JULIA GLANCED UP TO see Vickie heading directly for her. Looking around, she soon determined there was no easy escape. She was stuck in her office and Vickie was on her way. Vickie stopped in the office doorway and they stared at each other for a prolonged, and perhaps, Julia would later concede, profound moment.

“Please let me have a few minutes with you.”

“I really don’t want to. For one, this is my work and I’m busy right now being productive, something I’m sure you can’t imagine. And second, you know I don’t want to see you. You know why too. I don’t want to rehash it.”

She nodded, her blonde hair curling at the ends and swaying over her shoulder. “I know. But some things have happened and changed. Please let me talk to you. Twenty minutes? Can’t you spare that? I’ve respected your wishes. It’s been over five years now and I’ve respected what you wanted. Can’t you—?”

Julia plopped back down in the desk chair, keeping the desk in front of her as a kind of shield. “Don’t you lecture me about what I should do. Or should I lecture you about all the things you should have done and didn’t do? You’re twenty years too late and now you can’t have all my attention or interest.”

“Julia—”

She waved. “Fine. Sit. Close the door. No reason to broadcast our dysfunction. I’d like to keep my job professional and not turn it into a bitch fest that people can gossip about. Although your outfit, alone, will have plenty of people talking.”

Vickie sat and crossed her legs, stiffening at Julia’s insult. “Don’t be such a prude, Julia.”

“I am a prude though. You don’t like that about me either, do you? If only I could have been more fun. Imagine how you could have embraced me then.”

Vickie’s mouth twisted up. “Please don’t say that. I’m not here to fight or bicker or rehash the mistakes of the past.”

“Then what do you want?” Julia snapped. She couldn’t stand to be put in her place by Vickie, of all people. “What do you want or need? What have you screwed up now? Do my parents know yet?”

“They don’t know. Not yet. I’m… I came to you because you were the only one I wanted to see.” She shrugged, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

Julia rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite, Vickie. What tragedy has befallen you now? What has sent you running to me in scorn or shame or whatever else could’ve possibly brought you here?”

“Cancer. Cancer is what brought me here.”

Julia sat upright but her facial expression didn’t change. She wasn’t sure she registered the words correctly. “Cancer? Did you say cancer? Are you saying… you…”

Vickie nodded, pumping her leg up and down, her shoe falling half off her heel. “Yes. I’m telling you that I’ve been diagnosed with cancer.”

Julia swallowed hard and leaned forward, folding her hands on her desk and appearing all proper while her heart hammered loudly in her chest. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Julia.”

Julia tapped her fingers on her desk. “You better not be making this up. This isn’t a stunt to get me talking to you, is it?”

Horrified, Vickie’s big eyes met Julia’s cool, assessing gaze. “Julia!” she snapped. “I know you have anger issues with me and the way I raised you—”

“Or didn’t.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“I was clarifying that you didn’t raise me. Tracy did. Dad did. Kylie and Ally and eventually, even Dane and Nate did. Half of the same people you divorced or left or left me in the care of while you were off doing… what was it again? Oh, yes, doing whatever you wanted. Whenever I was inconvenient, you left me with other people. All of them were good people, thank God, I will give you that much credit. You picked the right people to cover for you and make up for your total neglect. So while I would never wish you ill will, it doesn’t mean you can suddenly show up and magically change what our relationship never was.”

Vickie’s expression was startled, going from surprised, to shocked, to appalled and finally, stricken. She thought a diagnosis of cancer would square everything she’d ever done to Julia. Wipe the slate clean. Julia held steady and tried to swallow the sudden lump of anxiety that lodged in her throat. “But Julia, I have cancer.”

Julia shut her eyes in frustration. She mumbled, “What kind?”

“Breast cancer. They just found it. It’s at stage one still, on the borderline of stage two, but they all recommended a mastectomy, Julia. That means major surgery and… and that has to be followed by radiation.” She started to tear up.

Julia pressed her lips together as an unexpected emotional response quickly filled her eyes with tears at seeing Vickie’s distress. She knew the fear of any diagnosis of cancer was not to be trifled with. “I’m very sorry, Vickie.”

“I need you to be there. Please? I need to schedule it, but I want you to be there. That’s why I’ve tried to contact you several times recently. It’s going to happen and I want nothing more than to have you there. Please come, Julia, and be there for me. I just, I just want my daughter.”

“You,” Julia shuddered as she mentally rehearsed the heartless sounding sentence that was her mantra after all of Vickie’s actions, “don’t have a daughter. Not in me.”

