The Musician

by Douglas Gardham

  Carlyn pulled a green mug out of the cupboard.

  “Everything’s ready,” she said. “I just plugged in the Christmas tree.”

  “I saw that,” their father answered, pulling off his coat. He hung it on the back of one of the wooden kitchen chairs. He didn’t seem to be the same person who’d left the table the night before. He was excited and smiling, moving like a kid anxious to see what Santa had brought. Ethan wondered why he’d been outside.

  “When your mother comes out,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “don’t let her in the living room until I give the all clear. Okay?”

  Carlyn held her mug of coffee with both hands. With puffy, tired eyes she looked at their father. “Okay, Dad, whatever.”

  “Make sure is all. It’s important.”

  Their father disappeared into the living room.

  Ethan looked at his sister, raising his eyebrows as if to say, “What’s that all about?”

  Carlyn shook her head and shrugged.

  Not a minute later, they heard the door to the master bedroom open.

  Carlyn peeked into the living room after their father.

  “He’s got something going on around the Christmas tree,” she said.

  A moment later, their mother walked into the kitchen.

  “I thought I heard someone up,” she said, seeing Ethan first. “Merry Christmas, dear.” She walked over, raised her arms, and hugged him.

  “Happy Christmas, Ma,” he said, leaning forward to give her a kiss on the cheek and a hug. It was the smart-aleck Christmas greeting he’d started in high school. She’d given him the gears about it then but now seemed to get a kick out of it. She smiled into his face.

  “Carlyn,” their mother said as Carlyn came back into the kitchen from checking on their father in the living room, “you’re up too!”

  “Yep,” Carlyn said, setting her mug on the kitchen table and coming to greet her mother. “Merry Christmas, Ma.”

  “Merry Christmas, honey.”

  The two embraced.

  “Well, look at this,” their mother said, stepping back and spreading her arms as if she were addressing a group and not just their father’s coat on the chair. “Aren’t I the sleepyhead? Everyone’s up.”

  “Ready for a coffee?” Ethan asked, knowing the answer and pulling another red mug out of the cupboard.

  “Need you ask?” she answered.

  “No, but it’s Christmas. Still black?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He handed her the filled mug. “You can thank Carlyn. She was up first.”

  She turned to Carlyn, nodded in acceptance, and blew her a kiss.

  “Not ready yet!” called their father from the living room.

  Their mother looked at them as if to say, “What’s up?”

  “Dad’s preparing something,” Carlyn said.

  “Just like old times,” Ethan added. “Gotta get that first picture.”

  “Well, enough with that,” their mother said. “I want to sit in front of the Christmas tree.” She turned and announced, “We’re coming in.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Tuesday, December 25, 1984, Christmas Day

  Their father appeared to be ready as their mother marched into the living room, ignoring his instructions. Ethan and Carlyn followed hesitantly.

  They found their spots, their father in his chair from the night before and their mother in the new armchair beside the love seat Carlyn sat on. Ethan chose the ottoman that Syd had sat on when they’d started to write “The Angel.” As with previous Christmases, Ethan took the lead, handing out gifts to everyone. Each took a turn opening. Carlyn opened his gift to her first and loved the books. When he told her the story behind Browning Station and said the songs they’d recorded were for an animated movie adaptation, she immediately started reading. His mother loved the Lawren Harris print. Carlyn opened a new stereo, screaming as she ripped the paper off the box. Their mother questioned Santa’s sanity. Their father nodded his approval upon tearing the wrapping paper from the purple box of Crown Royal. Ethan couldn’t help but think they could have avoided the upheaval of Christmas Eve if he’d opened it then. They were near the end when Ethan caught his mother nodding to his father, who leaned back and pulled a shoebox-sized package out from behind his chair. He handed it to Ethan.

  “From all of us. Merry Christmas,” he said.

  Ethan sat down on the ottoman. He pulled off the sparkly red paper to reveal a Shure microphone box. Inside was what he’d hoped to get in the New Year: a Shure SM58 microphone. He couldn’t believe it.

  “How did you know?” he said, standing up to hug his father and then kiss his mother.

  “What about me?” Carlyn cried, holding up her hand as he turned toward her. “I’ll take a hug.”

  He hugged her.

  “Unbelievable!” he said, pulling the microphone, which was wrapped in protective plastic, out of the gray foam packaging. “Who told you—Syd?” He gripped the mike in his fist. “I know who it was,” he said almost to himself. “Greg. He knew. While we recorded, he looked out of it, but he was taking it all in.”

  When he looked at his mother, she was rolling her eyes.

  “He had us swear not to say anything,” Carlyn said, seemingly as excited as Ethan was about the gift. “Dad?” Carlyn said, looking at their father and nodding.

  Ethan looked at his father.

  Their father looked at Carlyn. His hands were open as he squinted and shrugged as if to say, “What?” Carlyn pointed at Ethan. Ethan had no idea what she was up to, but then their father smiled, stood up, and reached behind his chair again. This time, he held up a larger unwrapped box. Ethan smiled upon seeing the photograph on the side. It was a black hard-shell case for the microphone.

