Unstrung

by Laura Spinella

  I have snuck a split of champagne into his room. In twenty-seven years I have never celebrated this date, not really. We’ve seen Theo sparingly. This may be because he is busy with India, replanning the wedding they canceled. I like to tell myself it’s the reason. In truth, I don’t know that Theo is entirely comfortable with the two of us. Or maybe I’m too impatient, looking for the bond I denied, the one I cut but could not sever so long ago. I place two paper cups on the tray. “Goes better with the screw cap,” I say.

  “Hell, Livy, you’re talking to a boy who’d drink moonshine out of his pitching glove.” He smiles at a classic Sam remark. “Guess that’s not terribly romantic.”

  Pouring the champagne, I pause and tip my head at him. “Is that what this is, romantic?” Only recently have we upgraded to taking the future from one hour at a time to one day at a time. I haven’t thought beyond those parameters or put labels on my relationship with Sam. Seeing him through this was simply the right thing to do. The bubbles fizz and I go back to pouring.

  “Doc says in another few days, maybe a week, I can go back to California. Dr. Bogart will take over.” He sips the champagne. I don’t say anything. “It, um . . . The offer I made in my hotel room stands, Liv. I’d love it if you came home with me.”

  Before I can formulate a reaction, there’s a knock at the door. It pushes open a bit and Theo pops his head through. “Hi.”

  “Theo,” I say breathlessly. I’m not stunned by his presence or his forgiving heart. That, I have learned, is simply Theo. It’s something I no longer attribute to biology or nurturing. It’s Theo’s wiring. What gets me every time is the fact that this circumstance exists. I would have imagined traveling to all Holst’s Planets and back before ever believing Theo would know who we are.

  “I took a chance, guessed maybe you’d both be here.”

  “Don’t you have some great party to be at, a girl lookin’ to kiss you at midnight?” Sam asks.

  “I’m not much for parties.”

  “Go figure that,” Sam says, looking rather confined inside four tight walls. I’ve noticed this in recent days—he’s starting to get antsy, more like the Sam I know. “I’d give anything for a loud room.”

  Theo laughs. It’s one thing that does not mirror between father and son. “India’s back at the apartment. Helen’s visiting.”

  “Oh, how is she?” I ask cautiously.

  “Doing it day by day. I think that last treatment program may have been key for her. Even so, India was fine with staying in. A friend was having a party, but she doesn’t like to put temptation in Helen’s path.”

  “Probably a smart idea,” I say, remaining neutral and positive on the subject. “And you were out walking—alone on your birthday?”

  “I told India I wanted to go for a walk. She handed me my scarf . . . the one glove I haven’t been able to find for days, and said, ‘Why don’t you walk to where you really want to go?’” I reach for a third paper cup and hold it out to Theo. “Sure,” he says, coming farther into the room. I divide the split into thirds. “A New Year’s Eve toast.”

  I shake my head. “I never toast New Year’s Eve.” The wall clock reads 11:58. “I drink at one minute to midnight.” Then I say the words I have harbored in my head for twenty-seven years. “Family tradition.”

  Theo nods gently, as if he too is trying on this unlikely concept. He and Sam drift into small talk, and I listen.

  “Yeah, Sharks look pretty good this season, but if I’ve got to watch winter sports, I prefer the Kings. ’Course growing up here I guess you’re a Bruins fan.”

  “Definitely. Seems like they’re having a better season than last year.”

  “Time will tell,” Sam says. “They stole themselves a hell of a center from the Blues in the off season.”

  “They did.”

  I absorb the moment as the two of them talk basketball or lacrosse, some game involving a ball. The conversation goes back and forth for a short time. Then Theo says he has to go. The visit is brief. For now, it’s what works. But I do find myself encouraging Theo to take a cab. There are plenty of sensible reasons: the late hour, drunk drivers and pedestrian objects, icy patches of sidewalk. But I keep quiet as he leaves. Then I stare out the window into the blustery New Year, acknowledging a gust of protectiveness that has kicked up like swirling snow. On the dark street below, Theo exits the building and darts across Fruit Street. He disappears into the night.

  “He’ll get home fine, Livy.”

