Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 1

Adaya in the Air

Not sure what this story is? The synopsis is available here.

The sky is a starless black outside the small oval window of this plane. L.A. turns the horizon orange, but true dawn won’t catch us until we’re halfway up California. By then, every plan I’ve made, every calculated decision that went into mapping out winter break of my freshman year, will be ruined.

I push my glasses up my nose, then pull out my bullet journal and open to my December spread. In two days, four hours, and eighteen minutes, I’m scheduled to audition for the piano chair in the pit orchestra for our spring musical. I’ve been counting down to this moment ever since Mr. Gutierrez announced he was using an all-student pit. I hate that the only thing I know for certain now is how I won’t be there for my audition.

“Excuse me,” someone says, her voice professional. She must be talking to the mother and son in the row with me. I keep my focus on my schedule, trying to find a single part I can save.

The woman beside me nudges my arm. “I think she’s talking to you.”

When I turn, the flight attendant’s mouth is drawn in a single stern line, but her eyes are soft. “Your tray must be in the upright position until we’ve reached cruising altitude.”

Nothing about this trip is cruising for me. Not traveling alone, not seeing Dad again, not anything that comes after. But I nod as my cheeks heat, closing my journal and fastening the tray. I don’t know how to be disobedient for a single moment. We still haven’t left the terminal, though, so I text Mom.

Adaya: Plane’s about to take off. Wish you could have taken me to the airport. Miss you already.

Mom: Miss you too.

Her text is terse and quick and unlike her. Something’s been up with her recently that I don’t understand. She told me she couldn’t get out of work to drop me off, not even for a pre-dawn flight. I don’t want her to dismiss me so easily now. I want to keep talking before I’m forced into airplane mode. Almost two whole weeks without her is going to be hard enough.

Adaya: I’m nervous about seeing Dad.

I squeeze my phone until my knuckles whiten as her message comes through.

Mom: Why? You know he loves you. He wanted you to come.

That’s not exactly how I remember it. At this point, I think Mr. G knows more about me than Dad does, and he hasn’t even been my private piano teacher for a year. Still remembered my birthday, when Dad didn’t. Pulled me aside after band to make sure I knew about the pit auditions.

But I don’t know how to say any of that to Mom. After all, what I see most in her message are the things she didn’t say. Things like “Say hi to Dad for me,” or “I wish I was going with you.” She hadn’t even checked in to make sure my best friend Riley’s parents got me to the airport okay. I hope she thanked them.

Adaya: yeah, I know that. Love you.

Mom: ❤ ❤ ❤

While my phone’s out, I scroll back a few names to the text Dad sent me, the one that started it all.

Dad: I think ur mom’s kept u updated, but my mom didn’t make it. Funeral is Dec 20. I know she would have loved it if u came to play for her service.

That was it. No condolences, no jokes, no wondering how I’ve been. Just him asking something of me when I knew it wasn’t really a question. After I got his text, I sat in the chair beside our fake Christmas tree we put up the week before Thanksgiving, knees high, feet tapping so fast it was more a hum than the beat of a metronome. “How could he just text me about it?”

“Maybe he’s crying and doesn’t want you to hear.” Mom fretted in her usual way, pacing between the kitchen and the dining room, stopping at the calendar every time she passed it. A pen remained ready in her hand. Sometimes she raised it to the calendar, but so far, she hadn’t changed anything.

“Right. Maybe. It just didn’t read that way. I’m gonna miss Grandma, too, but he didn’t even acknowledge that. Makes me think he just wants me there as a favor.”

Mom stopped her pacing. She even set the pen down on the dining room table, where it doesn’t belong. Then she perched on the arm of my chair and snuggled her feet under my legs. I liked Mom informal. It made me feel like she was just my mom, and not Ms. Finley, attorney-at-law, like she normally is. “Your dad’s never been good at texting. I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.”

“And I’m a slacker,” I said, rolling my eyes. Mom didn’t even chastise me for it, so I knew something was wrong.

“Daya. I talked to him earlier, okay? He’s got a lot going on. A lot to coordinate with your Aunt Patricia and Uncle Jeff.”

