A Song for the Road

by Kathleen Basi

  Miriam picked at some peeling paint on the porch support. “I couldn’t get out of the car,” she admitted in a low voice.

  Becky hugged her again, the box and bottle bumping the post behind her. “You shouldn’t go out there by yourself,” she murmured. “Let the people who love you help you.”

  Miriam melted into the touch of another human being. She couldn’t get used to the lack of human contact—as a wife and mother, someone had always been touching her.

  For one moment, she considered unburdening herself to Becky—telling her the ways in which she’d failed Teo, the last fight with Talia, the secret that should have felt less burdensome now that they were all gone, but that felt heavier than ever.

  But Becky would never look at her the same way again.

  No. She had to figure this out on her own.

  Miriam straightened, and Becky released her. Away from that human touch, the spring night held a chill.

  Becky sighed. “Well, it’s just as well you weren’t in the office today. Ella came in looking for you.”

  Miriam shuddered. “Ella Evil would have been the cherry on top of this day.”

  Becky’s lips twitched. “One of these days, you’re going to slip up and call her that to her face.”

  “Bring it on.” For months after Ella Emil, the “online voice of Atlanta,” featured Miriam’s quest to memorialize her children with a fine arts addition at St. Gregory the Great High School, her life had been hell. Everyone read Ella’s gossipy blog, even if they’d never admit it. Miriam had taken to grocery shopping at one AM to avoid running into people who thought they were entitled to hug her and pat her cheek and share their own sob stories.

  She should have known better than to talk to that woman. Should have known Ella would make her look like a saint; it racked up blog hits. Should have known trying to live up to that image would crush her soul. But Mom had insisted publicity would help the cause and that talking would make her feel better.

  She’d been right on point A. Point B, not so much. “What’s Ella want now?” she asked.

  “An update.”

  Miriam groaned. “‘Grief-stricken widow goes crazy at funeral of congressman.’ You have to admit, it has a certain ring.”

  “Nobody thinks you’re crazy, Miriam. We’re all just worried about you.”

  Miriam moved toward the door, shuffling with her keys. “I wish people would chill. It’s not like I’ve spent the last year holed up in my bedroom refusing to shower.”

  Becky cocked her head, giving Miriam a Look. The kind that required capitalization. “I hate to break it to you, but there’s more to living than showing up showered.”

  “Brilliant, Becky. Put it on a meme.”

  “Miriam, you know I love you. But you can’t go on like this.”

  Miriam swung on her friend. “You think I don’t know that?” Her words bounced off the house across the street; she winced.

  “Everyone knows what you’ve been through.” Becky spoke softly. “Nobody should have to do what you had to do today. It was a terrible set of circumstances. But, Miriam, honey, you can’t take it out on your volunteers.”

  “I didn’t yell at anyone.”

  “Not today, you didn’t.”

  Miriam winced. The sound guy still flinched every time she looked his way, and it had been, what, six weeks since that spat?

  No wonder her volunteer ranks were getting thin.

  She rested her forehead against the wall. Sometimes she woke in the night with her pulse pounding, crucified on the knowledge that everything she’d sacrificed had been for nothing. Sometimes the anger caught her off guard in the most inappropriate moment. Like when she stood before the choir, her hands raised, their eyes on her, trusting her, and she longed to launch a microphone stand at them, javelin-like.

  But most of the time, she just felt dead. As if the emotion that had fueled her music and given purpose to her days—everything that made her good at her job—went into the ocean with her husband and twin teenagers a year ago.

  She’d been certain nothing could be worse than the crushing weight of grief that had paralyzed her for months. Every day, every hour, every minute.

  She’d been wrong. Feeling nothing at all was much worse.

  Miriam swallowed. “I hate everything. I hate my job, I hate playing piano, I hate dealing with people. I … I don’t know if I can do it anymore, Bec.”

  “Oh, Miriam,” Becky said softly, “don’t lose yourself in this. Teo would never have wanted this for you.” She bit her lip but couldn’t quite swallow the chuckle. “‘Ring of Fire,’” she said, shaking her head. “Where did that even come from?”