  I whirl around. “Of course he will.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Being his mother.”

  I arch a brow. “Hmm, I highly doubt Claire will be on board with that idea, even an eighty-twenty split.” On Theo’s last hospital visit, I got up the nerve to ask if he’d told Claire about me, about Sam. At the very least, I thought I should be prepared if she showed up at the brownstone door with a bribe, asking me to leave town. But Theo said he hadn’t. He wanted time to get used to the idea first, saying he would tell her when he was ready. At the moment, he didn’t want Claire’s input. Despite an inability to keep track of winter gloves and a need to walk aimlessly, Theo may be a wise man.

  I do wonder what he would make of Claire’s interference in his life. As far as I know, India hasn’t told Theo. It’s left me quietly outraged; Claire comes away smelling like a rose while I know what my actions have cost me. She will remain the mother Theo admires.

  Theo and his mother . . . I am still tinkering with how to tell Theo about Shep Stewart’s book plan. Perhaps, once again, India can lend a hand. Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to admire, maybe recognize, how perfectly India suits Theo, and vice versa. They are well matched. Whatever Claire’s misgivings, about this much I’m certain she is wrong.

  On his last visit, Theo did tell us that he plans to finish out his year at Braemore and move on. He’s applied for a position at the Boston Conservatory because more than anything else, Theo loves to teach. He’s presented an idea to the Conservatory. Pro bono, he will also take on a handful of select students from Braemore, those whose lives could be changed by music. I think like that fermata mark, Theo has found his long-term place in music.

  “Liv?” Sam says.

  “Sorry,” I say, turning. “I was just thinking.”

  “There’s a lot to think about—and maybe I wasn’t doing that before Theo showed up. California, it’s too far from here. The Brandeis gig is long gone, but if I hung around . . . Hell, it’s not like I need a real job. The docs here are great, post treatment is ongoing. I just thought if I was going to have a life, I might as well do something that counts past my last out.”

  “I agree. You’re too young. And you’d be great at something. Besides, I think a third chance may be a charm.”

  He smiles. I sit on the side of the bed, absorbing a face that makes time turn back. “So that’s a plan then?”

  “Sam . . .” He tangles his fingers with mine. “I’ll always be the number-one fan of the man from Tennessee. But your life is in California. And mine . . .” I blink, looking toward the window. “Well, it’s time I figured out one for myself. We can’t go back.” I let go of his hand. “It’s dreamy and it’s tempting, but it’s not . . . real. I’m not sure it ever was.”

  He snickers. “Real enough to produce one good thing.”

  “Yes. Like you said, it’s probably lucky we weren’t around to muck it up.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” Sam says, brushing his fingertips through a fine layer of my bangs. “I suppose. Even so . . .”

  I grasp his hand, drawing it away from my face. “Even so, I think it’s important to realize what you feel for someone at twenty or twenty-one, it’s so powerful, so intense. It looks magical compared to what comes along at thirty . . . or even thirty-nine.” I pause, staring into his brown eyes. “It’s a turn youth allows. Everybody gets one. But I don’t know that it’s sustainable—at least not for me.”
/>
  “And a relationship couldn’t take on a whole new meaning, whatever that is at our age.”

  “I did that.”

  “With someone else.”

  “I haven’t taken very good care of it. The things I’ve done, it’s likely cost me a real marriage.”

  He pauses. “Regardless of what we produced, ours wasn’t a real marriage . . .”

  “Not the kind that lasts a lifetime. You said that finding me felt like fate, so you wouldn’t have to go through this alone.” I swallow hard, smiling at him. “Sam, by coming here, you also gave me much-needed perspective: ‘Know what to keep and what to walk away from.’ Life’s not that long, right?”

  “But I got it backward, what you’re going to keep.”

  “I honestly don’t know if I have anything left to keep. But I won’t substitute it. You shouldn’t either. You deserve better than that. We both do.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Olivia

  Last night’s concert was one of our best. The New England Symphony was awarded a staggering standing ovation after a special performance attended by the governor and several dignitaries. We were supposed to hang around for a private meet and greet. I can only comply with so many rules of order, and slipped out the fire exit before someone started making a speech. Before escaping, Mary Alice Porter threw me a look as if I were making an assassination attempt. No doubt I’ll hear about it from Manuel. But my personal performance was near flawless, and for what he does put up with, our conductor knows he is fortunate to have Olivia Klein in his orchestra.

