The Lady, or the Tiger?
Chapter 17: The Rabbit Always Dies_T
They were on the dining room table…
The awareness began to sink in around them both. Flooded, drowned, inundated with their battered ecstasy.
Out of breath – Making love on the dining room table – William trying to love Julia TOO much. That's right. That's right…
"I love you so much, Julia" the words meaningless and small, and huge, for they were all of the words that existed in the world, and they were true, true to the bone.
Rare, exceptional, William was crying too. Must be the trauma of it all… for they had just saved themselves from James Gillies mere hours before. Not uncommon, Julia's crying after their more strongly passionate lovemaking, particularly after one or the other of them had recently faced death. Telling however, that William, too, cried this time. These were not just tears of exertion, of exhaustion, of joyful consumption, everlasting love expressed and felt so deeply that it hurt and that it debilitated. Their lives had been torn, wreaked with fear – fear of losing the other, fear of having so much to lose, of losing their baby, of each of them losing their lifemate, and the unavoidable awareness that one is utterly helpless when it comes to keeping, to holding onto, what is most cherished, so valuable and essential that one feels that they cannot go on without it, such interminable devastation flourished after the horrors that they had just been through at the hands of James Gillies, been through and survived, with each other, and with their son, their everything still here, right here.
)
Upstairs, readying for sleep, Julia felt the flip in her belly upon approaching their bed. Flashbacks flared – Gillies had their baby in his grasp – gun to his head – "Get on the bed" – William's Truthilizer – wires, terrifying wires – Dynamite! – Set to my heartrate? – ALONE NOW… William's voice downstairs…
A wave of nausea overtook her, her knees buckling with sickness. The aversion was overpowering. There was no way she would be able to sleep on that bed, absolutely no way.
William was still in the bathroom. He would understand. Julia began to gather up bedding… and her pillow, for the couch downstairs.
She heard William flick off the bathroom light behind her.
She turned to see him – such a beautiful, beautiful man, in the yellow glow of the low light. She saw his eyes drop down to the bedding in her arms, and briefly puzzle. But then, then HE KNEW…
William imagined the possibilities, his brain forking off into futures and into pasts. He imagined himself lying with her on their couch downstairs – every cell of him wanting to be sure she was with him. Then a memory played, misty and lovely, of the two of them after they had had a big fight, back when they lived in their hotel suite, back when she was pregnant, and then the two of them had made up when she came out to him, William banished out to the doghouse of sleeping on the sofa, and they had both been together on that tiny, tiny sofa that, and she had almost fallen off, but he had caught her, and he had saved her, and he had held her, and he had loved her so much back then. How could it possibly be that he loved her more now? William's mind bubbled up with remembering that he had tried, just now downstairs on their dining room table, to love her too much. And he thought it again now, how he knew that he was right, that it was not possible, and he knew, because he felt it in his chest right this very second, fusing and igniting and blazing with the burning of the pure white-heat of love. The heart astounds in its ability to expand. No, there would never be too much, and yes, there would always be more… His own mind interrupted him, playing for him the predictive sight of Eloise walking in to catch them sleeping together, there on the small couch in the morning, and their jumbled attempts to explain…
Suddenly he had a great idea, he was grateful for it. William stepped close to Julia and took the bedding from her arms. "The bed in the guest room is bigger," he smiled warmly, "And its closer to William Jr.," all he needed to say.
Tears welled in Julia's blue eyes. Her voice was scratchy as she sniffed back the trickle and she answered him, with a relief so potent in her eyes that its rawness seemed to synchronously both wound and heal him with its touch. "Yes," she answered him.
William put the bedding down on their bed and took her in his arms. His voice intimately close as it poured over her, "We can purchase a new bed… a bigger one. I'll do it tomorrow."
Julia turned to reach her lips to his ear. Soft, her answer as her a kiss.
) (
The next morning, the morning after Gillies, William stood at his dresser, partially ready for work, wearing at this stage only his tee-shirt and his trousers, picking through choices of cufflinks. Julia, not quite as far along in dressing herself as her husband, silky and smooth in a camisole and bloomers, slowed even more, stuck giving in to her desires to admire him. Sometimes she surprised herself with a preference for those cottony, tight-fitting, warm, tee-shirts of his. William's arms were…. "Hunky," the word moaned in her head as she imagined, remembered, the sensual force of the hardness of his arms around her, and she giggled to herself remembering his jealousy back in the earliest days of their romance, when she had swooned over the boxer-victim's muscular arms, and William had braved asking her what "women" found attractive in men, fluttering her heart with his question's discomfort and tension. Interesting, what he concluded at the time, "women" secretly most wanting in a man an intelligent thug. Fortunately, in the end, he figured out that that was not quite it, and William Henry Murdoch more than learned what would sweep her off her feet.
"Julia," William's tone along with his eyes focused elsewhere revealed she had been caught, and he would tease her for it.
"Yes William," she answered quickly, thinking to avert his having the upper hand with his surprise noticing. She stepped closer, then slipped in, in between him and the dresser – "Snug fit," she giggled. She watched his look, his eyes traveling her face. Breathless, she added, "Just as we like it."
"You are beautiful, Julia," William took one of her, still unrestrained, fiery and rebellious curls in his fingers – starting the touch, igniting the flames inside.
Flirtatiously, she bumped against him with her shy wiggling, and her words slowed as the world around them took to plummeting and spinning, "Why thank you detective," she whispered. Then Julia's hands toured his chest, and William's humid, hungry breathing surged over her. He was reacting. She tilted her head, moved her lips…
Her luscious, plump lips…
Closer, she leaned in…
Her bosom, through the satiny fabric of her camisole, lusciously mushy, her squishy flesh, pressed warm into his sturdy chest.
And she finally sparked their kiss, releasing the fireworks.
And then all the blood rushed to their feet as lust flooded in and the kiss deepened and the cascade shot downward to flare the wanting. And then the tender 'click' of their lips longing to stick together sounded as she broke off the kiss with a rainbowed crystal 'tick.'
"Twice?" he wondered out of breath, so close to her she felt the smile. "It'll make us late," he warned.
"Not very," she pushed.
And he yielded to the primal urge and he kissed her and the kisses deepened, and hands, his and hers, took what they wanted, hearts thumped, lower places throbbed and reached, and readied and grew eager, so torturously eager, and wrung, their appetites wettening, heatening, the push and pull between them compressing and expanding, pumping up the urgency.
Mere minutes before, the memories firing inside each of their minds, they had made love, the force booming and turning wild and abandoned as they each had come to accept the fact that the bed they were on in the guest room would squeak and bang abominably, threatening their secrecy. Hence, Julia joked now with him as she enticed, "It'll be quieter… here," and then she proceeded to kiss and nip and the then vehemently suckle torrentially at his neck.
William's hand had snuck down into her bloomers and he moaned upon the discovery… Oh, she was dripping with arousal, and his body sent every drop of his hot male blood right to his groin.
"William," her voice in his ear at the same time as he felt the cold, now on the raw flesh she had just released on his neck, "Please William…"
William's brain reminded him, "Close the door…"
Too late, William Jr. ran in, his stuffed rabbit Blanco in tow. The toddler's eyes growing wide with puzzlement and fascination as he halted, and the words he'd planned in his head… before seeing his parents… wrestling – sort of? – left his mouth arriving somehow ahead of him, "Mommy – NO "little play b'fore bekfest…" the two-year-old's attempt at using his nanny's own intolerable words to explain what was so objectionable. His statement, in typical two-year-old fashion, was followed by a fastidious stomp of his foot accented by an even more fastidious, "NO! No!"
His parents stopped their game, his father saying something under his breath. His mother quickly attended to him. "Little One, you always play for a while before all us slow poke adults are ready to eat, hmm?"
Claire-Marie's eyes met Julia's, then William's, mixing the room with compassion, and frustration, and a bit of discomfort, for the nanny detected what had been interrupted, all overpowered now by a good dose of worry. All of them knew the threat of a tantrum, a toddler meltdown, was beginning to crack through the eggshell.
William stepped closer to his wife and young son and asked, his eyes firm to Julia's, holding with that secret connection, telling her he meant more than what he said, "Where was he… when you got here?" Keeping his eyes looking into hers, William squatted down to William Jr.
Julia knew exactly what William was thinking – like her not wanting to sleep in the same bed, their son would be avoiding the place where James Gillies had frightened him so terribly. "In here," she answered, "Just him and, and um …," she nodded slowly and swallowed, "everyone else was gone."
