Pretend She's Here(77)
I stared at him, unsure of what he wanted me to say.
“That expression got a hundred times deeper after you left. It was almost despair. He wanted you to go home, of course, but he’s lonely without you.”
That hit me hard, because it was just how I felt—surrounded by my family, who I loved so much, I felt lonely without Casey. Having him next door, feeling he was somehow looking out for me, just knowing he was there, had helped me get through. And then there was the fact I was in love with him.
“He’ll be in your band someday,” I said. “Like you said that time. Then you won’t have to be apart.”
“I think he wants to be in a band with someone else,” Mr. Donoghue said. “In fact, I know it.” He pointed at the note written on the small cardboard tag, and I read Casey’s words: Keep playing, Emily. I wish you were here so I could teach you, but find a teacher there so you can come back and be in my band. Well, you already are in my band. Well, actually, you ARE my band. And I’m yours. Do you hear the music? That’s me playing a song for you, just like I do all the time. You’ve heard some of them in my texts—there are a lot more I’ll play you in person when I see you. You should know this about the guitar: When you think of someone while you’re strumming, that person can hear, or at least feel, the song. I hope you feel mine right now. O-V-E, Casey.
I said the missing letter out loud: “L.”
I finally felt everything I’d been holding inside. Tears scalded my eyes. That block of ice, otherwise known as my heart, melted a little. With the guitar still lying in the case, I gently brushed the strings. My mother brought out mugs of coffee, and she and Mr. Donoghue sat at the table. I heard her telling him how much she and my dad loved his band, how they had every record Dylan Thomas Revisited had ever made, how they’d seen them perform at the Newport Folk Festival.
“We are so grateful to Casey,” my mother was saying. “The way he helped Emily escape, what he did for her after the attack. Dr. Dean told us he saved Emily’s life.”
“I’m very proud of him,” Mr. Donoghue said.
“You should be. We want to see him again,” my mother said. “As soon as possible.”
“Will you be returning to Maine for the trial?” he asked.
“Yes, and the pretrial hearings,” my mother said, lowering her voice. “They will be in Portland, in federal court. The Porters took her across state lines, so the United States is prosecuting them. We’ll show up for every single hearing. I want Ginnie Porter to see me in the courtroom, look me right in the eye. We were friends! She knows how much I love my daughter! How could they have done this to Em?”
“I never suspected,” Mr. Donoghue said. “I had no idea the Porters were anything other than a normal family. Casey was just waiting for me to get home that day, to take Emily out of there. Emily was afraid Ginnie would hurt you—that’s why she stayed. To protect you.”
They kept talking, but I focused on the guitar. I held it in my arms. With the fingers of my left hand I made triangles on the strings, just as Casey had shown me. With my right hand, I strummed softly. I made up a song and got lost in it.
I wasn’t very good. My fingertips slipped, and my chords twanged and jangled. I had a long way to go. But the song filled my heart. Playing the tune, I wasn’t completely numb. Every minute, I thawed a little more. For the first time since getting out of the hospital, I could feel.
Some words ran through my head, not lyrics, exactly, but they kept coming, over and over, like a mantra or a prayer. I heard the melody, sweet and sad with a lot of E minor. And one name that kept running through my mind, out my fingertips and up and down the strings.
Casey, Casey …
And also: the letter L.
The morning I was to return to school, my parents sat me down at the breakfast table. My mom had made my favorite oatmeal with cranberries and pecans, and my dad had squeezed fresh pink grapefruits straight from my uncle in Florida to make a tall glass of juice. Patrick and Bea were going to drive me to school; they waited in the living room so my parents could have this discussion with me.
“Are you ready for this?” my dad asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess.”
“Your friends will be so excited to see you,” my mom said. “And I’m sure you will be to see them, right?”
“Of course,” I said.
“One thing we’ve been worried about,” my dad said, “is the media. They’re going to follow you. We’ve got an idea how to stop that, but we want to make sure it’s okay with you.”
“What?” I asked.
“Everyone wants an exclusive interview,” he said. “Lots of different news outlets have offered us a lot of money for the chance to talk to you first. Your mom and I have refused all along, wanting to protect you, but now we wonder if it’s something you might want to do.”
“Take money to tell what happened to me?” I asked. I felt so sick, I nearly threw up. “No, never, please don’t ever mention it again.”
“You wouldn’t have to take the money for yourself,” my mother said. “You could decline to be paid, or you could donate the fee to charity. Or you could put it toward your college. It’s up to you. And if you don’t want to give an interview at all, that would be fine, too. We just thought it would get the press to go away. You could control your story, tell it the way you want, and then there’d be nothing for them to hound you for. It would be out in the open.”