Player(88)

“Are you all right, son?”

“No, but I suppose I will be eventually.”

It was then that I regretted coming. I was in no state to chitchat.

“What are you reading?” I asked as I took a seat next to him.

He flipped it over in his hand and glanced at the cover. “An article about vascular grafts.” He didn’t elaborate, which was both welcomed and regrettable. “Everything okay at work?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been there since last week.”

They exchanged a look.

“Did you quit?” he asked.

“No. I have someone subbing for me. I just…I’ve had some thinking to do. I’ve been composing.”

Mom brightened at that. “Are you happy with what you’ve written?”

“It’s some of my best. The best.”

“I didn’t know you were still composing,” Dad said. “Not since Juilliard. How much have you written?”

“Scores,” I admitted. “I write every day.”

Confusion flitted across his brow. “Really? What have you done with it? Have you had anything picked up?”

“No one’s heard any of it.”

“Well, why ever not?” he asked a little shortly. “If it’s good, why not do something with it?”

“Because it’s mine.”

He didn’t seem to understand.

I assessed him for a beat. “Have you ever had something you loved so much, you couldn’t bear for anyone to see it? Because if they did, it wouldn’t be yours anymore. Then it would be theirs. That piece of you, that part of your heart.”

“Yes, I have,” he said simply. “You.”

Everything in me stilled.

He went on, “I knew when you were very small that you would be great. It wasn’t just a father’s musings, dreams to aggrandize you as an extension of me. I knew by power of assessment. When you were three, you could pick out a tune on a piano. When you were six, you could tell me the key of a song on the radio. Your mother fed your heart and your mind, but I was afraid. What if you failed? What if you loved a thing that would never love you back? That would never provide for you? What if…what if you were hurt, damaged by the passion in your heart?”

Mom took my hand.

Dad shook his head and pulled off his glasses as if to see me better. “Samhir, I have been hard on you. I know this—your mother loves to remind me. But it is because of my own fear that I wish for more for you. It is my desire to see you succeed, to embrace what you love so it can embrace you back. But when your child loves a thing that leads them down a path of hardship, a path that so few find financial success in, it is difficult to accept without worry. So, I worry. And that worry, that fear, brings me to pushing you without need. It’s never been easy for me to let go of that piece of my heart that I gave to create you.”

I didn’t know what to say, and he seemed to understand.

“I know you, son. I know that you are afraid, too. You’re afraid to fail, afraid to fall. But what you’ve never understood is that without failure, there can be no success. It’s all right to fall, Samhir. It’s not all right to stay down. But I do not think this is about your work, is it?”

“No,” I said, a single, thick syllable on my tongue. “It…it’s Val.”

“The girl you gave the comb? Your friend you called about last week?” Mom asked, searching my face.

I nodded. “I hurt her, pressed the deepest bruise she has. And I think…I think I’ve lost her.”

“What did she say when you tried to talk to her?” Her eyes were dark, her voice soft and soothing.

“She was too upset to talk, to hear me.”

“When was that?”

She was analyzing me, I knew. I didn’t care.

“Last week.”

“And you’ve avoided work—where she is.”

I shook my head. “She asked me to leave her alone, and this is the only way I can guarantee that I will.”

“We all need time when we’ve been wounded. No one heals, and no one can forgive without time,” she said, reaching for my hand. “What would you say to her?”

“That I’m sorry. That I meant everything, every word. That I would never lie to her and that…that I love her.”

They both stilled at the word.

“If you love her, if you’ve given her your heart, then you have to tell her. If not for her, then for you. This…this is the first time, isn’t it?” Her eyes were soft, deep and dark.

“Yes,” I said against the pain in my chest. “And I hope it’s the last.”

“Because you don’t want to love again?” Dad asked.

I met his eyes. “No. Because I only want to love her.”

A long pause. “Then you must tell her,” he said definitively.

“But I’ve failed her,” I argued. “I’ve hurt her. What if I do it again? What if my love isn’t enough? What if I can’t give her what she needs?”

“If you don’t try, you’ll never know the answer,” he said. “Love isn’t guaranteed. But you have to follow the song of your heart. Where will it lead you? Where will you find yourself if you shrug off the comfort of mediocrity and complacency and jump? Just jump, Samhir. You might fail, yes. But what do you gain if you succeed? What happiness will you know if you triumph? What joy if you thrive?”