“Well, if pulling all-nighters is your idea of enjoying yourself…Did you see your Mom?”
“I actually just got home.”
Jesus. He cringed against the idea of her being up all night doing God knew what. Funny; he’d probably done much of the same things she was experiencing now, but it was different for him to know she behaved this way. She was his daughter. He’d been wild at her age. The thought didn’t come with as much regret or disdain as he expected.
Katie cracked an egg and let it fall into the frying pan. She looked over her shoulder.
“Did you not see her last night?”
“She said she was working late, but she wasn’t here when I woke up this morning.”
Katie cocked an eyebrow. “How long’s that been going on?”
“What do you mean?” He played dumb. No sense in letting Katie in on their marital problems, at least not until they directly affected her. If there were marital problems. She’d probably just forgotten to call. She’d get his voicemail and apologize. Then they could talk their issues out.
“Never mind, I guess.” She turned back to the pan, pushing the eggs around with the spatula. “Anyway, my friends and I were driving around listening to your album. You really used to rock.”
Used to.
Todd sipped his coffee and remembered the door to his studio hanging open, the glimpse of his past he’d allowed himself. “Thanks. I think.”
“No, really, we all enjoyed it. Jake always thought you were kind of a square, but he’s changed his opinion of you.”
“Who’s Jake and why does he think I’m a square?”
Katie set a mug of steaming black coffee down in front of him. “You met Jake a few months ago one night when he picked me up. Anyway, you’re always wearing suits and stuff. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Todd recalled dressing in front of the mirror this morning and thinking how much he’d transformed over the years. He couldn’t get offended if someone from his daughter’s generation thought he was a square. Had he met his future self at her age, he would’ve thought the same thing.
Katie put a plate with eggs, bacon, and strawberries in front of him.
“Looks good.”
“It wasn’t difficult to make, honest.”
She crossed the kitchen and fished into her purse. She pulled out a CD case with an image of a much younger Todd on the front holding a guitar, the same instrument that hung in his study. She set it down next to him.
“It’s like looking in a mirror isn’t it?” Katie said.
“Not quite.”
“Do you want me to put it back? I didn’t get a chance to last night.”
She started to pull it away, but Todd reached out and pinned the case to the surface. He remembered writing the eight songs that made up the entirety of the album with the confidence that they would resonate with everyone who heard them. He remembered recording them during his first year of marriage with a certain desperation and hope that they wouldn’t disappear forever, that someone, somewhere would hear them, that they would outlive him. In a strange way, having his daughter hear and enjoy them made it feel like they had.
That he’d started to record them the day after Chloe died hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Food’s a little spicy, that’s all. Spicy, but good.”
“Just like Mom used to make.” She sat down across from him. “So what’s really going on between you two?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine, Katie.”
He said it without believing it and it hurt to lie to her.
“If you say so,” she said. “I just worry, Dad.”
“If I’m not worried, you shouldn’t be. I think work’s been keeping her really busy.” More bullshit, but what else could he say?
Katie tensed her jaw. Her eyes burned with a determination to know more. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. She sighed. “If you say so…”
He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I say so. You know, I think I’m going to take this CD to work today. Maybe I’ll give it a listen, see if these songs hold up.”
She took her hand away and smiled. “You may surprise yourself.”
“Not all surprises are pleasant.”
~Chloe~
Thirty years, a blink in eternity.
Thirty years that felt like thirty thousand had passed.
Thirty years she had suffered in that horrible place.
Thirty years ago, she had died and learned that true death, an eternal sleep, a peaceful rest, didn’t exist.
The familiar voice and chord progression of the song "Blissfully Damaged" rose among the sounds of suffering as she knelt in the muck of Samael's chamber. The demon that had helped her die stood over her as her mutilated flesh healed and grew back over her bones. Over the past thirty years this destruction of her body had become a ritual. Samael tore her apart and put her back together, unmaking and remaking her every day.
The notes of the song paralyzed him and awoke in her a long-buried will to escape. She ran towards the sound through eruptions of flame and the grasping claws of the damned, the notes getting louder with every step. The music projected from a yawning chasm that had opened in the ground. She closed her eyes, jumped in, and landed in these woods.
Behind her a fiery tear in space closed up. The chirping of birds, the scurrying of squirrels, and the gentle rustling of leaves replaced the song. The smells of ashes and burning hair faded with every moment, replaced by damp and lively smells of mud and foliage. She saw that she wore a short black dress, identical to the one she’d worn the day she died. In the other world, she’d always been naked and vulnerable.
Thinking of the place from which she’d escaped sprung her into action. Without knowing where to go, the frantic need not to get caught carried her forward. She didn’t know how much more pain Samael could inflict upon her, but she was confident that if he caught her, he’d think of something.
Fog parted below Chloe’s bare feet as they struck the forest floor. She brushed aside low-hanging branches and strived not to slow her pace. Her leg muscles burned as she ran. Her heart rate quickened. Wind whipped against her face, blowing back her hair and stinging her eyes. She hadn’t felt with the senses of this body since dying, and she’d been dead nearly a decade longer than she’d been alive. All these new sensations held meanings for her. The crunch of dry leaves under her feet meant freedom. A breath of cool morning air meant she was alive again, truly alive. Maybe now there was hope.
