"Karlstein told me about that, too," I said. "Good for you."
She started to smile, catching her lower lip between her teeth. "There's no way I would have had the strength to do anything like that if it weren't for you."
I wanted to believe her, which told me how hard I had fallen for her. I was fresh from learning of at least one other romance of hers, with North Anderson. And there was probably a third man in the mix, assuming the letter Claire Buckley had shown us was intended for someone other than North. Yet I still felt like her relationship with me was of a different order and exponentially more important to her. "Didn't you ever see The Wizard of Oz?” I said. "No one can give you courage-or a heart or a brain. You must have had it all along."
"Hold me?" she said.
I walked closer, coming within a few feet of her, then stopped and just stood there.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"We need to talk," I said.
She tilted her head. "What about?"
" North Anderson," I said. "For starters."
She nodded, as if she had known we would eventually arrive at this moment. "He told you we spent some time together," she said.
"Yes," I said. I held off mentioning the photograph.
"And I hope he told you that nothing happened," she said. "Because it didn't. I mean, we didn't…"
"But you got close, emotionally," I said. "And maybe you still are. I don't know."
"No," she said. "We're not. Not the way you're thinking. I still care for him, but not in a romantic way."
I shrugged, unconvinced. "All right," I said.
"Can we sit down, please?" she said.
I took one of the armchairs by Tess's bed. Julia took the other.
"You know how difficult my life has been with Win," she started. "I mean, you believe what I've told you-what I've been through?"
"Yes," I said. "I do." And I did. But I also found myself thinking about Caroline Hallissey's assessment of Julia as someone who manufactured emotions.
"I met North at a fund-raiser for the Pine Street Inn in Boston," Julia went on. "I thought he might be able to help me with a project I wanted to start-reaching out to kids who were into drugs. There are more of them on the island than anyone will admit, and I thought, with North having come from Baltimore, he would be a lot less naive than his predecessor."
I noticed how little I liked hearing Julia use North's first name, not much more than I liked her referring to Darwin as her husband. "There's nothing naive about him," I said. "He's seen it all, at least twice." I gestured for her to continue.
"We started meeting about the drug issue, and I started feeling drawn to him," she said. "But we never connected in anything like the way you and I do." She leaned closer. "You have to believe me. I felt safer with North in my life, and I admired him, but I wasn't in love with him."
Meaning, she was in love with me. I heard that loud and clear. And I still liked hearing it. "I saw a photograph of the two of you on the beach," I said.
"On the beach?" she said.
"You were holding one another," I said. "Kissing." I cringed at my own tone of voice, which reminded me of a jealous high school kid hassling his girl about going parking with someone else.
She looked at me in disbelief. "Win actually gave you that photograph?" she asked.
I stayed silent. I wanted to hear Julia's version of where the photograph might have come from, without any prompting from me.
"I can't believe he'd do that," she said. "He's so sick."
"Tell me what you mean," I said.
"One of Darwin 's security guards took that photograph," she said. "Win was having me followed. He actually used it to try to force me to have an abortion."
"What?"
"He said if I didn't terminate my pregnancy, he'd turn the photo over to the newspapers and let them have a field day with it," Julia said. "That scared me. Obviously, I didn't want to be embarrassed myself, but I was also worried North would lose his job or his marriage or both. So I booked an appointment at a family planning center."
I felt relieved that Julia's story sounded at least remotely credible. "Did Darwin talk about divorce once he knew you had spent time with North?" I asked.
"Never. I think he actually liked the fact that he had something to hold over my head. It gave him even more control over me," she said. "He feeds on that."
"And he never turned the photograph over to the press," I said.
"I should have known that was a bluff," she said. "Advertising my infidelity would have hurt his ego more than it would have fed his need for revenge." Her eyes filled up. "I guess he just waited to get back at me-through Brooke and Tess."
I hesitated to push Julia further when she was close to tears, but I needed to ask her about the letter Claire had given North and me. "There's something else," I said.
She wiped her eyes. "What? I'll tell you anything you want."
That was a disconcerting turn of phrase. Was Julia, I wondered, just telling me what I wanted to hear? "A page of a letter you wrote surfaced," I said.
"Surfaced?" she said.
"Maybe when the police searched the house," I lied.
"Really," she said.
I didn't feel right lying to her. And I figured turning up the heat between Julia and Claire might not be such a bad idea. "Actually, we got it from Claire Buckley," I said. "She found it-in your closet."
"A letter I wrote," she said, without any trace of anger.
"Yes," I said.
"What did it say?" she asked.
I had made a photocopy of the letter at State Police headquarters. I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and took out the sheet of paper. I unfolded it and handed it to Julia.
She looked at it for several seconds, her face a blank. "What did you want to know?" she said finally. There was no anxiety in her voice.
"It certainly sounds like a letter you would have written to someone you were involved with," I said.
"It is," she said matter-of-factly. "And I am."
/ am. Her use of the present tense felt like an assault. My hope that Julia would explain everything away evaporated. My back started to ache again. "Who was…" I stopped myself. "Who is he?" I said.
"She" Julia said pointedly.
It took me a moment to convince myself I had heard her correctly. "You're… seeing a woman?" I said.
"Does that shock you?"
"Well, yes. I mean, not that she's a woman." Now, I had lied. "That you have someone else in your life. And it doesn't sound like something casual or meaningless to you."
"Not at all," she said. "She's sustains me. Like the letter says: From the day I first saw her."
"When did it start?"
"Six or seven months ago."
"And it's still going on?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Is she from the island?"
"She lives in Manhattan. I fly to see her once a week during the summer, when I can." Julia smiled. "Otherwise, we talk by phone, for fifty minutes."
"For fifty…" I stopped short.
Julia shook her head and looked at me as if I was being foolish. "She's my therapist," she said. "Marion Eisenstadt. That's who I wrote the letter to. I never sent it because I thought it was… well… inappropriate, and a little morbid."