And a cello.
“Oh no,” Steph breathes. “I told them not to.”
Two men place folding chairs, and the kids sit and begin to play.
Braden braces himself, but it’s no good. The music insinuates its way past all of his defenses, goes straight to his heart. He’s not the only one. He sees Allie’s face go even whiter, sees her knees begin to buckle. He’s at her side before he knows what he’s doing. His arm goes around her waist, supporting her.
He bends and whispers in her ear, “Just breathe, little bird. I’ve got you.”
She softens into him, letting him take her weight, and the moment of trust is a thread of light in all of the grief and darkness and guilt. Even when the music mercifully ends, Allie doesn’t pull away. He holds her while friends and acquaintances come by to offer condolences, letting Alexandra revel in the pressing hands, the hugs, the lugubrious sighs and sobs.
“Yes, I agree, she is irreplaceable . . . So sad, so tragic . . . Yes, his life was cut off so short, but God knows best . . .”
“Whoa,” Steph says. “What is he doing here?”
Braden follows her gaze and sees a tall boy walking toward them. Glossy black hair, black jeans, black motorcycle jacket, black helmet dangling from one hand. His eyes are the luminous amber of a panther, and that’s what he reminds Braden of. A hunter on the prowl. His arm tightens, reflexively, around his daughter.
Allie pulls away.
“Ethan. Hi.”
“Hey,” he says, standing so close that Braden can smell leather and cologne. All of the hackles rise on the back of his neck.
“Not much to say, I know. Hang in there.” The boy nods, as if he’s said something deep, and then he makes his way through the thinning group of people toward the parking lot.
Both girls watch his retreating back.
“Whoa,” Steph says again, a little breathlessly.
Allie says nothing.
“You want me to come over?” Steph asks. “Or you can come back to my house. Whatever you want.”
“Not tonight. I’ll text you.”
“Come, Allie,” Alexandra says. “You’re as pale as a ghost. Let’s get you home.”
When Allie doesn’t answer, her aunt clamps a capable hand around her wrist and tows her toward the car. Allie doesn’t resist, doesn’t look back.
Braden, uninvited, unsure of his place in any of this, stays where he is. His arm still feels warm from sheltering his daughter. As she moves away from him, loss fills him, is going to choke him. He can’t let her go again. Whether she wants him or not, whether he deserves it or not, he needs her.
At the same moment as he takes a step to follow, Allie stops short and wrenches her arm from Alexandra’s grasp.
“Wait. Dad’s coming, too.”
“Let’s discuss that later,” Alexandra says, impatient. “You can call him.”
“No. He’s coming now.”
“Allie.” He breathes her name, takes another step toward her.
“You are coming with us.”
“I guess we could give you a ride to . . . wherever you’re crashing these days,” Alexandra concedes. “Is it far?”
“No,” Allie says. “He’s coming to the house. With me. To stay.”
“Allie, I don’t think—”
“You owe me,” she insists. “I won’t go with Aunt Alexandra. I won’t go into foster care. Clearly, I need a parent, and guess what? I have one.”
“Allie, honey, listen to reason,” Alexandra says. She glances around, judging how many people are listening, how much of a scene is being made.
“No, you listen,” Allie says. “Both of you. This is how it’s going to be. In six months, I’ll be eighteen, and then I can do whatever I want. So I need a father for six fucking months, and then we’re all free of each other. Surely you can give me six months of your life?”
Her eyes, so very like Braden’s own, lock on to his.
“You can’t be serious!” Alexandra looks from one to the other, finally forgetting about bystanders in her clear outrage. “The social services people—”
“The social services people will be happy to have an easy solution. They don’t like the Canada thing. It’s a legal hassle for them. There’s not really room at Steph’s. And they don’t have enough foster homes. And even if they did, I am not going to be in one.”
“We’ll figure out Canada.”
