Julia

by Marty Sorensen

  Chapter 2 - 1960

  Elizabeth Frances Stuart looked out over the water as the Eastern Airlines Douglas DC-6 floated low over Rockaway Beach and landed smoothly at Idyllwild airport in clear skies with a westerly breeze. She took her coat from the overhead rack, and walked straight from the airplane stairway out though the terminal to the waiting line of taxis. “Park Avenue and 85th Street.”

  She got out of the taxi and looked at the imposing four story grey stone townhouse. The cold Atlantic air made Elizabeth pull her pull her coat tight around her and button it up. The chandelier shone in the window of her father’s office, as he no doubt scrutinized his return on investment. He waited up there, his anger radiating out the window, as if he already knew what she had to confess.

  She turned back to the street and raised her arm for another cab. “60th and Madison, Please. Between Madison and Park.”

  Elizabeth entered Midtown Internal Medicine and smiled formally at the receptionist wearing a starched white nurse’s uniform and cap at. “I would like to see Dr. Rivlin, please.”

  The young woman, with dark red hair and no makeup, put her finger on the open pages of a large thick appointment book. “Hello, Elizabeth.” A smile. “Have you scheduled an appointment? I don’t often miss them.”

  “No, I don’t. I just flew in from California.”

  The young woman frowned. “I’m sorry, he is fully booked for this week. If this is an emergency, perhaps you…”

  The door opened behind the reception desk and an elderly woman in a wrinkled nurse’s uniform came out. She had white hair and round horn-rimmed glasses and she spoke with genuine warmth, also visible in her eyes. “Elizabeth, how unexpected. I didn’t think you had an appointment today.”

  “I don’t, Colleen, but I just arrived from California, and I need to see Dr. Rivlin. Can you fit me in?”

  “Let me come around.” Colleen disappeared behind the door, and reappeared from a side door in the reception room. Shaking Elizabeth’s hand, she said “It’s nice to see you again. Let me talk to Dr. Rivlin. I’ll be right back.” One minute later she came through the door again. “He can see you, but not right away. Can you come back in an hour? Will that be all right? He’s-”

  “Of course that will be all right. I appreciate this, Colleen. I’ll be back in an hour. Thank you so much.”

  Elizabeth stepped out on to the street to catch her third cab, then changed her mind and walked back to 59th and Lexington and caught the #6 subway headed downtown. Getting off at Bleecker, she bought a small bouquet of yellow roses, then walked across Bowery, to 64 East Second Street, the address of the New York City Marble Cemetery.

  Her heart beat faster as she entered the rustic black wrought-iron gate and walked across the lawn to the old sycamore tree with the gnarled trunk, covered with vines. She pulled her skirt up above her knees and knelt, placed the roses on top of the small cement square that read Vault 238, Julia Marie Stuart, and put her hand on her mother’s name. “Hi, Mama. It’s me.” She sighed and wiped tears from her cheeks with one hand, but kept the other on the plain gray slab for nearly half a minute. She stood and said, “Pray for me.” She walked toward the cemetery gate, but halfway there she turned her head back and watched the small concrete square diminish in the distance as she walked out the gate. She retraced her route back to the doctor’s office.

  Dr. Rivlin, tall and broad-shouldered, energetic for his sixty years, welcomed her into his office. His silver hair offset black-rimmed glasses and a red bow tie. “Welcome, Elizabeth. It’s very nice to see you, though I must admit I’m intrigued. I understood you were still way out there at Stanford. I trust your father is in good health. At least I haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “I haven’t seen my father recently, either. I did talk to him two weeks ago, and he was fine, then.”

  “Why, then, Elizabeth, have you come all the way to New York? And to see me?” He adjusted his glasses, sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers on his chest.

  Elizabeth looked down at the floor, then up at him. “I need to ask you to do something that is very important for me.”

  “Well, you certainly have piqued my curiosity.”

  “I must leave school for several months. I am asking you to write a letter to the school explaining my absence. Letting them know that I have mononucleosis, and that I need total bed rest.”

