There’s a hand-lettered sign hanging above the register that reads MUSIC IS MEMORY WITH A MELODY.It sounds deep if you say it out loud slowly, like something meant to be stitched onto a quilt or carved in wood.Maybe it came from a fridge magnet, or a forgotten seminar handout Aunt Tilly picked up in the ‘70s when she still wore patchouli and believed in the healing power of wind chimes.I haven’t bothered to trace the quote.
I left it standing because it fits—because everything here is stitched together by memory and melody, by things left behind and the people who once believed music could express what words never could.
The walls are cluttered with framed playbills, faded concert posters, and letters from semi-famous people whose names mean nothing to anyone outside a very specific circle.There’s a signed program from a 1976 Leonard Bernstein recital that hangs beside a bootleg Nirvana setlist I bought at a flea market for ten bucks a year ago.I hung them next to each other on purpose—classical meets grunge, symphony meets scream, the polished ache of old-world strings colliding with the raw throat of Seattle’s dirtiest era.
Lola’s footsteps tap cautiously across the wood floor as I approach her.When she hands me the receiver, it’s with a hesitation that says more than words—like the phone might scorch her skin or carry something volatile.Her lips pull tight, her expression drawn in that quiet, unmistakable way people look when they already know what they’re handing you will rearrange your afternoon, maybe your entire existence.
“It’s Bernice,” she says, her voice nearly as soft as the music playing in the background.She hesitates, then adds with that familiar, bracing wince, “She’s at the hospital.”
“Dad ...”I close my eyes, bracing for the worst.
ChapterSixteen
Kit
May 2nd, 1997
Bernice is Dad’s assistant.Just hearing her name is enough to send a chill through me so quickly that I barely register it before it takes hold.Bernice only ever calls when my father needs something—when he’s too proud, too angry, or too busy to do it himself.She’s his translator—from Connor Dempsey to the rest of us mortals.She’s his cleaner, the woman who’s been managing the mess of his relationships for years with corporate efficiency and a forced maternal tone.
The day I got my period, it wasn’t him who showed up with the talk.It was Bernice—with a discreet bag, a detailed pamphlet, and a too-bright smile that said we’d pretend this was normal, just this once.He never mentioned it.
My father has never asked if I needed anything, just sends her to check that he hasn’t fucked it all up.He’s afraid that one day he’ll wake up to the news that I died like Mom, and he didn’t prevent it.Unless he needs something, of course.He expects me to solve his problems when Bernice can’t—or when music is involved.
Dad and I ...well, we’ve always operated like two countries separated by an ocean of silence mediated by Switzerland—Bernice.Usually, I wouldn’t be worried about this call, but she’s at the hospital.
I grip the phone a little too tightly, press it to my ear, and try to steady my voice.“Bernice?”
“Kit, honey—” Her voice is lower than usual, practiced in its calm, that particular tone people use when they’re about to level a world and are trying not to make it hurt more than it has to.“It’s your father.He’s at Seattle Memorial ...massive stroke.”
The world doesn’t end, but it shifts—too fast and too sudden.It’s as if the floor lost its shape or the walls bent inward without warning.Everything tilts so abruptly I swear the cello in the front window wobbles, and for a second, I can’t tell if the dizziness is real or emotional.Something in my body tightens like it’s bracing for impact, only the impact’s already happened, and I’m standing in the aftershock.
“I—I don’t—was he at home?”I ask, though maybe that’s not really what I mean.Maybe that’s just the question that tumbles out when one’s brain short-circuits and our heart decides it’s no longer part of the conversation.
Because what do you even say when your dad has a stroke?
What if the man who’s always existed like some immovable pillar in the background suddenly disappears?
When you might lose the one person who was supposed to be your constant, even if he never quite learned how to love you in a way that didn’t feel like a business arrangement?
You say something, right?Anything.Even if it doesn’t make sense.Even if it’s not the thing you actually need to know.
“At the agency,” she says, calm and matter-of-fact, as if this is just another report, just another casualty at D&D Talent Agency.“He collapsed in his office.EMTs said it was fast.”
Fast.That’s how it happens, right?One minute you’re standing, and the next the record skips, the needle scratches across your life, and nothing sounds the same again.It’s just sudden—jarring.Like silence that used to be filled with music.But fast means dead, doesn’t it?
“Is he ...”I don’t know what to ask because I probably don’t want to hear the answer.Not when the EMTs said it was quick.
“They’ve stabilized him,” she adds carefully.“But ...there’s probably damage.Speech, motor function.We won’t know the full extent for days.”
My hand slides to the edge of the counter, gripping the wood until my fingers press into the ridges of the grain.The pressure keeps me upright.The familiar texture keeps me from floating off into the panic that wants to rise, that wants to swallow me whole with every syllable that falls out of Bernice’s mouth like a controlled detonation.My lungs are working too hard, and nothing feels right.
“He asked for you,” she says after a pause that might have lasted a lifetime.“When he could speak.He was trying to say something about ‘Kit and legacy.’”
Of course he was.
Even now, even here, what matters is the fucking legacy.His artists.His image.His kingdom of carefully curated careers.Not the daughter he hasn’t called in three days after a long fight because he wants me to take over his company.He has new ideas, a client who needs a new musical image—whatever that means.
Not the fact that I exist outside of the agency.Just the name.The continuation of his fucking legacy.
