11
D
reariness hung in the air, rivaling the pungency of medications and disinfectant. The odors, however, didn’t bother Maddie. With each visit to the convalescent home, her nose had grown more tolerant of the strange, sterile surroundings, as had the rest of her senses. The sight of elderly residents struggling to feed themselves over-boiled food, or getting agitated at relatives they no longer recognized, had gradually lost its impact. Even glimpsing shriveled bodies holed up in their beds, disguised chariots headed for the afterlife, caused Maddie only occasional pause.
She pondered this while rosining her bow, preparing for her performance. As she stood alone in her father’s assigned room, it dawned on her how accustomed she had become to the bland, beige walls and scuffed tiled floors, the clusters of wheelchairs and muted floral paintings. A sadness rose within her.
He wasn’t supposed to be here this long.
The doctor had recommended a change in scenery to help cure his depression, some place free from the memories of his wife. Beatrice Lovell had been quick to highlight the amenities of the rest home owned by her husband, as if selling a vacation house on the Malibu shore. Of course, more than the vastly discounted rate communicated her unspoken favor. Given that Maddie and her brother had both been in school, and lacked any close relatives, Bea had secured the care their father needed. Perhaps even rescued him from an asylum.
What else did authorities do with people whose grief stripped their desire to function?
“Mr. Kern, look who’s here,” a nurse encouraged. She guided him into the room in a slow shuffle.
“Hi, Daddy.” Maddie dredged up a smile, held it as his glassy blue eyes panned past her face. The routine persisted in delivering a sting.
Before the window, the nurse eased him into a chair. He angled his face toward the glass pane. “Your daughter’s going to play for you today. Won’t that be nice?”
Holiday garland swagged above him. The fading afternoon light bent around his slumped shoulders. For an instant, time reversed. It was early Christmas morning. He wore his bathrobe over his pin-striped pajamas, his brown hair disheveled. Bags lined his eyes not from aging sorrow, but from a late night of assembling Maddie’s new dollhouse, or TJ’s bicycle for the paper route. Maddie could still see her dad settling on the davenport, winking at his wife as she handed him a cup of strong black coffee. Nutmeg and pine fragranced a day that should have lasted forever.
“If you need anything, I’ll be at the desk,” the nurse said to Maddie, doling out a smile. The pity in the woman’s eyes lingered in the small, stark room even after her departure.
Maddie shook off the condolence and retrieved the violin from her case. She methodically tuned the strings. Photographed composers stared from the lid, always in judgment.
Today, theirs wasn’t the approval she sought.
She took her position before the music sheets. Each lay in sequence side by side on her father’s bed. Height-wise, the pages weren’t ideally located, but she knew the composition forward and backward. The wrinkled papers, strewn with penciled finger markings, merely served as a security blanket.
“I’ve been working on a Paganini caprice for you. His ninth, one of your favorites.”
He didn’t respond, not so much as a blink.
She reminded herself that the title alone would carry little impact.
As she nestled the violin between her chin and collarbone, she played the opening in her mind. There was no room for error. The perfection in her phrases, her aptness of intonation, would wake him from his solitary slumber. Lured out of his cave and back into their world, he would raise his eyes and see her again.
She lifted the bow, ticking away two-four time in her head. Her shoulder ached from relentless practices. Scales and arpeggios and fingered octaves had provided escape from gnawing doubts over her looming nuptials.
If only life could be as well ordered as music.
Maddie closed her eyes, paced her breathing, and sent the bow into motion. The beginning measures passed with the airiness of a folk dance in a gilded palace, where women with powdered unsmiling faces and tall white wigs tiptoed around their buckle-shoed partners. Soon, the imitative notes of a flute alternated with dominant horn-like chords, and after a brief rest, the strength of the strings pushed through an aggressive middle section. Maddie’s fingers leapt up and down the fingerboard. The bound horsehairs hastened through ricochets and over trills. Any ending seemed miles away until a soft high-B floated on melodic wings. Only then did the prim courtiers return. They lent their limelight to a ruler’s abrupt pronouncement, before trading bows and gentle curtsies. When the final note drifted away, Maddie opened her eyes.
Her father’s seated form appeared in blurred lines. As they solidified, her anxiety climbed the hill molded of hope and dread. Her technicality had been pristine, a rendering her instructor would deem “admirably spotless.”
But had she chosen the right piece? The right composer?
Violin held snug to her chest, she watched and waited for the answers. In the silence, her father inched his face toward hers. A trembling of anticipation spread through her. Their gazes were about to connect when an unexpected sound robbed her focus. At the door a matronly nurse stood behind a woman in a wheelchair, pit-patting their applause.
