Julia's Chocolates

Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb

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Authors: Cathy Lamb
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terrifying mess. Lydia was quite a bit older than she was, they shared only a mother, and they had never, ever gotten along. “I don’t get along well with sociopaths,” Aunt Lydia had told me once.
    I know Aunt Lydia lived with a massive amount of guilt for not rescuing me from my mother, but there was nothing she could do. She tried again and again, when she could find us, or when I could secretly send her a letter, to convince Candy to let me come and stay with her. But except for summertime, Candy always said no. And yet, I think my mother often hated me, especially when I became a teenager.
    “Hmmmm…” Caroline said again. “It looks like a scar of inner pain. Of betrayal. The pain is still in you, isn’t it?”
    I nodded, but wasn’t too impressed. It’s not hard to discern from that story what really happened.
    “That’s one of the things you’re running from, isn’t it? Besides the fiancé?”
    I swallowed hard.
    “In fact, you have another scar here that was caused by your mother, wasn’t it?”
    I looked down at Caroline’s little hand. She was tracing the largest scar on my knee and was studying it, as if looking through a microscope.
    “Well, that one isn’t exactly from my mother,” I hemmed.
    “Yes, it is,” she insisted, rubbing it softly with her finger. “Your mother caused this one. Again, it was neglect. Not the same sort of neglect, but neglect, right? Yes, I can see that I’m right. I’m very sorry.”
    I wanted to burst into tears. Sometimes a kind voice, a steady look, and a touch will make you cry, and this was it.
    Yes, that was the worst scar, the tunnel to more scars, all of the same sort, all emblazoned on my heart as if I’d been branded by a cow poker.
    “So.” I tried to bluster my way out. “What kind of fortune do you see in my knees? What’s my future?”
    Caroline laughed. “Oh, I can’t see a thing in your knees for the future. They were the door to the past, to your pain. I’ve already seen your future. I saw it when I walked in the door.”
    “You saw my future?” That was alarming.
    “Yes,” said Caroline. “And no. I saw a purplish haze around you and—”
    “A purplish haze?”
    “Yes. That stands for change, and for choice.”
    “What else?” I knew there was something else. She was pleating her fingers together and the eye-twitching was getting more intense.
    It would be melodramatic to say that the candle between us flickered and went out, but it is the truth. That candle died. Just died, the wax swallowing up the wick, and though other candles burned in the room and Aunt Lydia had her embroidery light on, it was dark between me and Caroline.
    “Julia, honey—” she began.
    “Just tell me. It can’t be worse than what I have now.”
    “I see blackness. A rim of black around the purple. All around you. It’s a warning.”
    “A warning?” Fear danced its way from my toes to neck, and I felt my heart start to palpitate again, my hands filling with blood that was filled with chunks of ice. My unknown disease, triggered by stress.
    I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a breath.
    “Someone hates you.”
    I nodded.
    “Be careful.”
    I nodded again. “But what about the purple you’re seeing?”
    “It has something to do with chocolate,” Caroline said seriously. “When the chocolate comes, your whole life will change. It’s the impetus.”
    Suddenly my breathing stopped, then started again. Had she said “chocolate”? My heart stopped rushing, stopped racing, the ice melted in my veins, the curious blackness that often obscured the edges of my vision when this mystery disease attacked started to clear.
    “You’re on the road to chocolate,” she told me, her mouth grim. “And there is no way to veer off course.”
    “Got it,” I breathed, trying not to laugh. “Watch out for chocolate.”
    “That’s right,” Caroline said, holding my hands in hers, her eyes serious. “Watch out for chocolate.”

4
    I f I could jump

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