Here So Far Away(40)

“For starters, you’re holding too tight,” Francis said. “Pull your wrist down. Now let’s see B-minor.”

I couldn’t get my fingers to stay in the right place on the fret, and whistled the note as I strummed to cover my flubbing.

“I’ve never heard anyone whistle like you do. Who taught you?”

“No one, that I can remember. I can’t make both hands work at the same time on the piano, and, well, here’s how I’m doing on strings. But whistling, you just do it, if you can.”

He adjusted my wrist—firmly, nurse-like, somehow still sending a shiver up my arm—then watched me switch between G and D. “Stop doing that with your—”

“I’m not—” I slapped away his hand before he could touch me again.

“No slapsies!” Rupert called over from his rocker.

“I’m trying to help you,” Francis said. “When you strum a single chord, it’s good, clear. Switching . . .”

“There’s no rule that says you have to play more than one chord at a time.”

“Set an egg timer and do the switch again and again until you can get through two minutes without grinding your teeth.”

As soon as he said it, I felt my teeth clench.

“Or I can give you a simple song to practice, which is more fun than random chords. You like blues? No? What about a waltz? You have this nice background cadence—dum-dee duh-duh—and the melody floats up from it.”

“Mmm . . .”

“How about . . .” He played a riff on his guitar. “Soft, see? Sweet. And you can add a little dissonance to make it interesting.” His fingers trebled over a minor note, and now the shiver raced up my arms to the very top of my head. God, were the hairs on my neck actually standing up? I had to start strumming to make it stop.

It took a couple of runs to get the chords even halfway right, and then we started playing the song on repeat. Once I stopped tripping over D-minor, he began to sing very softly under his breath.

Here so far away

The ocean is a finger lake

The highway is a well-worn path

That brings me back to you

“It’s a ballad,” I said.

“You object to ballads?”

“They’re like commercials for relationships.”

Francis nodded. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Would it be less disgusting if we call it a lullaby? If you thought of a mother singing this to her child?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s a lullaby. Look behind you.”

In the small window over Wilfred’s birdcage, the moon was full and pink.

We kept playing on a loop, and after a while I began to sing too. Under my breath at first, and then a little louder, my voice still buried underneath his. I wanted to see if I could play and sing at the same time, which I could. And then, without warning, Francis switched to harmony. Tricked. Like when you’re learning to ride a bike and suddenly you realize that no one is holding the back of your seat. I leaned in and followed his voice like the curves in the road. I wanted to go and go and go.

“I don’t want to break up the party, son, but didn’t you say you had to meet this lady by eight?”

“Oh. You have a date,” I said. “I’m keeping you.” I stood up abruptly, giving the E string an accidental twang.

This time, Francis didn’t follow me to the hallway. I slipped on my boots, picked up the bag holding my tennis shoes, and stopped. Why did I always bring them home? It was silly, wasn’t it? To cart them back and forth every time, these very pink ladies’ tennis shoes?

Bullshite, I heard Lisa say again.

Ignoring her, I set the shoes on the landing of the staircase, off to the side so they wouldn’t trip anyone but would still be plainly visible to, say, a guy and his visitor going upstairs to one of the bedrooms.





Nineteen


A week later, I was no better. I found myself playing Yahtzee with an eighty-two-year-old on a late Saturday afternoon, hoping to hang around long enough to see if Francis was going on another date after his shift. I’d spent three days looking forward to my next trip to the farm on the off chance I would see him, however briefly, because seeing him had come to define whether it was a good day and not seeing him left me with a void I couldn’t fill, not with food, not with obsessive chord practice that left my ribs bruised and my fingers dented and stinging, and most definitely not with anyone else.

“You planning to get up to no good tonight?” Rupert asked.

“Probably.”

I’d need to leave soon if I wanted to catch Bill’s hockey game against East Riverview. I didn’t think he’d mind if I missed it, especially after he said Nat was planning to go, but I could see he was disappointed when I told him that Rupert might need me to stay late at the farm. Maybe even hurt.

“Do you want me to set up dinner before I leave?” I said to Rupert. “Or is Francis coming home before he goes out tonight?”

Rupert shrugged. If he knew something, he wasn’t saying.

The phone rang. “That could be him now,” I said, reaching for it.

“Good, you’re still there,” Dad said. “The old man in the room with you?”

“Yeah, right here.” I mouthed to Rupert, My dad.