Everything You Are: A Novel Page 18

  Silence. The raven flies down from the tree and settles into the grass no more than ten feet away, his black eyes fixed on the crust. Phee ignores him and keeps talking to her grandfather.

  “Yes, I know he could still technically play. ‘Three Blind Mice’ or something horrible. Broken notes and bad bowing. Asking him to do that, though—that’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

  More silence. Phee reaches into her paper sack and pulls out one of the cookies she lifted from her mother’s kitchen. “No, you don’t get this, stubborn old man that you are.” She takes a bite of buttery, chewy sweetness.

  Clouds obscure the sun, the graveyard darkens.

  “Nice try, but I’m not buying it,” she says, taking another bite. This time of the year, the weather is mostly rain, rain, drizzle, fog, mist, and more rain, so the sunshine of the morning was a blessing and the rain clouds rolling in have nothing to do with supernatural displeasure. They’ve been hanging on the horizon for hours.

  “And don’t tell me I’ve gone soft,” she says. “I’ve never agreed with these deals you’ve made with musicians, like you’re some sort of Dr. Faust broker for the devil. And I still haven’t forgiven you for tricking me into agreeing to this. Just so you know.”

  The raven stretches his wings. Ruffles his feathers. Hops closer.

  “Fine. All right,” Phee grumbles. “Yes, I love Braden. I hardly know him, it makes no sense, and it’s a very bad idea. And yet, there it is. So you see my quandary. If there’s any mercy to be had for either Braden or for me, now would be good. If you can hear me at all. Which, of course, is doubtful.”

  The first raindrops splatter cold on her head. The wind picks up. As usual, she’s forgotten her umbrella. Phee tosses the last bite of cookie to the raven. “It’s yours. Eat up.

  “Really, though,” she says to her grandfather as she stands and brushes grass off her jeans. “Give it some thought. If you have any ideas about how he’s supposed to play, or how I’m supposed to make him do it, that would be fantastic. Enjoy your whiskey. Come on, Celestine.”

  The dog follows, bringing his bone, as Phee stalks off to visit the other graves on her radar. Truth is, she feels worse rather than better, a small but insistent clamor inside her wishing she’d poured the whiskey down her throat rather than into the grass. Probably she should stop bringing it to him. It’s a dangerous game that one of these days is going to lead her right into a relapse. Especially now.

  Her next stop is a plain marker for Evan George, beloved husband and father, 1927 to 1999.

  Evan is collateral damage, a man the curse should never have touched. Phee’s guilt over his death feels woven into her soul.

  “Hey,” Phee says, standing respectfully at the foot of his grave. “I just needed to say, again, that I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. There was no reason at all for you to get sucked into this, and I formally apologize on behalf of my grandfather and myself. And the violin. It didn’t have any volition in this matter, and I sincerely hope you know it meant no harm.”

  She draws a simple bouquet of daisies and ferns out of her bag and sets them on his tombstone. Rain pelts down on the flowers, flattening the petals.

  “All right. I’m not going to linger. May the music be always with you.” She bends at the waist in a little half bow, and moves on. One more stop, one more apology.

  Through the gray curtain of rain, she sees from a distance that there is already a visitor at the place where Braden’s wife and son are buried. A visitor or a victim.

  A human form lies facedown on one of the graves, head pillowed on folded arms. Long dark hair. No jacket. Just a cotton hoodie and jeans, soaked and clinging to a slender female form. Motionless, despite the pouring rain.

  Phee’s heart jolts in her chest and she starts to run.

  Celestine beats her to it, poking at the obscured cheek with his wet nose.

  The prone figure screams and explodes into action, sitting up and scuttling backward in one wild leap. Celestine, undeterred, follows, trying to lick her face.

  “Hey,” Phee says gently. “Allie, right?”

  The girl crouches in the wet grass beside the grave, dark eyes wide, every muscle taut and ready to flee or fight.

  “The dog just wants to lick you. We didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Phee, remember? The luthier who cares for your cello.”

