The great house on Widow's Hill was back-lit by the breaking of lightening of a storm, it felt just as volatile inside. A woman who had come back from a different time was now faced with the secret she had been hiding for over 50 years. Her past had come back to haunt her in the form of a granddaughter she never knew existed, the daughter of the son she left behind in the wake of a terrible tragedy. Julia Hoffman's life before Collinwood and Barnabas and the Collins family began long before she came to Collinsport as the chief of staff at Windcliff Sanitarium.
Up in her room, Julia fiddled with the shiny medallion around her neck, nervously thinking of what it meant having Quinn Devereaux so close to home. Julia hid her life before she permanently came to this area as well as she could, but ever imagined her son having a child of his own child. What's more, Julia never imagined these paths crossing, not now, not ever and certainly not at Collinwood.
Julia watched the rain pour, furiously down on to the grounds around Collinwood. This thunderstorm took her back to where it all began, her life unknown. To Bangor 1949:
BANGOR, MAINE: 1949
"Now, now, you're going to be fine. I've examined you and I think that there's nothing for you to worry about." Dr. Laurence Devereaux said to patient, as he carefully helped her sit up after their quick check up.
He was an OBGYN, famously popular with the ladies in Bangor for his kind bedside manner. He was tall, had dark green eyes and ruggedly handsome with a quick wit to match his wife's, a med student named Julia who worked at his practice filing paperwork on her days off from school. Things within the marriage were as perfect as they could be on the outside, but on the inside, behind the Devereaux family doors, things weren't always so perfect.
Dr. Devereaux smiled to the woman as she carefully made her way out of the office. He then picked up the file on his next patient, and a giant grin fell upon his face. It was a woman who had come to see him from out of town because of his good reputation. She was a wealthy socialite whom he connected with almost instantly. She, a beautiful brunette with fair skin and bright eyes was too beginning to feel the pressures of an unhappy marriage, it didn't help however that she was 8 and a half months pregnant.
"Please, please come in!" Laurence said to his patient as he closed to door behind him in the exam room. "I'm so happy to see you."
"Thank you." The lovely mother to be said blushing.
"Thank you." The lovely mother to be said blushing.
"What can I help you with this week? I have to say I was surprised to see your name on my list of patients today. We just had an appointment. Has something happened?" He professionally questioned.
The patient felt embarrassed. She had no real reason to come see him this time. It was true, their last appointment went well and she wasn't due to come back until after the baby was born. This appointment was personal. She had to speak to him.
"Things are strained at home. I ...." she said shocked at the words coming out of her mouth. "...I don't know what to do." She confessed.
"What's happened? Have you been hurt?" Laurence said, his heart fully immersed in the patient's personal life.
"I just don't see where my life is going. I'm scared. I love my husband to no end but there are things I cannot deal with. His anger. His drinking. His complete disregard for our child that is coming! He's become cruel. My brother says that I don't need him, that I can do just as well without him. But...well, I'm not proud of this, but I just can't see myself living with him forever. I'm trying....but I can't see it." the woman said wiping away a small tear the fell from her perfectly made up cheek.
"And you came here? To me?" Laurence said sitting down on a stood facing the woman.
"I didn't know where else to go. You've been so kind to me, I just felt like, I could be safe here even if it were for just a few hours." She said.
"You are safe here, I will always protect you. Always." Laurence said reaching for her hands. She grabbed on and squeezed.
Just outside, Julia arrived for a small 3 hours shift of filing her husbands paperwork before she went off to a few night classes. Julia was in her early 20s. Striking red hair, beautiful figure. She stepped into the sunny office and removed her fashionable sun glasses and greeting the other mother's waiting in the waiting room. Her tweed blue suit the envy of every mother there.
"Janet, good afternoon!" Julia said, greeting the attending nurse.
"Hello Mrs. Devereaux, how's little Michael!" Janet the nurse responded, mentioning Julia and Laurence's 3 year old son.
