A Song for Julia

car.”
    Unexpectedly, I felt a lump in my throat. Not once, in all these years, had my father intervened. Not once had he stepped in. And I needed him to. Because, I don’t know when, but somewhere along the line, my mother had become almost hateful, and for years she’d taken that out on me, and to a lesser extent, my sisters. I needed someone to protect me from that, especially that last year in high school. But he’d been too preoccupied with work, with his academic pursuits, to even notice my existence.
    My mother grabbed Alexandra’s hand and walked off in a huff. Alexandra, for her part, twisted her head and body around to wave goodbye to me. I gave her a smile, and she blew me a kiss before Mom practically threw her into the van.
    I turned to follow the Secret Service agent, but my dad said, “Julia … wait.”
    I stopped but didn’t turn around. I didn’t face him. I couldn’t.
    He said, “I know I’ve not been the best … the best father. But I need you to know, I love you. I want you to be happy.”
    I let out an ugly, half-choked sob. Carrie grabbed my hand, holding it tight. “Dad, I think you need to leave it alone right now. I’ll talk with her, and we can deal with it over the holidays.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m coming home for Christmas this year, Carrie. I can’t be in the same house with her any more.”
    She whispered, “But … Julia…”
    My father’s pained voice behind us. “Julia … please? Give us one chance. I mean it. Come home. You’re our daughter.”
    I was shaking, and right now the only thing I wanted to do was run home. Not to California, which had never been home to me, but to Boston, to that little row house in Southie, where I’d find Crank and Sean and Margot and possibly a stray neighbor or two. That was home now. But … I couldn’t do that to my sister. Not now. Not when we’d just recently started to grow close.
    I nodded. “I’ll come home for Christmas,” I whispered. “But I’m not promising anything after that.”
    I started to walk toward the gate, gripping my sister’s hand in mine the whole way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

    Lights came up (Crank)
    “Five minutes,” Julia said, putting her hand up and spreading her fingers wide to visually indicate the remaining time. It was necessary: the club was loud as hell. Then she turned and disappeared back through the door. I’d only seen her for a few minutes tonight, when just as we arrived, she led us to the green room at the back of the club. She looked subtly different. She’d streaked her hair and looked relaxed, wearing faded dungarees and one of our new Morbid Obesity t-shirts with a black suit coat.
    The t-shirts were new. She showed up at our show two weeks ago with a carload of them, and from what I could see looking out at the crowd, she must have sold two hundred of them the first night. We’d never even tried that before.
    Julia had avoided me the last three weeks. She’d shown up at rehearsals twice, to go over the recording schedule and hear the new songs. And she’d shown up at Saturday dinners at my Dad’s—now my—house. Those nights were painfully awkward for me, but the presence of Sean and Mom, Tony and Mrs. Doyle helped ease the tension.
    She gave the band a hard deadline of January 15th to have the line-up of songs ready for the album. We started recording in the third week of January. Everyone, including Mark, had assented to the schedule without argument.
    Then she turned around and gave us a schedule of shows, booked every Friday and Saturday night for the next three months. She was taking this seriously and running it like a business. I didn’t have any objections. The single would be released tomorrow morning, and we’d earned more from our shows in the last two weeks than the three months prior.
    Julia had been a godsend for the band. But she’d made it very clear. She wanted nothing to do with me. I watched for her during shows, hoping I might catch her looking at me. It never happened. I’d see her, busy haggling with the owners of the clubs, selling t-shirts, negotiating with vendors or fans who wanted to get backstage. But I never saw her stand still, and I never once saw her look at me.
    It was infuriating. And short of chasing her down, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. My resolve to give her space and time was waning. What I’d hoped was that a couple of weeks would be enough time for her to rethink things. But I kept