  “Man,” Ethan said, standing up from the ottoman to take the larger box from his father, “you guys really want me to sound good.” He opened the box and slid out the hard-shell case, which was also wrapped in plastic.

  “That audition tomorrow,” his mother said, “is looking a little different now, isn’t it?”

  The question caught him off guard. He didn’t see the connection between the gift and his audition.

  “Hadn’t really thought about it that way,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

  “You must be thinking about it now, though,” his mother replied, sitting up straight with both elbows on the arms of the chair. She was holding her coffee mug in both hands in her lap.

  He noticed her stoic, maternal posture for the first time. It was as if she were sitting there satisfied her agenda was coming together. He didn’t like how it made him feel. Memories of mornings before school surfaced, when she had demanded to know what he was up to, even when he wasn’t up to anything, preoccupied with her ideas of teens and drugs and alcohol.

  “Not really,” he said, but of course he was thinking of it now. She’d brought it to his full attention. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

  He didn’t want to get into it. Though his mother already seemed onto his concern about the audition and the impact it would have on the band, her concern was different from his. But it was Christmas morning. He wanted to enjoy these happy moments.

  “Ethan,” she said, the edge in her voice grating him like the rough edge of a fingernail caught on the loose thread of a blanket, “you can’t possibly think you can do both.”

  His mother set her coffee mug down on the end table beside her chair.

  “I haven’t thought that far out,” he lied, knowing he had. The situation was too complicated and none of her business. His eyes stayed on the front of his new hard-shell mike case.

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  Ethan could feel the muteness of his teenage years returning. He now saw the gift for what it was—manipulation. It wasn’t about singing. It was abo
ut acting.

  “Okay, okay,” his father said. “Let’s not belabor the point. We’re not done yet.”

  Ethan looked over at Carlyn. She gave him a confused frown and then looked over at their father.

  “There’s something else on the tree, Ethan,” his father said, looking at his son with wide eyes, nodding at the tree.

  Ethan set his case down beside the ottoman, stood up, and stepped over to the tree. Their father was pointing at a string dangling from the tree. Ethan had noticed it earlier but thought it was there to keep the tree upright. He reached for the string.

  “Be careful,” his father warned.

  He lifted the string with his open hand. There was a small tag attached, which he read aloud: “To Olivia. Pull here. Love, Santa.” He motioned to pull the string.

  “No, no!” his father cried, flipping his hand for Ethan to stop. “Let your mother do it.”

  “Okay, Santa,” Ethan replied, a little put off that his father saw the need to tell him something that was obvious. “Ma,” he said, turning around to face her, “the honor’s yours.”

  Ethan looked at his mother and then at Carlyn. Carlyn only shook her head, continuing her confused grimace.

  “It’s okay; you do it,” their mother replied. She was sitting quietly—the beginning of a sulk.

  Ethan closed his fingers around the string.

  “No,” their father said sternly, and Ethan could see he was already low on patience. “The instructions are for your mother.”

  “Okay, okay.” She sighed, leaning her thin body forward as if getting out of her chair were a major inconvenience.

  She stepped in front of Ethan and pulled the white string. Three feet of string came away without resistance. She kept pulling as several more feet came away. When she pulled again, the string came away from the tree and went down to the floor, where it was taped to the baseboard molding. As she continued to pull, the string followed along the wall behind the chair their father was sitting in, past the antique table beside him, and into the corner to follow along the wall perpendicular to the hallway. Pieces of scotch tape remained on the white molding. Around the outside corner of the living room, the string then took her down the length of the hallway and past the front hall closet, where it changed into a thicker red ribbon. As their mother moved down the hallway, bent over following the ribbon, they were all on their feet behind her. Ethan took up the rear, watching his father—the most excited—inches behind his wife. Their mother stepped into their front foyer.

  “What in heaven’s name are you up to, Darren?” she asked, her voice mixed tones of excitement and sarcasm. It was the first time she’d spoken since starting to pull the string.

  “It’s not me,” their father replied, and Ethan could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s Santa. I have no idea what this is about.”

  “I’m sure,” their mother said as she pulled the red ribbon out from under the floor mat at the door. The ribbon continued under the front door and outside.

  “I sure hope this isn’t a new car,” she said, the same edge in her voice that had cut Ethan’s merry Christmas mood in half.

  Ethan then knew what was waiting outside in the driveway.

  CHAPTERS 52

  Tuesday, December 25, 1984, Christmas Day

  “I don’t care!” their mother shouted as they all stared at the new dark blue Honda Civic parked in the driveway. There was a chill in the air, but it was no match for the frigid tone of their mother’s voice. “Take it back! I won’t have it!”

