Art & Soul (22 page)

T
he next day
Keira and Paul sat in our living room explaining to Mom, Dad, and me how the job offer wasn’t something they’d planned. “I didn’t even know I was up for the promotion,” Paul said quietly. “And I’m so sorry you found out that way, Aria. Simon shouldn’t have told you.”

I shrugged. “I would’ve found out regardless, I guess.”

Keira placed her hands in her lap, giving me a wary smile. “I know this isn’t what we agreed on, and if it’s not something you’re comfortable with, Paul will pass on the promotion.”

“Yeah, one hundred percent.” Paul agreed. “Even though it would make us ten times more financially stable, bringing us out of years of debt and struggle.”

Keira pinched his arm, making him cringe. “But it’s not about the money. It’s about you feeling comfortable.”

I glanced at Dad and Mom, wanting them to speak up for me, to erase all of the issues and make the decisions, but I knew it was my responsibility.

Mike walked into the house laughing with James, and they paused when they saw use all sitting. Mike groaned. “Not another deep emotional baby talk.”

James’ stare shot to me, worry filling his brown eyes. “What’s going on with the baby? Is he okay?” The hitch and level of concern in his voice was alarming.

I glanced around, making sure no one had noticed his urgency before I answered. “The baby’s fine. We’re just celebrating Paul’s new job promotion in Washington.”

Keira’s hands fell to her chest and she took a breath. “We are?”

I picked at my fingernails and nodded. “Yes. Congratulations, you guys.”

James stepped closer into the room, running his fingers through his hair. “So, the baby goes to Washington? Aren’t you going to miss it, Aria? Didn’t you want it close to home?”

He was starting to sweat as he wiped his hands against his jeans. Dad turned to James and cleared his throat. “Sorry, James. This is kind of a private conversation.”

With a few blinks, James apologized. “I didn’t mean to cross any lines.”

Lines were definitely being crossed and blurred.

“
Y
ou can’t seriously be letting
them take the baby to Washington!” James barged into my room uninvited. He’d probably been sitting in Mike’s room waiting for a decent amount of time to pass before he announced his trip to the bathroom, which apparently happened to look remarkably like my bedroom. “You should’ve talked to me about this.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Why would I have talked to you? It’s none of your business.”

“None of my…” His jaw dropped before he rolled his hand over his mouth, flabbergasted. “He’s my kid, too!”

I dashed from my bed to close my bedroom door. “Do you want to say that a little louder? I don’t think they heard you in Canada!”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose and pushed the soles of his shoes back and forth across the room, leaving zigzags throughout the carpeted floor. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” He opened the door and left with his head lowered.

I sat down on my chair and rubbed my hands over my growing stomach. At least James and I had that in common; he didn’t have a clue what he was doing, and neither did I.

I
received
a call from Denise and she spoke words I’d never wanted to hear. “Your mom’s in the hospital.”

“What do you mean she’s in the hospital?”

Denise’s voice was low, almost mute. “She had a bad reaction to one of her new medications and tripped down a few steps in the clinic. The doctors aren’t giving me all the details yet.” She was crying into the receiver, her words getting tangled up with her thoughts. “She was doing so well, Levi.”

She went on to tell me how scared she was for Mom, but she knew nothing about being afraid.

Being afraid was currently being eight hundred miles away from your injured mother, feeling a million miles away from your dying father, and not having any idea what you should do next.

M
usic was
what resided in my mom’s soul. Every day before she and I would have our violin lessons, she would quote Friedrich Nietzsche, saying, “
Without music, life would be a mistake
.” It didn’t matter how she was with her mental stability. When she was mentally all with me, she would quote Nietzsche. When she was so far away in her own mind, she would still quote Nietzsche.

Even when her mind had taken her to the darkest places inside of her soul, music was still there for her, her medicine, her life support.

On Christmas Eve I found myself standing inside Soulful Things, unsure what my next move should be. Lance sat in a chair behind me, not making a sound. I’d never heard Soulful Things so silent. After I filled him in on what had happened with Mom, he said, “Why do the most bullshit things happen to the best kinds of people?” He apologized multiple times until no words were left to be spoken.

