“It’s fine, I understand,” he assured her, then remembered the upcoming weekend. “Besides, I can tell you more in person, when we meet on Saturday.”
“Oh, right. Saturday,” she agreed. But there was a catch in her voice that tugged like a hook in his chest. He was about to investigate the cause when the reason became clear.
Egan’s office was in California; Juilliard was in New York.
“Don’t worry about this affecting your schooling, okay? We’ll figure it out, no matter what.”
Muffled again, she spoke to a customer, then, “Sorry, Lane, I have to run. Talk to you soon.”
“Okay then, take care. I—” Click. “Love you.”
The hallway went eerily quiet.
By the time he hung up the phone, he chose to brush away his senseless worries. There was too much to celebrate. The internship of his dreams, a key to his future, had been dropped into his hands. Maybe there was magic in those lucky cranes after all.
He sped to the commons and shared the news with Dewey, who demanded they toast at Danny Mac’s Pub to commemorate the triumph.
Later, once the elation and beer began to wear off, they crashed in a happy stupor on their beds. And that’s how Lane remained until late that night, when he awoke from a nightmare, sweat beading his face. The scene imprinted in his mind left him unable to sleep: At Seattle’s Union Station, he stood on a platform, awaiting his future bride—who never showed.
11
Dreariness hung in the air, rivaling the pungency of medications and disinfectant. The odors, however, didn’t bother Maddie. With each visit to the convalescent home, her nose had grown more tolerant of the strange, sterile surroundings, as had the rest of her senses. The sight of elderly residents struggling to feed themselves over-boiled food, or getting agitated at relatives they no longer recognized, had gradually lost its impact. Even glimpsing shriveled bodies holed up in their beds, disguised chariots headed for the afterlife, caused Maddie only occasional pause.
She pondered this while rosining her bow, preparing for her performance. As she stood alone in her father’s assigned room, it dawned on her how accustomed she had become to the bland, beige walls and scuffed tiled floors, the clusters of wheelchairs and muted floral paintings. A sadness rose within her.
He wasn’t supposed to be here this long.
The doctor had recommended a change in scenery to help cure his depression, some place free from the memories of his wife. Beatrice Lovell had been quick to highlight the amenities of the rest home owned by her husband, as if selling a vacation house on the Malibu shore. Of course, more than the vastly discounted rate communicated her unspoken favor. Given that Maddie and her brother had both been in school, and lacked any close relatives, Bea had secured the care their father needed. Perhaps even rescued him from an asylum.
What else did authorities do with people whose grief stripped their desire to function?
“Mr. Kern, look who’s here,” a nurse encouraged. She guided him into the room in a slow shuffle.
“Hi, Daddy.” Maddie dredged up a smile, held it as his glassy blue eyes panned past her face. The routine persisted in delivering a sting.
Before the window, the nurse eased him into a chair. He angled his face toward the glass pane. “Your daughter’s going to play for you today. Won’t that be nice?”
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
