A Song for Julia

Belgium. I owe you.”
    “You don’t owe me nothing. You’re my little sister, okay? We take care of family.”
    “Okay,” I said, starting to cry. “Be careful over there, all right? I’m going to be really worried.”
    He grunted skeptically. “I’m Recon, kid. In civilian, that means invincible. Gotta go. I’ll email you tomorrow. Merry Christmas, kid!”
    I closed the phone and leaned against the wall and let the tears come. I’d lost so much time. So much life. Wrapped up inside myself, protected so tight inside my own cocoon where nothing could hurt me, nothing could touch me. All these emotions felt … raw, dangerous, out of control.
    But those emotions … they also made me feel alive. And I was starting to want that. I was starting to want to live, to really live, to let myself be who I really was. Not wrapped up in protecting myself, not wrapped up in hating myself.
    “You okay?”
    I looked up. It was Carrie. She stood, leaning against the wall, with her arms crossed and a concerned expression on her face.
    I thought about it for a second. And then I said, “Yeah, I am. Maybe better than I’ve ever been.”
    “Who was that?”
    “Do you remember Corporal Lewis? From the embassy in Brussels?”
    She shook her head.
    “I guess you were too young. He was … my big brother.”
    She gave me an odd, questioning look.
    “I’m okay, Carrie. Really.”
    She leaned close and kissed my forehead. “You know you can always talk with me, right?”
    I reached out and took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
    I stood. “How pissed is Mother?”
    “Her knuckles are white, and her face is all pinched up like she ate something sour.”
    I said, “Well, I guess it’s time to go brave the dragon. This should be fun.”
    “Coming with,” she said. So holding hands, we walked back into the family room.
    Alexandra was sitting, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Mother sat across from her, shuffling the deck of cards in her hands and speaking. “The Brewers will be here for dinner this evening, and I expect you be on your best behavior, young lady.”
    “Yes, Mother,” Alexandra said.
    We took our seats as she continued talking.
    “You should strike up a friendship with young Randy. He’s a nice boy.”
    “He’s mean to the kids at school,” she said. “He’s a bully.”
    “Don’t you argue with me, young lady.”
    Alexandra shut up. I looked back and forth between the two of them, and I wanted to scream. Alexandra was sitting, staring at the table, face down. Alone. Sad.
    It was Christmas Eve, damn it. She shouldn’t look like that. She should be laughing and having fun. I studied my mother.
    What happened to make her so hateful? What happened to make acid drip from her tongue, to make her speak to all of us, and me most of all, as if we were something she hated? I didn’t understand it, and even though I’d always hated it, I didn’t really know any different, until I spent those weekends in Jack’s house.
    I couldn’t help but wonder what Christmas was like there, if Jack hadn’t been deployed with the National Guard. Somehow I imagined him puttering around in the kitchen, making a huge meal, joking with Tony, and laughing with Sean and Crank. Here, my father was locked away in his study, as always, and my mother was … cold. Angry.
    Alexandra was a wonderful, sweet little girl. And she didn’t deserve that treatment. She reminded me so much of the little girl I had been in Belgium. When the only family I could find was my security guard, who gave me space in his life and in his heart, and just a few minutes ago had called me from halfway around the world to tell me he still thought of me as his sister.
    Seeing Alexandra like that—sad, in her formal dress, hands in her lap, face down, fidgeting as she stared at the table—something inside me broke.
    “Mother. We need to talk. Right now.”
    She looked at me, her face imperious, dismissive. “About what, dear?”
    “Alexandra,” I said. “You might not want to be here for this.”
    Mother raised her eyebrows. “I don’t recall you becoming the parent. I’m sure whatever it is you have to say, it won’t do your sister any harm.”
    Carrie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “ Oh, shit,” and sat back in her seat, as if she was trying to get as far away as possible from our mother.
    “Fine, then,” I said. “But I need you to know … I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of you