“How do I choose?” I whispered, my hand rolling over my neck repeatedly as my mind raced. “How do I choose which parent to be there for?” Did I stay with my father who I’d never had a chance to get to know, who was currently living the last days of his life? Or did I go home to my mom who was struggling from her accident and needed me by her side?

How do you choose which need is more important?

How do you choose which parent to stand by when they both need your support?

Lance pushed himself up from the chair and moved into the storage room. He reentered with a case wrapped with a red bow. “I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but I think you might need it tonight.”

I opened the case to find a brand new violin. It wasn’t just any new violin, it was the Karl Willhelm Model 64, the same one I’d been eyeing in his shop since I’d arrived there. “Jesus, I can’t take this. It was over three thousand dollars.”

“Paid in full. I went ahead and set it up for you, too. It’s yours.” He smiled.

I picked up the violin and stared at it in my hands for a moment before bringing it to my nose to smell. For a musician, smelling a new violin was the equivalent of a reader smelling a new novel. It was a homelike scent that made you realize that the world wasn’t a completely terrible place, that there was still beauty that existed.

“Get lost, Levi,” Lance said in the most caring way possible.

“Thank you,” I murmured, to Lance, to music, to my soul.

I fine-tuned the strings. I messed around with the bow.

Lance turned and walked upstairs. The moment he disappeared, I shut off the lights, filling the space with darkness.

Everything was exactly the same, but somehow completely different.

Colder.

Sadder.

Lonelier.

This feels right.

My fingers discovered the sounds of apologies that the violin offered me. The strings cried for me. Music understood me when I didn’t understand myself. It was my blanket of protection from every real fear that existed. I rocked back and forth as I traveled down the road of pure escapism. I became lost in the moment, forgetting all of my surroundings, all of my pain, all of my hurt.

I played until my fingers ached.

And then I played some more.

I played until my body shook.

And then I played some more.

I played until my heart broke.

And then I played some more.

My fingers ripped the bow away from the violin. My hands were pale as ghosts from my intense playing. My body shook with nerves and a clouded mind, but I knew the answer to the question.

I knew who I had to chose, and it broke my heart.

Hold it together, Levi.

I needed to calm myself, to control my panicked breaths. I wondered if what I was feeling was what it always felt like for Mom. Were the panic attacks so painful that they traveled from her toes to the tip of her head? Did she feel the walls screaming at her? Was it always this ugly and terrifying for her?

I needed to find a place of peace.

But I wasn’t sure how.

The truth was that Mom was my peace. From day one, she’d been there for me. Even when she was battling the ugliest of wars, she was still my stillness. I was the hurricane and she was somehow the eye of the storm. She comforted me when Dad’s cards stopped showing up. She held me when he said he didn’t want to see me anymore. She’d been there from day one, and I’d left her.

What’s wrong with me?

How could I have ever hated her?

She was sick, and I walked away.

She begged me to come home, and I ignored her.

She was my true music. Not the kind of music that I played in a darkened space. Not the kind of sounds that the shadows applauded. She was the colors that found the strings. She was the purples and blues, the yellows and reds that bled love from the vibrations of sound.

Hannah Myers was music.

And without her, life was a mistake.

I
headed home
that night with my mind made up. I would tell Dad that I had to go back to Alabama and look after Mom for a few weeks. I had to know that she would be okay. But, when I stepped inside, I saw the glow from the black and white comedies playing on the television. Dad sat in front of it with his dinner sitting on his TV tray, and beside him was another tray with my dinner.

My chest tightened as the nurse walked up to me, explaining that she would be back the next evening, and that she’d left all of Dad’s medicine labeled for him to take in the morning. She left and closed the front door behind her.

“I made you the fried chicken TV dinner and a Salisbury steak one—I wasn’t sure which one you liked more,” he said, moving a spoon around a bowl of soup in front of him. I sat down next to him on the couch as we watched the comedies together.

He didn’t eat much of his soup, but when he did lift his hand, I watched it shake repeatedly. I offered to help him, but he huffed and grumbled as always.

Eventually he placed his spoon down, defeated, and nodded toward me.

I fed him the soup, and I was back to square one with no clue how I could leave him here to go back home.

