by Lynne Gentry
“Ari, nobody knows more than me how hard it is to watch the Sara Slocum we all knew and loved slowly disappear.” Mom lets out an exasperated sigh. “You can’t fix this, sweetheart.”
“Whatever.”
I make a big show of unwinding the cord on my earphones. Instead of shoving them deep into my head and cranking my music, I leave space so that I can eavesdrop. Nose locked on my phone screen, I search dementia blogsites. I can read up on what Mom should be doing for my grandmother while I’m listening to her trying to shove Nana off on the doc. Perfecting my intel gathering method is how I knew about Dad long before Mom and I had ‘the talk’ about the painful damage of adultery.
“I’ve upped her meds,” Mom tells the country doctor who gave her his cell number. What kind of doctor wears jeans and plaid shirts and gives out his cell number? “I’m not seeing any improvement.” Mom sounds scared, which I have to admit, makes me even more nervous. “Maybe I should bring her in, let you...you know...check her over.”
I can’t hear what the doc is saying so I take a chance that Mom’s so preoccupied that she’s not keeping tabs on me and pry one earbud free. The big red-head’s booming voice is easy to make out. He does his usual telling Mom not to worry. He goes on to say that caring for someone with declining mental capacity can be emotional—a stressful roller coaster. Then he asks, “You’re taking care of yourself, right?”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Mom has a ton of stuff on her plate. I’m not blind. But something about the way he said, right, like if she wasn’t taking care of herself he’d love to swoop in and fix it for her, makes me...I don’t know what it makes me. I jam the earbud so deep into my ear canal that it hurts. I type brain games in the search bar. Not for Nana. For me. To give me something else to think about before I go insane.
I don’t know how long I’ve been pecking around on my phone before Mom finally gets my attention.
I yank my earbuds from my ears.
“Want me to let you out at the door?”
“Geez, no!” I lean over the seat and grab my backpack. “Park in a far corner. Wait five minutes after I get out before you walk in.”
“But we have our first class together. We could, you know, cheer each other on. Make things easier for both of us.”
Making it easier for Mom to sell out Nana is the last thing I want to do...well, not last. Last on my list is having to pretend I don’t mind being the new girl at this one-room-country-school. “I’m good.”
“You can have a two-minute head start.”
“I’m not the one who made us late.”
“Ari,” Mom says as she pulls into a slot that is as far from the building as you can get in this little parking lot filled with dusty pickup trucks and old cars. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Because you’re taking care of yourself, right?” I get out of the car and slam the door before she can let me have it for eavesdropping and hurting her feelings.
I’m hoofing it across the parking lot, trying to look as inconspicuous as I can in new shoes and new jeans, when I hear someone call my name. I think it’s Mom so I keep walking.
“Hey!” Ember runs up beside me. She’s slaying it in her ripped jeans, knotted t-shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots. “It’s Aria McCandless, right?” She tucks a strand of shiny black hair behind her ear.
“Yeah.” I sling my new backpack onto my shoulder. “So?”
“I’m Ember. From the pharmacy. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Is your mom the new music teacher?”
Since there’s not a nearby hole I can crawl into, I stop and let her know I won’t be played by the popular girls again. “Why?”
“I’m taking choir,” Ember’s smile is as genuine as it was over a root beer float. “My schedule says Mrs. McCandless is the teacher.” She ignores a group of really pretty girls hanging around the door and calling for her to catch up. “Are you taking music from your mom?”
“No way.”
Chapter 19
CHARLOTTE
I use the two-minute lead time I’d given Aria to silently rehearse my what-to-expect-in-my-class welcome speech. My daughter’s not the only one who stands to be humiliated today. I haven’t touched a piano in years. What if I can’t play a simple warm-up scale anymore? Once I’d accepted Wilma’s job offer, I’d intended to limber up my fingers. But Momma’s been keeping Aria at the keys for hours. Music is the only thing that has interested her. I’ve been so worried about what will happen once Aria goes to school that I didn’t have the heart to push them off the piano bench so I could practice the scales I used to be able to do in my sleep.
