by Noah Bly
“Jeremy.” I felt myself trembling; I knew for certain this was no idle game he was playing. “What on earth is wrong?”
His thin shoulders shrugged under a clean white T-shirt. “Nothing. I’m just getting some fresh air.” He giggled like a little boy. “And how are you today?”
I cleared my throat. “Not very damn well, thank you. You’re frightening me.”
“I’m sorry.” He held his arms away from his sides like a diver. “Wanna bet I could do a triple-gainer before I hit the ground?”
In spite of the circumstances my temper flared. “I believe a belly-flop is more your style. Now come inside before somebody calls the police.”
He snorted. “Yeah, you’re right.” He dropped his arms. “A fancy dive is beyond my athletic ability. I bet Caitlin could do it, though.” He sighed. “How about a cannonball, then? If I jumped far enough I might even end up with St. Booger’s head up my butt.” He finally turned around and met my gaze. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking my ass would be a distinct improvement over that face of his. Don’t you agree?”
The sun lit up his hair, and he smiled at me.
Something in his expression made my stomach twist. I smiled back at him as well as I was able. “Don’t flatter yourself, dear. You’d make a terrible lawn ornament.” I held out my hand to him. “Please come back inside.”
He chuckled and tried to pretend he was joking. “You worry too much, Hester. I’m merely attempting to conquer my fear of heights.”
His heels were still perilously close to the edge, and it seemed as if he were almost leaning backwards.
“I’m certain there are better ways to deal with your fear than this.” I struggled to go along with his casual act. “Hypnosis, for example? Or perhaps some extensive shock therapy, followed by a full frontal lobotomy.”
A touch of genuine amusement crept back into his voice. “That’s inappropriate humor, Mother, even for you. Your roofside manner leaves a lot to be desired.” His body relaxed, ever so slightly.
“Jeremy.” I leaned forward a little more, putting my shoulders through the window, but when he tensed I halted. “Please tell me why you’re out here.”
He shrugged again and studied his grass-stained sneakers. “Nothing in particular. Just doing some thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Lots of stuff. Nothing too important, really.”
“You’re on the roof at …” I glanced at my watch. “… six-thirty in the morning, thinking about nothing?”
He pulled at the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric in his fingers. “Well, not nothing, exactly. I was mainly thinking about the nature of musical talent.”
“I see.” I glared up at him. “And exactly how much have you had to drink?”
“Nothing.” He hesitated. “Not for several hours, at least. And actually, I’ve been thinking about talent in general. It doesn’t have to be musical, it could be anything.”
I leaned on the windowsill and waited as patiently as I could, knowing he’d continue at his own pace, and interrupting again would only aggravate him.
He looked back up at me. “But musical talent is what I have, so that’s what I was thinking about specifically.” All of a sudden he squatted down and my heart almost stopped. His rump was hanging off the roof, but he seemed insensible to the danger. His eyes were now on the same level as mine, and he stared into my pupils, unblinking. “Do you think talent like our family has is a good thing?”
“Of course it’s a good thing. What else could it be?”
“A lot of things, actually. Some much less savory than others.” He cocked his head. “You mean you’ve never really thought about this before?”
“Thought about what?” I demanded. “And please stop doing that with your head. You look as if you’re begging for a Milk-Bone biscuit.”
He ignored that. “So you honestly haven’t thought about what our talent may have done to us?”
I forced the exasperation out of my voice. “I don’t have the first idea of what you’re talking about, Jeremy. Can you explain it to me?”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.” He wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve. “Let’s start with you, shall we?” He paused for an instant and then words began pouring out of him, as if he were reciting a prepared speech. “You’re Hester Parker, one of the leading concert pianists of the twentieth century, and it’s safe to say that very, very few people, living or dead, can measure up to you for pure musical aptitude.”
He held up a hand to forestall me from saying anything. “I’m not kissing your butt, Mother, I’m just trying to make a point. Yes, you could argue with me about this or that person, but we’re talking about maybe a couple hundred pianists over the last few centuries who were, or are, at your level, so the bottom line is you’ve got a shitload of talent. Right? So okay, that being said, here’s the thing.” He mimed playing a piano in the air. “For all the talent you’ve got in your scrappy little body, can you say you’re happy?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, he just plunged on.
“Now let’s take a tour of history. Who’s probably the biggest musical genius of all time? Mozart or Beethoven, right? Whichever, take your pick, they’re both on the shortlist, okay? Now look at their lives. Pathetic, disastrous, and lonely. Right?” He was getting more and more agitated. “Then there’s Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms: ditto for all of them. And Wagner was a pervert, Stravinsky was an irascible old bastard, Mahler had a death wish, and oh yeah, Tchaikovksy! God, don’t even get me started on that sad old poof. I could go on and on and on, but let’s …”
A bee whizzed by his head and he took a violent swing at it with his fist and almost tumbled off the roof. I gasped in horror as he braced himself and settled back into position. His face blanched a little, but he didn’t move away from the edge.
I decided to engage him in this ridiculous conversation, because it was the only way I could think of to get him back inside. “Why are you getting so worked up over this, son? As far as I’m concerned, a little personal angst is a small price to pay for the Ring cycle, or Don Giovanni.”
