by Steve Gannon
Placing his hands on the keyboard, he looked over at Catheryn. She tipped her head slightly, and they began. Before they’d progressed very far into the adagio, Catheryn stopped. “Let’s go to bar thirty-three,” she suggested flipping ahead in her music.
Travis found his place and resumed, playing from memory once he had established the starting point. They jumped around in this fashion for the next hour—each one calling changes in turn, repeating problem passages until both were satisfied. At last they played the work straight through from the beginning, with Travis matching his notes in an intricate dance of tone and rhythm to the joyous sound of his mother’s cello.
As the final chords of the blissfully self-regenerating rondo died away, Catheryn sat back in her chair. “That’s enough of that for today,” she said. “It’s coming along, Trav. You’re playing beautifully.”
Travis felt a flush of pride and allowed himself a small smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
Instead of returning his smile, Catheryn placed her instrument in its case and carefully folded her hands in her lap. “I saw Petrinski today,” she said.
“Uh, really?”
“Yes, really. I asked how your preparation for the Bronislaw was coming. Do you know what he told me?”
Travis looked away. “No.”
“He told me I’d have to ask you. What’s going on?”
Travis lowered his head, guiltily recalling the Chopin étude that Petrinski had given him to learn. For the past month he had been sporadically laboring on the puzzling and difficult assignment, and although he’d initially discovered and overcome various mechanical difficulties, the exposition of the work’s deeper meaning that his teacher required had grown progressively more remote, making his after-work practices correspondingly more difficult to face. Eventually, discouraged by his lack of progress, he had given up.
“Travis?”
“I’m not playing in the competition,” he said, feeling sick.
“What? You’re withdrawing?”
“That’s right.”
“You haven’t seen Petrinski for weeks, have you?”
“No. I … I’m thinking of quitting the piano.”
Catheryn stared. “You can’t be serious.”
“Look, Mom. I know how much you want me to succeed, but I’m just not sure I’m cut out to be a musician.”
“You’re already a musician.”
Travis felt his palms beginning to sweat. “I …”
“Relax, Travis. I’m not going to bite.”
“I know, Mom. I guess I’m just afraid of what you’re going to say.”
“And what do you think that is?”
“That you’re disappointed in me. That I’m letting you down.”
“Letting me down? This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”
“Are you sure about that, Mom?” Travis rushed on, ashamed of what he was about to say but unable to stop. “You never went as far in your music as you wanted, having a family and all, and now—”
“Is that what you think?” Catheryn interrupted. “You think I could be that selfish? You think I want to relive lost opportunities through you?”
“Don’t you? Why else would you push me so hard?”
“Oh, Travis, you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Really, Mom?” said Travis stubbornly. “I know that when it came to your music, you gave up a lot to have a family. You made sacrifice …”
“I sacrificed nothing.” Leaning forward, Catheryn took her son’s hands in hers and held them tightly. “Travis, I think a life in music is the finest existence anyone can experience,” she said. “It’s charged with beauty, inspiration, art, discovery—all the things that make being alive truly wonderful. And although things didn’t work out for me as I originally planned, I’ve had all that, all of it, more than I ever hoped. I have no regrets about having a family. None.” She paused, looking intently at her son. “But now it’s your turn. I want the very best for you, Travis. I want you to be as happy as I have been.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Then promise me something. Promise you’ll think long and hard about quitting before coming to a decision.”
“I’ve already thought about it, Mom.”
“Please, Travis. Promise.”
Travis hesitated, torn between his doubts and fears and his mother’s iron will. He thought back to the night of the party, hearing Petrinski’s words in his mind. Part of finding happiness in life involves discovering where one’s abilities lie, then making the commitment to exploit them to their fullest. You have yet to do that.
But what if his talent were just an accident of nature, signifying nothing?
Again he heard Petrinski. You aren’t Tommy. You’re not your father, either. You’re Travis Kane.
“Trav?”
Travis knew his mother’s request was not to be taken lightly. He hesitated a moment more. And then at last, with a conviction he longed to embrace … he gave his word.
Afterward, miserable and confused, Travis retreated up the stairs. But instead of returning to his room, he knocked on Allison’s door—partly to apologize for his comment during dinner regarding her reclusive behavior, and partly to discuss his troubling talk with Catheryn.
“Ali?” he called. “It’s me. Can I come in?” Assuming from the silence that she had decided to ignore him, he turned the knob.
Allison’s room was deserted. Travis glanced around, noticing she had left her bedside light on, as well as her new computer. He started to leave, hesitating when a slight rustling caught his attention. He turned. As he watched, the printer on Allison’s desk slowly ejected a sheet of paper.
Curious, Travis crossed to the desk. He glanced at the door, then picked up a thin pile of sheets that had collected in the printer tray. It was Allison’s latest story. Although she had refused to discuss it, he knew she’d been working on it for weeks.
Feeling strangely guilty, he began to read.
