of his memory. He lies on the lumpy foldout couch in the common area of the cabin, trying not to disturb the girls in the loft above with his restlessness. Phee and Jean share one of the bedrooms, Len and Dennis the other. Jo has promised—or threatened, he’s not entirely sure which—to come out in the morning.
Despite the uncomfortable couch, Braden is relieved to be alone. Besides, here at the foot of the ladder that leads to the loft, he’s closer to Allie. His ears are tuned for signs of restlessness. Twice already, he’s climbed the ladder to check on the girls, Allie sandwiched between Steph and Katie, their version of suicide watch.
All three of them are sound asleep. He keeps hoping he’ll drift into the solace of sleep, but the longer he lies here, the further away it seems. If he gets up and turns on a light, he fears it will wake Allie, who needs her rest, so there’s nothing he can do to distract himself from his thinking.
The cello isn’t helping. She’s right here in the room with him, still in the case, invisible in the dark but vivid in his mind. He can call up in exquisite detail the sensation of her weight resting against him, the strings pressing into the pads of his fingers, the easy glide of the bow, how the music seemed as natural and necessary as breathing.
“Remember?” she whispers, and the lines of now and then blur as he drops into the memory of the last time the two of them made music, right here, in this room.
He’s supposed to be practicing the Bach, but he can’t focus. What’s the point in mastering a piece if he’s not going to play again? Letting his heart speak in the music, he moves through a series of laments and nameless melodies born from the union of his soul with the cello’s.
“It’s not that I don’t love you,” he whispers. “I have to do what’s right. This one is goodbye.”
He begins to play the lullaby he wrote for Allie . . .
In the present, in the now, something gives way inside him, a dam bursting under the pressure of a memory that refuses to be contained. He’s lying on the lumpy mattress, his lower back aching, and he’s also playing the lullaby, playing it for the very last time.
He’s immersed in his thoughts and the music when he sees the headlights, an unexpected flare in the dark window.
Hope leaps in his heart. Maybe it’s Lilian come to tell him they’ll figure something out. She’s had time to think, to understand how the music is everything he is, that he’ll be only half a man without it. He stops playing, watches the door as if it is his only hope of salvation.
But instead of Lilian, it’s Mitch.
“No,” the Braden lying on the lumpy mattress whispers, pushing back against the memory. “No, no, no.” But it’s too late; he can’t stop it now.
Mitch, a cooler in his hands, stamps his feet on the doormat to shake off the snow. His eyes home in on Braden. “Good God, man, you look like hell warmed over.”
Braden, stricken by the dashing of his last desperate hope, says nothing. Mitch clomps across the room in his boots, leaving a trail of precisely patterned prints behind him. He drops the cooler on the kitchen counter with a thud. “Want a beer?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Suit yourself.” Mitch pulls a six-pack out of the cooler, frees a can from the plastic and pops the top, takes a long drink. “That’s what the doctor ordered. Jo sent food. She wasn’t sure if you brought anything, said you might forget to eat. That’s never going to be a problem for me.”
Mitch drains half of his beer, opens a bag of chips. “We need to talk. That’s why I came out here.” His gaze slides away from Braden’s. He crushes the can, already empty, and tosses it into the trash. Opens another.
“Might go easier with a beer. Sure you don’t want one?”
Braden can’t imagine what Mitch wants, why he’s here. They’re not close, have never had anything in common.
“What’s going on? Jo okay?”
“For the moment. Look, this isn’t easy to say. Seriously. Can you put that cello away for just a minute? Have a drink. Or two. It’ll take the edge off.”
Braden sits up in bed, breathing far too fast.
Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me.
Getting up as quietly as possible, he grabs the box of