So Gillies HAD William Jr. up here, but he must have first GOTTEN him… William Jr. was reacting to the playroom downstairs because of the frightening memories associated with it.
Both parents glanced at Claire-Marie. The nanny did not seem to be putting it all together as quickly as they were. But, William and Julia understood that their child's aversive reaction to the playroom signified that THAT was the place where the dreadful encounter had happened, William Jr.'s memories were traumatizing him, memories envisioned by his parents now, of Gillies seizing and catching him there, getting him, terrifying him, downstairs, somehow all alone, down in the playroom, before the tiny child was eased of some of the terror with an injection of heroine to quiet him.
Julia knelt down next to William and in front of their son. After giving her husband a quick, subtle nod, she reached over to take one of Blanco's long, fuzzy ears in her fingers.
"Wise," William thought, "she would talk to the rabbit," he knew, admiring this woman, grateful for this woman, more than words would ever be able to say.
"Blanco?" Julia stroked the little toy clutched tight in her son's arm, "Mommy and Daddy know the playroom is safe now. And it's one of your favorite places to play. It has your blocks and your train, and your friend, Dinosaur, Dinosaur is waiting in his toybox wanting so much to have his little boy and his rabbit friend to play with him… Besides," her voice lifted and lilted, becoming cheery, "Mommy and Daddy want to have a little play time today before breakfast too. Don't we William…?"
William Stood and reached for William Jr.'s hand. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you…" he gleamed. Glancing down into William Jr.'s eyes, caught by how big, how brown, how much like his and like his mother's too they were, and then William lifted his eyebrows high to show his own childlike glee, and he said, "The big battery for the train came in the post. We can hook it up, so the train can go and go and go…"
Julia asked Blanco, "Wouldn't you like that?!"
"Yes Mommy," William Jr. smiled answering his rabbit's question, and the room took a deep breath of relief…
And in her head, Julia had a flash of remembering being hooked up to William's Truthilizer and Gillies' bomb, and her mind then seeing her little, beautiful little, boy, when she had thought he was dead – shot down in the foyer right in front of William, and she had imagined her precious Little One there in the room with her, and she had imagined him looking up at her, just like that – just like he had done just now, and saying exactly those same innocent little words… "Yes Mommy," before she had imagined seeing him run away, and she had thought that she would never see him again. Julia sighed with the heaviness of her thoughts. They had lived through horrors. There would be repercussions. Some pleasant, like the way she and William clung to each other with intensified passion, so much more keenly cherishing having each other in the wake of the real threat of losing each other, others repercussions being outright shattering, like encountering skin-crawling dread with everyday things you don't expect to throw you, like simply getting into bed, or going down into your own playroom to 'have a little play before breakfast.'
Julia put on a robe, and all three adults went down into the playroom to play with William Jr. and his toy rabbit for a little while before breakfast. It was much easier, they all knew it, to confront your demons when you weren't all alone with them.
William tried to tell himself, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." And on one level, he knew it was true, yet on another, he doubted. Such a pain, in opposition to the joy of his son's tiny hand in his, stirred by the profound awareness of its littleness, its frailness, its dependence on him. He realized now that having children was like having a part of yourself OUT in the world, like your arm or your heart, out there in the world where you couldn't keep it safe. It was terrifying.
Claire-Marie suggested that they call Enid and have her come over with her little daughter, Alice, to play… to distract. Enid was glad to oblige, offering her support in any way possible. Julia considered staying home, but she and William agreed it was best to get back to life, as normal, as soon as possible. They would be alright.
Needless to say, the Murdoch's were a little more than a little late for work that first day back after James Gillies had tried, tried for the third epic time, to mangle their lives. Fortunately, the hanging of James Gillies came quickly – only two days after his being recaptured, the man already convicted and thought to have been executed in the past. Julia had her day, her day of examining her monster's brain in the morgue. Nothing notable, in the end… just a brain, a brain like all others.
) (
The next day, the day after James Gilles was hung, it snowed. William and Julia agreed to share a cab to work, biking in the snow more of a challenge than William wanted to confront. With the whole world white and muffled, and the sting of the freezing-cold air hitting his lungs, William held his wife's elbow and they made their way down the steps off of the front porch. Once they started down the front path, lovely crunching sounds added to the ambiance, their footsteps packing the snow under their feet, peppering the crisp air with their cadence, her footprints smaller, next to his. Breath-clouds steamed out around them – smoky mist dissipating upward, his mingling with hers, as it rose to the stars, stars that were most assuredly there but unseen, for the overpowering light of the closer star. His mind traveled with associations, the snowstorm linking to the baby's birth, turning onto a new track, springing from remembering the place where his son and his wife both survived the nearly impossible surgery performed by HIM – their dining room table. That long, simple, table had seen so much, her father's autopsy… And then the memory whipped in – they had made love there, so passionately, right after the HELL of Gillies… Suddenly, his mind, unfathomably splitting, arching down two different paths, one to jump to the track with the memory of the absolute hell of his agony with the decision of whether or not to pull the trigger, confronting again that, at the time, he believed the revolver was loaded, loaded with lethal lead bullets, and that in pulling the trigger he would kill, and that because of that, if he chose to pull the trigger he was risking that he would go to hell. Shaking it off in his mind – those thoughts too distressing… He would, he knew he would, travel down it eventually, but not yet. He needed to be stronger, William focused on the other path inside his head, the one that had been less urgent, but present in the background of the disturbing rattling down that first track, this one gentle and lovely, his mind seeing up to the new bed in their bedroom and their passionate lovemaking, in it, this morning. It had been that type of powerful, eye-gazing, and therefore soul-touching, love bout that he and Julia could be blessed with. Beyond good, so good it still ached. His own deeper breath drew his attention back to the snow, so beautiful. Perfectly, it seemed to clean away all the dirt of the world, to start anew.
) (
Returning back to the morgue from lunch, without William, for he was busy with interviews and working cases, Julia was both surprised, and not surprised, by a sweet-smelling bouquet of striking white roses waiting for her on her desk. She glanced about. Others would have seen – Rebecca, the orderlies… Returning her gaze to his love token, she marveled at her own shortness of breath and her thumping heart. Almost a gasp, for they were truly beautiful. And, there was a note!...
This very morning, a fresh blanket of crystal-white, newly fallen snow…
And I find I long to ask you, to make footprints with me…
In myriads of ways that we can't even yet fathom today.
Julia Ogden, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, to grow old with you…
Until we are merely stardust-ghosts, and even after that, I will yearn, I will strive, to be with you.
If I had not already asked you…
Yet, it seems I still burst with wanting to ask you again.
And so, here, I will,
Julia Ogden, marry me. Marry me, please – today, tomorrow, and every day.
Be my bride. Be my bride again and again and again.
Make footprints with me, my love, until forever, in each and every freshly fallen snow.
Such a rush of love flooded over her, through her, so that it felt as if she might implode. Impossible, not to run to him. Why… she even forgot to put on her coat. By the time she was halfway to the Stationhouse, however, she had regained her self-control. She would thank him. She would tell him she loved him, but she would not actually do what she had seen herself do in her mind – dive into his arms and kiss him with complete abandon. No… she would not do that.
)
"George… Henry," Dr. Ogden greeted, looking past them through the windows of William's office. Her heart sunk a little – he was on the phone, she'd have to wait.
Unsure why, perhaps because he had not seen her since the day of Gillies' attack, George jumped to stand to meet her, Higgins quickly following suit. "Doctor… Good Afternoon Dr. Ogden. The detective… err, your husband is, um, well he's…" All eyes looked to William on the phone. Knowing that Detective Murdoch was talking to a clerk in the housing records department, and that he had already been on the phone for a relatively long time, George surmised aloud, "I don't think he'll be much longer."
Dr. Ogden caught George's eye…
And for a moment George noticed, as sometimes had happened to him before, what a truly beautiful face Detective Murdoch's wife had, particularly her coloring – those magnetic blue eyes, rosy cheeks and lips, such smooth, glowing skin and those wispy, fiery curls dangling around…
"I'll go in, I suppose," she told him with a pinch of her lips and a nod.
"Of course, doctor," George responded, gesturing towards the detective's opened door.