“I still have rights,” Braden says. “Lil and I filed a parenting plan, but my rights were never terminated. So, legally, I’d think—”
“Oh, that’s just ridiculous, Braden. You haven’t been around since Allie was six.”
“Paid my child support.”
“There hasn’t even been visitation—”
“Lil asked that I not visit anymore. I gave her what she wanted.”
“Mom did what?” Allie stares as if he’s just said something incomprehensible.
The memory jolts him as if the wound is fresh. The empty, gaping hole in the fabric of his life when the Sunday-afternoon visits stopped. His own pain, and worse, the thought of Allie and Trey crying over his absence.
“Your mother thought—”
Allie cuts him off and turns away. “Whatever. We tell social services that Dad’s been estranged, but he’s here now. Going to stay with me. Case closed. When I turn eighteen, you’re done. I go to college. Everything is fucking awesome.”
“Do you even have a job? How are you going to support her?” Alexandra fumes.
“Insurance money.”
Alexandra snorts. “Should have known you’d be in it for the money. I don’t even know if Lilian had insurance. And if she did, I’ll see to it that you don’t get your hands on a solitary penny.”
“My insurance money,” Braden says, keeping his voice as level as he can. He will not get into a shouting match with Alexandra. Not here in public, not anywhere. “From the policy we had on my hands.”
“Mom did have life insurance,” Allie chimes in. “I’m the beneficiary. So there’s also that.”
Alexandra softens her tone, puts a gentling hand on Allie’s arm. “Honey, you’re not thinking clearly. How about we give it some time? I’ll take you home, and we’ll drop your dad off—”
Allie shakes her off. “We stop by Dad’s place on the way home so he can pack a bag, and he comes with us. Now. Today.”
Her gaze sweeps over her aunt, over Braden. “Are we clear? Good. Let’s get out of here.”
She turns her back and stalks away from them toward the waiting limo. Braden and Alexandra follow in silence, although it’s clear from her tight lips and defiant chin that she’s not done yet. He could make a run for it. Call a cab. Go home and drown this whole impossible situation in a sea of alcohol.
One thought holds him steady, keeps him moving toward the car.
Allie needs me.
And that’s the only thing that matters.
Chapter Six
PHEE
Phee slips into the back row one moment before the funeral begins. She feels like a ghoul, a death raven, turning up here, but if Braden is alive and going to surface, she needs to get a lock on him.
Not that Phee isn’t sad; the two coffins up on the platform stab her through the heart.
She’s never met Trey or Allie and has spoken about a dozen words with Lilian on the occasions when she brought the cello into the shop for maintenance. Dark eyes, a face that might have been beautiful had it been warmed by a smile. She’d carried the cello like an odious duty, unconsciously wiping her palms on her slacks after turning it over to Phee.
When musicians bring their instruments in for repairs they hover, make worried noises, spout all sorts of self-reproachful guilt over an accidental scratch or ding. Phee is used to soothing them, and they know they can trust her.
Lilian, bringing in the cello, would share only the briefest of facts.
“Allie says it’s not holding a tuning properly,” or “It needs to be restrung.” This followe
d by: “How much?” And: “How long?”
When Allie was young, Phee felt guilty sending the cello back into that environment, as if it were a child in an unloving home. But Allie, she knows, has always loved the cello and is growing into a brilliant cellist.
Phee has cyberstalked her for so long the girl feels like family. They are friends on Instagram and Facebook, where Phee’s handle is “Lucia Luthier.” She posts music pics and memes and never anything personal. She knows that the girl with the harshly dyed black hair sitting on Allie’s left is her best friend since grade school, Steph, who plays the flute in the orchestra and isn’t as tough as she looks.
The woman on the right, as proprietary and possessive of Allie as Phee is of the violins and cellos entrusted to her care, is an unknown. She must be a relative and is therefore a problem. Because Allie is Phee’s only remaining link to the cello—she thinks of it as “THE CELLO,” all caps, sometimes followed by exclamation marks—and if Allie is whisked away to an unknown location, then this necessary surveillance becomes almost impossible.
