“What is it? Alys?” Riley looks worried, leaning forward, and I am trying to find the words to tell him, but they seem to be stuck somewhere in my solar plexus, images of Riley and Luke swimming before my eyes, clouding everything. I look down at my lap and breathe for a minute before raising my head again to meet his gaze.
“It’s just . . .” I begin, knowing how stupid it will sound. “The sugar . . .” Riley’s face is still, waiting for me to finish. I wish a hole would open up in the ground and swallow me entirely—which would be totally preferable to having to complete this sentence. “It just reminds me of . . . him. Luke, I mean.”
Riley pushes his plate to the side and leans back in the booth, watching me thoughtfully.
“Huh,” he says after a minute or so. “I mean, we were around each other enough—we were bound to pick up each other’s habits and all.” He stares into the muddy surface of his drink, his cheeks flushing a deep crimson. I have never seen Riley flustered or embarrassed.
“I keep remembering the most random things about him,” I say, amazed that the words are actually leaving my mouth. It feels strange to talk about Luke aloud, not just in my head, where no one can judge him. But here with Riley, I feel protected. “Like when he used to take me here after school when I was in fifth grade. Or that time out at the lake when he taught me to swim.”
“I keep remembering how obsessed he was with that damn tree house. That piece of crap took us all summer to build.” Riley laughs, picking up his glass. “And we never did get it right. The thing was always lopsided. Of course,” Riley goes on, shrugging almost apologetically, “that was before we discovered girls.”
He says this without any sense of flirtation, like it’s just a random fact, but I blush anyway. I’m grateful for the sudden arrival of the waitress bearing a tray crammed with burgers and fries. She slides a white plate before me, the cheeseburger topped with lettuce, pickles, and red onion. I immediately shove the onion to one side of my plate and busy myself with the saltshaker, dumping it liberally over my fries. I cut the burger into neat halves, figuring that the more manageable I make things the better, and pick up a fry, bringing it to my lips. I know Riley is watching, so I force myself to put it in my mouth and chew slowly.
“I guess you’re still having a hard time with that.” Riley gestures at my plate with one hand. “Eating, I mean.”
“Sometimes,” I say, swallowing the untruth along with the fry. It stays lodged in my throat, and I wash it down with water, but it won’t budge. “It just feels so . . . pointless.” I push the plate away, crossing my arms over my chest.
Riley reaches over, picking up half of my burger and bringing it to his lips.
“See?” he says, chewing, then swallowing hard. “That’s how it’s done.” He wipes his hands on a paper napkin and shoves the plate back across the table. “Now you.” He looks expectantly at me, and I hesitate before picking up the other half of the burger and taking a small bite, the flavors of grease, fat, and salt exploding on my tongue. I take another, bigger this time, suddenly ravenous.
Riley watches in silence as I finish my burger, my cheeks bulging like a squirrel’s. I still can’t deal with the fries, though, so I push the plate to the center of the table and watch Riley pick at them.
“Have you been dreaming at all?”
There are the same dark moons beneath each eye, and in spite of his seemingly unending hunger, he looks worn-out, as if he still hasn’t slept since the shooting.
“I try not to,” I say, wiping my hands on a napkin, then balling it up. “I don’t sleep much, but when I finally do drift off, I’m out.”
(—don’t mention Miranda, the blood running in rivulets down her shattered face, the way your dead brother keeps showing up in your room, the garage, on the stairs, at school. That stink of rotting lilies mixed with ashes—)
“I wish I were so lucky,” he mutters, his face darkening. “It’s getting to the point where I’m actually afraid to go to sleep.”
“Do you see Luke?” My heart is beating fast, and all at once I’m sweating. Maybe they’re not dreams, Riley, a small part of me wonders. Did you ever think of that?
He nods, his face growing paler still. “It’s always the same dream. I’m in the library, back in the stacks, when I hear people start to scream. When I look up, Luke’s right there, a gun pointed at my face.”