Once inside without a knock, his eyes up to hers and his face brightening, she pictured what could have been – William gasping her name with surprise – "Julia" – barely getting the sound out before she flew into his arms and she kissed him. A memory fired in her head, of when they had first began courting and she had burst into his office with a gift for him – a bullet extractor, and she couldn't help herself back then, she had kissed him. My God, he was so irresistibly gorgeous, after her kiss his smile, such a shy and prim and proper man, but undeniably a red-blooded man, and he had wanted more, and my goodness his smile was breathtaking, before he grabbed a hold of her and dove in to kiss her harder, demanding more…
Julia sighed, instead, instead she kept her demeanor and she smiled her "Hello" at him, and then she pretended to be interested in the model sailing ship William's father had given him as a boy. She could tell he changed course in his phone conversation towards closing, and she smiled to herself thinking how much she knew that he would prefer to be sharing with her about his roses and his note – about their making footprints together in the white snow and his invitation to renew their lover's vows, certainly much preferred to talking with some clerk, even if the conversation did provide a clue on a case. She moved closer to his desk, like clandestine lovers, they shared a quick glance. Mmm, the chemistry between them torqued her insides so. Wanting so much to touch HIM, she reached out and stroked the hard, cold steely robe of the small "Lady Justice" statue he had on his desk, touching it in his place.
There was anticipation with the pause, the phone conversation ended but too long before the click of the phone being placed back in its cradle…
Through those magnificent eyelashes of his, he looked up at her…
Wham, it hit – the gravity-spin between them.
Julia felt her breath leave her, heard it in her own voice, forcing the words to be slower, she confessed, "I… I had to come, William…" And he stood, and the world spun and the ground lifted up underneath her and she wanted him so much she felt dizzy and she gushed out, "I felt like I'd explode."
"EXPLODE"
And simultaneously, on a barely unconscious level, Julia's choice of words connected them both back to the memory, the image, the terror of her having been hooked-up to a bomb of dynamite…
And Julia added, "Perhaps that was a poor choice of words – "explode," and she tried to lighten it with a giggle.
William pinched his lips together and then wrinkled a corner of his mouth – his 'admitting it' face, and the two of them stood there, aware together, of the profound value of life, of the love of the other, the treasure of it threatening to bring tears of joy. Once again, their love had confronted, and had overcome, unsurmountable and unfathomable adversity.
The awe of it all could be heard in Julia's voice as she said to him, "I do, William…"
And he knew she referred to his proposal in his lovenote. And he remembered suddenly back to their wedding day, the ground-shaking look of her in that long, white gown and the beauty of her eyes stuck to his through that wedding veil, HER at the end of the aisle… She, it was really happening, she was coming to him, coming to him to be his wife…
Julia leaned ever so slightly towards him and told, "I did that day, and 'I do' today, and 'I do' tomorrow and 'I do' every day…"
Such a whirlwind as William surprised her, surprised himself.
So quickly and so definitively, he stepped forward to her, reached for her, grabbed a hold of her short, feminine, tie, taking it in his grasp. Stunning, the shift all around as he tugged her to him, trapping his hand, engulfing her tie within his fingers, squashed between the plush, pillowy softness of her bosoms. Shattering and spinning, the passion in his kiss – a kiss that was long, and deep, and moved, and found a primal rhythm within them…
And one of his strong arms wrapped around her…
And then his hand, his hand so big and hungry…
Breaths so heavy and wild they surged out humid and hot… for he dared to do it.
And William's hand explored, traveled, taking up, soaking in, the inward and outward curves of her hips, her waist…
)
Higgins' eyes bulged out of his head, and he stretched up to better see past George and through the windows into Detective Murdoch's office.
It was a wonder that those windows didn't steam up…
George turned to see, becoming utterly enthralled. His voice misty with the romance of it, he noted, "Dr. Ogden is a passionate woman."
"No, George," Higgins corrected, "It was the detective," he whispered excitedly.
"Really," George replied with a guilty pleasure.
)
William released her and said, teasing her for years of fascination with the particular item on him, "I see the appeal of a tie…" glorying in her giggle.
"So uncharacteristically delightful, detective," she wiggled, flirting with him. Julia supposed to herself, that her ever so buttoned-up husband, TOO, must still find himself reeling from their wonderful lovemaking entwinement this morning.
Julia brought them both back down to Earth, changing the subject to the more mundane. She stepped back, then took a seat on a stool at his worktable. She asked, "Did you get any lunch?"
)
Not much later, George knocked on the detective's still-opened door. Oddly, he seemed to reach from quite far back to reach to the glass of the door, his knuckles tapping against the letters forming William's name.
"It is opened, Constable," William said with an impatience stirred by his confusion with the strangeness, the unfamiliar formalness, of George's interruption.
George stepped in, his fingers fidgeting around a piece of paper he had scribbled on that was dampening within the sweat of his hand, all the while his eyes seemingly fascinated with the ceiling. "The records clerk called back, sir," he said.
Figuring out the reason that George was acting so strangely, at the same time that she remembered it happening that very first time just after she and William had been caught kissing in his office, Julia's brain hollered at her in her head, prompting her to gasp and draw the attention of both men. The thought blared, "They saw us!" and at the tail of that thought came the sudden worry for William, for Julia Ogden knew William Henry Murdoch well, and she knew he would most assuredly be embarrassed at having been observed by his men while being so… sexual, so passionate.
"We are married, George," she defended, edging towards scolding the poor nerve-wrecked constable.
With that, the cause of George's perplexing behavior suddenly dawned on William, and he squirmed.
Seeing William's discomfort charged Julia further, jolting her into anger and, unfortunately, she snapped at George, quipping, "Really…" with a snort, "There's no need to be so judgmental."
And now it was George who squirmed.
William made an effort at rescue, at distraction. "What have you George?" he asked, a bit too loudly.
"Sir!" George answered him, awkwardly, also too loud…
It was almost comical watching these two men…
"Uh… sir," George corrected his volume, "The clerk found the address you were looking for… err, sir." He handed the, now-wrinkled and soggy, paper to the detective, and then nodded, and then glanced uncomfortably at the doctor, and then – gone.
)
On her way out, Julia stopped at George's desk, grateful he was alone to allow discretion. "George… I just wanted to say that I am sorry for snapping at you, um… earlier," her beautiful blue eyes holding to his, querying into him at a deeper level to read whether or not he understood.
"No need, doctor," George hurried to relieve her.
"I, um, well, I have no good excuse… Just…" she stumbled, and unexpectedly, her eyes pooled.
George's heart exploded with the burn of his compassion for her, and he knew for certain that James Gillies' evil had taken its toll.
And she saw the depth of George's caring, and it caused her to soften even more.
He struggled with whether or not to say what he was thinking, that she had just been through so much, almost killed in such a horrid way, almost lost her baby, her husband – her soulmate, in such horrid, horrid ways, not more than three or four days ago, all this horror…
"I was embarrassed, I guess," she offered. She grew bolder and added, "And your actions… well, I felt you were being critical and disapproving, I suppose…"
Not particularly good at masking his feelings, and tending to border on being blunt, George imparted, "Doctor, I must admit to you, that I was thrilled, overjoyed truthfully… Err, I, well I became filled with a kind of adolescent excitement, you see, to see such a man as the detective… You, uh, you must know how much I admire him, doctor, and uh, uh… err, to see him so happy, to yield to his… urges, and I know that he is only able to do such a thing, um, uh, well, solely because of you… because of you in his life, doctor. And I want you to know, I was not criticizing," he rambled.
She smiled. "It was quite something, wasn't it?" she tilted closer to him and confided, wrapping his elbow briefly in hers, and giving it a playful squeeze.
) (
William knew he was sleeping, at least at first, trapped and descending into that eerie dual existence, disturbingly odd, dreaming that he was asleep in their new bed next to her, him on his side facing away from Julia, facing the bedroom wall, but SEEING himself there, and at the same time, BEING himself there. He dreamed he was naked, and yet he also knew that he was naked in real-life – they had made love. He was too hot, dripping with sweat… the sticky and slippery liquid all over him. Terror with the thought – maybe it's blood!? And there had been… Impossible, impossible here in their house – there had been flames. Such a panic hit – was the house on fire!? No! No, he answered himself, there were caves, I was in caves with flames and incessant moaning, steam and stink, in dark, damp caves, and chains rattling, somewhere close by, very, very, very, close by. The very marrow of his bones drove him to rush towards that rattling, metal sound, holding his breath to discern which way to go in the labyrinth. Suddenly startled by Gillies taunting, laughing his smug way, echoing off the stony claustrophobic cavern walls, unseen, but heard, so loudly it hurt into his brain, "Oh William, you cannot be allowed to choose any other path but pulling the trigger. YOU MUST COME WITH ME TO HELL. I will not go without knowing YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BE MINE – NOT HERS." Devastating the split-second that he knew he had done it, William knew where he was, so that his lungs filled with the burning sting of Gillies' noxious carbon-monoxide gas all over again. He must have – Oh My God – I DID! I pulled the trigger… Gillies' loaded REVOLVER…!
