Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 31

Second Chances

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Catch up on chapter 30 here.

People leave. The fewer people here, the more the cold settles into my bones. When everyone is gone, when it’s just Dad and me in this big house, emptier than it’s ever been, the cold belongs to me.

I wrap myself in blanket after blanket, one on top of the other. I keep a beanie on. I can’t focus on anything except the fire, which burns red, flickering. Dad doesn’t ask me where I was, or what happened, or if I’m okay. He sits at the piano, plucking notes out like a child. Sometimes I recognize the melody, but usually I don’t. He’s lost the one productive outlet for his grief.

Riley texts me, all excitement and oblivion. She must have forgotten how we almost fought the last time we talked. I haven’t told her anything in days, and it makes her seem like a stranger. Or maybe I feel like the stranger.

Riley: I’m baaaaaaaaaack! Don’t spend two days without service ever. Highly unrecommended. Although the beach didn’t suck. How’s Grayson? You two kiss again??? [kiss emoji] MUST. KNOW. DETAILS.

Adaya: There’s a lot to talk about. I don’t even know where to start.

Riley: Start with the kissing, obviously

Adaya: I… think we’re fighting right now? So maybe not there?

I type and retype messages at least five different ways, but ultimately don’t send any of them. I really don’t know where to start, and though “I screwed everything up terribly and I’ll probably never be okay” crosses my mind, I’m not sure I believe it anymore.

Plus, texting hurts my hands.

Before I send anything else, Mom sends me a FaceTime request. She’s denied every video chat invite I’ve sent her, and even though now I know why, I don’t know why now. I should, technically speaking, be on a plane home.

At least Mom’s giving me the excuse I couldn’t find for Riley.

Adaya: Gotta go, Mom’s calling. Talk later???

Riley’s fiiiiiiiiiine previews across the top of my screen as I answer Mom’s call. I don’t want to talk to her. I have so much more to deal with than the implications of her dating Mr. G, but I bet that’s all we’ll talk about.

The call connects. I haven’t seen my mother look so happy. Period. Ever. Mr. Gutierrez slides into view, his arm around my mother, everything about them radiating joy. Mom should see how miserable I am. Beanie on, blanket up, not even trying for a decent camera angle. I look terrible and I don’t care that I do, but she should. And yet it isn’t Mom’s joy that disappears first. It’s Mr. Gutierrez whose face tightens, who scoots the slightest bit away from my mother and focuses his attention all on me.

“You probably don’t want to hear from us right now,” he says.

“Not really. But not for the reasons you think.”

He sighs, looks at Mom, shakes his head. Whatever they called about flutters away as he looks at me. “Want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. My words aren’t really working, anyway. “Why did you call?”

“It doesn’t matter now, honey. If you’re not feeling well, we can talk later,” Mom says.

“No, tell me. I want to know. I could use something else to focus on.”

Mr. Gutierrez raises his eyebrows at the “something else” part, but doesn’t say anything. Mom beams at him before she looks at me, and the look is familiar. I guess I spent all of seventh grade seeing a toned-down version of this smile every time she dropped me off for a lesson. “We’re engaged! He asked me tonight while we were at the lodge for dinner and…”

It’s so cold in here still. I pull a blanket tighter, tune out the details of something I’m not ready to know. I’d barely come to terms with her dating Mr. Gutierrez and now they’ll be getting married? The bird clock ticks off too many seconds of Mom’s soliloquy. I can’t bring myself to care, not because I don’t want to be happy for them, but because I’m still frozen, still fighting at Brennan’s grave, still standing in the family room while Grayson walks away.

That concert should be starting.

I couldn’t control the weather, or the canceled flights, or Mom’s engagement. But if I’d let Grayson see my emotions at their messiest instead of hiding them from him, maybe I could have been at the concert. I was just like my family.

“ — probably early spring. April, maybe? You’d be in it, of course, if you want to be, and — ”

“Actually, I changed my mind. Can we not talk details about the wedding until I’ve made it home again?”

“Right, of course,” she says. This giddy woman, so clearly in love, a stranger to me, fades and Mom becomes the businesswoman I grew up with. She pulls out her agenda. “I already re-booked your plane. We managed to get you back on your original flight, so you’ll leave in the evening on New Year’s Eve, and get home early in the morning on New Year’s Day. Will that work?”

