A Song for Julia

being on duty tonight … he was a cop after all. But cops come home at the end of their shift. Soldiers have to wait a lot longer.
    Of course, the diplomatic mission to Iraq had failed. Julia told me weeks ago she didn’t believe it was ever meant to succeed. Window dressing. I wondered how her father felt about that. Odds were, we’d never know.
    I put my hand in my pocket, feeling for my cell phone, for the hundredth time wanting to pick it up and dial Julia. I would call her tomorrow for Christmas. But I wasn’t going to nag. I wasn’t going to call multiple times. I wasn’t going to do anything. And that drove me nuts, because what I wanted to do was chase her down and make her talk to me. Make her finally admit that she loved me.
    Last night, briefly, I thought she was going to come around. When she looked at me from the audience, I saw her wiping her eyes. When she’d wrapped her arms around me and said, “Thank you.” But not long after that, she seemed to clam up and grow distant again. Not long after the show, she packed up and disappeared without even saying goodbye.
    I was slowly beginning to accept that Julia was never coming back to me.
    We’d be friends. Colleagues. She’d keep managing the band. But what I wanted from her was so much more.
    My mom stepped into the living room from where she’d been puttering in the kitchen. I looked at her, gave her a rueful grin.
    It was so odd having her here. Odd that I wasn’t angry with her. If anything, I was finding myself protective. Wanting to shield her from Sean’s occasional blowups, which were always hard on her. I didn’t understand it really. I’d been angry so long. Angry that she was gone. Angry that she left. But when my dad told us what happened that night … it was like someone had let the pressure out, all at once, and I couldn’t be angry with her any more. It was a strange and odd feeling, and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it yet.
    I’m sure it was the same for Sean, but even more so. And for that matter, I didn’t even understand why he’d forgiven me. Because I left too.
    I just wished Dad were home, to see her here, to see us all here, together.
    She watched me for a moment, then said, “When you smile like that, you remind me so much of your father. He smiled at me like that the night we met, and I thought my knees were going to melt.”
    I chuckled and said, “I wish I was half the man he was.”
    “You were looking kind of sad over here. Thinking about Julia?”
    I sighed and nodded. “Yeah.”
    She walked over and sat in the chair next to me. I shifted position, dropping my feet to the floor and facing her.
    “She and I had lunch a couple of times, you know,” she said.
    “I know.”
    She looked at me, her eyes sad. “Don’t give up on her Crank. If you love her, don’t give up on her.”
    “Dad said if I love her, I should let her go.”
    My mom’s eyes went red, and she covered her mouth to stifle a sob. After a second, she collected herself. “And your father was right. Julia’s a smart girl. She’s smart enough to know what a catch you really are. I think she’ll come around.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know. She went through some pretty screwed up stuff.”
    Mom nodded. “I know that. And she’s just now starting to really deal with it. She told me you’re part of the reason for that.”
    I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees; face buried in my hands, I gave a long sigh. The thing was, it was obvious she was working things out. Every time I saw her, she seemed more confident. She was losing that haunted look in her face.
    I grimaced. “Mom? You want to know what’s sick? I know she’s growing. I know she’s working out her issues over the past. And I’m afraid. I’m afraid she’s going to grow right past me and end up falling in love with some asshole who has it all together.”
    She didn’t say anything. But she put her hand on my shoulder. And she was shaking when she did it. Which was the craziest thing. I mean—this was my mom. My mom, who I’d barely spoken with in years. It was like we’d been taking baby steps toward each other. And this conversation went way beyond baby steps.
    She was shaking because she thought I might reject her. Like I had so many times in the last years.
    And that made me think of the past. Past Christmases, long ago. My mother, the concert pianist. Teaching me to play piano from the time I was a toddler.
    Abruptly, I stood up.