A Song for Julia (18 page)

“I know you have, Dougal.”

“Why don’t we change the subject to something more cheerful?”

“What do you have in mind?” he said. “Funerals?”

“War?” I asked.

“Poverty,” he replied.

“The Simpsons,” I said.

He cracked a smile, and I grinned back. My dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye. But he was my hero, all the same.

I heard a knock on the back door.

“I got it,” I said.

I stood up, and just as I did so, the back door opened, and I heard Tony’s booming voice, “Where’s the birthday boy?”

My dad shouted, “Oh, Christ, who the hell let a dago in my house?”

Tony shouted back, as he thumped his way down the hall, “Some drunken mick invited me over.”

A moment later, Tony entered the kitchen. Tall, with salt and pepper hair, he and my dad had been partners for nearly ten years. During the worst of the storms in my teenage years, there’s been more than one time when Tony had provided a refuge for me, letting me crash on the couch in his tiny one bedroom apartment off Broadway. Tony and my dad threw ethnic and other insults at each other like bombs, but they loved each other, no question of that. 

“Where’s the beer?” Tony asked when he entered the kitchen.

“What, you didn’t bring any?” my dad said. “Christ, Italians are so cheap.”

Tony chuckled. “I was coming to an Irish household, why the hell would I need to bring alcohol?”

I groaned, and my dad cracked up.

“What are you up to, Crank? Still up to no good?”

I shrugged. “Keeping busy with the band. Trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when you get a brain transplant,” he responded. 

I grinned, and then my dad had to chime in, “Dougal’s girlfriend is coming over for the party.”

“Dad,” I said. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Holy Moses, you got yourself a girlfriend?” Tony asked. “How did that happen?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Then why is she coming to your brother’s birthday party?” my dad asked. He grinned.

“Because you asked her to come?”

“Eghhh, only because you wouldn’t.”

I shook my head. It was going to be a very long afternoon. Tony went rummaging in the fridge for a beer, so I said, “Toss me one, Tony?”

He did, and I sat back in my seat at the table. “What time’s Mom getting here?”

“Soon,” Dad said.

I nodded.

Let me clarify one thing. Yeah, I’ve got way too much hostility toward my mom. It’s not that she was a bad mom. In fact, in some ways I’d say the opposite. She gave me my love of music and started teaching me piano years before I was able to reach the pedals. I’ve got a lot of good memories—of going with her to the park when I was a little kid, of her taking me to the museum, having picnics at the park, going out to Revere Beach. I was probably ten or so when Mom and Dad realized there was a problem with Sean, and the rounds of doctor visits started. Two, sometimes three times a week by the time he was six. Speech therapy, physical therapists, vision therapists, allergists. When he was six, we spent all night in the waiting room at Brigham and Women’s while he was going through a sleep study to determine if he had sleep apnea. 

My mom started to fade. That’s the only term I can use. Her temper became shorter over time; she’d lose it over the smallest things. If I left a sock on the floor, that was worth a ten-minute lecture. What kind of example are you setting for your brother? What will your father think? Why can’t you be more responsible? 

By the time I was thirteen, my daily existence was trying to stay the hell out of her way. Her face was set in a permanent frown, she was stressed to the hilt, and the mother who had taken me to Revere Beach, the mother who had laughed with me while making cupcakes as a little kid—she had all but disappeared. And it only got worse. I went from being trouble to being invisible. Everything was tied up in Sean: the endless round of doctor visits, therapies and interventions stole both of my parents. 

My eighth grade year I got the lead role in the musical, and my parents didn’t show. Sean had a meltdown, and they were tied up dealing with that. I remember standing backstage, peeking through the crack in the curtains, searching and searching for my mom and dad, wondering where they were, wondering why they weren’t there, dreading finding out that my brother had somehow caused them to not be there.

