San Francisco
Present Day
Andrea is nine.
Andrea had forgotten his face. Two years had passed since she’d seen the boy in her wall. She played his song the best she could remember it, but he would not come. One morning, she woke up and realized that she no longer remembered the color of his eyes. On some days, she was convinced that they were blue. On others, she swore that they were leaf green like hers. Most days she didn’t care. She had more urgent concerns. A date was circled on their kitchen calendar with a red Sharpie and it was getting close. She had to get away before her father’s wedding day.
“But why can’t I live with you?” Andrea pressed the phone to her cheek, wishing she could squeeze through it and pop out on the other end.
“You know what my touring schedule’s like,” Julia said, repeating the answer she’d given Andrea for the past two weeks. “I’m leaving for London next week.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“But you have school, your cello lessons…”
“I don’t care about school. Or music.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Andrea blew her nose into her sleeve. “I do.”
“You came with me on tour last summer and you hated it, remember? You called your father every night complaining about how bored and miserable you were.”
“It will be different this time, Mom. I promise.”
“And what do you think will make it different?”
“Pink.” Andrea had never eaten a week-old dead fish, but she guessed that the taste the color left in her mouth came close to it. “Sylvia wants me to wear pink. I hate pink and I hate her. I don’t want to be a flower girl at her stupid wedding. I don’t want to be here when she moves in.”
“I’m sorry, Andrea. I have to go. I’ll call you from London, okay?” her mother said. “By the way, did you get the birthday gift I sent you?”
Julia had sent her another journal just like the ones she had given her on her last two birthdays. Andrea wanted to tell her that she didn’t need a new one. She’d had less to say to Johann Sebastian Bach ever since she stopped writing about the boy in her wall.
“I did. Thanks.”
“Do you like the color?”
“Yes.” Julia never bothered to ask what color she wanted, but this year, she chose well. Chocolate, even if you couldn’t eat it, was comforting. “Mom…”
“Yes?”
“Take me with you.”
“Andrea…” Julia said. “Everything will be fine.”
Andrea might have believed her mother had she not paused after saying her name. Silence made the truth easier to hear. The date her father had circled on their kitchen calendar was not going to go away.
—
Clank. Clink. Clunk. Andrea pulled her blanket over her head. Glass clattered through the purple duvet. Andrea groaned and rubbed away the tears crusted on her lashes. She rolled over and searched her bedroom for the sound. Golf ball–size hail pelted her bay window. Andrea sank into her pillows and sighed. It figured. It was the perfect day for the sky to fall. The little red ink circle on their kitchen calendar had found her. It crept into her bedroom, wrapped itself around her neck, and squeezed. Andrea wheezed, struggling to breathe. The day of her father’s wedding had arrived.
—
Diane Lee, the wedding planner, handed Andrea a small basket wrapped in pink lace that matched the taffeta tiers she was drowning in. Diane fiddled with Andrea’s curls, her forehead scrunched as though the fate of the world depended on her successfully taming Andrea’s hair under a wreath of pink silk flowers. Andrea had not made her job any easier. She had not bothered to comb her hair or brush her teeth when she got dressed that morning. She didn’t think anyone would notice her anyway. She was short for a nine-year-old and blended in with the rest of the wedding décor.
Diane tucked a curl behind Andrea’s ear. It sprung free for a third time. Diane gave up with a muffled groan and turned her attention to the flower basket. She held her arm in front of Andrea. “Watch,” she said, flicking her wrist to scatter imaginary petals over the aisle. “Slowly and gracefully, okay, dear?”
Andrea nodded without looking at her.
“Good.” Diane smiled. “Come. Follow me, dear.”
Andrea shuffled behind her, doing her best not to trip on her floor-length skirt. She took her place behind the ring bearer, Sylvia’s six-year-old nephew, Zach.
“Hi,” Andrea said softly.
