“You’re mama’s right, as always.” James raises his fork to show Cameron, then puts it in the pile of pasta on his plate and scoops, demonstrating to Cam how to gather it.
Cam grabs the fork from his mama. “Me!”
“How rude,” Elisabeth starts, and would have reprimanded him further except he tries to copy James and fill the fork with spaghetti, and she doesn’t want to disrupt this teachable moment. Unsuccessful after multiple tries, he starts stabbing at his pasta, clearly frustrated, and Elisabeth feels her ire rise. “Maybe he’s not ready—”
“He’s ready. He just needs to be shown how.” James covers her son’s tiny hand in his enormous palm, grips the top of the bright yellow rubber fork handle and guides.
After multiple tries, with James assistance, Cam manages to get a few strands on it and even several bites into his mouth. He and James high five with each success and after fifteen minutes of concentrated effort, her seventeen month old son is feeding himself.
“Proud mama here.” She beams at Cameron. “Learn something new every day.” She grins at James.
“Only if you want to,” James retorts gently, and turns back to Cam who pops a forkful in his mouth and then raises his hand to high-five James. “Good job. Keep practicing, dude. Only way to get good at anything is to practice.”
Mushing spaghetti strands with his mini-fork becomes more fascinating than eating it, turning the remaining pasta on his plate into sludge. That’s about enough for Elisabeth. “Okay, okay. Perhaps it’s shower time.” She cleans him up again before lifting him out of the high chair then looks at James. “We’re going to go clean up and get ready for bed.”
“Sounds good.” James finishes the last bites on his plate, gets up, collects the dishes and puts them in the sink for washing.
“’Ames, Bok. Bok.” Cameron says over his mama’s shoulder as she carries him out. “Peezze!”
“Want to read him a book before bed tonight?” Elisabeth tries to ignore the sting of her son’s new preference. This is the first time Cam has asked James for a bedtime read.
“I’d be honored, sir.” He bows to Cam, then glances at her with a tentative smile. “Let me know when he’s ready.”
James is just finishing the dishes, when she comes back into the kitchen holding a clean Cameron dressed in his bright red nightie with the blue airplanes. “It’s easier to read in his room, on the pillows on the floor so he can go straight into his crib without distractions.”
“Great. Let’s go.” He throws the dishtowel on the counter top and follows them into Cameron’s bedroom, Elisabeth realizing only then he’s never been all the way in her son’s room before.
His eyes scan the room quickly and she wonders if he’ll notice it straight away, which of course, he does. He looks at the guitar case leaning against the wall next to the crib, and then glances at her. Cameron squiggles out of her arms, flops onto the pillows, and waits expectantly.
“Okay. What are we reading tonight?” James asks casually.
She hands him One Fish, Two Fish. “It’s his night time favorite.”
He sits on one of the big pillows and wraps his arm around Cameron, who snuggles into his chest as he begins to read. “‘From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere,’” He glances again at the guitar then at her for only an instant, then continues reading to Cameron. Elisabeth goes back into the kitchen to finish putting away the dishes.
Was he mad? Glad? Did it matter at all? Clearly, it did. At least a little. His expression changed when he saw it. Hardened. What was that? Anger? No. Fear…
Why would the guitar scare him? He’d told her he wasn’t a musician anymore, whatever that meant. It isn’t likely he’d forgotten how to play. So he’s choosing not to. Why? Or maybe he can’t anymore. Maybe he cut some connection to his hands when he slit his wrists. God, what a horrible price. It’s no wonder the man is lost.
“Your child has been tucked securely into his crib. I imagine you would like to go say goodnight?”
“Yes. Thank you. I’ll be right back.” She goes in and kisses a dozing Cameron on his head, and then his cheek, and bids him sweet dreams, then leaves his room and closes the door softly behind her.
“Whose guitar is that?” is the first thing he says as she comes back into the kitchen.
“It was Jack’s. It’s one of the few non-essentials I took with us. Other than his laptop, that guitar was probably Jack’s most treasured possession. He played it pretty well for an amateur, and Cameron likes to fiddle with it every so often. Why do you ask?”
