.
I stand alone in my production room, surrounded by the scent of sweet almond oil and let my shoulders sag. I'm tired. I'm defeated. I’m miserable and alone. I’m barely hanging on, so I do what I can to cope.
I make bath bombs and body butters. I doom scroll on TikTok.
I order new product labels and bitch about the rising cost of shipping.
I think about life before Asher. I fantasize about one where we never met.
Where I’d still be happy and I wouldn’t have the weight of the fucking world on my shoulders.
I question my strength, my endurance, and even my sanity. But most of all, I question my judgement on a loop pretty much 24/7 now.
Because I chose this man, I slept with this man, I married this man. I trusted him. I went all in and ignored all of the red flags along the way that I didn’t see then but can’t stop thinking about now. I thought I knew him.
I don’t think that anymore.