Vickie reacted as if Julia had just shot her in the chest. She leaned back, smacking her head loudly on the wall behind her. “Julia! How dare you say that? You are too my daughter. Your DNA says so. I am your mother. Not Tracy.”

Julia remained sitting up straight, her hands folded properly on her desk, her expression neutral and her eyes tearless. She slowly shook her head to again deny it. “Tracy is my mother,” she insisted. “You guaranteed that when you abandoned me as a baby and gave me to her. I didn’t decide that. You did. I’m very sorry, again, for the cancer diagnosis. But it doesn’t undo all the bad things you did, and we cannot suddenly become people we are not. And we are not mother and daughter anymore or even friends.”

“You can’t mean that. Not in light of this news. Can’t you let bygones be bygones? For just a little while, until after I recover? Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive and forget?”

Julia pressed her lips together. “You’ve used that line too many times in my life. When I was eight and eleven and fifteen and eighteen until I got tired of it. I catalogue your behavior as being insane and everyone else becomes so by letting you get away with the same thing over and over again. I set a boundary with you, the only thing I could control, and I’m sorry but nothing has changed for me.”

“Not even this?” Vickie’s expression was incredulous.

“Not even this,” Julia said and her tone was resolute, but her heart, her gut, and her head quivered with emotional doubts and aches. Vickie hurt her. Even now. Even after all these years.

Her only solution was to insist upon boundaries. After all this time, Julia refused to allow Vickie to persuade her to do anything.

Vickie hung her head and streams of tears flowed down her cheeks. She wiped them as she uncrossed her long, silky legs. They were bare and her skirt was too short. She paused at the door. “Tracy shouldn’t have raised such a cold and emotionless stone. I never expected this.”

Julia breathed in slowly. No. Don’t take the bait by responding to Vickie’s obvious jab. She was not cold and emotionless, except when she had to be, which was with Vickie. That was all that protected her from Vickie’s intentionally hurtful ways.

“She didn’t. She didn’t raise me as a cold and emotionless stone.”

“Could have fooled me,” Vickie said, swirling around on her heel and leaving.

Julia stared after her tall, blonde mother’s retreating figure. Vickie’s butt cheeks twisted back and forth as she stomped out of there at a clipped pace. Julia bit her lip and lay her head on her desk. Tears leaked from her eyes and the blotter paper beneath her soaked them up. Vickie was wrong. Julia felt hot, prickly feelings inside her, the opposite of cold and emotionless.

“Julia?”

Lloyd. His voice was soft, kind, and unsure when it filled her office. She lifted her face. He stood in the doorway. “Are you okay? What happened?”

She usually left her troubles at home and didn’t even acknowledge them to the outside world. When she and Lloyd slept together, she never mentioned anything so personal or even dared to blush in his presence. She held in a breath. “Vickie, my mother, has cancer.”

“Oh, Julia. I’m so sorry. Oh, geez.” He came forward and stopped dead. “Go now. Go home. Go and comfort her. Deal with this. Of course. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I need to be here. I don’t want to go home and deal with it. That’s why I’m crying.” She shook her head. He didn’t know why. He didn’t get what Vickie meant to Julia’s life. She sucked in a slow breath. Chris knew. He got it and that’s all that mattered now in her life.

“Oh. Okay. Well, is there anything I can do?”

She sucked in her sinuses and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Just give me a few moments alone? Perhaps by shutting my door?”

“Of course. All the time you need.”

He left and shut her door softly. Julia swiftly picked up her phone and dialed Chris. “Vickie came to my office to announce she has cancer. Then… then she got all offended and angry at me, when I didn’t… when it failed to improve anything between us.” She started to cry again, and loud sobs escaped her throat. “She thinks I’m the bad person… but Chris, oh… she…” her babbling became incoherent.

“I’ll be right there.”

Julia sniffled, clearing her throat to reply to his comment. “No. You have the electrical inspection this afternoon. I’ll be fine. Tonight. I’ll see you then. Please? I’m not going to let her ruin my day or interrupt my work. I told you before, that’s what Vickie does. And why I cut all ties with her.”

“Honey…” Chris’s voice drawled out as he cleared his throat. He seemed unsure of what he needed to say. “It’s cancer though. It’s different this time. Let me come and get you.”

“It’s not. It’s not any different. I—it doesn’t change who she is or make up for what she never did.”

“Nooo, it doesn’t change it,” Chris agreed, hesitantly. His tone remained soft and gentle as if he feared speaking too harshly might spook her right off the phone. In a coaxing tone, he said, “But maybe having cancer changes what happens from today forward. What kind did you say it was?”

