If I’d ever had a son, I think he would have been just like Blaise. My wife pointed out how he pulled in his lower lip when he played. I used to do that.
Shit. “Turn it off,” Miriam said. “Turn it all the way off.”
“Gladly.” Dicey complied and threw the phone in the well. “Something’s wrong with that guy. You really think he doesn’t know who you are?”
“If he knew, surely he’d just say so.”
“He said everything else, that’s for sure.” Dicey pulled her backpack onto her lap and curled forward over it. “But he’s so emotionally involved in all this. It’s almost creepy. That lower lip thing.”
Of all the things Miriam found troubling about Gus inserting himself into her life, this was the most disturbing. “He’s right,” she said softly.
“About the lip?”
“Yes. It was one of the first things about Blaise that reminded me of Gus.”
Dicey sat up, rubbing her stomach, but she didn’t reply, and Miriam didn’t prompt her. Traffic was heavier in Omaha than it had been since St. Louis, and the SUV flashing its lights in her rearview alerted her that she’d been in the left lane too long. She gunned the gas to clear the vehicle beside her and merged over. The SUV roared by, followed by a semi that sucked the car to the left and then released it again.
Dicey groaned.
Miriam jumped. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t tell if it’s Baby Girl kicking or indigestion.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “There. It’s better now. Sort of.”
Miriam heard her mother’s warning again. “Let’s find you a quick care clinic,” she said. “Just to get you looked over.”
Dicey shook her head. “No, I need to get back to California. My doctor there is expecting me.”
“Well then, maybe we need to forget this whole flip-a-coin thing and go straight there.”
“No. I’m all right. Come on, let’s turn on some music.” Dicey flipped the radio on and hit “Seek,” pausing just long enough on each station to classify it. R&B, hip-hop, country, Christian radio, classical.
Which was playing Gus’s movie score.
Not funny, Miriam addressed the heavens.
She reached for the dial, but Dicey knocked her hand away. “No, no, I love this one!”
Of course she did.
“You know this won an Academy Award, right?”
Miriam gripped the steering wheel. “Yup.”
“Did you see the movie?”
“I haven’t seen too many movies in the last year.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
The music filled the car. For months, it had been used to promote everything from burgers to Band-Aids. Who would have ever thought Gus, the quintessential ivory tower boy, would explore such plebian territory as a save-the-world-from-certain-destruction blockbuster? People were comparing him to John Williams.
The music ended with a soul-stirring swell that faded into the quiet hiss of the radio signal. Then the announcer came on. “That was August von Rickenbach’s Oscar-winning score to Terminus.”
“Huh.” Dicey rubbed her stomach absently. “von Rickenbach.” A pause. “Hang on,” she said slowly. “Is this him?”
Miriam groaned.
“You’re shitting me. The father of your kids is an Academy Award winner? For writing music? Why aren’t you beating down his door for help with Blaise’s sonata?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Because …?”
“Because I don’t trust him. That’s why.”
Dicey rubbed her hands over the swell of her belly for a long moment, thinking. Then she said, “I kinda think you gotta tell him, Miriam.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t take anything away from Teo. But all those texts—it’s obviously bugging him. And it’s killing you.”
“How do you suggest I have that conversation? Call him up and say, ‘Hey man, let’s Zoom? You know how you think I look familiar? That’s because you slept with me back at the Curtis Institute. And guess what? I got pregnant with twins. Remember me now?’”
Dicey waited out her sarcasm, then said calmly, “I think you have to go see him in person. Take him for coffee. Someplace public, where he can’t kill you for keeping this from him for twenty years.”
Miriam gaped at her. “Are you serious?”
“You’re headed for San Francisco, right? Because that’s where they died?”
Miriam tipped her head back and forth. “More or less. It was near a beach south of the city.”
“So yes, in other words. You know you’ll never have another opportunity like this.”
