A Song for Julia

called home … but there was no answer. And I figured, well, she had Sean at the park. But I called again, half an hour later. Then fifteen minutes later. Then I turned my patrol car around and got my ass here. And I couldn’t find Sean, but the upstairs bathroom was locked, and I could hear the water running. I kicked the door in and found her.”
    He closed his eyes, and his voice suddenly rose into a near wail, and he said, “She wasn’t breathing. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. I yanked her out of there, wrapped the wounds and called the dispatcher, and I held that woman in my arms and prayed and prayed.
    His voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought it was too late. When the ambulance got there, they couldn’t get me to let her go. Tony showed up then, and he pulled me off her, and I clocked him one. He had to wrestle me to the floor.”
    Jack dropped his face in his hands. “She was in the hospital for six months. And…you guys were too young. Too young to know what had happened. So … we just didn’t talk about it.”
    Crank slammed his fist into the table. “We didn’t talk about it?” he yelled. “Why the fuck not? Our mother’s been gone for almost five years, and you couldn’t tell us why?”
    Jack slumped. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked old, the lines in his face accentuated by longstanding grief. “I didn’t know what else to do, guys. I just didn’t. How do you tell your kids that you’ve committed their mother to a psych ward?”
    “So, what happened after that?” Crank demanded.
    “Her therapist believed that she needed more time. Time away … to heal, to get her mental health back. And I agreed. So, she spent a year in a group home, and then we rented her a little place in East Boston. And she’s been healing. Playing piano again. Learning to live. But she misses you guys so much it kills her. That’s why she started coming for holidays again last year.”
    I’d been sitting behind my laptop, silently crying, but after that I couldn’t stay silent. “Tell us something happy, Jack. Please? Tell us how you met Margot.”
    Crank and Jack both looked at me like I was crazy. Then I said, “You’ve told them the bad and the heartbreak. Now tell them something good. Tell them about the Margot you remember. It’s obvious you love her like nothing else in your life. Tell us why.”
    “God bless you, girl. I hope you end up in our family some day,” Jack whispered.
    I froze at his words. I wasn’t ready to think about the future. I wasn’t ready to think about next week, much less anything long-term.
    “Tell us,” Sean said. “I want to know about Mom.”
    “Me too,” Crank said. He reached out a hand and gripped mine, as if to say, thank you.
    Jack spoke quietly, “Oh God, your mom was amazing. She was a pianist with the Boston Pops. One night, she was on her way out of the Hall and got mugged. And I got called. She was this tiny thing … and so beautiful. Oh, my God, your mother was so precious. She had these huge light-green eyes and almost black hair, and I knew there was no way in hell she would go out to dinner with me. But I asked her anyway. And we fell in love. Your mom … she believed in … in happiness … in changing the world. She believed that if you work hard enough and believe hard enough, you can do anything in the world. So even though it made her dad all bullshit, she married a poor Boston Irish cop.”
    Crank squeezed my hand again, then said, his voice sober, “It’s my fault. I was tearing the whole family up then.”
    “Oh, shut up, Dougal. Don’t you get it? It’s no one’s fault. It’s not Sean’s, it’s not yours—it’s not mine. Yeah, the stress at home didn’t help. But that was just the icing on the cake. You guys never really knew much about it, but her whole family cut her off after we got married. Fucking Brahmins. Plus, if I’d been a better father, I would never have let you go off the deep end like that, anyway. I knew what you were up to, from the very first time you got in trouble. But I was too worried about finances and my job and your mother to do anything about it.”
    Jack turned to me, but pointed a finger at Crank. “Do you know what this joker did? He got up in front of God and everyone when he had the lead role in the eighth grade play and shouts, ‘Fuck the police.’ Brought the house down, let me tell you.” He turned back to Crank. “I get it, kid. We weren’t there for