I know why. The Google Calendar alert is still open on my tablet; I haven’t been able to swipe it away. Even though, Jesus Christ, I have aGoogle Calendar alertfor the anniversary of my brother’s death. I know how many hours it is until tomorrow, 1:43p.m., the two-year anniversary of when Adam was declared dead on arrival at the local hospital. Fifteen minutes after our mother found him, although he’d been dead a long time before that.
I pause the Bruce Liu video and grab my tablet and keys, mutter some useless excuse to Ken as I head out of the room.
I find an empty practice room in the basement and lock the door, just in case. FaceTime only rings twice before my mom picksup.
“Hi, honey,” she says. Her voice is already a little shaky,although she’s trying to hide it. She thinks I don’t know how early she starts drinking, in advance of tomorrow. She thinks being half a country away makes me oblivious.
But if I didn’t know my mother before, I know her now. I’ll never miss the signs again.
“Hey, Mom. How are you hanging in there?”
A quavering smile passes over her lips. “Oh, you know. It hasn’t been a great week. But I’m happy to see your face. You look good.”
I’m not sure what the hell she’s seeing, because when I look at myself in the selfie window, I don’t see anything approachinggood.My eyes look ravaged, crazy, like I haven’t slept in days—which I essentially haven’t.
“Thanks.” The house behind her is dark, the only light coming from the yellow glow of the lamp next to the downstairs sofa where she sits. I hate to think of her alone in that big house—Adam gone, my father off with his new wife in Iowa City, me here at school. Even from the other side of the screen, I feel like those shadows run too deep. Like there’s something moving in them.
“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” I ask, after the silence stretches on too long.
“The same as usual,” she says. “I’ll visit the grave. Go for my walk. And then I was thinking…I was thinking I might drive up to Dubuque to see your grandparents.”
“Dubuque? That’s really far. That’s three hours each way.”
“Well, what else am I going to do? I can’t sit around all day staring at my hands. I’ll go crazy.”
We never used to be this open with each other. Once upon a time, my mother was a fortress. She kept the house running seamlessly, never showing a crack of her own. Adam and I took it for granted. We assumed all grown-ups were like that: invincible.
She’s human now, and I still can’t decide if that’s a good thing.
Mom never got along that great with her own parents. I mean, they were fine. She never said anything to me about it—never gave the slightest hint that her feelings for them were anything but straightforward. But we only see them on holidays, and there’s got to be a reason for that.
“Do you want me to come home?”
I know the answer before I ask. I say this every damn year, and the response is always the same.
“No. No—it’s okay. You have to stay at school. You have to work hard.”
I can’t tell her the truth, because it would break her heart.
Whatever love I once had for piano, it’s gone now. It vanished to wherever Adam went, into the cold and dark.
One way or another, I have to get that back. But it’s going to be an uphill battle. I’m not like Marigold with her rich parents, her father the principal violin in the New York Philharmonic, all that money funneling into private tutors and a place at the Juilliard Pre-College program before she even turned eighteen. I had to work for what I have. Grinding day after day with the professors at Iowa State, paying for my trips to competitions with cash I made working tables. I came to Parker and it was like everyone already had years of international competitions and famous teachers and awards under their belts. When I applied for instructors, Celia was the only one who was interested. My background just wasn’t shiny enough for anyone else, I guess. Ever since, I feel like I’ve had to claw and beg for every accolade I’ve got.
And then there’s my mother. She spent half her alimony on my piano lessons, not to mention Adam’s unused college money. She thinks I don’t know, but I saw the paperwork one day when I was looking through the filing cabinet for my social security card so that I could submit proof of citizenship to yet another national competition.
I can’t let that go to waste.
I’ll find my inspiration again.
I have to.
There are a few things that I know to be true.
One: Shostakovich is the best composer of all time. Mozart could onlydream.
Two, scotcheroos are vastly superior to Rice Krispies Treats.
Three…I’m not, and have never claimed to be, a good person.
