Chapter Text
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“Julia!” Mrs. Neese had to call out loudly over the excited chatter of the rest of the third grade class as the kids got their things together at the end of the school day. The girl turned her head and Mrs. Neese smiled, beckoning her to come to her. Julia moved slower than she usually did. She was usually skipping or running and always doing so with a smile on her face. As a teacher, Mrs. Neese was fond of all of her students but those with a personality like Julia Snow, who seemed to always be happy and content with everything in life, just made her heart feel a little fuller.
Julia slipped on her pink bookbag and went to her teacher. She hadn’t had a good day today and she just wanted to go home. She was already hoping that tomorrow would be much better.
Mrs. Neese had a folded piece of paper in her hand and she held it out for Julia. “I wrote your mama and dad a letter. Could you please have them read this?” Julia nodded without saying anything and she slipped it into the pocket of her skirt. That day, the fabric was black with astronauts printed on it. Every day, she wore a different skirt that her mama had sewed out of fabrics that Julia had chosen. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Julia,” she then said with a smile. “And tomorrow will be much better, I promise.”
“Good night, Mrs. Neese,” Julia said in a quiet voice that wasn’t like her at all and trudged from the classroom.
She followed the flow of students out the elementary school’s front doors. She looked for her brothers and sister but couldn’t see them in the crowd. They might already be on the bus but she wasn’t in the mood for the bus today and the Snow house was just a few blocks down the street. There had been a bad thunderstorm the day before and everyone in Greywater thought that they would be flooded with the swamp but instead, a cold front had blown in and for the people who lived in Greywater, in the Neck, any day they had to wear a sweatshirt was considered cold weather.
Being born much further north, in Wintertown, where they got multiple foots of snow every year and summer weather only lasted for a week or two, at the most, Julia and the Snows always loved it when they could wear sweatshirts or even sweaters again – even if it was just for a day. Julia wanted to walk home when it felt like this. Even though she and her family had moved down to Greywater and had been living here for over two years now, winter was always in their blood.
From the buses parked along the curb outside of the school, Julia passed her particular bus that would take her home and through one of the windows, she saw her younger brother, Max. Max saw her, too, and when he saw that she wasn’t getting on board, he scrambled to pull the window down.
“Julia!” He shouted to her just in case she forgot which bus she was supposed to get on.
Julia shook her head at him. “I’m going to walk home!” She shouted back. Mama really didn’t like them walking home even if they did live so close to the school. Mama was always so protective of them and was overly cautious about everything. After moving here, she had relaxed (a little) but she still didn’t like it that much. She made sure that the kids were always aware of things around them and that they knew that anything could happen to them anywhere – even just a few blocks from home.
She didn’t stop to wait to see what he would do and she kept walking because sure enough, a minute later, Max was running to catch up with her. And behind him was their older brother and sister, George and Eleanor, the twins, who also went to school here and rode the bus home.
Eleanor came to a stop and fell into step next to her. “Are you okay?” None of them told her that they couldn’t walk home and that they had to ride the bus. Eleanor, George and Max just knew that if Julia was walking home that day, they would all be walking home with her.
Julia thought of the day she had and the note in her pocket from Mrs. Neese for mama and daddy. Her stomach churned and grew tight and she shook her head so quickly, her black curls slapped her cheeks. “No.”
…
As soon as they all got home, Julia took off her shoes and dropped her bookbag onto the floor right inside of the front door. She just had a few worksheets to do for homework that evening but she didn’t feel like doing them right this second. She usually did her homework after dinner anyway.
Sansa Snow met them all in the hall with a smile along with their Siberian Husky, Martha. “I didn’t hear the bus,” she said as she gave them all hugs and Martha sniffed at them, happy to have them home again.
“We walked home!” Max announced to her happily.
Sansa’s smile slipped a bit. “You did?” She looked at all four faces and she noted immediately that Julia wasn’t really looking at her and her lips were turned down. Sansa picked up immediately that something was wrong.
“The weather outside is perfect,” George spoke for them all. “What’s for dinner?” He then asked.
