It made his stomach twist and his guts clamp like they hated him.
But his dad was proud of him. He was smart like his father. He was.
* * *
Adam was quiet through dinner.
“Something on your mind?” Mari asked while clearing the table.
He was still sitting there. “Yeah.”
“If you want to talk about it, I can find something to keep the kids busy.” She watched him for a moment, a look of concern on her face.
“It’s fine. I don’t know if I can talk about it right now anyway. My mind’s a mess.” He couldn’t seem to move. All he managed was basic tasks like blinking and breathing. Digestion, too.
The first two kind of took effort, so they were kind of bothersome right now.
“Is it the agent thing?” She stood right in front of him and stroked his hair.
“Yes and no. More yes than no. But the yes is gross.” He stared up at her, his eyes pleading for her to make sense of all this.
“Why don’t you call him and get it over with so this will quit eating away at you?” Her fingers tugged at the top of his hair while she smiled at him.
He placed his hand on her wrist so he could feel the motion as she continued to stroke him. “You know what happens when I call him. I feel worse afterward. I don’t want to talk to him ever again if I can help it.”
She swallowed, and her breath caught directly after.
“I don’t care what Amelia says either. I don’t want more memories to surface, even if the previous ones she found are wrong. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t need that to be true. I only need you and the kids. That’s it.” He made a humming noise because her hands felt so good.
“What if it’s not him that’s triggering this stuff?” Her eyes softened.
She leaned into him, and he hugged her tight, resting his head on her chest.
“What do you mean?”
She exhaled, and her belly rounded when she did it. He liked that sensation. Mari’s breathing had a tranquil effect on him. It meant she was here and she was his.
“What if it’s the music that’s doing this to you? You’ve been really throwing yourself into it lately. And the music in your blood is tied to him. He was your first experiences with it. So, what if each time you compose, create—it all dredges up memories of him from the past. It might not be him.”
He almost choked on his breath. “But I . . . It can’t be like that!”
He tipped his head up, and her face fell. “I’m sure I’m wrong, but it seems like . . .” She trailed off.
“What does it seem like? What did I do?”
“After you played those songs the other night and you and Meg danced to them, you slept horribly that night. You were thrashing around like crazy, whimpering and you were all twisted up in the sheets. You weren’t crying out in pain, so I didn’t wake you, but you were definitely distressed. And then when you woke the next day, you were almost catatonic. There was definitely something going on there. And I don’t know how to help you, other than point out what I observe.”
His heart about stopped. What if she was right? “I can’t give up music. I never could . . .” His voice faded into a shrill-sounding whisper. Was he about to cry again?
Jesus, what was his problem? How many times would he fall apart?
“You don’t have to. That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m only saying maybe you’re blaming him for something that isn’t his doing. Consider that maybe this would happen even if you cut him off.” She paused. Her fingers gripped his head for a moment as she tipped his head at a different angle. “It’s happened before, but I never connected it until now. It’s a little more clear to pinpoint now.” She took a breath, then held it for a second. “Besides—when you think about it, sweetie—you barely have any contact with Thomas at all.”
“But when I do, he makes me crazy.” The back of his neck heated just thinking about that man.
“I know. Like I said, I’m probably wrong.”
His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. “But I love music, and I love you. I don’t want you to be wrong, but I don’t want the music to go away either or hurt me.”
“I know you love your music.” She dipped her head and kissed his forehead.
“What do I do now?”
“Only you know the answers about what’s best for you.” She settled her lips on his forehead and simply kept them there.
“I don’t know anything.” He held her tight, rocking her back and forth a little bit.
Her lips stayed glued to him. She hummed, stroked his hair and was all he needed.
What if he gave up music? What would that do to him?
Weren’t there times it made him better? How could he blame all this on the music?
He buried his face in her and took deep breaths, letting her scent coat his senses.
“You know how they say that sometimes whatever food we’re allergic to is what we’ll crave most?” she asked, her voice low and sweet.
“Yeah. I’m not allergic to music, though.” He rubbed his cheek on her like a cat would do.
“I’m not saying you are. But I’m saying that maybe your blood calls you to the one thing that will hurt you the most to force those memories out so they can get resolved. Our bodies are self-healing. They find a way to take care of themselves—including our minds.” She cradled the back of his head when he buried his nose back into her again.
“I don’t like that. It’s not what I want to hear. No.” He whispered no over and over, hoping to make it all go away. “I don’t like it this time when you tell me the truth.”
She chuckled. “Sorry. It’s a bad habit I’ve developed.”
“Stop it then, woman. Be nice to me.” He grinned and nipped at her shirt, biting it at the end, almost playing tug of war with it. “I wish you were naked. That would make this all better. My dick said that’s how it should be, and it’s always right.”
She leaned her head down and whispered, “Let me tell you a secret.” She went silent for a second, then went even quieter than her previous level. “My addiction is licking you—and that requires you be naked, not me. That’s what I want to do. So, maybe my body is always trying to tell me it needs you.”