  He pursed his mouth and frowned, sitting quietly, studying her. Then he sat up. “Elizabeth, I can see from where I sit, you don’t look like you have it. Your movements are very energetic-”. He studied her. “Your neck looks fine. You don’t seem to have a fever. In any case, I would have to examine you. What you are talking about is an infectious disease. I would call the school today, and you would have to give me the names of people you had close contact with.” He stood up. “This is a surprise. Let’s go to an examining room.”

  She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Dr. Rivlin.” She looked at his Columbia diploma on the wall, then back to him. “The problem is something else.”

  He nodded solemnly, saying, “I think you have to tell me what the something else is. I have been giving you physicals for your whole life, Elizabeth. You can confide in me.”

  She did not know this would be so hard. “Doctor, I am pregnant. I can’t be expelled from Stanford. I need your help.”

  “Does your father know this?”

  “No, he doesn’t. I’ll tell him when it’s time.”

  He looked her in the eye. “And the father of the child? Is it a student? Or a professor?”

  Elizabeth reddened at the insinuation, at the sudden accusatory change in his attitude.

  Dr. Rivlin continued, noticing her reaction. “You should have come here with the father, Elizabeth. In any case, I’m not a gynecologist, as you know. I could give you the names of several good people in the building. Perhaps a woman…”

  This childhood doctor suddenly became a cold, objective clinical threat. Elizabeth put her arms across her chest. “Thank you, Doctor Rivlin. I’m not quite ready for that yet. I apologize for taking up your time. I will go see my father now.” She stood and turned to leave.

  He held out his hand, but when she didn’t take it, he shrugged with seeming sadness, followed her out to the reception room and opened the door for her. “Elizabeth, please come see me whenever you want,” he said, nodding slowly. “I am your doctor.”

  She thanked him and went down to the street. A cab stopped to let an elderly woman in a red coat get out, and Elizabeth a took a step toward the cab but stopped and turned north and walked the long way up to 85th and down to Park Avenue.

  Her father’s house, the home she grew up in, loomed high above her. The light was out in her father’s office window. She had not brought a key with her, so she rang the bell and waited, nervous and unsure of how to tell him.

  The door opened and Mrs. Willow, still gaunt, with her long white hair streaked with black, brushed back from her face, put her hand on her chest in surprise. “Miss Elizabeth, how unexpected.” Then she took a step back and looked concerned. “We weren’t told you were coming. I would have prepared your room. I…”

  Elizabeth waved her off. “It’s a bit cold. I’d like to come in.”

  Flustered, the woman opened the door wide and backed away.

  Elizabeth entered the hallway and looked up at the marble staircase. “Is my father at home?”

  “Yes he is, Miss. Excuse me, doesn’t he know you’re here?”

  “No, I didn’t tell him. Where is he?”

  “He’s in the library. He was on the phone a few minutes ago.”

  “Thank you, I’ll just go up there.”

  Mrs. Willow took Elizabeth’s coat. “Will you be staying long? Would you like something to eat?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be staying. And I’m not hungry right now. I’ll just go upstairs.”

  “Will you be staying for dinner?”

  Elizabeth put he
r hand on Mrs. Willow’s arm and smiled in sympathy for the woman’s worry. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  Elizabeth walked up the long staircase, pausing to look at the grand master paintings on the wall. At the top, she stopped to listen, but heard nothing. She put her hand up to knock on the library door, held it, then brought it down. She adjusted her skirt, then opened the door without making a sound. At the far end of the room across the dark Oriental rug the fire burned brightly in the fireplace. The graying auburn hair of her father peeked out above the red leather wing-back chair. She paused to see if he was awake, or reading, or just thinking, but she could not tell. He did not move.

  She closed the door. At the sound of the click, Hugh Stuart turned around in the chair and looked at her, a snifter of amber liquid in his hand. His mouth was turned down and he looked at her with ugly fury. Elizabeth froze.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Dad…” she had no idea how to begin.

  Hugh turned back away from her to face the fire, slowly taking a sip of his drink.

  Elizabeth walked toward him until she was in front of him. “Dad, why are you so angry?”

