A Song for Julia

summer.”
    He opened his mouth, but I spoke first.
    “And … I just want to curl up and die.”
    Dad sat back in his chair. He didn’t say anything, just waited for me to continue.
    I didn’t, so after a couple of minutes, he said, “Why? What happened?”
    I looked at him. “I don’t know.”
    “Bullshit,” he replied. My dad’s such a sensitive guy.
    I shook my head. Then I told him. “I told her … I told her that I love her. And she ran like hell.”
    He stared at me, dumbfounded. Then he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table and rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking as if he was searching for something to say. Finally, he asked, “Do you?”
    “Do I what?”
    “Do you love her?”
    I didn’t need to think about that. I just answered, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
    “Tell me why.”
    “What the fuck, Dad?”
    “Don’t use that language with me, you little shit. I can still bend you over my knee. Tell me why.”
    I sat back and took a deep breath. “For the first time in my life, Dad, I want to be … more. Not just the band, though that’s part of it. She … makes me want to be a better person. I love how smart she is. Her integrity. Her compassion. And the sex is out of this world.”
    “I don’t want to hear about that,” he interrupted.
    “Yeah, well. Anyway, that’s what happened. I told her I loved her. And she … just ran.”
    He leaned forward, close, and looked me in the eyes. “You’ve told me all about you. What about her, Dougal? What do you want for her?”
    I swallowed. “I want her to be happy. I want her to … I want to see a smile on her face. Always.”
    “This is going to sound like a cliché, kid. And it sucks like nothing else in the world. But if you love her … you have to give her what she needs. Even if that means letting her go.”
    Oh, damn. I thought about my mom and dad, holding each other in the door, heads bowed together, as tears streamed down her face. I thought about how much it must have hurt for him to let her go. And this time my eyes did water.
    “Dad, you suck.”
    “Yeah. Sometimes the truth sucks.”
    “I don’t want to lose her, Dad. No one has ever meant this much to me.”
    “Then do the right thing. Do the thing she needs. And maybe she’ll come to you. If she doesn’t … well … it wasn’t meant to be.”
    Both of us started when the doorbell rang.
    “Enough of this moping shit,” he said. “I’m leaving for Kuwait tomorrow, in case you missed it. This is our last family dinner for a while. Go get the door, it’s probably your mother.”
    “All right.” My dad got up, turned the heat back on under the pots on the stove, and I walked out of the kitchen. I paused in the doorway. “Dad?”
    “What?” he answered, in an annoyed tone. That was the dad I knew and loved.
    “Thanks.”
    “Get the hell out of here and get the door,” he said in a gruff voice.
    I walked to the door and opened it.
    If there were flies in Boston in the cold at the end of November, one could have flown right in my mouth and settled in for a nice stay. Because it wasn’t my mom at the door. It was Julia, wrapped up in her red and black checked coat, a muffler around her throat, cap on her head.
    I just stood there, gaping.
    Her eyebrows moved together, forming that crease in her forehead she sometimes gets before calling me names. “Are you going to invite me in, or what?”
    Automatically, I stepped away from the door. “Come in.”
    She walked in and peeled off her scarf and coat. “Heater’s out in the stupid rental car.”
    “What are you doing here?” I asked.
    She looked at me, our eyes meeting just long enough to break my heart. Then she said, “Your brother and dad have treated me like family. Like … like my family never did. Whatever happens between us, I … I wouldn’t not show up.”
    “Can we talk later?”
    She closed her eyes and said in a near monotone, “There’s nothing to talk about, Crank.”
    Then she handed me her coat and walked into the kitchen.
    Damn it.
    I wanted to walk in there and grab her arm and ask her what the hell was she thinking? I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to insist she tell me why the hell it bothered her so much to have someone say those three little words. Words I’d never in my life said to a woman, except for my mother.
    But then I heard my dad say, “Hey, kiddo,” to her. I walked to the kitchen door and glanced in. He was hugging her like she was a daughter. I stepped