  “The devil made me do it,” Miriam muttered, only half joking.

  Becky sniffed, held her hand out, and wiggled her fingers. “Let me see the card.”

  Miriam didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She pulled the floral card from in front of the photo in her phone case and handed it over. Becky took it, and Miriam ran her finger over the photo of herself and Teo standing beside the piano at St. Gregory’s. Teo’s hand rested on the neck of his guitar; Miriam pointed to something in the accompaniment book. She didn’t remember what. Only that they’d been in the middle of a spirited discussion about it when the kids had told them to look and snapped the picture.

  They were making faces.

  Miriam loved that picture. It was quintessential Teo: that big Italian-Argentine nose, the glasses that made him look like a geeky professor, right from the day she’d first met him at the national convention for liturgical music.

  From day one, he’d made her feel like she belonged. What had she ever done for him?

  “‘Happy birthday, love of my life,’” Becky read. She looked up. “Pretty generic for a message from beyond the grave.”

  “It’s an auto-delivery for my birthday and anniversary,” Miriam said dully.

  Becky’s eyebrows shot skyward. “Auto-delivery doesn’t sound like Teo.”

  “Two years ago, the night before my birthday, he realized at dinner he forgot to call the florist.” Miriam passed her hand across her eyes. She could still see Blaise’s sardonic thumbs-up at Teo’s exclamation. “Way to keep a surprise, Dad!” he’d said.

  Talia had rolled her eyes and whipped out her phone. Miriam could hear the timbre of teenage exasperation in her daughter’s voice, clashing with the glow of pride at the chance to show off her expertise.

  “Talia set it up, to show off for her Luddite parents,” she said now.

  “You’re not a Luddite,” Becky said with a tolerant smile, but then frowned. “But if it was an auto-delivery, why didn’t it didn’t happen last year?”

  “It did. But on my birthday, when the flowers arrived, they hadn’t …” She couldn’t say it. The car accident that had killed her husband and twin teenagers—hit head-on by a drunk driver as they drove down the highway toward a beach on the other side of the country—hadn’t happened until later in the day.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to say it; Becky nodded her understanding.

  “And on my anniversary … Mom was here then. I remember a delivery truck, but … I was in such a fog then.” Miriam shoved her key into the front door lock. As usual, it wouldn’t turn. Her locket bumped against her breastbone as she wrestled with the door.

  “You think your mom got rid of them before you saw them?”

  “Seems like a safe guess.” She wrenched the lock again. “Damn it, you stupid door. Open!”

  Becky tucked the wine under her elbow, took the key from Miriam, and unlocked the door. Of course. Even inanimate objects obeyed Becky.

  It swung open, and the smell of old house—slightly acrid, slightly spicy—rolled out to meet them. Becky handed the key back. “Miriam, talk to me.”

  Miriam stared into the darkness of the house, a darkness perforated by the silhouettes of even blacker objects: the baby grand, Teo’s armchair, the tree full of coats that lost the scent of their owners months ago. Everything where
it had been a year ago this night, when she’d turned all the lights off, powered down her phone, and tried to pretend she’d died too. “I can’t live like this anymore,” she whispered. “I’m surrounded by ghosts. They talk to me, you know.” She sensed Becky’s hesitation. “Not like that. I just always know what they’d say if they were here. Or I remember what they did say. It’s like I have a built-in Greek chorus.”

  She rested her head on the door frame. “And yet still, I was totally blindsided by a delivery of flowers I should have known were coming.” She shook her head. “I’m stuck, Becky. What if it’s because I’m still here? Living in the middle of a life that doesn’t exist anymore?”

  “He’s been so unhappy. Why do you always push him away?”

  Miriam shuddered at the echo of the words Talia had flung at her the night before her family left for California, never to return. Had Teo really been unhappy? Why hadn’t she noticed?

  Becky put a hand on her shoulder. “Miriam, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve got to give yourself some time.”