Sansa was still studying Julia but at George’s question, her smile returned. “Brandon is out, running his miles, and your dad is home from the worksite early and we were thinking we would order some pizzas.”
George, Eleanor and Max all let out excited exclamations at that. Not just because dad was home early on a random Tuesday and he was never home from Greywater State Hospital early but also because they were getting pizza for dinner tonight and that was always one of the best things to happen. Julia stayed quiet as her siblings ran down the hallway to see Jon and to make sure he ordered just the right toppings. Sansa immediately crouched down in front of her when it was just the two of them in the hallway.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Sansa asked. Julia was always happy. Always. Every morning she woke up and seemed to be truly happy to be there, living another day. Of course, she had sad moods but they never seemed to last long. The glass was always half full in Julia Snow’s mind.
Julia said nothing. She reached into her skirt pocket and handed mama the folded note. “From Mrs. Neese.” And then, without waiting for Sansa to read it, Julia turned and went upstairs, moving quickly but not so quickly where she tripped over the steps. She didn’t know what the note said but she could guess. In her bedroom, Julia crawled onto her bed without even going to the glass case where her snake, Hamlet, was like she did every other day. Today, she laid down and the instant her head hit her pillow, she began to cry.
“Jon!” Mama called out for daddy. It seemed like seconds later when Sansa followed her path and came up the stairs and into the bedroom. Upon seeing her crying, she knelt down at the bedside and began to brush curls back from her face. “How long haven’t you been able to see the blackboard?” She asked.
Julia’s eyes were clenched shut and she kept them that way as she shook her head against the pillow. “I can see it if I squint,” she tried to defend herself.
Mama smiled faintly. “If you’re squinting your eyes, it’s because you can’t see it. How long have you been doing that?”
Julia shrugged. She honestly didn’t know. It seemed like every day was a little worse than the day before but she always did her best to hide it. Especially when watching television at home and mama and daddy were near. If she squinted even a little bit, one of them would see it right away. But at school, from her desk, she wasn’t able to see the chalkboard and she couldn’t pretend while there. Her eyes were still closed but she felt the foot of her bed sag and she knew that it was daddy. He had read the note, too.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Daddy then asked.
More tears flooded Julia’s eyes behind her lids. “I don’t want to wear glasses.”
“What’s wrong with glasses? I wear glasses,” daddy reminded her of the obvious. He had a couple of pairs – wire frames and then thicker black plastic frames. He wore one or the other at night after he took out his contacts or if his eyes were too tired and he didn’t feel like trying to get his contacts in. He always wore his contacts to the hospital worksite though. It was easier to wear his safety goggles if he didn’t have to wear them over his glasses.
Julia finally rolled onto her side and opened her eyes to look at both of her parents. “No one else wears glasses. Brandon, George, Eleanor or Max don’t need glasses. I’m going to look ugly!”
“Why would you ever think that?” Mama frowned. “You are not ugly, Julia, and you never could be. There are so many people who wear glasses and none of them are ugly because of that.”
“I think I look good in glasses,” daddy pouted a bit and Julia nearly smiled at that.
Mama brushed hair back from her wet face. “You know what? When John Lennon was younger, he didn’t wear his glasses because he didn’t like how he looked. The other Beatles knew he was blind as a bat and needed them but he thought it would ruin his look. And then… he knew he needed them and that was when he started wearing them all of the time.”
Julia was quiet for a second. That was very true. Julia knew a lot about John Lennon. She was named after a song he had written about his mother and she was the only one to be named after anything that had to do with him. Because of that, Julia had always been interested in the man more than the other Beatles.
For the first time in, what felt like days, Julia felt like she was beginning to smile. She nodded. “I can be like John Lennon,” she then decided in a soft voice. It would be nice to see the chalkboard and the words in her books and things on the television clearly again.
“Or you could be like me,” daddy frowned.
Mama just smiled and leaned in to kiss Julia on her forehead. “I’ll make an appointment with the eye doctor first thing tomorrow and we won’t stop looking until we find you the perfect glasses,” she promised.
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