Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 33

The Message in the Music

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When I leave Grayson’s house, far too aware of the feel of my lips, I am ready to conquer anything the world could possibly throw at me. Even an audition with my mom’s fiancé. Even my dad.

That changes when I walk inside. The bright red sweater I’m wearing, which made me feel like a flower in the melting snow outside, is a target now. Dad is on a couch in the living room, television off, in exactly the spot where I left my bullet journal before going to Grayson’s. Tears stream down his face.

He’s going to wrinkle the pages and I don’t even care.

Because, as far as I know, there’s only one page in there that could bring him to tears. I even labeled the page in block letters.

How convenient.

I walk toward him, and he doesn’t even flinch at my approach. He’s lost in my notes the way I was. He sees what I saw: that he could have known. That Brennan left a note. The blues and greens smear down from the title, blurring with the letters — the words — I found in Brennan’s music. This shouldn’t feel like it’s my fault. All I did was write it down.

“Did you really not know?” I say as I curl beside him on the couch. I know the answer, but it’s all I can think to ask.

“I watched him work on this music every day for months. I saw how much care he put into it. Draft after draft that got recycled. I kept telling him how beautiful it was.”

It feels wrong to sit here comforting my dad. It feels even more wrong not to. “It is beautiful.”

“But it was never just music. You didn’t even know him and you figured it out, and I never did, but if I had…”

Dad keeps falling apart because of people who are not me. He keeps replaying these moments like he can change them.

“If you had, I wouldn’t exist.” It’s a dangerous thing to say, but it’s a true thing.

He doesn’t hesitate. Not for a single instant. “No, but maybe he still would.”

There it is, then. The truth he’s danced around this whole trip, and probably my whole life. It should hurt more than it does, hearing my dad say he’d gladly trade my existence for Brennan’s. I try to summon the pain I should be feeling, but he’s been numbing me, preparing me for the final incision. It’s almost a relief, hearing out loud what I’ve known the whole time.

How he feels about me doesn’t matter. He’d have to be worthy of being called my dad for that to be true. Dad huffs air out toward his eyebrows, like he’s trying in vain to dry his own tears. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. Why do you think he wouldn’t tell me? Brennan and I, we — ”

“No.” I have so many more important things to do than listen to Dad right now. Work on my audition. Text Riley. Count the number of snowflakes melting on the front window.

Dad looks up, confused. I guess I haven’t said “No” to him since I was a little kid. I probably should have more often. “I thought you wanted to know everything about him.”

I shrug. Part of me will always wonder what I missed, not knowing him. But the most important thing is what Dad missed by never knowing me. “Let me have my journal back.”

He grips it tighter, the way he grips everything tighter.

“Please. I need it for some schoolwork.”

Dad relents and hands it back, but once I’m holding it, I’m uncomfortable. This thing has caused us both so much pain. I rip out the tearstained page without even creasing it first. It comes out jagged and I hand it over to him. “I don’t need this anymore.”

For a minute I don’t think he’s going to take it, but he does, gently, before folding it into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Our movie is due back at Blockbuster. Want to come with?”

Blockbuster. Brennan’s favorite place. This house. These memories. I wonder if Dad’s spiraling because there’s nowhere left to go here but in circles. If he was somewhere Brennan never was, maybe the ghost wouldn’t chase him the same way. “You don’t need to go to Blockbuster.”

“They have late fees.”

“That’s not what I mean. Grandma’s gone now. Brennan’s been gone for a long time. Staying in Bend won’t bring either of them back. Didn’t you tell me you’d wanted to see the world? Travel? Go to Italy. See Toronto and Argentina. Visit the Eiffel Tower and the London Eye. Come see me perform in California sometime. Literally nothing is stopping you. Go.” The more certain I get, the more I talk, the faster, the louder. But he stares at me like I’m speaking Spanish.

“There’s still a lot to do here. Mom’s house needs emptied and sold. There are logistics to figure out that you don’t understand. I can’t just abandon my family.”

His family. My dead grandmother. My dead brother. Not me.

“But when everything’s done here, and work has cleared up, I’ll think about it,” he says.

It’s so obviously a dismissal that I get up and head to the family room without a goodbye. He doesn’t move.

It’s not until I get there that I remember the piano is, effectively, gone. I sit on the bench and it creaks with my weight. Wine must have soaked into this wood, too. I run a single finger up the keys, from the unaffected lower notes through the middle octaves that wedge together like crooked teeth. I press down on the treble end, thumb on the second-highest A, pinkie on the highest F. The chord of my initials. I know it’s the last time I’ll play this piano.

I press the sustain pedal, let the A and F ring out one last time. Though I’m sure the notes have faded, I keep my foot down half a second longer, hoping for an echo. But it’s silent. There aren’t any more ghosts in this house to sing back my song. I stand and go back to find Dad. He’s catatonic on the couch, staring at his phone.

“Dad?” He doesn’t answer me. I didn’t expect him to. “I’m sorry about the piano. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“It’s done now.” There’s nonchalance in his tone. Too much of it. He’s smoothing over our world. A jingle I recognize from some dumb game fills the air with tinny, synthesized music. Dad doesn’t even glance up. He’s telling me a fight isn’t worth it.

This time, he’s right. Fighting isn’t worth it because he never would fight for me. I’m done. I have better things to fight for. “Never mind. If I get my way, we aren’t even going to talk anymore. Once I’m home.”

He says nothing, the music of his game getting between us, expanding like a bubble trying to push me farther and farther away. But I’m already gone.

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