Femme Empire

Win or Loss?

"Jules, you are going to rehab to get your life back on track. Until and unless you are well enough to take care of yourself, Sana will have custody of your daughter.", Georgiana said as we stood in the private room booked for Jules at the hospital. The loss beeping of the different machines created a maddening hum, I no longer wanted to deal with. I had had enough of hospitals.

Georgiana bad agreed to act as a buffer between us to explain to Jules what was going on.

"I want to see my baby.", she said.

"You cannot. Not until the court determines you are fit to take care of her.", Gina explained.

She sat on the bed looking down at her hands.

"Can you give us a minute alone?", I said to her.

Georgiana nodded and stepped out of the room.

I didn't bullshit or bluff.

"Did you try to kill the baby?", I asked her point blank.

She didn't answer. She stayed, ominously quiet.

"Answer me, Juliana Bianchi. Did you try to kill your baby?", I asked again unable to keep the horror out of my tone.

" Juliana!"

"Yes! God fucking dammit! Yes, I did not want the baby! I was not prepared to be a mother!", she screamed.

Utter, terrible silence replaced her outburst. This was the woman who had carried me on her shoulders, bloody and broken on a stormy night to a church to save the life of my son. This was the same woman who had lifted Joshua on her shoulders, had come to visit him at the hospital even when we were at war professionally. How could this be the same woman I knew?

How could people change so much that you could not recognize them even when you looked them in the eye?

Those were the same eyes that had looked at my son with love, concern and mischief.

In the span of a year every good thing had unraveled into an ugly mess revealing how many secrets we held inside. How much resentment we could harbour and the people we thought loved us more than everything could drive the knife into your heart.

I realized in that moment that while we were all being a family, Jules and I had built separate houses for a long time.

It sent a lance of physical pain through my chest.

To see her, sickly and emaciated, her rich blond hair, pale and waxy bereft of all the gloss, the bluish shadows of her eyes, I couldn't help but feel.....guilty.

How could I have missed the signs?

Because you did not want to see. Because you never wanted to know. It was far too easier to hate her than to wrap her up in your arms and say, "We're family and family sticks together no matter what."

My conscience was ruthless.

"Jules....I......"

"DON'T! Don't say a word. I never wanted to be mom. I wanted Cal. You know that. We were breaking apart, we were drifting away after what happened at the company. He thought of me a betrayer,wanted us to break up....and then he found out I was pregnant. The look on his face.......", she trailed away.

" I wanted that, I realized. If a baby was the way to keep him with him, I would do it. I would fix it.....fix us. But I struggled. I hated it everybody, this thing, that was destroying my body. The way it grew ugly and rotund. Nothing would fit me. I was tired and nauseous. It was impossible. I drank all the time. I hid it well until I didn't. Caldron caught me."