(—the darkness, the barrel elongating forever—)
“I want to run, but I can’t.” Riley hesitates for a minute before starting again. “‘Luke,’ I say, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ He just looks at me and winks—you know that look he used to give when he was up to something?”
I nod slowly, mesmerized into a stupor.
“He winks, and then the gun goes off and everything goes dark. Then I wake up. It’s the same every night.” Riley sighs heavily, as if merely telling me has lifted some kind of enormous weight. “Always the same. Every time I close my eyes and drift off, he’s there with that fucking gun.”
There is a pause in which we say nothing. In this moment, there is no need for words, no need to say a thing.
“I don’t get it—I mean, I wasn’t even in the library that day.” He runs his hand reflexively through his hair, frustrated. “But you were there.” Riley looks straight at me. “Weren’t you?”
I nod, not sure if I can find the strength to talk about it, the gun raised up to eye level, Luke’s face peering out from behind. I feel him hovering nearby, that burning heat and restless agitation, a murderous spirit, and then all at once, he appears, sliding into the booth next to me, reaching across the table and popping a French fry into his mouth while chewing menacingly. There is a sound like fire, the smell of charred leaves in the air.
“Don’t tell him,” Luke warns, and although he is talking to me, his eyes are locked on Riley’s face. “Don’t,” Luke repeats again, and I am silenced, the words stunted in my throat before they can be released. He smiles, showing rows of perfectly even teeth, before fading, his body dissipating like smoke, his last word ringing in my ears.
Don’t.
“Prom’s coming up,” Riley says casually, changing the subject.
“Yeah . . . in May,” I say, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice, wondering how I’m going to fill the days of the month that remain on the calendar. “April is the cruelest month,” my mother used to quip when I’d complain about the unpredictable spring weather, how many weeks there were before school let out in June. Now all I do is tick off the days one by one as they stretch on interminably, waiting for them to pass.
Riley grabs another fry and chews on it thoughtfully. “You going?” he asks when he finally swallows. Prom is mostly for juniors and seniors, although the odd freshmen and sophomores sometimes get asked by upperclassmen.
I fight the urge to bust out laughing. Riley is ridiculous.
“Uh, yeah—I’m just fighting off prospective suitors. Or haven’t you heard?”
He laughs, happy to have a joke to distract him, to play off of. “Oh, that’s right,” he says, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “I forgot about your—how did you put it again—total social annihilation?”
“Sure, just rub it in,” I mutter grudgingly.
“Hey, it’s not like it’s been all that much different for me, you know,” he says, his tone almost chiding. “I was thinking,” he goes on, taking a deep breath, “I know we haven’t hung out a lot in the past, but I thought that maybe we could go together. If you want,” he adds quickly. An emotion fills Riley’s face, something I’ve never seen before—certainly not where girls are concerned: uncertainty. Maybe a little fear. “Or not.” He looks out the plate-glass window of the diner, watching people pass by. “It was just an idea. I mean”—he turns back to face me—“I always thought you’d go with Ben.”
Ben. Most of the time I try not to think about him at all, push him from
my memory, arrange my day into an elaborate maze to effectively avoid his presence. But at moments like these, where the breath is knocked out of me, suddenly, I’m aware of how much I miss him, how much I’ve lost.
“Don’t you think it would be weird?” I say slowly, playing with my fork to have something to occupy my hands.
“For them or for us?”
“For everyone, I guess.”
I cannot imagine it. Me stuffed into some slinky, silly dress, Riley’s hair slicked back into submission, the both of us picking at the terrible food that will undoubtedly be served, the eyes that will circle us intently. And Ben. In the same room. Close enough to touch, but miles out of my reach.
“I don’t know,” Riley says, exhaling again. “I mean, I feel like I’m on some deserted fucking island most of the time. I don’t want to be home, alone and sad, thinking about yet another thing I’m missing, another thing that’s been taken away.” He’s angry again, agitated, and I want to reach across the table and take his hand in mine. But I don’t.
