The stealthy progress of time since she ran away from home three years ago showed in her pronounced cheekbones and the rings under her eyes. Her tanned, smooth skin had turned pale and chalky from too little sleep and too little sun. Even her blond hair, which was once the white-blond of angel wings, seemed darker and thinner. Her fingernails were chewed to the quick, and her shoulders pointed sharply through the fabric of her uniform. She leaned closer to the mirror to examine the yellow remnants of a bruise around her left eye. Thankfully it was almost gone. How did you end up in a place like this, stealing food from an express mart and washing your hair in a public bathroom? You could have waited another year and gone to college, far away from Blackwood Manor. Mother would have paid for everything. Instead, you traded nine o’clock curfews and Sunday confessions for double shifts and a controlling boyfriend who hits you and spends money faster than either of you can make it. Maybe Mother was right. You aren’t going to amount to anything. So what’s the point of trying?
Mother—with her spite and bony fists—was a rule maker and a rule follower. And she expected the same from everyone around her. Among the countless rules of Blackwood Manor—where certain rooms were kept locked and entire floors were off limits—Julia was to pray three times a day, keep her room spotless, do her chores, get perfect grades, and follow the guidelines at school. She could watch her parents’ horses from a distance but wasn’t allowed in the barn because it was a business, not a playground. Makeup, poodle skirts, pedal pushers, and tight sweaters were forbidden, and dresses had to be a modest length. Most importantly of all, she had to remember that bad things would happen if she didn’t behave.
After spending the majority of her life wondering why her parents had her, running away seemed like the solution to everything. Yes, she had been clothed, fed, and had everything of monetary value she needed. But Mother was too busy praying, cleaning, cooking, and making rules to give her any guidance or affection. And her father, who she considered the demonstrative one, only hugged her on Christmas and birthdays. Most of the time he was in the barn with the horses, or drinking behind the locked doors of his den with the same scratchy gramophone record—“Little White Lies”—playing over and over and over.
For years, she wondered what it meant when her father went on vacation “to recover” or “get help.” It was a strained time, more than usual, a time of keeping going and pretending, of being “normal” and not fussing. The Blackwoods never bared their souls, or poured out their hearts. Then, when Julia turned twelve, Mother explained her husband’s alcoholism and said it was Julia’s fault for being such a difficult child.
Julia thought back to the day her father was killed. The sky was clear and blue. The breeze was gentle and scented with pine. Who would have expected someone to die on a beautiful day like that?
She had skipped church to go to the lake. It was the last day of summer, a hot, humid day, perfect for swimming, and one of the popular girls had finally invited her to hang out with her and her friends at the isthmus. When it came time to leave for church, Julia locked the door to the bathroom and pretended to be sick. As long as she made it back before Mother returned, everything would be fine.
But when Julia came home, there was a police car in the driveway, the early-afternoon sun glinting off the chrome and the windshield. Then she saw Mother on the front steps, one hand gripping the balustrade, and her heart sank. Had Julia gotten the time wrong? Had Mother come home early and called the police because she wasn’t in her room? Either way, she was in deep trouble. When Mother saw her coming up the driveway, she rushed down the steps and marched toward her, her face contorted in anger, her long skirt twisting around her legs.
“Where have you been?” Mother shrieked.
“I . . . I . . .” Julia said.
“Speak up, girl!”
“I went swimming with some friends. It’s the last day before school starts and they never invited me before. I knew you wouldn’t let me go so—”
Mother slapped her, hard across the face. Julia’s head whipped to the side and her damp hair flew in her eyes and stuck to her skin.
“I told you something bad would happen if you didn’t follow the rules!” Mother cried.
Julia put a hand over her cheek, her eyes burning. “What are you talking about? What happened?”
Mother reached blindly for the porch railing, her face suddenly gray. “Your father was . . .”
Julia started trembling. She had never seen Mother like this. “My father was what?” she said. “Tell me.”
“He was in a car crash.”
Julia’s breath caught. “Is he okay?”
Mother gaped at her, shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “No, he’s not okay. He’s dead.”
The ground tilted beneath Julia’s feet and her knees nearly buckled. It seemed, for an instant, that she was falling. But then she realized, somehow, she had remained upright. In what sounded like slow motion, she heard herself say again, “What happened?”
“He was looking for you,” Mother said. Then her face contorted and changed. The grief in her eyes turned to anger and hate, and her mouth twisted into a sneer. She raised her arms and pounded on Julia’s head and shoulders with bony fists. “It’s your fault!” she screamed. “It’s your fault! It’s your fault!”
Julia put her arms up to protect herself, but Mother’s blows slammed into her head and chest and face, even after she knocked her to the ground. The police pulled Mother off, but not before she split Julia’s lip and bruised her cheek and shoulders.
That night, Julia stole the tithe money from the canister inside the spice cupboard, ignoring the gaze of Jesus on the decorative tin, then packed a bag and left Blackwood Manor, vowing never to return. There would be no more early curfews and strict rules, no more nightly prayers and weekly confessions, no more locked rooms, no more blame for her father’s drinking. From that day on, she’d be free to do as she pleased. She’d take her future into her own hands. And she’d never let anyone blame her for anything again.
Except things hadn’t turned out the way she planned. Sure, freedom was fun at first, taking the bus to Long Island and making friends on the boardwalk, pawning her jewelry and moving into an apartment a mile from the beach with Kelly, a cocktail waitress, and Tom, a veteran from the Korean War. The first few months were lost in a haze of music, parties, beer, and marijuana. Then Kelly moved back home, winter came, the boardwalk closed, and the money ran out. Julia wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but she and Tom moved to a cheap room in the city, and things stopped being fun a long time ago. Tom had trouble keeping a job, and he warned her over and over that something bad would happen if she didn’t keep hers.
Now she came out of the supermarket bathroom, gave the key on the rabbit foot back to the pimple-faced kid at the cash register, and left the store. Earlier, when she went in, it was snowing, but now it had stopped.
The new snow brightened the street. The neighborhood was still seedy, grimy, and litter-strewn, but it didn’t look half as bad as it did yesterday, without the snow. Big Al’s Diner sat near the corner, flanked by a liquor store with bars over the windows and a pawnshop with a soggy, ripped carpet in front of the door.