Titled “Jessie,” her story told of a nine-year-old boy named Paul who, following the death of his parents, had been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their dairy farm in Minnesota. Although they accepted him wholeheartedly and loved him as their own, their teenaged daughter Jessie did not. Travis quickly flipped through the pages, realizing his sister’s most recent work contained a dark, brooding intensity he had never noticed before in her earlier writing. He glanced again at the door and then continued reading.
We had a four-mile walk to a crossroads where the bus picked us up for school. In winter we could shave the distance by taking a path through the pines, then crossing the frozen river. We were forbidden to go that way, so naturally we always took it, provided the snow hadn’t drifted too deep. That day in early spring we’d exited the bus after school and Jessie had headed into the woods, taking the shortcut home. By then the ice covering the river had thinned in spots, and I worried every time we crossed it. Nevertheless, I trudged along behind, keeping my customary distance. I figured Jessie knew what she was doing—after all, she was fifteen.
When we reached the river, the sun had already begun to slip behind the mountains flanking the western side of the valley, and a chilling wind had picked up. Eager to get home, I increased my pace. All of a sudden I noticed a man following Jessie, paralleling her course along the river’s edge. He looked like one of the pulp-mill workers who had drifted into town that winter, hoping for work. I fell back and shadowed him, wondering what he was doing.
He stayed deep in the trees, stalking her, taking care to remain hidden until she broke into a clearing by the river. I should have done something—called out, warned her, run for help—but I didn’t. I was too scared.
And then it was too late.
He caught up with her in an instant. I trembled in the shadows, unable to move. Jessie struggled, fought like a cat. I heard him laugh as he doubled his fist and hit her. Then he jerked her jacket over her head, covering her face and trapping her arms. Brutally, he pulled down her jeans and
ripped off her underwear.
Jessie was crying but she kept fighting, kicking out blindly. The man held her down with his knee and punched into her jacket, smashing at her until she lay still. Then he undid his belt.
It was over in minutes. Although I couldn’t move, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the horror happening in front of me, either. I just … watched. As long as I live, I’ll never forget my feelings that day of helplessness, self-loathing, and despair.
When he finished, the man pulled up his pants and fastened his belt. Jessie lay crumpled at his feet, her legs smeared with blood. He lifted her, hefting her over his shoulder like a sack of garbage, and set out on the frozen river toward a hole fisherman had cut the previous weekend. We’d passed it every day on our way to school. The warming weather had increased its size, and I knew only a thin film of ice now covered it. With a sinking feeling, I realized the man didn’t intend to let Jessie go.
I had to do something … but what? I was no match for him. And if I revealed myself, he would kill me, too. But whatever happened, I knew I couldn’t simply watch as he took her life. Without thinking, I grabbed a baseball-sized chunk of river rock and slipped silently onto the ice behind him.
Disturbed, Travis went to the door and peered into the hall. “Ali?” he called. Receiving no response, he returned to the printer and picked up several more sheets that had accumulated in the tray as he’d been reading. Flipping ahead, he scanned the final few pages.
The stone glanced off his temple. It hurt him, but not enough.
I stood dumbfounded as he whirled to face me. “You little bastard,” he snarled, wiping blood from his face. Then he grinned. In that moment, I knew we had both had the same realization: I was out of rocks, and I couldn’t outrun him.
He covered the last few yards to the hole in a heartbeat. Jessie screamed as he threw her in. With a cracking sound, her body broke through the ice crust. Then he turned to me. I glanced at the shoreline, knowing I would never make it. Even if I did, he would quickly catch me in the woods. I hesitated, then sprinted for the center of the river, heading toward a thin section we had been avoiding all week. I hoped he’d follow.
He did.
He had nearly caught up when the ice abruptly gave way beneath him. Narrowly avoiding going in myself, I stood on the creaking surface, watching him thrash in the freezing water.
Then I remembered Jessie.
Praying she would still be there, I made a wide circle around the broken section and returned to the hole where he’d thrown her in. I found her clinging to the edge. The river was flowing sluggishly beneath the ice, but with enough force to drag her legs under the side of the hole. “Jessie, hang on!” I yelled, scrabbling through a pile of firewood the fishermen had left. I needed a piece long enough to span the hole. The best I found was a three-foot length of 2x4.
Too short. Maybe onshore.
“Hang on!” I yelled again, starting for the woods.
“No time,” Jessie mumbled, her teeth chattering. “Get me out.”
The current had begun to pull her under the ice.
Stretching out on the frozen surface, I extended my hand. She took it. Her grip felt weak, her skin as cold as death. “My wrist, Jessie,” I shouted. “Grab my wrist!”
“Wha …”
“The fireman’s grip. I can’t hold you otherwise.”
She shifted her hand. She grasped my wrist, and I hers. It felt solid, but I knew I didn’t have the strength to pull her out.
“You have to help.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Throw a leg over the edge. You can do it.”
Inch by inch, with my help, Jessie struggled from the hole. Finally she rolled onto the ice. Shivering violently, she pulled on her wet clothes, covering her nakedness. Without warning a loud crack sounded on the ice behind us. And then something else, something moving …
Jessie wasn’t the only one who had made it out.
