Mom from the kitchen: Claire, stir the soup while I deal with the boys.
Me barely in the door: Burn this moment into my brain:
the shrieks,
the running,
the energy,
the life,
the urgency of silly boy-conflicts.
I want it to be like this
forever.
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO…
Dad is at his most ridiculous best at dinner
and Mom lets it go on without the usual
reprimand to keep order at the table,
but I watch the concern about
eating and choking
in her vigilant gaze.
Dad: Anyone know how to make a bandstand?
We all chew and think.
My exhausted brain is betting one of my brothers
will get it before me.
Mom tells Dad this is too much of a play on words
and makes him explain what a bandstand is.
Dad hints that bandstand can also be two separate words,
band and stand,
and he demonstrates the standing part.
Trent: Dad, if you didn’t have a chair you would have
to eat standing up.
Dad:(Points and gestures “more” as in charades.)
What would that do to the members of the band?
Trent:They would all be standing up to play.
Davy:A standing band, right Dad?
Dad:(His face flushed and almost glowing.)
Exactly, Davy. You’ve almost got it. They would
be standing because we took their…
Davy and Trent together: Chairs away!
Mom gets up to clear some plates,
and from the kitchen
I hear muffled sniffles and nose blowing.
For the second time today
family, my family,
feels like a vocabulary word
that suddenly takes on
a whole new meaning.
DON’T QUESTION A GOOD THING
I wake from a good night’s sleep
feeling rested,
hopeful,
confident,
ready to hammer out the rough edges
and launch—record—”The Kite”
soon,
maybe even tomorrow if I can get in
a decent practice today.
I wonder
as I comb the snarls out of my long, brown,
non-Tara hair
why I feel so peaceful this morning.
Juan’s pumped-up words of encouragement
that I all but dissed,
and
the noise of Trent and Davy
in their boys-will-be-boys mode,
and
the dinner fun brought on
by Dad’s ridiculous riddle…
It all added up to
things that filled my cup
at the end of a sad day,
and except for two minutes of Rachmaninoff,
the day was a musical void.
I decide to let that fact dangle as an observation
to be pondered
on a more analytical day.
BLOOD WORK
The good feeling follows me downstairs
where once again
I welcome the morning chaos.
This time, Trent’s protests about missing
flag football take center stage.
I don’t tune in until
I hear my name.
“Claire,” Mom says
with a too-huge smile that doesn’t match
the edge in her voice,
“I’m picking the boys up after school today
and we’re all going to drop by
the doctor’s office
to donate a few drops of our blood so that…”
“and it won’t be any worse than getting a shot,”
Davy interrupts through a mouth full of cereal,
parroting back what he’s already heard this morning.
“But I have to miss football and it’s
just not fair,” shrieks Trent.
“…and as I was saying, doctors do this from time to time
so they can learn more about us
and treat us more effectively when,
when we are sick
and yes, Davy, it’s no worse than a shot,
and I’m sorry, Trent, but it’s just one day
out of the season you’ll miss
and Claire, I’ll swing by right after I get them, at about three…”
My heart lurches.
I feel dizzy, lightheaded.
Maybe if I’m lucky
I’ll faint.
She’ll let me stay home.
That’s the only way
I am ever going to get any practice in.
“…and I can swing back and drop you off at
the practice rooms if you want afterward, Claire,
because it won’t take long and I know how much
you want to work on your piece.”
Mom pauses to take in a deep breath.
I look at her
as the blood starts flowing back to my brain,
and I realize what really just hit me
wasn’t about music
or getting much-needed practice,
it was about the realities
of Batten.
MUSIC MADNESS
In all the events of the past few days
it hadn’t occurred to me to ask
what about Trent and me?
Now the unanswered question
makes my stomach feel
like it’s a wet wash cloth
being wrung out by someone’s angry twists.
Mom drops me off
and tells me to text Dad when I’m ready
to be picked up. I head for the door
that my key opens.
I try warming up on one of my favorite thinking pieces,
Handel’s Sonata #7,
letting the quiet of the practice room calm me,
thankful for a Mom who understands
how I desperately needed this time.
I try to resist letting my thoughts
turn from wondering to worrying.
The bandage over the cotton wad
where they took my blood
pulls my thoughts to the samples our family
just dropped off at the lab.
…there is no cure;
you may not live to see twenty;
everything shuts down…
I lunge off the bench,
thankful that no one is around
to see me pace in circles,
talking to myself like a crazy person,
not just talking to my hands
but to my whole being.
Talking myself,
no, SHOUTING myself
out of Batten thoughts
and into music thoughts,
because
the only reality
in my life
that I am sure of
at this moment
is
to practice “The Kite”
into perfection.
TAKE “ONE”
By the fifth run-through
I’m feeling loose,
“The Kite” is soaring
finally,
and I’m setting up the recording equipment
when Mom texts:
Home soon? Getting late.
I’m shocked to see it’s after 8:00 p.m.
Recording. Tell Dad side door at 9.
Can’t stop now or I’ll lose it.
Sit tall.
Flex fingers.
Breathe deep.
Hit ‘record.’
I keep the image of “The Kite”
right before me
on the screen that I imagine
running across the top inside of my brain,
like one of those news tickers
with bright neon lights at Times Square.
