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Smiling weakly, his heart knew something I refused to believe the three times he told me.
“I’ll be on torture duty again in a few days. Love you.”
He waved me off, rolling his eyes as he laughed under his breath.
“Yeah, yeah. Love you too.”
Those words were the last we said to each other, which I’m grateful for. But the ache the image conjures hasn’t lessened over the years because it was the last time I saw my best friend with air in his lungs. I still think about him when I hike, usually talking to myself out loud when no one is around, and I pretend he can hear me.
Sometimes I even shed the tears I didn’t at his funeral.
My return to endless sobs didn’t happen because of some life-altering event. When I look back, I realize it was an accumulation, a pain building, weighing me down and filling me until I exploded.
When the first tear spilled from my eyes, it was because of a faulty piano key.
My mother was deep into her second bottle of wine when I found my fingers dancing over the white and black keys. Some scales at first before I took a seat and played. It wasn’t anything special, and I can’t remember the notes now, but my fingers led the way, reverberating around the house and drowning out my mother’s cries and the sound of pouring wine.
In another life—a life before that night—my mother was a musician, and I’ve played music since I was old enough to stack blocks.
I sat there for what felt like forever, playing the same tune until it was perfect.
At least it was until my finger hit F sharp, and only a muted note drifted in the air.
I played it again.
Nothing.
One note.
It was essential to my piece, and it was silent.
I pressed it over and over again, my finger becoming red as I pounded on the black key.
“Claire, can you stop?” Mama warned, appearing at the doorway, looking every bit a powerful beauty, still dressed in her silk blouse and black trousers. But her speech had become slurred in the hours since coming home from work. Her eyes brushed past me as she spoke, indignation dripping from every word.
She always looked past me.
Never at me.
“Mama, it’s broken.”
“You think?”
I tapped one more time, as if the fairies had come along and fixed it since I last tried.
She used to play every evening, but she hadn’t touched it more than to dust in over four years. Papa bought it for her before I was born, and I can’t help but wonder now if it was an apology. Like all the flowers that appeared days after he’d left her black and blue.
“Can we get someone to fix it?”
“It’s an old piano,” she explained, crossing her arms over her chest. “Things break and wither over time, baby girl. That piano is no exception. It’s old. Not even music lasts forever.”
Her eyes glossed over before she stumbled back down the hall to the kitchen and into the only company she desired—her wine.
That’s when it happened. Frustration boiled over, spilling down my cheeks until I couldn’t breathe. I slammed the piano shut, not caring if she heard, kicking it, and immediately cursing myself when pain shot through my foot. Storming to my room, I swung the door shut, threw myself on my bed, and screamed into my pillow.
I was angry.
More than angry.
