The Bay at Midnight

I ran through the lot, kicking sand behind me, and I didn’t stop until I was in the bungalow. I sobbed as I heated water on the stove to bathe in. I wanted to clean any trace of Ross Chapman from my body. I changed into my robe, shook the sand out of my hair, then stood barefoot in the kitchen watching the water slowly warm up. I felt crazy. Insane. And I repeated over and over again, “I’m sorry, Charles, I’m sorry, Charles.”

I never really got over that night or forgave myself for it. Even at eighty-one years of age and with the knowledge that what happened could well be considered date rape, I would sometimes still wake myself up in the middle of the night, chanting that phrase of apology and guilt.

CHAPTER 36

Julie

1962

I knew the day everything went wrong. It was August fifth, a Sunday. It was also the day Marilyn Monroe died.

That morning after church, all of us except Isabel took our seats at the porch table, ready to dig in to our usual hearty Sunday breakfast.

“Isabel?” My mother leaned back from her chair so she could see into the living room. We would not be allowed to start in on the eggs and bacon and rolls and crumb cake until my older sister was at the table and grace had been said.

We heard Isabel’s bare feet skitter across the linoleum in the living room. She zipped onto the porch and sat down in the chair next to me.

“Marilyn Monroe is dead,” she announced, just as we all reached for one another’s hands to say grace.

“What?” My mother took Lucy’s hand in hers. “What are you talking about?”

“I just heard it on the radio,” Isabel said. “She killed herself.”

“Oh, what a shame,” my grandmother said.

My father made a sound of disgust. “It figures that she would die committing a sin, since that’s the way she lived,” he said.

“How did she kill herself?” I asked, curious.

“I don’t want to hear about it!” Lucy plastered her hands over her ears and hummed loudly as my sister started to answer.

“Not now, Isabel,” Grandma said. “Lucy doesn’t want to hear it.”

I knew little about Marilyn Monroe, only that she was blond and beautiful and extremely sexy. Men swooned over her and women envied her. Why would someone like that kill herself?

“Let’s say grace,” my father said, reaching for my hand on one side of him and my grandmother’s on the other. We bowed our heads, reciting the words by rote, and then settled down for some serious eating. My father was the chef on Sunday mornings and his scrambled eggs were always doctored with onions and peppers and tomatoes. Sunday breakfasts were one of my favorite times with my family.

“Tonight,” Grandma said as she cut her eggs with the side of her fork, “Grandpop and I want to take you girls to the boardwalk.”

I whooped with joy, but I wasn’t surprised when Izzy begged out.

“Thanks, Gram,” she said, “but I already have plans.”

“Will you come, too, Mom?” Lucy asked.

My mother poured herself a second cup of coffee. “No, honey,” she said. “I’ll stay home and catch up on housework.” It would be years before I realized how much my mother probably welcomed an occasional respite from having us all underfoot.

It wasn’t until halfway through the meal that the topic of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide came up again.

“Girls,” my father said, “there’s a lesson in Marilyn Monroe’s death.”

“Daddy.” Lucy set down her juice glass and looked at him indignantly. “We’re not supposed to talk about it now.”

“You’re not too young to know these things,” he said to her. He looked at me, then at Isabel. “She lived in sin in many, many ways. Not only didn’t she care about how she was hurting God, she didn’t care about how she hurt other people, either.”

“I don’t think she was that bad, Charles,” Grandpop said as he buttered his second hard roll.

“Look at the facts,” Daddy said. “She had affairs with married men. Many of them. She broke up marriages. She posed…without clothes on for calendars and magazines.”

“They found her nude,” Isabel added, and my father shook his head, as if to say See what I mean?

“Probably the worst thing she did was have abortions,” he said. “Several of them.”

I cringed. I’d been taught so well by my father. How could any woman take the life of her unborn child?

“What’s an abortion?” Lucy asked.

“You don’t need to know that.” My mother sent my father a look of exasperation above Lucy’s head.

“And many people believe that she’s been having an affair with President Kennedy,” my father added.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” my grandmother said. “You’re filling these girls’ heads with rumors.”

“I believe it’s true,” Daddy said, tapping his fingertips on the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m sorry to say it, but I believe Jack Kennedy’s capable of breaking his marriage vows, and Marilyn Monroe was certainly capable of tempting him to do so. Nothing good could come of the sort of behavior she was known for.”