Zach didn’t hear her. His tongue was curled upward out of his mouth as he tugged at the white gold rings fastened on the ring cushion. Andrea had never seen anyone look more determined. She wondered if the wedding would have to be called off if the rings came loose, rolled onto the floor, and got utterly lost beneath the endless layers of her dress. A string trio’s version of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” kept her from finding out. Zach marched down the short aisle in time with the song. Andrea’s feet refused to join him. She could not see beneath her skirt, but she was certain that her pink shoes had grown roots.
Diane tapped her shoulder. “Go on, dear.”
Andrea wrung the handle of her flower basket. Her eyes darted around the church, searching for help. Her father waved at her from the other end of the aisle.
“You can do it, kiddo,” he mouthed slowly.
Andrea read his lips. She drew a breath and pried one foot off the floor. She took another step and tripped on taffeta. Petals exploded over the aisle, neither gracefully nor slowly. Andrea considered remaining sprawled on the floor next to them. That way, she could hide her tears.
Warm arms helped her to her feet. “You’re okay, kiddo. You’re okay.” Her father dried her eyes with a pale pink satin handkerchief and straightened the wreath in her hair. “I’m here.”
Andrea buried her face in the crisp collar of his black tuxedo and sobbed. “I hate pink. I hate this dress. I hate this stupid awful thing in my hair.”
“Oh, good. I was worried.”
Andrea scrunched her forehead. “Worried?”
“I wanted the wreath for myself, but I thought you liked it.” Andrew took the wreath from her head, planted it on his, and grinned. “It looks better on me, don’t you think? It brings out my eyes.”
Andrea pressed her lips to keep a giggle in. It burst free.
Andrew smiled and took her hand. “What do you say, kiddo? Shall we try this again? Together?”
Andrea nodded and let Andrew lead her down the aisle, a flower wreath half-slipping off his head. She took small steps. It was the last walk she would have him to herself and she wanted to make it last as long as she possibly could.
—
Andrea angled her chair at the wedding reception to keep as much of the two-tier gluten-free vanilla coconut wedding cake as possible between herself and the sixty-five guests. She adjusted the cello in front of her, relieved that she did not play the flute. The latter would not have made much of a shield. Behind the cake’s pink sugar flowers and her cello’s broad maple back, she stopped trembling enough to play her father’s request. The first movement of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata streamed out of her cello’s strings.
Applause roared over her last note. Andrea managed a small smile, but she felt too nauseous to take a bow. She knew what was coming next. She watched her father stand up and button his tux. He tapped his champagne flute with a spoon and cleared his throat. He glanced at Sylvia, his eyes sparkling more than the facets of his glass.
“I have an announcement to make.” He dangled a pair of pale pink organic cotton baby booties in front of his guests.
Clinking of glasses and cheers erupted, nearly drowning out the name of the baby girl Andrew and Sylvia were expecting in the fall. Andrea didn’t have to strain her ears to catch it. It had been ripping the walls of her stomach ever since her father had told her what it was. Wendy was made up of only five letters, but each was as sharp as broken glass.
—
Wendy Marie Takash
i Louviere couldn’t wait for autumn. She was born in the summer just before dawn and weighed four pounds and two ounces.
“Andrea, your sister is…” Tears watered her dad’s voice as they walked down the long white corridor to the neonatal intensive care unit. “She’s going to be inside a glass box and there will be a lot of tubes sticking out of her body. Don’t be afraid.”
Andrea wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to her, but she nodded just the same. She clung to him, inhaling the scent of air-conditioned air, antiseptic, and freshly mopped floors. Her dad tightened his grip on her hand. Her knuckles hurt and her fingertips turned white. She didn’t mind. Her dad didn’t say when they were bringing Wendy home, but as soon as they did, he was going to have someone else to take on long walks.
Wendy’s incubator was tucked into a corner of the room, surrounded by machines with blinking lights. The clear tape over her eyes and the tangle of multicolored tubes attached to her body matched the picture Andrea’s dad had painted in her head. But there were two things he didn’t tell her. Wendy was a lot smaller than Andrea had expected, and so much easier to love. She looked up at her father. “Can she hear us?”
