nods to indicate yes, an edge of suppressed laughter making the paroxysm worse. When she can finally speak, she croaks, “Trust me to plunge us from a sublime contemplation of the heavens to the stupidity of trying to breathe my own spit.” She wipes tears from her eyes, the moisture cold on fingers already starting to turn numb, and then shoves her hands into the pockets of her inadequate jacket.
“What’s this about me being right?”
“My life. What’s happened to my family. I spent the last eleven years being a victim. Poor Braden. Can’t play the cello anymore. Can’t see his kids. Please pass the bottle. Typical alcoholic wallowing. The truth is, all along I had choices. Could have fought for the kids. Could have found another outlet for my music. I did this, Phee. There is a curse, and I’m it.”
“Hard on yourself much? Not being able to play is huge, and we both know alcohol is a—”
He interrupts her with an impatient brush of his hand. “Before it all went completely south. Before Mitch died and my hands were damaged and all of it, I made a choice then, too, Phee. I chose to stop playing the cello.”
Cold shivers chase themselves up Phee’s spine, butterflies flutter in her belly.
“See?” her grandfather’s voice says in her head. “I told you.”
“Why?” she asks, turning to face Braden. “How?”
He keeps his head tipped back, eyes on the stars.
“You were brilliant,” Phee goes on. “Any orchestra in the world must have been open to you.”
“Lil gave me an ultimatum. Her and the kids or the cello. Either or.”
“But that’s ridiculous, Braden. It’s who you are.”
“She had a point, maybe. We’d been fighting over the cello for years. I’d tried playing less, but music wanted all of me, and it left her out. When I was working on a song, it owned me for days. I’d drag myself away to spend time with her, with the kids, but it was just the surface of me. It wasn’t fair to her.”
Or maybe she was just a jealous bitch who didn’t get music. Phee clamps her lips to keep the thought locked up.
“I remember this one time we were playing a game with some friends, one of those conversation-starter card games, you know? And this question came up. ‘If there was a fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?’ My friend answered, ‘My wife.’ No hesitation, no consideration, just blurted it out almost before the question had been read. And then it was my turn to answer.”
“And you said cello?”
“Not out loud. But I hesitated. In my mind I was like, ‘Can’t I manage both?’ Or, ‘surely I’ll grab the cello and Lil can take care of herself.’ I mean, if there really were a fire, I wouldn’t ever have left her to burn, but I’d for sure be trying to save both of them. Lilian answered for me. ‘He’d rescue the cello.’
“Our friends laughed. They thought it was a joke. But between the two of us, we knew there was a kernel of truth there. We didn’t talk about it then. Maybe we should have, but there would have been no point. I couldn’t alter who I was, and she wanted—needed—more from me. I shouldn’t have ever married. Should have known better.”
“Maybe you just married the wrong woman.” The stars and the darkness give Phee the courage to say the words.
He shrugs. “What might have been. No sadder words, right? I can’t go back. Can’t change anything in the past. I thought I’d made the right decision, giving up the cello. Same as if there were a fire, right? Save my family first.”
“And now?”
“Now? Just thinking about Allie not playing anymore makes me furious. How dare Lilian try to separate her from that? As a child, she was all music. She could sing on key almost as soon as she could talk. I taught her the names of the notes, and she’d go around the house telling us what note the vacuum cleaner was humming, or the dishwasher. She had color connections for every note in the scale. She’d stand between my legs, tucked between me and the cello for an hour at a time, just soaking up the vibrations.”
“She blames the music for the accident,” Phee murmurs.
“She told me. In the hospital, after . . . God, Phee. No wonder she tried to kill herself. If there’s fault anywhere, it’s her mother’s for making her feel she had to