Yeah. I’m not proud of myself. When I think about how I reacted to all that…to be honest, it makes me ashamed. But I was a frickin’ kid and didn’t know any better. When the second act started and my parents still hadn’t shown, I got in my position on the stage. I looked out at the crowd, with too long a pause after my cue. Backstage, they thought I’d forgotten my line and stage-whispered it to me, urgently, as if that would help. But I hadn’t forgotten. I’d forgotten nothing at all. I thought of my parents, both of them, somewhere else, missing the most important thing that had ever happened to me, and I called out in a clear, loud voice, projecting all the way to the back of the auditorium, the title of a Gangsta Rap song I’d been listening to constantly for weeks.

“Fuck the police!”

There were shocked titters in the audience. I saw the horrified faces of parents and laughter from the kids. I grinned and opened my mouth, about to say something else equally offensive, when they dropped the curtain. Thus ended my dramatic career.

Let me tell you, that got my parents’ attention, very effectively. And I learned another very important fact from that experience. Girls think it’s hot when you break the rules. I was grounded for a month, but it was worth it, because I lost my virginity in the art supply closet three days later with Hannah O’Reilly, a hot little redheaded number who thought my performance was worthy of an Oscar.

So, anyway. After that, I was trouble. And the more trouble I was, the more girls were hanging around. I didn’t understand it, but I sure as hell took advantage. But the one thing I counted on, the one thing that was a constant in my life, even as my trouble got worse and worse, was my mother. I counted on her being there. I counted on her loving me. I counted on her presence. My dad and I were at war—especially by the time I turned sixteen. We fought, we yelled. He would scream at me to get myself under control. I’d push and provoke and pull until he had no patience left. But my mother always calmed us down, always got things back under control, even while she struggled with trying to help Sean.

But then one day, not long after my sixteenth birthday, she was just … gone. And I didn’t see her again until I was almost twenty years old.

Sometimes, deep down, I know that her leaving? It was my fault. Like I said to Dad, I’ve done a fair amount of growing up since then.

That’s why, even though I’d been refusing to call her, I smiled at my mom and gave her a hug when she arrived at the front door. 

“I’ve missed you,” she said. “You look so … larger than life now.”

I told I’d missed her, which wasn’t true. I didn’t say a word about her appearance. She looked much more together than the last time I’d seen her, but my mom still looks a good fifteen or twenty years older than Dad does, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, because he’s a lot older than her. Her hair went grey years ago, and she has deep creases around her mouth and forehead. I don’t think I can remember the last time I saw her smile. 

“Hello, Sean,” she said. He was on the couch, still reading his book, and didn’t look up and acknowledge her.

I was used to this. Sean just didn’t engage people the way the rest of us do. But my mother’s face fell, and I could tell she was hurt and disappointed. I hoped he’d say something to her before the night was over.

I was still standing there, awkwardly, with my mother, when Julia walked up to the front door. She wore a knee-length black coat and scarf, with gleaming black boots with heels that looked none too safe. Her hair was done up in some kind of fancy braided up-do thing, and the only spot of color on her was a bright pink scarf. I took a deep breath as she approached. Her cheeks were slightly red from the cold, and the color inevitably led to speculation of what she’d look like in bed. I wanted to know, very badly.

She didn’t meet my eyes, which was a shame, because I really wanted to get a closer look.

“Hey,” she said, a little breathlessly.

“Mom? This is my friend Julia.”

Julia’s eyes widened a little, and my mom turned to her and said, “Well, hello, Julia. I’m Margot.”

Just Like Always (Julia)

“So where are you from?” Margot asked as Crank closed the door behind us. The usual awkward question, which I never have a prepared answer for, though I should, since I’ve been asked a thousand and one times. One strategy, which I used this time while pulling off my coat, was to intentionally misunderstand.

“Oh, I live in Cambridge, I’m a student.”

Crank reached to take my coat and I said, “Wait—” and reached in the huge side pocket and took out my gift for Sean, then passed it to him. “Thanks,” I said, as he took both his mother’s coat and mine and hung them up. Weird. You don’t expect punk rockers to be so polite.

Margot stopped near the couch, looking at Sean, and the look of sadness and longing on her face was indescribable. But she didn’t say anything.

My heart nearly shattered for her when Sean said, “Hey, Julia.”

I didn’t know why Sean and Crank hated their mother, but what had just happened was heartbreaking. I wanted to start crying, but instead, I mumbled, “Hey.”