“You… talked to Dad? On purpose?” I focused on the twinkling Christmas lights and the ornaments I’d made growing up. Mom had taken every single one when we left Bend. I’d helped her pack the box, pulling them from the tree when Christmas was hardly over.

“He really wants you there. We had details to work out.”

I sat a little straighter and my feet stopped hitting the chair. I hadn’t heard the rhythm I’d created before, but now I heard its absence. “You had this whole thing decided before he sent the text, didn’t you? Why is he even asking me?” Because he really wants you there, I thought. I thought it as hard as I could.

“Not all the details, Adaya,” she said. Mom focused on the Christmas tree lights, too. Their reflection in the whites of her eyes turned everything to rainbows. “And it’s still your choice if you want to go.”

“My audition is that week.”

“I already talked to Mr. G about it. There’s no reason you can’t audition remotely.”

Then she reminded me about Grandma Nancy’s piano.

Every good memory I made in Bend was on the bench beside her. I have the upright at school, and a digital piano at home, but nothing has ever been like the worn-in keys of her Yamaha.

Adaya: I’m sorry, Dad. I know you’ll miss her. I should be there by the 19th when school is out.

Dad: kk. See u then. Maybe play Heaven Can Wait?

And now it is December 19th. Outside my window, the state I’ve called home for nearly five years shrinks into a vague nothing, brown hills and houses as small as the sand on the Santa Monica beaches. To anyone on the ground, I’m a trail of exhaust, a dot like a gnat on the pale blue December sky. Nothing important.

As we pass through a layer of clouds I’m sure we couldn’t see from the ground, the seatbelt light turns off with a satisfying ding. I turn away from the window and pull the tray table down again, placing my bullet journal on it. It took me three weeks, seven highlighters, and fifteen different colors of marker to get it right. I had everything planned. Time with Mom, beach trips and movies with Riley, and three hours a day at the piano, spread into morning, afternoon, and evening practices. When I’d do scales and warm-ups. When I’d break down my music and work on it measure by measure. When I’d play through the whole thing, trying to get it perfect for my audition.

I had hours for present shopping and decorating sugar cookies and wrapping presents and the Christmas Eve service Mom and I would dress up for. Enough time for reading at least three books, too.

Now, though? None of that mattered. My plans were completely irrelevant if I’d be staying with Dad instead.

Even though they haven’t been together in five years, sometimes I wonder how they ended up married in the first place. Mom’s just like me. Her own overflowing planner, three pens, two highlighters, is proof enough of that. But Dad? He wouldn’t know a planner if it hit him in the back of the head. I bet he can tell you the release days for seventeen different Netflix seasons, but there’s not much beyond that he finds worth tracking. The color-coded calendar in the kitchen came with Mom and me, and I doubt Dad’s replaced it.

I take a breath and grab a green pen to circle anything from my schedule I can copy to my new spread. Day by day, hour by hour, I run the nib of the pen along the page. No. No. No. None of this. Day two. Day three. Day fourteen. When I reach the end, I can’t save a thing. Even my audition time is changing since I’ll be remote.

The mother and son I’m sitting by whisper in hushed tones, hers urgent, his worried. I try not to listen, but I hear anyway as I try to start over. Red for the outline, green for the letters. Christmas cheer. Maybe it will be contagious.

“But honey, you can’t just stay here alone — ”

The boy hmphs. “I wouldn’t be alone. There’s so many people.”

“I know, Elliott, but they’re strangers and you need to come with me.”

“The bathroom’s small. There’s no room for us both. I remember that from Texas. Do you remember that from Texas?”

“Honey, I know. But right now, Mommy needs you to…?

My spread is very nearly drawn in now, anticipating how I’ll fill it. Boxes and boxes full of possibilities. But the boy’s got a point. I’m sitting right here. “Hey, um, if you needed to use the restroom, I can watch him. I’ve babysat a lot.”

“You don’t mind?” Her face is pressed tight. I can tell it’s necessary.

“Not at all. Go. Really.”