"As rambunctious as ever, I'm afraid. He's keeping me just as busy as you'd expect between coming here and classes and raising him. I don't know how I'm even awake!" Julia joked as she came around the back and reached for the files to begin work.
"Boys will do that. If you had a daughter, it would be all so different." Janet joked.
"Where's Larry?" Julia asked of her husband.
"Exam room 4." Janet replied handing Julia the file of the woman in the exam room for filing.
Julia noticed that that same patient had been at the office just a week before. It was customary that she never really had interaction with the patients, and often time she never even saw their faces but she was always familiar with the names. This visit felt strange; that a patient would come back so soon, even this one, a woman who lived about 2 hours away and was so pregnant.
Julia suddenly worried that there was something wrong with the baby and even though it was frowned upon for her to be involved with the women that came in to see Laurence, she felt like her help might be needed. Julia rushed off to the exam room to see if perhaps she could be that help.
As Julia walked up to the door, she could her the soft murmuring of voice just on the other side. She grabbed the door knob and began to twist it to enter but something inside of her made her stop...and listen with the door still between them.
"I just wish I could find a way out, I wish I could have my child and I could just be free of him. The both of us. I don't even think he wants this baby!" The woman said to Laurence.
"I would do anything to make sure you and this baby were safe. Anything. What can I do? Name it!" Laurence said in a soft voice.
"You would really take us away? All of us?" She questioned.
"YES! I would do anything to keep you safe. There's nothing in this world that would stop me." Laurence said to Julia's shock.
"What if we did? What if we did just run away together? I could....I could do that and once I got a divorce, we could come back. Is that crazy?" The woman said knowing full well he was married too.
"This child you are carrying deserves to be born in peace and with two people that love it. I ..." Laurence said but stopped short.
"You ...what?" The woman asked as she noticed him thinking.
"I think I could be that other person. For you. For this baby. I have thought about it for a very long time and I can see us together. I really can." He said.
Julia, still listening on the other side, felt as if her heart had stopped. She looked around the office. It was as everyone was laughing at her. They would look at her, smile, and look away. She was beginning to sweat. She was beginning to feel her throat close. Her mind was racing. Her mind was furious. She could feel herself squeeze the woman's file in her hand, turning the papers into a tiny little accordion with crumpled up papers.
Julia had heard enough. She rushed back over to Janet's nurses' desk and dropped the woman's folder on the desk.
"Julia, my goodness what's the matter!?" Janet asked as she could see Julia looked white as a sheet.
"Tell Laurence, I wasn't feeling well and that I went home. I...." she said, looking as sick as the flu, "I'll see him at home." She finished.
Janet nodded and picked up the file of the woman, and the other patients that needed to be filed away that day and went to do it herself. She looked at what Julia did to the woman's paper work and didn't know what to make of it. Julia had practically crushed the forms and folder completely.
Janet opened the cabinet and pulled the "S" file log and placed the file that Julia had crushed when she heard her husband admitting he was willing to leave her into the log.
The file name tag read: "Stoddard, Elizabeth"
"No! What am I talking about? What am I even doing here? I have to go. I'm sorry I shouldn't have come here and said these things. I shouldn't have done this!" Elizabeth said back in the doctor's exam room.
"Elizabeth, please..." Laurence said as Elizabeth quickly grabbed her coat from chair and put it around her shoulders but did not slide her arms through.
"I'm having trouble in my marriage, but....it makes absolutely no sense for me to go on making more by being here and telling you the things I have. This was a mistake." Elizabeth said, having obvious second thoughts about containing further with Laurence.
"But what about us?" the doctor replied.
Elizabeth smiled at him, he had been so good to her, he was the best OBGYN around, and she had traveled so far to be treated by him, but the relationship had gone into an area even Elizabeth, for as unhappy as she was with Paul Stoddard, couldn't continue.
She reached over and patted his shoulder, and smiled.