Maddie jerked back to her father—whose attention had returned to the window. His expression remained as dispassionate as those of the composers in her case. Once again she stood before him, alone and unseen. She’d become the beige walls, the tiled floor. An insignificant fixture he passed in the hall.
She sank down onto the bottom corner of his bed. Instrument resting beside her, she leaned toward him. “Daddy, it’s me ... Maddie. I know you can hear me.”
At least she hoped so. Even more today than usual.
Suddenly she recalled her impromptu audience. She glanced at the empty doorway before continuing. “Since my visit last week, some things have happened. You see, the thing is that Lane—the Lane you’ve known for years—well, he proposed to me. In a couple days, we’re supposed to get married.”
For a second, she envisioned her father shooting to his feet, outraged she had accepted without his consent, a sure sign he’d heard her.
He didn’t react.
“I love Lane, I honestly do. It’s just happening so fast. We’ve only been dating since the spring, and he’s been away half the time at school. Then there’s Juilliard, and now he’s got a job offer in California. . . I’m not sure of anything anymore. And even if I were, how can I do any of this without you?” She went to touch his hand, but reconsidered. Grasping fingers that made no effort in return would crumble the strength she’d rebuilt, day after day, note by note.
Maddie tightened her grip on her violin, growing more insistent. “You’re supposed to walk me down the aisle. You’re supposed to tell me what a good choice I’ve made, and that we’re going to live happily ever after.” The impossibility of it all brought tears to her eyes. “Please, Daddy,” she urged in a whisper, “talk to me.”
He continued to stare out the glass. He didn’t utter a sound.
Her answer, however, came regardless. From a cavern of truths, it echoed from deep inside. All she had to do was listen.
12
H
unched over the kitchen table, TJ attacked the page with a vengeance. He scrubbed at his lead markings with a pencil eraser, but the layered numbers still peeked through. Five layers to be exact. That’s how many times he’d been stumped by the blasted stats equation.
Such a waste. Waste of an evening, wasted effort. Baseball had already taught him all the math he ever wanted to use. Measurements from the mound to every point of the plate, the trajectory of hits, angles of pitches, addition of runs, the subtraction of players.
He’d chosen Business as his major. It seemed the least specific option. In actuality, a degree was never part of the plan. His vision of the future had been nothing but stripes. Not of the flag, a symbol of patriotic roles meant for guys like Lane. No, his own allegiance lay with the good ol’ Yankees, with those dapper stripes, their topnotch talent. And TJ’s name could have been—should have been—added to their roster long before now.
Freshman year, only one teammate besides himself had been recruited on scholarship. The second baseman, a fellow All City player, signed last year with the Red Sox. Yet here was TJ, still stuck in Boyle Heights, trying to rid his life of another mistake that couldn’t be wiped clean.
Although that didn’t keep him from trying.
Rubber shavings scattered as he wore down the eraser at an angle. When the nub snapped off, the pencil’s top skidded across the paper. The metal rim tore a rut through the single problem he’d actually gotten right.
He chucked the pencil across the room. Growling, he crumpled the page. “Stupid, useless piece of—” He reared back to pitch the wad, but a discovery halted him.
Company.
At the entry of the kitchen, Jo Allister leaned against the doorjamb. Her oversized peacoat hung open around her overalls. “Don’t let me interrupt,” she said. A baseball cap shaded her face, though not her bemusement.
“Don’t you ever knock?”
Her mood instantly clouded. “I’m looking for Maddie. If that’s acceptable to you.”
This made for the second time this week he’d misdirected a vent on his sister’s friend. He surrendered the balled paper onto the table, tried his best for a nicer tone. “She’s not here.”
Jo upturned her palm as if to say,
You wanna elaborate?
“She ... went to see our dad.” Based on periodic reports from the nurses, any visits were pointless. Maddie just hadn’t accepted that yet. “Afraid I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
“Fine. Then tell her I swung by.” With a scathing smile, Jo added, “I’d stay and wait, but you might take up throwing knives next.”
Once again, he watched her ponytail shake with fuming steps away from him. She certainly had a knack for jumping straight into his line of fire.
“Hold on,” he called out weakly. Her shoulder flinched, indicating she’d heard him, but she didn’t stop.
He marched after her. “It wasn’t you, okay?”
Ignoring him, she opened the front door. He caught hold of her sleeve.
“Jo, please.”
She didn’t face him, but her feet held.