She sighs, then looks between us like she’s wondering when he’ll be fifteen and flying on his own. I wonder if she’s impatient for it or scared fifteen is right around the corner. “If you’re sure. I’ll be right back.” One hand slides almost subconsciously toward her stomach. I didn’t notice before, but it rounds a little in a telling, hopeful way. “Can’t go two hours these days.”

I laugh as she moves into the aisle and the boy slides into the middle seat beside me.

“I’m Adaya,” I say to the boy.

“Elliott,” he replies. “I’m five and a half.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“What are you doing? Is that math homework? I had to draw rectangles for my math homework, but mine were never that straight.”

“I’ve had a lot more practice than you. But it’s not math homework. I’m making a plan.”

Elliott is on his knees now, his whole body turned toward me, arms sideways on the armrest. His seatbelt isn’t buckled. I wish he’d buckle in. “Is it a Christmas plan? It looks like a Christmas plan.”

“I guess it is,” I say with a smile.

Elliott nods, satisfied. I turn my attention back to the spread and start to mark in the things I know will happen. The funeral. The audition. It’s not enough, but it soothes me just to see it.

“What are those new rectangles for?” Elliott asks. His breath heats my shoulder as he leans on the tray, bumping my elbow in the process. My lucky marker slips in my hand and a jagged line drags across both pages.

The whole spread is useless now. My stomach coils into a knot. I want to curl up my feet, make myself small. Five things I see, I think automatically, but thing number one is Elliott. I take a breath.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Elliott says. “You worked so hard on your plan and now it’s broken. It was an accident, I promise. A million ninety-nine times, I promise.”

“I know. I believe you. Any chance you have a book with you? I can read to you instead,” I say. I should probably put this journal away. I think it’s cursed.

“Yeah! Lots of books! I have a very good one. Mom!” he adds suddenly, like a sixth sense for her presence. “Can you get my books from my backpack? I want to read one to my new friend.”

So he does, and I listen. Then I read, and he listens, and we spend the rest of our flight inside his books.

When I step into the terminal at PDX, I pull out my phone and take a picture of my shoes against the green, distinctive patterned carpet and send it to my mom. I haven’t been here since before we moved, but I’m on Instagram enough to know the rules when you’re in Portland. I think about posting the picture to my own social media but can’t think of a good enough caption.

I’m not home. I’m not on vacation. So I don’t post it. Even Riley I just text, no attachment.

Adaya: Made it to the airport. Time to go find Dad.

Riley: Have so much fun!! Do you think there will be snow??? I really hope there’s snow.

I grin. Riley adopted me into her friend group pretty much immediately when I moved to Santa Monica in fourth grade. I think at first she took me on as a project, someone quiet and withdrawn she wanted to see have fun. For the longest time it worked, but now that we’re in high school, she flits between social groups with gusto and I oblige her when she drags me along. We’re in band together — she plays the trumpet, of course. That’s about all we have in common, but she’s never forced me to be anyone other than who I am.

I usually enjoy her company. Everything makes her so excited, like the glass is not half-full but filling up, and any moment the whole thing will be overflowing. I’m envious of that, but sometimes she overwhelms me, like ice cream when I’m already full.

Adaya: There will definitely be snow, Ri. There’s basically a 100% chance of that.

Riley: Send. Me. Pics. LY!!!

Adaya: LYB

I send the text just before walking through the doors to the main lobby, where my dad should be waiting. I put my phone in my pocket and drag my carry-on behind me, wondering what it will be like when I get to him. For almost five years, I’ve thought about seeing him again. Played through every reunion situation I could imagine. The smile he’ll have for me, one that spreads to his eyes. Five years of questions. A lifetime of answers.

My heartbeat quickens and my stomach jumps. It’s time. Before I’m through the glass doors, I see him pacing, snow boots on, a heavy jacket in his arms. He’s not really looking at me, but maybe he’s looking for me. He just doesn’t see me yet.

As I get closer, I notice more things: the dark circles around his eyes, the way his gray hair sticks out in a million directions, even though it’s hardly an inch long, how his glasses hang from a pocket of his flannel button-down shirt like an afterthought. I straighten my own glasses. He looks up then and meets my eyes. His mouth opens, then clamps shut as he swallows. The corners tilt ever so slightly upward. “Adaya.”

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