  However, I was not completely satisfied with a tricky section in movement three of Holst’s Planets. For the past hour I have been in my music room, working and reworking the measures. While “Mercury” is the shortest movement, “The Messenger” is a swarm of awkward shifts. I’m determined to make it more legato and better in tune. I have literally played myself into a sweat. I don’t hear the doorbell, which now rings in a consistent buzz.

  A visitor would be odd. Theo and India were here last Friday for dinner, which I had catered from Sorellina. It was friendly, though I don’t believe we’ve reached a “just stopped by” point in our relationship. Sam returned to California last week. I haven’t heard from him since. I imagine like all things attached to Sam Nash, whatever is sparkling in his line of vision has his attention. My mother remains in Boca Raton. I’ve grown concerned with her past few phone calls—she was vague, not at all her usual cutting self. As we hung up last time she said, “I love you, Olivia.” I honestly have no recollection of my mother ever saying these words aloud to me. I was caught so off guard I didn’t reply in kind, but hung up the phone, staring like it was an unrecognizable, foreign object.

  “Coming,” I say now, brushing a sweater sleeve over a damp brow, shuffling in my socks across the glassy herringbone hardwoods. I furrow the same damp brow as a dainty outline comes into view. I open the door. Sasha is on the other side, holding a tray of coffee.

  “Should I assume it’s poisoned?”

  “Oh, that’s smart, Liv. Start with an insult. It’s, like, ten below out here. Would you get the fuck out of my way?” I skirt back as she ploughs past and into the music room. She sets down the coffee, and her leather satchel slips onto the sofa. Several legal-looking envelopes are peeking out. “I’m handling the transfer of the Wellesley house deed.”

  Standing in the drafty foyer, I don’t know whether the coffee is a peace offering, or just what she happened to be holding on her way over. Arms folded, I focus on the floor as I pad back into the music room. “Since when did you take up real estate law, contract foreclosure . . . whatever the hell you’d call it?”

  “I defend accused murderers, Liv. I think I can handle a simple deed transfer. The deal Rob agreed to is straightforward. In lieu of the necessary funds for his share of the golf course deal, the Wellesley property is to be surrendered for nonpayment to . . .” She withdraws one envelope from several in her bag and pulls out a blue-backed document. “The Finch Group.”

  I swallow down the name of a meaningless, nondescript, on-paper entity. I think of the Klein family, who built the Wellesley house. No one has ever lived there but Kleins. While I might not think of my father, I do think of my grandfather. A man whose gift saved his life, a life he went on to make the most of, living it in that house. It was one thing to plan on eventually selling the house for a greater good—something my grandfather would have applauded, I’m sure. It’s quite another to have it yanked out from under you to satisfy a golf course deal gone bad. I imagine the Finch Group will sell promptly to new money, transferring in from the West Coast or, worse, Utah.

  Sasha’s still rambling. “Being as the deed is in yours and Rob’s names, you both have to sign.”

  “I’m aware of whose names are on the deed.” I’m annoyed by her continued dig at my wedding gift gesture, which started as a rock-solid commitment to our marriage, and has since turned into a rolling boulder. “Rob’s asked you to do this, handle the particulars?” I have not seen or spoken to Rob since the night he left.

  “No,” Sasha says. “I volunteered.”

  “Seeing a lot of him, are you?”

  “Here and there.” My stomach does a free fall, though my brain doesn’t follow. I just don’t like the implied imagery. But Sasha knows me well enough to smell weakness. She goes for it. “Over our last candlelit dinner, Rob was distracted by the details of the Wellesley house situation. I said I’d deal with it. That way I could get him home, so I could fuck him faster.”

  Sarcasm hits with the sear of a branding iron. “Shut up, Sasha! Just shut the hell up.”