It was just a dream – not real. Thank God, not real… He'd woken, drenched, winded, exhausted, terrified, when – it moved! HE NOTICED IT IN THE CORNER HUDDLED NEXT TO HIS NIGHT-TABLE, WRAPPED IN BURLAP. Burlap, the smell, the coarse feel of the brown, unraveling, yarny, weave against the naked skin – he had remembered, in the dream, re-felt it all over again, himself being hung-up on the meathook, naked and wrapped in scratchy burlap, in agony in the stench and the blackness of the pig-slaughtering building of the meatpacking plant, nothing to do but bear it and prepare to die… Strange, but somehow he knew it was not HIM, wriggling and struggling, inside the burlap in the corner of their bedroom, somehow, there in the caves of Hell, and a part of him knew who was in the sack, but in the dream he stared so intently, discerning the shape, denying the gorgeousness of the sweeping curves of the body huddled inside of there, the body chained in the burlap sack, with him and with James Gillies in Hell, and he already knew, but also he didn't, that it was Julia. His mind whispered it, praying with all his might that it wasn't true.
"Julia…?"
And that tiny, tiny, breathless whisper woke him…
And William knew then that it was ALL a dream. He WAS awake now, in their bed, naked and sweaty next to Julia. No caves, no Hell, no Gillies, no body wrapped in burlap in the bedroom corner. Truly all just a bad dream. A forced deep breath, his mouth grimaced with the bad taste of the lingering of it, skin-crawling disgust, revulsion, sickening, spinning nausea hit. "It'll pass. It'll pass," he promised himself with the mantra so that he could withstand it, wait it out, get to the other side.
Another deep breath, trickling relief, better now. Another, it's a bit better. Julia's still asleep.
"Whew…"
His exhale was audible in the dim shadows, solidifying where he was. Another wave of it crashed back in, his face curled and wrenched again remembering it. At that moment, the chill touched his wet skin, sheets soaked. "I'll get up. Downstairs… hot chocolate. Maybe she'll come…"
)
He had made two cups. She had not come. The pot slowly cooled over on the stove with the extra hot chocolate waiting, its steam, done now. William sat in his chair, around the kitchen table from hers, alone. He nursed himself, soothed himself, with the warm sweet, creamy liquid down his throat, the comforting warm feel of the smooth ceramic of the cup within his fingers. He talked with himself, advising he chase after the wispy, disappearing memories of the dream, despite the aversion. "Face the demons," he coached himself, finding an inner chuckle at the pun and the irony of his own advice. A big sigh escaped as he re-said it in his head, "Demons… That they were," he thought with an 'admitting -it' face wrinkle.
The nightmare made perfect sense, in that laws-of-physics-defying way of dreams. He had put-off dealing with his guilt, his fear, his shock and disappointment and loathing of himself for pulling that trigger, for choosing to kill James Gillies. He had told himself it could wait until he could speak with Father Clements, push it down until Sunday…
His brain gave him the worst of it then – the body in the burlap sack in the corner of the bedroom. There was no denying it, it was Julia. He had dreamed that she was in Hell with him, and with Gillies. His beautiful, beautiful Julia damned to Hell, and William felt such pain, for he knew, then, that he had a hope, somehow, despite what he knew, what God knew, he had done. He hoped he would not be damned. And the hurt crippled and constricted, for it meant that JULIA WOULD BE ALONE! Tears filled William's eyes with the thought. And then he remembered, stunning that with it there was a strange but undeniable relief, HE had wanted Julia to have an abortion – HIM! He had wanted her to commit that same sin he had condemned her for all those years ago – to kill an unborn baby. He had actually fought with her, begged her, to do it – for he couldn't bear the thought of her dying in childbirth, which she almost did…
A deep breath, trying to cope. My, how he had changed. "A faithful, good, Catholic man," he scorned himself. He wondered if he'd feel ashamed in the eyes of his mother. That particular sin, Julia's the first one, his fighting for it, the second one, neither of those could he ever confess to. The burden to be borne alone. He would protect Julia from the law. He accepted that he had no choice. Worse now, he had come to make the same decision, and he thought of the wonder of William Jr., and he thought of how, if Julia had listened to him, that beautiful boy would never have existed, and it hurt too much, too much. He had to stop.
Take a sip. Breathe. Think of something else.
The image was unexpected. A memory, he realized, digging deeper. He had seen it when he was a ranchhand repairing fences. An old, huge, craggily tree had grown right around the fence post, and the wire, now wholly inside the burly trunk, the tree only showing a bulge in its bark where the fence was inside of it. The trauma of the fence's intrusion had been accepted, incorporated, grown around. It had hurt the tree. It had affected the tree, but it was part of that tree now. It could not be removed, there was no way it could be taken out of that tree, not without killing the tree. And William clamped his lips as he reached the lesson of it. Bad things that happen to you become a part of you. They change you, but you cope if you can survive it. And you build everything after that on top of that wound, that scar…
Out of the corner of his eye, her footsteps, barefeet… "Her feet'll be cold," he told himself, already knowing that Julia was coming. The warmth in his chest upon knowing she was there rivaled, no – it creamed, the hot chocolate.
"Bad dream?" she asked, stepping in with a soft patter on the kitchen floor.
"At least she had her robe," he thought. He started to stand, but she stopped him.
"I'll get it," she said.
It felt good to share with her. She had experienced similar strugglings. She had killed that serial killer, posing as Detective Scanlon, but that was so clearly self-defense. And William still remembered how dizzyingly grateful he had been, he still was, for Julia's keen instincts, her unique knowledge of the anatomy. He had killed before. He shot the Blackhand man, but that was instinctual too. It happened so fast, and he did it to save Anna. To his memory, he never made a choice. The bang of the gun, the smell of the burnt gunpowder bitter in against the roof of his mouth announced the decision he had made, even to him. There was a profound difference with this almost killing, and he knew it down in his bones. His fingers itched, ached, with remembering searching for the button to release the small gun up his sleeve. Similar to the pang, the twinge, the dull pain, when he remembered his hand on the trigger of Gillies' revolver, so sure pulling the trigger would blast the bullet into the man, would end the villain's life, end the monster's ability to torture… It was different.
Julia held his hand, and he felt her fingers glide over his wedding ring, and she reassured him it was a form of self-defense, that his child, his wife, very much parts of himself – she had argued, were in undeniable danger. He was good man, down to his core, and a strong man. He had saved them, in the best way he could.
William felt better. Sunday mass… he could put it aside until then, knowing he would confront it with his God, with his God, the deepest secrets about the two abortions. He felt a lightening of the load on his soul, he had hope, even for Julia.
) (
Weeks had passed. It took a while, but William and Julia, and it turns out their little son William Jr. too, healed, and life moved on after what they had been through with Gillies. At first, the press had exploded with the story of the return of James Gillies – the headlines brandished the details of the villain's ghoulish use of Mr. Fowler and his torturing of the Murdoch's, his horrendous use of the Murdoch's only child's life as the lure, as the means of hurting his nemesis – Detective Murdoch, the detective's child and his wife put at risk, traumatized. The papers had also touted the detective's final, and heroic, capture of the evil James Gillies, the demon's hanging the ultimate end to the highly sought-after tale… and with it all the Murdoch's had once again been idolized – 'Toronto's Favorite Couple' glittering and glamorous in the spotlight once more. But, there had been a cost. Father Clements had finally gotten William and Julia an interview with a Catholic orphanage to adopt a baby girl. The news, though, frightened the board members off. The Murdoch's interview was cancelled. They were not seen as fit parents, there was too much risk to a child of theirs. Worse, that seemed to set the ball in motion, and the press returned to its witch-hunt like attacks on Julia.
It was in that environment that this particular day brought it all to a head. The newspapers insisted on making a connection between the big story of the day – the anniversary of the day that the abortion doctor, Dr. Restell, had been found guilty of murder for the abortions he had committed, and the papers were determined to link that story to Julia, and also to her Catholic husband, for their suspected use of contraception. Every single one of the newspapers included some connection to Julia somewhere in the story.