I don’t know. It’s a lot of time to keep living in a house with a father who doesn’t really want me, with no piano to play. But it’s also, maybe, enough time to work things out with Grayson. It may take that long, and I want to be around for however long it takes.

“Sure. Hopefully this time the weather cooperates.” I smile, hoping it hides how much I need it to be true. In spite of everything, I miss my mom.

“And about your audition,” Mr. Gutierrez says. “Did you mean it when you said you wanted it canceled? You don’t want the part anymore?”

I’ve ruined my hands and I’ve ruined the piano, but turning him down is also one of the things I regret. Especially after how he’s talked to me tonight. How he listened. “It probably isn’t fair to audition me,” I say. It’s something true, and something I can tell them. “Not with, uh…” I gesture between them.

He shakes his head. “Any decision I make has nothing to do with your mother. If you want to try, I’m still free on the 30th around 3pm.”

“I don’t deserve another chance.”

“You know, I don’t agree with you, Adaya. Even though I care about your mother and about you, I respect myself and my work too much to grant favors to people who don’t deserve it.”

“Oh.” I pull an edge of the blanket tighter. It was easier to assume I didn’t earn something — that he was cheating — than to assume someone would give me grace.

His eyes are kind and when he smiles it’s like he really sees me. “I need that to be clear between us for the future.”

“I’m sorry I accused you of only taking me on because of my mom. And also for saying you pushed me away because of her.” In retrospect, accusing him of both makes no sense.

“I forgive you. And I meant what I said. The offer stands.”

This is a lot to take in, especially as I’m still thawing out from the cold. “I’ll think about it. Can I tell you tomorrow?”

He nods and Mom smiles. “Talk to you then.”

“Yeah. And congratulations.”

Our call ends, and I do want to think about it, but despite how tired I am, I don’t want to make a plan alone. I don’t have the strength in my fingers to text much, but I can manage one more.

Adaya: Can you handle a phone call? It’ll be easier that way.

Riley’s response is immediate, not a text but a video chat.

“Hey, stranger.” I smile.

“I figured this way you could show me all the snow you neglected to send to me,” she says. “Take me on a tour. Then tell me how you’ve been. Really.”

“You know it’s dark here too, right?”

“Yep. Show me anyway.”

So I do. The sliding glass door where the layer of ice is still peeking through, the front door where I can pick up a snowball and throw it at her. Throwing something at Riley helps loosen the block that’s been in my tongue every time I talked to her. I climb upstairs and settle onto my bed and tell her everything. About Brennan and the music and Grayson and — impossibly — Mom and Mr. Gutierrez. All the things I should have been telling her all along.

“I owe you an apology for the way I’ve closed up this trip,” I tell her after I’ve confessed. “I wasn’t mad, I just… I had to process these things before I could put them into words.”

“We’re good. I promise. I know how your mind works. Plus, I have something for you to think about. And we both know how much you like thinking.” She laughs. I missed the sound of Riley’s laughter.

“Okay, yes, tell me.”

“You know how you need everything to be perfect the first time, every time? First day of school this year, you pulled me aside. ‘Riley, this is it. High school is starting. Everything counts now. Everything matters. No more do-overs. I hope I get this right, and you better get it right, too.’”

“We both know you’re exaggerating.”

“Not by much. Anyway, has that been true? No more mistakes? No more mess-ups, no more do-overs? Tell me how many second chances you have right now.”

“You forgave me when you didn’t need to.”

“I don’t count. Keep going.” She grins, ready to hear my answers, things she already knows.

“It’s late. I should sleep.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me,” she says. “But write it down. Think about it. Night, my friend. Love you. No matter what.”

“Love ya back.”

I don’t exactly want to think about what Riley said, but the thoughts come unbidden. I might have a second chance with Grayson. I have another audition. Even Mr. Gutierrez himself… after our conversation, I wonder if he could be my second chance at having a father.

Castles rearrange themselves in my head. The castle where my father was my dad in a real and honest way was already crumbling, but today has turned the whole thing to rubbles and ruin. Simultaneously, I build the foundation for a brand-new fortress. A home with music again, and no more secrets. Of all the stepfathers in the world to have, I like the one I’ll be getting. Even if it’s going to be very weird at first.

I don’t know if I believe it yet, but maybe Riley is right, and life isn’t lived in the once-in-a-lifetimes. Maybe the best we can ever do is in deciding something — or someone — gets a second chance.

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