music. The door to the music room is open.
Light from a streetlamp spills in through open blinds, pooling on the floor, illuminating her father and the cello. His eyes are closed. His face looks otherworldly and ethereal in the dim light, his lips parted. His body is fluid, graceful, he and the cello one soul, the music swirling around them, around Allie, real and true and not the product of a fevered imagination.
Time ceases to exist as the music draws her in. She stands there long enough for him to reach the third movement. Long enough for her bare feet to grow icy on the hardwood floor. Long enough for guilt and grief to escape from the spell that holds her entranced. She remembers what she has done and what he has done and why the music has to stop.
“Braden.” She whispers his name first. Then, louder: “Braden!”
His body jerks. His eyes fly open. The bow clatters to the floor.
He stares at her, at the cello, as if he’s never seen either of them before.
The music lingers, just for an instant, and then it slips off into the corners of the room and disappears into the shadows.
The loss of it stuns her. It’s hard to breathe. She’s aware of tears on her face, of the pain building in her chest, powerless to stop any of it.
“What are you doing?” Her rising voice breaks on a sob.
“I was dreaming,” her father says, as if he’s having to invent each word as he says it. “I was dreaming I could play, that my hands were healed, that—”
A choking sound in his throat. A great, shuddering breath, a single sob, torn up from the depths of him. His skin is ashen.
“You were playing like you used to.” Allie’s voice is accusing, sharp. “Flawless. I thought it was the recording.”
He shakes his head. His lips shape the word “no,” but no sound comes out.
“You lied!” All of the years of hurt and rage come tearing out of her at once. “Your hands are fine. You just needed an excuse so you could go be an alcoholic.”
An excuse to leave me, her heart cries.
“No,” he says. “My hands—”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hands.”
“They’re numb. I can’t—”
“Bullshit. Mom told me. It’s all in your head. The doctors said.”
“That’s not true!”
“Play,” she orders harshly. “Play it again.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
“You can. You just did. Do it!” She picks up the bow and shoves it at him.
“Allie. Stop it!”
His hands are shaking. She can see the torment written on his face as clearly as if he stood in a ring of hellfire, but she stares him down, rage filling the emptiness in her belly.
She thrusts the bow at him again. “Play!”
He accepts the bow, draws it across the strings, tentative. Plays the first few notes of the Bach, and they are discordant and wrong.
“Stop it! Play it right!” She hurls the words at him, weapons, but his hands fall to his sides, useless.
“Maybe you could play something, Allie. I saw the music on the stand. I’ve always hoped—”
“No! I learned to play because of you. I wanted to be like you. I thought maybe you’d come home and be proud of me.”
“I am proud of you.”
“Right. You don’t even know me. You didn’t show up to meet me.”
A wracking sob doubles her over, nearly drops her to her knees. Her father doesn’t move. Just sits there, frozen.
When she can catch her breath, get control of her voice, Allie straightens and delivers her condemnation. “I hate the cello, and I hate Bach, and I hate you. I want the cello out of the house. Get rid of it.”
Her father looks like she’s stabbed a knife into his chest and twisted it.
“I can’t. You don’t understand.” His lips are white.
“No, you don’t understand. I need it gone. Craigslist. Goodwill. Whatever. Just get it out of this house.”
There’s an empty, dead look in his eyes, and she has the horrible thought that she’s killed him, too, along with the rest of the family, but still the ugliness pours out of her.
“Mom was right about you all along. You’re a terrible father, a horrible, selfish human being. Are you done? Can we sleep now?”
“Are you sure?” he asks, very quietly. “That you want the cello gone?”
“Oh my God! Yes. I’m sure.”
Allie turns away from the expression on his face, from the reproach of the cello, but music follows her to bed and into restless dreams of destruction. In her dreams,