A Song for Julia

the hall, I tried to signal to Carrie with my eyes that she should follow. She got the message.
    “Which one is Alexandra’s room?” I whispered urgently.
    Alexandra, looking shaky, pointed.
    I dragged her into the room, and Carrie followed, closing the door behind her.
    “Mom’s been a basket case today,” Carrie said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
    Alexandra had tears running down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to spill the ice cream on my dress. I really didn’t.” She started to blubber.
    “Oh, honey,” I said. “It’s okay, it was an accident.” I sat down on the bed and pulled her into my lap.
    “I missed you, Julia,” she said.
    Carrie dropped onto the bed next to me. “I did too. I’ve had no one to gossip with. And Mom and Dad were nuts that you were in LA with Crank. How did it go?”
    I caught my breath, and I couldn’t stop the shakiness in my voice. “It went great. We got a record deal, a really good one. And I broke up with Crank.”
    To my horror, I sobbed at the last word.
    “You what? Why?”
    I gasped for air. “I … I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “I like Crank,” Alexandra said. “He was nice to me.”
    “Julia,” Carrie said. “You’re so full of it. You can’t say that and not tell me why. What happened?”
    I shook my head. Carrie put her arm around me and leaned close, whispering, “We promised to take care of our sisters, Julia. That means you, too.”
    “He told me he loved me,” I said. “So … I left him.”
    Carrie blinked. “You’re not making any sense, Julia. Of course he loves you. Even our waiters could see that. You could see it, couldn’t you, Alexandra?”
    Alexandra nodded, then added, “And he’s really cute.”
    Carrie spoke again. “What are you afraid of?”
    I whispered, “Everything. And we don’t really have time to do this right now.”
    She narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah I know. But we’re not done here, Julia.”
    I nodded, unhappily, and looked around. “I don’t even remember this room. Do you think there’s anything here?”
    Carrie raised an eyebrow. “How can you not remember, Julia? This was your bedroom.”
    I stiffened. Alexandra wriggled off my lap, so I stood and looked around the room. When I was here two months ago, I’d slept on the couch. And looking around this room … it was sterile. And I had virtually no recollection of it at all. I supposed it had been my room. But when we lived here, I’d never decorated it. Never put anything on the walls. I’d never felt like this was home. It was just … a room. I didn’t have any feeling for it. All I could remember clearly, vividly, was the bathroom. Every tile. Every bump in the caulk. Every drop of my own blood. I shook my head. “Are you sure?”
    Carrie nodded, unhappily. “You really … don’t remember?”
    I shook my head. “I ought to, I guess. But I never really … felt at home here.”
    She whispered, “Julia, maybe you should see somebody.”
    I grimaced. “What, like a doctor? A shrink?”
    Carrie approached me and whispered, “Maybe. Sometimes with traumatic things, we need some help. Julia, you were a senior in high school. That was only four years ago. I don’t see how you could possibly forget your own bedroom.”
    I closed my eyes. I thought about the state I’d been in senior year. The constant fog over my emotions. The constant self-recrimination. The abuse at school, and the abuse at home. My room had been a refuge. But the more I thought about it … it wasn’t the room I remembered. Most of the time I spent in this room was either buried in a book or with a blanket pulled over my head.
    In my freshman year at Harvard, I took Psychology. And we covered major depression, among a lot of other things. But until this moment, standing here in this room that I couldn’t remember, it never occurred to me that maybe that applied to me. I’d never even thought of talking to a doctor about it. It was just who I was. Dead inside.
    “Maybe you’re right,” I said.
    She looked at me, more than a little bit of worry in her eyes. “We’d better get ready. Or Mother will explode. I’ll be right back … I’ve probably got some dresses Alexandra’s size in my room.”
    Of course she would. When we lived here, four years ago, she wasn’t much older than Alexandra was now. I tried to recall any time we’d spent together that year. Had we gone to the zoo together? School functions? A museum?
    I had no idea, and that