A Song for Julia

away from his dad, as he said, “I’m sorry I knocked over the shelf.”
    Jack grinned. “If I had to go live with my dad again, I’d probably knock over some stuff too. But don’t do it again, all right? I just hope nothing’s broken.”
    So Crank and Sean and Jack put the bookshelves back up, then all four of us picked up the assorted books and other items scattered across the floor.
    A picture frame had broken. I picked it up, careful of the cracked glass.
    The photo was of a much younger Jack and Margot. Crank was in the picture, maybe ten years old, wearing a green and white striped polo, and a wide grin on his face as he licked cotton candy. He was holding hands with Sean, who was maybe four in the picture.
    Jack took a deep breath then gently took the frame from me. “Have to get that frame replaced,” he said, his voice grave.
    “All right, kids. I have to report in at Fort Devens in less than a week. Which means we’ve got some planning to do. Let’s sit down and get this done.”
    Crank replied, “Me and Sean will talk—Julia’s got some studying to do.”
    I nodded, ruefully. The fact was if I didn’t get to it, I wasn’t going to finish this paper in time. So I grabbed my backpack, joined them in the kitchen and opened up my PowerBook. While they talked logistics of Crank moving home, handling bank accounts, school, and more, I worked on my paper, which dealt with fluctuation in interest rates following the 1980s S&L crisis. Exciting stuff.
    Periodically, I looked up at Crank. I’d never seen him like this. Serious. Organized. He was taking detailed notes and making suggestions to his father about handling legal and bill issues in his absence. In short, he acted like a grownup. Which, with Crank, was not always the case.
    “Monday afternoon’s my last day on the job. I’ll need you to be here then, Dougal.”
    Crank winced. “Monday’s bad. We’re in the studio.”
    “Any way you can reschedule?” Jack looked frustrated at having to ask the question. I could imagine what he was thinking—he was possibly going off to war, and Crank was worried about studio time?
    “Gonna be hard, we paid up front, several hundred dollars. Recording a new single. I’d just forfeit my money, but the rest of the band put up a lot of cash for it.”
    I leaned forward and said, “I can do it.”
    “What?” Crank said, as Jack looked over at me.
    “I’ll come over here after class and hang out with Sean. We’ll make a night of it, right, Sean? You can teach me how to make gluten-free pizza.”
    Sean grinned, which was as much facial expression as I’d ever seen on his face other than anger.
    Jack’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. “If you’re sure. I don’t want you to feel like you have to … this is a family issue.”
    I placed my palms flat on the table and looked Jack in the eye. “Sean is my friend. And you look out for your friends, okay?”
    He flashed a smile at me—the same charming, boyish smile Crank had so obviously inherited from him. “Well then, that’s settled. Dougal, you go record your song, I’ll be at work, and Julia will be here.”
    I went back to my writing.
    A little while later, while I was puzzling out a particularly thorny equation, Crank said, “I think that’s everything.”
    Jack responded, his voice low and quiet, “No. Not quite everything.”
    Something about his tone caught my attention. I looked up, puzzled. Crank was sitting across from his father, an expectant expression on his face. Sean was reading his medical textbook again.
    “We need to talk about your mother.”
    Crank’s eyes darted to Sean, and he said, “I don’t see why.”
    Crank stood and walked to the refrigerator, took out a beer and opened it. He was tense, his motions aggressive. Finally, he returned to the table, setting the beer on the table too hard. It hit with a loud crack. I stopped pretending to be interested in my laptop.
    “All right, Dad. Talk.”
    Jack closed his eyes and sighed. “I think she’s ready to come home. We talked about it last night for a long time.”
    Sean flipped the page in his book, too quickly. The page tore. Crank’s eyes narrowed and darted to his brother again. “We don’t need her. She hasn’t been here in years. Why should she come home now?” As he asked the question, he twisted the top off his beer and took a long drink from it.
    Jack’s face twitched, a mixture of unexpressed anger and sadness on his face. Very