)
Sitting at his desk reading the third paper of the day, William rubbed his brow. This one, the Herald, battered Julia for being arrested years ago for teaching women about contraceptives, likening her crimes to those of the condemned Dr. Restell. He remembered back then, Ana had been back in his life again. Julia down in the cells, married to Darcy. So stunning, so breathtakingly beautiful, and he remembered knowing the second he saw her there that he had been wrong about thinking he was over her, feeling the unbearable pain of the loss of her again in his heart…
This article went on to attack him, but not like the others, which accused him of going against his Catholic faith, and the law, by using contraceptives with his wife, and then having the gall to try to adopt a child, but instead it complained about his NOT catching the escaped Restell. William sighed. It didn't seem to matter that technically the Don River Jail, from which Restell had escaped, was not within his direct jurisdiction – for it was continuously pointed out that their awful and morbid Body Farm was near the prison, and somehow that was seen to make HIM responsible for the foiled attempts to find the escapee. And that was bringing the focus back onto their Body Farm again, and it was all feeling very heavy.
It appeared again, William's brain had been flaring it up at him all day, that same image, over and over again. This time, he asked himself, why – why the image of the fencepost inside the tree trunk – why now?
"Start at beginning," his own voice, deeply melded with those of Julia and his mother and Father Keegan, guided inside his head. He remembered back to the day he had first come upon the tree, far off, alone, just him and his horse in some pasture in the sun and the breeze. William Murdoch considered himself much of an expert of trees, even then he had had much experience as lumberjack, after all, but he had never seen something such as this. It had impressed him, the way the fence seemed to just disappear inside of the tree and then come out of the other side, only a few ugly and deformed bumps observable in the tree bark revealing the truth of the tree's life-altering encounter with the unyielding fence post. Then he remembered the other, more recent, time that the image of the tree had come to mind. First, he saw himself sitting at their kitchen table, hot chocolate, damp soggy pajamas, and then he remembered the nightmare, the body in the burlap sack in the corner… in Hell.
That was the moment that William fully remembered it, it slamming hard with a bang hurting his head, prompting him to rub his brow. He had thought it then! Amazing – devastating – debilitating, that truth. He had thought it at that very moment, the moment James Gillies had said it, so awful, Gillies wanted him to be HIS in Hell, not HERS, and William remembered that he had thought sarcastically, that Gillies would be foiled in the end, because Julia would be there… Julia would be there, because she had had an abortion. It made so much sense, now, his nightmare. The sting of his threatening tears dried in in his eyes with his burning fear searing away all the water. And then the image came again, soothing – of the tree. Odd, a sweet smell of cocoa on the imaginary warm whisper of the breeze, a soft ruffle in his mind – Julia's curl. There was hope with the image, with the survival, the magic, the strength of the suffering, of the tree. That tree, with the fence post inside of it, lumpy and deformed, and William knew that horrible, unspeakable things must be accepted, can't be denied, and you grow around them, they deform you, but still you must grow, and it must be there forever after – the pain, the disgust becomes a part of you, but you go on, changed. He was like that tree – Julia was like that tree. They had survived, and they were still here, and they were rare and remarkable and together and still strong. He did not know why, but he was sure of it, there was hope.
) (
They coped as another week went by. Another snow came, it reminded of the footprints and the promise. William and Julia had fallen asleep, in their bed that no longer felt new, naked after having had made love, tucked under the blankets. It was cozy, winter battering outside. As Julia cuddled backwards deeper into William's sleeping body, she realized it was freezing inside their house as well. Her eyes bolted opened – the baby! The baby was sleeping in the other room.
She roused her husband, her lover, her partner, her soulmate. William said, already up, alerted, that he hoped it was something easy to fix on the boiler. He had been half into his pajamas, just the bottoms, before Julia left the room to get the baby. William put on his slippers in an awkward, hopping, already-going, sort of motion, and headed down to the basement to do the repairs. He caught himself replaying the sight of his wife, bare, beautiful, as he had turned on his lamp and the low, yellow glow had touched her skin. Breasts, my she was gorgeous… "Brrr," his brain changed the subject with his own bare chest registering the cold – it was freezing.
Julia was certain her little baby boy was too cold, despite the fact that he remained groggy as she fussed with his blankets. Softly, she scooped him up into her arms, resting the tiny, floppy child against her moldable bare skin. Love overtook her. My God, how she loved this boy, was so grateful to the stars, to the Universe, for this little boy…
)
When William returned, boiler repaired, he found that Julia was in bed, his toddler-son nestled in her arms, the boy's black curls, popping out from their nook where his face was nuzzled down into Julia's bosom. The boy's curls seemed to dance and mingle with her blonder ones draped here and there over her shoulders and down over the little nest she had curled the boy into. The sight stole his breath away, making him clamp his lips tight as he absorbed and withstood the wave of the overwhelming joy surging through him. A part of his brain, the more logical side, wondered if the child could breathe properly, and then he remembered the huge struggle they had had in the past to finally get the baby comfortable with sleeping in his own room, and that this… truly lovely… situation, this decision to let the toddler sleep with them, would likely take them back to those more challenging bedtimes all over again.
With a sigh, a warm sigh, filled with both acceptance and contentment, William turned out his lamp, lifted the covers, and slipped into bed to join his family, to mold his body around theirs… to reach his arms around them both, and to feel those same black and blond curls, in the dark, tickle and brush and squash against his own bare chest. The slow deep rhythm of the harmonious breaths, like the waves of the ocean rolling up on the shore, so soothing, bringing on delightful rocking, oozy, sensations. It was notably warmer, and for the moment perfect, and sleep came over him quickly.
)
William had felt, sensed it from just under the smooth, nearly transparent, but blurry and ripply edge of consciousness, Julia's movements, and now his eyes detected sunlight through his eyelids. It was morning, Julia was next to him. Listening, he heard her, so gently she was cuddling and kissing. Odd, as he realized that her attentions were not focused on him? "The baby," he told himself. The realization flooded him with emotions, warm and wonderful.
He turned onto his side, slipped closer to her. She was turned away from him, loving her baby, but she felt his touch.
"Look at our baby, William," she whispered to him.
The feeling of her skin under his rocketed him somehow, with its silkiness, stirring the manliness within him. As his face settled into the back of her neck, and he tenderly pushed some of her curls aside to take in her scent, an unruly moan glided out of him, softly rumbling the morning air. Such conflicts within, for he wanted to make love to her, and he wanted to share the cherishing of their baby with her too. His hand rode up the sloping curve of her broad hips, then down the steep hill to her waist, marveling at the rounded, sweeping waves of her body, particularly when she lay in this position.
She felt it too, the twitch, the lustful pressure of desire for him building in her core. And he detected her response, in her breathing, in the subtle leaning of her body backwards into him.
His hand continued its travels, riding each ridge of her ribs as he moved upward, approaching... In his hand, heaven, the bulging heaviness of creamy flesh cupped in his fingers. The quietest moan with his rhythmical molding building the anticipation. Kisses, at her neck, loud breaths into her ear.
"William," she fought the falling, "the baby."
His dalliances on her flesh ceased as he accepted the need to hold back his urges. She felt him shift behind her, lifting himself up on an elbow to peer over her and take in the astounding view of their amazing child sleeping there on the other side of her.
The man could be so tender, she noted, as she watched his fingers gently slip into the baby's dark curls, trace that tiny, perfect little ear, and then cup his head.
"He is magnificent," William whispered the intimate truth between them.
For a short time, they delighted in him.
William broke the spell, saying what she already knew. "If he wakes up in his mother's arms like this, he will never…" William wondered at his own reaction momentarily, as if HE were that tiny baby, so lucky, so loved, "Tasting such magic will be irresistible. He won't want to sleep alone… ever again."
"Yes, likely true," she thought. Her sigh told him she knew he was right.
"I'll take him back," William offered, his body already moving behind her. He crawled out of his side of the bed, came around to her side to pick up the baby. "Come here you wee one," he said warmly to the sleeping boy as he slipped his arms under the toddler and lifted him, tucking the baby boy to rest against his own naked chest. The slightest stirring in the child immediately subsided. William leaned down and kissed his son's head as he carried him to his room. "You're my Little Man, hmm? You had such a nice dream, sleeping with your Mommy and Daddy?" he asked the baby.
