Free Seeing Julia by Katherine Owen Page B

like her. We’d been married for a few months. I was almost eight months pregnant, when I made an unscheduled trip to the beach house in Amagansett—to the house that Evan had never taken me to—and discovered something I was never meant to see.” I’m transported back to the bizarre scene. “There she was, in every room, this persona of a woman, who looked a lot like me, who had died a few years before.” I shake my head back and forth and then, look over at him. Are you getting this? Do you know what I’m saying?
    “Except my eyes are green. I’m not as tall, not as organized, not as accomplished as a gourmet chef or a very good bottle washer.” I smile at my own joke and then, it fades. “I was a close second for the real thing, a fine-enough replica, but never as good as the original.” I don’t hold back my devastation from him as I say this. I don’t have to.
    Dr. Bradley Stevenson seems momentarily stunned, so stunned; he isn’t even taking notes, but just staring at me. He’s become the epitome of a man who is at a loss for words. Then he swallows, looks down at his notes, flexes his hands, and picks up his pen. Is there an answer for me in there, somewhere, doctor?
    “What happened when you discovered this house was a shrine to Elizabeth?”
    My bravado fades a little and this particular memory dredges up too much pain all at once, but I recover enough to say, “I flipped out and told him he could basically fuck off.” I make a face. “Sorry for swearing.”
    He inclines his head and waves his pen, the wizard’s magical wand, indicating I should continue.
    “Where was I? Oh yes. The Elizabeth discovery. Telling him he could fuck off. Yes, Dr. Bradley Stephenson, I was a mess.” I sound like Stephanie must when she’s reading a story to her kindergartners and then this happened and he said this and I said that. The pain begins to bubble up from deep inside. “I thought we had this perfect life. We had this huge fight about it. He left.” Breathe . I attempt to smile, but falter. “For a while.”
    The pain splashes everywhere inside of me, like paint violently thrown at a wall. Tortured modern artwork, this is me. Someone interpret her, quick.
    I voice my silent soliloquy, the one only I can hear. He left for two weeks. No word. No phone calls. Nothing. I moved in with Kimberley again. I was eight months pregnant, despondent, broken, and disillusioned.
    The heartbreak for all of that traverses through me at lightning speed calling up pain I haven’t allowed myself to feel for some time and performs a coupling with the all powerful grief. I practically implode right there in front of him with the pain that I must live with and carry. I stagger over to the window, look out, and see the nothingness. The minutes pass. I take shallow breaths and try to assemble some sort of control over the emotions raging inside. I turn back and discover my handsome doctor has this hopeful look, like a child’s, convinced there must be a happy ending to the story. I almost feel sorry for him.
    “Then, he came back. We had Reid. I like to think we worked it out.” I shrug my shoulders, perfecting nonchalance outward, while I quake inside. “Like I said, we weren’t perfect. He wasn’t Bobby and I wasn’t Elizabeth,” I say gently. “We were two broken people trying to make the best of a life as the two who were left behind.”
    At my words, he looks bleak as if experiencing his first real heartbreak. I’ve pierced his life-is-good armor with my realism. This white knight struggles with the news that life is harsh. And, I already know it.
    My recovery from this latest revelation is faster than his. He fumbles with his note pad, his writing pen and hastily glances at the window, trying to recover himself. Are there answers for both of us there, doctor? I slide into the chair across from him and adopt the shield of indifference and wait him out.
    Silence again. One minute. Two. Three. Four.
    He holds out