Phee also feels guilt.
She hopes, and mostly believes, that her parents are right and her grandfather was crazy. Curses don’t exist. Allie has lost her mother and her brother because of an accident. Just another tragic, random event. A car in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody’s fault, certainly not Phee’s.
It’s been years since Braden stopped playing. Surely, if there were such a thing as a curse, it would have fallen long ago.
But Phee can’t quite believe this comforting theory. Can’t help thinking that if her grandfather was sane, and if the stories he told her were true, then these two lives cut short may be a direct result of the fact that she has not followed through on the oath she swore on the night the old man died. Her fault. Her responsibility to put things right before something else happens.
A movement in the aisle catches her attention, a tall man walking in late, just as Phee had done. His hair is dark and unruly, touched with gray at the temples. She catches only a glimpse of his profile as he passes her and slips into a pew two rows up. A face more dramatic than handsome, too thin, disfigured by a scar that bisects it from cheek to jaw.
And her heart surges.
Older than the last time she saw him, battered and scarred like a rental violin, but definitely Braden Healey, here and in the flesh. Phee’s pulse accelerates, and not just because she’ll have a chance to talk to him about the cello. She’s been in love with the man and his music for almost as long as she can remember.
Phee stares at the back of his head as if her life depends on keeping it in sight, tuning out the funeral, the sounds of sobbing, the photographs of Trey and Lilian flashing across the screen. Eleven years she’s been hunting for him. Now that she’s found him, she doesn’t know what to do with him, other than be damn sure she doesn’t lose him again.
As soon as the service is over, she gets up and moves to the back. Braden is on the center aisle, he’ll have to come out this door. A lot of people seem to have the same idea, not to catch up with Braden but rather waiting to offer condolences to Allie. Phee is jostled on all sides, hemmed in, edged away from where she wants to be.
She’s tall, five ten without heels, can see over or around enough people to watch Allie walk down the aisle, then stop, turn, and plant her heels. Sees Braden come to a halt in front of her. Resorting to rudeness, Phee works her way closer where she can eavesdrop on the whole interaction. Talking to him here and now is an impossibility, too many people, too much going on.
Phee tails the little group out of the church, Allie, Braden, and the unpleasant relative. She watches Allie drag Braden into the limo, then follows the funeral traffic to the cemetery. She would have attended the funeral in any case. She forces herself to imprint all of it on her mind and heart. The two caskets. Allie’s stricken face, and Braden’s. All of this is a reminder of the dire necessity of what she is about to do.
After the funeral, though, when the car pulls away from the curb with Allie, Braden, and the relative in it, she draws a breath of relief and allows her intense focus to relax a little. If Allie is taking him home, then that’s the perfect place for the conversation they need to have. No crowds, nowhere for him to go, plenty of time for Phee to make her case.
Chapter Seven
BRADEN
The bones of the house are the same, but it looks older. Weary. A little unkempt.
The paint is faded. The shingles are weathered. The yard needs to be mowed.
Braden’s feet remember the sidewalk and the steps of the front porch, they remember to clean themselves on the doormat, and for a few seconds of free fall, he looks for Lilian in the entryway, hands on hips, pretending to scold while really waiting for a kiss.
How she’d loved playing house in those early days when they first moved in. She’d arranged and rearranged the furniture, had practically danced with the vacuum cleaner and the duster.
“You don’t need to do all that, Lil,” he would say, kissing her. “Let me help you.”
“I love to do it,” she’d protested. “I’ve always wanted my very own house.”
He stops there on the front porch, remembering them happy, clutching the same suitcase that left the house with him eleven years ago. Now here he is, the prodigal returned, but there’s no welcoming feast and nobody here who wants him.
Alexandra blows through the house like a storm wind, flipping on lights, breathing disapproval on specks of dust and clutter, talking incessantly about the funeral. Who was there, how perfect the photo tribute, how beautiful the music.