“Breast cancer. She’s having a mastectomy and she wants me to be there.”

“When is the surgery?”

“She hasn’t made the appointment yet. She’s hoping I could be with her at the hospital. I said not to wait for me.”

“Julia…”

She wiped her tears and sat up straight again. Tightening her spine muscles, she said in a tone firm and crisp, “I don’t want to be there. I want to get back to work. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll see you tonight then?”

“Yes,” her tone softened. “You’ll see me.”

“Julia…” he lowered his tone. “I love you.”

She sucked on her lower lip, hot tears again filling her eyes. Okay, maybe the whole Vickie-cancer thing was hitting her harder than she cared to admit, and in ways she didn’t want to admit. But she didn’t have to do anything about it. No. Changing their circumstances didn’t help her. It could only hurt. Like anything else to do with Vickie hurt her. But even while she was being cruel, heartless, and sounding so mean, there was a sense of relief that Chris seemed to understand. Maybe not understand, but he didn’t judge her and he, thank God, still seemed smitten with her, in spite of it. “I love you too, Chris.”

“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

He took her over to her parents’ house that night and they entered together. Her mom noticed her red eyes.

“Vickie told you,” Julia stated as she passed her mom and set her stuff on the floor. She flopped down on the couch. Chris sat across from them, quietly listening to their exchange. Julia was pretty sure Chris would take her mom’s side in this.

Tracy glanced at her, and her expression was shocked. “You knew?”

“Just today. She came to my office and told me. She wants me to be there for her surgery.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“It’s Vickie. Maybe it’s not even true.”

“Julia!” Tracy snapped. Julia sat upright at hearing the sharp, chiding tone of her mom. Her mom never spoke to her like that and Julia worried that she disappointed her. “I know she hurt you. But Vickie is also my sister. She’s still my sister. And she has cancer.”

“And almost ninety-five percent of women with a stage one diagnosis are still alive in five years as long as they undergo all the treatment. She is. She’ll be fine.”

“It doesn’t diminish what she has to go through. Or stop her from hurting, physically and emotionally. She’s scheduling it for two weeks from Friday. For God’s sake, Julia, where’s your compassion?”

“Maybe she killed all of it,” Julia mumbled, pulling her knees up and tucking them under her chin. “It just isn’t magically fixed between us, not for me.”

Tracy sighed. “I indulged you. When you refused to see her and banned her from all the family get-togethers, I allowed you to voice your opinions and gave you some space.”

“She deserved it. And it wasn’t arbitrary. Remember all the years of counseling I had to endure? That’s because I was an emotional, anxiety-ridden mess. Do you remember that about me?”

Tracy sat down near her and leaned over as she touched her leg. “I remember. I lived through it too. I know a lot of it was caused by Vickie’s abandonment and irregular reappearances. She was a confusing factor for a child…”

“Not just ‘a child,’ Mom, as if any average child she came in contact with would be confused. No. She wasn’t confusing to Kylie and Ally. They were her nieces. She was their crazy and sometimes fun aunt. So what did they care how often she came and went, at her own whims and will? As her child, I was the only one who suffered from her behavior, which was so confusing and detrimental, too. Counselors and other trained professionals told me the only thing I could control about my relationship with Vickie, and how it affected me, was my own reaction to it and how much I was willing to allow her to screw up my life. A solid boundary that she could not cross turned out to be the only answer for me that worked.”

Chris shifted around. He and Tracy met and exchanged glances. Julia shook her head. “You can’t realize how hard she is to understand, or decide how I should react to her cancer diagnosis.”

“I think your mom just doesn’t want you to regret anything. And neither do I,” Chris added softly.

“She always hurts me. Do you get that?”

Chris got up and glanced at Tracy but seemed to decide to go for it anyway. He kneeled in front of Julia and took her hand in his. She could have laughed. Even kneeling, Chris still dwarfed her. His huge hand engulfed hers. “Maybe it isn’t for her. By forgiving her, you can help yourself.”

She scoffed, glaring at him. “What? Why me?”

“You need to forgive Vickie for your own peace of mind.”

She glanced up when her dad’s voice filled the living room. Tracy got up and went over to him and hugged him. Her dad tucked her mom against his side and rubbed her back in soothing strokes. “Yes, Ju-Ju, maybe you need to forgive her to free yourself.”

“Mom told you?”

He nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Tony called me after he and Gretchen offered to let her stay with them, but Dane also offered. Oddly enough, she chose to stay with Dane.”