He shakes his head, shrugs, spreads his hands in surrender.
“Would you like to play it?”
“No.” Then, “Yes.” Then he laughs, but it isn’t with humor. “Thing is, don’t know if I can play anymore.”
“Well, give it a try and see.”
He gives her a quasi-grin. “Risky. If I can’t, I’m not quite sure I can bear the loss.”
“Maybe you won’t have to.” She goes back into Cameron’s room before he can protest and meets him in the living room with the guitar. Elisabeth sets the case on the floor, flips open the locks, and lifts the lid. An unexpected wave of profound sadness, then guilt as she stares down at Jack’s guitar. And suddenly she sees her husband sitting crossed-legged in front of her with the guitar in his lap. It’s three in the morning, in the basement of their Tel Aviv flat. Building foundation vibrates with the passing jet fighters. Cameron is just two months. He’s fussing in the bassinet. Jack tries to soothe him to sleep with music. Elisabeth is too exhausted to move, or she’d have gotten off the floor and kissed him right then.
She looks up at James standing behind her. His hands are folded over his chest, tucked against his side. He stares down at the guitar, his expression steely, unreadable. He finally glances at her, shakes his head slowly.
“I can’t do this now. I’m sorry.” He turns away, goes over to the window and looks out.
Elisabeth strokes the strings softly, just once, then closes the case and puts it back in Cameron’s room, fully expecting when she comes out that James will be gone. But he isn’t. He’s still standing by the window, staring out. She doesn’t know what to say to him, consumed by her own sadness. She sits on the couch, grabs the pillow, hugs it to her as she buries her face in it and succumbs to tears.
“I’m sorry, ‘Lisbeth. I know how much it hurts losing people you love.” He leans back against the wall, one bare foot up against it, James stares at the floor. His soft linen shirt is tucked loosely into his jeans. Thick waves of silky hair frame his sculpted face and are scattered in his striking eyes, which are fixed on hers. And as magnificent as he is, right now, she wishes he was Jack.
“God, I miss him. I miss him so much it physically hurts.” She hugs the pillow tighter to her, and cries and cries and she can’t stop. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t need this.” She tries to smile at him as she sits rocking, holding the pillow to her chest.
“Don’t apologize for grieving, Liz. I buried my parents when I was thirteen, and then myself in music. Lost my muse a year and a half ago.” He looks down. “Been nothing since. Believe me, I understand loss.”
She’s floored by his words, suddenly incredulous. “Being a musician was what you did, James, not all of who you were, or are, or could be. Don’t you get it? Jack’s loss as a reporter will be marginal. A thousand others precede him. His loss will be felt much more profoundly by the son who will never know his father; by me, who won’t grow old with the man I committed to spending my life; by his parents who now have to face every day without the child they raised to outlive them.”
“I've no family. No love. No children. I’ve cultivated none of these things. My loss will be marginal.” He shoots her a cheeky grin.
“It wouldn’t be to me, and Cameron.” She sighs, shakes her head and sadness sweeps through her again.
“I’m sorry, ‘Lisbeth. I was being flip. It was careless.”
“But h
onest. You’re still there. You’re still on the cliff staring into the chasm.”
He half-laughs, shrugs then looks down again.
“Harboring the notion you’re nothing to anyone just makes it easier to check out, James.”
He looks at her then, searching and looks back down. “If I can’t play, well, that’ll just about kill me.”
“Only if you let it. You choose.” She stays fixed on him but he still won’t look up. “It’s as important as you make it.” She thinks she catches a quick smile then he folds his arms across his chest. She sighs. “James, you want to find some ground? Maybe it’s time to figure out what you have to give besides music, don’t you think?”
He glares at her. “You don’t get it. I don’t want to think.”
Jerk. “God, I’m right back where I left off with Jack,” she practically growls at him. “No. Worse. You’re consciously avoiding yourself.” She buries her face in the pillow and screams.
He laughs. She glares at him. “Okay, Liz, what is it you want to hear? Wasn’t it you who told me on the beach this afternoon that you’re scared of everything all the time? Well, I’m with you. You should be.”