Her voice, her presence, grates on Braden’s nerves. He craves silence, a chance to get his bearings, but Alexandra is not the woman to give him that small grace, even if she were able to recognize his need for it.
Memories clamor for his attention.
They’d fallen in love with this house, he and Lilian both, when they were still in love with each other. Lilian, usually so self-contained, had lit up like a child the first time they saw it. He can almost feel her cool fingers laced with his, towing him from room to room with exclamations of delight.
“Look, Braden! The kitchen is perfect! See the pantry? And here’s a perfect place for a high chair—the baby can sit here while I cook. Oh, and this will be the baby’s room, and this can be a playroom . . .”
Reveling in her excitement, still amazed and slightly awed that she has married him, that they are building a life together, and buying a house, still he sees the glimmer of a problem.
“I was thinking this might be my music room, Lil. I’ll need a place to practice.”
Only the faintest hesitation, a cloud shadow on her happiness, before she concedes. “Of course, you’ll need a place for that. It’s not like the kids will need a playroom. I sure never had one. Did you?”
“The whole back forty,” he says, laughing. “Jo and I pretty much lived outside in the summer. Wait, did you say kids? As in plural?”
“Of course.” She kisses him. “Our very own family, Braden. At least three, don’t you think? Maybe four?”
The dream of a family took a beating after Allie was born. Postpartum depression hit Lilian hard. For weeks, she’d done little but feed the baby and cry. She’d wanted Braden, constantly, needing him to hold and soothe her, to take the baby, to give her a break.
He’d loved her so much, had fallen instantly in love with baby Allie, had tried hard to take over the care of both the baby and the house.
But his music suffered.
Do you have to practice right now? I’m sleeping. The baby is sleeping. You never spend any time with me. You don’t love me . . .
He’d been caught in the middle between her needs and the music, the cello calling him out of bed at night, no matter how exhausted and sleep deprived he might be. There hadn’t been enough of him to go around. And now, all this time later, there’s no Lilian, no music, and he’s deathly afraid there’s no Braden left, either.
He shakes
his head to clear it, realizing he is still standing in the open doorway. Alexandra says something about changing clothes and vanishes down the hall, but before Braden has time to be properly grateful, Allie appears. She’s changed into jeans and a soft sweatshirt, her hair loose on her shoulders.
“Are you coming in, or what?” She glares at him, hands on hips, and she looks so much like her mother that he struggles with his breath.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“Don’t be stupid,” Allie says. “You’re here now. Aunt Alex has Mom’s room. You can have the couch. Or Trey’s room, if you want it.”
“I don’t think—”
“You’re not here to think, Braden.” She emphasizes his name, making it clear that he’s gum on the bottom of her shoe, not deserving of her respect, certainly not “Dad.”
“Oh good. Thinking make head hurt,” he says in his best caveman speech, angling for humor and falling pancake flat.
As he takes the monumental step across the threshold, a strain of music sounds like an alarm.
It almost stops his heart. He takes the next step, tentatively, and then the air is full of music and he looks around for the source even as he realizes it must be in his own head.
Oh God. The cello.
She’s here, in the house. He can feel her. He should have known, he should have been prepared for this.
Allie stiffens. Her eyes widen and meet his. For one insane moment, Braden thinks she hears the music, too, but then she turns her back on him and stalks into the kitchen.
Braden can hardly move. The music swirls all around him now, almost a physical sensation. Imagination. Hallucination. Maybe withdrawal DTs, but he’s been taking his Librium, should be well out of the danger zone of withdrawal, anyway.
He sets the suitcase down by the doorway and moves into the living room, trying to ignore the music while taking in the new furniture, modern and functional. The paint scheme is different, earth tones instead of the blues they’d gone with initially. A white carpet. New artwork. Framed photographs of the kids.
Everything You Are Page 4