Miriam focused on the roar of vehicles surrounding her, filled with moms and carpools and delivery guys. People with purpose. People with places to go.
“What if I screwed up his life too?” she said softly.
Dicey’s voice sounded slightly strained. “We screw up our own lives, Miriam. We don’t need any help.”
Then she doubled over with a gasp, her teeth gritted, her face pale, her breathing shallow and labored. “Oh, crap. Crap, crap, crap.”
“What?”
“Literally, crap. Bathroom. Need a bathroom. Now.”
Miriam crossed two lanes of traffic in order to make the next exit, eliciting a honk and the bird from the driver of an SUV going too fast. She careened into the parking lot of a Wendy’s. Dicey had the door open before the car came to a complete stop.
25
MIRIAM GOT OUT OF the car. The sweetness of crabapple hung heavy on the warming air. She breathed deep, stretched, and settled into the moment. She’d forgotten how it felt to be idle. For so long, her life had been a hamster wheel, kids’ activities chasing church responsibilities in an ever-accelerating circle. Planning weddings, funerals, choir rehearsals—although, truth be told, she’d spent more time winging choir rehearsals than planning them.
She walked slowly along the sidewalk. It felt good to stretch her legs. To drink in the feel and smell of spring, the way it mixed with the aroma of fried food coming from Wendy’s. It was like … being alive.
Dicey wanted her to tell Gus. The idea was terrifying. What good would it do now? And how much harm?
And yet, to have this weight off her chest … it was what Teo had wanted from her. For her.
For twenty years, she’d picked at the jagged wound of her unfinished history with Gus von Rickenbach, her emotions numbing as it scabbed over but never healed. As a teenager and young adult, he’d had such a hold on her. He’d been like an addiction, his face behind her eyes every time she practiced, rendering her blind to all others.
If she hadn’t been so starry-eyed over Gus, maybe she would have realized Teo had been in love with her from the beginning.
Mom and Jo had seen it. Teo had been living with his uncle for years by then, his parents having returned to Argentina to care for their aging elders. She invited him to Detroit for Thanksgiving the year she was at Curtis. Mom and Dad raised their eyebrows, but Miriam insisted they were just friends.
“Don’t you see how he looks at you?” Mom asked the night before Thanksgiving, as she, Jo, and Miriam peeled potatoes.
“He looks at me like he’s paying attention to me. He looks at everyone like that. He looks at you like that. Because he’s a really good human being.”
Jo looked up in the act of mutilating a potato while attempting to cut out a bad spot. “I think you’re fooling yourself,” she said as a potato chunk flew across the room and Mom loudly protested the mess.
Thankfully, the men came in then, in pursuit of a snack, and Mom and Jo dropped the subject. But the whole rest of the weekend had been kind of awkward. And with Mom and Dad tiptoeing around each other, overly polite and falsely bright for Jo’s and Brad’s benefit, Miriam couldn’t help thinking about the guy who’d asked her to prom her senior year. She liked him as a person, but she’d been too nice to him. He’d been crushed when he realized s
he wasn’t interested in being his girlfriend.
She thought too highly of Teo to let that happen again.
So Miriam paid closer attention the next couple of months, and every once in a while, just often enough to make her nervous, she thought Mom and Jo might be right. The night before she left for Boston—the fateful trip where Gus had noticed her at last—Teo had walked her to her car after choir practice. “You’ve been working so hard,” he told her. “Go knock ’em dead. When you come back, I’ll take you out to celebrate. I …” He hesitated, then forged ahead. “I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”
It could have been anything—a recording project, a personnel problem he needed advice on—but something in the way he was fiddling with the loose string on his music bag signaled nerves. Miriam felt a hot flush—half thrill, half dread—which she resolutely shoved down. “Sure,” she said casually.
Two days later, Gus noticed her, and the heavens opened. When she came back to the church ensemble, everyone could tell. They were happy for her—even Teo tried to be. But their rapport was all off. They’d always been perfectly in sync, finding each other’s styles with ease, bouncing ideas off each other for how to highlight a verse or a nugget of text.