For the life of me I couldn’t fathom what had gotten into him; his eyes were filling with tears. “You’re wrong, Mom. You’re as wrong as can be. It’s a huge price, and you’re paying it, and so am I, and Dad, and Paul, and even Caitlin, in her own field.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “You’re so blind, Hester. You really don’t see it. How can somebody so smart be so stupid?”
Despite my best intentions, anger crept into my voice again. “Given your location at the moment, that should be my line, I believe.”
He flinched at my tone and I bit my lip. Wonderful. My son was on the roof, in immediate jeopardy, and I was goading him. Brilliant.
I forced myself to be calm. “You’re not making any sense, darling. What’s this price you think we’re all paying? To my mind, I haven’t paid a thing I wouldn’t pay ten times over for what I’ve been given.”
He just stared at me as if I were babbling in Swahili. Then he began to hum a few bars of something it took me a moment to recognize.
“Tosca?” I asked.
He nodded. “Very good. The third act. It’s the part where she leaps to her death, remember?”
I fell silent again, confused and terrified.
He continued humming for a minute but when he realized that I hadn’t said anything else, he finally let the tune trail off and sighed. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m just pushing your buttons. I’m fine.”
There was such desolation in his voice, such longing.
I held out my hand to him again in desperation and tried a new tack. “You didn’t let me answer your earlier question.”
“What question?” he whispered.
“You asked me a few moments ago if I was happy. Yes, I am. I’m very happy.”
“Liar.” He blotted at his tears with his palms and grimaced. “You ar
e not.”
I raised my voice. “Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.” He let his hands drop, and one fell on the roof with a thump, like a dead bird. “You drink yourself to sleep every night, you always have music playing in the background because you can’t stand hearing your own thoughts, you won’t admit to yourself that Dad’s likely having an affair, and you never get through a single day without wishing you had your wrist back the way it was before your accident.”
He said all this flatly, in a drone, never once taking his red, puffy eyes from my face.
I stared at him in shock. I had suspected Arthur of infidelity for the last few months, but I had said nothing to anybody about it, nor had any of the children mentioned anything prior to this. Hearing Jeremy say it so bluntly caught me by surprise, and I felt a dull ache begin behind my breastbone as I struggled to find the words to refute him.
I opened and closed my mouth several times before I could summon an argument.
“I’m trying to sort out which of those statements is the most absurd.” I ran my fingers over the sill and worried at the head of a nail sticking up from the wood. “First of all, you’re making it sound as if my drinking is a problem, which it isn’t. Secondly, I listen to music because I like listening to music, and my thoughts are hardly erased just because my ears are otherwise engaged.” I paused to gauge his reaction, but he showed no outward sign of what he was thinking. “As far as my wrist goes, of course I want it back the way it was, but I’ve learned to live with that. And that accusation about your father is …” I bit my lip. “… well, it’s simply preposterous.”
He rested his chin on his knees and picked up where he left off, as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “But really, these are only surface disturbances, aren’t they, Mother? Your unhappiness is directly rooted in your talent. The more talented you are, the more unhappy you are.” He straightened his back and fiddled with the hem on the leg of his jeans. “It sucks, but that’s just the way it works.”
I grimaced. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Do you honestly believe that Joe and Jane Normal are happier as a general rule than those of us with an appreciable gift?”
He nodded again. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
I tugged at my ear. “Not only is that elitist, it’s also patently false. There are millions of people in the world who would give up virtually everything they own to be recognized as outstanding in a chosen field.”
“Yes, and if they were given that opportunity, it would destroy them as surely as it’s destroyed us.”
My frustration was building. “Speak for yourself, please. I, for one, am hardly destroyed, as you put it.” My lower back was beginning to ache from leaning forward all this time. “And if you think that pain and self-doubt and neurosis are the birthright of the artistically gifted, I suggest you spend a day sitting at Willie’s Diner downtown.”
Willie’s was a blue-collar restaurant in Bolton, frequented daily by an assortment of eccentric townspeople—including my personal favorites: Sylvia Simpson, the jaundiced, dishonest pet store owner who never wore anything but yellow blouses and green pants, and Dylan Crowell, her fawning, incoherent assistant, who stank of cat urine and birdcages.
Jeremy sniffed. “That’s not what I’m saying, Mother. Of course human suffering is universal.” He closed his eyes for a moment and moved his lips, as if praying. “But my point is that talent exacerbates the situation a hundredfold. Do you think for a moment I’d be up here on the roof, thinking about stepping off, if I weren’t a prodigy?” He opened his eyes again. “My gift is what makes me dissatisfied with everything else in the world.”
I didn’t want to upset him further, but he was sounding more petulant than distressed at this point, so some of my fear had abated. And to tell the truth, I was irritated because he was being unbelievably pigheaded.
“Look at me, Jeremy.”
His eyes were wandering around the sky, but now they fluttered back to my face.
