Everything You Are: A Novel

by Kerry Anne King

  “Well, if you don’t want to talk, let’s have some music,” she says after a drawn-out silence long enough for Braden to fervently wish himself into the back of an anonymous yellow cab and not about to be gossip or the villain of some mystery novel. His relief at the idea of music is short lived, as what fills the car is, of course, the last thing in the world he wants to listen to.

  “I just love orchestra music, don’t you?” Val asks. “So soulful. This is Beethoven, I think.”

  “Bach,” Braden mutters under his breath.

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s one of Bach’s cello suites. Beethoven didn’t write for cello.”

  “Really?” She sounds skeptical, and Braden lets it go. Let her believe what she wants. “Well, it’s beautiful, whatever it’s called.”

  Beautiful, yes. Tormentingly, hauntingly beautiful. Braden closes his eyes against it, which doesn’t help, at all, just puts him on stage with the cello, the two of them creating this music in their own way, her soul and his, entwined . . .

  “Here we are!” Val chirps.

  Braden’s eyes open on a towering, ugly brick house whose whole purpose is to shout that money lives inside. The wrought-iron gates are open, and two cop cars are parked in the cul-de-sac. Parents escort subdued kids out to an assortment of sleek and expensive vehicles.

  He’s been in houses like this, has rubbed elbows with the people who live in them. He didn’t like them then, and he’s pretty sure he’s not going to like them now.

  The idea of subjecting Allie to Val’s curiosity makes him cringe, but he needs to get her home. Even if her car is here somewhere, neither of them is fit to drive. The irony of that strikes him. Like father, like daughter.

  God. He can’t let her turn out like him.

  “Can you wait?” he asks as he gets out of the car.

  “Happy to!” Val is in her element, probably, watching all of this human drama.

  The woman haranguing one of the cops on the front porch would make a perfect stereotypical character for Val’s book. Little black dress with artificially enhanced cleavage. Botox. Lips chemically plumped. Salon hair.

  “What about the cars?” the woman is asking. “They are all leaving their cars here.”

  “They can’t drive; they are intoxicated. I’m sure the parents will be back for the cars in the morning.”

  “I want them towed. Every single one of them. Trespassing.”

  “Ma’am, the cars are parked on the street. They are allowed to be there.”

  “This is outrageous.”

  “What is outrageous,” the cop retorts, “is that you have fifty-two intoxicated minors in your house tonight.”

  Braden stands just below the steps, waiting for an opening. The woman turns to him, trying to raise her perfectly arched brows, her skin so taut they barely move.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for my daughter.”

  The woman presses her lips together disapprovingly. “Maybe next time you could keep track of her so you don’t have to come looking.”

  Braden opens his mouth, but thinks better of it and stands quietly waiting while the cop flips through pages of notes.

  “Name?”

  “Alexandra Healey.”

  “She’s inside. She’ll be charged with Minor in Possession.”

  “What does that mean, generally?” Braden asks.

  “Drug and alcohol classes, community service. If she has no priors, it won’t go to court.” The cop frowns, taps his pencil on the page. “She doesn’t have any priors, right? The name sounds familiar.”

  “Not that I know of.” Braden wants only to go in and find Allie, picturing her drunk and frightened.

  “Come with me,” the cop says, and leads the way past the woman into the house.

  Three girls huddle together on a sofa, arms around each other, tearstained and bleary eyed. A group of boys, all bravado, gather in the corner of the room, laughing as if it’s all a big joke, but Braden can hear the undertones of anger and fear. And then his eyes find Allie, lying flat on her back on the floor. Ethan sits cross-legged beside her, his eyelids heavy.

  Braden drops to his knees beside his daughter, cursing the whiskey. He needs a clear head for this. Allie is flushed, her forehead damp. Alcohol poisoning, or maybe she’s overdosed on something, is unconscious, dying, dead. He checks her pulse. Steady. Her breathing is even.

  “She’s okay,” Ethan says. “I’m looking out for her.”