The melody paints a picture
of warm afternoon sun,
strong wind coming in off the ocean,
whipping “The Kite” into a frenzy,
swirling and soaring,
spiraling to a near nose dive in the sand
before jetting skyward
and dancing above me
on a whimsical high current
with barely a tug on the string—
and then
Davy’s face appears across my inner screen
like a hologram,
and I totally lose it,
slam the off button,
sit on the bench holding my head
in my hands,
rocking back and forth
and saying every curse word
I’ve ever heard.
IT’S SIMPLY TOO HARD
I stand under the street light
so Dad won’t have to remind me
it’s under the street light
he expects me to stand
when he picks me up.
“Well?”
I turn towards him in the dark car,
trying to see what’s behind the bite
in his voice.
Is it me,
his hectic job,
Davy,
all of the above?
“Well, what?”
Immediately I regret the sassy come back.
I face my palm towards him
like a traffic cop
before he does the same to me.
“Whoa, I’m sorry, Dad. I know what you
want to know, but I don’t think you want to hear
all the fowl language I just let loose with
in the practice room when I let…
when I totally lost
all concentration
in the middle of recording.
It’s no use. I can’t do this.”
I fight the tears.
Long silence.
“You know, honey,
it’s okay with your mom and me
if you, if you…”
“Bail?” I can’t decide if I want to hear this
from him
or not.
He tells me it’s understandable
under these circumstances
to find it difficult
to concentrate
and maybe
I should give myself permission
to, yes,
bail,
and wait for
things to quiet down.
Really?
Quiet down?
Blow over?
Get better
when there is a time bomb ticking
in our family now?
“You didn’t want me to enter this contest in the first place,
did you, Dad?”
My question takes us both by surprise,
and so does his silence
that speaks volumes
and lasts all the way home.
I barely make it to my room
before letting the floodgates open.
It’s
simply
too
hard.
SATURDAY AT THE PARK
It’s Saturday.
Long, deep breaths,
easier said than done
after yesterday’s disastrous
recording fiasco.
I start and delete text after text.
First to Mia
because she’ll tell me to stop whining,
get off my butt,
get over it,
and get the stupid recording
done.
Then to Juan
because I don’t want to hear what I suspect,
that he’s finished recording
and submitting
and just waiting for me to say when
for our world premiere party.
I stuff my phone in my pocket,
turned off,
because I suddenly know what I need to do.
I take the stairs two at a time
and burst into Davy’s room
where I have to yell to be heard
over the Nintendo noise.
Trent adds to the volume with whoops
and shouts every time Mario
bumps Luigi off the track.
“Who’s up for going to the park
and then, if all goes well,
ice cream?”
They both throw down the
controls and head for the door
when I remember I haven’t checked with Mom,
but
when I see her start to tear up,
I know I’ve made the right decision
and I also know if I stay one more minute
I’ll join her with tears.
We alternately walk
and race
once we get to the park’s entrance
just two blocks from our house.
It’s always been like an extension to our backyard
and probably the single biggest reason
Mom and Dad chose this house.
I push both boys high
on the swings.
They have the usual contest
to see who can pump even higher.
I spot for Davy while he climbs a spiral ladder
to get up to the platform
that has several choices of slides,
and I watch warily to make sure
he chooses a slide and not the edge.
I watch agile Trent
out of the corner of my eye
as he nimbly swings by his arms
from bar to bar across an elevated climber
and scrambles down the ladder
to run to the other side
and do it all over again.
This is how it should be,
always.
I linger in the moment
even as we head for ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s
next to the park.
We take our time strolling back,
dripping,
slurping,
gently guiding Davy
along the sidewalk
when I notice Trent,
ever so slightly
hesitate at the curb,
groping with his foot
more than once.
I won’t let myself think,
even for a nanosecond,
that it was anything more
than a bumpy sidewalk
and the distraction
of an ice cream cone.
NOT TO WORRY
Dad grabs the boys for haircuts
and corrals them into the car
while Mom gives me an unexpected hug.
“Thanks, Claire.”
I hug her back and break away
before either of us says words
we are both thinking.
It’s new, giving me “thank-you” hugs
for paying attention to my brothers.
I grab a cold soda out of the fridge
and plop down on a bar stool next to her.
It’s new for me to give them unsolicited attention
on a Saturday afternoon.
“Ready for the deadline this week?”
Mom’s voice comes out almost comical
in its attempt to sound
casual,
perky,
relaxed,
unworried,
not exhausted,
confident about anyone
or anything.
I give her a long look,
unsure myself
if she really wants to know
or is just making conversation.
“No.”
“But you will be, I’m sure.”
“Not sure. Not sure at all. I can’t
concentrate, and Mom,
when
; will we know
about
the blood tests?”
Her hand shakes as she sets her cup down.
“It might be three weeks or so. I’m sorry,
I should have told you…”
not to worry?
I shove the observation
of Trent deep down somewhere
out of sight
where no one can add it
to the
not to worry.
MONDAY PRACTICE ROOM, TEXT TO JUAN
You’ve submitted, right?
Not telling.
Why?
Keep working.
Why?
Don’t want to do this alone.
Why?
You started it.
Why?
Good question.
KEEP WORKING!!
I hit ‘record,’
get all the way through,
but it’s not good
and I know
why.
MONDAY NIGHT, TEXT TO MIA
Wasting my time.
Why?
Can’t concentrate.
Why?
You know why.
Behind These Hands Page 4