Downhill momentum carried her to the shoulder of a road. The cool pavement beneath her feet brought calm. She stopped to risk a look back and listened. If Samael was after her, he wasn’t too close behind.
Slight vibrations in the ground and the hum of a motor heralded an oncoming car. With it she caught ear of the familiar song that had reached her in that other world. She stood on the side of the road and awaited the right moment.
~Todd~
Todd sang along with his younger voice as it carried through his Cadillac’s sound system. Much out of practice, he’d even forgotten some of the words and how to hit certain notes, but it felt good anyway. Like his twenty-two-year-old self still lived somewhere inside his middle-aged body.
The route to work cut through heavily wooded hills, farmland, and at one glorious moment overlooked the valley that cased the serene Willow Lake. Though an unbearably tedious job awaited him at the end, these forty minutes, with the gorgeous scenery and the rolling rhythm of movement brought peace to his thoughts. Hearing his own music today brought an even more special vibe to his commute.
The realization that the songs still held up brought the best feelings and the music gave way to images. A crowded bar full of people that he looked upon from the stage. Bright spotlights and neon signs. The images awakened something within him. Singing to these songs, remembering the stories they told, brought clarity to dreams that he forgot upon waking and phantom smells that pulled him in
to depths of melancholy.
Todd pressed the gas pedal to the floor and watched the speedometer climb. His car glided over the asphalt, carried by energy not of this world. The music pounded the atmosphere. His young, strong voice soared through it. His words told of the tragedy at the forefront of his heart back when he’d recorded them. Now the words stung and exhilarated him.
He remembered Chloe. Though he’d written some of the songs before meeting her, they seemed to serve as prophecies for the fate that would befall her. They’d loved each other, but he had left her. He’d thought it for the best, or at least he’d heard it enough times to believe it. After trying normal life for a while, moving in with Anna and giving up music to focus on his banking job, he changed his mind. He'd intended to go back to Chloe before tragedy had claimed her.
He could feel her in his arms now, smell her, taste her. Drifting farther away, he remembered her greeting him with a kiss as he got off the stage, and sang louder. Something like a weight belt tightened across his diaphragm. Back then those words brought purpose, like he stood out from the rest of the herd, like he mattered.
Todd relived everything now as he sang.
He whipped the car around a corner and almost lost control. He tightened his hands on the wheel and steadied the vehicle. His mind cleared and the cold present replaced the vibrant moving pictures of the past. He glanced around, making sure no police had witnessed his reckless driving as his tires screeched in protest. Only the woods that lined the road had observed his transgression. At his speed, one of those trees could do him a lot of damage.
The hill declined, which meant he was closer to work. Havertown Community Bank’s corporate headquarters operated in the town below. He drove closer to the gray heart of reality, but the melodies of each song pulled him away again.
He almost missed the black-clad figure stumbling into the middle of the road. He slammed on the brakes, but was going too fast. As his tires screeched he saw the doe-eyed look of terror on the face of a young, dark-haired girl. For an instant, he thought he knew her. Fading between reality and memory had blurred his awareness. He was, however, sure he was going to end her life if he didn’t react quickly. He cut his steering wheel to the right, his foot still pressed down on the brake pedal, and went off the road. His car dipped into a grassy ditch at the edge of the woods. His body jerked. He raised his hands as fast as he could, but his face connected with the steering wheel.
Silvery stars exploded in front of his eyes. For a moment, he thought they might be spotlights, blinding him as he tried to look at faces in a crowd. But he wasn’t in a club; he was in his car. The gray steering wheel with the Cadillac logo sat kissing distance from his face. His raspy voice crooned about fiery crashes fusing two lovers together, the need for that magnitude of passion, and a quickly approaching doom.
How fitting.
He turned the music off and pulled on his door handle with a trembling hand. With his pulse pounding between his temples, he tried to maneuver his way out of the vehicle. Too rattled to muster a lot of strength, it took two efforts to get the door open.
Once out, he made an inventory of himself and confirmed that he was in one piece. His car he wasn’t so sure about. A large crack split the driver's side headlight, and it shined no light. Fog swirled around the hood. At least he hoped it was fog, and not smoke.
Thankfully, his car rested in a shallow ditch. Upon closer examination, he saw that other than the headlight, the front of the car had only a few dents and scratches, and his tires still held their air.
Back by the road, the girl in black wandered toward him and he realized exactly who she was.
* * *
He first met her at an after party for one of his gigs. Her father Les cooked at Master’s Catering and had organized this, along with many other parties. Someone worked the door and the parties always turned a profit. Like most nights, on the night he met Chloe more people attended the after party than the actual gig. A diverse group of people packed the dance floor. Younger rock and roll kids decked out in denim jackets covered in patches. Well-dressed older guys and their dates, trying hard to recapture a youth that had long passed them by.