  He stood and walked away to the center of the room. “Angry? Why should I be angry?” He waved his drink back and forth as if trying to find the words in the air. “I get a call from Dr. Rivlin, and what do I hear?” He glared at her. “I hear that my daughter, my very own daughter,” his voice rose with each phrase, and he turned to face her directly, pointing with the glass as if offering her a toast, “Elizabeth Francis Stuart, upon whom I have lavished my time, my fortune, my influence,” and he was straining his voice now, “I could say my love and my life, that this daughter is pregnant and she is leaving the university. Tell me, Elizabeth, is our family doctor lying to me?”

  She sat in a chair, silent, surprised and stunned at this total lack of sympathy. And at the betrayal by Dr. Rivlin. No, more than that, this hostility from her father. Looking down at the floor, she said meekly, “No.”

  Hugh continued, pacing back and forth, his voice now changing to a lower but more sinister tone, “And then he tells me you tried to get him to lie about it to the university?” He put his drink on the library table and turned to her. “Is that also true, Elizabeth?” He put his hands in his pockets and raised the toes of his shoes up and down. He did not wait for her answer, but looked up at the ceiling, expressing his frustration at the event threatening his composure. “But, of course, it’s true. You lied to me about being pregnant.” He took a deep breath and shook his head back and forth as if he were shuddering, piercing her eyes. “You want to lie to the university. What other lies are you keeping from me?”

  Elizabeth sat in the chair, hunched up, closed in, helpless. “Dad-,” she said, pleading. “I-”

  He resumed his loud accusatory tone. “Don’t, Elizabeth. You have nothing to say. After all I have done for you. After raising you with love and generosity entirely on my own. After all the people I have told that you would be following in my footsteps. After all the charitable donations I made in your name-,” another deep breath, “-all the associations I have prepared for you-to eventually take over this firm.” Hugh stopped, out of breath. Out of accusations.

  He waved his finger at Elizabeth when she opened her mouth to speak. He spoke as if the voice of the devil spoke for him. “You are just like your mother.” He couldn’t look at her. He got up, once more, and sulked to the center of the room, looking around for an answer to why this plague visited him.

  “Dad, please, I was just at mom’s grave.”

  Hugh’s face reddened and blood vessels stood out on his temple. “Grave?” He asked the question as he searched in the air for its meaning. “It’s not a grave, Elizabeth, it’s a vault. She is dead to me, do you hear me, young woman. Dead! She was a vicious slut, just like you.”

  “Daddy-”

  “Oh, yes, I hear you. Dad, Daddy. Elizabeth where is your husband? Why are you here alone?” He stomped his foot and slapped his thigh, then stood ramrod straight. “Where is the baby’s father?”

  She knew he hoped to find some answer to this predicament. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.” His eyes widened in disbelief. “What do you mean you don’t know. Was it a student at Stanford?” Then he stood silent for one moment of possible shock. “Was it a professor?” The word sounded like an explosion coming out of his mouth. He forced himself to stare at her face as he waited for the answer.

  Elizabeth had heard enough. She stood. Back straight. “No, not a professor. He was a student.”

  “Was?”

  “He left school.”

  “So, he left school, and he left you and I’m supposed to just pick up the pieces after your slatternly behavior.”

  “I’m asking for your help, Dad. You don’t have to be so hateful toward me.”

  “Hateful? I don’t think so, Elizabeth. It’s you who have behaved as if you hate me, after everything I have done for you. I’ll tell you how it’s going to be. I’m going to go to the University Club. I will be back on the weekend.” He leaned and pointed to her. “You had better be gone by then or I will have you thrown out.”

  “Dad!”

  “No! No! It’s over. Just like your mother.” His lips tightened into a straight line, his eyes moved back and forth as he thought. “I will leave you a trust fund, and a trust fund for the child. Go to JP Morgan on Monday and it’s yours. But I will see no more of you.”

  He pounded his steps out the door. Elizabeth stood. No tears. A pain ran down her back. She heard the door slam shut downstairs.

  Sunday morning, she left the house with one small suitcase. Besides her clothing, there was the picture of her as a child with her mother and father. And a copy of every item in Hugh Stuart’s Rolodex file.

  A few hours later, she sat in the first row of an American Airlines DC-7 airliner bound for Chicago, the first leg of her trip back to San Francisco. Her hand rested on her purse on her lap, and the picture was in the purse.