It's Better This Way, page 20
Every time Julia thought the situation between Heath’s family and her own couldn’t get worse, it invariably did. Eddie shoving Heath and yelling at her had been a nightmare. She would be forever grateful that Heath had kept a level head. It would have been easy to see the fight escalate to an all-out brawl.
“Did Hillary actually ask you to escort her down the aisle? You, instead of her father…” This was beyond anything she would have expected from her daughter. A shock. Then again, that must have been her daughter’s game plan. Her goal was to use Heath to get to her father. Her heart ached at the extremes Hillary was willing to go to to punish Eddie. It deeply saddened her.
Heath reached for her hand and captured it between his own. “While we were at dinner the wedding came up. When Hillary talked about the ceremony and me taking the place of her father, I thought she was kidding. I brushed it off as an ill-advised joke. I don’t believe that’s what she wants. This is a ploy to get back at her father, and a foolish one at that.”
Julia squeezed his hand, regretting that Hillary had put Heath in such an uncomfortable position. She wished her daughter hadn’t used Heath to manipulate her father. The situation between Eddie and the girls was worse than ever because she had.
“Your daughters are a reflection of you, Julia,” he continued. “The interactions we’ve had have given me an appreciation of the two of them. They both are fun, and thoughtful, and smart, and so much like their mother that it was easy to share my heart with them. That said I know you would never pit your daughters against Eddie.
“Hillary and Marie know how deeply I love you; they both said what they wanted most for you was to be happy. I promised I would do everything in my power to make sure you were.”
“You do make me happy, Heath, more than you’ll ever know.”
He hugged her close and she relaxed against him.
“I need to talk to my daughter.” If Hillary had been looking to get a reaction out of her father, then her plan had worked in spades.
“Talking this out with her is a good idea,” Heath agreed.
* * *
—
The opportunity came the following afternoon. Julia sent Hillary a text to tell her she was back in Seattle and then added that she wanted to see her.
Hillary arrived still in her work clothes. She hugged Julia and asked about her time at the beach. While Julia brewed tea, they exchanged small talk. Bringing the tea into the living area, she set the tray down on the table and sat across from Hillary.
“How are the wedding plans coming along?” she asked, as she poured them each a steaming cup of tea.
Hillary stared down at the tea and then slowly raised her eyes to her mother. “What’s up?” she asked.
“Why does anything have to be up?”
“Tea. You only serve tea when we’re about to have a serious discussion.”
Julia leaned back against the sofa and smiled to herself, surprised she hadn’t recognized this in herself. It was her tell.
“Yes, well, this is an important matter. I heard you asked Heath to be part of the wedding party in a role that traditionally belongs to your father. Heath assumed you were joking.”
“I sort of was, but why not, Mom?” Hillary asked. “The two of you are together now. Since I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve come to admire Heath. If Dad doesn’t want a relationship with me, then I’m not going to spend the rest of my life pining after him.”
“Oh honey, you’re going about this all wrong. Your father is badly hurt that you don’t want him with you. I’d only been back to Seattle two seconds when he thundered in here with the assumption I knew about this. Heath was here also, and as you might imagine, there was a huge blowup between them. If Heath hadn’t kept his cool, it could easily have turned into a brawl.”
Hillary had the good grace to look stunned. “Oh no.” She covered her mouth with both hands. “Marie must have told Dad. I’m sorry, Mom, I never meant for Dad to know or put Heath in that position.”
“What did you expect would happen?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…I certainly didn’t think Dad would confront him.”
“You had to realize how deeply this would hurt your father.” Hillary couldn’t deny the thought hadn’t gone through her mind.
Hillary hung her head. “Even if Heath knew I was only partially serious, he made sure I understood it wasn’t his place. It should never have gone any further. I don’t know what Marie was thinking by mentioning it to Dad.”
Marie had a lot of explaining to do. “Then what do you suppose prompted Marie to tell your father?” While grateful Hillary hadn’t purposely set out to humiliate her father, she was curious what had led her younger daughter to tell Eddie.
Hillary reached for the china cup—Julia always served tea in her chinaware—and Julia noticed how her daughter’s hand gently shook.
“Marie was terribly upset. We both were.”
“What happened?”
Hillary stared down at the tea. “He showed up at my apartment and told me he had paid for the wedding dress. I thanked him and made sure he accepted the fact that he couldn’t buy my favor.”
“You didn’t return the dress, did you?”
She shook her head. “No. I love that dress and was grateful Dad did what he did. I told him I appreciated the gesture, but I wanted to be sure he realized where I stand.”
“How did he react?”
“He said he loved me and was sorry for the way things were between us.”
This was progress, although she had a terrible feeling Eddie hadn’t learned his lesson. He couldn’t buy his daughters’ favors or manipulate them, either.
“I told Dad I loved him, and how badly I wanted things to go back to the way they once were.”
“And then?” Julia asked, knowing at some point the conversation had gone off course.
“I admitted how much I’ve missed having a father,” Hillary said, and her voice was rife with pain.
