A Song for Julia

apologize,” Jack said. “I’m sorry you had to see all that.”
    I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’ve got a family, too—I get it. Things happen we wish … hadn’t.”
    Jack and Margot both gave me odd, curious looks after I said that. I ignored them. I’d done all the sharing I was planning on doing for the next five years. I already felt raw, exposed. Normally I walked around in a cocoon of quiet, as if my emotions were wounds packed with cotton and gauze. Now that protective cover felt as if it had been ripped off and might start bleeding again any moment.
    “It’s time I got going,” Margot said.
    Jack sighed, and the look of longing in his face couldn’t be ignored. I didn’t understand what had happened to Jack and Margot, but whatever it was, it hadn’t dimmed their love for each other.
    “I’ll walk you out,” he said.
    They stood, and that’s when Sean appeared in the doorway, trailed by Crank.
    “Mama?” Sean’s face looked open and vulnerable, though his eyes were turned away, focused on the wall.
    She looked as if the weight of all the regrets in the world had slammed into her, leaving her gasping for breath. “Yes, Sean?” she said.
    When he spoke, his tone was subtly different than normal. I’d mostly heard him sounding monotone, his voice pitched just a little higher and louder than normal conversation. Now, he spoke quietly, and there was a rich undertone of sorrow in his words. “I’m sorry.”
    At the words, her eyes instantly went red and wet with tears. The look of relief on her face was painful to watch. She slowly approached him. His eyes were still turned away, but he put his arms out and very awkwardly hugged her.
    Margot choked back a sob. “I love you, baby,” she whispered.
    They broke apart, and she looked at him, and he looked at the wall.
    “I’ll come see you again soon. Is that okay?”
    He nodded his head, stiffly, his eyes still looking off toward the wall. “I’d like that.”
    I covered my mouth with my right hand and sniffed. It almost hurt to watch the awkward, painful interchange between them. This was too much. Too much emotion, too much pain, just too much. I needed to get back to my room, get a good book to read, and escape. Get grounded again, get back in control of the feelings that were twisting through me like a storm, tearing down levees and buildings and leaving me directionless and confused. Jack and Margot walked out into the living room, and Sean walked out as well, without a word to the rest of us. I didn’t know what it had cost him to make that apology. But I knew he’d gained a lot more from it.
    I stood, a little shaky. “Crank … can I get a ride from you to Broadway station?”
    “I’ll take you home,” he said.
    “It’s not necessary.”
    “I want to,” he replied.
    “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
    He opened his mouth to speak again and stopped. Then he shook his head and gave in. “All right. Whatever you want.”
    So I walked around the table to the doorway and stopped cold.
    Jack and Margot stood together at the front door. She wore her coat and scarf. His hands held her arms and their foreheads were touching. It was as intimate a pose as I’d ever seen two people. She had such an expression of longing and grief on her face that I almost burst into tears. He was whispering something, I don’t know what, but tears rolled down her cheeks as he said it. She nodded at his whisper and put her hands on his shoulders.
    I stepped back instinctively, not wanting to violate such a private moment, and Crank did too, so we ended up standing next to each other in the doorway, arms touching, both of us unable to watch, but unable to turn away.
    Jack whispered something else, and she replied, but they were too quiet, too private for me to hear. Watching them, I didn’t know what to think. What happened between them? How could two people so obviously, painfully in love with each other, be separated?
    Finally, Jack took her face between his hands, and slowly, gently, lovingly kissed her on the forehead.
    “Go,” he said, still whispering, but loudly enough I could just barely hear him, “I love you, Margot.”
    I swallowed, trying to keep my eyes from watering. Never, at least not since I was fourteen, had I wanted someone to say those words, to look at me like that, to hold me like that, to kiss me like that. But seeing this threw me all out of whack, all over again.
    Her shoulders started to convulse in