"This was a mistake.", she said, then she quickly left the room leaving Laurence alone with a broken heart and Julia at home with only half the story in her angry mind.
"No! What am I talking about? What am I even doing here? I have to go. I'm sorry I shouldn't have come here and said these things. I shouldn't have done this!" Elizabeth said back in the doctor's exam room.
"Elizabeth, please..." Laurence said as Elizabeth quickly grabbed her coat from chair and put it around her shoulders but did not slide her arms through.
"I'm having trouble in my marriage, but....it makes absolutely no sense for me to go on making more by being here and telling you the things I have. This was a mistake." Elizabeth said, having obvious second thoughts about containing further with Laurence.
"But what about us?" the doctor replied.
Elizabeth smiled at him, he had been so good to her, he was the best OBGYN around, and she had traveled so far to be treated by him, but the relationship had gone into an area even Elizabeth, for as unhappy as she was with Paul Stoddard, couldn't continue.
She reached over and patted his shoulder, and smiled.
"This was a mistake.", she said, then she quickly left the room leaving Laurence alone with a broken heart and Julia at home with only half the story in her angry mind.
Hours past and the night came quickly. Julia sat alone in a very dark living room smoking a cigarette. Her hair reflected a bright red by the single dim light in the room's corner that was shining over her like a halo. The smoke encircled around her like a volcano showing signs of a coming eruption.
The clock struck 10:30pm, and Laurence walked in. He looked around and noticed everything was quiet and strange. He walked into the living room and attempted to flick on the main lights but the lamps, except for the dim one in the corner, were all unplugged.
He noticed Julia in a chair smoking, and a glass of clear liquid in her hand.
"Julia? What's the matter?" He asked pensively.
She chuckled at his attempt at a cover up.
"Janet said you rushed home sick. Are you better?" He wondered as he noticed the half consumed bottle of vodka on the coffee table. "Where's Michael?" He asked of their son as he tried to turn on the unplugged lamp.
"Michael, is with your mother." Julia growled.
"So you're not better?" Laurence wondered as the boy was not home.
"I have been better, yes." Julia said cryptically.
"Julia, why are you drinking this? You're ill!" Lawrence said, grabbing the bottle from the table and attempting to scold her for her unhealthy choice still believing she was sick.
Laurence came closer to Julia, as he did he noticed something shining in her hand. The glimmer of the shiny mettle caught his eye, and he froze in place.
It was a gun.
It was a gun.
"Julia.....why do you have that?" He said, his words slowly coming together as Julia looked at him through a filter of cigarette smoke.
"After the first one I thought it would never happen again. Then it did. Then I thought after Michael was born, it would never happen again....then it did. Then you promised me, that one was the last one. But then came another, and another after I found her out. After four affairs, I thought we were finally going to be Ok. Michael is bigger, you were more involved in our lives and then today...." Julia said puffing away at her cigarette as the ashes fell down to equally grey carpet.
"What are you talking about?" Laurence said as he carefully stepped back from Julia and the gun she pulled from their safe.
"Mrs. Stoddard. The mother that was at the office today. You think I don't know what the two of you are planning? You think I didn't accidentally hear you practically give your love ---the love you promised to ME on our wedding day---to her?? I did. I did Laurence! I heard every word and that is what made me ill!" Julia answered.
"Julia, listen. I think you've misunderstood what happened."Laurence said.
"Like I misunderstood all the others?"
"No, well...Julia, it isn't what you think at all! She's dealing with a husband who doesn't love her and doesn't want their baby. I was only wanted her to feel comfortable and secure. She's almost 9 months pregnant for god's sake!" Laurence said, his voice raised.
"I heard you. I heard every word Larry. I know exactly what kind of comfort you wanted to give her. There's no use lying anymore. It's all over. It's all over." Julia said standing up.
"What do you mean?" Laurence said backing away from her.
"We can't go on like this, can we? I mean we could, but why? Why do you want to live here with me if you constantly want to replace with me someone. This Elizabeth person is the 5th woman or so? Why would I even allow that!" Julia said, stumbling on her own feet as she got closer to Laurence in the dark room with the gun still in her hand.
