The Life She Was Given

Julia wakes up the next morning, reeling from what she saw in the attic. She resolves to learn the truth, but it will take too long to go through the entire house to figure it out. She must get Claude, who has been with the family long enough to know something, to confess. In the farm office, she begs him for answers, and he finally relents, his eyes softening with sadness and regret. He explains that the child in the attic had a skin condition; he claims only to know that she was locked away due to Mrs. Blackwood’s religious convictions, adding that Mr. Blackwood never liked to talk about it. Julia doesn’t believe him, but when she pushes him for more information about what happened, he tells her that he made it his business not to know. Accusing him of being just as guilty as her parents, Julia storms out.

Viktor returns Lilly, Cole, and Phoebe at gunpoint to Mr. Barlow until it is time for Pepper’s public execution. Many men, women, and children have gathered to witness it, and Mr. Barlow has arranged for a large crane on a derrick car to hang Pepper. Lilly leaves Phoebe with Glory to keep the baby safe. As the crane starts moving and Pepper is hoisted up off the ground, Lilly climbs on Pepper’s back to remove the chain noose from her neck. At the same time, Cole struggles to gain control over the derrick car and lower the crane, but Viktor knocks him out. While Lilly tries to loosen the chain, the crane falls, sending Lilly flying off Pepper’s back and onto a railroad switch. Lilly’s abdomen is impaled on a metal bar. She hears the agonized cries of Pepper dying in the background and thinks of Phoebe while her world goes black.

Julia opens every window in Blackwood Manor to rid the house of its darkness and then heads to the side yard to burn the pile of branches and debris from the ice storm. As she studies the burn pile, she understands why her father carried such a heavy burden and seemed so miserable: “Terrible secrets, like poison, eat away at you from the inside” (314). Lost in thought, she doesn’t see the burn pile grow out of control; the fire soon spreads across the yard and into the house, igniting her father’s dusty study and engulfing the building. Claude rescues her as firefighters and Fletcher arrive.

Claude is finally ready to tell Julia the whole truth. He leads her through the woods to a single headstone. Claude was there the night Mrs. Blackwood took the young girl into the woods and returned alone. The next day, Mr. Blackwood told Claude that their daughter had died, which was the first time either Blackwood had mentioned the child. Claude thinks that Mrs. Blackwood sold Lilly to the circus and used the money to buy a prized thoroughbred, which then turned the farm into a profitable enterprise. Finally, he reveals that Mrs. Blackwood is not Julia’s mother—her real mother, Lilly, is buried where they are standing.

Disoriented and in pain, Lilly wakes up back in her childhood bed in the attic. As she tries to sit up, her mother, Coralline, comes in the room. She tells Lilly that Cole is dead and that Mr. Barlow didn’t want to be responsible for Lilly’s hospital bills and baby, so Mr. Blackwood insisted that they travel to Nashville and bring Lilly home. Coralline has taken Phoebe since Lilly is in no condition to be a mother; Coralline believes that it’s in Phoebe’s best interest to be raised by her grandparents. Smugly, she adds, “[F]inally, after everything you’ve put us through, your father and I are getting the daughter we deserve” (332). Lilly tries to stand up and get to Phoebe, but she cannot move—the accident has paralyzed her from the waist down.

Though Lilly is not interested in hearing it, her father apologizes again and explains that before Lilly was born, her mother had eight miscarriages. In desperation, the deeply religious Coralline said that she would sell her soul to the devil to have a baby. When she got pregnant with Lilly and gave birth at home, she thought Lilly’s albinism was punishment for her sin. Coralline wanted him to leave Lilly in the woods to die, but he couldn’t do it; they compromised on keeping her in the attic instead. In the years since Lilly was sold, Mr. Blackwood visited the circus once a year to see how happy she was. He promises to give Phoebe the life Lilly didn’t have. Lilly is locked in the attic until her death in 1940, when her daughter is two.

That spring, Julia finishes building a small cottage on the property and begins constructing a barn in the place where Blackwood Manor once stood. Though she is sad to have lost the picture of Lilly holding her as a baby with her stuffed calico elephant, Julia is relieved that the house is gone, knowing she could not create a loving home in a place where her mother had been so mistreated. She thinks of her grandparents more often than she would like and wonders what could make two people so cruel.

After doing more research on the Barlow Brothers’ Circus and Pepper’s death, Julia is determined to do something in honor of her mother’s courage. She refuses to have any more horses participate in the racing industry. Instead, she adopts 12 stray foals who would otherwise be killed or sold at auction and instead gives them a loving home. When Fletcher delivers them to her, the two embrace and kiss. For the first time, Julia feels elation and hope for her future.