Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Juliana caught the day’s last flight off St. Thomas.
She didn’t take a deep breath until the plane took off, when she was certain Jeremy hadn’t come after her.
If she never saw him again it would be too soon.
More than anything, she was mortified that Barbara and Gary had been forced to witness the horrific scene in the bar.
As the plane made its way to Miami, the shock wore off, and Juliana began to shake.
Her thin sundress offered scant protection against the air-conditioned cabin, so she asked the stewardess for a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Once the trembling subsided, she wept quietly into the blanket.
What a mess she had made of things, and what a stupid fool she’d been to give him a second chance. She should have ended it with him that day on the beach when he said he wanted to see other women. Instead she’d walked away from the best guy she had ever known for someone who wasn’t worth it.
In Miami, she learned she had just missed the last flight to Baltimore, so she booked a flight at six the next morning.
Tapping into the wad of cash Jeremy had gotten for their trip, Juliana bought an overpriced sweat suit and sneakers in one of the fancy airport boutiques as well as a toothbrush and hairbrush in the newsstand.
With her purchases in hand, she went outside into the warm night to take a taxi to a hotel near the airport.
The room was small and inexpensive, but it was clean. After requesting a four thirty wake-up call, she took a long, hot shower and changed into the sweat suit. She would have ordered some food, but the thought of eating made her sick, so she lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
The wake-up call turned out to be unnecessary because Juliana never fell asleep during that long night.
But she did make some decisions. Before she did anything else, she was going to find out if Mrs. Romanello was right when she said Juliana could stand on her own two feet in any situation.
One year was ending and another was beginning, and she would spend this year alone.
For the first time in her life, she would live by herself.
She would take the time she needed to recover from everything that had happened in the last few months and to figure out what she wanted next.
She couldn’t go running back to Michael after what she had done to him.
Maybe during this year she would discover that it was over with him, too.
Or maybe she would find out that he was what she wanted more than anything.
If that was the case and he loved her as much as he said he did, he would still love her in a year.
She got up in the morning satisfied she had a plan to put her life back together, to find some self-respect amid the ruins, and to put her love for Michael to the test of a lifetime.
The skimpy sweat suit was no match for the frigid cold in Baltimore. Shivering her way home in a taxi, she wished for the winter coat she left in Jeremy’s car in the long-term parking lot.
At the Collington Street house, she spent the last day of the year, what was supposed to have been her wedding day, packing four years of her life into three suitcases and six of the boxes Jeremy brought home from Florida.
She took only the things that mattered most to her, leaving behind all reminders of their ten years together.
By five o’clock she had loaded the last of the boxes into her car.
Climbing the front steps one final time, she peeled the key off her ring and left it on the kitchen counter.
She took a last look at the room full of memories that only a few days ago had seemed strong enough to build a lifetime on.
Then she set the alarm, pushed in the lock, and closed the door to that life forever.
It was only when she got into her car that she realized she had nowhere to go. She laughed so hard she cried as it settled in on her that she had no idea what to do. Remembering that Michael was right around the corner and would want her to come to him, she wavered in her resolve to be on her own.
But only for a moment.
Wiping her tears, she started the car and drove to the only place in the world she had left to go—home to her mother.
The new and improved Paullina welcomed her daughter with open arms and a closed mouth. She never said “I told you so,” didn’t ask any questions, and, if anything, seemed to appreciate the opportunity to mother her wounded child.
On New Year’s Day they read the notice in the Baltimore Sun about the wedding in St. John that hadn’t happened.
Jeremy sent it in before they left, and Juliana had forgotten about it until she saw it in the paper.
She hurt when she thought of Michael seeing the article and thinking she had actually gone through with it.
Receiving love from a mother Juliana had long ago given up on was an unexpected gift in the midst of disaster.
It was tempting to settle in, put her feet up, and let her mother take care of her for a change.
But that went against the promise she made to herself in the Miami hotel room.
So within a week, Juliana signed a one-year lease on a furnished studio apartment in Fell’s Point.
Even with the rent she could still swing the cost of Allison, the home health aide who had brought about such a miraculous change in Paullina.
Juliana moved her meager belongings into her new apartment and spent the first night wide awake, thinking about Michael and wondering if he’d seen the announcement in the paper.
By the time the sun came up in the morning, she knew she had to do something about that.
Picturing him in his bedroom getting ready for work, she reached for her cell phone and dialed his number from memory.
“Juliana,” he said, his voice flat with shock.
She closed her eyes tight against the instant rush of tears.
“Baby, what is it? Are you all right?”
“I didn’t marry him,” she said softly.
“But the paper… I saw it…”
She winced. “I’m sorry you had to see that. He sent it in before we left, and it was a holiday weekend. . .”
“What happened?” he asked, incredulous.
“The blowup you predicted occurred about twenty-four hours before the I dos.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m better than I was.”
“God, Juliana, you can’t imagine what’s been going through my mind. The thought of you. . . in bed with him. . . It’s been making me insane.”
“I never slept with him after we got back together. I was making him wait for a wedding that never happened.”
Michael released a tortured groan. “So where’ve you been for the last week?”
She swallowed hard. “I’ve made a few decisions.”
“What kind of decisions?”
“I signed a one-year lease on an apartment in Fell’s Point.”
“Why, Juliana? You could’ve come here! You know that!”
“I need some time to figure things out. To decide how I feel…”
“About me?”
She hated the despair she heard in his voice—again. “No,” she whispered. “About me. I need to be by myself, Michael. I have some things I need to prove to myself.”
“Baby, please… Don’t do this. I love you. No matter what’s happened, that’ll never change. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. The biggest mistake you made was being loyal to someone who didn’t deserve it. Don’t punish yourself—and me—for that.”
That he still could be so forgiving astounded her. “I need to do this for me. I know it’s hard for you to understand, and I don’t expect you to wait for me. I just didn’t want you to think I’d married him.”
“I appreciate that—more than you’ll ever know—but don’t tell me not to wait for you. Did you hear anything I said to you the last time we were together?”
The lump lodged in her throat made it difficult to speak. “I heard every word,” she said softly.
“You promised me, Juliana.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“You’re really going to do this? You’re going to put us both through this?”
“I’m sorry.”
Sounding resigned, he said, “Can I call you?”
“It would be better if you didn’t.”
“Better for whom?” When she didn’t answer him, he said, “What happens at the end of the year?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come find me, Juliana,” he said urgently. “You know where to look.”
“I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
“You’ve caused me more happiness than anything in my life. I’d wait forever for you.”
“Bye, Michael.” Her heart aching, she ended the call while wondering—and not for the first time—if she was taking too big a risk with the most precious thing anyone had ever given her.
She ate alone, slept alone, shopped alone, watched television alone.
It took a while to get used to the quiet, but after a month she had grown accustomed to it.
By then she had also managed to set the record straight with just about everyone in her life—she hadn’t married Jeremy despite what the paper said.
The salon had been abuzz about it for three or four days until someone else’s drama took center stage and Juliana’s was mercifully forgotten.
In the second month, she decided to try something else she had always wondered if she could do—she signed up for a class at Johns Hopkins University.
The introduction to architecture class met twice a week for three hours, and Juliana loved it.
Between work, school, and visiting with her mother and Mrs. R, she began to feel human again as February inched toward March.
She received a heartfelt letter from Jeremy’s mother in April, apologizing for the horrific way her son had behaved and expressing her undying love and affection for Juliana, who wrote back to say the same things.
Barbara had always been lovely to Juliana, and it wasn’t her fault that her son had acted like such an ass.