Hopefully, Winnie’s right. Once I sit down to the keyboard, it’ll be like riding a bike. Everything I ever learned, practiced or dreamed will come back to me. I mean, after all, if a woman slipping into dementia can pull the score to Les Mis out of the muck, then someone with marginally healthy brain cells should be able to pull up a few scales...right?
Right now, I’d rather face an angry Senate committee than the keyboard, an experienced faculty, and classes filled with new faces. Guilt clenches my stomach. Instead of reassuring my daughter who is probably feeling a similar angst this morning, I’d spent that prime travel time on the phone with my mother’s doctor.
I check to see if Aria’s far enough ahead to safely exit Momma’s Escort.
To my surprise, she has stopped and to talk to someone. I squint over the steering wheel. Aria’s shoulders are squared and she’s looking the girl from the pharmacy, Ember Miller, straight in the face.
My thirteen-year-old is so like my sister...even when Caroline was scared to death on the inside, she looked fearless on the outside.
“Pull yourself together,” I mutter as I snatch up my satchel. “You can do this.”
Mrs. Rayburn is waiting at the door, greeting students and teachers as I enter the building. She offers her outstretched hand. “Mrs. McCandless. Glad to have you on board.”
“Thanks.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother used to say don’t smile until Christmas.” A cloud comes over her face as she studies my face. “But perhaps today will go a little easier for you if you try to smile.”
A tall, good-looking boy bumps my satchel. The strap slides from my shoulder and my carefully organized files spill across the floor.
“Evan Miller,” Mrs. Rayburn calls after him. “Come back right this moment.”
He wheels, sees the mess, but doesn’t move. “Why?”
“A gentleman says ‘excuse me’ then helps the lady he’s caused distress.”
“I’m good.” I bend and snatch up papers.
Evan saunters over, drops into a crouch at my level, and hands me several papers. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” I jam everything in my bag and stand. “Thanks.”
He gives me a two-fingered salute then ambles off with the air of a senior who knows he owns the joint.
Mrs. Rayburn whispers, “Don’t let that one give you trouble.”
A bell sounds. “I better get to class.”
“I’ve turned on the auditorium lights for you today. I’ll come in after school and show you how to switch everything off.”
My fingers tighten on the strap over my shoulder. “Thanks.”
“You can do this, Mrs. McCandless.” Mrs. Rayburn gives a nod to my bulging satchel. “Teaching is in your blood.”
I can’t help but smile at the unexpected olive branch. “I guess we’ll see if that’s true.”
The hall leading toward the auditorium buzzes with kids excited to see each other again. I fight the urge to locate Aria and step inside the double doors. A couple of girls are pounding out Chopsticks on the piano. Poorly, I might add.
“Good morning.” They scramble to gather their belongings while I take the stage. “I’m Mrs. McCandless. Do you have first period choir with me?”
“We do.” The short
one, a redhead with freckles, is giving me the once-over. “We’re seniors.”
“Then you know not to touch the baby grand.” I try to soften the tone my mother would have used with a smile. “Unless you’d like to take lessons.”
They shrug. “Maybe.”
“Good. See me after school.”
The bell rings and they amble to the back row of the chairs arranged on the stage in the shape of a rainbow.
Suddenly, the auditorium doors burst open and the place comes alive with the sounds of kids made wild by summer. They’re laughing and pushing each other...until they see me standing behind the director’s podium. Quiet descends. They stand in the aisles looking me over, sizing up the new music teacher.
I replace Momma’s I-mean-business expression with a smile. “Good morning. Come to the stage and take a seat.” One by one, fifteen students file past me.
Ember, the girl I recognize from the pharmacy, is flanked by two pretty girls. “Grab soprano seats,” she tells them then stops at the podium. “Good morning, Mrs. McCandless. My mother says you can really sing and play the piano.”
