Chapter 10: Old Wounds Healed.
For the second time in as many days, Junie found herself staring at her phone with distaste. The caller ID said it was her ex-husband, Greg. She let it go to message. There was no way she was going to speak to him if there was any way to avoid it. Every time she spoke to him, it always seemed to end up with him yelling and calling her names.
A nagging worry that something might be wrong with one of her children wormed its way through her consciousness as she accessed the message. She reassured herself that the message was not marked urgent.
The message was vague, a demand she call back as soon as possible regarding Tammi, their daughter. Junie pursed her lips in irritation. She had been in email contact with her daughter and both her sons letting them know that she had moved and telling them if they needed anything or just wanted to talk they could call her or email her back. She had gotten a couple of short dutiful answers from one son and her daughter, but had heard from neither of them in a month or so. Her oldest was in the military and seemed too busy or just too lazy to respond.
Junie straightened her shoulders and dialed Greg back. "Greg, this is Junie. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"How come you didn't tell me you were moving?"
Junie took a deep breath and blinked, determined to not let him get her upset. And yet at the same time deciding that he was not going to bully her this time. "Greg, I can't see how where I choose to live is any of your business. Your message said you needed to talk about Tammi."
"We need to talk."
"About Tammi?"
He exploded over the phone, "Fuck yes, about Tammi. If you were here maybe you would know a little more about what's going on with your daughter."
Junie forced her voice to remain even. "Greg, if you cannot discuss this civilly I will hang up. And I have been in contact with Tammi. She wrote me a nice letter about how school was going. You and I both know that you did nothing to encourage our kids to spend time with me."
"Well she wants to move out and get a place of her own."
"Well, she is turning nineteen in just a month, maybe it is time for her to move out. I don't see why you called me about this. I haven't had any influence in her decisions since she moved in with you."
Greg's voice was taking on his old familiar tones of sarcasm and rage, "Nineteen or not, she is not ready to be out on her own. When was the last time you even laid eyes on her?"
Junie paused, a tiny tremor of guilt shaking her, "I don't know, maybe six or seven months. It was Thanksgiving, I think. You took her abroad at Christmas." The painful truth was that she had only seen her daughter a couple of times in the last year and then their meetings had been formal and strained. It felt like she hardly knew the young woman her daughter had grown up to be. "She seemed fine then."
All her children had taken after their father, with his strong Mediterranean features and thick curly black hair. Junie had been silently delighted that all three of them had grown up tall and slim like him as well, though her daughter had inherited her large, expressive, brown eyes.
Greg's voice was harsh and accusing, "Well, she is not fine. She did not go abroad at Christmas. She was in the hospital. She has been in the hospital twice more since then. Tammi has an eating disorder; she keeps making herself throw up."
Junie felt a wave of rage and guilt flow through her. "Why didn't you call me? Why did you keep this from me?"
Greg fell silent on the phone and then abruptly attacked, "And what good do you think you could have been? What would you have done, cooked her something? Maybe those amazing double fudge brownies of yours or maybe a cake? Or those truffles that everyone raves about. That would have been fucking brilliant! And I sure as hell did not want you fucking visiting, walking, no, waddling into a fucking eating disorder clinic with a big plate of food. That would have been rich! You stupid fat cow!"
Junie hung up and raised her hand to throw her phone across her sewing room, but stopped herself and carefully put it down on the table.
Her whole body hurt like each of his words had struck her like fists. Greg had never laid a hand on her in anger, but he always could destroy her with his words.
Junie found herself shaking so hard that it was hard to turn and walk up the stairs; blindly, almost instinctively, seeking the shelter of her owners' arms.
Donna was curled up on the couch reading when Junie threw herself on the floor at her feet and buried her face in her Mistress's lap. Junie wrapped her arms around Donna's waist in a frenzied grip. Still too much in shock to cry, she just hung on, her whole body convulsed with spasms of grief and rage.
Donna had dropped her book and was holding her close. "Baby, what's the matter? What happened?"
It seemed like her words were the key to the flood gates and Junie burst into tears. Donna kept her hold on Junie and crooned and rocked until the worst was over and then she prompted again, "Tell me about what has happened."
In a quavering voice Junie told about her phone conversation with her ex-husband, not leaving out anything. When she said the last part where he had called her a 'fat cow', she could feel Donna's body flinch and tense with rage, but Donna's voice remained calm and gentle, "Good job telling me the whole thing. Now take a deep breath and tell me about your daughter."
"About Tammi?"
"Yes, what was she like as a baby? Was she good in school? Tell me all about her."
Junie looked at her Mistress somewhat distracted and bemused, "She was the cutest baby. She had her father's curly dark hair and my eyes. She had the hugest brown eyes." Junie smiled at the memory, "She was a little butterball, with the cutest dimples and those rings around her wrists and ankles that fat babies get. She was so good, so quiet. She almost never cried." Junie's smile faltered and collapsed. "All her baby pictures that I had were in my filing cabinet. That man burnt them all up. All my pictures were in there."
Taking a big shaky breath Junie forced herself to move on, "Anyway, she was a smart baby, too, even if she didn't talk much. And she didn't stay fat. She turned out to be very athletic. We put her into dance and gymnastic classes. She was a cheerleader in high school. She was always her daddy's little girl. The separations and divorce were really hard on her. She became pretty withdrawn and really threw herself into her school activities. She wouldn't talk to me much."
Junie stopped and rubbed her face, a quiver of sadness shaking her. "And I was pretty depressed then, too. When she asked to go live with her dad, I didn't fight it. I am ashamed to say that in a lot of ways I was glad she went. I told myself that she would be better off with him than with me." A tiny tired hiccup of a sob shook Junie's voice, "I didn't act like I wanted her. There I was dying inside because I felt like no one cared about me and I was doing the same thing to her."