“Dane?” Julia exclaimed and shook her head. How could they all not see it? It was so typically Vickie. All the family were rushing around now, coming together, their alarms blaring. Vickie! Vickie! Vickie was in trouble! “I don’t get how you all miss seeing what’s wrong with that. She somehow gets one of her exes, whom she chose to divorce, to take her in now that she needs cancer treatment? How do you not see how manipulative she is? How she uses people? And leaves him, but oh, gee, look at that. Now Vickie needs a place to stay, and who better than with the last man she left?”

“Julia!” Tracy lifted her head off Donny’s shoulder, and her voice was loud. “Stop it. She’s sick right now. Or she will be sick. And vulnerable. I’m glad Dane’s taking her in. And I will be there for my sister, regardless of how you feel. I think you should reconsider since she is your mother.”

Julia jumped to her feet, forcing Chris to back up and rise to his. “You!” she screamed. “You are my mother. How can you say that to me? How can you pawn me off on her? She never wanted to be a mother. She never wanted me. How can you just decide that? Huh? You’re not my mother now because Vickie has cancer? What? Now you’re my Aunt Tracy? Sure. Fine. Fuck! I’ll call you Aunt Tracy. I’ll go see my mother Vickie. Is that what you want? Is that it? I’m not your daughter, huh? All that shit you spewed about me being just like Kylie and Ally to you, but really, turns out I’m not. I’m a daughter once removed. You want me to go comfort my mother, huh, Tracy? Fine. Fine. I fucking will.”

Stomping down the hall, she slammed the door to her bedroom, crying hysterically and locking it. There were several knocks and calls. Her mother—no, Tracy, and her dad and later, even Chris. She put earphones on and loud music to drown them all out as she sat there crying. Grieving. Hurting. And once again, realizing she was the stepdaughter. The stepsister. One word from Vickie and she was back to being Vickie’s daughter and not belonging here, in her home with her dad, Tracy, Kylie, and Ally. This is where she wanted to be. This is where she fit in. She was part of this home and family. And as always, Vickie came along and threatened her happiness and safety. Vickie always managed to disturb that. Like a wanton child, she tipped it over. She took the younger Julia and foisted her into her oddly insane life when all Julia wanted was to be back home with her mom. Tracy. She would often cry when she was little, simply because she was missing Tracy. She never wanted to spend any time with Vickie. And now? They tried to tell her she should want to?

No.

One word couldn’t change a lifetime. That was pretty solid for Julia.

Chris called later. And the next day. She ignored his calls and was frosty with her parents, no, to her dad and Tracy.

They didn’t really work anything out. She kept a cool front with them and they didn’t push anything.

She glanced up in her office on Thursday and saw Chris. He knocked, walked in and sat in front of her, leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he stated softly. “Whatever you need to do, I’ll support you. You need me, as much as Vickie thinks she needs you.”

“We’re at work. Not here.”

“Too important. Let Lloyd fire me. I need you to talk to me. I’ll come right around this desk, pick you up and march you out of here in my arms if you won’t work this out with me. I can’t stand you being mad at me and I miss not having you to talk to.”

She half smiled and half glared. “Don’t you dare.”

“Then forgive me. Or… or yell at me. Just do something.”

Her lips twitched. “I don’t want to yell at you. That’d draw all the other employees’ attention too. And I definitely don’t want to be carried out of here like a child.”

“I underestimated how much Vickie hurts you. I won’t again. I thought about what you said to Tracy. About them pressing you to go and support Vickie when all you want is to stay with the people you consider your true family. I could see where it would make a kid feel unsafe to have Vickie popping in and out, with the legal power to take you away from it.”

“I wasn’t traumatized as a child. I was always loved and cared for. I shouldn’t have been as neurotic and immature as I was. But Vickie messed with my head and I began to feel less a part of my own family. I missed a lot to be with her, and the time I spent with her was never like a mother-daughter visit.”

“I won’t pressure you. Your relationship is yours alone. I just want to make sure we still have ours. And that Vickie doesn’t ruin us. Because I know she’s not worth that.”

Shaking her head, Julia got up, walked around to Chris and kissed him on the head. She wanted to embrace him, but anyone might have walked past her door. “No, she’s not. And she hasn’t. But please, Chris, no more pressure.”

“No more pressure.”

He didn’t bother her about it anymore. But she felt it everywhere. And she worried she was disappointing everyone. Even Vickie. And it chafed at her that she cared. At all. Even a little bit about that woman.