“Is it trying to heal? When dogs lick someone, it heals them. Maybe you’re trying to heal me?” He grinned up at her.
She swiped the end of his nose with her tongue, then rubbed it away. “I think it’s my hormones trying to get me pregnant. They seem to like to thwart me like that.”
He laughed deep in his belly. Felt good to do that. “I’m gonna pretend you’re a licky animal, helping me to get better, ‘cause I know it always makes me feel a lot happier. Clearer even.”
She nodded, dragged the tip of her finger from the bridge of his nose down to his lips.
He kissed her finger before she released it.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, his tone lighter—kind of like him right now.
“You’re welcome. I don’t know if any of this is right. I’m only sharing what I’ve learned over the years about the body. And you’re so freaking smart, I’m not surprised your mind is finding a way to correct the situation.” She hugged him, rocking him side to side, then let go.
He released her.
Shit. She was right. How was she always right?
“It’s because I know you so well, before you ask how I knew to say all this.” She waved and left the room.
He got up and finished cleaning the kitchen for her. She was probably exhausted after saying all that brilliant stuff.
As he shuffled about, putting a few more dishes in the dishwasher, he whistled a new tune, and out of nowhere, he was struck with the most crippling numbers ever.
He dropped to his knees, and his throat choked up on him. His fingers clawed at his neck.
Nothing came out. His breath was barely a whistle.
“Don’t you say that about my son!” he heard echoing in his mind.
/> Blinded by black shifting equations, he fell onto his side and jerked in place.
“He’s my son, and we need the money!” his mother’s voice screeched as she yanked a toddler out of Thomas’s hands.
Tears ripped down his cheeks as he watched in horror, this memory unraveling before him.
The song increased in tempo, shifting the numbers into piano keys.
Black. Shiny. Tempting.
His fingers twitched in place, and his mind raced over a melody. Dark and very lovely.
“Watch what we can do, and you tell me how we can’t put his gifts up for sale?” Sarah set him on the piano bench. She set down a thick phone book, then put him on top of it.
The little boy wobbled in place, but he reached out, tapping the keys. Was he warming up?
He was certainly humming the same tune Adam was in his head right this second.
“He can’t reach when you do that. It’s not safe to put him on top of those books like that.” Thomas yanked the boy off, then kissed his red hair and sent him out of the room.
The little boy played with numbered blocks in his room as tears drenched his cheeks. “But I wanted ta play,” the little miserable boy said to himself.
He clasped his knees to his chest, rocked in place to self-soothe and he picked up a block, slamming it into his cheek.
“Stop doing that to him! He’s just a baby!” he heard his father yell from the other room. “Let him be a kid!”
“You’re the one! It’s your fault!” his mother shouted right back.
The red haired boy made this awful high-pitched whining-sound, and to drown them out, he started picking up blocks, hollering each number and chucking them across the room. He wanted help.
But no one came. All he had was this—the numbers he could hurl at them. His voice and his music.
The vision of the boy out of control faded, and Adam’s eyelids fluttered, his unfocused vision only making him cry harder.
“What the fuck was that?” he whimpered.
That was all wrong. Thomas was the one that had hurt Adam when he was little. He was the one that had placed Adam on that piano bench, not his mother, before he’d fallen off and gotten hurt.
Was his previous vision wrong? Or had things shifted and changed later?
It was all so insane.
His head pounded.
He managed to roll up to sitting, and he yanked out his phone and dialed the first number he could think of.
This time it wasn’t his wife’s job to put him back together.
“You’re finally listening? I have so much to tell you,” the man’s voice said.
“I am, but you’re still a selfish bastard. Tell me now—how did you save my life?” Adam’s jaw ached as his teeth ground together.
His chest was pained worse, though, as he awaited whatever Thomas could tell him.
“You were too talented for your own good. Think modern day Mozart. I couldn’t stop her most of the time, but I fucking tried. I fucking tried . . .” His father’s footsteps echoed on tile in his own home and then there was the sound of a door being closed softly.
“How? How was I in danger?”
“She was going to sell you to some agency in China. They take performing children. She said we needed the money, and it would allow me to focus on my music—the music we would’ve made. She was delirious—sick at the time. I wanted to get her therapy, but we couldn’t afford it. And she swore it would be the best way to perfect your natural gifts.”
“Yet you could buy drugs. Pfft!” Adam’s head dropped back and hit the cabinet behind him. Good. It was better to feel that pain.
“I had to! And I didn’t buy them—they were given to me. A friend of mine was helping me out because they owed me. The only way I could think of to stop her was to make you act out. So you would when I’d give you tiny bits of it. She’d freak out, and the talk of selling you off would end. At least for a few days, until I stopped giving it to you and then you’d create songs again, and she’d go right back to it again. It stifled your genius somewhat. So it helped in two ways.”
Adam pulled on his bangs with his left hand, yanking at it. “But you were the one that placed me on that piano bench, giving me those drugs when I fell off and hit my head—not her.”
