The Last Song (21 page)

“Come here,” he said. He forced a smile. “Sit next to me. I don’t want you to go just yet.”

S
teve

S
teve looked up as Ronnie came back inside. Though she flashed a smile, trying to assure him that nothing was wrong, he couldn’t
help noticing her expression as she grabbed her book and made for her bedroom.

Something was definitely wrong.

He just wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t tell whether she was sad or angry or scared, and while he debated the idea of trying
to talk to her, he was pretty certain that whatever was going on, she wanted to handle it alone. He supposed that was normal.
He may not have spent much time recently with her, but he’d taught teenagers for years, and he knew that it was when your
kids wanted to talk to you—when they had something important to say—that your stomach should clench with worry.

“Hey, Dad,” Jonah said.

While Ronnie had been outside, he’d forbidden Jonah from watching through the window. It seemed like the right thing to do,
and Jonah had sensed it was best not to argue. He’d found
SpongeBob
on one of the channels and had been watching happily for the last fifteen minutes.

“Yes?”

Jonah stood up, his expression serious. “What has one eye, speaks French, and loves cookies before bedtime?”

Steve considered the question. “I have no idea.”

Jonah reached up and covered one eye with his hand.
“Moi.”

Steve laughed as he rose from the couch, putting down his Bible. The kid made him laugh a lot. “Come on. I have some Oreos
in the kitchen.” They headed that way.

“I think Ronnie and Will had a fight,” Jonah said, pulling up his pajamas.

“Is that his name?”

“Don’t worry. I checked him out.”

“Ah,” Steve said. “Why do you think they had a fight?”

“I could hear them. Will sounded mad.”

Steve frowned at him. “I thought you were watching cartoons.”

“I was. But I could still hear them,” Jonah said matter-of-factly.

“You shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations,” Steve chided.

“But sometimes they’re interesting.”

“It’s still wrong.”

“Mom tries to listen in on Ronnie when she’s talking on the phone. And she sneaks Ronnie’s phone when she’s in the shower
and checks her text messages.”

“She does?” Steve tried not to sound too surprised.

“Yeah. How else would she keep track of her?”

“I don’t know… maybe they could talk,” he suggested.

“Yeah, right,” Jonah snorted. “Even Will can’t talk to her without arguing. She drives people crazy.”

When Steve was twelve, he had few friends. Between attending school and practicing the piano, he had little free time, and
the person he most often found himself talking to was Pastor Harris.

By that point in his life, the piano had become an obsession, and Steve would often practice for four to six hours a day,
lost in his own world of melody and composition. By that point, he’d won numerous local and state competitions. His mother
had attended only the first one, and his father never made it to any. Instead, he would often find himself in the front seat
of the car with Pastor Harris as they traveled to Raleigh or Charlotte or Atlanta or Washington, D.C. They spent long hours
talking, and though Pastor Harris was a religious man and worked the blessings of Christ into most conversations, it always
sounded as natural as someone from Chicago commenting on the endless futility of the Cubs during the pennant race.

Pastor Harris was a kind man who led a harried life. He took his calling seriously, and on most evenings he would tend to
his flock, either at the hospital or at a funeral home or at the homes of congregation members he had come to consider friends.
He performed weddings and baptisms on the weekends, he had fellowship on Wednesday nights, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays he
worked with the choir. But every evening in the hour before dusk and no matter what the weather, he reserved for himself an
hour to walk the beach alone. When he returned, Steve often found himself thinking that the hour of solitude had been just
what the pastor needed. There was something settled and peaceful in his expression whenever he returned from those walks.
Steve had always assumed that it was the pastor’s way of reclaiming a bit of solitude—until he’d asked him about it.

“No,” Pastor Harris had replied. “I don’t walk the beach to be alone, because that’s not possible. I walk and talk with God.”

“You mean pray?”

“No,” Pastor Harris said again. “I mean talk. Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear
what’s been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it’s been full of sorrow or anger, and even when you’re questioning
why terrible things have to happen. So I talk with him.”

“What do you say?”

“What do you say to your friends?”

“I don’t have friends.” Steve gave a wry smile. “At least any that I can talk to.”

Pastor Harris laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You have me.” When he didn’t respond, Pastor Harris gave his shoulder
a squeeze. “We talk in the same way that you and I do.”

“Does He answer?” Steve was skeptical.

“Always.”

“You hear Him?”

“Yes,” he said, “but not with my ears.” He put a hand to his chest. “This is where I hear the answers. This is where I feel
His presence.”

After kissing Jonah on the cheek and tucking him in bed, Steve paused just inside the door to study his daughter. Surprising
him, Ronnie was asleep when they entered the room, and whatever had been bothering her when she came back inside was no longer
in evidence. Her face was relaxed, her hair cascaded over her pillow, and she had both arms tucked close to her chest. He
debated whether or not to kiss her good night but decided to leave her be, allowing her dreams to drift without interruption,
like snowmelt flowing downstream, to the places they were meant to go.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. There was something calming about watching both of his children sleep,
and as Jonah rolled to the side, away from the hall light, he wondered how long it had been since he’d kissed Ronnie good
night. In the year or so before he’d separated from Kim, Ronnie had reached the age where she found such things embarrassing.
He distinctly remembered the first night that he said he’d come tuck her in, only to hear her respond, “You don’t have to.
I’ll be okay.” Kim had looked at him then with an expression of eloquent sorrow: She’d known that Ronnie was growing up, but
even so, the passing of childhood left an ache in her heart.