“Oh sweetie, I know you have. And I know your father deeply misses having you and Marie in his life.”
“At that point I started to feel hopeful. Dad asked to meet Blake and suggested we all go to dinner. Then I asked if he meant to include Laura, and you can guess what he said.”
Indeed, she could. It seemed Eddie would never learn. “I can.”
“He made it abundantly clear he and Laura are a team. She’s his wife and belongs at his side. It was all the evidence I needed to confirm, once again, he loves Laura more than he does either Marie or me.” Tears floated in Hillary eyes.
“Yes, he does love Laura, but you need to understand that the love your father feels for you and Marie isn’t the same as what he feels for Laura.”
Hillary smeared the tears across her cheek as she straightened. “I wish I could believe that, Mom. I really do, and I would if Dad didn’t continually put Laura above Marie and me. I’d hoped we would be able to put the past behind us, and then it happened, the way it always does with Dad.”
“What did he do now?” she asked, her patience at an end.
“Dad seemed to think that because he paid the six-hundred-dollar difference in the wedding dress, that gave him the right to tell me how the wedding would go.”
“You mean with Laura?”
“Laura was part of it for sure. I mean, it’s like the two of them are inseparable. Making sure I knew she would be included in the wedding was only part of his overall plan.”
This was beginning to sound even worse than Julia had imagined.
“Dad had a seating plan drawn up to show me, with a lot of his golfing friends included. Blake and I have a limited budget, and I could see that Dad planned to use the wedding to boost his ego with his cronies. No way am I including all these extra friends of his and Laura’s. Okay, to be fair, Dad offered to chip in for the added expense, but this is my and Blake’s wedding.”
Julia hardly knew what to say.
“Oh, that’s not all,” Hillary continued. “He spoke with someone, I think it must have been a pastor—not Pastor Rick, that’s for sure. Dad went to great lengths to explain how these things work when the bride’s parents are no longer married. He had the church pews drawn with little spaces for each of the families.”
“Did you consider he was only trying to be helpful?”
“Mom, no. He was manipulating me again, or trying to. It wasn’t only the seating chart for the wedding, either. He had another one for the reception, and the crazy part is he excluded Heath from both charts. And this is the killer. He included Michael and Adam; like I’d ever consider them as guests. Not a chance.”
“Oh boy,” Julia said and expelled a sigh.
“When I asked him about Heath, he said inviting him would be uncomfortable for Laura.”
Clearly Eddie hadn’t given a thought to her own comfort, Julia mused.
“That was when I lost it. I mean, I tried to hold on to my cool, I really did. I told Dad exactly what I thought about his seating chart and where he should put it and then I asked him to leave.”
Julia felt terrible for Hillary, and Eddie, who couldn’t seem to do anything right when it came to his daughters. She wanted to shake him, only she doubted it would do any good.
“I called Marie and told her what happened, and she was as angry as I was. I didn’t know she called Dad; she must have. I never meant for Heath to get mixed up in this. It was that night that we went to dinner with Heath and the argument with Dad was fresh on my mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. I regret it now.”
Hillary left soon afterward, and Julia sat in silence, debating how best to respond or even if she should. She had never wanted to be put in this position, even though Eddie had repeatedly thrust her into the space between him and their daughters.
Her thoughts were heavy, and she almost didn’t hear the phone ring. She reached for it and noticed it was from a number she didn’t recognize. Thinking it might be one of those pesky robocalls, she ignored it until, a few minutes later, the same number called again.
“Hello,” she answered tentatively.
“Julia?”
It was a voice she didn’t recognize.
“This is Laura, Edward’s wife…”
Julia gasped, completely taken aback to hear from the other woman.
“I’m sorry to ask this…Would it be possible for the two of us to meet and talk?”
Julia was stunned speechless. This was the very woman who had turned her life upside down. The woman who had destroyed her marriage and nearly destroyed her. The woman who had taunted and ridiculed her.
When she didn’t immediately respond, Laura added, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Does Eddie know you’re calling me?”
She hesitated. “No, and he wouldn’t like it if he did know.”
Julia had no desire to meet Laura. None whatsoever. In all the years since the affair, followed by the divorce, she had seen the woman only once, and then from a distance. She didn’t want to have anything to do with her, and it hit her hard, right between the eyes.
In that moment, Julia realized she was more like Hillary and Marie than she’d ever realized. She had encouraged her children to resolve their anger, when clearly she was holding on to some of her own.
“All right,” she said, and was surprised how hard it was to get the words out.
Chapter 26
Julia wasn’t sure what she should wear to meet Eddie’s wife. Before she left, she changed clothes three times. The first outfit she chose was a business suit, one she wore into the office when meeting an important client. Checking her reflection, she quickly changed clothes. Laura wasn’t anyone important to her, nor was she a client.
