Against All Odds

by Danielle Steel

  “I had a nice time,” she said nervously, pretending she didn’t notice his tone. “The baby is very cute.” And Izzie was crazy about him. She was blossoming as a mother, and very good at it.

  “I stayed home to welcome you back,” Peter said to her, and then forced her down on the kitchen floor, tore her clothes off, and raped her as he banged her head into the floor. She saw stars and was half conscious when he stopped. “I keep telling you to stop running home to Mommy, and you just don’t listen, do you?” he said as she struggled to get up and was dizzy when she did. She couldn’t believe he would do that to her. She had married a monster, and she was afraid of him now. She wished she had never come back. She went to her bathroom to clean herself up, and looked at the clothes he had torn off her. He came into her bathroom then, and turned on the water for a bath. “Let’s take a bath together. I always love it when we do that,” he said, in a silky tone, oblivious to what he had just done to her on the kitchen floor without remorse.

  “I’ll take a shower in a few minutes,” she said, trying not to let him see her cry. He was worse when he knew he’d hurt her.

  “No, we’re taking a bath.” He turned the water off when the tub was full, took off his clothes and got in, and handed her into it with him. She didn’t want to be in the bath with him, but she was afraid to object. All she wanted to do was get away from him now. He waited until she sat down and tried to relax, and then he grabbed her by the neck, and held her head underwater until she was fighting and clawing at him and was sure he was going to drown her, and then he pulled her head up by her hair. “Are you going to learn your lessons now? Are you going to listen to me when I tell you that you can’t go somewhere? And if you tell your family a word about this, I’ll kill you.” She was sobbing as she looked at him, as she coughed and sputtered the water she had swallowed. He climbed out of the bath then, wrapped himself in a towel, and walked out of the room as Julie sat there and sobbed. Julie knew then that he was insane.

  —

  When Justin drove back to Vermont after seeing his new nephew, he was excited thinking about their own second baby, due in six months. It was easier than the first time, because they knew what to expect. And they trusted Shirley, so her second surrogacy for them was smooth as silk. And she’d had no problems with the pregnancy. Justin had left Milagra with Richard when he’d gone to visit Izzie over the weekend, and he was glad he’d seen Julie, although he still thought something about her was strange. She seemed different to her family. Maybe his mother was right, and she was just adjusting to marriage. She said she loved L.A., although they had no friends there yet. She said Peter worked too hard to go out much, and he had a lot to learn about the office in L.A., and was tired at night.

  Justin had told Richard he’d be back late that night, but he had left New York a few hours earlier than planned so he could spend the evening with Richard, and be there before Milagra went to bed. He loved playing with her. At seven months, she was a lively, happy baby, and she was crawling everywhere. They’d had to childproof every inch of their home. There were corner guards on every piece of furniture, everything was bolted, locked, or shut down, including the toilets, since they had read about near drownings with toddlers falling into them head down and getting stuck. He and Richard were the poster boys for a childproof home and were devoted parents.

  Justin pulled into the driveway at six o’clock, and the lights were off. He didn’t know where Richard would have gone, but he hadn’t called to say he was coming back early. He’d wanted to surprise him. And as he walked in, he turned the kitchen lights on and bounded up the stairs to their bedroom, but thought he heard Milagra in her room. He found her in her crib and picked her up. She’d been having a nap, and he walked into his own room, with the baby in his arms, flipped on the light, and then stood rooted to the spot, when he saw Richard in bed with another man. Justin didn’t even know what to say, he was so stunned. Richard turned to look at him and closed his eyes, as the other man leapt out of bed. Justin recognized him as one of the teaching assistants at the school where Richard taught. He looked about twenty-six years old.

  “What the hell is this?” Justin said, staring at them both as the younger man pulled his pants on and looked panicked, and Richard got out of bed with a devastated expression.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say, as the teaching assistant rushed past Justin and ran down the stairs and out the front door.

  “You do this with our baby in the next room?” Justin said in a fury to Richard. “What the fuck is wrong with you? And how long has this been going on?”

  Richard knew it was time to be honest with him. “Since Christmas. A few months. He’s just a kid.” Richard looked mortally embarrassed to have been caught. And Milagra was cooing at both of them.

  “And you’re an asshole. And you let us start another baby with Shirley while you were sleeping with someone else?”

  “I told you we should wait,” Richard said as he sat down on the bed again.

  “Why? So you could have another baby with him? Are you in love with him?”

  “No, it was just fun for a while. Everything has gotten so serious with us. We never get to have fun anymore. We’re always parenting or trying to save money. I feel like we’ve given our whole life up for her.” He glanced at the baby in Justin’s arms and felt guilty for what he’d said, but it was the truth. “And now you want another one. I’m not ready to give up my whole life for kids. I feel like we’ve lost each other and all we have left is her.” Justin stared at him in dismay.

  “Why didn’t you say something before you started sleeping with other people?”

  “He’s the only one,” Richard said. “I’m sorry, Just. I feel overwhelmed. I’m tired of being broke, being a father, and never having any fun.” Justin listened to him and went to put the baby in her crib without saying a word, and then came back into the room. By then Richard was dressed. The two men looked at each other in despair.