Julia found her want for her husband only growing stronger while she waited for his return. Her mind flashed the images of what could soon happen between them, seeing herself under him, him thrusting forcefully, such a robust, pounding, rhythm. Her womb tweaked with the sparks of the longing. Still lying on her side, naked, her back turned to him, she heard him return, close the door, approach. His pause at the edge of the bed, too long. "He's taking off his pajama bottoms!" her brain yelled it in her head and her insides torqued.
The mattress dropped under his weight as he climbed under the covers and came to her.
"William Henry Murdoch," she teased him deliciously, "Where are your pants?" she asked as his skin contacted hers, erupted hers. "Oh God, this was going to be good," her breathless inner voice promised, "very, very good…"
"I didn't think I needed any," came his raspy reply in her ear…
The cadence, the words, reminiscent of that first time so many years ago, back then the question posed to him, on those picnic blankets on the twilighted summer grass of the park, had been about prophylactics. How different things might have been if he had had a condom with him that first night, if he had brought one along with the bottle of absinthe, and the sugar cubes, and the glasses. Of course, if he had, then he would NOT have been William Murdoch, and if he were not this rare, and wondrous, and modest, and buttoned-up William Murdoch she had come to adore, come to love more than life itself, then they never would have ended up here in this wonderful bed together as man and wife, seeming, at least at this very moment, to be living happily ever after.
) (
February came, and it seemed that crime had become frozen still with all the rest of the world. William took advantage of the lull to re-examine the clues in his one unsolved case from last year – the Body Dumper case. All the clues still chalked out on his drawing board downstairs in his workroom, he considered asking Julia to come down, after her shower, and look it over with him. They had asked Claire-Marie to stay on until suppertime to allow Julia to freshen up – the morgue odor had been particularly strong today, he remembered. Stationhouse #1's Inspector McWorthy had sent her a body to autopsy, the dead man found frozen solid in amongst a bunch of pigs in a pigpen. It had reeked terribly once it had defrosted. "Sometimes her chosen profession DID stand out as… unconventional, to say the very least," he sighed to himself, thinking of the dogged attacks from the newspapers…
William's eyes, his mind, turned back to the drawing board, changing the subject, "She always had a way of seeing something…" he thought, something that he hadn't, or at least she sparked his brain to consider things in a way that he hadn't seen them on his own. "She was right – they made a good team," he nodded to himself, clamping is lips together. His eyes stuck on the drawing of the oddly-shaped, large bruise that had been on the victim's thigh, cleverly revealed by his ultra-violet light photography. It was an older injury, undetectable with the naked eye. The man had survived the trauma. William had always figured it was from some sort of machine… "It was so symmetrical," a circle surrounded by four other near circles… "But maybe… well," the thought haunted a little, "Nature has a symmetry to it too…"
Upstairs, crying… wailing – the baby!
William dashed so fast he wouldn't remember his feet touching the ground.
Him up the stairs…
Julia down the stairs…
From the living room…
Julia already showered – dressed.
Claire-Marie had the boy.
On the floor, rocking him…
Next to the coffee table.
Julia swooped in so fast, mama bear to her cub. Baby in her arms, her bosom, the boy already quieter…
William saw the child's face, so red, streaked with tears. He cuddled the boy's head, rubbed at his shoulder.
Julia's voice, like in a dream, astoundingly loving, warm, reassuring…
"You're alright…" closer to the boy's little ear, "Shhh, Little One, you're alright. Shhh, breathe baby, breathe…" soft, a kiss.
Whew, he was calming.
Eloise appeared at the living room entrance. The housekeeper shared a knowing look with the detective, then a nod. She went back to the kitchen.
William reached a hand down to Claire-Marie, helping her up from the floor.
"He hit his head," the nanny touched her own head at the hairline of her forehead showing the location, "On the corner… the corner there," Claire-Marie pointed to the squared-off, pointy edge of the coffee table, "On the corner of the coffee table," she hurried to explain.
BOOM, it was as if the earth shifted underneath their feet.
Julia suddenly raged at the nanny, hugging her boy tighter, "He shouldn't be running around in here in the first place! You shouldn't have let him! You let him run – run all around…" Julia's arm, her eyes, flapped about to exaggerate the extent, "all throughout the whole house…" fierce, her livid look was back piercing into Claire-Marie, "Why did we even bother making him a playroom!? What were you thinking? Honestly, I don't think you think at all…"
"Julia," William's shock at her outburst took the air of a reprimand. He quickly corrected his tone, lowered his voice seeking to sound reasonable, "Babies get hurt sometimes…"
The glare he received cut his throat shut.
The silence hung.
William held her eye, neither looking away, her furious – fuming, him confused – deer in the trainlights.
Julia huffed and then shifted, moving her little William Jr. away from her chest to examine the wound at the top of his forehead. She took a deep breath and her fiery eyes cooled as she lifted one of the toddler's curls to the side to see the huge, egg-sized lump in the light.
No blood, it seemed everyone breathed with relief.
Julia carefully rubbed her fingers over the bump, able to feel at its center a harder, thin, vertical line, where the coffee table edge had hit, the mark already darkening in color. "There is a lot of blood-flow to the head – such injuries always swell," her doctor brain tried to handle the fear. Yet, unable to help herself upon seeing her beautiful little baby boy hurt, she found Claire-Marie's terrified face once more. "You are useless here. I will take care of this. You might as well go," she barked at the poor nanny.
William felt Claire-Marie's desperate gaze turn to him, but he lingered his eyes on his wife's face, working to detect her anger, to decide…
He turned to Claire-Marie and said, thinking he was the voice of reason, and that the young woman needed some reassurance, "It's alright. We, we will… um…" his eyes darted back to look at Julia and ask her, "He will need some ice?"
Fire with her exhale, she fought to stay in control, "Yes," she snapped. Her attention back to the baby, she comforted, "It will get better, sweetie. It's going to be alright. I promise," and then she tenderly gave the rock-hard lump a motherly kiss.
"Thank you for staying late…" William said to Claire-Marie, telling himself in his head to ignore his wife's huff in the background. He reminded, hoping to offer the young nanny a glimmer of security, "You'll be around over the weekend, in case the doctor and I are needed?" he waited for her nod. "Good," the detective's clamped lips and slight bow…
She found the man to be so winsome, the noticing made her insides curl…
"Monday morning then," he warmly concluded.
"Yes," the simple answer from Claire-Marie. Right before taking her leave, she hesitated, considering whether or not to address Dr. Ogden. Instead, she spoke to William Jr., "Good night Master Murdoch…"
And truth be told, if two-year-old, big, beautiful, brown eyes could talk, his eyes said that he still loved her…
And Claire-Marie's eyes instantly teared up, and she rushed away.
Oh, there was no doubt about it, William and Julia were about to have a humungous fight, and they both knew it.
"Be careful, William," Julia warned once they were alone.
"Julia," he steadied, being the sensible, levelheaded one…
"Don't you dare say I'm coddling him too much…" she advised.
And it felt as if her gritted teeth and the rising squeakiness in her throat, along with the tiniest hint of the threat of tears in her pretty blue eyes, all contradicted with each other, anger and helplessness and embarrassment swirling into a sort of powerless, blinding, steam.
It was decided between them then, not a word spoken, to deal with it later. They brought William Jr. into the kitchen, the plan that, there, Julia would treat him.
)
William and Julia had managed to remain civil with each other, keeping their impending argument at bay, at least until after William Jr. had been tucked into bed snuggly to sleep for the night. Prior to that, throughout the passing few hours, William had made a few efforts to appease, all of them failing. Now, with the two of them readying for bed in silence, he found himself working it through in his head, planning to be prepared for the looming… discussion.
William had noticed that Julia had been uncommonly touchy lately, and he ventured to explore, more consciously now in the wake of Julia's outburst at Claire-Marie, what could be the cause of her moodiness. Planning to start by going back to what may have been the stimulus of her upset, he remembered back to the first time he had noticed it – Julia's prickliness, arriving to a memory of a short exchange between the two of them at the morgue earlier in the week. She had not wanted to do an anaerobic toxin test that he had wanted her to do. They had bantered about it a bit, back and forth. At one point out of the blue, Julia had lost her patience with him, to the degree that she had practically stomped her foot to the floor in challenging him. So, he had backed down, and then she had given a little bit, saying that she was tired, and 'perhaps she needed some rest.' He had tried to settle the disquiet between them, agreeing that that would 'probably be for the best,' and suggesting that he take her home… She had quipped all of a sudden, "Don't you tell me what's best for me, William!" He remembered his surprise at the time, thinking that it wasn't like her to take offense so easily.