“We’ll see.” I’m surprised Corina would say anything positive about me. “Have you seen Aria?”
“In the parking lot. Why?”
I don’t want my daughter to feel anymore self-conscious than having her mother as her choir teacher will make her feel but I’m worried she’s having difficulty locating the auditorium. “No reason.”
Five minutes after the bell, I’ve introduced myself, taken roll, and handed out my class-expectations sheet. The time has come to actually teach the music I used to love.
“All right everyone. To your feet for warm-ups.”
Students groan. Chairs scrape the floor. My stomach clenches.
“Keep your feet flat on the floor.” I step from behind the podium and demonstrate. “Shoulder width apart. Balance equally on both legs.” Threading myself through my students, I correct a few sagging postures. They size me up much like I used to size up opposing counsel. “Now place one palm on your stomach. This is so you can check yourself to make sure you’re breathing from your diaphragm. Keep your shoulders low and your chest relaxed. If you’re holding yourself correctly it’s easier to breathe and if you can breathe, it’s easier to hit those notes in the high register.” I glance over my class. Where is Aria? If she thinks I’ll let her get away with tardiness she has another thing coming.
I slide onto the piano bench. Deep breath. I search for middle C and place my fingers upon the keys. They feel foreign and familiar at the same time. “Breathe in,” I say as much to myself as to my students. “And here we go.”
My thumb strikes middle C. “Ahhhh.” The sound climbs out of my throat, a bit rusty, but on pitch. I hold the note until everyone is attempting to match the tone. A smile curls my lips and I nod encouragement. Eyes on my students, my voice follows the slow climb of my fingers and then the descent of the five notes of the major scale. Without missing a beat, I take us through the changing keys, pushing until we’ve climbed an octave. “Think you can go higher?” I issue the challenge, holding the last note until they’re nearly blue.
Heads nod. I grab a breath and charge on.
Winnie is right. Releasing music that comes from the soul, no matter how long it has been stuffed, is like riding a bike. My fingers have a life of their own, propelling me back to childhood dreams.
I’ve come home.
Chapter 20
CHARLOTTE
Thirty minutes after the last period bell, I’m physically tired but emotionally pumped. The two girls who’d given me grief when I chastised them for pounding on the piano had dropped by the auditorium for extra help. By the time I’d finished taking them through some upper level warm-ups, they were eating out of my hand. Both have lovely voices and the short redhead can play the piano a little. With some extra tutoring, these two might give Addisonville’s music department a shot at a State duet medal. And both of Corina Miller’s kids can sing. Evan might even have a future on the stage...if I can coax him from the back row.
Possibilities swimming in my head, I straighten the chairs on the stage.
Teaching is more fun than I’d ever dreamed. I love the kids. I love music. Social studies and theater are going to challenge me, but if I can make those subjects come alive for me, the students might enjoy them as well.
I’m humming while gathering worksheets when Mrs. Rayburn enters the auditorium. Heels clicking on the tiled floor, she’s smiling as she makes her way to the stage. “I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about the new music teacher.”
“Anyone can pull a few tricks out of their hat for a day.” I stuff completed worksheets into my satchel. “But can I do it for forty years?”
Mrs. Rayburn’s pleased smile slides. Before I can correct my unintentional reference to my mother she says, “I hope you know, Charlotte, that I think your mother was one of the best teachers this school has ever employed.”
For the first time in months, I’d not had time to worry about Momma. One whole day without worrying what sort of danger she’d put herself in. It felt good, liberating, and very wrong. What kind of daughter so easily pushes her responsibilities aside? What if Momma forgot her lunchtime meds, or burned down the house, or wandered off to the river? She was in a bad state this morning and I’d left her.
I fasten the buckles on my bag. “Momma loved teaching.”
“She’d still be teaching if she’d not become a danger to the students.”