Margot and I followed Crank into the kitchen, and there I saw what was probably the strangest scene I’ve ever seen between a separated couple. Because Jack turned around, and his eyes lit up when he saw Margot. The two of them stepped close, a little hesitantly, and then embraced in a long, uxorious hug. His arms wrapped around her waist, tight, while hers went around his shoulders. She rested her head in the crook of his neck, and I saw her shoulders lower slightly as she let out a long, quiet sigh.

A tall man with salt and pepper hair was sitting at the kitchen table. When we walked in, he stood, smiling hesitantly, then when Jack and Margot finally stepped back from each other, he said, “Margot, it’s good to see you.” Then he turned toward me. “And you must be Dougal’s girlfriend.”

Crank muttered something, probably seriously obnoxious, and I said in as sweet a tone as I could muster, “Actually, we’re barely even friends. I’m Julia.” I held out a hand to shake.

Jack burst into laughter, and the other guy chuckled and took my hand. “I’m Tony, the token Italian in this nuthouse. And please don’t take offense, but I’m single, and you’re just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. If you and Dougal aren’t a thing, well …”

“Tony D’Amato!” Margot said in a scolding voice. “She’s young enough to be your daughter!”

Tony grinned, and I tried to stifle the furious blush I could feel running down my face.

“A man can still wish, even if he’s all old and broken down!”

I didn’t know how to react to any of this, especially since the object of the party—Sean—was sitting alone in the other room. For just a second, I felt intense embarrassment at Tony’s comments. Then I let that pass. He was teasing. Much like Jack, he’d instantly accepted me here. And that made me suddenly feel a prick of tears in my eyes. I blinked them back.

“Beer?” Tony asked me.

“Yes, please,” I replied. 

Jack shook his head and said to Margot, “You see what happens when you let Italians in the house? They start going through your things and giving them away.”

Margot giggled, and in that moment, she looked fifteen years younger. She had stepped away from Jack but kept a hand on his shoulder. Tony handed her a beer without even asking. 

“Few more minutes,” Jack said. “I told Sean I’d cook him whatever he wanted tonight. No food restrictions. No nothing. What does he do? Asks for pizza. Delivered.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Margot asked.

Jack shrugged. “It’s the kid’s seventeenth birthday. Let him eat what he wants.”

She nodded, the pensive expression returning to her face. We were crowded there in the kitchen, so I slipped around the table and sat next to Tony. “Since you made such a gentlemanly offer, the least I can do is keep you company,” I said. Then I fluttered my eyelashes at him outrageously.

He nearly spit up his beer laughing, then cried out, “Jack, help me! This one’s beating me at my own game.”

I grinned at him. “So, I’m trying to keep everyone straight. Tony, right? Friend of the family? Relative?”

“God forbid I’d be related to any of these drunken micks,” he said. “I just come here for the free beer.”

“Ah, shut up!” Jack said.

Tony ignored him. “Jack and I have been partners on the force for what, ten years now?”

“It’s been like a life sentence,” Jack replied, his tone sounding weary.

Tony laughed. “Originally I says to the Captain, ‘Don’t make me partner with that guy, he’ll run off and get drunk right in the middle of a high speed chase,’ but then I met Margot, and she was so easy on the eyes, I figured I could survive Jack if I got to see her every once in a while. Plus, if Whitey’s mafia ever offed him, I’d be able to run off with her into the sunset.”

Margot smiled, her eyes straying back to Jack. “You two are so bad.” 

Crank didn’t say a word, just leaned against a wall while slowly nursing a beer. And something just … didn’t add up. It was plainly obvious, from the way they touched each other, the way they looked at each other, the way they talked to each other, that Margot and Jack still loved each other passionately.

Why the hell were they separated then?

It didn’t make any sense at all.

The doorbell rang.

“Ah, that’ll be our last guest, Mrs. Doyle.”

“I’ll get it,” Crank said. He stepped out of sight, and a few moments later returned with Mrs. Doyle in tow. She said hello to everyone, and that’s when Jack announced it was time to move into the living room. We got up, and everybody moved into the living room, just as the pizza arrived.