Final Duet

The thing about music is that it’s like a rope, it winds around the people it reaches and draws them together, makes them realize and notice that they are not so different. It can convey more than words will ever be capable of, makes us feel more than what our hearts can contain. It’s a cure for the soul, a universal communication so deep it affects each and every person who hears it. The bottom line: my music will tell you more than I ever will. 

That’s was so enchanting about the sweet, melodic notes that pour like magic with just a press of my fingers. What’s so entrancing about the idea that the sounds pierce our souls, heals them, in the most exquisite way. 

My music is me, and I am my music. We are one, as I have finally understood the effect it has on my mind and my body. 

Since I was young, really, I’d always found music to be a healing potion for the soul. I fell in love with the noise it made at six, then fell in love with the effect it had at nine. I shared my long-lasting passion with my mom a year later, when I overheard her playing a song on the piano. I remember the tune being sweet yet sorrowful and I remember feeling as if I myself could feel that sorrow. Since then my mother has been my biggest cheerleader. She coached me through endless classes and teachers, some who cared too much, and others who cared too little, and in the end she adopted the role of being my instructor because she had just the right amount of passion. She stood by my side every single time I tried something new and guided me whenever I failed. 

She was a teacher at my school. The music teacher. It would explain why she was so eager to expand my love for the subject she’d grown to adore so much. And expand it she did. 

It took a few years. Trial and error to find what worked for me, what instrument was mine. 

The acoustic guitar was too hollow.

The drums too violent.

The trumpet too cheery. 

Nothing really fit what it was that I was looking for, until we moved on to my mother’s instrument: the piano. 

I clicked with it instantly. I found myself immediately drawn to the melancholic way the notes were sung, the way as if the instrument itself could convey the emotion of the song being played. It was the essence I needed, capable enough to enrapture a whole room with just one note. It was perfect. 

My mother and I then spent years honing my abilities. Practicing day and night, weeks and months, years and a decade. She’d entered me into thousands of competitions. Some I won, others I lost. But we kept going, we kept building and building until my image was that of one someone would call a small celebrity. 

My music was becoming well known throughout the globe, and no one was ever prouder than my mom. 

Now, at the peak of my career, we await a competition that will make or break my entire future. I’m everywhere I’ve ever wanted to be in life. But I never could have imagined being there without my mom. 

See, it all went downhill when a few weeks ago, she started getting sick. The loud, hacking coughs, and being so weak she could hardly lift a finger to get out of bed worsened and worsened until I had no choice but to take her to the hospital. 

“Mrs. Lacroix, we got your test results back in.” The nurse walks in and shuts the door, her tone gentle. 

“And-?” The sole word that emerges from my mother’s mouth is enough to make her cut herself off with a wheezing cough. 

I rub her back gently as she doubles over. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask the nurse, my voice laden with worry. 

She takes a deep breath. “She’s been diagnosed with cancer. It’s terminal. It’s expected she has maybe around six months left to live. I’m so sorry.” 

My mother manages to stop coughing for a second to look at the nurse, shock and horror painting her usually soft features. She turns to me, eyes wide. 

I can hardly bring myself to look at her as tears sting my eyes, slowly filling, blurring my vision until they threaten to spill out. 

No. 

Not my mom. 

Not my sweet, caring mom who’s done nothing to the world to deserve this. Not when I have the showcase of my life in only a few months. If she’s not there I won’t make it. I won’t have the will to win if the only person who gave me that will is gone. Who’s going to push me to be my best when I can already feel myself breaking down? She can’t die. Not when we were so close. 

“Michael,” she rasps and I blink, feeling a stream of wetness roll down my cheek. “You have to win that showcase,” –she coughs once– “for me. You have to do it–” 

“I can’t.” I choke out, my voice trembling harder than my body. “Not without you, mom, I can’t.” 

I can feel her soft, wrinkled hands take mine firmly and that’s enough to will my gaze to hers. But the longer I look into her somber eyes, the more I want to look away to prevent myself from bawling. 

“You’ve worked your whole life for this. You can do it.” 

“But you’ve always been there. In the audience, by my side. You’re what urges me to be my best, mom. How will I succeed if you’re not there to hold my hand through it all?” 

She sighs, and a tear rolls down her face. “It’s never been me, son. It’s been the music. Its spirit, its power. Let it guide you. I believe in you.” 

I feel everything inside me shatter.

I slump against her and the tears fall one after the other until I’m shuddering, gasping for breath through the racking sobs. 

She’s right. 

I’ve worked my whole life for this, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the woman who got me through it all wont be there to see me go through with it. 

It hurt. 

That was the only emotion coursing through my body at the time. The only feeling that took over my mind, resided in it. All I could feel was how with each passing day, how each morning I saw my mom paler, sicker, every small crack of my heart I could feel. I could feel how it split into two as the days went on. 