  “It’s not my cello.” Allie spits the words at her, vehement.

  Fight, then, Phee thinks. Not flight or paralysis. Good to know. Her own heart is pounding like a sledgehammer. “All right,” she agrees. “That’s the truth of it.”

  “We’re getting rid of the cello, anyway,” the girl says, wrapping her arms around Celestine’s neck to avoid being bowled over as a big, wet tongue swipes her cheek.

  Phee says nothing, feeling her way into this scenario, her mind rabbiting for the best thing to say, the best action to take, even as her heart breaks and breaks again. Allie is shivering. Her eyes are swollen and red, her clothing mud stained from the fresh graves, not yet softened by grass.

  “What are you doing here?” Allie challenges, as if the graves are her territory and Phee an intruder.

  “I was visiting my grandfather. And I stopped here to pay my respects.”

  “Are you done?”

  “I am. Why don’t we walk out together?”

  “I’m staying.”

  “Honey, you’re soaking wet.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not. You’re shivering. Listen, your mother would want you to be warm and dry and safe. And Celestine is never going to let me leave you here. Let me walk you to your car, okay?”

  Somewhere in these words is the magic key Phee’s been looking for. Allie’s defiance melts. Her shoulders soften, her back curves, and a sob escapes her and settles directly into Phee’s already wide-open heart.

  Allie nods acquiescence, though she says nothing, and Phee nods back.

  “One sec, I need to leave my flowers.”

  Phee opens the gym bag and pulls out two last bouquets. One for Trey. One for Lilian. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, so Allie won’t hear. Just before she straightens, she catches a glimpse of white under the edge of a sheaf of lilies on Lilian’s grave. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees that Allie’s back is turned, and she nudges the flowers aside to find an envelope, the ink of a single word rapidly blurring from the rain.

  Mom.

  Not your business, Phee tells herself, even as she gently folds the envelope into her pocket.

  “Where’s your car, then?” she asks, stuffing down her guilty conscience over the pilfered letter.

  “Sorry?”

  “Your car. Where are you parked? We’ll walk you there.” She starts to walk, relieved when Allie falls into step beside her, one hand resting on the big dog’s back.

  “I don’t . . . My father confiscated it. I took a bus.”

  “I’ll give you a ride. Don’t worry, I’m safe. The worst thing you have to worry about is dog slobber, and you’re already awash in that.”

  “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “No bother. Besides, Celestine likes you. Here we are. Right over there.”

  “Does Celestine even fit in there?” Allie asks when she sees the VW Bug. “If you don’t have room, I can take a bus.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Celestine can ride in the back.”

  “I can’t go home,” Allie says. “He thinks I’m at school. Can you drop me somewhere else?”

  “Like where?” Phee asks, buying time to think. She does not want to get between Allie and Braden, but she feels the precariousness of this girl’s trust, and she owes her, besides.

  “I dunno. The mall, I guess.”

  “Um.” Phee gives her an exaggerated once-over. “You look like a zombie. And your clothes are soaking.”

  “There’s nowhere else.”

  “In fact, there is. I have the perfect place.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the three of them stand drip
ping inside the door of Phee’s parents’ house. At least, Phee and Allie stand there. Celestine dashes into the center of the room and promptly shakes himself, sending a spray of water over everything.

  “You!” Bridgette orders. “Into the laundry room at once. You’ll stay there until you’re good and dry.”

  Celestine gives Phee one rueful, pleading look, but she just shakes her head at him. “I’d obey forthwith if I were you.”

  “As for the two of you, take off your shoes and socks and stay right there,” Bridgette orders, vanishing down the hallway with Celestine.

  Allie doesn’t question the directive, and when Bridgette returns with two large bath towels, they are both barefoot.

  Phee wills her mother to get this right, and Bridgette doesn’t disappoint. Tossing her daughter a towel, Bridgette takes it upon herself to dry Allie’s face and blot the water from her hair. “I have some dry clothes I think might fit you. Come with me.” She wraps both the towel and her arm around Allie’s shoulders, and leads her down the hallway without asking a single question.

