Music had worked for that angry, fourteen-year-old I’d been. It had worked for me since then, but I had let the accident, my guilt, distract me from my therapy and had not played for over a year.
I’d tried it, with Mom’s insistence, when I could not silence that voice I thought was Emily, when I sank too heavy in the grief that tightened around my heart every single day since I last saw my girlfriend, Mom forced me in front of the piano, or plunked her vintage Gibson guitar in my arms, begging me to play. It had become common for me to pacify her by just doing what she said, and so I’d tried, pushing a smile onto my face, gripping the neck of that guitar tight and playing every song I knew until my mother’s expression didn’t look so tight. Until I thought her worry had eased.
But it wasn’t real. Music stopped working for me. I missed it almost as much as I missed Em.
It was not a surprise to hear music playing as I approached the lake house that Sunday. But it was not only my mother’s raspy alto singing “I Dreamed a Dream” that I heard as I walked inside. There was another voice, this one higher, wobbling, sounding scared as my mother picked up the bridge. It wasn’t bad, but nothing about those voices sounded in harmony. One was trying too hard, the other was overpowering.
And for some reason, I cared.
They didn’t stop playing when I walked through the door and leaned against the wall to watch Mom and Aly at the piano. Mom’s fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, her gaze directed at Aly’s shy face, how she stood so stiff and straight that I was surprised she didn’t complain about an aching back later.
I’d expected our usual Sunday lunch, after two weeks with Dad and the team on away games out of state. I’d missed the Little Monster and my mom’s comfort food, and I was anxious to find out if Aly had actually shown up for the job. So, seeing Aly there with her back to me, standing next to Mom at that baby grand, and realizing that she had been the one singing, had me stopped cold in my tracks. Just as shockingly, the living room was clutter free and Koa’s large assortment of toys and books that were generally scattered around the floor and stuffed among the leather sofa cushions were neatly organized in small bins against the play room wall. And what was this? The floors had been cleaned—no shoe marks or creative kid hieroglyphics from markers, or stray smears of Play-Doh anywhere to be seen. Best of all, my mother’s skin was no longer pale, and the dark circles under her eyes, while still there, were much fainter.
Amazed, I stepped further in, right as Aly struggled through a high note that was clipped off suddenly when she noticed me standing in the entryway.
“Ransom,” my mother said, pushing back from the piano to meet me in the living room. She’d been clingy lately, behavior I’d chalked up to her pregnancy and hormones working their evil juju on her, but my practice schedule and upcoming mid-term prep had kept me in the city for longer than normal. It hadn’t just been missed Sunday dinners—it had been almost two weeks since I’d seen her at all. Still, my mother acted like she hadn’t seen me in months and I leaned down so she could wrap her arms around my neck and give me a peck on the cheek. Then she took my head between her hands and gave my face the once-over. “You look tired.” I didn’t like her frown or how she kept her open palms on my cheeks like she needed to examine me for any expression that would tell her I wasn’t okay.
“Mom, I’ve been practicing like a demon and studying hard.”
“Please,” she said, finally lowering her arms. “I know what goes on in that team house.” She cocked her eyebrow and frowned. “There was a reason I never stayed the night with your father when he lived there.”
“No,” Dad said, coming into the room carrying an armful of picture books and a half empty sippy cup of juice. “She always made me sneak into her dorm instead.” His smile was weak, but the ever-present wink told me he still perved over my mother. “I have fond memories of that dorm room.”
“You, hush.” She swatted at my father when he walked past her to slump into the sofa. He tossed the books and cup on the coffee table and Mom glared at him, then jerked her head at Aly who’d frozen at the piano, eyes avoiding my face.
“Oh, right. Sorry, sugar.” Dad nodded at an expressionless Aly and shuffled the books together before he disappeared with them into the play room.
“Wow. Never thought I’d see the day that Kona Hale would pick up his own mess.”
“He can’t be that bad,” Aly finally said, making my mom and I both move our gazes to her.
“Oh, sweetie, he is.” Mom wobbled back to the piano, leaning on the shiny, black top. “I should have warned you about him. He’s total slob and, well,” she paused to stand up and arch her back, “I just haven’t had the energy to pick up after him or Koa. That’s why the house was such a disaster when you got here last week.”
“Last week?” I asked, standing next to my mother. That surprised me, given that Aly had seemed so hell bent on dismissing me the first time I asked her take the job. But then, Leann had texted me a couple of times since the night Aly and I danced the Kizomba to ask when I could help her practice. It shouldn’t surprise me that she’d lived up to her side of the arrangement, even though I hadn’t yet.
“Yeah,” Aly said. She seemed distracted, picking up her backpack and stuffing sheet music inside it. “I told you I’d help your fanmi. Been here almost two weeks.”
“And she’s a godsend, honey.” My mother’s smile was wide and I realized I hadn’t seen her looking that relaxed, that content in months. “Really, she came in here like a hurricane and just took over everything—the cleaning, the cooking, getting Koa his bath and making sure he eats everything.” I heard the small creak of her jaw popping when she stopped to yawn. “Hell, she even organized all my cabinets and that disaster of a play room.”
“Keira, souple, it’s nothing.” Aly’s light umber skin looked flushed at my mother’s compliment.
“It’s not nothing, sweetheart. I really…God, you’re just such a help to us.” She turned back to Aly. “So, you have the sheet music. And I can send you some MP3s with the instrumentals. You’ll need that for the audition and…” she paused to stifle another yawn.
“What audition?” I asked Aly.
She finally looked at me, pushing her bag on the piano bench. “Oh, I’m thinking about auditioning for the Theater program at CPU. A dance and song audition will increase my chances of getting in.”
“Thinking?” Mom moved her head, her eyes narrowing. “You’re gonna do more than think about it. With your dance experience and a little fine tuning with your vocals, they’d be crazy not to take you on.”
Again that small flush moved over Aly’s face and it occurred to me that she may not have been frigid all this time. Maybe she was just shy, and her inability to hear anyone say good things about her just made her seem cold. “That’s awesome,” I told her, meaning it. “And Mom offered to help you out?”
“Well, yeah. I mean when she has time.” She nervously tucked an errant strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear, and looked at my mother again. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage, Keira. This job is generous enough. It’ll, um, keep me from having to pick up shifts at the diner.”
“You work at a diner?” I had no clue about that, but then I was bad about not paying attention to details. Had always made the assumption that Aly worked full time at the studio, maybe was a student like me. I didn’t know many people our age that didn’t go to CPU. And none of the people I knew worked two jobs. Damn. I really needed to get outside of the private-college/rich-kid crew.
Aly did this little shrug thing where her shoulder jerked, and a casual dip of her head moved her chin down, like she meant to bypass anything remarkable or remotely favorable about herself. “Yeah. I mean, I love teaching for Leann, but instructors generally don’t make a lot of cash. So I pick up shifts at the diner, clean houses when I’m really strapped for cash, that kind of thing.” She smiled at Keira and that smile got bigger when my father returned to the room and kissed mom on the forehead. “And now this gig too.”