Every Note Played(43)

“Can-a-pu-on-my Hea-Mus?”

“Give me a minute. I have to clean up this mess.”

He leaves her—his ex-wife; his dutiful, unpaid, unthanked nursemaid—to the job of wiping up his piss. She unzips and removes her coat and hat, sprays disinfecting cleaner all over the toilet seat and floor, and wipes everything dry with a wad of paper towels. There. Clean until the next time he pees.

While washing her hands in the sink longer than necessary, she studies her face in the mirror. Her mouth is turned down at the corners, a resting frown. Her skin and eyes are dull. Her hair is flat and oily. She hasn’t bothered washing it in days. She needs a long, hot shower. She needs a good, long nap. She needs breakfast and a cup of coffee. But instead, she has to return to Richard’s room to stick a silver Head Mouse dot to the tip of his nose. It will take two seconds. But he gets to go first, and she hates him for it.

Back in the den, he’s sitting at the desk in front of his laptop, waiting for her. She peels a dot from the sticker strip and presses it onto the tip of his big nose. He begins typing, selecting letters one at a time by aiming his nose at the keyboard displayed on the screen. As usual, Bill will get him showered and dressed when he arrives at nine. While she’s in there, she opens the shades and strips the bed. With an armful of bedding, she’s on her way to the laundry room when her eyes unintentionally catch the words Dear Dad at the top of his computer screen.

“You’re writing to your father?”

“Ya-na-su-po-sta see-tha. Don-rea-dova-my-shoul.”

“I’m not. Are you asking him for help?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why-do-we nee-hel?”

She stares at the back of his head, incredulous. She’s pretty sure her frowning mouth is hanging open. Maybe she misheard him. Did he really just ask, Why do we need help?

“Bill-an-tha-otha-aides do-mo-satha hea-vy-lif-ting. You-do-wun meal-a-day but-o-tha-than-that I-mo-sly-stay ou-ta-ya-hair.”

She squeezes the sheets in her fists. She wants to pull every strand of hair out of his ungrateful head. Who does he think just wiped up his piss? Who will interrupt every piano lesson this afternoon to suck his mouth dry so the students don’t have to listen to him sputter and gag between notes and worry that he’s dying in the next room? Who is up all hours of the night adjusting his mask so he can breathe? Who does he think washes his bedding and clothes and takes him to his doctor’s appointments? But, otherwise, yeah, he mostly stays out of her hair.

“I’m exhausted.”

“Yuh-firs-les-son is-no-un-til afa-noon. Why-don-you go-ba-to bed?”

“Why don’t you go to hell?”

She drops the pile of bedding on the floor, marches out of the room, and shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t want to see him. He can stay in there until Bill arrives.

Standing in the living room, shaking with fury, she’s unable to decide what to do. She’s too angry to enjoy breakfast and a cup of coffee, too incensed to take a nap, and Grace is still in the shower. Karina stands there, paralyzed in her rage, and wonders what would happen if she stopped helping him. What would happen if the next time he chokes, she doesn’t stop her piano lesson midnote to suction him? At some point, the BiPAP won’t simply be used for the quality of Richard’s sleep. He’ll need it all day and night for adequate ventilation. What happens when they reach that point in one month, in two months, this summer, and his mask comes loose in the night, and she ignores the sound of the BiPAP alarm? What if she awakens the next morning, refreshed from a full night’s sleep, to find Richard with his mask askew, asphyxiated in the den?

She stands in the living room, exhausted, unappreciated, unshowered, and hungry, wondering if she’d be charged with murder if he dies on her watch.





CHAPTER TWENTY


The first half of every piano lesson is devoted to technique—scales in four octaves, Schmitt exercises, chords, and arpeggios—training fingers and ears. The second half is focused on playing the piece of music assigned to the student the previous week. Ideally, the student has practiced twenty minutes a day at home.

This student has not.

Now that he’s finished the technique part of his lesson, Karina waits for Dylan to begin playing, and every minute of waiting increases the temperature of her exasperation. Dylan is thirteen and has probably grown six inches since last year. He’s got long arms and fingers, knobby shoulders and knees, and appears uncomfortable in his own body, as if he hasn’t quite moved into all that new space. Pink, inflamed acne covers his otherwise pale face. A whisper of fuzzy brown hair has sprouted above his lip. He’s wearing bright golden yellow shorts and a matching sweatshirt. His mother will shuttle him to basketball practice immediately after his piano lesson. Every few seconds, he snorts phlegm from somewhere in his throat up into his brain.

“Would you like a tissue?” asks Karina.

“Huh? No, I’m good.”

No, you are not good, she wants to say.

He studies the sheet music in front of him as if reading Greek for the first time. Maybe he has a learning disability or some kind of musical dyslexia or amnesia and she shouldn’t judge him. Or maybe, he simply doesn’t want to be here. That makes both of them. She was up half the night, and sitting on this bench in silence is draining the last drops of her depleted energy. Her eyelids rest shut for a second or two with each blink. She’s desperate for a nap.