Everything You Are(11)

Phee has cyberstalked her for so long the girl feels like family. They are friends on Instagram and Facebook, where Phee’s handle is “Lucia Luthier.” She posts music pics and memes and never anything personal. She knows that the girl with the harshly dyed black hair sitting on Allie’s left is her best friend since grade school, Steph, who plays the flute in the orchestra and isn’t as tough as she looks.

The woman on the right, as proprietary and possessive of Allie as Phee is of the violins and cellos entrusted to her care, is an unknown. She must be a relative and is therefore a problem. Because Allie is Phee’s only remaining link to the cello—she thinks of it as “THE CELLO,” all caps, sometimes followed by exclamation marks—and if Allie is whisked away to an unknown location, then this necessary surveillance becomes almost impossible.

Phee also feels guilt.

She hopes, and mostly believes, that her parents are right and her grandfather was crazy. Curses don’t exist. Allie has lost her mother and her brother because of an accident. Just another tragic, random event. A car in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody’s fault, certainly not Phee’s.

It’s been years since Braden stopped playing. Surely, if there were such a thing as a curse, it would have fallen long ago.

But Phee can’t quite believe this comforting theory. Can’t help thinking that if her grandfather was sane, and if the stories he told her were true, then these two lives cut short may be a direct result of the fact that she has not followed through on the oath she swore on the night the old man died. Her fault. Her responsibility to put things right before something else happens.

A movement in the aisle catches her attention, a tall man walking in late, just as Phee had done. His hair is dark and unruly, touched with gray at the temples. She catches only a glimpse of his profile as he passes her and slips into a pew two rows up. A face more dramatic than handsome, too thin, disfigured by a scar that bisects it from cheek to jaw.

And her heart surges.

Older than the last time she saw him, battered and scarred like a rental violin, but definitely Braden Healey, here and in the flesh. Phee’s pulse accelerates, and not just because she’ll have a chance to talk to him about the cello. She’s been in love with the man and his music for almost as long as she can remember.

Phee stares at the back of his head as if her life depends on keeping it in sight, tuning out the funeral, the sounds of sobbing, the photographs of Trey and Lilian flashing across the screen. Eleven years she’s been hunting for him. Now that she’s found him, she doesn’t know what to do with him, other than be damn sure she doesn’t lose him again.

As soon as the service is over, she gets up and moves to the back. Braden is on the center aisle, he’ll have to come out this door. A lot of people seem to have the same idea, not to catch up with Braden but rather waiting to offer condolences to Allie. Phee is jostled on all sides, hemmed in, edged away from where she wants to be.

She’s tall, five ten without heels, can see over or around enough people to watch Allie walk down the aisle, then stop, turn, and plant her heels. Sees Braden come to a halt in front of her. Resorting to rudeness, Phee works her way closer where she can eavesdrop on the whole interaction. Talking to him here and now is an impossibility, too many people, too much going on.

Phee tails the little group out of the church, Allie, Braden, and the unpleasant relative. She watches Allie drag Braden into the limo, then follows the funeral traffic to the cemetery. She would have attended the funeral in any case. She forces herself to imprint all of it on her mind and heart. The two caskets. Allie’s stricken face, and Braden’s. All of this is a reminder of the dire necessity of what she is about to do.

After the funeral, though, when the car pulls away from the curb with Allie, Braden, and the relative in it, she draws a breath of relief and allows her intense focus to relax a little. If Allie is taking him home, then that’s the perfect place for the conversation they need to have. No crowds, nowhere for him to go, plenty of time for Phee to make her case.





Chapter Seven

BRADEN

The bones of the house are the same, but it looks older. Weary. A little unkempt.

The paint is faded. The shingles are weathered. The yard needs to be mowed.

Braden’s feet remember the sidewalk and the steps of the front porch, they remember to clean themselves on the doormat, and for a few seconds of free fall, he looks for Lilian in the entryway, hands on hips, pretending to scold while really waiting for a kiss.

How she’d loved playing house in those early days when they first moved in. She’d arranged and rearranged the furniture, had practically danced with the vacuum cleaner and the duster.

“You don’t need to do all that, Lil,” he would say, kissing her. “Let me help you.”

“I love to do it,” she’d protested. “I’ve always wanted my very own house.”

He stops there on the front porch, remembering them happy, clutching the same suitcase that left the house with him eleven years ago. Now here he is, the prodigal returned, but there’s no welcoming feast and nobody here who wants him.

Alexandra blows through the house like a storm wind, flipping on lights, breathing disapproval on specks of dust and clutter, talking incessantly about the funeral. Who was there, how perfect the photo tribute, how beautiful the music.

Her voice, her presence, grates on Braden’s nerves. He craves silence, a chance to get his bearings, but Alexandra is not the woman to give him that small grace, even if she were able to recognize his need for it.