Blank on a witty retort. She’s surprised he heard her earlier. Pleasantly surprised. “I might feel afraid a lot, but I refuse to live that way.” She stares at him. “Look, you said music gave you a foundation once. Maybe it can again. Take the guitar. Go play it, James. Prove to yourself you can, and that it’s not the end all. You can damn yourself to your fears, or have the balls to face them. It’s your choice.”
He studies her. “’Lisbeth, I’m not your second chance at fixing Jack.”
“Jack is dead. And I can’t possibly fix you, honey. You’re going to have to do that.”
His eyes narrow, but there’s humor in them. “Woman, you really are a hard case.” His expression hardens. “You’re mad at Jack. I get it. But I’m not Jack. You can share your anger with me, but not at me. I may deserve it for past crimes, but not with you. Not yet, anyway.”
“Not counting when you walked out this morning.” She instantly regrets saying it. It’s crass and shames her.
He sighs and shakes his head then pushes away from the wall. “It’s getting late. We’re both tired. We’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight.”
She doesn’t say anything to stop him. He walks out and shuts the screen quietly, and she’s glad he’s left. She sits on that couch and cries. She cries for what she and Jack shared, and what they didn’t. She cries for Cameron, and the father he will never know. She cries for James, and the losses he’s suffered, of his parents, of his music, of his sense of self. She’s consumed with emptiness, aching for contact, with Jack, with James...
Never again with Jack. And though the idea feeds into her sadness, it surprises her how distant the past now feels. Never again with Jack, is less weighted. She’s finally done with trying to fix them, trying to fix him, and getting nowhere—but contentious.
I’m sorry, Jack.
She sits on the couch and swears at herself, then to herself she’ll never try to fix anyone but herself again. James believes his worth is his music because it’s all he knows. And though music may ground him, it will never complete him. But he’s going to have to come to that on his own.
It’s close to four in the morning when Elisabeth goes into Cameron’s room and gets the guitar. She covers her son, tucks the blanket around him firmly and strokes his small head, then closes the door to his room and leaves the house. She makes sure all the doors are locked, something she hasn’t bothered with since moving in, though she’ll only be gone a few minutes.
She climbs the hill as quickly and quietly as she can. She doesn’t want him to hear her, doesn’t want to see him right now. All the lights are off when she gets up to his house. Elisabeth leaves the guitar on his back porch with a note. She hopes when he finds it in the morning, he’ll accept it in the spirit it’s been given.
Chapter Eight
I read the note.
Since it’s meant to be played, I thought you could be of greater service to this instrument than Cameron or I. Perhaps this guitar can help you find what you feel you’ve lost.
I’m sorry for last night. I was out of line. I apologize.
E.
I bring the guitar in the house and set it on the floor, kneel in front of it, flip open the case and stare down at it. Jack’s guitar. Cameron’s father’s guitar. A dead man’s guitar. No use to him now. It’s a beautiful instrument, a Maton Flamingo, rosewood, with an ebony fingerboard and bridge. I vaguely wonder how well Jack played it. I’m scared out of my mind to find out if I still can.
If I can master the guitar again, I can surely re-master most other instruments. And I’ll have my life back. Except not really. I’ll only have music back. And that hadn’t turned out to be enough. ‘I’m afraid of losing him.’ I see Elisabeth smoosh her face into Cameron’s neck and hold on tight after I lifted him out of the water yesterday. The image lingers, their exchange of love was palpable. And I know right then, with a clarity often sought but rarely attained, that even if I can make it with music again, it will never be enough.
I stare at the guitar.
And suddenly I’m five, sitting on the gray woolen couch in the playroom watching TV. Mike comes in carrying two guitar cases covered with snow, sets them down carefully in the foyer and brushes them dry with his scarf. One of the cases is Mike’s, with the stickers, dings and tears. The other I’ve never seen before. Mike brings both into the playroom and turns off the TV.
I loudly protest, but Mike silently flips open both cases, takes out his guitar, and hands me the other. He sits down on the couch and starts playing—very slowly, and instructs me to copy him. And I do. I sit on the floor at Mike’s feet and copy his fingering, getting it wrong more often than right at first, but Mike doesn’t seem to mind.