  “This is looking out for her?” Braden snarls.

  “Hey, man. Nobody’s touched her.”

  “How many drinks has she had? What other drugs?”

  “Just a couple drinks. She was tired. Just lay down right there and fell asleep.”

  “Did you bring her here? What were you thinking?” Braden feels his hands curl into fists. Protective fire burns in his chest.

  “Hey, I didn’t make her drink anything.”

  “You brought her here.”

  “Her idea.” Ethan shrugs.

  It would feel so amazingly good to wipe the smirk off that face with a fist. Braden feels the crunch, sees the entitled attitude give way to pain, sees Mitch collapse backward into the snow . . .

  God. Not here, not now. He focuses on breathing, makes himself register details all around him. Shoes. A small stain on an otherwise pristine carpet. Allie’s face, childlike and innocent despite the flush of alcohol on her cheeks.

  He shakes her shoulder gently.

  “Allie. Allie? Wake up, little bird.”

  Her eyes open, half-mast and clouded. “Daddy?”

  His heart turns over in his chest. “I’m here, Allie.”

  “I want to go home.” Her words are slurred.

  She pushes herself up to sitting, closes her eyes. “Make it stop.”

  Braden puts a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She opens her eyes again, peers up at the officer. “I know you,” she says.

  “Thought your name was familiar,” he replies. “I’m sorry to see you here.”

  Allie draws her knees up to her chin and hides her face.

  “You know each other?” Braden looks from his daughter to the cop.

  “I picked her up and took her to the hospital after the accident. Stayed with her until social services could get there.” His tone sharpens. “Asked if I could call her dad, and she said he wouldn’t answer. She’d already called, she said.”

  Braden has no answer to this, or to the wash of shame and guilt that threatens to swamp him.

  He should have been there. He should have been with her.

  The cop gets down on the floor by Allie, puts a hand on her shoulder. “So did you hear back from UW? Will you get in?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she slurs, still hiding her face.

  “Of course it matters.”

  Her only response is a small sound of misery that tears what little of Braden’s heart is still intact into confetti.

  “I’m not going to charge you,” the cop says. “This time. Because of what you’ve been through.” His gaze drills into Braden. “The least you could do is be sober.”

  There’s no response for that.

  “Are you driving?”

  Braden shakes his head. “Got an Uber. It’s waiting.”

  The cop grunts. “Well, at least there’s that. Kid deserves better, you ask me.”

  Braden agrees. Wants to thank him, but his throat has constricted into a knot.

  “C’mon, little bird,” he manages. “Let’s get you up.”

  In slow motion, every movement exaggerated, Ethan gets on the other side of Allie, and the two of them haul her up onto her feet. She sways a little, but she’s able to stand, to walk, with support.

  “You,” the cop says to Ethan. “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m just helping her out to the—”

  “You are going to sit right back down, and then I’m taking you in.”

  “I’ll call you, Al
lie,” Ethan says. “As soon as I make bail.”

  Braden keeps moving, an arm around Allie’s waist, holding her up, guiding her toward the door. She doesn’t resist. The Uber is still there, waiting, for which he supposes he’s grateful.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Val clucks, getting out and opening the door to the back seat. “Can I help?”

  “We’re fine.” Braden buckles Allie’s seat belt, assailed by memories of settling her into a car seat, of her first time in a lap belt. He climbs into the back beside her.

  “Is she going to puke, do you think?” Val hovers beside the still open door. “I’d have to charge you the cleaning fee . . . Here. I have a grocery sack somewhere . . .” She disappears for a moment. The trunk opens, closes, and she comes back with a plastic bag. “Just in case.”

  “I’m fine,” Allie says, but she takes the bag, anyway, clutching it in both hands when the car starts to move.

  “Teenagers, right?” Val chatters. “Went through this with all three of my boys. Don’t worry about the MIP, it’s not a big thing. Won’t go on her record. More of a hassle than anything, but she has you to help her through it. Scary, though, isn’t it, when they get old enough to just go off and do things on their own?”

