13. Looking In.

She was the stereotypical image of what American beauty was modeled after, she was tall and thin with just enough muscles in her calves and arms to be considered tone but not bulky, her hair cascaded down her back in light brown waves to frame her oval face and compliment her pale white complexion while accentuating her deep green eyes that sparkled with flecks of gray to give her a haunting yet inviting aurora. Perhaps it was because her womanly curves didn’t sexually stigmatize her until she was just beginning her second decade of life that she didn’t play the field and use her appeal to chase men and delve into her carnal appetite that always tempted and teased the forbidden fantasies that she kept tucked away because she knew it wasn’t proper for a woman in her social position. Or maybe it was because she found the love of her life when she was just 16, that Julie Deacon never knew that men could be the source of utmost please and happiness and also the cause of hopeless despair and overwhelming grief. She believed in true, soul mate love and trusted in the vows that she took when she was 19 that in sickness and health, good times and bad, she and Bill would stay together. So when after 22 years of marriage, Julie Deacon found out she had breast cancer, it never crossed her mind that Bill would leave her. But as it was, she found herself sitting in a cold, sterile hospital room at the end of her first chemo treatment listlessly staring out the window wondering what went wrong. She vaguely noticed her three adult children walk into the room and sit beside her as she continued to process the events that transpired to end the life she built for herself. Julie gave the occasional nod and smile as her children chatted about their kids and jobs and office scandals in every effort to keep their mother’s mind occupied to prevent her from asking them the inevitable question about their father. Julie’s mind often invented reasons why her husband chose that particular moment to leave when he did.

* * * * * *

Elizabeth Marshall's face flushed as she put Tales of the Upper East side: An Inside Look From An Outsider, her son's first best selling book on her end table. She tightened the shawl around her shoulders and stared out the window and watched as heavy drops of rain fell and ricocheted against the leaves of her favorite orchid plant. Elizabeth studied the crystal balls that lingered on the purple and white striped petal of her prize winning Paphiopedilum Fairrieanum before free falling to the ground where it mixed with the earth. It was in this moment that Elizabeth Marshall realized that her body mimicked the storm brewing outside as she her own tears began to fall, slowly at first and then unrestrained and uninhibited as she released the pain of memories she buried long ago about family secret that were never supposed to surface; and the betrayal of the only child she ever had, a son she cared for when no one else would; and the sadness that consumed her tiny frame as she heaved and sobbed searching her mind for reasons why Trevor chose to expose and hurt her in such a public and extravagant way, but above all else she wondered what she ever did to deserve this.