  Phee betakes herself downstairs to her old bedroom, where she finds a faded pair of jeans and a sweatshirt neatly folded in the bureau as if her mother knew she’d be needing them. Which, given Bridgette’s uncanny ability to prepare for every eventuality, maybe she did. She carefully extracts the envelope from the pocket of her soaking jeans and peels out the damp but still legible paper.

  Dear Mom,

  You were right. About Dad and the music and everything. I need to tell you what happened and that I’m sorry and that I wish I could go back and change everything, but I can’t.

  I’ve been lying to you for a year. Maybe you know that, already. Maybe you see everything and understand, in which case, I wish you could talk to me because I don’t understand anything. Anyway, here’s the truth.

  I never meant to go to medical school. I know you wanted it for me, but all I ever wanted was to be a musician like Dad. So I let you think I was going into premed so you’d help me with my application and stuff. And then I applied on my own to the music school and got an audition. That’s where I was when you died. That’s why I didn’t pick up Trey and why I ignored you when you tried to reach me.

  So you were right about the music, that it’s a curse. And you were right about Dad, like I said. I wanted him to be there, at my audition. I thought he’d be proud of me. So I found him last year, on Facebook. And we messaged and stuff, and he agreed to meet me that morning, only he didn’t show up.

  I’d even learned the C Minor, pretty much the way he played it. Mr. Blair helped me. He said I was an extraordinary talent, truly my father’s daughter. I wanted to believe him, but I blew the audition, I think, so even that wasn’t true.

  I’m so sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up Trey.

  If it helps, I persuaded Dad to get rid of the cello, so neither one of us will be playing anymore.

  I love you,

  Allie

  Phee drops onto the bed with this missive in her hand.

  “Oh, Allie,” she whispers. Tears well up and spill down her cheeks, and she wipes them away. This whole situation is even more of a mess than she’d thought, and apparently Braden hasn’t listened to word one of what she’s tried to tell him.

  By the time she returns upstairs with her soaking castoffs wrapped in the towel, Allie is ensconced at the kitchen counter with a mug of hot chocolate. Her face has been washed, her hair has been combed. She looks small and waiflike in an overlarge flannel shirt and sweatpants.

  “Hey, don’t I get hot chocolate?” Phee asks.

  “Soon as you put those wet clothes in the dryer and mop up the floor. A dog that size needs to go to obedience school, Ophelia. I keep telling you.”

  “This is delicious,” Allie says. “Mrs. . . . I’m sorry, what do I call you?”

  “Mom, this is Allie. Allie, this is my mother, and you might as well just call her Bridgette.”

  “Sure enough. Mrs. MacPhee, that was my mother-in-law, and one of her in the world is enough for anybody.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “You know it’s true, Phee. Now, I was in the middle of making cookies. And since the two of you are here, you can help me.”

  Phee groans to herself. She had forgotten about the infernal bake sale. She hates baking. But before she can think of an excuse, Allie says, “My mother never made cookies. My dad used to, when we were little, but then . . .” Her voice trails off.

  “Perfect,” Bridgette says. “I need help and you can learn. The batter is already made for the first batch, all you have to do is drop them on the sheets, like this. And then we’ll do the roll-out ones, those are the most fun.”

  “Fun” isn’t the word Phee would use for any of it. “Tedious” and “monotonous,” more like it, although there are compensations. All broken or deformed cookies are for the bakers, for one thing. And the reward of hearing Allie actually laugh when Phee deliberately cracks a sugar cookie down the middle and says, “Damn it. Gonna have to eat another one” is even better.

