If You Hear Me

by Jenn LeBlanc

  C { Everything OK?

  Yeah, I’ll explain later } D

  C { I need to work today

  You could work here. I have to practice. Old times } D

  C { I’m not sure how productive that would be

  It used to be the most productive } D

  C { We can but my try is in a week so I really do have to work

  If it isn’t going to happen we’ll know } D

  C { ok

  sleep now } D

  C { ok sleep

  I drift off but I might as well have stayed awake for all the good it did me with the dreams. She fills my head and my senses until I’m not really doing anything but jerking off in my sleep. I finally give up and pull some boxers on and go sit at my baby, letting my fingers reconnect with the keys and just playing whatever comes to me. Of course, what comes to me is just as distracting as my dreams, because it’s the music we were working on before she went away.

  No—before she was taken. With my child inside her. Fuck, but this isn’t something I know how to process. I want to call my parents. We’ve always been incredibly close and I know my mom can help me through this, but the fact that I’d also be telling her about a grandchild they never knew about…the way my mom loves kids, I’m not sure I can handle that right now. Fuck. I need to tell my mom, but I need to figure out how I feel about this before I get into it with her.

  I love her—she’s great, and was incredibly supportive when Meli disappeared. She and Dad even went to try to find out what happened, but they never saw her, and her parents wouldn’t let them near their house. It was almost overwhelming the support I had from my parents when it came to Cam, but they’d already begun to think of her as a daughter. I think my mom was almost as upset as I was actually. She sank herself into her work as a social worker, even went as far as adopting another kid while I was at school because she said they were just too lonely since I was gone all year.

  I’ll need to tell them before I bring Meli home, or…maybe not, maybe having Meli back will soften the blow? I’m sure it does for me, actually. Because if I’d found out and didn’t have her as well? Yeah, maybe I’ll wait. I think that’s better.

  The bell rings, and I open the door to her.

  “I brought breakfast. I’m assuming you got up and started playing as usual?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I say with a laugh. “This is weird, right? It’s like, I don’t know.” I close the door and follow her to the kitchen.

  “It’s like I never left except for a few very key differences.”

  “Yeah, your fucking ridiculous body, for one.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “God yeah.” I grab her around the waist and hold her against me. “Remember how we used to fuck before we practiced? Got it all out of our system so we could concentrate?”

  “Yes, I remember,” she says as her hips push back into mine, her back curving away from me. “Please,” she says, and I’m more than happy to oblige. I pick her up and carry her over to my piano, breakfast forgotten as she drops the bags to the floor. I lay her out on the lid of my baby grand, removing her shorts and panties, and pull her hips toward me until she’s balanced at the edge then I bend toward her and bury my face in her pussy.

  Her back arches, beautifully presenting her clitoris for my tongue, but I’m not going to give it away today. I lick her slowly until she’s nearly screaming French obscenities, her hands sliding against the lid of the piano searching for something to hold on to but failing against the slick surface. Her heels press against my back as she tries to get leverage against my tongue and I know she’s close. I slide one finger into her body, pushing up into the softness above her pelvic bone, and her chest expands against my hand as she fills her lungs then lets loose a scream I’m sure was heard for blocks. I add another finger, pulsing gently because I know she isn’t done quite yet.

  The pride I feel at knowing her body so intimately is something that surpasses every other piece of me. It’s an awareness I’ve carried with me for years now. I think the fact that we learned this together, all of it, testing and pushing each other…there’s something to that shared experience that’s unlike any other. We’ve just…leveled up. I’ve never felt this sort of intimacy with anyone. It goes beyond sex and friendship into a realm I have no words for.

  I realize there’s much more to learn about her, I know our relationship is going to do nothing but grow exponentially, not just sexually but in every way. There’s nothing holding us back now.

  As she screams again, her hands winding into my hair and holding my face to her so tightly I lose my breath, this certainty sinks into my subconscious and takes over. It’s going to be the two of us forever.

  After a shower and a new breakfast delivered by Postmates, we settle into my piano. I lift her to the lid but pause there at the edge with my hands on her waist in the same position we were in only an hour ago. She freezes from the awareness of it all, but I let her go because we have more to do. There will be plenty of time for this. She scoots back and flips over on the lid, spreading her papers out in front of her as I grab couple of pillows from my sofa and hand them to her so she can get comfortable up there above my keys.

  I pull out the music I planned on playing for my solo and start by going through as quickly as I can, warming my fingers, then playing octave scales to stretch. I need to be as pliant as possible. While I’m running scales, she pulls my music from the stand and makes some changes, and a shiver rushes my spine from top to bottom as I flash back to the girl who used to sit on my piano and do the exact same thing.

  I close my eyes and finish my scales then open them when I hear the sheet music replaced on the stand in front of me. She’s changed several notes in the main melody, moved the coda, expanding the cadence and effectively changing the entire feel of the piece. I shake my head and put my fingers to the keys and begin to play. I’ve been memorizing this particular music for months, so my fingers want to play what I know and I’m having to go back and relearn sections to get the notes she added and changed. After a couple of quick runs I’ve almost got it, and she grabs it again and I see her erase an entire staff and rewrite the notes. Then she puts it back on the stand and goes back to the music she’s laid out in front of herself.

