Page 75 of Second Song

ROWAN

The last time I stood in this study, I hung my head. Now I wish I’d lifted it much sooner. I would have seen Mum smiling from a wedding photo. Tonight I focus on eyes alive with laughter, on confetti dotting her hair, and on me standing between her and someone I’d called Dad for the first time on the day they married. Tonight he looks just as surprised to hear me say it.

Surprised?

He’s shocked. The hand he runs through his grey hair shakes, and the wedding band on his finger gleams, which prompts another memory of that day. “You gave me the wedding rings to look after.”

“Rings?” Here’s another reminder of standing on this side of his desk so often—I face a frown. The difference tonight is that I don’t see a headmaster disappointed in a student. I’m pretty sure I see concern mixed with pure confusion.

He’s so baffled by me. He always was. I might as well have spoken to him in Arabic or Cornish. We’ve never shared a wavelength, and it would be all too easy to revert to silence like after we lost Mum as our translator, only I’ve had Charles as a new one, haven’t I? And Luke. But it’s Liam who helps me translate now, after giving me so many examples of someone else who speaks via his actions. That hard hat he gave me was one, telling me I was worth taking care of. He also rescued my glasses from a rock pool. Maybe that’s why I suddenly see a pair of wedding bands through clearer lenses.

“You gave me the rings to include me, didn’t you?” I nod towards the photo on the wall beside him. “You asked me to look after them so I could be part of the ceremony, right?”

“Y-yes?” This man, who I couldn’t make myself call Dad even once after Mum was gone, is so hesitant that I ask another question.

“I didn’t exactly have a good track record, so why did you trust me with them?”

I’m surprised that his answer is so defensive. For me. “Trust you, Rowan? Why wouldn’t I? And what didn’t you have a good track record with?”

“With listening to anything that wasn’t music.” That’s how I used to be. How I am still, to be truthful. Only lately? All of my best music has been a group effort.

He’s still baffled, so I try harder to find the right words for what time in Cornwall has made clearer. “I didn’t have a great track record with behaving normally, did I? I was such a?—”

I picture a blackboard, still not sure what colour chalk would describe me as a student, but I don’t have to choose one. My stepdad interjects with much kinder labels than I ever gave myself when I didn’t fit in here.

“Exceptionally gifted? Sensitive and creative?”

I don’t expect this from him either.

“You were made from exactly the same magic as your mother.”

I wish Liam was with me. He’d help me stay upright at what my stepdad adds next.

“Getting to make a family with you as well as Lizzie? That felt like catching lightning in a bottle not once but twice.” He glances at the wedding photo. “Of course I wanted you to be part of the happiest day of my life.” He clears his throat and changes the subject, his grip on the desk a reminder of the last time I hung my head here with a graphic kiss-and-tell between us. “Rowan, did you come back because you want my permission for that production company to film here?”

The sudden switch in his tone to disgust is another reminder. Only… perhaps disgust is the wrong word. Today I have the strength to look up instead of focussing on his white knuckles, and I see something different.

He’s devastated.

Almost desperate.

Torn, and tonight I have the headspace to hear why.

“I’m sorry but I can’t give it. I don’t want you to have anything to do with them ever again because…” He turns to that happy photo, and I get to see another version of a granite profile. He’s bleak and so is this. “Because I didn’t just marry your mother. I signed up to be your father. I’ve been responsible for so many children, I should have known how to do that. How to be that for you.” He touches that photo frame before facing me again. “I didn’t. I still don’t. But if I thought you wanted to hear a father’s advice, I’d tell you not to film with them ever again.” He leans forward. “Don’t reply to them, Rowan. Don’t accept any of their offers. Not after what the last time cost me.”

“Cost you?”

Here’s another surprise glimpse of Liam. He knows how to make buildings crumple. I almost do the same when my stepdad says, “Because I lost both of you, didn’t I? The moment your mother was gone, I couldn’t reach you. Or help you. I couldn’t connect with you at all. Music was your only solace. Then you were gone.”

He’s silent for a long, thin moment, and this admission stabs like a knife to my chest.

“For a while, I thought that was for the best.”

He tells me why, and the sting fades.

“Because I got to see you smile again via livestream. Maybe I should have seen that as me being a failure as a father, but there was all of that bottled lightning again, so I told myself to accept that I could never be a replacement parent. Then something shifted. Week after week, your smile faded.” He points at that wedding photo where I beam. “It was nothing like this one. I didn’t recognise you, and I couldn’t watch you struggle, so I?—”

“Came to save me.”

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