  But the whole time she’s itching to get to Braden. To remind him that he cannot, must not, sell the cello. She’s going to have to tell him the full story about what got her started drinking, a story she’s never told anybody, ever, in all the years that have fallen between then and now. And if that doesn’t convince him, then she’s out of ammunition and has no idea what she’s going to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  PHEE

  The door of the house opens before Phee’s car even comes to a stop. She can see Braden standing there, backlit from the lights inside, and guilt smacks her upside the face. She should have called him and let him know she had Allie. He’ll be worried sick. She’d meant to be here sooner, but the cookies had led to a Netflix movie and dinner.

  It’s dark already, the streetlights creating little halos in the mist.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Braden demands.

  Allie shoves past him without answering, and his gaze shifts to Phee.

  “I found her in the graveyard.” She tries to signal a warning with her eyes. Go gently. She’s so incredibly fragile. She wants to stomp her foot in frustration when he completely misses the message.

  “In this weather?” He turns away from Phee and directs a parental tirade at his daughter, oblivious to the subliminal messages Phee continues to transmit at his back. “Were you thinking at all? You don’t even have a jacket. You could have caught your death of cold!”

  Allie turns to face him, a wild creature at bay. “Big loss that would be.”

  Phee tries again to intervene, brushing past him into the house without waiting for an invitation. Something is wrong about the house, nagging at her. “I’m sorry, I should have called sooner. I took her to my mother’s and got her warm and dry—”

  “It’s eight o’clock! You couldn’t have brought her sooner? You couldn’t have called? For God’s sake, Phee, you’re as bad as she is!”

  “I already said I was sorry! She didn’t want to come home.” Phee says this slowly, with emphasis, trying to herd him back from the edge, but he’s already back on Allie’s case.

  “I thought you promised you’d go to school.”

  “I thought you promised to stop drinking.” Allie’s chin lifts in defiance.

  That volley silences him. All three of them stand like chess pieces at an impasse. Allie glaring defiance. Phee with her warning undelivered. Braden still holding the door open as if it takes too much energy to close it.

  “This isn’t about me,” Braden finally says. “Just because I fucked up doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “I’ll probably fail the semester now, anyway,” Allie says. “What difference does it make if I go to school?”

  No music. That’s what’s wrong about the house. The pervasive music from the cello is missing. Oh please. Don’t let that mean what I think it means.

  Before Phee has time to ask any questions, to crystalize the fear,
Celestine barrels up the steps and barges past her, flinging his wet, muddy body at Braden’s legs, tail wagging up a windstorm. Braden staggers backward, catches his balance, steadies himself with a hand on the shaggy head. That shakes him out of himself, and he turns to Phee, his tone a little stretched and desperate.

  “Thanks for bringing her home. I’m sure you’d like to—”

  “Allie was telling me you’re planning to get rid of the cello.” Phee stands unmovable, her eyes boring holes into him. Too late, the silence whispers, and Braden’s clear motivation to get her out of the house confirms her fear.

  “Look, can we talk about this later? I really think that what’s going on with Allie is more important than—”

  “What’s going on with Allie is part of why I’m here.”

  Allie slams the door closed. “Part of what?”

  “Nothing,” Braden says. “Go to your room, Allie. This doesn’t concern you.”

  “It concerns her more than you think.” Phee can’t contain her dread any longer. “Where is the cello?”

  “You should leave.”

  Phee pushes past him and heads for the music room.

  She hears his footsteps behind her as if from a distance. “Phee—”

  But she’s already standing at the open door. The chair still sits by the music stand, but the room is empty of the only thing that matters. Phee’s knees go weak. She supports herself against the doorjamb, tries to breathe in a world where somebody has cut off all of the oxygen.

  “Braden Healey, what have you done?”

  “I tried to tell you, Phee. It had to go. I asked you, begged you—”

  “So we’re saying ‘it’ now? No more ‘she’? After everything I showed you—”

  “I told him to get rid of it,” Allie breaks in. “It’s, like, the one thing he’s done right since he moved back in.”

  “Oh, honey,” Phee says. “He can’t—”

  “Don’t you dare tell her.” Braden’s voice is fierce. “You need to leave this house, now.”