Then he thought it! "Dr. Restell's anniversary of being found guilty – that was not that long ago!" he declared the discovery in his head remembering sitting at his desk in his office reading the myriad of newspaper stories about it. The doctor had been sentenced to be hung – just like Julia had been, after the trial for Darcy's murder, but in this trial, Dr. Restell had been found guilty for murder as a result of his performing abortions – certainly a touchy subject in Julia's case. And, of course, there were all those awful newspaper stories, once again scapegoating Julia. "THAT," he figured, "that was likely the cause of her impatience and grumpiness."
But then, the memory popping up to make him hesitate in drawing his conclusions, for there were still more clues to consider, he remembered their making love downstairs on the dining room table. That had been too long ago to be relevant now," he thought, "back right after Gillies had terrorized them," one side of his brain argued. "But there had been a resurgence, lately, of that kind of wild lovemaking. And he hadn't recently almost been killed…" he reasoned on in his head, his having had been in recent serious danger and that triggering Julia's resurgent fear of losing him the usual event that stirred up such passionate reactions to their making love. "As a matter of fact, there were practically no cases at all recently, and their lovemaking was still so remarkably powerful, and afterwards, Julia almost always collapsed into heavy sobbing, a testament to the extreme degrees of her emotions and her physical exertion, of her having had extended her body's sexual efforts to its limit, utter exhaustion completely overwhelming her… It was delicious, but it was… different, lately," the other side of his brain countered.
Another thought added, "There was that magical night when she brought the baby to sleep with us in our bed, to warm him up," he remembered, Julia breaking one of their rules. The house had gotten freezing cold because the boiler had broken – the boiler that was installed following HIS invention designs… "She didn't get grumpy about that," he wondered on hindsight. The beautiful sight fired in his mind's eye again, of his wife, Julia Ogden, the love of his life, lying naked in their bed with their baby tucked close. Quickly behind it came the memory of the last real hope they had had of adopting a baby – this time a baby girl, slipping through their fingers. And Julia's longing for another baby was so strong it hurt him to his core to think that they would fail, the Catholic orphanage board members… cancelling their interview because of the news stories about Gillies, reacting to the danger William Jr. had been placed in, the trauma their little baby had suffered, insult to injury that it was talked about in every paper, and the reliability of their parenting put, once again, in doubt, and on public display. William's heart ached, for her, and for himself. But he was trying to figure out what was bothering Julia, he reminded himself. What did any of this have to do with figuring out what was bothering her? Abruptly, as if his brain was having a temper tantrum, it slammed up another memory, another clue, also from earlier this week. Julia had been uncharacteristically brazen about her desire to make love with him in public. She had been demandingly… lusty… in the morgue, her fierceness, his weakness, bringing them treacherously, dangerously, close to making love, right there, IN THE MORGUE, fully aware that someone could walk in at any moment. His groin reacted with a jolt with the luscious memory of it.
Really, he concluded, frustrated and worried about their imminent discussion, he didn't know which end was up.
Both of them knowing they would not get into bed together still feeling angry, there would be no more avoiding it. William braved bringing it up. "William Jr.'s head didn't seem to be bothering him much," he breached the subject.
"William Jr. would be fine," Julia thought to herself. However, her weighty sigh announced she was dissatisfied with his beating around the bush.
Their eyes met.
William saw the flames.
Forward, the only way to get through it, he said, "Julia, I know we have… there have been conflicts, um… we differ on how rough William Jr.'s play should be," he took a deep breath, "On how much risk is…"
Julia interrupted, "Yes, yes, William. And you always win that fight, don't you? Me, overprotective, and always coddling him too much, so that I'll make him into a softie, and you, you the big man, needing to protect your precious son from that, that… shameful plight… You always knowing better, because you're the man."
Jul…" William failed to get a word in…
"That's not what this is about, William!" her voice rose to a squeak, and her chin jutted out that way that always impressed him, sometimes mesmerized him, with this astounding woman's strength.
She almost heard him blink.
He needed to pay attention, now.
She would lay out the charges against him.
Julia's hands planted firmly on her hips and the look in her eye honed in.
Whoa, the room edged towards moving, a heart-stopping drop, the start of a slow spin.
Julia accused, "You've never been comfortable having servants. You've admitted as much. And now you stand there…" and Julia leaned in to make her point, "and you dare to do it right in front of our son's nanny, you stand there in judgment of me, treating me like I am some sort of arrogant, unappreciative, rich, spoiled tyrant… abusing our servants. Claire-Marie is lenient! She's too lenient with him, and this time he got hurt because of it…"
William tilted in now, laying it on the line, "Julia, you know very well that I am more 'LENIENT' with him than she was when he got hurt, and you don't speak to ME as you spoke to HER tonight."
Instantly, he regretted it. He had upped the ante. His brain hollered at him to backpedal, to pull it back from the brink. "Julia," William's voice lowered, offered. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, trying to yield. "Julia, I felt it unfair that Claire-Marie would be disciplined for doing something that we all very well know I do with him all the time… is all."
He sensed her softening. He stepped closer. "And not once, have I ever thought you were a tyrant." Cautiously, he reached out to take one of her curls in his fingers. William moved slowly, steady, confident but attentive, like he had learned to do when trying to recapture a frightened horse. He stepped in closer still, quieter with the intimacy, William tried to be winsome, "Besides, I would argue that a little girl, just as much as a little boy, needs to take risks… physically, Julia…" William's other hand reached up to cherish her face, the back of his hand, his knuckles sliding along the contours of her cheek, her jawline, his other hand, fingers tucking deeper into her hair, "I know of a girl who rode horses, like a man, quite a while before such things were allowed," he tilted his head – the anticipation of a kiss hovered between them, "And who climbed trees…"
Tingling dread, every nerve to high alert inside his body…
One of Julia's eyebrows lifted up, and her chin jutted defiantly up into the air, and her lips tightened into that familiar and intimidating stubborn, locked, clamp. Her hands shoved into his chest, pushing herself back from him. She had found it inside, what had really infuriated her so much about his coming to Claire-Marie's rescue, and it boiled inside her veins right this very second all over again. The bitterness of it, the distaste of it in her mouth, so unpleasant it made her tone snide as she slowly said, "Don't you try to charm me, mister. Why don't you just admit the REAL reason you stood up for her?" she pushed.
William's hands went wide out to his sides, lost – he was lost. "What?" he pleaded.
"You know very well, 'WHAT!" she steamed…
Suddenly her peering into him felt as if her were under a microscope, tiny and exposed…
Sarcasm peppered her words and she spelled it out for him, "Don't tell me, William, you've never noticed she's young and pretty – and the way she looks at you…"
Oh, William didn't like the way this was going… He needed to put water on this fire right away. "Julia…" But her face locked tight into her disbelief, and he stammered. Worried he would not be able to get her to believe him, he changed tactics midstream, "Julia, YOU noticed that she's young and pretty too. That doesn't mean anything." And unexpectedly, William felt mad. How dare she accuse him of fancying Claire-Marie? His anger flared as he defended, "And you know I have never cared about the way ANY women look at me!" he contended. William felt his own teeth gritting hard in his mouth, and he knew he needed to soften or he would lose her, and so he released the grip and he tried, "That is, except you…"
"So typical, William," she goaded, "You just can't help yourself, for all your goody-goody-ness, you still think with your groin." As far as Julia Ogden was concerned, William Murdoch was dismissed. She would not speak another word to him.
Julia began gathering up the bedding.
He was being sent to the couch for the night.
He followed her about for a few seconds, like a little puppy, arms wide, eyes dark with wishing.
He tried, "Julia… Julia, please. You're not… This isn't making sense…"
Pillow, plowed into his chest, his arms curled around it. The hopelessness was setting in.
"Julia. You're being silly," he argued.
Bam, the blanket added to the pile.
"You know that tomorrow, you're going to regret this…" he tried again…
Wallop, another blanket. Slap, his pajamas to the top of the pile.
William sighed, and his arm twitched with the urge to reach up and rub his brow, limited by being unable to follow through with his arms full of bedding. Acceptance sunk in, and William was himself feeling so angry now, he figured it was probably for the best. He marched into the bathroom and shoved the bedding pile precariously into one arm as he gathered up his toothbrush and shaving items and plopped them into a small travel bag.
"Good night," he snapped to the room as he left.
