Page 2 of The Unraveling of Julia

He used to talk about his lawyers league championship.Next year, Dechert goes down.

But Mike didn’t get next year. He didn’t even get next week, and that was what she mourned.Sorry for your loss, everyone told her, but he was the one who lost everything, andthatkilled her. She didn’t know if the word for that feeling was grief, or love.

Julia barely slept. She had nightmares that left her trembling.She’d see the man in the hoodie stepping from the darkness, the knife, Mike’s blood. Some days she’d get up, brush her teeth, and shower, but working seemed impossible. She had a small business designing and maintaining websites, but she could barely concentrate. Meanwhile, the financial pressure was on. She made $75,000 to Mike’s $250,000 a year, and his firm had already direct-deposited his last check. She had rent, student loans, credit card bills, and car payments. There was about $37,000 in savings, but $8,500 went for his funeral. Mike had only minimal life insurance because he was too young to die.

The police had no leads on his murder, and she routinely called the Homicide Division and the ADA. She’d given statements but didn’t have a good description of the killer because it had been too dark. His face had been shadowed by the hoodie, so she hadn’t seen his features and didn’t know his race or age. He hadn’t said anything, so she hadn’t even heard his voice. The ADA warned her to be vigilant when she went out, since she was an eyewitness, and it disturbed her that the killer knew what she looked like but she didn’t know whathelooked like. She wouldn’t see him coming, so she stayed inside.

The guilt was a gut punch, and a loop of second-guessing ran through her mind several times a day. What if she hadn’t worn a designer bag? What if they hadn’t eaten so late? What if Mike hadn’t tried to protect her? Since the funeral, Julia had a constant stomachache. She thought it was something she ate until she realized it was pure, weapons-grade guilt, Catholic in origin. Mike haddied for her.

A social worker had called, urging her to use Crime Victim Support. Julia ended up Zooming with a mother whose son was shot at a wedding, a man whose brother was stabbed in a bar, and a woman whose sister was strangled by a boyfriend. Julia listened to them in horror, crying with them. Her nightmares intensified, so she quit.

Her best friend Courtney made her see a therapist, SusannaCobb. They had their first session, also on Zoom, and Susanna recommended a Zoom widow bereavement group, but that didn’t work, either. The other widows had decades with their husbands, and all Julia could think was how lucky they were. Plus the facilitator talked about “widow empowerment” and “interactive self-help tools,” when Julia felt neither empowered nor interactive. They told her to expect the occasional “griefburst,” but she lived in a griefburst.MOPING IS COPINGread their slogan, but she coped way too much.

Since Mike’s death, Julia thought of her mother more and more. They’d been best friends, and Melanie Mortssen Pritzker was a warm and funny woman, a former NICU nurse devoted to Julia and filling her childhood with happy moments. Chasing foamy wavelets at the beach. Exploring the smelly darkness of the reptile house at the zoo. Nobody loved to bake more than her mother, and making a Funfetti cake was her birthday tradition.

Julia would never forget her tenth birthday, when the two of them huddled happily in the kitchen, sprinkling Funfetti into the batter. Her mother always mixed with a wooden spoon,old-schoolshe said.

Her mother smiled.This is the happiest day of the year for me.

My birthday?Julia asked, surprised. She watched the red, green, and blue jimmies churn by in the batter.

Absolutely.

But you didn’t get me on my birthday.Julia had known she was adopted from when she was little. Her mother had told her with characteristic honesty, making it no secret.

True, but the world got you that day.Her mother’s hazel eyes twinkled.And I’m so happy you were born.

Julia still had questions.Do you ever wish I came out of your belly?

Her mother shook her head.No, not at all.

Julia wasn’t sure she believed her.Why not?

Other moms and dads don’t get to choose, but I got to choose you. I waited for you for a long time, and you’re very special. God wanted us to have you and He brought you to us.

Julia smiled, suffused with her own adopted specialness, but suddenly her mother frowned, her hand going to her forehead.

Ow, that hurts.

What, Mom? Mom?

Julia didn’t want to remember what happened next. Her mother collapsed to the floor, her eyes wide open. The wooden spoon lay where she’d dropped it, dripping cheery Funfetti batter. Julia had tried to shake her awake, but her mother was already gone, dead of an aneurysm that very moment, on Julia’s tenth birthday.

Her father died of a heart attack her junior year at college, but they were never close. Her mother was their family’s chirpy driver, and her father its taciturn passenger. A structural engineer, Martin James Pritzker shut down after his wife died. Julia stepped into her mother’s role, cleaning and making dinner, but she couldn’t make him happy. He was a Sigher, and she didn’t have to ask why. She knew he missed her mother.

Once a year, they endured the awful convergence of her birthday and the anniversary of her mother’s death. They would visit her mother’s grave, then go home and have lunch, talking neither about her mother nor her birthday. Her father would descend to his basement and watch TV with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, which he permitted himself this day only.

Finally, when Julia turned fourteen, she found herself teary-eyed in the kitchen, making a Funfetti cake and mixing the batterby hand, then she took it downstairs.

Dad, look, I made—

What the hell is that?Her father turned in his leather recliner, acrystal tumbler in his hand. The TV showed a golf tournament on mute, its bright green fairway filling the screen.

It’s for her,Julia answered, instantly regretful.

Bullshit! It’s for you!Her father scowled, slurring his words.You made a cake, today? Your mother deserved better than you! Better than me!

No… Dad,Julia tried to say, stricken.I just thought—

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