Two days before Christmas I came home to find Mikey and Jamie sitting at the kitchen table. (I knew Hadley and Jake were coming).

What a surprise. Maureen was in on it. But Mikey and Hadley, it appears, had made it happen.

We played silly games. Mikey supervised a paleo Christmas lunch and introduced it like a maitre’d.

On the 27th, as some were beginning to leave, Hadley said : “Let’s walk…” and we wrapped up and went through Summerhedges Lane to the woods behind the big house. The puddles were still iced over.

“I see Jamie is reaching out to you. There are some things I think you should know.”

She told me Jamie had suffered from serious depression and made a suicide attempt when he was 22.

In fact, Jamie had been very seriously ill. Elsa played a key role. So had Mikey, whose apartment Jamie had stayed in a lot of the time.

Why wasn’t I told?

“That was the way it worked. You were never told. Lonnie and Elsa dealt with family things. And Jamie didn’t want you to know. But don’t you see he is now calling out to you?”

I said: “I would like to talk to Jamie about this…”.

“I think you should,” said Hadley.

And I did, though I had not expected what came.

“You were never ever there for me,” Jamie said. “I was very angry about it for a long time….I never called you Dad.  None of us did. We called you John. In fact I never had a Dad.”

It was spoken coolly, but with a quiet firmness that brooked no dispute.

“But we did things together,” I said.

“About once  year,” he said.  “Lonnie and Elsa were my family. They were good to me. They remembered my birthdays. Lonnie and Elsa were not parents, they were guardians. They were good guardians but that is not the same. They have their own children. I never knew my mom. You were all I had.Then, when you came back from your travels, you were with us a little while and took off again. Then you went home. To your home, not our home.”

Julie and Elsa were good liberals.To them I guess  I was the committed journalist who complemented their world of church, school and family.

“Choices and regrets,” Elsa used to say, “choices and regrets.”

Maybe I understand better now what she was saying.

They laughed a lot together when I got back and I was happy for them and no-one was bothered that I didn’t have a lot to say.