The Nix(48)

The Blessed Heart Academy Cathedral was already buzzing when they arrived, people in suits and flowery dresses filing into the large arched doorway, the sounds of musicians practicing audible even from the parking lot. The cathedral was built to mimic the great churches of Europe, at about one-third scale.

Inside, a wide central aisle was flanked on both sides by pews made of heavy and thick and ornately carved wood, polished and shining wetly. Beyond the pews were stone columns with torches attached about fifteen feet above the crowd, each lit with glowing fires. Parents chatted with other parents, the men giving soft platonic kisses to the cheeks of women. Samuel watched them, these small pecks, and realized the men weren’t really kissing the women but instead miming a kissing action into the area around their necks. Samuel wondered if the women were disappointed about this—they’d been expecting a kiss and all they got was air.

They took their seats, studied the program. Bethany would not go on until the second half. The first half was all smaller works—minor chamber pieces and quick solos. It was clear Bethany’s piece was the showstopper. The big finale. Samuel’s feet bounced nervously on the soft, carpeted floor.

The lights dimmed and the musicians stopped their chaotic warm-ups and everyone took their seats and after a lengthy pause there came a sturdy note out of the woodwinds, then everyone else following it, tuning to that note, anchoring themselves to that spot, and something seemed to catch in his mother’s throat. She inhaled sharply, then put her hand on her chest.

“I used to do that,” she said.

“Do what?”

“The tuning note. I was the oboe. That used to be me.”

“You played music? When?”

“Shh.”

And there it was, another secret his mother had kept. Her life was a fog to him; whatever happened before he came along was all mysterious, locked behind ambiguous shrugs and half answers and vague abstractions and aphorisms—“You’re too young,” she’d say. Or “You wouldn’t understand.” Or the particularly infuriating “I’ll tell you someday, when you’re older.” But occasionally some secret would crack free. So his mother was once a musician. He added it to the mental inventory: Things that Mom is. She’s a musician. What else? What other things didn’t he know about her? She had acres of secrets, it was obvious. He always felt there was something she wasn’t saying, something behind her bland partial attention. She often had that disassociated quality, like she was focusing on you with maybe one-third of herself, the rest devoted to whatever things she kept locked inside her head.

The biggest secret had slipped years earlier, when Samuel was young enough to be asking his parents ridiculous questions. (Have you ever been in a volcano? Have you ever seen an angel?) Or asking because he was still na?ve enough to believe in stupendous things. (Can you breathe underwater? Can all reindeer fly?) Or asking because he was fishing for attention and praise. (How much do you love me? Am I the best child in the world?) Or asking because he wanted to be reassured of his place in the world. (Will you be my mom forever? Have you been married to anyone besides Dad?) Except when he asked this last question his mother straightened up and looked at him all tall and solemn and serious and said: “Actually…”

She never finished that sentence. He waited for her, but she stopped and thought about it and got that distant, bleak look on her face. “Actually what?” he said.

“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.”

“You’ve been married before?”

“No.”

“Then what were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

So Samuel asked his father: “Was Mom ever married to anyone else?”

“What?”

“I think she might have been married to someone else.”

“No, she wasn’t. Jesus. What are you talking about?”

Something had happened to her, Samuel was sure of it. Some profound thing that even now, years later, occupied her attention. It washed over her sometimes and she’d disengage from the world.

Meanwhile, there was a concert happening. High-school boys and girls playing important senior-year recitals, five-to ten-minute pieces that were right in the strike zone of each student’s ability. Loud clapping after every performance. Pleasant, easy, tonal music, mostly Mozart.

Then it was intermission. People stood and made their way elsewhere: outside, to smoke, or to a nearby buffet table, for cheese.

“How long did you play music?” Samuel asked.

His mother studied the program. She acted like she didn’t hear him. “This girl, your friend, how old is she?”

“My age,” he said. “She’s in my grade.”

“And she’s playing with these high schoolers?”

He nodded his head. “She’s really good.” And he felt this surge of pride just then, as if being in love with Bethany meant something important about him. As if he were rewarded for her accomplishments. He would never be a musical genius, but he could be a person a musical genius loved. Such were the spoils of love, he realized, that her success was also, by some odd refraction, his.

“Dad’s really good too,” Samuel added.

She looked at him, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. It’s just, you know, he’s really good. At his job.”