The hall smelled of spilled liquor and air freshener. A couple that had just snuck into the bathroom snuck their way back into the hall. Todd watched them try to play it cool as they shuffled back to the dance floor, amazed that on other nights of the week the hall hosted serious parties for serious people. The debauchery that sometimes transpired on nights like this made it hard to believe that anybody serious ever set foot in here. Once two young punks beat the shit out of a middle-aged dude who’d slammed down enough shots to think it smart to start a fight with the two younger, stronger partiers. Pretty funny to think that the next day the hall had hosted some kind of business card exchange. The staff probably had all kinds of crazy stories. Todd knew Les did.
He considered Les a good friend. Though much older, Les always spoke to him as though they were equals, very different from the “daddy knows best” manner of Todd Sr. Les enjoyed Todd's music and because of his job at the catering hall, he knew a lot of people and almost always brought a crowd to Todd’s shows.
Les clapped him on the shoulder, and he almost spilled his drink. Les said something in slurred speech and Todd spun around on his stool to face his much drunker counterpart.
Les's gray-streaked hair hung in a shoulder-length mess, but he stood tall in the dim lights like a rock star, in good shape despite his lifelong love affair with booze. Todd hoped then to be that cool when he reached Les’s age, was absolutely sure he would be.
“What’s up, man?”
“Someone I want you to meet.” Les jutted his thumb to his right. “This is my daughter Chloe. She’s home from college for the summer.”
Todd stopped the drink at his lips. The young woman's dark hair fell in perfect ringlets across smooth, milky shoulders. Even in the dim light of the hall, her wide, dark chocolate eyes glistened. A black dress came to the middle of her thighs and showed him her statuesque legs. Despite the booze in his system, the sight of her gave him a moment of perfect clarity.
“She’s a musician like you.”
Todd left the bar, but not before getting her a drink.
Les smiled, not seeming to mind that Todd had ordered his daughter a drink. Les had always respected him. If anyone could buy his daughter a drink, Todd could. If Les had planned it as a setup, he wasn't subtle about it. He left the scene as soon as Todd and Chloe held each other’s attention.
Todd fumbled for words as he handed the gorgeous woman a drink. He and Anna were dating, but no mention of serious commitment had passed between them. The field lay open before him.
“So you’re a musician?”
“Yeah, I play keyboards.” She considered the drink in her hand, held it down at waist-level. “I’m not classically trained or anything, but I pick things up pretty fast. Mostly write my own stuff.”
“That’s really cool. More than cool. My songs could use some keyboards."
“Yeah, I’d be up for jamming.” She smiled, shy and restrained, but beautiful in spite of that. Maybe even because of that. “I’m home for the summer. Maybe even longer. School’s not going so well.” Her eyes shifted.
Todd gave a dry laugh. “I know the feeling. I barely graduated last year.”
“Hey, at least you finished, man. What’d you major in?”
Todd rolled his eyes. “Finance. Thrilling, huh?”
“I never would’ve pegged you for that.”
“Oh, trust me. It’s very much a back-up plan. I’m taking my music as far as it will take me.”
“That’s good. I don’t think I’d be alive if it wasn’t for music. No matter how bad shit gets, I’m usually okay as long as I can play.”
“I know what you mean.” He did. He had spent many nights alone in his room, strumming chords into his headphones, the door locked against the rest of the house. Whenever he had a fight with his father or Anna, play
ing took him away to a special place. Somewhere between oblivion and rapture.
She put her unfinished drink down and asked if he wanted to come outside and smoke with her. He agreed and they made their way through dancing people and out the double doors. He noted the way she moved, in free sweeping motions as if she swam through the air in front of her, delicate and pure.
Outside, he bummed a cigarette from her and she lit it for him. They smoked in silence. He tried not to be creepy as he just watched. Her hand as she brought the cigarette to her small mouth moved with beautiful elegance. He kept quiet, afraid to ruin what could be a perfect moment.
Nearby, a group of kids in leather stood in a circle smoking and passing a flask around. Crickets gave the surrounding woods symphonic life and muffled the music from inside. An owl hooted every few moments in no particular pattern. The others finished their cigarettes and went back inside.
“I should’ve gotten us more drinks,” he said.
“Maybe.” A long pause. “I’m not really supposed to drink.”
“Oh?”
Chloe flicked some ashes off of the cigarette and watched them drift down to the pavement. “I’m an addict.”
Todd tried to play it cool because in spite of her confession he liked her, her mystery, the fact she liked what he liked, and that she was the daughter of a good friend.
Against his will, nervous laughter escaped him. “What do you like?”
She sized him up to gauge how he'd respond. She took a drag from her cigarette and looked away. “Heroin.”
That almost stopped the conversation. The drummer in one of his previous bands had been a heroin addict. His dependence on the drug led to his departure from the band and he’d died of an overdose, isolated from Todd and the others he’d called his friends.
Chloe sensed the awkward silence and apologized immediately. Todd looked her up and down, stopping at her dark eyes. They captivated him, hypnotized him. Instead of turning him away, her damage made him want her more. Underneath her fragility, he saw untapped light and beauty begging for release. When he stared into her eyes, he saw the opportunity to save a life, to smooth out her rough edges, and create something perfect.