“I just got a lot on my plate, with baseball and finals and ... everything.”
Gradually she wheeled around. Her bronze eyes gave him a once-over. “That supposed to be an apology?”
TJ found himself without a response. He had lost the skill of presenting a proper sorry. It was tangled up in the net of regrets that a million apologies couldn’t change.
“You’re welcome to stay”—he gestured behind him—“if you wanna wait for Maddie.” Padding the peace offering, he told her, “No knife throwing, I swear.”
A reluctant smile lifted a corner of her mouth. She glanced past him and into the house, considering. “I dunno.”
Man, was she going to make him crawl over hot coals for her forgiveness?
“Looks like we’ve both been cooped up too much,” she said. “Come on.” She waved a hand to usher him down the steps.
He had to admit, it was a nice night. From the smells of leaves burning and cookies baking next door, he sensed his stress dissolving, making her offer tempting. Still, he felt the tug of obligation, recalled the equations that weren’t going to solve themselves.
“Stop your fretting,” Jo said. “Your books aren’t gonna run off. Or your pencil—wherever it landed.”
He gave in to a smile. “All right, all right. Let me grab a jacket.”
TJ glued his gaze to the asphalt to avoid the lineup of houses they passed. It wasn’t the string of gingerbread cutouts that made him want to scream, but the normalcy.
Middle class to upper class, nearly every ethnicity peppered the neighborhood—Russians, Mexicans, Jews, you name it. The families’ after-supper scenes, however, varied little. Fathers smoked their pipes, slippered feet crossed at the ankles, reading newspapers or books, or playing chess with a son eager to turn the tide. Mothers in aprons tended to children all bundled in nightclothes; they double-checked homework or darned socks beside the radio; they nodded to the beat of a youngster plunking away at a piano. Some even had the gall to hang Christmas decorations—December had scarcely arrived!
TJ was so intent on blocking out these lousy Norman Rockwell sketches, he didn’t give any thought to destination until Jo spoke up.
“This is it.” She jerked her thumb toward the sandlot.
“This is what?”
She rolled her eyes, making him wish he’d just played along. “You know, TJ, you’re about as good at apologizing as you are at listenin’.” She continued into the ballpark, collecting rocks from the lumpy dirt.
TJ slogged behind. By the light of the moon, he took inventory of the place he hadn’t visited in at least a decade. The park was even more run-down than he remembered, and smaller. A lot smaller. When the new ball field had opened several blocks away, complete with kelly-green grass and shiny cages and splinter-less benches, kids had immediately shunned the old hangout. It was a toy they’d outgrown and dumped in a dusty attic.
Only now did TJ detect a sadness etched like wrinkles in the sandlot’s shadows.
“Right over there.” Jo pointed out a set of sagging bleachers. “That’s where I carved my initials, front row on the left. My own VIP seat. Every weekend Pop and I would come here and watch my brothers play. I tell ya, we missed a heap of Sunday Masses, but never a Saturday game.” She jiggled the rocks in her hand as if seasoned at throwing dice. Even TJ would think twice before going up against her in back-alley craps. “One day the coach got so tired of me nagging about wanting to hit, he put me in. Thought it would shut me up.”
“Well, obviously
that
didn’t work.”
Without warning, she flung a pebble that TJ barely dodged.
“And that, buster, was with my left arm.”
TJ shook his head. A quiet laugh shot from his mouth as he dared to follow her.
On the sorry excuse of a mound, level as the Sierra Madres, Jo planted her loafer-clad feet. A pitcher’s stance. She transferred the rocks, save for one, into her coat pocket. With her right hand, she drew back and slung the stone at her target, the lid of a soup can dangling from the batter’s cage.
Plunk.
The tin rattled against the warped and rusted fence.
Not bad. For a girl.
“So, how’d you make out?” he asked. “Up at bat?”
“Walked,” she said with disdain. “A beanball to the leg.” She flipped her cap backward with a sharp tug and set her shoulders. Sent out another nugget.
Plunk. “
My brother Otis was pitching. Told his buddies he wanted to teach me a lesson, which was baloney. He was terrified of his little sister scoring a home run off him.” She wound up and threw at the lid again, as hard as her expression. Another bull’s-eye. Three for three. Without daylight.
TJ tried to look unimpressed. “How long ago all this happen?”
“I dunno. Eight, maybe nine years back.”
A smirk stretched his lips. “And ... you’re still holding a grudge?”
She pondered this briefly, rubbing a fourth stone with her thumb. “Irish blood,” she concluded. “Forgiving wasn’t exactly passed down by our ancestors.”
