The Sound of Letting Go (11 page)

I am numb as I leaf through my piles of sheet music.

There is the folder from Mr. Orson

with its cheery collection of holiday concert solos.

Unable to decide what to play,

I start with the top selection: “Silent Night.”

The tune is easy and showcases my skill at high notes,

but the unsung lyrics mock me

with their tantalizing promise of heavenly peace.

I crumple the pages, shove them aside,

page angrily through the rest of the choices,

every one too hopeful.

I, the follower—

of scores, of schedules, of plans—

do not want to play these tunes.

I imagine my life as a collection of dates

for performances, competitions, lessons, tests.

Each high mark, prize, night of applause

leads to another,

another—

ambling eternally, destination unclear.

I cannot picture how this existence will look

when it is not counterpointed

by a different set of endless rituals

performed by my brother,

nor guided by my carefully honed formula

of words and actions

to protect my stoic parents,

conceal (as much as one can in Jasper)

the truth of how difficult home life has become.

How will I reply now when Justine asks me to sleep over?

Or if Dave ever invites me again to The Movie House?

How will I play a hopeful tune

or answer if, some quiet day down the road,

Mom, Dad, and I sit—

three at the breakfast table—

and they ask if I am happy?

Because as much as I am their good, steady daughter,

Steven is still my brother,

their son.

In the morning,

it feels like nothing has changed as I sit at the island

choking down rapidly softening Special K

while Steven eats his nine waffle bites row by row.

Mom chatters doggedly about whether to order

poinsettias from the local Scout troupe.

Dad ogles the paper as if the headline announces

the meaning of life.

Tink, tink
: my spoon against the bright blue bowl.

Slurp
: Steven gulping down his juice.

Something about a new pink-and-red flower variety

that holds its petals longer.

A chair pushed back.

Dad’s “where the hell is his coat?”

And I wonder how it can be Friday,

this day that should have a new name:

the day after my parents announced

they are severing our family,

cutting off the mangled limb,

the one that made outsiders stare and the rest of us

limp along.

Twelve hours after they threw up their hands,

pushed my brother from a
Titanic
lifeboat

to save themselves—their marriage.

The first sun rising upon their assurances

that now I can live like an “ordinary” teenager.

I walk my cereal bowl to the sink.

Back turned, I let the word
ordinary
roll over my tongue,

longer, more staccato than
divorce
.

Ordinary:

a state to which I’ve never aspired in my
Kind of Blue
life;

a word that stung the few times it was ever tied

to me or my horn.

I hate them for offering it up as some kind of prize

when it feels more like an accusation;

that this decision they have made is partly my fault—

attributed to some unspoken desire of mine

to be less than exceptional.

“We’re going to be late, Alice.”

Dad’s eyes are on his watch.

“I’m looking, Ted,”

Mom says softly but through clenched teeth,

pulling sweaters and fleeces

from the pegs by the back door,

searching for Steven’s smooth nylon coat.

I am tempted by the vision of a morning

where she snaps back at my father,

“Look for it yourself!” in a strong voice;

of a home where anger can be set free, like love,

where I can sing aloud

to the song playing in my earbuds,

linger in the kitchen while Mom and Dad argue,

make up, stand close,

the way I remember them doing before Steven

got so big, so strong.

The thought dissolves as I watch Mom

push a wisp of hair off her brow,

gentle my brother into his jacket,

while Dad’s foot taps as if he has somewhere urgent

to be, as if he cannot be delayed,

even for the briefest, coat-zipping space of time.

Before seven thirty, I am playing a jazz rendition of

“Adeste Fideles”—

“O Come, All Ye Faithful”—

a song of joining together,

of celebrating the birth of a savior.

I remember baby Steven

coming home from the hospital,

the house growing strangely dim,

voices whispering beyond Mom’s tears.

When she’d been pregnant, Mom and I had read books about caring for a new baby,

talked about how I could help with baths and bottles

and bringing toys.

But when Steven did arrive

no one let me hold him on my lap, give him a bottle.

Two years after the cord prolapse,

the emergency measures surrounding his birth

(though the doctors have told us we can never

truly know cause and effect),

the autism diagnosis became official,

though Mom, I think, always knew

what Steven’s over-open, unfocused infant eyes,

the incessant way he toddler-drove red plastic cars

along the edges of carpets,

the sounds he didn’t make,

were leading us toward.

“O come, let us adore Him!”

my trumpet declares,

while my heart falls, as it always does

when I wonder at the way the life we expected to have,

the family circle Steven was supposed to complete,

got somehow smudged, misdrawn; could never be

perfect, harmonic,

closed.

Were we cheated?

November is going to tumble into December.

Exactly when will our family be dissolved?

Will our holidays be quiet

instead of tentatively still?

Will we go, on Christmas afternoon, to visit my brother

in some highly staffed refuge

like the ones I read about online last night?

Will Steven’s first real holiday gift to us

be his absence from our home,

and is that a present I will ever be able to want?

“O come ye to Bethlehem.”

I try to keep the tears in my eyes, away from the music,

but a sharp sound escapes from my horn.

Cal doesn’t quite stare at me over his bari;

he has to keep glancing down

at the music he’s close to memorizing.

His eyes flitting my way make me look, for some reason,

out the interior window

to see the unmistakable back of Dave’s shaggy head,

the edge of a book.

Is he waiting for me?

And wouldn’t that have made a perfect morning

not so very long,

long ago?

Mr. Orson sets down his baton,

like a razor slicing my fifty-five minutes of ragtime bliss

off the top of the day.

The end of the music hurts.

Slowly, slowly,

I slide the mouthpiece from the lead pipe,

rub the cleaning cloth over my brass companion,

set the trumpet into its velvet-lined case,

click the buckles shut.

Through the window, I can see the top half of Dave.

He is doggedly tapping something into his cell phone,

but every minute or so, his head straightens,

he looks toward the band room door.

“Comin’ to homeroom?” Cal asks.

He heaves his bari case up onto the shelf,

reaches for mine.

“Thanks.” I hand it to him.

“Got a lot of art on this thing.” He smiles

at the custom square declaring,

“Up with Jazz; Down with People”

that adorns the case’s center;

my glitter-enhanced black-and-white sticker

of Dizzy Gillespie

blowing into his horn in all his full-cheeked glory.

“It’s cool.”

“Thanks.”

Through the window,

I see Dave glance toward the band room door

one last time.

Watch with something like relief

as he shoves his phone into his pocket

and walks down the hall.

I want and don’t want

to feel his carelessly strong embrace around my ribs,

his lips on my lips.

My heart is so heavy, my eyes too close to tears

to dare try and explain

why I ran from him in the parking lot,

if I even know myself beyond my overdeveloped instinct

to slip from tight grips that, at home, signal only danger.

“Let’s go see what Mrs. Pendleton’s wearing today, Cal.”

“It’s yoga tonight, isn’t it?”

Justine meets me at the lockers,

bumps her shoulder against mine.

“Yeah,” I breathe.

“Wanna meet up after orchestra tomorrow, then?

We could check out that new jewelry store downtown.”

“I’ve got a music lesson,” I say.

I want to tell her that pretty soon,

I won’t have to race home anymore,

that we can shop any day after school,

have sleepovers, go to dances like normal friends.

But I am afraid.

Afraid she’ll be sorry.

Afraid she’ll be glad.

Afraid she’ll feel all the things I feel

but say them out loud, like Justine always can.

Though, usually, Justine’s bravery

makes me feel stronger, I am afraid

that, right now, her words

will be nails digging into my scabbed-over heart,

making me bleed.