Pipes,
I’m so damn proud of you.
— Griffin
I read it twice before I sit down in the dressing room chair with the card in my hand and the applause still echoing in my ears. I think about a man who drove south with no destination and told me he could wait when it was all over.
He was here tonight.
I think about the third piece, the one where something opened up. I stopped performing and started truly being with the music. I wonder whether you can feel the people you love in the dark of a room without seeing them.
I think I might have felt him.
I put my hand over my mouth. There are six months in that card. Six months of silence that wasn’t really silence. It was space. It was the kind of space he promised and kept. He didn’t push. He didn’t call when I hadn’t called. He let me do what I said I needed to do. He showed up tonight without announcing it. He didn’t wait around for thanks. He just left flowers and a note, then left.
I’m so damn proud of you.
God, I miss him so much it’s painful.
There’s a knock at the door. “Everyone is waiting for the star of the show,” Cathy calls from the other side.
“Coming,” I call back.
I look at the card one more time before I look at the sea lavender and the white blooms. I reach for my phone, look at the blank screen, then put it down again.
Not yet. Not in a dressing room in stage makeup with my hands still warm. When I go to him, I want to go to him properly.
I stand up and look in the mirror.
Griffin was here. He saw it.
I take a breath and head back out to find my family in the lobby. Mom’s arms wrap around me. She smells like home.Dad is behind her, with his eyes crinkling into a smile. Rowan launches herself at me. Noah has his arm around Madison and watches with a quiet smile.
“The third piece,” Rowan says into my hair. “Piper, I cried.”
Noah pulls me into his chest for a solid second. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
I hold my family in a concert hall lobby. The flowers are in my dressing room, and the card is in my hand. Somewhere in this city, Griffin Hayes is waiting. He’s at home, or he’s working on a bridge that looks like two harps facing each other.
I think about what I said the night I went to his place.When I find her, you’re the first person I’m going to call.
I found her. I’ve been her for a while now, quietly, without making an announcement.
I look at Mom’s face, and I think about a man who told me that Donna Callahan was one of the bravest people he’d ever known.
“Come on,” Dad says. “Your mother made a reservation.”
“A good one,” Mom says, not apologizing at all.
Rowan takes my arm, and we go out into the night.
I carry the card in my pocket. All through dinner, every time there’s a lull, my hand finds it there.
I’m so damn proud of you.
Fifty-Three
Griffin