"Julia....you're drunk. You need to put the gun down." He said with his arms out keeping distance between them.
"What if I don't?" She said smirking drunkenly as she tried to make sense of where he was standing.
"I need you to put the gun down Julia. Put it down." Laurence repeated himself.
"I don't think I want to do anything you want me to do. If it were up to you our family would be broken up and this way I can do just do it for you. I can just take away the one thing you feel you need to get rid of, I'm doing you a favor!" Julia said hi
"You don't know what you're saying! You're too drunk, Julia please!" Laurence begged.
"Why? Why Larry??? Why would I even ...why would you even?...Who cares! What's the difference? You want me gone, don't you? I can be gone Larry, I can be gone and you and Michael and this Elizabeth Stoddard, and her new baby, you can all be a happy family because I'll be dead!" Julia said as she put the gun up to her temple.
"JULIA STOP!" Laurence lunged at Julia, she became startled and in the blink of an eye, to block Laurence she put her own hands in front of her. The hand with the gun squeezed the trigger and shot a single bullet that hit Laurence in the chest.
He then stopped in his tracks and stared at Julia as she slowly came to understand what she had just done.
He chocked. He looked down at his white shirt, a small crimson circle of blood began to spread, bigger and bigger in circumference. Laurence fell to his knees.
"Larry. LARRY!!" Julia said as she quickly fell to his side.
He looked at her with a blank stare. His eyes began to glaze over. The blood was overwhelming and Julia, the shock quickly sobering her up, began to panic in what she had done.
"Larry, please stay with me, please breath. Larry, you can't leave us, please! Please Larry!"
Laurence was turning cold, his lips changed from their regular pink to a light blue. Julia just stared at him. His eyes closed, his breath slowed, then it came to a complete stop.
Julia was covered in his blood. Her hands looked like they had been painted red. Her face had drops and smears and from her husbands blood.
Soon the windows began to flash red and blue. A neighbor had heard the gun shot and called the police. Julia stayed there, standing in the living room as the police quietly made their way in from the unlocked front door.
She was frozen in place. They police surrounded her and kept asking her what happened. What had occurred? What did she do?
They sat the bloodied Julia down on the sofa and covered Laurence with a sheet.
She looked up and the policeman closest to her and whispered to him what she had done.
"I killed him."
"Why? What made you do this?" The officer asked.
Julia did not answer. She looked at the police office in the face, her cheek smeared with blood of the man laying dead on the living room floor in a pool of that same blood, the father of her son.
"Mrs. Devereaux?" the officer asked using Julia' married name, trying to get her attention.
But it was too late. Julia had lost all sense of reality of what was really happening.
Her mind had closed off and nothing would again bring her back to that moment.
As they carried away her dead husband in what seemed like slow motion, the sound of the gun shot would ring off in Julia mind for years to come.
Over and over and over again the popping of their family hand gun haunted her mind.
It was like a blast of thunder in the middle of a storm.
COLLINWOOD PRESENT TIME
It was only in 1967 that Julia realized the mysterious Collins family in the neighboring town of Collinsport was glued together by a matriarch by the name of Elizabeth Stoddard, and the baby she was carrying at the time was Carolyn. The strange and utter coincidental crossing of paths made Julia stick around Collinwood for years.
Now in the year 2018, Julia sat in Collinwood again, reminded of these events. How could she tell Quinn who she really was and what she had really done? How could she explain the past in a way that would make sense?
How would Carolyn feel knowing her mother and Julia's husband were so close, close enough that Julia believed they were having an affair, even though Elizabeth came to her senses before anything came of it?
Julia had kept it this everyone all this time, alone, harboring a secret and a murder that no one would understand.
Her long lost past had caught up with her, and now she had to deal with the fall out.
It was time for her to finally live in her truth and face the consequences.
