He pops open a can of gray paint and says, “That look is more than payment enough.” When I flush, he laughs and hands me a paintbrush.
“My father built a target for me once,” I say. “He taught me to play darts when I was younger.” I sweep my hair out of my eyes. Glance away as soon as I feel the unexpected threat of tears.
I clear my throat and dip my brush into the gray abyss of the can. “We haven’t had a letter in a while.”
Will draws his brush along the edge of the target to create the outermost lines. “Maybe it simply got lost.”
I nod. Focus on filling in the bull’s-eye with quick, sharp strokes.
Will moves to paint the final concentric circle, and so do I, and we paint until we meet in the middle. At one point our hands almost collide, but at the last instant we skim through the air past each other.
“Wouldn’t you . . .” he pauses. “Wouldn’t there be a telegram if something had happened?”
I’ve thought this, too, a hundred times. But would they know how to reach us here?
“I’m sure he’s all right,” Will quickly says with a lopsided smile. He gestures to the target as if to draw my attention away from my thoughts. “Good job with the bull’s-eye.” He turns the buttress so that the wet paint will fully catch the sun. “I made a tripod to hold it, too. You can try it out as soon as it dries.”
Will heads upstairs to change his clothes, but I hesitate in the kitchen, where Miles is finishing a plate of eggs and swinging his legs under the table. Miles and I have barely spoken two words to each other since our falling-out. Maybe a letter came and he’s hidden it out of spite.
“There haven’t been any letters lately from Father?” I ask. “That you . . . forgot to tell me about?”
“No.” Miles’s legs stop swinging. “It’s been a long time. Hasn’t it?”
“Let’s play a board game,” I say quickly. “You choose.”
“All right,” he says, and though neither of us has apologized, I know this signals the end of our fight. Miles selects Mancala. We plop on the sunroom floor and count out the marbled seeds in each pit. Soon after, George arrives and joins Dr. Cliffton in his library. I can tell that Miles is distracted, because I take the first win, but then he recovers and gets the next two.
“One more?” I ask.
“I’m pretty sure I already won,” he says.
“One more,” I insist, and start lining up the pieces.
“Aila,” Miles says. “If there’s no letter from Father, what—”
Then he stops and jerks as if he’s been shocked.
At first I think I’ve imagined it.
The sound is distant, as if it is filtered through water. Miles and I look at each other. Then we scramble to our feet, and one of us knocks over the game board, scattering the pieces across the floor tiles like pebbles.
I reach the door first and fling it open.
The music.
It hits us in a wave of honey.
I recognize it immediately: Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, op. 48. One of my parents’ favorites. My ears lick up the notes, and suddenly it’s as though I am seven years old again, sitting at Father’s feet. He’d played the record on repeat that summer my Nana Eleanor Cummings died. I’d met her only once that I could remember. She was kind and smelled like crackers and brought me a doll.
“Sometimes we can help Mama by stirring up that sadness and getting it out,” Father had said. I remember just the way it felt, sitting at his knee, when he reset the record needle again and then picked up the pieces of my hair between his fingers and let them fall like chaff.
I’d forgotten all of it until the notes of music unlocked those memories and let them fly out like birds.
Miles and I run into the hallway, almost crashing into Will. Mrs. Cliffton joins us at the bottom of the staircase, and we burst into the library together and gape at the record player.
Dr. Cliffton lets out a shout and reaches for Mrs. Cliffton. She laughs, moving her arms through the air as if she could swim through the notes. She beams at him before she plants a kiss straight on his mouth.
Miles bounds toward George and, for lack of something better to do, punches him in the arm. Will whoops, and I turn to him, and he’s grabbing me to him and lifting me in celebration, the feel of his hands straight heat on my waist, the tips of my fingers blazing with sparks whenever I touch his skin.
