Sweet Water(57)

We have a piano in the sitting room, but only because Martin was forced to learn how to play when he was young. He passed that burden on to his children, who also have no desire to play. The baby grand is really just an ornamental decoration piece.

“Grand dust collector,” we should call it. But I love that we have a symbol of music in our home. Stonehenge should have music in it. The house probably misses it since Joshua and Spencer moved away.

When Spencer used to play, the notes filled the whole house with a special energy. Of course they did. This thought only adds fuel to the fire burning within me—why is Joshua back?

I sigh, my life a walking contradiction. No one plays music anymore in the house made for acoustics, and no one prays in the home with stained-glass windows fit for a church. I can’t remember the last time we went to a service.

We’re no longer the happy family we pretended to be. Poor Spencer isn’t really in the know about the circumstances of Yazmin’s death. Although we called him to tell him about the tragedy, he knows only the watered-down version—that Finn and Yazmin went for a walk, argued, and that she’d had an accident in the woods and died. But soon he’ll come home for fall break and be a part of the real mess too. The whole morning sags with a grief that can never be lifted, a young dead girl weighing at the center of it.

But the mention of Joshua’s name tinges the day with a sliver of light. He always made me feel so attuned to myself, my senses. Could it be my Joshua?

I’d die for just a hit of that lucidity today.

I search the music store for Joshua like he can fix all my problems.

He did when I was younger, my largest issue loneliness. I found a boy who was just like me in so many ways—an only child with an absent mother. Mine was dead, but I had to believe the fact that his being still alive and away traveling by choice was almost as painful. Josh cared about the world, people. He wanted to make it a better place even if he didn’t become rich in the process. He hated that our troops were dying over something like oil, something we have plenty of ourselves, an opinion we shared.

All my feelings of inadequacy were resolved in the confines of his arms. How have I strayed so far from myself now?

My father always said that when you look at people, you either see a door or a window—a reflection of yourself or a dead end—and I’ve never seen a more honest reflection of myself than I did in Joshua. He was earnest and genuine, not there just to put on a show. He was down to brass tacks from the moment you met him, no fluff.

I’d give anything to see even a piece of my old self again, because after this afternoon, talking to that bereaved mother, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m horrified the checkbook in my purse even exists. That’s not me. Maybe Josh can remind me of who I am.

Maybe he can also reveal clues about Yazmin, since he was her teacher. If I can figure out what happened to her, know in my heart of hearts that Finn did nothing wrong, maybe there’s still a chance for my family to heal from this.

I sneeze at the dust in the store and hear a rustling in the back room. My nerves are like popcorn kernels in a sizzling pan of oil, ready to go off at any moment. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish here, but part of me just wants to see Josh again.

I pretend to take interest in a violin I’m not even sure how to hold when a man appears from the back storeroom. I almost drop the damn thing, probably the most expensive instrument in the store.

It’s him.

He’s carrying a whole bunch of metal music holders. “Just a minute,” he says over his shoulder as he wrestles with the stands. His voice has gotten deeper, and I wonder what it’s done to his singing voice, if puberty is something that affects rocker boys who turn into rocker men. When he’s finished setting the stands down, he walks toward me, then freezes midway across the store. I grip the violin with both hands and offer a tight-lipped smile, the sweep of electricity that rips through me when I see him just as strong now as it was back then.

I can’t believe he can still do this to me. I hear a thumping in my throat, and I’m sure it’s my heart.

“Sarah?” he says, and when I get a good look at him, I see that his voice is the only thing that’s changed, really. He’s still tall with shaggy hair and broad shoulders, thin frame, torn-up jeans hanging just right. He’s even wearing a damn concert tee that shows off some interesting arm ink he didn’t have before, and I have to blink twice to make sure it’s not 1996 again. Joshua has a slight stubble on his chin too, but it all works for him.

“Hi, Joshua,” I say.

“Hey, I thought you’d be in someday,” he says.

Then why haven’t you contacted me? The combination of anticipation and sorrow that always happens when I see him races up and down my body, my pulse quickening. I’m so happy to see him but still in shock from when he left.

Joshua grabs the side of his neck, revealing a small scar, and I wonder how it got there. I want to ask him about the scar and so many other things. I want to know if he ever made it to Europe and what he saw on his mission trips, if he ever married or had children, but of course this isn’t an appropriate time to ask those things. I tried to cyber stalk him in my early years of marriage, after I had Spencer, but my searches turned up empty. I was more disappointed for him than myself, because it meant he hadn’t made it in the music world, domestic or abroad.