CHAPTER 7
LILLIAN
Tuscany, 1986
In the decades following that tragic summer in Tuscany, Lillian Bell often wondered: What if she’d had a crystal ball? Would she have canceled the trip? Or never suggested it in the first place? Or would she have given herself over to fate, regardless of the consequences?
In the spring of 1986, Lillian and Freddie Bell were living in Tallahassee, Florida, and heading into their fifth year of marriage. Admittedly, when Lillian had first met Freddie, she didn’t have it all together. She had suffered a difficult upbringing with parents who were alcoholics in dead-end jobs they both hated. They stayed together “for the sake of the baby” when they should have split up at the outset, early into the marriage, because all they ever did was scream and fight and drink, then scream and fight and drink some more.
Lillian’s father finally left when she was ten. She never saw him again, but rather than feeling frightened and abandoned, she’d wished he had left sooner. Or that her mother had been the one to leave.
Maybe it was something in her mother’s DNA that made her stick by her husband, year after year, enduring verbal abuse and backhanded smacks to the face.
Or was it love? Lillian often wondered. Because her mother did have romantic feelings about Lillian’s father, at least in the beginning. Her mother often reminisced about picnics in the park, chocolates and flowers, and a marriage proposal on a sandy beach at sunset while foamy waves rolled in.
Lillian had no idea if any of that ever really happened, but she cherished those stories regardless, because they made her believe in a fairy-tale world where grown-ups were happy together. That belief carried her through the dark times when her parents were smashing things in the kitchen at night and Lillian was hiding under her bed, whispering soothing words to her baby doll. “Don’t be scared. I’m here. I’ll protect you.”
Later, after her father was long gone and Lillian began to date in high school, her mother advised her to avoid ham-fisted alpha males. “Marry someone soft,” she said. “The kind of man who wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
And so, after a number of years dating the types who fell into the “hard” category and liked to smash things (like Lillian’s face against a wall), she met Freddie Bell on a vacation in Florida. Disney World of all places. After standing in line for an hour to ride the Space Mountain roller coaster with two friends, she had been relegated to sit alone in the seat behind them. At the last second, Freddie hopped in beside her.
“Looks like we’re a matched set of third wheels,” he said with a shy smile. He was handsome and adorably boyish, and it felt like fate, and heaven knew she was a sucker for the idea of destiny. Why? Maybe, deep down, she relished the notion of not taking responsibility for major decisions. It was easier sometimes to go with the flowand simply let fate carry you along. Then you couldn’t blame yourself when the river got angry and threw you up against a rock. It was simply your lot in life.
She and her friends spent the rest of the week in Disney World with Freddie and his group. A month later, she quit her waitressing job in Chicago and moved to Florida to be with him. She felt fortunate because he was gentle and endearing and he passed the all-important litmus test: he had slender hands that were made to hold a pencil, not punch a hole in a wall. He was creative—an intellectual who read books and wrote poetry. He’d even gone to college to study English.
Lillian was, to put it plainly, astounded by her good fortune. She had once heard that women often married carbon copies of their fathers, but she had vowed never to fall into that trap. After a few regrettable, abusive relationships in her teens and early twenties, she’d begun to dream about the polar opposite of her father. At long last, she had found it in Freddie.
Things moved quickly after that. She got pregnant (they thought they were being careful), so they tied the knot before anyone found out about their inability to use birth control effectively. Sadly, however, a month after the wedding, Lillian lost the baby.
A terrible year of grief followed in which she blamed herself for not protecting her unborn child, and she considered it the worst failure of her life. At one point, she told Freddie that she would understand if he wanted to part ways and start over with someone else, since they’d only gotten married because of the baby.
Freddie gaped at her in shock. “Lil, don’t say that. I could never live without you.” His face went pale, and he nearly worked himself into a panic.
Then Lillian remembered that he had his own issues with loss because his mother had walked out on his family when he was five, and he had never truly gotten over being left behind.
Lillian realized her mistake in suggesting such a thing and took him into her arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I promise I won’t ever leave you.”
Her words reassured him, and over the next few years, she soldiered on, working the front desk at a local hotel, supporting them financially while Freddie pursued his lifelong dream of writing a bestselling novel.
But by 1986, Lillian couldn’t escape the old familiar longings. She had always wanted to be a mother, but she had pushed that dream away after her miscarriage. Perhaps now the deep cut in her heart had finally healed enough to allow her the courage to try again.
She brought it up with Freddie on their fourth wedding anniversary, when they sat on a blanket on a beach in Tallahassee, watching the waves roll in. “So what do you think?” she asked.
Freddie thought about it for a moment before responding. “I don’t know, Lil. It’s a pretty big step. A huge responsibility.”
“Kids usually are,” she replied.
“But don’t you think ... I don’t know. I feel like I should finish my book first. We don’t even own a house.”
Her heart squeezed with disappointment. “A house would be nice—I’d love that—but we can’t afford it on my salary right now, and if we wait for everything to be perfect, we might end up waiting forever, and it’ll be too late. I’m thirty now, and you know how much I’ve always wanted a baby.”
“Of course I know.” Freddie looked down. “And I want to have a family with you. I just want to be responsible about it. I want us to be ready for it financially.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Lillian argued, feeling grim and not caring if she was being irresponsible. She wanted a baby more than anything, and she’d wasted so much time being afraid. “We’ll figure it out somehow. We could get by.”
“I don’t want to just get by,” Freddie replied. “I want to be able to support you and give us a good life, but how am I supposed to write ifwe have a baby to look after? You’d have to quit your job, and if I have to go to work, I’ll never finish the book.” He shook his head. “We’ve come so far. I’m almost there. If you could just be patient a little while longer, I’ll get published, and then everything will fall into place. You’ll be able to quit your job and be a stay-at-home mom, and we can live off the advance and royalties while I write another book.”
Lillian watched the colors change in the sky over the Gulf. Freddie’s dream was a lovely one, but how could she be sure it would ever come true? What if no one wanted to buy his book? Ever?