  He lets Val drone on, her voice almost a comforting backdrop to the tangled weave of his thoughts and emotions. Allie dozes, her head on his shoulder, and he lets himself pretend, just for the moment, that she’s happy to have him here, that she takes some comfort in his presence. When the car finally pulls up in front of the house, he wants to pick her up and carry her like a child, her head resting against his chest. He wants to ease her misery.

  But he’s had enough time to think on the way home to know that this is not the time for comforting.

  “We’re home, Allie. Time to wake up.”

  She stirs, blinks at him, bleary eyed and disoriented.

  He walks around to her door. “Come on. Out you get.”

  “S’all spinny.”

  “That’s what happens when you’re drunk. Come on.”

  “Well, goodbye, then,” Val calls after them. “Good luck!”

  Braden waves but doesn’t answer, keeping pace with Allie as she staggers up the sidewalk. She’s shivering. Braden is shivering. A cold wind is blowing, and neither of them is wearing a jacket. Braden turns Mrs. J.’s key in the lock.

  Lilian and the cello are waiting when the door opens.

  “Really, Braden? I’ve been dead what, three weeks, and already you’ve let this happen?”

  The cello underscores her words with a melancholy tune, not Bach anymore but an unknown melody in a minor key.

  Allie’s wavering feet stop, right at the edge of the stained white carpet.

  “Make it stop.”

  “Best way to stop the room from spinning is to lie down and sleep it off,” he says.

  She shakes her head. “Not that. The music.”

  She makes a choking noise, presses both hands over her ears, and lurches up the stairs toward her room. Braden follows. Helps her off with her shoes, covers her with the blankets. He’d tucked her in this way as a child, only that was so very different. Her arms around his neck, the kiss on his cheek.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  She’d smelled then of soap and clean pajamas, not beer and smoke and sweat. Braden longs to smooth her forehead, to tuck her hair behind her ears, but she pulls the covers over her head and rolls onto her side, away from him.

  Her breathing is fine, he reassures himself. She isn’t unconscious. This isn’t alcohol poisoning. Tomorrow he will talk to her about alcohol and genetics and why she must not go further down this path. For now, there’s nothing he can do but keep an eye on her, let her sleep it off.

  But worry trails after him as he moves like a sleepwalker through the house that is his, but not his, cello music swirling around him, heavy with memories.

  The bottle waits on the kitchen counter where he left it, half empty, after Alexandra’s call.

  You might as well finish it. Your daughter hates you and you’ve already ruined her. What hope is there for either of you?

  His hand closes around the bottle.

  Just enough to get warm again. Just enough to take the edge off the guilt, off the tormenting sliver of the memory of violence.

  He slams the bottle down onto the counter. Thud. And then slams it again. He hates the booze, loves it and hates it and is sick to death of it.

  Allie needs him sober.

  Holding his breath, he pours the rest of it down the sink and runs water to rinse it.

  A hot shower, to warm him and stop this shaking. Sleep. He needs sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.

  The cello tries to draw him in as he passes the music room. “Leave me alone,” he mutters. “This is your fault.”

  A hot shower warms his skin but not his insides and does nothing to stop either the music or his memories. He’s still half intoxicated, although he can feel the hard edges of sobriety. Bed. The bed he used to share with Lilian. In the dark, he’s not entirely sure she’s not lying there, pretending she’s asleep. He slides under the covers and into a memory.

  A glance at the clock. God, it’s two a.m. He’s been playing the cello for hours.

  Beside him, Lil’s breathing is quiet and even, but something about the quality of her stillness warns him that she’s awake.

  She’s curled in on herself, faced away from him. Not that this is new. She’s been shutting him out this way for years now, waking or sleeping.

  Braden goes along with her pretense. He’s too full of music to talk now. He’ll sleep. In the morning, he’ll make it up to her, somehow.

