Everything You Are(49)

Just enough to get warm again. Just enough to take the edge off the guilt, off the tormenting sliver of the memory of violence.

He slams the bottle down onto the counter. Thud. And then slams it again. He hates the booze, loves it and hates it and is sick to death of it.

Allie needs him sober.

Holding his breath, he pours the rest of it down the sink and runs water to rinse it.

A hot shower, to warm him and stop this shaking. Sleep. He needs sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.

The cello tries to draw him in as he passes the music room. “Leave me alone,” he mutters. “This is your fault.”

A hot shower warms his skin but not his insides and does nothing to stop either the music or his memories. He’s still half intoxicated, although he can feel the hard edges of sobriety. Bed. The bed he used to share with Lilian. In the dark, he’s not entirely sure she’s not lying there, pretending she’s asleep. He slides under the covers and into a memory.

A glance at the clock. God, it’s two a.m. He’s been playing the cello for hours.

Beside him, Lil’s breathing is quiet and even, but something about the quality of her stillness warns him that she’s awake.

She’s curled in on herself, faced away from him. Not that this is new. She’s been shutting him out this way for years now, waking or sleeping.

Braden goes along with her pretense. He’s too full of music to talk now. He’ll sleep. In the morning, he’ll make it up to her, somehow.

But then the stillness of her shifts into slow shudders, and he realizes she is weeping silently, right there beside him in the bed but so very much alone. The sound of it tears his heart open, and he lays a hand on her shoulder, whispers, “What is it, Lili? Talk to me.”

“You love her more,” she whispers brokenly. “No matter what I do, you will always love her more.”

“Who?” He runs through the faces of women he knows, searching for her meaning. Has he looked too long into someone’s eyes, hugged someone too sincerely, lingered over a hand offered him on introduction?

“It’s like you have a mistress. Only worse. She has no other commitments, no other life. Only you. Always there. Always wanting. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

Oh God. She means the cello.

A paralyzing bolt of fear hits him in the belly, and he says the first words that come to him. “You’re not meant to compete with the cello. You can’t.”

A harsh sob is her response, and he understands, too late, too late, how she will take what he has just said.

“Lil, listen.” He strokes her hair, tries to gather her into his arms, but she stiffens and pulls away from him.

“Don’t take it that way,” he pleads. “I meant it’s not a competition. I love you. But music is what I am, Lili. You know that. You knew it when you met me.”

“How could I know what that meant? I didn’t know you’d always put her first. Over me. Over your children, Braden. Over all of us. The cello gets the best of you, and there’s nothing left over for us.”

He rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, which is dimly visible in the dark room, beginning to panic. He doesn’t know how to explain, to make her see. “I love all of you. You can’t compare—it’s like apples and oranges.”

“And which am I, then, Braden? An apple or an orange?”

“Lil—”

“I’m not a thing. I’m a human being. The cello is a thing. You spend more time with it—it, Braden, not her—than you do with me or the kids.”

A defensive anger flares. “Music is my job, too, don’t forget. It helps pay for your house and your clothes and the visits to your sister—”

“So get a different job.”

The words have the effect of a bucket of ice water. He sits up, gasping, all of the oxygen in the room in sudden short supply. “You can’t mean that. What else would I possibly do?”

“I don’t care. Something that doesn’t steal your soul away from me. Because I can’t go on like this.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not secret code.”

“I’ll do better. I’ll play less. I’ll—”

“You’ve tried that. It takes all of you. Even when you’re with me, you’re really with the cello. I can’t deal with that anymore. I want you to give it up.”

“That’s insane! I’m a musician.”

“Fine. Be a musician, just be one elsewhere.”

“You can’t mean that. It’s late. Things will look different in the morning.” He sits up, stares at the defensive line of her back, wants to shake her.

“I’m done,” she says. “I’ve put up with this since we got married. You have a week to think about it.”

“Lil!”

“You heard me.”

“Please,” Braden says now, aloud into the darkness. It’s a prayer, a plea, to God, to his dead wife, to his memories, to the cello, to Allie. He doesn’t expect an answer. He’s trapped now, just as he was trapped then.

This bed, Lilian’s bed, feels hostile. Exhausted as he is, he’ll never be able to sleep here. Scooping up a pillow and a blanket, he heads for the less comfortable anonymity of the couch. On the way, he pauses in Allie’s doorway. She lies on her belly, arms and legs flung wide, snoring softly, and he passes her by. Passes the call of the cello.