“You’re behaving like a spoiled brat,” I scolded. “Poor little Jeremy Donovan. Oh, the humanity. You’re telling me you can’t handle the pressure of being special, so you’re going to end it all?” I frowned. “I think a better plan might be a spanking and a nap, don’t you?”
He flushed a little, stung. “You’re not listening to what I’m saying.”
“No, I’m not,” I agreed. “Self-pity bores me, and every time I hear yet another ‘sensitive artist’ bellyaching about how difficult his life is, I want to cut my own ears off like Van Gogh, so as not to have to listen to it anymore. Now come inside and stop spouting nonsense.”
I said this last in my most commanding voice, and to my surprise, he did what I asked.
But that was only the first time.
He was out there the next week, too, and then again a month later, and each time he had a different, equally silly complaint. The second time he was upset because a student had been “disrespectful” during a lesson, the third time was after he felt he had performed below his usual level at a concert the previous night. He never did this when Arthur or anybody else was at home, and he could be counted on to time his breakdowns to coincide with my comings and goings, so I would be sure to find him on my way in or out of the house.
And I always managed to talk him down, usually with a mixture of threats, praise and ridicule. He would argue with me for a while, then he would finally become sullen and stop acting the fool. After he was back inside the house, he would recover completely, becoming cheerful and relaxed, and our lives would return to normal.
For a time.
But whenever he experienced one of these lapses, he begged me not to tell Arthur or anybody else about it. He’d swear to never do it again, and he’d insist he was fine and didn’t need professional assistance.
And God help me, I believed him.
Or, more accurately, I chose to believe him, because it was easier than doing what I should have done. A number of times I went so far as to call a therapist to set up an appointment for him, but somehow Jeremy always managed to jolly me out of forcing him to go, convincing me I was “blowing things out of proportion,” and all he needed was “time and patience to work things through.”
He’d put his thin, warm arms around me when he said these things, and he spoke with remorse and sincerity, and I fell for it every time. I agreed to keep these episodes between us, just as he asked, so Paul and Caitlin were oblivious to the situation, and if Arthur suspected something was amiss, he was too preoccupied at that point with his own double life to pester us with any questions.
I could use this opportunity to assign more of the blame to Arthur for what happened later, but that would be unfair. To be unconditionally honest, I was rather flattered that Jeremy was willing to share this troubled part of himself with me and nobody else, and even though the nature of this secret of ours was disquieting, the closeness that grew between us was addictive. (It was the same kind of pleasure I had experienced once as a little girl, after rescuing a small dog that had fallen off a stone ledge in the garden with a leash around its neck. The poor creature was choking to death when I released her from her collar, and for the rest of the day, she was glued to my heels everywhere I went, like a pagan worshipper at the feet of a god.) The adoration in Jeremy’s eyes as he expressed his gratitude for my help in regaining his sanity was a potent, lovely drug, and it lulled me to sleep with a placid smile on my face, just as he had intended it to.
And then one winter day things went a little differently up on the roof.
CHAPTER 16
My hands are still shaking as I step into the house and hang my coat on the rack. I believe they were also doing that on the steering wheel all the way home from the courthouse, but I don’t remember the drive; the streets and houses of Bolton were no more real to me than a backdrop in a theater, the people on the sidewalks nothing but stick figures.
All I could see was Arthur’s implacable face at t
he pretrial conference. All I could hear was Arthur’s voice. Arthur’s terrible, wounded old voice, telling me he was going to take my home away from me in court next month.
Our home.
There was no mercy left in him this morning. No mercy, and no kindness, and no decency.
I want a drink, very badly.
But not yet. There’s something else I need to do first. Right now.
I kick off my shoes and hurry through the living room in my stockings, and I’m nearly running by the time I reach the other side. My heart is pounding as I pass through the doorway into the music room, but I barely break stride until I’m standing next to my piano.
It’s still here, of course, just as always. Waiting for me to return to it, like a dozing, patient old beast in its den.
Arthur offered to sell the house to me today, but for an outrageous price he knew I could not afford. Not unless I sell my piano, first, which he knows I will never do. He only made the offer to antagonize me.
Damn him.
God damn him.
I catch my breath and rest my hand on the piano’s massive lid, pressing my palm into the smooth, black, varnished wood. My heart gradually slows, and after a minute I lift the lid and secure it on its short peg, then I sit on the bench and let my head loll from side to side, doing my best to loosen the kinks in my neck and shoulders. There’s warmth all across my back from the radiator behind me, and the humidifier in the corner is keeping the air moist and comfortable. I close my eyes for a moment, and clasp my hands in my lap, and settle myself into the peace and quiet.
Priests pray, and Buddhist monks meditate. Dancers launch themselves into the air, and artists paint—or sculpt, or draw—and writers put pen to paper, or stare at a blank computer screen for hours on end. We all do what we have to do, to get by, and to make sense of the world. Those of us with a “calling” of any sort surrender ourselves to a rigid, daily discipline, and we steep ourselves in technique and shared lore, and we do what we can to serve whatever it is we think we’re serving, be it a deity or an art. We do this, at first, because we think it will bring us joy (or comfort, or recognition), but in the end we find we’re doing it only because we know of no other way to live, and we feel we have no other choice left to us.
