Chapter 6 #2
Sarah held out a hand to Owen, and Charlie did the same to Stephanie, who was sobbing. He hugged her, whispered something in her ear that made her laugh and then hugged her some more.
Their story had touched Julia deeply when she first heard it, and as she watched them together now, their deep bond was obvious.
Next to them, Owen stood with his arm around Sarah, the two of them survivors of the hell Julia’s father had put them all through. Without Owen and their mom, the rest of them wouldn’t have gotten through it intact. Or as intact as anyone could be after what they’d endured.
Julia glanced toward her youngest brother, Jeff, who’d attempted suicide while still living at home.
Their grandparents had intervened and moved with him to Florida to get him into intense therapy that had helped to put his life back together.
He and the other Lawrys were all smiles and tears as they watched their mom exchange vows with Charlie.
When they had recited traditional vows, Frank turned to Sarah. “You and Charlie have indicated that you each have something you’d like to share. Would you like to go first?”
Sarah nodded and took a deep breath. Happiness radiated from every part of her, and Julia realized she had never seen her mother truly happy before now.
“I swore I wouldn’t cry today, because this day isn’t about tears.
It’s about hope and second chances and love like I never knew existed until I met you, Charlie.
For so many years, I lived without the love and joy and hope that you give me every minute of every day.
I’m so thankful we found each other on this tiny island in the middle of the ocean.
There’s nowhere else I want to be for the rest of my life than wherever you are. I love you so much.”
Charlie released his hold on Sarah’s left hand only long enough to wipe tears from his face.
“You certainly know how to get to me,” he said.
“You have from the start, with your lovely blue eyes that saw through to the heart of me. The best thing I ever did was come to work at the hotel during the renovations, where I met Owen’s beautiful mom and found my happy beginning.
I don’t like to call it a happy ending, because today is just the start for us.
I can’t wait for everything that comes next with you, your children, your parents, my daughter, our family.
There is nothing you could want or need that I wouldn’t find a way to get for you.
All you have to do is ask, and it’s yours. I’m yours.”
By then, everyone was wiping up tears, even Julia, who was unreasonably moved by their heartfelt words.
Would anyone ever look at her the way Charlie was looking at her mom?
Across the table, Shane had his arm around Katie, who leaned into him.
What might it be like to have someone she could truly count on to have her back?
Would she ever meet anyone she could trust the way her mom trusted Charlie or Owen trusted Laura or Katie trusted Shane?
She’d looked high and low, and all she’d found were the dregs. Were there any good guys left out there for her to find?
Deacon chose that moment to lean in, his arm on the chair behind her. “Are you okay?” He kept his voice down so only she could hear him.
She shot him a look, still wondering why her mother had invited him. He’d been a stranger to both of them yesterday. “I’m fine.”
He studied her intently, as if he could tell just by looking at her that she was lying. She wasn’t fine, and she couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d been fine. Had she ever been? The thought sent her mind spiraling through memories that were better left in the past where they belonged.
Her mom and Charlie exchanged rings, and then Frank declared them husband and wife. “Charlie, you may kiss your bride.”
Charlie wrapped his arms around Sarah and looked at her for a long, intense moment before he kissed her gently but with so much feeling that it brought new tears to Julia’s eyes.
She stood abruptly, and her chair fell over, making a loud clatter as it landed on the deck.
When everyone was supposed to be looking at her mom and Charlie, they were looking at her, once again wondering what was wrong with Julia.
Everything was wrong.
“I’m sorry. Excuse me.” She had to get out of there before she broke down in front of her entire family. The last thing in the world she wanted was their full attention. That belonged to her mom and Charlie today, not her.
Julia went down to the street and walked a short distance to the stone breakwater that made up the northern end of South Harbor.
Choosing her steps carefully, Julia made her way out to the end where she sat, removed her sandals and let her feet hang low enough to be splashed by waves breaking gently over the huge stones.
When she was a kid visiting her grandparents and needed to get away from the crowd, she’d come out here to sit and think and breathe.
The first time she’d done it, they’d gone into a panic looking for her, and when her grandfather found her at the end of the breakwater, he’d told her to please let him know the next time she needed a break so her grandmother wouldn’t be worried.
She’d told him every time after that, and he’d always understood and supported her need for solitude.
Thank God for the two of them. Julia could still close her eyes and go right back to how dreadful it had felt to return to the reality of their hellish life at home after those blissful summers.
She could easily recall the painful desire to tell her grandparents the truth about life with their father, despite the dreadful consequences he’d promised to anyone who “told tales out of school.”
She could remember the way her stomach would all but seize up when it was time to leave Gansett, making it impossible to eat for days.
Her issues with food started during those chaotic years, when she’d had no control over anything in her life, least of all the violent, unpredictable outbursts that were so much a part of their childhood.
It’d been the worst for her, Katie and Owen as the eldest three.
Their father had directed most of his rage at them and their mother, but the others had suffered right along with them.
John stuttered until he was twenty, and it suddenly disappeared.
Cindy had awful headaches, Josh had turned to booze and Jeff to drugs before he’d nearly succeeded in ending his own life.
For Julia, the pain had fueled eating disorders as well as her almost pathological need for attention from men, which she’d mistakenly thought would bring her solace. It had done the exact opposite.
Julia picked up a handful of stones and threw them one at a time into the sea below, watching them disappear beneath the surface.
She’d once sat in this very spot, the night before they were due to return home for another endless school year, and contemplated whether it would be easier to slip beneath the surface of the water and never come back up.
In that moment, slipping beneath the sea had been preferable to going home to her father.
“Your grandfather told me I might find you out here.”