  “I’ve had nothing but time, Becky. And look what happened today.” She shook her head. “I can’t go on like this. At the very least, I’ve got to get into Talia’s computer and close her accounts. If this got by me, there’s no telling what else might be hiding out there. I can’t handle any more surprises. I’ll lose my job if there’s another day like today.” She pulled out the roll of trash bags from the shopping bag. “I figure, if I’m going to purge the computer, I might as well just keep going.”

  Becky’s eyes narrowed. Her mouth too. Then she nodded and gestured with the wine and chocolate. “We’re going to need this more than I thought.”

  * * *

  Becky stepped over the threshold and flipped a light switch. Her footsteps creaked across the old hardwood floor. Teo always joked that the kids could never sneak out of the house, those floors made so much racket.

  Her friend went straight for the kitchen to open the wine bottle and pour a couple of glasses. Miriam wandered more slowly, stopping—as she so often did these days—at the piano, where Blaise’s spiral notebook lay open on the music stand.

  She’d known, the way mothers know, that he’d been writing a piano sonata for her. He never worked on it while she was around. But she recognized the look of one sunk deep into his own mind, circling the core of his muse, trying to cajole a spark to light. Too many times, she’d heard unfamiliar music as she approached the house after work, and by the time she’d fumbled the door open, he’d be practicing Liszt or Beethoven again. Once—only once, but once was enough—she’d seen the handwritten scribbles peeking from behind published scores.

  She’d found it when the police sent the boxes back from California—boxes containing the things most important to her husband and children. The things important enough to take with them on such a highly anticipated trip: Talia’s cello and laptop, the satchels full of music, the suitcases, and a spiral music notebook with the words Sonata—for Mom scribbled across it in Blaise’s handwriting.

  It was months later before she found the folded e-mail printout tucked into the manuscript notebook. The pinpoint of vivid, scarlet rage that note had aroused in her was one of her few clear memories of that time. Rage at the universe. Rage at her impotence—and her cowardice. She should have dealt with this years ago. When it could have made a difference.

  One e-mail. That was all it took to trigger her insecurities—and a familiar craving to prove herself. To gain the notice of a man whose opinion shouldn’t matter at all.

  She’d resolved to finish what her son no longer could. But she’d done it for all the wrong reasons, and she’d been regretting her rashness ever since. Sure, she’d written music—small forms, responses meant for use on Sunday mornings. Nothing like a major piano work.

  And how anyone else had found out about it remained a mystery. She didn’t remember talking about it. Then again, she’d spent so long in a fog, that was hardly surprising. Her mother, convinced the key to surviving loss was staying busy, had talked her into starting the capital campaign for the fine arts wing. Surely the sonata must have had something to do with that.

  Still, to this day, Miriam couldn’t say how the sonata ended up being the headline of a concert benefiting the campaign. She just knew she’d spent December in a haze of writing, only to discover in January that every note she’d written was complete, utter, derivative drivel. Christmas carols! She’d managed to write Christmas carols into it!

  Miriam ran a finger over the pencil marks. Blaise’s handwriting was better than hers. “You should have been a doctor,” Teo used to tease.

  She slid onto the piano bench, smoothed the notebook flat, and began to play.

  The themes were lyrical, a window into the beautiful, sensitive soul of her beautiful, sensitive boy. The sinuous melodies massaged her heart, only to be repulsed before evoking any emotion. What remained of her heart sat beneath her sternum, slowly compressing like coal, getting hotter and hotter. Much longer and she’d either lay a diamond egg or blow like Mount Vesuvius.

  If she had loved Blaise, surely a few of the notes pouring from her fingers should have sparked an answering call in her heart. And if she hadn’t really loved Blaise, who had been a mirror of her own soul, how could she hope to look Talia’s ghost in the eye and say she’d loved Teo?

  Miriam found her hands at a standstill on the keys, her gaze fixed on the last measure Blaise had written. “Come on, Miriam,” she growled, starting in again. He’d laid out all the material. She only had to develop it. Motive, sequence, inversion, secondary dominant. She closed her eyes, trying to let her fingers find a path forward. Instead, she found her hand drifting toward the e-mail that barely protruded from the manuscript.