TJ, too, had a dash of Irish mixed into his hodgepodge of European descent. Perhaps this explained his shallow well of forgiveness. He dreaded to think what other traits he’d inherited from his father.
Averting the thought, he focused on the road that had delivered them there. “I gotta get back.”
“No,” Jo said.
He turned to her. “No?”
“Not till I show you why I brought you here.” She tossed her rock aside and sat on the mound. Then she slapped the dirt beside her twice, peering at him expectantly.
He scrunched his face. “Um, yeah. As nice as it would be to hang out and tell ghost stories, I do need to get some studying done.” His future at the university sadly depended on it.
“Two minutes and we’ll go.”
“Jo, I really need—”
“Would you stop your moanin’ and take a load off?”
Clearly arguing would get him nowhere. And he couldn’t very well leave a girl, no matter how self-reliant, alone at night in a deserted park. Safety aside, it was just plain rude.
“All right,” he muttered, “but make it quick.” He took a seat on the packed slope.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it? Now, lie back.”
“What?”
She groaned at him. “Just do it.”
Concerned by her intentions, he didn’t move. The two of them had never really hit it off, but if any other girl had invited him to cozy up like this, he’d know where it was leading.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she spat as if reading his thoughts. Then she lay back, head on her hands, convincing him to recline.
The coolness of the ground soaked through his clothing, sparking a shudder. “Now what?”
“Relax.” She took a leisurely breath. “And look up.”
He cushioned his neck with his fist and dragged his gaze toward the sky. The lens of his vision adjusted, intensifying the spray of white specks. Clear as salt crystals on an endless black table. Were the stars tonight brighter than usual? Or had it simply been that long since he’d paid notice?
Within seconds, everything else faded away. He was suspended in space, floating among those specks like he’d dreamed of as a kid. He was an adventurer visiting other galaxies, a fearless explorer. There were no responsibilities anchoring him in place. And for the first time since he could remember, TJ felt free.
“This is what I wanted to show you.” Jo’s voice, like gravity, yanked him back to earth. Again, he lay in the old ballpark. “My pop,” she went on, “he knew everything about the stars. Was a big hobby for him. He’s the one who taught me about constellations making up pictures and whatnot.”
“Yeah?” TJ said. “Like what?”
She gave him a skeptical side-glance. Seeming satisfied by his sincerity, she raised her arm and pointed. “You see those three running up and down in a row?” She waited for him to respond.
“I see ’em.”
“Well, they’re the belt hanging on Orion, the hunter. And next to it, right there, are three more dots that make the line of his sword.” She picked up speed while motioning from one area to the next. “Above him is Taurus, that’s the bull he’s fighting, and on the left are his guard dogs. The lower one is Canis Major, and the star at the top of it is Sirius. That’s the brightest star in the night sky. Believe it or not, it’s almost twice as bright as the next brightest star... .” Not until she trailed off and cut to his gaze did he realize he was staring at her. “Swell.” She looked away. “Now you think I’m a nut job.”
“Actually, I was thinking ...” He was thinking that he’d never noticed what a pretty face she had. Had a naturalness about her. She wasn’t one for wearing makeup, and he sort of liked that—though he wasn’t about to say it. “I was wondering how you remember so much about all of them. The constellations, I mean.”
“Oh. Well. I don’t remember them
all.
Those are just some of my favorites.”
“What’s so special about them? Compared to the others?”
She lifted a shoulder, signs of embarrassment having fallen away. “I like that they have a whole story. Plus, you can see them from anywhere in the world. It’s kinda nice, don’t you think? Some stranger in a faraway country’s gotta be looking at those very shapes right now.”
Jo turned back to the sky, and after a beat, she quietly added, “Mostly, though, I guess they remind me of my dad. I like to think of him as Sirius, the brightest one. Way up there, watching over me and my brothers.”
Normally TJ would bolt from a moment like this, averse to poking and prodding, yet he felt compelled to hear more. “What exactly happened to your parents?”
“Depends. Which version you lookin’ for?”
He understood the dry response. The local rumor mill had churned out plenty of whoppers about his own family, so he didn’t give much credence to anything he’d heard about Jo’s. When she and her brothers moved into town, to live with their granddad, stories had spread like wildfire. Some claimed her mother ran off with another guy, supposedly a traveling missionary from Canada; others said friendly fire took out her father during the Great War. TJ could have asked Maddie for the real dope, after the girls met in junior high, but he hadn’t considered it any of his business.