The Julius House

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THE JULIUS FAMILY vanished six years before I married Martin Bartell.

They disappeared so abruptly that some people in Lawrenceton phoned the National Enquirer to tell a reporter that the Juliuses had been abducted by aliens.

I had been home from college for several years and was working in the Lawrenceton Public Library when-whatever it was-happened to T.C., Hope, and Charity Julius. And I was as full of speculation as anyone else.

But as time went by with no trace of the Julius family, I forgot to wonder about them, except for an occasional frisson of creepiness when the name “Julius” came into a conversation.

Then Martin gave me their house as a wedding present.

To say I was surprised to get a house is an understatement: “stunned” is more accurate. We did want to buy a house, and we had been looking at fancier homes firmly anchored in the newer suburbs of Lawrenceton, an old southern town that itself is actually in the regrettable process of becoming a commuter suburb of Atlanta. Most of the houses we’d been considering were large, with several big rooms suitable for entertainment; too big for a couple with no children, in my opinion. But Martin had this streak that yearned for the outer signs of financial health. He drove a Mercedes, for example, and he wanted our house to be a house where a Mercedes would look at home.

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