  “Why?” she says as I take a damp-eyed turn around the music room, facing the street view. “What do you care? Sure. Maybe it stings a little more if it’s me . . . But know that eventually it will be somebody.” I spin back around but don’t reply. “Someone will come along, Liv. She’ll lure Rob out of his funk—he’ll follow because he’s lost. Bizarre as it sounds, he’s lost without you. You make him pay attention—to you, to life. And so we’re crystal clear, we met up in a dirty Dunks. There were no candles, boutique hotels, or booty calls involved.”

  “How sad it has to be qualified. And so I’m being crystal clear, he’s the one who left, Sash. He walked out on me.”

  “Like he had much of a choice? He does have a little dignity left—you keep a huge secret from him—from all of us. In the meantime, you did admit to spending the night at Sam’s hotel.”

  “I did not have sex with Sam!” My tone is adamant, but I am, at best, repeating Sam’s assurance.

  “Fine. Moving on . . . You also rushed to his side at the hospital, kept a steady vigil.”

  “Without overdramatizing, the man was on his deathbed, Sash.”

  She holds up a hand. “I’m not saying that’s untrue. I’m just pointing out how it looked to Rob. He saw it as where you wanted to be, who you wanted to be with. And if Sam Nash was what you wanted, Rob wasn’t about to be second choice after he expired.”

  “Sam is fine. Or as fine as he can be given his circumstance. His brother turned up in the eleventh hour. He was a match and the stem cell transplant worked. He flew home to California a week ago.”

  “And you didn’t go with him.”

  “Rekindling a romance with Sam was Rob’s assumption, apparently yours. Sam was never my choice.”

  “All right,” she says coolly. “An unexpected but promising plot twist. Aside from any Sam Nash complications, Rob feels incredibly guilty about the Wellesley house. Having his name on the deed was your doing, but he knows the risky business was all his.”

  I fold my arms. “Well. Aren’t we both disgustingly imperfect.”

  “Yes,” she says, her head nodding furiously. “You are. And to be honest, Liv . . .” She points to the legal document. “I should be done instead of continuing to put myself in the middle of the chaos that is your life or Rob’s.”

  “Then why the h
ell did you bring coffee?”

  The counselor’s mouth gapes. She’s been asked a question for which she has no answer. “Because . . .” Her fine features contort and her gold-brown eyes pulse with a fiery flash. “Because you’re not the only one who did impulsive things, or jumped to conclusions. When you told us about Theo, I was already angry because of your accusation about Rob and me. What took time, and a cooler head to process, is the bravery of what you did all those years ago.”

  “Bravery?”

  “Yes. It’s not something I could have pulled off given the circumstance. A lot of women would have chosen to end a pregnancy that no one around her supported . . . her then-husband or her parents. You also didn’t put what you wanted first. Am I at all right here, Liv?”

  “What difference could it possibly make at this point? Theo’s a grown man.”

  “I think it makes a great deal of difference, acknowledging something you’ve denied since you told that lie in a hospital room. So I’m asking, Liv, in case no one else ever has: Did you want to be Theo’s mother—all those years ago?”

  I brush at a telltale tear, a sentiment that I have never done anything with but deny. I open my mouth, then close it. “More than you could imagine,” I finally whisper.

  And sometimes, a best friend knows you better than you know yourself.

  A shaky sigh seeps from Sasha. “Yet you did what was right for Theo and even Sam Nash.” Sasha pauses. “That’s bravery, Liv, if no one has ever pointed it out.”

  I don’t validate her conclusion; it only evokes feelings that after a lifetime of harsh judgments I find ill-fitting and uncomfortable. “Right,” I finally say, so if anything Sasha will stop talking.

  She doesn’t.

  “After the pissed-off part passed, I realized how you should be applauded for what you did all those years ago—even if there was some serious present-day fallout.” We are quiet for a moment. “So don’t make the same mistake twice. What do you want when it comes to Rob? For him to be gone from your life?”

  I am quiet, trying to separate what I’ve earned from what I deserve from what I want. “I think maybe too much has happened for there to be any alternative. And even if we could fix it . . . Am I so different from the woman Rob had to handle for years? How long until we end up right back here, firing insults and barware at each other?”