I was taken over with this emotion that eventually took hold of my whole life. I couldn’t see myself winning that showcase. Not anymore. Not without her. 

The months dragged on, and my depressed state only worsened along with my mom’s illness. And the rare times I ever played music, it was heartbreaking. The notes turned sad instead of sweet, the piano cried in agony with me every time I pressed a key. 

It wasn’t the gentle, sweet and calm song I was supposed to perform in a few weeks. It turned bitter, sad. It spoke for me, for what I was feeling. 

I was sitting at the piano bench, trailing my fingers over the keys. My fingers yearned to press them but my heart didn’t let me. 

“Michael…” My mom’s hoarse voice comes from infront of me and I look up to see her leaning against the piano, struggling to stay upright. 

“Mom,” I rush to my feet and take her trembling hands, guiding her away towards the couch where I help her sit. “You should be resting-”

“And you should be practicing for your showcase. You’re throwing it all away, Mike, and for what?” Her quiet voice turns sharp at the last sentence and I look down, unable to find a good answer to her question. 

“I should be taking care of you…” 

“Taking care of me, my ass. Mike, I’ll be gone in a few weeks, but your future isn’t going anywhere unless you let it.” 

I know she’s right but I still don’t say anything. 

“You need to do it for me, my love.” She takes my hands and I look up to meet her eyes. “Please.” 

The striking truth of her words slams into me, and I can’t find an excuse to continue to shy away from the showcase. She’s right. 

God, she’s so right. 

I love her, she’s my mom, my best friend, but she’s the reason I’ve even made it this far. I can’t waste the good years of her life just because I’m trying to save her in her last weeks. 

“I will.” I say softly. “I’ll win that showcase, mom. For you.” 

She smiles weakly and tugs me into an embrace. And despite being sick, it doesn’t lack the energy of a loving mom hug. 

“Thank you.” Her breath stirs my ear and with it, it also finally, finally, stirs that encouragement that died such a long time ago. 

***

The plan originally was to perform an original song that was cheerful. I remember I’d composed it specifically for this showcase. It was meant to capture my eagerness and excitement for my music career and show the judges and the audience how much it meant to me. Of course that was before the diagnosis, before the excitement turned sour. 

Now, I’m not so sure if it’s the right song to play. Because if I can’t truly connect, if I can’t feel the emotion my music portrays, the song itself will lack depth. It won’t be authentic and I need that authenticity if I want to win this. 

“Michael Lacroix, you’re up next.” A tall, blonde woman comes up to me backstage, a headset complete with a microphone resting atop her head. She scribbles something down on her clipboard when I nod in acknowledgement. 

“Great, thanks.” I begin to stand from where I was sitting and make my way to the wings of the stage, peering through the parted black curtains to see a massive piano sitting in the middle of the stage, where another pianist is playing a song. The melody is cold, aggressive, and I find myself enjoying the way it sounds. 

I curl my fingers into a fist, let them go, and release a shaky breath. I can do this. I will do this. 

“It says here you’ll be playing–” The blonde starts, reciting old information from her clipboard so I cut her off, correcting her quickly. 

“No. I changed the song last minute.” 

“Oh.” She looks surprised. Mainly because most artists are suggested they decide on a song early, since the amount of practice needed is a lot, in such a short time frame. “Ok. Great. I’ll get that fixed for you. Good luck.” 

She departs with an easy smile and the curtains close, which is my cue to step onto the stage. I make my way towards the piano in the middle, bypassing the departing pianist who gives me a simple nod. 

I return it and sit on the bench, running my fingers over the keys, taking a deep breath to reassure my nerves. 

The small break lasts a minute or two at most and then the curtains open up again, the eerie silence of the audience giving me the illusion that the auditorium is empty. 

Another deep breath and my ring finger hits the first key. And once it does, my hands fall into a familiar rhythm. The notes flow easily, naturally, and the mournful, blue noise that spills from the looming instrument slowly starts to fill the auditorium. 

I can feel myself getting lost in the song as it drags on. My eyes close, and I see my mother’s face in my mind. Her gentle smile, and sweet features, as if she was here with me, urging me on. 

A small smile tints my lips as I think of her, of where she got us together. But that smile falls as I reach the crescendo of my music, as I begin pouring raw grief into every press of every key. I focus on the pain that fills my body and expel it through my fingers, letting the noise of the music carry it to the ears of everyone in attendance. 

She should have been here to see this. 

She would have been so proud. 

I miss her. 

I focus on those three words. I miss her, I miss her, I miss her. 

I let the music say it for me, and it makes the whole piece real. The feeling, the emotion, it’s all there, and satisfaction courses through my veins when I realize I did it. 

The song ends, and my eyes open from their screwed position. I look down at the keys. I smile. And the audience roars to life.