  I start again and my jaw hurts because I’m grinning so wide and I can’t seem to stop. This is everything I’ve missed. I knew her leaving changed my life in obvious and quantifiable ways, but the realization of just how much it changed is revealing itself in such subtle stages that it feels like a slow razor against my skin. I listen to the scritch of her pencil as I learn this new music she’s given me and we go on like that for hours before I realize the extra sound I’m hearing is my stomach growling so loudly it’s becoming obscene.

  Meli

  Lying on this piano is almost overwhelming. When I first rolled to my stomach and started to write music, it was unnerving. The notes burrowed through my belly and turned me on, and it was something I completely forgot about the piano, and one of the reasons I loved to do this. Even though I really don’t know if I was fully aware of what the vibration of the piano was doing to me. I don’t think he even knows the piano does this to me. I don’t think he ever caught on that I always added more base notes because the reverb through the lid of the piano felt so fucking good.

  The phone rings and Daniel gets up, and I drop my face to the pillow to catch my breath because one more minute and I was likely to come from such a slow burn.

  “Hey Mom, yeah, yeah, how are you?” he says and I stop and sit up, watching from across the room. He lifts his hand to his mouth telling me to be quiet, and I pause to consider that. Why wouldn’t he want his mom to know? I always loved her and I was really looking forward to seeing her again. He winks at me then turns, and I watch his back as he walks away toward his bedroom, then shuts the door behind himself.

  I slide down from the piano and head for the bathroom while I wait and try to figure out just what’s going on. I’m sure
there’s a reason for it. I wash my hands and walk out to the kitchen to see what kind of food he has—none. Okay, so we need to figure out lunch before his stomach eats a hole in his belly. He used to eat like a maniac; I have no doubt that now that he has all these amazing muscles, he eats even more. I see a stack of menus on the counter and realize it isn’t a grocery store he runs to, ever. Gross. That needs to change. How can the man be that healthy with the appetite and diet of a teenaged boy?

  I like to cook, though. He’s going to find out just how much fairly soon. I didn’t expect him to be doing the adult version of eating in the campus lunchroom.

  “Hey,” he says, I turn.

  “Hey. Let’s go shopping.”

  “How about we eat first then we can shop for stuff after, when I’m not so damned hungry.”

  “Okay, that’s legit,” I say. “So…”

  “So…” he replies.

  “Your mom?”

  “Yeah? Yes!” he says, realizing what I’m saying. “She called because my sister wants me to bring some cupcakes from the bakery. I want to surprise her, with you. We’re all going up to the house this weekend because Tristan’s daughter, Soso, is headed to New York with her grandparents for a while so we’re going to go for a barbeque. I figured it would be the perfect time.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Oh my God! Yeah I do, yes! My mom adopted a kid because she was so lonely with me in New York. You remember how she was with kids.”

  I laugh because that really does sound like something Diane would do. “That’s awesome.”

  “I thought so. She’s great—you’ll love her. Soooo…food?”

  “Yes, please!”

  “Flavor?” he asks.

  “Hmmm…sushi? I’ve missed American sushi.”

  “Done and done.”

  Five rolls of sushi and three plates of sashimi later, we’re headed for Trader Joe’s to stock up for dinner so we can hole up and get some real work done. Today has been amazing and honestly it’s everything I’d hoped my adulthood would be, which makes everything about this so surreal.

  I start putting the groceries away like this is my home, and he’s helping, pointing me to cupboards as needed as he stands back and smiles. I love everything about the creation of food, from the shopping to the eating. Every single step.

  “Why didn’t you intern with Leonine?” I ask, and his grin fades a bit before he corrects it.

  “You’re just jumping right in, huh?”

  I shrug; it’s time he did some of the talking. I know he had an entire ten years just like I did.

  “I lost my confidence.”

  “Oh,” I say and stick my head in the freezer to cool off my suddenly very hot face.

  “I won’t say you had nothing to do with that, because it would be too obvious of a lie, but I will say it wasn’t entirely your fault. You have to understand that. Actually, I said that wrong—it wasn’t your fault at all. It was the situation, the position your parents created. It was never you.”

  “I appreciate that, I do, and I understand completely. I didn’t do much for a long time after I went home,” I say, and then a silence falls because he’s thinking about what I went through when I went home and I feel a bit like an ass. “I didn’t mean to put it that way. Being pregnant doesn’t preclude artistic ability, but being away from you very much did.” He nods his understanding, and I feel slightly better. “We’ll never get those ten years back, but eventually maybe we can replace them and it won’t feel so painful to think about.”

  “I hope. Can I ask you about something?”

  “You can ask me anything you want. You deserve any answers I can give. Same rules apply, I’ll always answer but some things…I may need a little time, though I think we’re beyond some of the most difficult bits.”