  “Now what?” Justin said to him as he sat down in a chair. “We can’t give her back, and I don’t want to.”

  “Neither do I. It’s just so relentless. We never get away from it.”

  “That’s what parenthood is. It’s not part-time. You either are or you aren’t. And we can’t afford a nanny.”

  “Maybe we should have waited,” Richard said.

  “I thought you were ready.” Justin looked at him, wondering if this was the end. He was so shocked by what he had walked in on that he didn’t even know what he felt. Sad, hurt, surprised, disgusted, angry. They had a second baby on the way, and Richard was already tired of the first one. It didn’t bode well for their future together.

  “You wanted it more than I did,” Richard said accusingly.

  “I guess I didn’t understand that. So what do we do now? It’s too late for Shirley to have an abortion. And I wouldn’t let her anyway. I want the baby. You don’t have to be part of it if you don’t want to.”

  “I think we need a break,” Richard said quietly. Justin had figured out that much when he had walked into their bedroom that night. “I’ll move out.” Justin nodded and went downstairs to regain his composure, and then returned upstairs to take care of their daughter. Justin slept in Milagra’s room that night, on the floor. And the next morning when Richard left for work, he took a bag with him. He had packed the night before after they talked. Justin could hear him moving around in their room until late. Neither of them had gotten much sleep.

  Richard looked at Justin feeding Milagra breakfast, and he was happy to be free of it for a while. Justin didn’t know if he’d ever feel the same way about him again. He thought it was pathetic that Richard was sleeping with a young guy, instead of growing up and being the father he had promised to be. He was thirty-seven, not a kid. The kid was the one he was sleeping with.

  “I’m sorry,” he said before he left.

  “So am I,” Justin said coldly, and then burst into tears after he was gone, but that would
n’t change anything. He had decided not to tell Shirley for a while, because he didn’t want to upset her and make her feel her money wouldn’t be paid as regularly. Whatever it took, Justin was going to handle it all on his own. When his work sold, sometimes he made more than Richard did.

  He put the baby down for her morning nap and waited till a decent hour to call Julie in California, when Peter would have left for work. He had just gone when Justin reached her and told her what had happened and what Richard had said. She was shocked and sympathetic and sounded like she had a cold. He was so upset, he didn’t realize she’d been crying.

  “Maybe he’s just scared of all the responsibility,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, I guess, but he should have said something before it got to this. The baby will be born in six months.”

  “Are you still going to go through with it?” Julie was worried for him.

  “Of course.” She admired him for that. He had no doubts about it, unlike Richard.

  After they talked about it for a while, he thought Julie sounded strange. Sad and subdued. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired. We were up late last night.” But he’d had the same impression in New York. She seemed different and down. They talked about Izzie’s baby then. She named him Thomas Zachary, after her own father and the baby’s, and Kate was pleased.

  “Is everything okay with Peter?” He was just checking.

  “Of course,” she said blithely, but some strange ripple in Justin’s gut made him wonder. He knew his twin like his own soul.

  “Well, that’s the news from here,” he said, depressed about his own problems, and he was beginning to think he would never be able to finish his novel, especially with a new baby coming, and a toddler in the house by then. Milagra kept him running even now, crawling everywhere.

  Shirley figured it out for herself three weeks later, when every time she dropped by, even in the evening, Richard was never there, and Justin was managing Milagra alone. It was mid-April by then, she was almost four months pregnant, and they would know the baby’s sex at the next sonogram.

  “Do you still want this one?” she asked him, pointing to her belly, when Justin finally admitted that he and Richard had split up.

  “Yes, I do,” he said seriously. “Breaking up with Richard doesn’t change anything for me.” She nodded, relieved to hear it. She had suspected something was wrong for several weeks.

  “Is it over for you two?” She felt sorry for him. He was a friendly, warm person. They both were, although they had very different personalities. Richard was more frivolous and fun, and Justin warmer, more responsible, and nurturing.

  “I don’t think either of us knows if this is permanent or not,” Justin said sadly. “For now, we’re taking a break.” They weren’t seeing each other. They had agreed not to. Richard visited Milagra once a week, which was all he wanted. Justin hadn’t said anything to his mother, or his other siblings about it, and he’d asked Julie not to. He was always closer to her and she knew all his secrets, as he did hers, or he used to. Now that she was married, she wasn’t telling him anything, and all she ever said when they talked was that everything was “fine.” His gut told him something different, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, or even guess. And Peter was always so perfect that it couldn’t be him. Maybe their mother was right and she was just homesick, or adjusting to marriage, but she sounded strange to her twin. He had an uneasy feeling, but nothing to base it on, so he ignored it.

  When Kate called Julie a few weeks after that, in early May, she was worried about her. She mentioned it to Izzie, who hadn’t noticed anything when she saw her, but Julie called her less often now. Kate was suddenly reminded of when Julie was a little girl and hated school because the kids were teasing her about her reading, and bullying her, and she didn’t tell anyone about it. She was afraid to, and ashamed then.

