Part 19 (1/2)

”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 silent grief, and she pulled away. He opened the front door for her, and she slipped out into the darkness, alone.

Jack stood there, watching her go, one hand on the doorframe, and the other limp by his side, powerless to do anything to stop her from going. He looked defeated.

I sniffed again and wiped my hand furiously across my watering eyes. Then I pictured myself, sitting alone on the red line on my way back to Cambridge, and I ... I couldn't do it. Right now I couldn't face that ride alone. I didn't want to be alone. I whispered to Crank, ”I've changed my mind. If you're still willing to take me all the way home, I'd be grateful.”

He turned to me, giving me a look I couldn't read. ”No problem, Julia. Whatever you want.”

Take. Me. Home. (Crank) ”Why did your parents separate?” Julia asked me, a few minutes after we left my dad's house. It had taken a few minutes to get ourselves together, bundled into coats and hats, and then I couldn't find my car keys, but finally we made it out, and rode the first several minutes in complete silence. I was just about to turn on the stereo when she asked the question.

Instead of turning it on, I dropped my hand back to the wheel.

I thought about her question. There were no answers to it. There were a hundred answers to it. And I didn't know all of them. All I had was guesses and suppositions and blame. And it was obvious what prompted the question. That scene at the door. My parents were nothing if not dramatic, and it was obvious to even the most hardheaded punk rocker that they loved each other, which left exactly two clear reasons for her to leave. Me and Sean.

Finally I said, ”I only know part of it. And it doesn't reflect very well on me.”

She leaned against the door, huddled in her coat, arms wrapped across her chest.

”Why do you ask?” I said.

”Because it's obvious they love each other. That the separation is killing them.”

I sighed. ”I don't really understand, either. I don't see her very often. Holidays, sometimes.”

”Are they always like that?”

I nodded. I think I understood what she was getting at. Were they always so tragic? ”Yeah. Always. And it drives Dad insane that Sean and I are so angry with her.”

”My parents make appointments to see each other, I think,” she said. ”Even though they live in the same house, and he's retired now. I don't know if they ever felt that way.”

I shrugged. ”I don't know that kids ever know what's really going on with their parents. I sure as h.e.l.l didn't. I mean, your parents touched each other often enough to have you and your sisters.”

She grimaced. ”I didn't need that image in my head.”

”Your parents must have been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g like rabbits for years. I bet it was never quiet in your house.”

She shook her head, her expression irritated. Okay, yeah, I was pus.h.i.+ng it. It's who I am. ”Since I'm the oldest, by a lot of years, my sisters ... they weren't around much when I was little.” She paused a moment, then turned the subject back to my mother. ”There was no warning? That she was leaving?”

I shook my head. ”I came home one day, and she was gone. No explanation.”

What I didn't say-the day I came home and my mother was gone? The upstairs bathroom door had been broken off its hinges, the wood frame shattered. The violence of the act was a shock; unheard of in a house my parents took painstakingly good care of. I'd been gone for three days at that point, drinking and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and getting in trouble, so I didn't have a clue what had occurred in my absence, and Sean refused to say anything. In fact, he hardly said a word for the next three months. This, from the kid who could rattle on for an hour about the internal workings of an electric toothbrush.

”It was partly my fault,” I said.

She looked at me, confused. ”How?” she asked, very frankly.

”I think she left because she just couldn't take us anymore. Sean was having ma.s.sive freak-outs, he was always at the doctor, and I was getting in major trouble all the time. If my dad wasn't a cop, I'd probably have gone to jail for a good long time. As it was, I got a couple misdemeanors that should have been felonies and got brought home more than once when I should have spent the night in jail. I was ... trouble.”

Julia listened carefully, as always, and didn't come back with a knee-jerk response. Finally, she said, ”That's stupid. Get mad at your kid because he acts like an idiot? That I can see. But leave your husband because of your kid? I don't buy it. There's a lot more to that story.”

I don't know why this irritated me so much, but it did. I responded in an angry tone, ”You sure do have an opinion about everything, don't you? You meet my family twice, and you've got us all diagnosed.”

She gave me a skeptical, irritated look. ”Don't be such an a.s.s.”

”It's who I am,” I said, smug.

”It's your mask, maybe.”

”What's the difference?” I asked. ”You wear a mask long enough, no one can tell the difference any more. Not even me.”

”Not even for your friends? Your dad, or your brother?”

I snorted. ”I don't know what you're talking about. And what about you? What kind of mask do you wear?”

”None of your d.a.m.n business,” she said.

”For someone with so many opinions about me, you sure are sensitive about yourself.”

”I'm off limits.”

Jesus Christ. Like I didn't know that. She had to rub it in. Sarcastically, I replied, ”I know. You already told my brother that.” She flinched a little at the bitterness of my tone.

I was driving so fast, I went right by the exit for Cambridge.

”That's my exit,” she said.

”I know.”

She was silent for almost thirty seconds, which was a minor miracle. ”So-are we not getting off the highway?”