Andrew rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure she knows we’re here.”
“Hello.” Andrea pressed her fingertips against the incubator’s glass. Wendy’s small pink hands looked like a doll’s next to hers. They were curled into fists but Andrea could tell that Wendy was going to play the piano well. Johannes Brahms’s Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major was going to be their song. That is, it would be when their dad was within earshot. When he wasn’t, she was going to teach Wendy Apocalyptica’s version of Metallica’s classic “Nothing Else Matters.”
“She looks like you,” her father said.
Andrea smiled. “Of course she does. I’m her big sister.”
—
The sky was the wrong shade of blue. It was too bright. Neither had the sun nor grass dressed appropriately for the occasion. Only the small group of people that gathered around a small white casket wore black. Tears streamed down all of their faces, but Andrea couldn’t hear anyone sob. The metal pulleys were also quiet. They didn’t creak as they lowered Wendy’s coffin into the ground. “Nothing Else Matters” ran in a loop in her head and blocked out every sound.
The silent song was the only music at the funeral. The funeral parlor’s director had offered Sylvia and her father a selection for the service: Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, Elgar’s “Nimrod” from Enigma Variations, Williams’s The Lark Ascending, and Barber’s Adagio for Strings, op. 11. Andrew rejected all of them. Nothing was sad enough to mourn the daughter he had not been able to hold.
Andrea agreed. Wendy’s coffin was tiny, but it somehow managed to hold all of their hearts. Andrea tossed a rose over it. A thorn pricked her thumb. She sucked a bead of blood from her finger. The thorn, her sister, and the boy in her wall had one thing in common. They required only the briefest of moments to slip under her skin.
Sylvia put her arm around her. Andrea hugged her back. She didn’t know whether Sylvia or her dad would hold her again if they knew what she had done to their daughter.
—
Andrea threw her legs over her bed and planted her cello between them. One of the first lessons her father had taught her shoved its way to the front of her mind. A cello’s tone production and volume depended on a combination of factors, the most important of which were the bow’s speed, the weight applied to the string, and the point of contact of the bow hair with the string. Andrea drew her bow and realized her father was wrong. What mattered most was what you wanted to say and how badly you wanted to say it. She begged Wendy to listen to her apology.
The cello wept a flutelike sound. The sul tasto effect was used when cellos needed a soft tone that blended in with the rest of the orchestra. Andrea chose it because she wasn’t sure if she was prepared to hear what she needed to say. Her sister was gone because, for the past seven and a half months, she had knelt by her bed and prayed to God to take her back.
Andrea’s small fingers floundered over the strings. She took her dad’s old advice to conserve her movements and hold her bow higher. She raised her arm a quarter of an inch, relaxed her wrist, and leaned in the direction of the upcoming note.
An old melody weaved its way back into her hand. It was not the confession she had intended, but she let it have its way. Green apple, cinnamon, and French vanilla sprang from her cello, stringing along the memory of a boy’s bright hazel eyes. White light flashed on her purple wallpaper.
A pulsing glow outlined the crack widening between a lavender rabbit’s printed ears. The hole grew to half of the size of Wendy’s casket, opening a window into the boy’s world. His candlelit bedroom was smaller and had a lower ceiling than the one Andrea had seen two years before. The boy inside it had also changed. He was older and filled more of his wool tunic and breeches. He sat with his legs crossed beneath him on the floor, grinning at a miniature windmill.
A brown mouse ran inside a steel wheel at the bottom of the mill, spinning its white cloth sails. Bits of ground corn flew out of the mill and scattered around it. The mouse raised its head and sniffed the air. It jumped off the wheel and chased after the corn. The boy caught it by its hind legs. The mouse wriggled free and scurried into the shadows. The boy’s eyes darted after it. They found Andrea instead. His jaw raced hers to the floor. Andrea’s won.