“You know that song you played at the showcase? The first one?”

“Yeah. ‘Love You Till The End’
by—”

“The Pogues.” He nodded, his eyes still on the television screen. “It was mine and your mom’s wedding song.”

The pieces of my mother that I’d never truly understood were slowly coming together.

“What happened to you two? Why did you split up?”

He cringed and rubbed his temple. “I messed up. Your mother and I got into a big fight one night, then I got drunk and made a move on Camila Watson in a bar. That’s why her husband can’t stand me, and that’s why Hannah left me.”

“Did you love Camila?”

“No. No. I was stupid and young, an asshole who made a bad mistake. It turned out my mistake was enough for your mom to pack up and leave me. I don’t blame her, though. She had her anxiety and always worried I would leave her for someone else. At that point I didn’t know how sick she was, about her mental health. I should have fought, though. I should’ve fought for her.”

“Did you love her?” I asked.

He sniffled and cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything else until he was ready for bed. I walked him to his bedroom and even though he argued that he didn’t want me to help him change into his pajamas, he allowed me to do so.

When he was settled into bed, I went to turn off his lamp, and heard him mutter, “Until the end.”

Denise called me that night to tell me Mom was okay. She was still in the hospital, but she was doing much better.

That night I cried myself to sleep.

O
n Christmas day
, I headed to the woods at six in the morning, just like every day before. For a second I thought I was still dreaming when I saw Dad standing next to the tree house. He stared at the ladder that led up to it. Each rung was covered in snow. Dad’s hands were stuffed into his sweatpants pockets.

“You need a coat?” I asked, taking in his white T-shirt that was now too big for him from all the weight he’d lost.

He shook his head.

I walked up next to him, and we stared at the tree’s ladder together.

“You remember when we put that ladder up?” he asked. “You were nine and you had me test out each step to make sure they were sturdy.”

“They weren’t.” I laughed.

He laughed, too. It was weird how the sound of his laughter made me want to smile and break down all at once. “I thought I broke my behind when I fell. After you went back home, I had ice packs taped to my ass.”

“They’re sturdy now,” I said, nodding toward them.

“Just a little old, though. We should’ve spent more time up there.” He rubbed his fingers on the back of his neck, kicking off the snow on his shoes. His frail body was shivering as a cold wind passed through the tree branches.

“You shouldn’t be out here in the cold,” I scolded.

“Last time I checked, I was the parent, not you,” he scolded right back. He pushed the back of his hand against his nose and looked away from the tree house.

With a weighted sigh, he spoke again, “Listen. You’ve been too much for me to handle and I think it’s best that you go back to stay with your mom or aunt or something.”

His words stung, causing me to step backward. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Lance told me about your mom.”

“She’s doing better,” I said. “She’ll be fine. I can stay here and help take care of you.”

“You don’t understand, do you?” he hissed. “I don’t want you, Levi. I don’t want you here.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Your plane leaves tonight at seven-thirty. Lance will take you to the airport.” He turned and walked back toward the house, leaving me standing there, confused and hurt.

He’s abandoning me, again.

I followed him into the house, but he shut me out by locking himself in his office. My fist pounded against the door. “Let me in, Dad!” I shouted, the back of my throat burning. “Let me in!” I begged.

I pleaded, but he didn’t relent, and in the pit of my stomach I knew he wasn’t going to let me back in.

I
showed
up twice to Aria’s house. The first time, I saw her sitting in the living room with her family, laughing as they opened gifts together. Everyone was filled with life, and I didn’t want to ruin their Christmas, so I went back to Dad’s and waited. All of my bags were already packed.

I sat in my bedroom staring at the clock on the dresser.

4:35 P.M.

Lance and Daisy had said they would be there at five to pick me up and drive me to the airport.

I picked up the two CDs I’d made for Aria and baby Mango and slid them into my coat pocket. I knew the CDs weren’t the best or most expensive Christmas gifts, but I hoped they would like them. As I walked over to Aria’s, I tried to figure out the best way to tell her I was leaving. I wanted her to know that no matter what, we could figure out a way to make us work, even if we were eight hundred miles apart.