Page 108 of Between Now and Forever

“That I should try to find something other than my dad to associate the piano with. It’s not dad. I still love the piano. I love to play, but the music…”

“Play different music, then. You loved jazz and pop when you were younger. I know your father pushed you toward classical. But, maybe you can get back to what you really loved.”

“That feels like a betrayal.” My father wanted me to be the next great virtuoso, and he died without ever seeing that. The guilt of that reality is crushing. I want to do right by him.

She sits on the edge of my unmade bed.

“Watch where you sit on there,” I warn her.

She scowls at me and stands up like the bed is on fire.

“That’s how you know I’m tired. I stopped sitting on your bed when you were twelve.” She walks over to the small loveseat and eyes it the way she would a rickety bridge.

“Have you ever had this thing cleaned?”

I lean my hip on the edge of my counter and eye her impatiently. Small talk isn’t her thing. She’s got something else to say, and she’s stalling. So, I put a little fire under her.

“My car will be here in twenty minutes. I need to shower. Can I call you on the way to the airport?”

It works. She turns to face me, her jaw set.

“I’m putting the brownstone on the market.”

It’s the very last thing I expect her to say.

”I thought you said you’d leave there in a coffin or not at all.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and tenses, like she’s preparing for a fight.

“That’s when I was sure your father would outlive me. He’s the one who ran marathons, slept well and ate like an elite athlete. I didn’t think I’d have to live there all by myself.”

I don’t know what to say to that. She looks so tired. She lost everything, and now she’s leaving the home she loves.

She smiles, but it’s forced.

“It was too big for us already, but now it’s just me, and I hate it. There are just too many memories. I know this sounds selfish, but…”

“You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you?” I finish for her.

She gives me a pained smile.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” she asks.

“No, It’s not. I’m sure there are things you gave up when you married him. Maybe you can do them now.”

Suddenly she walks across the room, her expression fierce with tenderness. She cups my cheeks and pulls my face down to hers. Her eyes are bright with tears.

“I know that you are not my child biologically. But there are so many things about you that remind me of my father. I know it’s because I passed on the things he taught me--his wisdom and his compassion and his capacity to forgive--to you. Thank you for saying that. My mother and your siblings think I’m selfish for selling the brownstone. If my father was still alive, he would have said what you just did.Iraised you. Yes, maybe the way you respond to things is hardwired by DNA. But the way you manage those responses is what matters. You aren’t capable of deliberately hurting someone who is defenseless. Carter, you fought a lot in school, but you were fighting assholes who tripped girls and stole lunches from the theatre room. You are a good man.”

“I'm broken,” I say.

Her eyes fill with tears as she speaks to me. Her words seep into me; they’re just a few drops of certainty into an ocean of doubt, but I feel the effect of them instantly.

“We all are. But that’s called being alive.”

“I guess.” I shrug.

“Thanks for your support over the brownstone.” She says as I walk away.

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