Inevitable and Only(11)

I started school at Fern Grove, driving in with Mom every day, and Josh spent his first year in Baltimore crawling around the bookstore, making book towers and playing with the cats and generally getting in Dad’s way. This was long before Dad hired Cassandra, who probably would’ve dealt with baby Josh by leaving out bowls of water and cat food.

When Josh was five, he discovered the cello. It happened at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Mom was excited because it was an all-Haydn program—the “Farewell” Symphony and a cello concerto. Mom’s always said, Haydn is the underappreciated Einstein of the music world. Whenever she was upset or stressed in those days, she sat down at the piano and took out her big tattered book of Haydn sonatas, held together with a rubber band, loose pages sticking out everywhere. Now she hardly ever has time to play the piano, and all her music sits neatly stacked in milk crates along the wall.

I remember the “Farewell” Symphony, how at the end the musicians all got up, one by one, switched off their stand lights, and walked off into the wings, until there were just two lonely violinists still playing by themselves. And I remember the cello soloist, his wild curly hair flopping all over the place like a lion’s mane while he played, the way he made the cello sound like it was singing. But mostly I remember Josh, sitting there with his lips parted, as if he were getting ready to take a bite of ice cream but forgot what he was doing and froze in place. When it was over and the cellist took his final bow and left the stage, Josh burst into tears and wailed, “Make the cello man come back!” Mom and Dad were shocked. Josh barely ever complained or whined or asked for anything. The next day, Mom signed him up for cello lessons at the Prep.

Thinking about all this while I unpacked the Cottage Cheese Contraption ingredients on the kitchen counter, I had an idea. “Josh, why don’t you play me some cooking music?”

Dad always used to tell me to play “cooking music” on my violin when I wanted to help him with dinner but was too young to be much use. I suspect it was also a sneaky way of getting me to practice, even for only ten or fifteen minutes. I never had the discipline Josh seemed to be born with.

Josh had wilted a little when we walked into the empty house, but brightened up at my suggestion. He ran upstairs and came down slowly, carrying his cello with both hands, his rock stop slung over one shoulder. He settled himself on one of the chairs at the kitchen table and started playing movements from the Bach cello suites from memory.

I cracked eggs, stirred cottage cheese and flour and sugar together, chopped apples, tossed in raisins, and fried it all into a delicious hot mush, while Josh “talked” to me. That’s how I thought of it—this was Josh’s way of saying the things he didn’t know how to express in words. He played the slow, mournful Sarabande from the second suite, and I heard his confusion about everything between Mom and Dad: What are we supposed to do now? What should we say to Mom? What else is Dad hiding? How else is he going to confuse us and disappoint us and let us down? Do we even really know him?

Or maybe those were my own confusing thoughts.

But just when my eyes were starting to burn, Josh moved on to the Courante from the first suite, in a major key instead of a minor one, full of little trills and ornaments and musical jokes. Cheer up, Cadie, I heard. I’m here and Mom’s here and somehow things are going to be all right.

I knew the names of those two movements because he played them often enough that I’d learned to recognize them from the rest of the endless Bach he was always practicing. He’d worked on the first suite last year, and he was tackling the second suite this year. Each suite was six movements long. I liked their symmetry, like six short scenes in each long act of a play.

Mom came downstairs in her pajamas and slippers, and I scooped big helpings into bowls, handed her a spoon, and joined her at the table. Josh stopped playing to eat with us, and then he went back to his cello. I scooted my chair closer to Mom’s and rested my head on her shoulder to listen. She put an arm around me and stroked my hair. “Thanks for cooking, mija,” she murmured.

It still didn’t feel right, the three of us home, cooking, eating, playing music, without Dad. Not talking about what had happened. What would happen next. In fact, it was weird that Mom wasn’t trying to talk about any of it at all; that was how she dealt with problems—by analyzing or consoling or encouraging or convincing. By taking charge. Usually I was the one who just wanted to sulk it out in silence. Well, me and Dad. We were both like that.

I sighed. I didn’t want to think about Dad, how we were alike. Or maybe not. How could I be sure I was similar to someone I didn’t really know—and did that mean there were parts of myself I barely knew, too? The warm, rich meal, so comforting a few minutes before, now felt like a heavy lump in my stomach.



By Friday, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I broke down and went to see Dad.

I didn’t tell Mom I was going, just said I didn’t need a ride home. But I could tell she knew. She looked relieved, actually. She almost said something, then changed her mind and simply nodded.

When I got to Fine Print, Cassandra was nowhere to be seen. I dropped my backpack by the desk and went upstairs.

I hadn’t known what to expect, and Dad looked in better shape than I’d imagined. But it still broke my heart to see him sitting at his desk, his shirt all wrinkly as if he’d slept in it, his face stubbly, his ponytail greasy. He was so engrossed in what he was reading, he didn’t hear me come in.