For her part, Julia stood there realizing that he was right. She was being silly, outright unreasonable, and that infuriated her even more. A part of her thought, with relief, that she had almost said Claire-Marie was just like "the waitress," and she was so very glad she had not. She had to admit that she had never seen William even look twice at Claire-Marie. "Funny," she thought to herself as she reached up and rubbed her own brow, "how his gesture had become hers."
Yes, William was right. But, there was this pride of hers to deal with now, and it was too nauseating to imagine going down to him to apologize. He was a big boy. He could take it. And besides, maybe he would appreciate what he had, more, after a night on the couch anyway, she told herself.
Expecting sleep not to come, after the lamp clicked off into darkness, Julia exhaled and wiggled deeper down into her pillow. Oh, all right, she grumbled to herself in her head, she would have to apologize to Claire-Marie too. That final step taken, she fell off to sleep surprisingly quickly.
)
Down on the couch however, William tossed and turned. He had reached a conclusion, and it was not sitting well. She was pregnant. That would explain all of it. He had seen these exact same… symptoms, he guessed he would call them, but he knew better than to call them that… to her. She had had these exact same symptoms when she was pregnant with William Jr. First, there was the clinginess, she had been very clingy lately, always thinking he would die, or that he would leave her for some reason or another. And there was the constant being angry with him. She was mad at him if he disagreed with her, and she was mad at him if he didn't. William remembered that that was exactly how it felt back then – walking on eggshells. There was no denying that that was what it was like now… again. But the biggest clue, the one he thought was undeniable, was that combination of Julia being exponentially amorous, always wanting him, in that way – and the more public the better, and that heart-pounding drive to make him love her was constantly bumping up against her being jealous. A deep regret landed hard in William's chest, for he had remembered his lustful imaginings back when she was pregnant with William Jr., and he had been tempted, he didn't remember ever deciding to look, to lust after the other woman, "the waitress" – still, to this day, he could not believe that he would do such a thing with Julia sitting right across from him in the restaurant. His heart ripped apart remembering how hard she had cried, how badly he had hurt her. She had had every right to be jealous. He had been an idiot. But, this thing with Claire-Marie – it was completely unfounded. He had reasoned it out in his mind, back the first time she was pregnant, he figured it all came down to a fear, an instinctive and hormonal fear that Julia had, probably most women had, when being with child, a debilitating fear of her being abandoned when she needed him most.
He sighed, flipped over to face the other way on the couch. Well, at least it felt better knowing what was going on. But, the problem was, Julia's being pregnant only made him more anxious. After her Cesarean section to save her life and William Jr.'s, there would be even more scarring in her womb. It was that very scarring that would have gotten them back into this mess, for as a result of IT, they did not think they needed contraception. Clearly, he thought to himself, they had. But, and this was terrifying to him, so much so that he tossed about two more times before grappling with it, she was at an even greater risk of dying this time, the extra scarring limiting the stretch of the uterus, the baby would come early. It would be harder to sew her back up. He couldn't believe it – that he would be in this position again. She needed to have an abortion. The irony of it was unbearable, absolutely unbearable. He didn't think he would sleep a wink.
) (
Surprised that he had ever fallen asleep, William felt himself waking up. Sleep had been a battle, exhaustion had finally won out. It was Saturday. Relief. No work. House to themselves all weekend. William worried about Church tomorrow, if they were still arguing. He was on the couch, he remembered, reality brightening around him. A profound heaviness sunk into him, the feeling before its cause. The thoughts explained the pain, "Julia was pregnant. She would have to have an abortion. She would want to try to have the baby. They would disagree. Already somehow, he knew he would lose the argument…" The thoughts constricted his ability to breathe, surging nausea. Turn away. He heard noises upstairs. William Jr. was awake. Julia was too. Footsteps on the stairs.
William Jr. burst into the living room, flung himself onto his father on the couch, certain there would be roughhousing with Daddy. William would not disappoint.
Julia peaked in from the foyer. "I'll make breakfast," she said, sounding cheery.
)
While she stood at the stove, moving eggs and bacon about in the pan, she told him she was sorry, she admitted he was right, it was an over-reaction to yell at Claire-Marie that way. She would apologize the next time she saw her. She wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him where he sat at the kitchen table, the gesture making William smile.
It felt repaired, better, and William was about to tell her that he thought she was pregnant, but her body beat him to it.
A tremendous wave of nausea overcame Julia, causing her to retch right there at the stove. She managed to curtail the exodus, but bolted for the downstairs bathroom.
William stood from his seat at the table, said to his young son, who was sitting safely secured in his high chair, "I'll be right back," and moved the pan off of the flames on the stove and rushed after her.
Nothing romantic about it, he reached down and took her hair from her clutched fingers as she heaved into the toilet. He was grateful for modern plumbing.
As soon as she was done, she stood, rinsed her mouth and dried it off.
They looked into each other's eyes, and they both knew. And they both saw it in the other – the problem. Julia was ecstatic, euphoric. William was sickened and terrified. They had been here before. And they both knew, the road would not be easy, whichever way they took.
Julia stepped into his arms and said, "Either way we go William, this won't be easy."
"Well," he said, "We'll be going there together, hmm?" and they hugged each other tight.
) (
Nighttime descended, and William and Julia found themselves nearing bedtime once again. William was sure he did not want to sleep on the couch again tonight, and they were still both sore from their fighting last night. However, it did not feel right to get into bed together with the question of Julia's pregnancy, and the disagreement about her having an abortion, still unresolved. They both knew they needed to be careful not to let it flare up into a full-fledged argument, but there was tension, and they did not agree. The best they had been able to come up with was that they would wait until she could be examined by Dr. Tash and take the test before they made any decisions. Yet, Julia had made it clear that last time he had wanted her to have an abortion and they had decided against it, and NOW, now they were beyond grateful for their having had made that decision. To William, it felt as if she had already won.
William lifted the covers and slipped into bed with her. She settled her head down on his chest. Before he turned off the lamp, he said, seeking a bright side to going through with trying to have the baby, despite his fear, "Perhaps when the world, when all the papers, hear about your pregnancy it will abate all the badgering about our using contraception and the troubles and criticisms with our adopting. We'll be back to being the storybook couple."
She could tell, without being able to see his face, that he had wrinkled up a corner of his mouth, admitting that he was doubtful, and admitting that he was hurting too, she thought.
He reached over and tugged on the string on his lamp that brought the darkness.
She felt his lips nestle down into her hair on the top of her head. She loved the way he slowly smelled her. She wondered if they would make love.
His voice in the dark, "I guess you're right, we might as well wait and see if the rabbit dies."
It was a relief, knowing that they would not fight, at least not tonight.
Julia had an idea, a way to rely on their shared love of learning, and of science, and to use it to repair and bridge the bitterness between them. She would spew amazing scientific facts at him, facts related to the topic at hand, to what William had just said about testing to see if a woman is pregnant with a rabbit. An association suddenly tickled her mind with the memory of floating up into the sky with him in that colorful, magnificent, hot air balloon, him doing just that at the time – spewing scientific facts to strengthen their connection. Julia heard their conversation in her head, William's beautiful, perfect, voice asking her, "Doctor, are you familiar with the details of the first recorded flight of a hot-air balloon?" and her, so sure he would be impressed, rattling off the answer, "Pilâtre de Rozier from the center of Paris on November 21, 1783." It had stolen her breath away when he replied, back then, "Ah," the deliciously cocky side of William Henry Murdoch becoming revealed, "That was the first manned flight. Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier launched one two months before that. The passengers were a duck, a sheep, and a rooster," he had gloated. It had been glorious – and my, she loved this man so. "Interesting," she noted to herself, hoping he was not drifting off to sleep yet, "They had had a huge, relationship-altering argument before he had leapt into that balloon with her back then, too…" And somehow, Julia just knew it then as she knew it now, that the wind would take care of them.
Her voice broke the peaceful silence, "Actually William, the rabbit always dies. It's a misconception that the rabbit only dies if the woman is pregnant…"
"Oh…?" he asked.
She had his interest.
"A pregnant woman's urine will cause the female rabbit's ovaries to swell, but the rabbit must be sacrificed to examine the ovaries, so…"
And he finished her sentence for her, "So, the rabbit always dies." William pinched his lips together, "Not so good for the rabbit."
"No," she smiled and rolled up to give him a kiss, "No, William, it isn't," she giggled, and then Julia snuggled back down. They would not be making love tonight, they were both thoroughly exhausted, but they were together, and they would be alright…
The rabbit, however… Not so much.
)) ((