  But then the stillness of her shifts into slow shudders, and he realizes she is weeping silently, right there beside him in the bed but so very much alone. The sound of it tears his heart open, and he lays a hand on her shoulder, whispers, “What is it, Lili? Talk to me.”

  “You love her more,” she whispers brokenly. “No matter what I do, you will always love her more.”

  “Who?” He runs through the faces of women he knows, searching for her meaning. Has he looked too long into someone’s eyes, hugged someone too sincerely, lingered over a hand offered him on introduction?

  “It’s like you have a mistress. Only worse. She has no other commitments, no other life. Only you. Always there. Always wanting. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

  Oh God. She means the cello.

  A paralyzing bolt of fear hits him in the belly, and he says the first words that come to him. “You’re not meant to compete with the cello. You can’t.”

  A harsh sob is her response, and he understands, too late, too late, how she will take what he has just said.

  “Lil, listen.” He strokes her hair, tries to gather her into his arms, but she stiffens and pulls away from him.

  “Don’t take it that way,” he pleads. “I meant it’s not a competition. I love you. But music is what I am, Lili. You know that. You knew it when you met me.”

  “How could I know what that meant? I didn’t know you’d always put her first. Over me. Over your children, Braden. Over all of us. The cello gets the best of you, and there’s nothing left over for us.”

  He rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, which is dimly visible in the dark room, beginning to panic. He doesn’t know how to explain, to make her see. “I love all of you. You can’t compare—it’s like apples and oranges.”

  “And which am I, then, Braden? An apple or an orange?”

  “Lil—”

  “I’m not a thing. I’m a human being. The cello is a thing. You spend more time with it—it, Braden, not her—than you do with me or the kids.”

  A defensive anger flares. “Music is my job, too, don’t forget. It helps pay for your house and your clothes and the visits to your sister—”

  “So get a different job.”

  The words have the effect of a bucket of ice water. He sits up, gasping, all
of the oxygen in the room in sudden short supply. “You can’t mean that. What else would I possibly do?”

  “I don’t care. Something that doesn’t steal your soul away from me. Because I can’t go on like this.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s not secret code.”

  “I’ll do better. I’ll play less. I’ll—”

  “You’ve tried that. It takes all of you. Even when you’re with me, you’re really with the cello. I can’t deal with that anymore. I want you to give it up.”

  “That’s insane! I’m a musician.”

  “Fine. Be a musician, just be one elsewhere.”

  “You can’t mean that. It’s late. Things will look different in the morning.” He sits up, stares at the defensive line of her back, wants to shake her.

  “I’m done,” she says. “I’ve put up with this since we got married. You have a week to think about it.”

  “Lil!”

  “You heard me.”

  “Please,” Braden says now, aloud into the darkness. It’s a prayer, a plea, to God, to his dead wife, to his memories, to the cello, to Allie. He doesn’t expect an answer. He’s trapped now, just as he was trapped then.

  This bed, Lilian’s bed, feels hostile. Exhausted as he is, he’ll never be able to sleep here. Scooping up a pillow and a blanket, he heads for the less comfortable anonymity of the couch. On the way, he pauses in Allie’s doorway. She lies on her belly, arms and legs flung wide, snoring softly, and he passes her by. Passes the call of the cello.

  He settles himself on the couch and finally, finally, feels sleep coming to meet him.

  He’s backstage in a concert hall, waiting for a solo performance. The familiar nerves of anticipation thrum through him, but the cello answers with a deep and grounding note.

  “The two of us, together,” she reminds him. “You and me, forever.”

  And then it’s time, and as he carries her on stage, he pauses, aware that this is a dream. He can wake now, if he chooses. But the lure of music, the sensation of his fingers flexible and completely sensate, the desire of the cello, the rustling expectation of the crowd, are too powerful.

  And so he sits at center stage in a soft circle of light, and begins to play. The cello responds as she always does, and the two of them become one, a new thing that is more than either man or cello, channeling music into the range of hearing of the listening crowd he can sense in the darkness but never see.