say any more—”
“Jo, wait! He doesn’t know—”
Phee is talking to herself. Damn it. She should have lied about her name. Now Braden will know she’s digging. She tosses the phone onto her mother’s kitchen table in disgust and looks up to see Bridgette, hands on hips, glaring at her.
“What are you up to, Ophelia MacPhee?”
“Nothing.”
“Try again.”
“Making a phone call.”
Bridgette pulls out a chair and sits, waving the phone at Phee. “Is this about that poor girl’s father?”
Phee gives in. Her mother will win sooner or later; it’s a waste of energy trying to hold out.
“Yes. About him, and about Allie, too.”
“And one of your grandfather’s instruments, is it?” Bridgette’s voice is unexpectedly gentle, and Phee’s resistance melts.
“It’s all such a mess,” she says. “Braden’s supposed to be playing the cello, but he has this injury to his hands and can’t play. So, he drinks. And then Allie . . . well, before I brought Allie over here the other day, she left this on her mother’s grave.” She smooths Allie’s letter out on the table, watches the sadness transfer from the paper to Bridgette’s face as she reads.
“Poor lass. Does he know this? Her father?”
Phee shakes her head. “I doubt it. She’s not talking to him.”
“Will you tell him?”
“She needs to tell him herself. And she needs to play again.”
Bridgette folds the letter up and pushes it away from her before leaning forward and making eye contact with her daughter. “Phee. Listen to me, and listen to me closely. These people’s lives are not your responsibility. I know you learned something about codependency in those AA meetings.”
“This isn’t codependency. Probably.” She laughs at the familiar expression on her mother’s face, but it’s a half-hearted laugh and she’s quickly serious. “I know, I know. But I can’t take the chance that Granddad was right. I have to—”
“You have to do nothing. I’ll never forgive the old man for laying this on you. I know you adored him, Phee, and he was a wonderful person, but he was half crazy.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“Here’s what I didn’t tell you. He came home from the war seriously ill, your grandmother said. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, raving about hearing music when there clearly was none to hear. His family admitted him to a psych unit. He was medicated and sedated. When they let him out, he seemed fine on the surface, but he was obsessed with his instruments.”
Phee thinks about a certain envelope in her cedar chest, the one she has never yet opened. The one her grandfather told her contains the secret rite that finishes a MacPhee creation off properly. “Only open it if you wish to create a binding oath,” he said. She’s considered burning it, unopened, about a million times, but it’s still there, lurking at the bottom of the trunk.
“What about his father?” Phee asks. “And grandfather? Were they all crazy, too? What about Dad? Because he said this shit has been handed down for generations.”
“Insanity can be generational. It’s possible. Your father wasn’t touched by it. But he takes after his mother’s side of the family more than the MacPhees. Maybe only some of them were crazy and just sold the story to the next of kin. The point is, curses aren’t real. This oath he bound you to isn’t real. You don’t have to do any of this.”
“I do, though.” Phee thinks uneasily about the music she hears all the time now, and wonders if her turn in the psych unit is coming. “I would, anyway, whether I’d ever sworn an oath or not. This is beyond Granddad’s stuff, Mom. Not playing is tearing the both of them apart.”
Bridgette’s sharp eyes scan her face. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you? The cellist.”
“Why would you say that?”
“It’s written all over you. All these years I’ve been waiting for you to fall in love. Sooner or later, I tell myself. One of these days, the right man will walk into her life and she’ll be unable to resist. She’ll forget all about this insanity of her grandfather’s and make a family. And now some broken-down alcoholic cellist walks on stage and he’s the one?”
Phee laughs out loud, in spite of everything. “That life you keep trying to plan for me is more a fantasy than the curse. What man would ever tolerate my obsession?”
“I was wishing that the man would become your obsession, child.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Phee whispers.
“Oh, Phee.” Bridgette reaches across the table and