  “Of course,” he says, then he looks away and I know he’s considering the question he wants to ask. I think I know which one it is, because when someone finds out you lost a child the first questions are inevitably the hardest questions, the most often asked questions, the reason people who’ve lost a child don’t talk about the fact that they’ve lost a child, because of these questions. “Do you know why?”

  I close my eyes and squeeze back a tear as hard as I can. I know I wasn’t successful, only stifling it for a moment. “The cord was wrapped around her neck. They tried to cut it away, but it was around twice and she’d been without oxygen for too long. I heard a single cry before she was silent and they took her from the room.”

  “Was she just as beautiful as you?” he asks, and I’m completely taken aback, because that isn’t one of the questions I get.

  “I—I don’t know. I never saw her. My parents wouldn’t allow for it.”

  “There are no words in the world to express just how sorry I am that I couldn’t be there for you. That you weren’t allowed to see her doesn’t feel right to me,” he says, and once again I’m surprised.

  “It’s okay now,” I say, “but yes, at the time I very much wanted to see her. It hurt me that I never did. I have no images, no ultrasounds, nothing. Actually, I would very much like to have some proof that she existed, just some small thing that says she was here, she wasn’t a figment of my imagination, she wasn’t just a mistake, she was my daughter and I loved her for the time she was with me. And I love her still.”

  He moved quicker than I expected and then his arms are around me and I’m sinking against him and it feels so fucking good to have someone, finally, support me through this grief. I allow him to support me. His hands running up and down my back, my arms, his strength holding and protecting me.

  “This is unreal. It isn’t something I expected to be able to share with you. Not until my parents died did I even allow myself to consider finding you. I refused to get my hopes up like that. I just… Losing you hurt so much the first time, then losing her… I never gave it a thought. I knew no matter how old I was they’d find a way to keep it from happening. Their reach was far.”

  “Your father didn’t like me.”

  “No, and my mother liked you even less. She just hid it well. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get away from them. Their control was so complete, I couldn’t leave the country. The most peace I could hope for was to drive off in my car for a weekend, but even then they’d find me.”

  “I tried to give them my best. I tried to be a good person,” he says.

  “Don’t do that. You’re a good person and you were perfect. Look, this is a lesson I had to learn and it took me a long time. Honest to God it wasn’t you—it was them. There’s nothing you could have done. They know that my love for you meant I’d never return to France and that meant they’d never be lauded as the parents of this master composer. You were in the way of everything they wanted. I wasn’t anything more than a status symbol for them.”

  “No, you were more. Your parents loved you. I could see that it may have become twisted over time, but they did love you.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Then I lean back and pat his chest and I’m reminded of the strength of him. It’s somewhat overwhelming actually. He was so small and harmless the first time around, but now…he’s a grown man. These are working muscles, they aren’t just for show. “Wow,” I say before I realize, and he flexes his chest beneath my hand. Then flexes other muscles as I stare at him.

  “Wow, huh?” he says and I laugh, because…I mean it’s just ridiculous, really.

  “Yes, wow, asshole. You grew up.”

  He grabs me around the waist and pulls me against him, his mouth finding the sensitive place in my neck easily. “You grew up too, and I’m having the best time exploring that and all this amazing womanliness you’ve given me to explore.” As he says it he squeezes my ass, and I laugh.

  “Fuck off, I’m hungry.”

  He groans and releases me and as he turns for the door I see him adjust himself and I feel quite proud of what I can do to his body. It’s strange; the awareness of what kind of effect a girl has
on a boy’s body is a powerful thing when the realization happens. I think it lessens over time, though, because it’s just… dudes get boners in a stiff wind. But with him…the fact that I can get him that hard that quick? It’s everything to me. I revel in that feeling. It’s…odd, because part of me is simply reveling in something that seems like general knowledge once you hit a certain age with certain experience…but we’re like kids again. Kids with very adult parts.

  Twelve

  Daniel

  “Mom. Mom. Mom. Momma. Mom. Mooooom.” I cover the phone and look at Tristan and roll my eyes. “Seriously!” I say, then she’s asking where I went. “I’m right here, Mom. Yes, yeah, Okay, yes. Saturday. Promise. No, just, like, four of us and Soso. Don’t overdo it. Okay, okay, Love you too, Momma. Yes, I’m listening. No, I won’t. Yes, I’ll be good. No, I’m not being irresponsible. Yes, I’m practicing…piano and safe sex. Mom. Yes—I promise. Okay, see you Saturday. Saturday. Ten o’clock. Yes. Yes. Love you. Bye.”

  “I love your mom,” Tristan says.

  “Me too, but man, that was all covered in the email. Why was another phone call necessary?”

  “She wants to hear your voice.”

  “Okay, yeah, I know, but I’ll see her Saturday. She’ll hear me and see me in person.”

  “Daniel,” he says and it’s his shut the fuck up and put up with your mother voice because she gave you life.

  “Okay, okay, got it.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Okay, yeah, sorry.” Nothing like your best friend shaming you for not wanting to stay on the phone with your mom. “So Saturday…I figure we can carpool to the barbecue, then come back that night or stay there. You know she’d love to have us stay there and then we’d get pancakes, so…that option is always one I’m down for.”