Next, she tried an expensive pair of designer jeans and a blue cashmere sweater. Standing in front of the mirror to assess herself, she decided the outfit screamed success, as if she was hoping to impress Laura with how well-off she was. Like she cared how Laura viewed her. In the end she went with a simple pair of black slacks and a soft blue top. Simple. Classy. The perfect look for what she intended.
Laura had suggested they not mention the meeting to their children or to their partners. Julia wasn’t sure what to make of the request, but reluctantly agreed. If she did happen to mention it to Heath, she wasn’t sure what he’d say.
When Julia arrived at the Starbucks near Pacific Place, an upscale mall in downtown Seattle a short walking distance from The Heritage, Laura was sitting at a table by the window. Julia bought a cup of coffee and confidently approached the other woman. Or what she hoped looked like confidence.
Laura offered her a weak smile. Her gaze bounced to her coffee and back, and Julia could see she was nervous. Well, that made two of them.
Pulling out the chair, she sat and waited for Laura to speak. The other woman was the one who had asked for this meeting. Julia was patient and had no intention of initiating the conversation.
Eddie’s wife paused for several uncomfortable seconds before removing her focus from her coffee to look at Julia.
“Thank you for meeting me.”
She nodded, still waiting. If she was silent long enough, she figured Laura would eventually state her purpose.
“I know I was the last person you ever expected to hear from.”
Since it was true, she nodded in agreement. Laura’s call had stunned her, and she’d spent a sleepless night wondering what the other woman could possibly want.
“I imagine this is as uncomfortable for you as it is for me.”
If she was looking to find mutual ground, then this was about as mutual as it was going to get. Julia didn’t mean to be rude or standoffish; this woman wasn’t someone she would ever consider a friend. She wished Laura would get to the point.
“I never thought I’d do anything like this,” she said, breathing out a trembling sigh.
“Laura, I get that you’re uncomfortable. I’d appreciate it if you would tell me why you wanted us to meet.”
She stiffened and sat up straighter. “It’s about Edward.”
Julia was tempted to tell Laura that Eddie was her problem now, but held her tongue.
She exhaled slowly. “Hillary’s wedding is tearing him apart. He’d hoped Hillary getting married would finally bring them all together again.”
Julia had held high hopes for that herself.
“When Marie told him that Hillary had asked Heath instead of her father to escort her down the aisle, he lost it. I’ve never seen him that upset.”
Julia knew exactly how upset he’d gotten. “Did you know that he came to me and basically attacked Heath?”
Lowering her head, Laura said, “I didn’t…I’m sorry, although I don’t know what I could have done. He left the house and didn’t tell me where he was going. Seeing how angry he was, I didn’t ask…I realize now I should have. When he returned, he went into the bedroom. I went to check on him, and, Julia, I found him with his face in his hands, weeping.” Tears gathered in her own eyes. “I’ve never known Edward to cry. It…It broke my heart, and I knew I had to do something to fix this if I could.”
Julia could identify. If Heath were emotionally hurting, she would do whatever she could to ease his pain.
“The problem is Eddie,” Julia said, feeling bad for her ex-husband. “When it comes to the girls, he can’t seem to do anything right. He might be a whiz on the golf course, but with his daughters, he’s consistently stuck in the sand trap.”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Laura asked.
That seemed fairly obvious, but Julia refrained from saying so. “The crux of the problem is his attempts to manipulate Hillary by insisting you attend the wedding and be part of it. And that’s not all. Did you know he put together a seating chart for the wedding and the reception and gave it to Hillary along with a list of his buddies he wanted to invite? A chart which included you, Michael, and Adam. But not Heath, because he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Surprise flashed in her eyes. “He did what?”
“He seemed to believe the money he invested in Hillary’s wedding dress entitled him to make his wishes known on how he wanted the ceremony to go. From what Hillary said, I’m surprised he didn’t decide to write her vows along with everything else. He did offer to pay the extra for his friends, but it was too little too late, as far as Hillary was concerned.”
Laura lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I’ll talk to him.”
“It’s too late. The damage is done.”
Laura looked up then and blinked a couple times, as if trying to hold everything inside. “Please tell Hillary I will stay away from the wedding if she’ll allow her father to be part of her day. It means the world to him. Edward misses his daughters so much. I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right for Edward and his girls.”
Julia sincerely appreciated the effort. At this point, she didn’t know what either of them could possibly do, and said so.
“Do Hillary and Marie hate me that badly?” Laura asked, turning her hands over, palms up, on the tabletop.
Julia decided to share the insight she’d had with Heath. “To the girls, our family as they once knew it was torn apart. I know Eddie felt, as I did, the girls were young adults, ready to start their own lives, and the divorce wouldn’t necessarily negatively affect them. To complicate everything, the anger we all felt toward one another brewed in our children.”
Laura nodded. “Yes, it was the same with Heath and me. Both boys were already on their own and it seemed if we were going to split, that was the time.”
“Exactly, only we were both wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean the children on both sides of this divorce were badly hurt. Not knowing what to do with that pain, they looked for someone to blame. The fight at Lake Sammamish certainly didn’t help.”
