Julia's Chocolates. Cathy Lamb

his head, and I could see that some of his anger had dissipated. “Why do you make me so angry? Why? You constantly provoke me. You know I love you. I can’t live without you, Julia.” He grabbed a fistful of my curls and kissed them, then kissed both breasts as I held my breath. One time he’d bitten down on me. “No, I can’t live without you, and I won’t. But this is your fault. You have to learn how to be a wife. A good wife. And you must learn to be more like my mother.”

      He lowered his head again, and this time he kissed me so sweetly, so soft, so gentle, it made me gasp with mind-numbing fear. Of course he misinterpreted my gasps.

      “I’ll do you again, don’t worry about it. You’re always hot, always wanting it, aren’t you? You have a need for constant sex. Who would guess that with someone like you?” He shook his head in wonderment as he ran his hands over my trembling-with-fright body. His cell phone rang then, and he answered it and walked out the front door, leaving me cold and half-naked on the bed.

      When he left, I resumed my crying jag over Spot, which morphed into me not being able to breathe and my heart palpitating as if it were racing a hundred miles an hour, and I figured I was going to die.

      I had found Spot three years ago, literally on the city street near to where I was living. He was sitting by a garbage can. Waiting, waiting, waiting, it seemed, for something to come his way. He was skinny and nervous and dirty, and I thought I was looking at myself in dog form, except for the skinny part. He must have looked at me and seen himself in human form because he came to me instantly. I showered him, fed him, doted on him, loved him.

      That dog was happy when I woke up in the morning, happy when I came home, happy when I walked him. He was not happy alone and was often quivering with nerves when I came in from work, which endeared him to me all the more.

      Growing up unloved and neglected is horrific. Not only because your parent doesn’t love you, but because you know your parent doesn’t want your love. You learn that your love is inferior. Unneeded. Worthless. You’re inferior, you’re unneeded, you’re worthless.

      But Spot needed my love. He needed me.

      Robert had hated Spot on sight, as he hated all animals.

      A voice in the back of my head told me that day that Robert had killed Spot. I knew the voice was right. As the days wore on after that incident, and the wedding loomed like a rusty pitchfork over my neck, I found breathing more and more difficult. I could almost see those points of that pitchfork imbedded in my neck, and I knew I had to escape it.

      Caroline grabbed my hand, bringing me away from Spot and back to her. Her right eye was almost spasmodically twitching.

      “I see clothes in a bag.” Her voice was tight. “The bag is full. I see it being thrown. I see fire. It’s hot. It smells. The clothes are burning. They’re gone. I see red. He’s furious.”

      Now I really was having trouble breathing. About two months ago, in a weird attempt to make him happy, and wanting to look better for him, I had gone shopping. I had bought two skirts that came above my knees, several lace camisoles, a bright red coat, black heels, and a halter top. The clothes were a huge departure from my usual jeans and a dull sweater and loafers.

      When he came to the apartment and saw the bag full of clothes his face had turned almost purple with rage. He had turned the bag upside down, running his hands over each and every garment as if a woman were already inside them. “You’re cheating on me, aren’t you?”

      After a long minute when I couldn’t speak, from fear, he laughed mercilessly, as if that was a hilarious thought. When he released my hair from around his fist, I protested my innocence.

      Robert had laughed again. “I know you’re not cheating, Cannonball Butt. Who would cheat with you? You’re lucky I’m with you, I’m the best you’re ever going to get, the best you can ever expect.” He held up the camisole and laughed again. “I hardly think you’ll be able to get your stomach in that. Don’t try to be something you’re not. I don’t need humor in bed.”

      And then suddenly I was furious, too. I was so sick of him criticizing my clothes, my hair, everything, and here I had gone out to fix the problem, and he was cruel again. “Well, if you don’t want to see me in them, perhaps someone else will.” I didn’t know where the words came from, and, really, it was a preposterous thought.

      Robert froze, his eyes darkening, and fear exploded in my stomach. He very quietly, very neatly folded each and every garment into the bag. Then he took the bag, shoved it into the fireplace and lit a match. I screamed at him to stop but he didn’t, the fire smoldering against the material. I yanked at him and he backhanded me. Backhanded me again when I tried to pull some clothes out. He had to light a second match to burn them all.

      When the fire was roaring, he picked up a nearby phone and smashed it into my face.

      I lost consciousness. When I came to, Robert was bending over me, the fury gone, replaced by a concerned, loving, desperately sorry man holding an ice pack over my eye.

      “You shouldn’t have made me mad, Turtle. Shouldn’t have threatened to cheat on me.”

      Shaking, I could barely keep from throwing up, my head throbbing. When I didn’t say anything, he grabbed my upper arms. “I know you come from a white-trash family, and I’m trying to save you from them, can’t you see? You don’t know how to be a proper wife yet, but you will. I’m being patient….” The lecture went on and on and on. He slept at my apartment that night and watched me carefully for days, taking time off work. When he did go back to work, he called every hour on the hour, then made sure that his horrible mother and her sisters monopolized every moment of my time with wedding plans.

      His mother and her sisters didn’t ask about the bruise, and I didn’t discuss it. Those women were wrapped up tight in their secrets and were used to ignoring abuse.

      Two nights before our wedding, he came by my apartment. He wasn’t happy with the greeting I gave him, nor was he happy when I complained that his mother had taken over the wedding, so that fist came out once again.

      He didn’t call on our wedding day, left me alone, believing that I would never cut out on my wedding to a rich, eligible bachelor.

      “I hear screaming, Julia,” Caroline said, her voice low, sad. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

      I nodded.

      “He’s coming, Julia, he’s coming. Here. To Golden.”