Subj: The Letter, Part Seven
Date: 7/6/01 4:57:01 AM Central Daylight Time
From: R J Jamison

Douglas Blaylock contemplated the meeting he had with Julia Hoffman. He knew she had not used the name Blaylock since moving to Maine, he knew she did not afford herself that luxury. He had not expected her to be so clearly and honestly emotional about Taylor. She had turned her back to him several times in attempts to clear her emotions. In the past, he had
never been certain what her emotions were. He knew her to be calm, collected and unmovable. He knew his son had been frustrated at times by Julia’s cool detachment. He even knew his son had questioned whether Julia had passion for anything besides her career. Douglas shook his head. He wished his son had never shared that with him. After Taylor had confessed this, Douglas had started watching Julia to try and see if what his son had said was true. He had observed that it was true and then his own feelings for his daughter-in-law became a problem. How better to attract a man than to be so seemingly
disinterested? Julia paid no attention to the effect she had on anyone unless they were her patients or a potential connection to the next level of her career.

She was not jaded or ruthless, just always aware of the obstacles her sex had created for her. He knew she presented one appearance at the hospital and another at home. Her home façade was a bit more relaxed. The major difference between home and work was her clothing. When participating in ‘personal functions’ as she called them, she would wear whatever
Taylor asked or what was most comfortable. But they had one of their bitterest arguments when Julia refused to wear a certain gown to an ‘office function’. It was an aspect of her that Taylor did not understand. He had merely wanted his wife to
dress nicely for him. She argued that she was his wife but also a colleague and that required her to dress differently, more conservatively at work.

Douglas hadn’t enjoyed hearing this argument or any of the others Taylor and Julia had in the five years they all lived in the same looming Baltimore house. He had tried hard not to see that his son loved, obsessively at times, a woman he barely understood. Douglas knew it was not going to last. His son wanted traditional things and Julia did not. He knew that their views could not be melded together. But he never knew which one would end it. His son’s love for Julia precluded him of ever thinking of divorce. And Douglas knew, Julia’s position, which had been helped by marriage to Taylor, would be affected greatly by a divorce. No, maybe their marriage would not end. But he knew his son would one day feel great dissatisfaction with their arrangement and he knew Julia might one day awaken to find her life without any personal passion.

David Collins gazed down at the book Julia Hoffman had loaned to him the previous evening. His technical answers about many things had been answered but still, he could not reconcile many of the things he was feeling with what the book discussed graphically displayed. While he was intensely curious about sex, he could not fathom with what girl he would actually want to do it with. There was something distasteful about most of the girls he knew from Collinsport. They all seemed too immature or something. A knock at his door startled him. He slammed the book shut and shoved it into his desk drawer. “Yeah?”

Elizabeth entered his room. “David, I’d like to talk with you.”

David jumped up from his desk and began fiddling with the model planes he had recently begun assembling. “Sure, about what.”

“David, Julia Hoffman spoke with your father and I the other day.” Elizabeth had noted that Julia was tentative in her recommendations at first but then became very firm. ‘David must go back to school and interact with his peers. His predominant interactions are with people in their forties, it’s not helpful to him.’

David’s eyes widened with the thought that Julia had spoken with his father and Elizabeth about the book she had loaned him. He face flushed and his palms began to sweat. He did not wish to talk with his Aunt Elizabeth about sex.

“She thinks we should stop tutoring you at home and that you should return to the Academy in the fall.” Elizabeth said it calmly to try and observe David’s reaction. The flushed face before her was not what she had expected.

“Go back to school with other kids?” David’s lip curled a bit in disgust.

“The idea does not appeal to you?”

David looked down at his sweaty hands. Thank god they weren’t going to talk about sex, his peeks at Carolyn, his talks with Quentin or the book Julia had given him. Suddenly it occurred to David that he would learn more about stuff if he could talk with kids his age. He had enjoyed being around Amy and Hallie. Hallie, now there was a girl he could go steady with.

He wondered when she and Professor Stokes would return. Hallie had gone with Eliot on a sabbatical trip out of the country and Hallie would be attending the Academy when they returned. “I think Dr. Hoffman is pretty smart, Aunt Elizabeth. I’m okay with going back to the Academy.”

“Very good.” Elizabeth turned to leave. “Your Father and I already mentioned this to Maggie. We’ll let her know for certain this evening.”

“Well, she and Sebastian want to get married anyway.” David shrugged. Damn, Doctor Hoffman always had him figured out before anyone else. Maybe psychiatry was the profession to study if you could figure people out so easy. ‘I’ll ask her for a book on psychiatry next.’ He thought.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.