No one really enjoyed rehearsal that night. They all teased her for being on cloud nine. Except Teo. All his usual banter was absent.
She and Teo could talk about anything except Gus, it turned out. She’d never mentioned his name to Teo—not until after. And she never talked to Gus about Teo either. They represented conflicting worlds she couldn’t reconcile. And then Gus ripped her heart out, and Teo picked it up.
How much joy she could have had with Teo. If she’d just confronted Gus, it might have been different. A failed relationship was supposed to end in a breakup. It wasn’t supposed to just hang there, unresolved, forever.
In this moment of clarity, it was hard to blame Jo for thinking she needed a total reset on her life. Was she being unreasonable to resist?
But the idea of babysitting a phone sounded like the death of her soul.
She powered up her own phone, more from force of habit than because she expected to find anything worth her time. Another text from Gus. This was more what she’d expected from him. She swiped it away unread. The e-mail from Becky, though, deserved her attention.
She’d sent a video of the choir, gathered in the music area of St. Greg’s, with one of the other parish accompanists behind the keys. He started playing the familiar melody of “KREMSER,” and the choir began singing.
We gather together to send you our blessing
Our prayers and our love are behind you today.
Drive safely, eat healthy, don’t text while you’re driving,
Remember Father’s foll’wing, so watch what you say!
“Happy trails!” they all shouted.
Miriam laughed, her throat thickening. She’d known she was blessed in her volunteers, but it had been a long time since she’d had it demonstrated so clearly.
Nobody at St. Gregory’s had hesitated to pick up the slack so she could take this trip. Not even Father Simeon, her boss. They stood behind her a hundred percent, the people who knew her best, the people who had watched her family grow, cheered their successes, and encouraged her when the kids had pushed her to the edge.
She thought of the rehearsals peppered with smart-ass comments and liberally sprinkled with laughter. Of the way they supported each other with prayers and casseroles and cards and hugs. Of the way St. Greg’s had opened its arms and enfolded them when she and Teo arrived, young and sleep-deprived, with twin babies in tow, and handed them a small but newly renovated house at a ridiculously low rent. Of Becky, who’d kept Miriam sane for the last year, forcing her to take a break from the busy work she was using to keep the demons at bay.
That community, with Teo, was the only place she’d ever felt she belonged. For the past year, she’d been keeping them all at a distance, afraid to show them her heart, afraid to lean on them as they had so often leaned on her.
Jo was wrong. Miriam had plenty of reasons to stay in Atlanta. This video proved it.
She sent Becky a string of hearts. When she looked up, Dicey was emerging from the restaurant, moving slowly. Her blue bracelet flashed merrily in the bright sunlight. Miriam wondered again about the significance of that accessory. She’d never seen Dicey without it. “You okay?”
Dicey smiled wanly. “Well enough.”
Miriam chewed the inside of her cheek as Dicey eased into the car and reclined her seat. They really should find a quick care clinic. But she could imagine how Dicey would react if she brought that up again.
Miriam got in and slid the keys into the ignition. A phone buzzed. She tensed, but it wasn’t hers. Miriam had never seen Dicey ignore a text. “Dicey? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I just need to rest a while.”
The phone buzzed again. “That’s going to keep buzzing until you clear it, you know.”
“You check it, then.”
Miriam took it from her. “What’s the password?”
“Nine-one-nine-seven.”
Miriam punched the code in. “It’s your mom. She sent an article. ‘Pregnancy and Gastro-Intestinal—’”
Dicey grabbed the phone without looking. “I’ll read it later.”
Miriam touched the ignition again. They’d spent the better part of six days in the car. Dicey might not see a doctor, but maybe she’d rest for a day.
Miriam could use some rest too. Rest, a piano, and a few uninterrupted hours to immerse herself in Blaise’s music.