  Upon stepping out the front door, their mother had continued to follow the red ribbon, leading them out past the front shrubs, which had blocked the view of her Christmas present in the driveway. The thin red ribbon ran along the front walk out to where it changed into an even wider ribbon, which eventually wrapped over the hood of the new car. The answer to what their father had been up to was clear. He’d likely gone to pick the car up from the dealership when he’d left the house after the abrupt end to their dinner. Though not the excuse he’d likely planned, it had provided an exit. He’d likely taken their mother’s old Civic to the dealership, returned in the new car, and parked it around the corner. He’d gotten up early to park it in the driveway and finish setting up the surprise. Ethan was as surprised as Carlyn seemed to be at seeing the new car in the driveway.

  “What do you mean take it back?” their father said, sounding hurt, not angry.

  He was echoing what Ethan was trying to comprehend.

  “I don’t want it.” Their mother scowled. “My car is perfectly fine. Take it back.”

  She turned and marched back into the house. She didn’t look at either of her children.

  Their father didn’t say a word. To Ethan, he suddenly looked older and smaller. Bending forward, still not saying anything, he picked up the discarded ribbon and began wrapping it around his hand as if he were wrapping a wound. He walked toward the new car as he gathered the ribbon.

  Ethan could do little but stare at the giant red bow that sat in the center of the blue hood, with a six-inch-wide red ribbon wrapped around the front fenders. It was the picture-perfect fairy-tale Christmas present.

  “Dad,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, “I’m gonna go.”

  “No, Ethan,” his father replied, but he didn’t stop wrapping up the ribbon.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Ma’s got some stuff to work out.”

  “No, Ethan, you have to stay,” his father said, turning, his hand now covered in the bloodred ribbon. “Your mother just needs some time.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I can’t be here for that right now.”

  “Ethan, it’s Christmas. We’ll work it out.”

  Ethan didn’t reply and walked back into the house. He’d no sooner made it to the living room than his mother came in with another mug of coffee. She went back to the chair where she’d been sitting.

  “I don’t know what your father was thinking,” she said, leaning down to place her mug on the end table. “My car works fine. Why in God’s name would I need a new one?”

  She sat for a minute, seeming to expect Ethan to respond. He didn’t.

  “You’d think we’d come into a bunch of money or something. I don’t know what gets into your father sometimes.”

  Ethan couldn’t help himself. “Maybe it wasn’t about money,” he said, sitting down in the chair beside the tree, where his father had been sitting. He was looking not at his mother but at the Shure mike box sitting on top of the hard-shell case. “Maybe it was a gift he needed to give you.”

  “A gift with money we don’t have.”

  “Ah, Ma,” Ethan said, knowing he was going to say things that wouldn’t allow him to stay much longer. “It’s not just about money.”

  “Don’t give me that,” she said. “You, the man living on nothing.”

  Ethan kept staring at the new mike case. He didn’t respond. He knew his silence enraged his mother.

  “How did you manage to even buy gifts?”

  He kept quiet but couldn’t keep his cool. Anger was seeping around the edges like steam around the lid of a boiling pot of water.

  “They were gifts, Ma,” he said. “Gifts within my budget that I thought people would like.”

  “At least someone in the family knows what a budget is,” she said, “but when you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money, Christmas or no Christmas.”

  Their father was far from perfect, but that didn’t stop him from trying. A new car was an extravagant gift, but their mother was carrying on as if they were paupers—and paupers they were not. His father’s business was doing well. She was a teacher. They didn’t live in a mediocre house or neighborhood. No, there was something more at stake that he didn’t understand, and it wasn’t going away. She seemed on the downward spiral that never ended well for anyone. This wasn’t new to Et
han. He’d lived through it over and over again during his teen years. Now didn’t seem much different. His mother was warming for a full-out slaughter that she seemed incapable of stopping. The gift of a new car might have triggered her reaction, but it wasn’t the culprit.

  “Sounds a little like Scrooge, Ma,” Ethan said, unable to stop himself from fueling her descent. “We’re trying to make it a merry Christmas and leave the rest of our lives out of it for a bit. Especially the crappy shit.”

  Ethan knew as soon as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say.

  “So it’s come down to swearing at your mother. I thought I’d done a better job than that. You just never know how your children are going to surprise you.”

  It was over. He couldn’t pull out and wasn’t sure he even wanted to. He couldn’t stay.

  “And how very wise coming from the man with no money.”

  “Who says I have no money?” he said, fighting back. He knew he didn’t, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Do you?”

  “A little,” he admitted, the question coming too fast for him to reply how he wanted.

  “Actually, Ethan,” his mother said, sitting up straight. She could easily have been at tea with her lady friends, though she’d never have revealed this side of herself to them. “How much do you have—a hundred dollars?”

  Ethan wasn’t about to answer such a specific question. The truth was, he didn’t know and didn’t really care. He had enough for today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable future. He would get by.

  “If you’re so worried about my money,” he said, shaking his head, “keep the microphone. I don’t need it.”

  He stood up. It wasn’t anger he was feeling anymore. It was fury. His mother was trying to block the road he was on, but he wasn’t about to be stopped. Shouting and tears were coming.

  “I have a mike that works fine. At least to those listening.” His feet were moving.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” he said as calmly as he could. “Merry Christmas.”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He left the room and headed to his bedroom downstairs. He couldn’t leave fast enough.