  “Has Julie said anything to you?” Kate asked Izzie, when she came to visit Tommy one day and have dinner. Izzie had hired a nanny and gone back to work by then.

  “No, she seems fine,” Izzie said, looking surprised. And the next day, Kate called Justin and asked him. He always knew what was happening with Julie even though he didn’t always tell her.

  “She says she’s okay, but I thought she sounded down, and kind of distracted. I haven’t talked to her this week. I’ve been working on my novel again when the baby sleeps, so she’s been texting me.”

  “Maybe you should call her. I talked to her the other day and she sounded odd to me. I hate that she’s so far away.” She liked laying eyes on her chicks, which always told her a lot more than what they said to her. And she was worried about Julie and didn’t know why.

  Justin called Julie the next day at noon California time and she sounded like she’d been crying, but she said she had a cold when he asked her about it. The previous time she said she had allergies.

  “You wouldn’t lie to your older brother, would you?” he teased her, trying to listen intently to any clue in her voice.

  “You’re only five minutes older, you jerk.” She laughed and wiped away the tears that he had heard and she’d denied. Peter had hit her again before he left for work. He had accused her of flirting with the neighbor, which wasn’t true. She’d gone swimming the day before and worn a bikini, and Peter had come home and seen it, and accused her of sleeping with him. Peter was no longer someone she even remotely knew. After four months of marriage, he had become truly terrifying. He was a monster. Now he made her read to him every day and when she made a mistake he would laugh at her and tell her how stupid she was and then hit her. It only made it worse. And Peter had hit her hard that morning. Her ear was still ringing. Her life was a nightmare and she was afraid to leave. If he found her, he’d kill her. He said so and she believed him.

  After she and Justin hung up, she went to her computer and looked something up on Google. She knew it had to be there somewhere, and it took her less than a minute to find it. She wrote down an address on a piece of paper and left the house on foot. She caught a cab in front of a hotel nearby. And twenty minutes later she was at a church in a run-down part of Hollywood. She walked inside and down a flight of stairs to the basement. She didn’t know what else to do. It was an anonymous twelve-step group for abused women she had found online. Justin questioning her had made her think of it. She was afraid of Peter all the time now. Julie knew that, for now, the group was her only hope. She didn’t even dare tell her family what he was doing to her. And they were too far away to help her. She had nowhere to go.

  Chapter 21

  After Julie started going to the twelve-step group, she got insights from the program and the other women there. Their stories were much like hers. Some of their partners had started out as loving as Peter had been, to lure them in, and then changed. All were excessively controlling, and had isolated their victims.

  A sign on the wall of the dingy meeting room said “Abuse is a disease of isolation.” Another said “An abuser never loses sight of his prey.” Several of the women had gotten away from their abusers, and had been lured back. They were being physically and emotionally abused and were ashamed of it. Some were already out of it, but at risk for going back. Others were too afraid to leave. Their abusers told them it was their fault and they believed them. And many, like Julie, thought that if they just stuck it out, it would get better, like it had been in the beginning. It was hard for them to accept it never would. Julie couldn’t understand how somebody could change so radically after they got married. This couldn’t be the real Peter. But she had no support system, no friends locally, no family, she was totally at his mercy.

  The women in the group told her that men like him set it up that way, and usually chose innocent, gentle women who couldn’t defend themselves against the onslaught of abuse. They also told her that 75 percent of men and women who threatened to kill their partners actually did. Peter threatened to kill her all the time. He had held her head under
water in the pool when no one else was around, just as he had in the bathtub. He slapped her now, hard, whenever he didn’t like what she said. He humiliated her. He told her that if she ever told anyone, especially her family, or called the police, he would know and kill her, and she believed him. She was afraid their landline and her cellphone were being tapped. Her life had become a living hell. He rarely left marks on her except for occasional bruises no one could see, and she felt dead inside. He raped her whenever he wanted, and preferred to take her by force than consensually. Whenever she pretended to be willing, he lost interest. He had beaten her once with a whip he had bought for that purpose and tied her to the bed, and gagged her when she tried to scream. Every day she was less sure of herself and more afraid to leave.

  Going to the group helped her deal with him better, and not provoke him. She tried not to let him bully her, but his punishments were getting worse. And he was angrier when she resisted his beatings or refused to be cowed by him. And she was still too afraid to leave. There was no one she could run to in L.A., and she was too embarrassed to go to a safe house for abused women, and what if he found her there? She had less money to run away with because she wasn’t working, and he didn’t give her any. She felt like there was a glass prison around her that no one else could see and she couldn’t escape. He had told her that if she ran away, wherever she went, he would find her. He had taken her credit cards away so she couldn’t buy a plane ticket to escape. He knew she would try to go home to her family sooner or later. He shamed her constantly, and her dyslexia had gotten much worse. In her constant state of anxiety, she could hardly read street signs anymore. He threatened to take away her cellphone, but he didn’t so he could call her constantly and ask where she was. But he told her he would know if she called her family and told them anything about him. So she said nothing to them. She realized now that he had moved to L.A. to force her into marriage, and get her away from her family and her job. He had stolen her life from her.