“Robert must have been furious, right?” I whispered.
Julia wiped her tears away, and it was then I realized she was crying. I regretted bringing this up, but that confirmed that she wasn’t Robert’s murderer.
Robert must have been one heck of a man, or Grandma and Julia wouldn’t lament his death whenever they talked about him.
Julia continued, “Robert refused me, but because of some reason, he didn’t end up with Priscilla. I kept clinging onto him, and that finally made him snap. He… said a lot of things to me. None of them are good, of course. Me being me, I couldn’t understand why he’d rather date a plain Jane like Priscilla when he had me. As such, I went further and drove Priscilla out of Avenport.”
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Robert came to see me after that. He was furious. Absolutely furious. He said I was unworthy of love. That I was an evil woman who could never measure up to Priscilla no matter what I did. We stop talking to each other after that. Your mother and I couldn’t be friends because of that as well.”
Huh, so that’s how things ended between them. I thought it was quite regrettable, but what surprised me more was the fact that Julia actually interacted a lot with my family.
“So how did Robert die then? You weren’t the murderer, right?” Now, I wanted to know the truth more. A woman would never kill a man she truly loved. Even if she hated him, even if they could never be a couple, she would never kill him. After all, hate was a part of love.
Julia suddenly covered her face and started trembling, evidently crying.
“Mom…” Christopher hugged her. “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, Mrs. Lane. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” I wouldn’t have asked her if I knew she would break down. I should have picked a better time to talk about it.
Julia turned around and sobbed in her son’s arms for a while. Finally, she took a deep breath and calmed down. A moment later, she took my hand and placed it in Christopher’s palm.
“I can’t drag you kids into this. And it’s not like I can’t talk about it either.” Julia started, “A few years later, Robert married Priscilla, and the Andersons rose to prominence. Eventually, I married Chris’ father, and we got on with our lives. Everything went well, and I thought that was the end of it. I thought we’d never meet again, but…”
“But what?” I asked nervously.
“But the Andersons’ business was hit hard, as if someone was attacking them on purpose, and they had the perfect plan for it. The Andersons’ business empire almost crumbled with one hit. During an inspection, the officials found that the Andersons’ hotels contained large amounts of drugs, and they also found that the Andersons were dealing drugs in their clubhouses and hotels. That was the nail in the coffin for them. They lost their business, and they had to deal with a lot of court cases. They were on the verge of bankruptcy after that.
She continued, “Your uncle managed to stabilize the family, but it was backbreaking work. Since the company was already an empty shell, they couldn’t run it anymore. Well, he was a business genius, so he could rise again if he wanted to, but something serious happened. And that tore him apart.”
Julia was quiet for a while, apparently reluctant to talk about what happened next. Christopher and I held her hand as we waited for her quietly. None of us wanted to rush her.
“Priscilla was pregnant at that time, but after the Andersons’ downfall, she wanted to get a divorce no matter what. She said she only married him because he was rich. Robert was hit hard by the news, and he tried to keep Priscilla around, but she didn’t even turn back. Just when she was about to leave, her car exploded, blowing her and their child into nothingness.”