“I had to! I had to prove to her that you were just a kid, and you weren’t some piano prodigy. I was pretending to encourage it, since she was angry with me and lashing out over every little thing. I was going along with acting like I did want you to play the piano so she’d calm the fuck down. She was deranged, and I didn’t know what else to do!” Thomas sputtered and coughed. “She was flying into hysterics all the time—completely unpredictable. And I worried that I’d wake up one morning and find you were gone—that she’d given you away to the highest bidder. It scared the shit out of me, so this seemed the only way to sort of placate her and talk her down from her insane ideas.”
“I can’t fucking believe this! You’re a man. Act like one. Kick that woman out of the house if she’s so terrible and psychotic. Kick her out of your life now!” Adam shook his head. The air felt hot, so when he breathed, it was like fire. His nostrils flared.
“She’s your mother!” Thomas whispered, his voice harsh.
“I don’t fucking care!” Adam yelled back so loud Mari’s head popped into the room.
She asked him silently if he was okay. He shook his head no.
“She lied about everything then? Is that what you’re telling me? She blamed Samara for draining her accounts. And I figured she did it to help you out, but she didn’t. She was trying to win you back. What was she doing with that money?”
“Gambling. She was trying to double and triple her money. She wanted to prove to me she could fix everything, because she’d done other things before that even, to threaten your life. She sent me tons of letters, begging me to come back to her. She promised she’d bring you with her, and you could make your songs again. I wanted to believe her, since I wanted those things more than anything. She was certain we’d have the money this time to live out our dream of me being a successful singer and musician and you a big part of all of it. I told her no. I never wanted to pimp out my son’s gifts. Your music is sacred to me, because it’s a part of who you are deep down inside.”
“And yet, that’s what you’re doing to me now. Taking me to court? Sure sounds like you’re doing exactly what she wants, Dad. Treating me like your ATM cash dispenser.” Adam’s words barely made it through his bared teeth.
“I keep telling you—that’s not what I’m doing! Once more, I’m protecting you, and you see it as me being the enemy. I’m not. I never was. If I put my name on your stuff, it gives you some credence. It gives you a warning to others to keep away unless they want to deal with me and unless they’re gonna treat you right, then they—”
“You don’t have a presence. Not like what you’re talking about.” Adam laughed, and it was dark and scary sounding.
“I have enough that I can get you started in the right direction. You think I want to see you fail for a measly few grand? Why would I want that? There’s no price that can ever be put on your music, Adam. You’re a fucking musical genius. You always were. Frankly, it kind of terrified me to have a son that brilliant. More brilliant than I was ever gonna be at music, and I barely taught you what I knew, and you took off with it. It was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen. And I knew what it could mean for you.”
“What could it mean?”
“People would steal you away from me, and I loved you more than anything. I couldn’t allow that.” A soft sobbing noise drifted over the phone.
“Okay, I need to . . .” Adam rubbed his forehead—it hurt like a son of a bad man “. . . think . . . and I can’t do that with you shoving all these words into my head. It’s worse than the numbers.”
“I’m sorry, I just . . .”
Adam’s fist flew out and hit the cabinet behind him. “You’re making me want to be violent. I s
aid no! I’ve heard as much as I can right now. Good. Bye.” He ended the call, shoved his phone across the floor at Mari.
She only stood there, staring at it and then him.
“Wow,” was all she said.
“Yeah, fucking wow. I’m an idiot. And I can’t seem to stop it.” He bounced his head off the back of the cabinet, then he took a deep breath through his nostrils to clear his head. Still felt like fire in his breath.
Instead of it cleansing his mind, he was hit with another flash.
This time, it wasn’t debilitating.
It was softer. It was sweeter.
Thomas hovered over him while Adam was tucked in bed.
“Sing it again,” the little boy told his father.
“It’s your song.” The dad smiled so brightly, it lit up the room.
“Let’s do it together?”
They hummed in unison at first, but it wasn’t enough.
They sang, laughed and held hands.
He blinked and Mari faded back into his vision.
Adam screamed. “Ahhhhh, nooooo! That son of bitch is making me crazy!”
“Honey, I’m calling an ambulance!”
“No! Why?”
“Because you’re bleeding out of your nose, and your pupils are very dilated.” She held his arm and then something was over his nose.
Voices came later.
Gruff.
Scratchy hands lifted him, and he was whisked away. For some reason, he couldn’t feel his feet.
The only thing he had to keep him company were the numbers and that song he sang with his dad.
It was about the day he found the notes. The day he found the colors that brightened his world. And the piano didn’t lie. It told him how the song went.
Chapter 10
Adam kicked the covers off. This was silly.
“I’m not sick,” he told Dr. Harkham as she hovered.
“I know you’re not sick. They ran the same tests I did. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“See? I already knew that. Let me out of here, then.” He stood up and got dizzy for a moment.
He couldn’t remember much about when they took him to the hospital, only that at one point he felt like someone was jabbing a knife into his skull, and he felt paralyzed.
Harkham's Corner (Harkham's Series Book 3) Page 14