Every Note Played(55)
Or, it’s like abstract expressionism. Richard can look at Number 5 by Jackson Pollock, a supposed masterpiece revered for its artistry and worth millions, and see only unappealing, splattered bullshit, utterly lacking in structure or talent. Jazz is Pollock. Mozart, on the other hand, is Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, painters who’ve mastered the art of seeing. To look up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is to be with God.
Bach, Chopin, Schumann, these composers have mastered the art of listening. Richard hears Debussy’s “Clair de lune,” and every cell in his body has a broken heart and bare feet dancing in the moonlight. Playing Brahms is communing with God.
Richard doesn’t feel jazz in his body. It doesn’t move through his heart and soul. He doesn’t get it. It’s always been impossible for him to understand what he can’t feel.
While Karina is away, Grace is home, babysitting her father. They’ve been under the same roof for three days, two lines rarely intersecting, alone together. She mostly stays in her room. She says she has a ton of homework, but to call or come get her or step on the call button if he needs anything. So far, he hasn’t needed her for anything other than his last meal of the day and getting hooked up to the BiPAP mask at bedtime. So he hasn’t called for her.
While Grace is here, he’s been waiting for Bill to arrive at nine in the mornings to pee, saving both Richard and Grace the indignity of a daughter pulling down her father’s pants so he can urinate. Two days ago, he asked her if she wanted to watch a movie with him. Any movie. She had statistics, economics, and physics homework and no time for a movie. Yesterday, he asked her if she wanted to go for quick walk. His right leg is too weak and his right foot is too droopy for him to risk going for a walk alone. She said it was too cold outside. Today, he didn’t ask her anything.
It’s now 8:40 p.m. He keeps looking over to the door, expecting to see her. She pokes her head in the den every couple of hours to check on him. He hasn’t seen her since five. Do you need anything? . . . No.
But he does need something from her. He needs things to be right between them before . . . He needs things to be right between them before his circumstances force him into finishing that sentence. For now, not finishing that sentence, not squinting his eyes to bring into focus what’s blurry and waiting for him on the horizon, or even ignoring what is hovering two feet in front of his face, is his only line of defense against this disease. Denial, blunt and dull and shaped more like a spoon than a knife, is the only weapon he’s got.
He’s not sure how to go about making things right with Grace but realizes it probably involves being in the same room. Admitting that he chose piano over her has maybe loosened a few bricks in the wall dividing them, but it’s still standing strong and tall, an imposing, ancient fortress. Karina comes home tomorrow, and then Grace goes back to school until the summer. She might not be back home again before . . .
It’s 8:43, and he’s running out of time.
He thinks about asking Grace to help him with the recording device that Dr. George gave him for banking his voice. He’s done little so far. He and Karina recorded a few simple phrases: I have an itch. I have to use the bathroom. Will you wipe my nose? Will you wipe my eyes? I’m cold. I’m hot. Karina played these back to make sure the device was actually recording, and after hearing what his voice sounded like, he lost all motivation for the project. He wishes he’d gone to Dr. George sooner, while his voice was still robust and full of melody and inflection and personality, while his voice was still his and not this stripped-down, aerated, soulless, robotic monotone. He’d rather listen to free jazz than the sound of his voice. He might as well use the computer-generated speech when the time comes.
It’s 8:51. That time is coming.
But the banking project would give him an easy excuse to need Grace for something. He looks to the door, to the red call button on the floor. He doesn’t call for her. He’s too tired. He hasn’t done a damn thing all day, and he’s exhausted.
It feels later than it is. His room is dark but for the glow of his laptop screen and a sliver of light from the hall intruding through the slant of the cracked door. He gets up, stands at the edge of his room, and listens for signs of Grace. He hears nothing. Restless, he leaves the den and wanders the living room, studying the furniture and decor like a curious museum patron after hours. Or a creepy prowler. The living room is dim, gently illuminated by lights Grace must’ve left on in the kitchen. The cold black night is framed in every window. If Karina were home, she would’ve drawn the shades.
The living room is neat and tidy, everything in its place. It’s too tidy. Sterile. Before he moved out, before Grace left for college, the entire house felt like Grace’s home. Her backpack and clothes and books and papers were strewn about. Her music and phone conversations could be heard throughout the house no matter what room she was in. Her personality and presence loomed large here. But Grace doesn’t live here anymore. Karina does. Other than revealing that the person who lives here plays piano, observing Karina’s home gives little sense of who she is.
But this is her home, her life. Not his. He’s not supposed to be living here anymore.
He visits her piano, the same Baldwin upright they bought used when they first moved to Boston. His eyes travel from one end of the keyboard to the other. From watching and listening to Karina and her students play these past few months, he knows the action of the keys is slow compared to that of his grand, and he imagines the frustrating stickiness within the pads of his paralyzed fingers. For years, he tried to convince Karina to upgrade to a grand piano, but she always refused.