Lips pursed, I can’t give Mrs. Rayburn a pass. I can say Momma is a danger...I have said it...to Winnie, to Benjamin, to my old paralegal, to myself. But I’m not going to stand by and let someone else besmirch Momma’s character. Momma and Wilma were friends. Surely, Wilma could have worked out a more graceful and far less painful way to ease Momma out. If she thought giving me a job made up for...
“Charlotte, was Aria ill today?”
Wilma’s interruption of my mental tirade stops my breath. What kind of mother forgets to check on her daughter? I’d meant to, the moment first period was over, but then in a flash it was time for second period theater. Before I knew it, the whole day had passed. Is this how Momma ended up traveling a road she never intended to go down...one forgetful step at a time?
“No. Why?” Checking my watch confirms my failure to set up an after-school-meet-up plan as well.
“She’s missed every class...including your first period choir, right?”
“She hasn’t been here all day?”
Wilma holds out an attendance sheet. “I’ve doubled checked with all of Aria’s teachers. She didn’t show in any class.”
My knees buckle. “Where is she?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Wilma takes the paper from my shaky hands. “Ember Miller told me she saw her in the parking lot. When she asked Aria if she was taking your class, she said no.”
I grabbed my satchel. “I’ve got to go.”
“Do I need to call the sheriff?”
“No!” I fly down the stage steps. “Yes!”
I’m running to the parking lot and dialing home at the same time. Ten rings later, Aria answers the phone. “Slocum residence.”
Heart pounding in my chest, I scream, “Aria, what are you doing at home?”
“Your job.”
Chapter 21
ARIA
Once the sheriff finishes grilling me, Mom banishes me to Aunt Caroline’s room. Mom never says a word about how crazy it is for my dead aunt to still have a room after all these years, but she feels free to go on and on about the stupidity of me trying to walk ten miles in the Texas heat.
“If Winnie hadn’t come along, you would be dehydrated or lying in a ditch,” she’d sobbed as she flew up the porch steps, ripped me out of the swing, and hugged the breath from my lungs. “I might never have found you.”
I’m not as stupid as she thinks.
Aunt Winnie didn’t just come along. I texted her when I made it to Bo’
s station. I was hot and tired and my new shoes had rubbed a blister on my heel. Bo bought me a canned drink while I waited for Winnie’s car to putter under the awning. Winnie and Bo argued over whether or not she should take me back to school. The second I realized my flimsy excuses for not going back weren’t going to fly, I turned on the tears. I hate that I had to do that to them, but they weren’t listening. I was going home to check on Nana...even if I had to walk the rest of the way.
What Winnie and I found when we drove up the lane of Fossil Ridge is the pimple Mom doesn’t want to pop. It makes her feel too guilty to hear about Nana wandering around the front yard in that ratty robe and those nasty slippers. At noon, my grandmother still had bed-head hair and no makeup...not even her lipstick. But here’s the kicker, the part I don’t even like thinking about: When I jumped out of Winnie’s car and ran up to her, she called me Caroline.
Caroline.
I’ve seen my aunt’s picture sitting on the mantel in my Nana’s bedroom. I know I kind of look like her, but it shook me bad to be called a dead girl.
Winnie and I both tried to explain who I was, but Nana just didn’t get it. That’s when Winnie caved and said it was probably best if I stayed home, on the condition we let Mom know.
But Mom never checked her messages. So, when she gets home, she gives me what-for then lights into Aunt Winnie. “I can’t believe you aided and abetted Aria’s truancy.”
“Check your phone, C.”
Mom’s face turned red as her toe nail polish. Winnie and I had blown up her inbox with text messages that she never bothered to answer. I almost felt bad for her when her shoulders slumped. “Wilma won’t let us have our phones on during school hours.”
Winnie wasn’t buying Mom’s explanation. “Wilma’s just going to have to make an exception. Your mother is ill.”
From Aunt Caroline’s bedroom window, I watch the sheriff’s car mosey down the drive and listen to Mom’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. I take a deep breath and wait for Mom’s knock on the closed bedroom door.