“Again. Again. Again.” Mike repeats it softly, for an hour or so until mom calls us for dinner.
By then I’m playing Frere Jacques right along with Mike. Mom joins us with her flute. Mike sets a fast rhythm, strums double time behind my picking. The flute quivers like snowflakes, dances around our melody. Sound resonates off the walls and moves through me, and we are one. Connected. And I am complete. I had to have more...
I’d missed the significance of that moment all those years ago with my parents. I mistakenly assumed it was the music that filled me up, but I realize now that deep resonance I’d felt had been the love we shared. We were simply creating the soundtrack for the scene. The music intertwined, blended with feelings of security, contentment, profound joy, that were subsequently rekindled every time I played.
Jack’s guitar mocks me, and I glare at it. ‘Have the balls to face your fear,’ I hear Elisabeth, recall certainty in her clear hazel eyes, even wet with tears of grief. A sweeping wave of sadness rushes through me for her loss, and mine.
I miss you, mom, and Mike, and I see them again, that night, her short, dark hair in her striking green eyes as she blows on the flute. She kisses Mike on the lips after we stop playing and he turns to me with his broad bearded smile. I smile, but it hurts inside—the gnawing, unrequited longing for them.
I sit on the sleeping bag and lift the guitar slowly from the case, position it in my lap and strum it. It’s horribly flat, so I start tuning it, but as soon as I put pressure on my fingers sharp pain goes shooting through my hands.
Put it down. Put the fucking guitar back in the case.
No. Don’t.
“Let the music suck you in and block out the pain.” Mike’s talking about the fatigue in my fingertips that day I was learning to play. “It’ll get easier, I promise. Don’t stop. Focus on the music and keep playing, James.” Mike coaxes me on. ‘Don’t quit. Keep playing and the pain will go away.’
I tune the guitar, repeating Mike’s words in my head like a mantra. ‘Don’t quit. Keep playing.’ It hurts. Block out everything but the music. Listen...a little higher. There it is. Perfect G. Hear
it. Feel it resonate in you, through you. It still hurts, but the intensity ebbs.
I’m doing it, Mike. Exactly what you told me to do. I’m blocking out the pain. I’ve been doing it my whole life now.
Laugh at the thought. “Internal, external, I’ve been shutting it all out with music...”
Except I can’t anymore.
My hands are killing me, ribbons of pain shoot through my fingers as I pluck the strings. E, A, D, G, B, E. Perfect. Good. Okay. I shake my hands out, ball them and shake them again, trying to relieve the aching. The piano at Martin’s had been a lot easier. I played like crap, but at least it didn’t hurt as much. Strumming sends cramps through my palm straight to my head. I stifle a scream and stop playing. My hands are shaking. Fingers are rigid, contorted. Eyes start tearing. Christ, it hurts.
I grit my teeth against the pain as I strum a simple Am7-Bm7b5-E7-Am progression, tears streaking down my face. I stop playing, wipe them away on my shirtsleeve. Stretch my hands out again, resume playing, go back to picking—arppeggio first. Smooth it out. Move to tremelo. Keep it smooth. Okay. And alternate. Okay. Watch my fingers move, find the groove, sync the riff. I’m doing it. The pain numbs, subsiding, but tears come again. Sudden suffocating heaviness in my chest, I stop playing. My hand closes around the neck of the guitar and I squeeze, letting the stings dig into my palm.
I put the guitar back in its case, close and snap it shut. Ball and stretch my fingers again, then pick up the case and put it in the bedroom I never use, among the stacks of books and clutter of clothes scattered about. I take off my jeans, pull a pair of sweats from the floor and slip them on before leaving the room, then go for my morning run.
I stop by Elisabeth’s as usual, on my way back. She’s in the kitchen, wearing a gauzy white summer dress I’ve not seen before, making scrambled eggs and bacon. She looks stunning, her auburn hair tied back with a scrunchy, cascading down her back, fine strands falling out all over the place, softening her defined features. Cameron’s in his highchair rolling blueberries around his tray, and then taking delight in smashing one, and finger painting with the juice. He offers me the smashed berry as I sit at the table.