Somehow the man had managed to pull himself up on the ice shelf. Moving on his hands and knees, he started working his way toward us.
After all that, I thought bitterly, we’re no better off than before.
All at once the frozen surface gave way beneath him again.
“Jessie, let’s go! Run!”
“No, Paul. He’ll get out again. He’ll catch us before we get to the road.”
I knew she was right. The best we could do would be to split up. Maybe one of us could escape. “What should we do?” I asked, my voice trembling.
She picked up the length of 2x4 I had discarded. “Stop him.”
I followed her out on the ice. By the time we reached him, he had broken his way through to a thicker section and already had a leg over the edge. I watched as Jessie raised the 2x4 high over her head and brought it crashing down.
She drove him back. Blood poured from his nose, staining the water around him. But he was strong. He wouldn’t give up.
Every time he came close to making it out, Jessie was there.
He lasted fifteen minutes. I saw the fury in his eyes turn to surprise, then pleading, and finally despair as he realized he was going to die. In the end, the current simply took him under the ice. We watched as his shadow moved slowly downriver beneath the surface.
“Jesus,” I said, trying hard not to cry.
Jessie threw her bloody club into the water. It bobbed a second; then the current took it away, too. After it disappeared, she put her arms around me and held me tightly. I could feel her body shaking under her wet clothes. “You saved my life,” she said.
I looked away, feeling a rush of shame. “I wanted to do something earlier, but …”
“You saved my life. I’ll never forget it. Never.” Then her voice hardened. “I had to do what I did. He would have caught us, and … I couldn’t let him get out. You understand that, don’t you?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“Then it’s over. We’re not going to tell anyone about this.”
“But you’re hurt. What will you tell your parents?”
“I’ll make something up. Please, Paul. I don’t think anyone would understand, not really. And even if they did … look, I just want to put this behind me. Behind us. Will you promise?
I thought for a long, searching moment. “I promise,” I said at last.
Neither of us ever spoke of that day again, but it wasn’t forgotten. I kept that promise, and it became a silent covenant of trust between us, a bond that drew us together, something we shared alone. And through all the years that followed, after Dad died and Mom sold the farm to one of the big conglomerates that took over in the seventies, after Jessie moved to California and I to New York, it held us still.
Travis paused, puzzling over the grisly scene his sister had described in such detail, almost as if … Suddenly he felt a presence behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
Travis turned to see Allison standing in the doorway.
“Oh, hi, Ali. I, uh …”
Allison saw the sheets in Travis’s hand. “Damn you,” she cried, rushing across the room and tearing them from his grasp.
“I … I’m sorry. I came looking for you. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Allison shoved the papers into a desk drawer, then whirled to face him. “You didn’t, huh? Well, you did. Now, get out.”
“You write stories for strangers to read in magazines. I didn’t think you would—”
“You thought wrong,” Allison yelled. She crossed to the door and flung it open. “Get out.”
“Ali, I’m sorry.” Travis tried to say something more, but before he could, she shoved him out and slammed the door behind him.
Travis hesitated. Then, instead of leaving, he knocked softly on the door. When Allison didn’t answer, he reentered. He found her sitting on her bed, staring with angry, swollen eyes at the beach outside her window.
“What now, Trav?” she said dully. “Come back to paw through my underwear drawer? Ma
ybe you’d like to read my diary while you’re at it.”
Travis regarded her for several seconds. “Ali, I never thought I would say this, but I’d rather see you angry, even at me, than so depressed.”
Allison didn’t answer.
“That guy did a lot more than beat you up, didn’t he?”
“Shut up.”
Travis stared in amazement. “Why didn’t you tell?”
Ignoring her brother’s question, Allison began lethargically plucking invisible pieces of lint from her bedspread.
“Why, Ali?”
Finally she raised her eyes. “Why should I tell? So Dad can fly off the handle and take it out on Mom? So Mom can drown me in sympathy and make me feel like damaged goods? So everyone at school this fall can point and stare? The guy’s dead, Trav. What more are we going to do—dig him up and shoot him again?”
“You can’t keep something like this secret.”
“Oh, yeah? I already have enough problems fitting in around here. I sure as hell don’t need any more.”
“Ali—”
“Would you want to live with everyone’s pity for the rest of your life?”
“No, but—”
“Right. Neither do I. Besides, what possible good could come from telling?”
“I don’t know, but something’s wrong with keeping it all inside. I mean … maybe you should talk to someone.”
“I am talking to someone. You.”
“I mean somebody more qualified.”
“Like that shrink Mom took me to?” Allison said bitterly. “Hell, why spend good money havin’ some creep ask me how I feel about pluggin’ that dirtbag?” she growled, dropping into a rancorous imitation of their father. “I feel shitty about it. That’s natural. I’ll get over it. I’m a Kane.”
“This may be hard to imagine,” said Travis, “but there are people who know slightly more than Dad about things like this.”