The Music of What Happens(87)

“It’s just the music of what happens,” I say.

“It’s the what?”

“The Seamus Heaney poem, remember?”

“Oh yeah.”

“My dad used to tell me this story. It’s where that phrase came from in the poem. A story about the legend of Finn MacCool. He was this mythical Irish warrior. He challenged all these brilliant men to come up with the most beautiful sound in the world. One guy said it was a young girl laughing. Another said the bellowing of a stag. A third said the sound of a sword against a shield. No, Finn MacCool said. It’s the music of what happens.”

Max screws up his face at me. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “My dad liked the story. And I guess I like the phrase. ‘The music of what happens.’ It’s maybe the stuff of life. Birds singing. Babies crying.”

Max stretches his arms above him and then cradles his head in his hands. He says, “To me, it’s maybe more like ‘music’ meaning ‘harmony.’ The harmoniousness of what happens.”

“Everything happens for a reason, eh?”

Max shrugs. “If that’s true, somebody up there has a hell of a sense of humor.”

“It’s beautiful, though. Your idea.”

“You think?”

I say, “I think there’s something really cool about the idea of sitting back and listening to what happens in the world, rather than fretting over it and trying to fix it. After all, if it’s what happens, it’s what happens. Right? I can’t make what happens not happen.”

“Unless that’s part of the plan.”

“You’re really smart.”

“You’re really cute,” Max says, and I blush like crazy. “You’re also really interesting. I liked that about you right away. You say interesting things.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I’m thinking, Man, I could get used to this thing where I don’t think I’m a total piece of shit all the time.

Max and I talk about tomorrow, when I’m supposed to go see my mom, who is in in-patient treatment in Phoenix. To be honest? I don’t want to. It’s not that I don’t love my mom; I’m just not ready, you know? He says he’ll help me pack up my things at my house, and I can’t even really talk about that yet. It’s the only house I’ve ever known, and it’s where my dad was, and it’s where my mom was, and I feel a little like an orphan here, which is something I don’t want to tell Max or his mom, because I’m so glad they’ve taken me in. I like it here too. I just don’t know if it will ever feel like home. If anything ever will, again.

Then we talk more about the rape. His counselor and what she said about the healing process. How when trust is violated, it’s like you’re left with an empty piggy bank. Building trust again, she said, is like putting big, fat nickels into the slot. They clank against the bottom, and that sound is jarring. But in order to heal, you have to keep adding those nickels, and soon enough, there will be coins to cushion the nickel’s fall and make the sound not so grating.

I tell him that I don’t mind the clank, and that I’ll make sure I always remember that he’ll hear a jarring sound even if I hear nothing. And I tell him that he can always tell me, and I will always hold him when he feels that way, and I will never judge him, and I will give him all the time and space he needs until the bank fills up again.

He doesn’t respond to that, but I can tell the words mean something to him by the way he pauses and looks away after I say them.

Instead he tells me how his friends have been cool. I like those guys. I don’t want to spend a lot of time with them without Max around, but that’s more my thing than theirs. People just make me nervous, I guess. Maybe if I got used to them. After all, Max made me nervous once too. Man did he ever.

“But what about when there’s no beauty in what happens?” Max asks after a long, languid silence. “When ugly things happen? What does ‘the music of what happens’ mean when it comes up against, you know. Bad things.”

I swallow. I’ve been wondering this too. What “the music of what happens” means when the happenings are total crap. I want everything to be okay. For my mom. For our little family, such as it is. And maybe they will be, and maybe they won’t, and I can’t imagine a time will ever come when thinking about that won’t slam me right in the chin.

I breathe for a while, and then I take Max’s hands in mine and squeeze. He squeezes back. The chin pain fades, and another, very different feeling takes its place. It’s like a full-body sigh, like a cool breeze through the hot desert of my life that tells me, You are here. It’s new, it’s different, and it’s welcome, and I don’t want to let go of his strong hands, ever. Dorcas jumps up on the bed and nestles between us, first up high so she can lick my right ear. Then she plops down between our legs. Total cock block, but I don’t mind. If it feels like this, she can stay forever.

I don’t know. I mean, it’s not all beautifully harmonic, this world we find ourselves in. Clearly. There’s shit music, and sometimes the melody goes away completely. There’s silence and dissonant chords that cringe your ears. But the synchronicity of a perfectly created chorus? And the fact that you never know when one is coming? And that amazing feeling, the first time you hear a song and you know it’s going to be with you forever?