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.
Hunched 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 top-notch 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,