  “Is that it?”

  Miriam snatched her hand back and looked to her left. Becky leaned against the archway between the kitchen and the living room, holding two glasses of wine.

  “It’s beautiful,” Becky said.

  The sonata. Becky was talking about the sonata. Not the e-mail. “Sorry,” Miriam said. “I should be …”

  “Don’t apologize. Do you want to talk?”

  “No.” Miriam switched off the piano lamp.

  “Okay, then.” Becky held out a glass. “You ready to get started?”

  Miriam took a sip. “Not even remotely.” She got up from the piano and started down the hallway toward Talia’s room. She hadn’t been inside in eleven months. Not since she’d received an overdue notice from the library. She’d gone in but left without searching. Paying the fine seemed easier.

  The moment she pushed open the door, ghosts darted out. She could hear it so clearly: the sound of six-year-old Talia, banished to her room for punching Blaise, throwing a bouncy ball at the ceiling. When the sound stopped, Miriam thought she’d gone to sleep. But then she’d found Blaise on the floor of his room, whispering into the old heating vents, keeping his twin sister company through her incarceration.

  “You can’t fight with someone who has no heart.”

  Miriam had heard Talia’s words in her head a hundred times since her daughter shouted them at her. What she wouldn’t give to hear them in reality now. To have a chance to make amends.

  Becky stood watching her anxiously. Miriam edged over the threshold and turned on the light.

  Just inside the door lay two music cases: Teo’s guitar and Talia’s cello. Yo-Yo Ma and Steve Jobs still looked down from the walls; award cups covered every surface. Books, sketch notebooks. Stuffed animals Talia had relegated to a hammock but couldn’t bear to get rid of.

  Talia’s laptop case lay on the bed. “You start with the accounts,” suggested Becky. “And I’ll take the stuffed animals. How many do you want to keep?”

  All of them. Miriam twitched a shoulder. “Maybe just Blue Beary. He was her favorite. And the unicorn. You think we can send the rest to a children’s shelter?”

  “I don’t know. We can ask.” Dust showered down as Becky unhooked the
hammock. She set the two privileged animals on the bed and started stuffing the rest into a trash bag.

  It made Miriam ill to watch. She opened Talia’s computer. After a year, it was dead, of course. She plugged it in. Blaise’s interest had been composing; Talia’s was programming. She and Teo had been forced to concoct increasingly complex rules about screen time to make sure they honored her gift without losing her to the online world altogether.

  “Closet?” Becky said.

  Miriam looked up to find Becky awaiting permission. Behind her hung an array of flowing skirts, loose blouses, and bright scarves: Talia’s lovely, bohemian wardrobe. Her daughter could work magic with a scarf tied into her dark curls.

  Why on earth had Miriam ever thought this was a good idea?

  Becky put a hand on her shoulder, her voice gentle. “I’ll tell you what. For now, let’s just lay it all out and take inventory.”

  Miriam’s fingers crept toward the rainbow of scarves Becky laid across the bed. She picked up one embroidered with baby blue. Talia had always made fun of her mother’s penchant for no-fuss slacks and soft cotton blouses. How many times had Talia tried to get her to wear some of these beautiful, feminine clothes?

  Miriam tied the scarf into her hair, the way Talia had, with the long tail hanging down her back. She regarded her reflection in the mirror. It didn’t look as ridiculous as she’d feared. She was only thirty-eight, after all.

  Miriam turned back to Talia’s laptop. They’d required the kids to share all passwords with their parents. Cellista00! she entered, and the familiar background came up: a close-up of the twins, taken after a high school choir concert. Miriam clutched her locket, then took a swig of merlot. She could do this.

  As Becky murmured and sorted and laid things in piles, Miriam found the floral delivery and canceled it. Then she headed for Talia’s e-mail, reading and deleting, forwarding to herself anything she wanted to keep. The wine helped. Her brain felt fuzzy.

  “I don’t remember this one,” Becky said, and an inky black dress with huge red flowers dropped into Miriam’s lap.