“We don’t have to go to prom to hang out, you know. We can probably do that without subjecting ourselves to bad music and social judgment.” I try to smile, to lighten the moment, but Riley only stares out the window as if I haven’t said a word.
“I just want one night that’s normal,” he says with conviction. “Where I feel like everyone else on the fucking planet graduating from high school. Is that too much to ask?”
I shake my head no, even though I’m not sure of anything at all. When he finally looks into my eyes, I’m surprised at the feeling behind his words, the raw emotion. I can’t argue with it—as much as I might want to.
“All right,” I say slowly, when I can find my voice again. “I guess I’m in.”
Riley’s lips slowly crack into a smile, and it feels good to make someone, anyone, happy, even just for a moment. The room is warm, lunch rush mostly over, the sound of plates and cups being cleared from tables tinkling in the distance. I don’t want to go back to school or to Grace’s for my lesson, don’t want to get in the car and drive the long straight road to Madison or face the fact that I haven’t really played in weeks, my fingers clumsy and thick. I want to stay here, drinking one free refill of Coke after another, until the room disappears in a deep blue twilit haze as shadows lengthen and inevitably fall.
NINE
I’ve been to Grace’s house so many times over the past five years that I’ve officially lost count. As I walk up the rickety front steps of her porch on Sunday morning, I can feel the tightness in my chest beginning to loosen. The porch is as cool and dark as ever, the floorboards spotted with patches of weak sunlight. A rocking chair sits at the far end, the seat cushioned with a deep blue pad, and beyond that, an empty birdcage swings in the breeze, curved and intricate as a locked gate in a fairy tale. Herbs in ceramic pots rest on the porch railings: dill, thyme, and what looks like mint. I put my violin case down on the wood floor and touch their small fragrant leaves, damp and smooth under my hands and soft as rainwater. Luke sometimes used to help my father in the garden in the early spring, turning the earth with a long shovel, tossing tiny seeds into the holes and covering them with his bare hands, hands that were capable of such gentleness, patting down the earth.
The door opens, startling me, and I grab my violin with an apologetic smile. Grace pulls her black cardigan more tightly around her, smiling broadly, her silver hair shimmering. She beckons me inside. “You made it,” she says, as if she was afraid that somehow I wouldn’t, and she draws me into her arms, hugging me against her. “My darling girl,” she says into my hair, and I close my eyes, trying not to cry. After a few minutes, I pull back, and she brushes the hair from my face, cupping my chin in her hand, her blue eyes examining my face for a long moment before letting go.
I follow her into the living room, the place I’ve spent the most time in over the past few years, the baby grand piano sitting in the corner. The air smells of lemon furniture polish, fresh flowers, and old toast. What I loved most about Grace’s house was that everywhere you turned, there was something beautiful that caught your eye and held it. Built-in bookshelves running along one wall of the living room, crammed with books, birds’ nests abandoned and plucked from trees, one holding a lone white egg. Seashells in soft colors—gray or peach—jagged bits of rose quartz, and stones that felt smooth and polished when I ran my hands over them. And plants hanging like a lush, green curtain in front of the long windows. Being there made me feel that if I could just stay forever, sinking into the wide gray velvet couch and resting my head on the red needlepoint pillows hugging either end, that everything might eventually be okay.
“I’m not going to be so trite as to ask how you are, Alys.” Grace walks over to the piano bench and hovers next to it for a moment. “I think we know it would be a stupid question, yes?” I nod gratefully, relieved to not have to lie. “You know that I am here for you. And if you want to talk—about anything—I hope you know that you can.” I nod again, afraid to speak. My emotions are so close to the surface these days that the slightest misstep can send me catapulting into sobs. In a way, though, it’s a relief. This is the one place where I don’t have to talk about Luke or what he’s done, the fact that my parents’ marriage is falling apart, the wreck that’s become my life. Here things can be as they were—Grace seated at the piano, the pictures of her on her honeymoon in Vienna perched on top, her smiling, shining face so open and youthful. “Now”—Grace shuffles the sheet music on top of the piano, looking through it—“have you been practicing?” I blink, Luke’s voice echoing through the chambers of my brain, magnified and distorted.