Andrea lost her grip on the bow. It bounced off the carpet, leaving notes to fade in the air. The crack dimmed. The boy steadied his cleft chin and ran toward the wall, his smile growing wider with every stride. He wasn’t juggling bread chunks or making them disappear, but the spring in his step tickled the corners of Andrea’s mouth. Wendy’s death stained every inch of her, but in the boy’s bright, happy eyes, she was still the same girl who lived behind his wall and made him smile.
The boy cupped his hands and blew into the hollow of his palms. A mouse’s head popped up from between his fingers, wiggling its whiskers. The boy beamed and set the animal on the floor.
Andrea clapped. The boy’s greatest magic trick was not pulling things out from thin air. It was finding her when she needed a friend the most.
The boy took a bow. His mouth molded silent words. What is your name?
Andrea read his lips. The crack shut as she replied. She grabbed her bow and pummeled her wall with notes, each one louder than the one that came before.
Her bedroom door flung open. Her father marched through it, tears glistening in the hollows of his cheeks. He had aged ten years since he’d buried his younger daughter. “Andrea, it’s late.” His voice croaked out of him and made Andrea’s name sound like it was covered in rust. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”
“The boy’s back!” Andrea yelled over the music. “He has a windmill. And a mouse. A brown one. It ate his corn and ran away.”
“Please, Andrea.” A vein throbbed in his left temple. “Stop.”
Andrea made up more notes. She didn’t care if they were sharp or screeched. One of them had to be right. The boy was real and she could prove it. His song was somewhere in her strings. If she placed her fingers over the right ones, she would find it.
“I said stop.” Her father snatched her bow and broke it over his knee.
Once doubt begins, it spreads rapidly.
—JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
San Francisco
Present Day
Andrea is ten.
Doubt is a small and weightless thing. But it is patient. For months, Dr. Matthew Colin watered Andrea’s on his brown leather couch for one hour every Wednesday after school without so much as a sprig to show for his trouble or Andrew Louviere’s money. The boy in her wall, his mouse, and his mill were real, and there was nothing Dr. Colin could say to convince Andrea otherwise. Her detailed journal entries of the boy’s two visits were all she needed to relive the moments she’d had with him. Johann Sebastian Bach believed in magic and was on h
er side.
Nathaniel William Davis was another matter.
His ash blond hair flopped over his pale blue eyes as he walked into Andrea’s fourth-grade math class in a vintage Metallica T-shirt that was two sizes too big for him. He clutched two drumsticks in one hand. The way his knuckles hardened around his drumsticks belied his breezy stride. Andrea clung to her bow the same way when she felt afraid and alone. He took the seat in front of Andrea and planted his black backpack on the floor. He stuffed the drumsticks into it. Andrea stared at the drumsticks sticking out of his bag and sucked in a breath and half a lungful of hope. She was not disappointed. Nate turned out to be the only other person in her class who played a musical instrument, even if, by her father’s definition, electronic drums didn’t count. Though Nate never spoke to her, she was content to imagine that one day, when he passed her a worksheet over his shoulder, he was going to glance her way. Every morning, she practiced how she would smile back at him in her bathroom mirror.
Nate never turned around to see her grin. He was more interested in performing drum solos that left a trail of dents on desks, lockers, and cafeteria tables. A fifth grader’s sandwich got in the way of a downstroke one afternoon. It took its accidental beating with a quiet squish. Its owner was more vocal. He growled and grabbed Nate by the collar. Andrea jumped in and offered her lunch bag to keep the peace. Luckily, Nate had ruined the lunch of the only student in school who happened to like vegetarian meatloaf more than grilled ham and cheese. Nate threw in his chocolate milkshake and tater tots to seal the deal. The next morning, he passed a worksheet to the seat behind him, glanced over his shoulder, and smiled at the girl who had saved him with baked tofu.
—
Nate rolled his eyes at Andrea. “Seriously, Dre? Santa?”
Andrea sank into her seat in the cafeteria. In all the time that they had spent every lunch period together, this was the first time she could not think of something to say back to him.
Nate smirked. “Don’t tell me you believe in Rudolph, too?”
Andrea gulped down her milk.
Love and Gravity Page 3