Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 30

Elsa’s Song

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Catch up on chapter 29 here.

Snow starts falling again as we make our way toward my grandmother’s house. This snow is peaceful, flutters of snowflakes that land on Grayson’s beanie and shoulders in front of me. I’m glad he doesn’t look back much, so I can pretend I’m not staring at the patterns they make against him. So I can pretend I’m not staring at him.

I feel better enough to know I’m not functioning right. My thoughts are only half-coherent, images that press down like butterfly feet, then take off before I can capture them. The cold of the wind, the heat of the cuts all over my fingers, the blush in my cheek, the warmth of Grayson near me. Dad, cold like snow. Mom, absent like sun. Grayson, everywhere like the cars lining the road by Grandma Nancy’s house.

Like the cars by Grandma Nancy’s house. I don’t recognize very many of them, and they’re here, chains covering the wheels. Oh no. “Seriously?”

Grayson stops and I catch up to him. I don’t want how much I want him near me. The concert starts in a few hours and he’s still here beside me. We fought. I was wrong. I get what he wanted now, when I told him too late about the change in plans. He wanted the feelings I tried to hide about how much it hurt to have to go home.

But his ice-blue eyes soften into pools of water when he looks at me. I don’t know if I’ll ever look at myself the same after everything I’ve done, and it’s like he’s completely forgotten. “Seriously, what?”

“The estate sale. I thought with the weather…”

Grayson shrugs. He’s moved close enough now that I feel his shoulder rub against me. I shy away. “It’s Bend, not L.A. This is just a bad day in winter. Once it cleared up, of course people came out.”

I walk faster so we aren’t side by side anymore. I need something else to think about besides where I am in relationship to him. We trek into the garage, which is blissfully empty, and leave all our snow gear there. Grayson creaks open the door, then stops abruptly. “What’s going on?” a man calls from inside.

“Sorry,” Grayson says. “We’re just coming in from a walk.”

I’m surprised someone would stand so close to the doorway to the garage, but once we’re inside, it’s clear every square inch is occupied by someone examining my grandmother’s things. A woman in a power suit and a pom-topped beanie holds a clipboard in the middle of the kitchen. Strangers crowd around her, talking over one another as they negotiate prices on Grandma’s china, on her furniture, on the collectible dolls that had been in the spare room with the boxes.

Grayson pauses, a glitch in the middle of all the energy around us, then weaves toward the family room with such intent it worries me. With a quick intake of breath, I realize where he’s going. The white noise of negotiations fades until the only thing I hear is impossible. While Grayson moves with precision, I don’t. He has the intent of a knife point. I more closely resemble a bulldozer. But it doesn’t matter. In a heartbeat, I’m standing in front of Grandma’s Yamaha piano.

Meghan sits in the middle of the bench, which has been pushed all the way to the right side of the piano. Liam’s on her lap, one chubby pointer finger reaching for a G as his mother grips his wrist. “Again?” he asks, and together they pluck out the introduction to “Let It Go.”

Liam isn’t performing. No one is gathered around to hear him. He’s simply a child learning a new song, background noise, utterly normal in this household. Neither Liam nor Meghan notices me staring. Grayson does. I feel it before I see it, then see my reflection in his glasses: the dropped jaw, the shock in my eyes. “You okay?”

“The piano works,” I whisper. Grayson doesn’t know what happened — he can’t — and from here it isn’t even obvious. My cousin and her son block the broken parts, and the notes they play, an octave too high, don’t sound waterlogged.

Grayson looks like he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t.

Liam looks up as the introduction ends and smiles as he sees me. “Daya! Come play with us! You know this one, right? Everyone knows Elsa’s song.”

“Of course I do, Liam.” I stretch my fingers and wince. Just the stretching makes me bleed again, from ice that cut me like glass cut the piano. It’s fair. But I want to try anyway. I leave Grayson’s side and come to the treble end of the Yamaha.

I reach for the highest G, so I can mirror Liam, but Meghan places her hand over my wrist instead of her son’s. “Your hands, Adaya.”

Without thinking, I stuff them behind me.

“Was it the glass? You need to wear shoes and use a broom to clean up that kind of a mess.” She says it like a fact, no blame, no guilt-tripping. So even though it isn’t how I hurt myself, it’s all I can respond to.

“You know what happened?”

Meghan takes Liam under his arms and sets him down on the far side of her, then turns around to face me. “Eric asked me to come over to clean up a bit more before the estate sale. He didn’t know where you went.”

“He didn’t try to find me, either.” I slump down beside her and play through the introduction of “Let It Go,” just like Liam wanted. Every note hurts. A trickle of blood seeps between my fingers and lands on the keys, one more red stain. “I was at Brennan’s grave. I can’t believe I actually threw something. A lot of times when I’m mad, I want to, but I’ve never actually done it.”

“Hey,” she says. “We all get angry sometimes. It’s over. All you can do now is play with the notes you have left.”

“But I can’t play. Not really.” Numb and bleeding hands won’t let me. Not now. Not for a couple of days. Maybe even longer.

“Then you take the time to heal, and come back to the music when you can.”

I stand up and study the piano. The moment I do, Liam clambers over his mother and back to the G, where his chubby fingers search for the next note. The glass has been swept up; the bottle disposed of. The only remaining evidence is the smell, which is sickly sweet but burns my throat, and the wine-logged keys, broken for the three octaves right around middle C. While the whole thing isn’t ruined, not all eighty-eight keys, this piano will never truly play a song again.

More than Liam still trying to pluck his way through a melody, more than Meghan’s kindness, more than the sting of my hands, this is what breaks me. I didn’t lose my songs; I lost all of them. Dad’s. Brennan’s. Grayson’s.

With a sigh, I return to Grayson and reach for his hand almost without thinking. He’s been there when I needed him the whole time I’ve been in Bend, and I need him now. While Grayson doesn’t shove my hand away, his hand in mine is light, tentative. Our fingers interlace. Our palms don’t touch.

I have to tell Grayson what happened. But not here. I turn my back on the broken keys. “Grayson, can we talk outside?” I want to be away from the chatter of these people. I want him to be somewhere comfortable when I tell him about the piano and the wine.

He looks out the window then back at me, then at the fireplace next to where the tree was a few hours ago. “The cold is the last place you should be right now. You should stay inside. Warm up.”

“Doesn’t the concert start soon? I should have gone back to your house.”

Grayson takes a deep breath and stares at his toes. “Look. I’m glad you’re safe. The text you sent really had me worried. But the concert isn’t a good idea. I don’t want to make things worse for you.”

“Grayson, I — ”

“Stay safe. Please. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Then he unlaces our fingers and goes outside without me.

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