“Hey, Dicey.”
“Yeah?” She sounded half asleep.
“I was thinking. I know we’ve only been driving a couple hours, but how would you feel if we just stop here for the day? Grab a cheap motel room, and I’ll find a place to write. Give you a chance to relax. What do you think?”
Dicey opened her eyes and smiled. “I think that sounds great,” she said.
* * *
Miriam left Dicey asleep at the motel and headed for a Catholic church that looked, from its online pictures, like it had an accessible piano.
The traffic was terrible around the church. She glanced at the clock and smacked her forehead. Of course—the adjacent parochial school was dismissing. She’d timed her arrival badly.
Carefully, she navigated the traffic and pulled into a parking place. Her phone rang as she gathered her things. She glanced down and silenced it. No way did she have the energy for her sister right now.
She headed for the church, dodging parents and children walking hand in hand, the children shouting goodbyes to their friends. Inside, she paused to dip her fingers into the holy water. She breathed deep of the rich, buttery silence unique to the inside of a church. It was as if every person who set foot within its walls left behind a remnant of themselves: joy and peace along with bitterness, anger, sorrow, and shame. Outside, the interstate roared and schoolchildren shouted, but within these walls, everything retreated.
She’d always loved that about churches. One of her earliest memories was of coloring Disney princesses on the floor while Mom sat in front of the tabernacle on her holy hour. She remembered the way Mom’s crystal rosary beads caught the light from stained glass windows, sending bits of glitter scampering around the chapel.
Throughout her childhood, that otherworldly feel meant comfort. Safety. On the hard days—that last year of high school, when the chill of her parents’ floundering marriage made home seem like hostile territory—she’d bike over to church after school and stay there until dinner. She’d practice or do her homework or just sit quietly and pray. Sometimes she even got roped into helping the volunteer cleaning crew.
In recent years, she’d sort of forgotten. When church became a place of work, Miriam started bringing outside worries in with her. Even so, she would often go into choir practice ready to bite the head off the next person who looked at her wrong, and by the end of the night she’d be l
aughing again.
Miriam scanned the church, a modern building with pews radiating outward from the raised sanctuary. The light seemed to come from everywhere, streaks of color slanting across the brick wall, as if stained glass were embedded in the roof behind the altar. She spotted the sanctuary lamp burning in the corner and headed in that direction, running her hands along the backs of pews, her footsteps muffled by the carpet.
She paused at the door of the chapel to genuflect and say a quick prayer, then made her way to the grand piano perched to the left of the altar.
The moment Miriam’s fingers touched the keys, something inside her relaxed. It felt right. Like coming home after a long absence.
Which was silly. It had only been six days since the congressman’s funeral. Then again, a lot had happened since then.
She let her fingers explore, filling the church with songs and hymns: “Draw Near” and “In Every Age,” “Taste and See” and “Lord of All Hopefulness.” With every new song, her heart opened a little more. This expansiveness, this sense of connectedness with a larger reality, was what had drawn her to church music as a profession. Well, this and Teo. She closed her eyes, remembering how his fingers caressed the guitar strings, picking chords and melodies. Over the years, playing Spanish-language songs had become a well-rehearsed dance. She provided enough structural support for the congregation to feel comfortable singing, but Teo took the lead.
At its best, liturgical music drew invisible threads between hearts gathered for worship. At its best. But Miriam hadn’t been at her best for a long time.
“I just want you to be happy,” Teo said one night after choir practice as they turned off the lights. “We have a beautiful life.”
Out in the church, a pew creaked, the sound echoing in the open space. Miriam looked up but saw no one. She’d forgotten the comfort of phantom creaks in a church, as if the spirit of some saintly former worshiper was taking a seat. Maybe, in this case, her husband. Or one of her children.
“We did have a beautiful life,” she said aloud, and the air around her seemed to breathe a little more freely.
A Song for the Road Page 17