Unlike Kim, Steve didn’t begrudge Ronnie the fact that she was growing up. He thought back to his life at the same age and
remembered making his own decisions. He remembered forming his own ideas about the world, and his years as a teacher only
reinforced the idea that change not only was inevitable, but usually brought its own rewards. There were times when he would
find himself in a classroom with a student, listening as the student told him about his struggles with his parents, about
how his mother tried to be his friend or how his father tried to control him. Other teachers in the department seemed to feel
that he had a natural rapport with students, and often, when the students left, he was surprised to discover that many students
felt the same way. He wasn’t sure why. Most of the time, he either listened in silence or simply reframed their questions,
forcing the students to reach their own conclusions and trusting that in most situations, they were often the right ones.
Even when he felt the need to say something, he usually volunteered only the most generic comments typical of armchair psychologists.
“Of course your mom wants to be your friend,” he might offer, “she’s beginning to think of you more as an adult she wants
to know.” Or, “Your dad knows he made mistakes in his life, and he doesn’t want you to make the same ones.” Ordinary thoughts
from an ordinary man, but to his amazement, the student would sometimes turn toward the window in silence, as if absorbing
something profound. Sometimes he’d even receive a call from the student’s parents afterward, thanking him for talking to their
child and noting that he seemed to be in a better mood lately. When he hung up the phone, he would try to remember what he’d
said in the hope that he had been more insightful than he realized, but he always came up empty.

In the silence of the room, Steve heard Jonah’s breathing begin to slow. He knew his son had already fallen asleep; the sun
and endless fresh air seemed to exhaust him in ways that Manhattan never could. As for Ronnie, he was relieved that sleep
had erased the tension of the last few days. Her face was serene, almost angelic, and somehow reminded him of the way Pastor
Harris looked after his walks on the beach. He watched her in the utter stillness of that room, longing again for a sign of
God’s presence. Tomorrow Ronnie might be leaving, and at the thought, he took a hesitant step toward her. Moonlight drifted
through the window, and he heard the steady drone of ocean waves beyond the glass. The tender fire of distant stars flickered
a heavenly affirmation, as if God were announcing His presence somewhere else. Suddenly he felt tired. He was alone, he thought;
he would always be alone. He bent and kissed Ronnie gently on the cheek, feeling again the undertow of his love for her, a
joy as intense as pain.

Just before dawn, his waking thought—more of a sensation, really—was that he missed playing the piano. As he winced at the
predictable flash of pain in his stomach, he felt the urge to rush to the living room and lose himself in his music.

He wondered when he would have an opportunity to play again. He now regretted not making the acquaintance of others in town;
there had been moments since he’d boarded up the piano when he fantasized about approaching a friend with the request to play
the seldom used piano in his living room, the one his imaginary friend regarded as decoration. He could see himself taking
a seat on the dusty bench as his friend watched from the kitchen or the foyer—he wasn’t quite clear on this—and all at once,
he would begin to play something that would move his friend to tears, something he’d been unable to accomplish during all
those long months on tour.

He knew it was a ridiculous fantasy, but without music he felt aimless and adrift. Rising from the bed, he forced those dark
thoughts away. Pastor Harris had told him that a new piano had been ordered for the church, a gift from one of its members,
and that Steve was welcome to play it as soon as it arrived. But that wouldn’t be until sometime in late July, and he wasn’t
sure he could make it until then.

Instead, he took a seat at the kitchen table and placed his hands on the top. With enough concentration, he should be able
to hear the music in his mind. Beethoven composed the
Eroica
when he was mostly deaf, hadn’t he? Perhaps he could hear it all in his head, the way Beethoven had. He chose the concerto
that Ronnie had played at her performance at Carnegie Hall, and closing his eyes, he concentrated. The strains were faint
at first as he began to move his fingers. Gradually, the notes and chords became clearer and more distinct, and though it
wasn’t as satisfying as actually playing the piano, he knew it would have to do.

With the final phrases of the concerto reverberating in his mind, he slowly opened his eyes again and found himself sitting
in the semidark kitchen. The sun would be poking over the horizon in just a few minutes, and for some reason, he heard the
sound of a single note, a B flat, hanging long and low, beckoning him. He knew he’d only imagined it, but the sound of the
note lingered, and he found himself scrambling for pen and paper.

He quickly sketched out some rough musical bars and jotted down the notes before pressing his finger to the table once more.
Again it sounded, but this time it was followed by a few more notes, and he scribbled those down as well.

He’d written music throughout much of his life, but even he regarded the melodies as figurines compared with the statues he
generally preferred to play. This might not amount to much, either, but he felt himself warming to the challenge. What if
he was able to compose something… inspired? Something that would be remembered long after he was forgotten?

The fantasy didn’t last long. He’d tried and failed in the past, and he had no doubt he would fail again. But even so, he
felt good about what he’d done. There was something transporting about the act of creating something from nothing. Though
he hadn’t gotten very far on the melody—after much work, he’d reverted to the first few notes he’d written and had decided
to start over—he somehow felt satisfied.

As the sun crested the dunes, Steve reflected on his thoughts of the night before and decided to go for a walk on the beach.
More than anything, he wanted to return to the house with the same look of peace that he’d seen on Pastor Harris’s face, but
as he trudged through the sand, he couldn’t help feeling like an amateur, someone who searched for God’s truths like a child
searching for seashells.