Shouldn’t you be practicing, anyway? The great virtuoso?
I place the violin case on the couch, unsnapping the locks. When I turn around, Grace is seated behind the piano, hands poised over the keys, watching me expectantly.
“Not much,” I say. “Not really.” And immediately I am guilt ridden. But Grace just slowly nods, then picks up the glasses hanging from a thin silver chain around her neck and places them on her nose, a gesture which tells me that she’s ready to work.
“No matter.” She runs her hands over the keys, her fingers nimble, moving with a fluidity that belies the crippling arthritis she’s struggled against for years—not that I ever hear her complain about it. Grace isn’t the complaining type. “Let’s start with a few scales to warm up.”
As my hands move, I concentrate on the music, the piano beneath all of the notes that stream from my fingers. My hands feel swift and sure on the neck, the bow. I let my mind drift away, lost in the music that fills the room, the regimen of one note following the next, my fingers warm and loosening.
When I lower the violin, I am sweating, the T-shirt beneath my gray cardigan dampened under the arms. “Good,” Grace says, nodding authoritatively, and with that slight dip of her chin I can tell that I wasn’t too bad, that maybe I haven’t slid into a territory that could be called hopeless just yet. “Shall we work on the Brahms?” Without waiting for an answer, she pulls the sheet music for the sonata in D minor from the huge pile in front of her and pushes it over to me. I take a deep breath, placing the music on the metal stand next to the piano, trying to remain calm. Before Luke
(murdered everyone)
I’d been struggling with learning this piece, particularly the middle movement, which made everything I’d done up to that point in my training look easy. Every time I’d come up against that bit, my hands would fumble, notes dropping like letters at the end of a sentence, making the music choppy and unintelligible, the lilt and flow of the piece slipping away from me, sliding just out of reach.
I raise the violin again, watching Grace for the signal to begin. Once it starts, the music rushes over me, breaking me open. I lean into the notes, holding them, my fingers burning against the strings. When I get to the middle movement, I hold my breath, watching Grace for reassurance. She nods gravel
y, never taking her hands from the keys, never stopping or hesitating, flying right into the heart of the sonata, fearless. I begin to smile as I realize that, for once, I’m doing it: I’ve passed that tricky vortex and come out on the other side. Just then, as my smile grows wider, my fingers slip on the neck, the bow moves awkwardly in my hand, my wrist cramping as a shrillness fills the room, making me wince. I lower the violin, breathing hard, furious with myself, shaking with frustration and anger.
“Alys.” Grace’s voice jolts me out of my thoughts, which mostly consist of berating myself for being a horrible excuse for a violinist, a terrible person in general, and I look at her, fearing I will see the worst on her face, the thing I’ve never wanted to see when I look at Grace—disappointment. She reaches up, removing her glasses so that they hang once more against her sweater. “You know,” she says slowly, “that wasn’t half bad for a girl who has barely touched her instrument for well over a month. Not bad at all.”
With those words, I relax a little, unable to keep a grin from my lips. But the thoughtful expression on her face is replaced almost immediately by the steely, determined look I know so well as she bends over the piano again, lowering her head. “Again,” she orders, and I pick up the violin, raising it to eye level once more, fingers poised and ready.
An hour or so later, I’m spent, my hair plastered to the back of my neck. I feel like I’ve run six miles, my body hot and my hands burning with effort, my neck sore and aching. When I look at the tips of my fingers, they are raw. I know that tonight they will sting so badly I will need to wrap them in Band-Aids in order to cut the pain.
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