The Gentle Bones

I glance at the grandfather clock near the grand piano, not fazed by the fact that it was two in the morning. 

Is it really that late? Did I fall asleep?

I could’ve sworn that it was only eleven. I knew that I had been playing for a while, but I found it hard to believe that it had been three hours. But then again, my head has been swimming with exhaustion and my consciousness has been hanging by threads. I pushed myself off the old, wooden bench and sank into the nearby sofa, where sleep grabbed me faster than I could process.

I awake at six in the morning, and walk to the kitchen to make myself a cup of strong coffee. It isn't until the caffeine finally worked itself into my system that I feel awake, but I knew it's going to be brief. 

I sit at the counter and looked out onto the courtyard. It hadn't been tended to in at least ten years. Nobody has been around to take care of it, and my grandfather didn't have the time or ability to restore it. I reflected on the days the bushes bloomed in the early summer, plump with little pink blossoms. A white metal arch once had vines integrated into it, holding flowers above you as you walked beneath it. The blue metal benches and tables were rusted, but I remembered when drinks sat upon them with ash trays. Light laughter drifted above it like birds. 

I glanced at the liquor cabinet nearby. It was made up of an ice-maker built into the fancy cupboards with a hutch that held hundreds of crystal glasses that once were used frequently for parties. The counter held a dozen or so bottles of hard liquor – whiskey, bourbon, gin, scotch, vodka, tequila.

Laboriously, I poured the rest of the potent coffee into mugs to take back to the cellar to continue my work. On the piano's stand, there was a printed copy of Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy. I started it yesterday, struggling with moving arpeggios and the expressiveness of the piece. 

My heart felt empty.

I awoke to snow falling at dusk.

I had no idea when I had taken myself to the sofa to sleep again. But when I looked up, snow was descending upon the manor and my sheet music had been strewn everywhere. It was as if I threw a raging fit before I passed out. 

I took a sip of the cold, stale coffee – shuddering at the bitter taste. A mild caffeine rush followed. 

Heart palpitations, then panic. 

I'm falling behind. 

I couldn’t move myself off the sofa. My limbs were like heavy lead, my mind swimming with irrationality.

I will never catch up. As soon as someone finds me and realizes where I've been and what I’m doing to myself-

I laid down on the sofa, picking viciously at my nails and my eyes burning with the sudden need to cry. My mascara had already been smeared on my cheeks. I felt a sudden rush of warmth in my thumb. Blood. 

Thankfully, the power didn't go out during the blizzard. I also realized that it was Wednesday, and considering that the snow plows haven't gone through the roads yet, Diana won't be here to clean. I couldn't believe that I've already been here for four days. 

And I was starving. 

I was mostly running on coffee and the occasional granola bar, but I craved an actual meal. I walked over to the kitchen and looked through the cabinets. 

My options were extremely limited. There was plenty of ingredients for cookies minus the milk, and everything else was snacks that my grandfather liked and wouldn't expire over the winter. I found a container of cashews, a pack of Coca-cola, a bag of chocolate chips. Then I found Diana's stash of bagels and cream cheese. She typically made herself a quick breakfast here before she got to work. 

I wasn't much, but I also had none of the energy to cook something homemade. It disheartened me, to see such an elaborate, gorgeous kitchen be reduced to toasting bagels. It once took on the load of cooking Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner, feeding the entire extended family.  

Cream cheese stuck to my cheek as I walked through the house. I have come here hundreds of times, but it never ceased to amaze me. The grand, Victorian design. The light salmon pinks, Paris greens, cream whites, gold lacings, stark ebonies. Everything was handpicked by my grandmother, graced by her peculiar tastes and welcoming personality. Now it sat here, collecting dust over the winter after my grandfather flew away. 

I snuck a peek into the sewing room. It was overwhelming, the space occupied by dozens of drawers filled with materials and tools. Half-finished projects remained suspended where their crafter left them – waiting, patient. A floral dress pinned on a mannequin was positioned as if it were in the middle of a waltz.

I then found myself downstairs in the bar room, where dozens of binders were shelves in the back of the room. Each was labelled with a country or city – Norway, London, Egypt, Moscow, Netherlands. Five binders were labeled Paris. Three were labeled Rome, with a framed picture next to them with “Rome wasn’t built in a day!” on the border. Grandmother was grinning in front of the Colosseum.

Grabbing a random binder, I flipped it open. It was covered in dust, but I could still read it. These were the photos from one of my grandmother's trips to Las Vegas.

Neon lights, towering buildings, everything was ornamental and over the top. Bustling and overflowing with energy and excitement. The stark shadows behind those lights obscured the atrocities.

A bar. 

A singular photo of a piano bar. Through research, I found out where it was. The current pianist is an older man on the brink of retirement, and I knew that they were going to soon look for his replacement. 

The snow hasn't melted yet. The manor remains blanketed in winter, and the blindingly bright white outside has led me to drawing the heavy drapes shut. 

The cellar is eerily dim with only the soft, yellow lamps to illuminate it. That, and the garish light above the piano to show the music. 

I had finished Claire de Lune and had moved on to April in Paris, sending soft jazz through the household. 

I felt guilty eating Diana's bagels, so I had to move on to other snacks. I forced myself to nibble on the cashews and to make mug cookies and cakes after I found a container of vegetable oil. 

I flipped through the travel binders whenever my hands ached from playing and I couldn't sleep. Images ran through my head of all those countries and cities. Whenever I sat down to play April in Paris, images of the Eiffel Tower and the solemn, sophisticated atmosphere of the city ran through my mind. It's beautiful, aged elegance. 

Sometimes, I wandered into the Paris Bedroom of the manor. My grandmother had visited the city so often that she brought enough souvenirs to decorate an entire room. I have never been to Paris, but I imagined it as enveloped in dark, somber hues of blue, green, and purple with highlights of carnation pink. The attatched bathroom was decorated in porcelain, shelves holding fragile perfume bottles. The singular window was an ornamental stained glass window that sent colorful rays across the white tile floor. The shower had a few bottles of shampoo, body wash, and conditioner for guests. 

Last night, I hit a wall in my playing and decided to take a shower. I had no clue how long I was in there, but I increased the heat until it burned my exposed skin. Before I even left the shower, my skin was scarlet and raw. Somehow, it felt as if the mirror was watching my quiet movements.

I was still wrapped in the soft, thick robe I found in my grandmother's bathroom when I threw my phone across the cellar, shattering the screen and inflicting a nauseating dent into it. 

Dad was trying to call me. And my phone had somehow found a signal through the thick walls of the house, and it violently shook with the rush of emails and messages. My roommate was wondering if I had requested to change rooms. My best friend had asked if she wanted to meet for coffee two days ago. My teachers had sent me several assignments. My counselor had sent me an email concerning my grades, warning me that the semester was coming to a close and I was on the brink of being kicked out. My parents sent dozens of messages asking what was going on. 

The plush carpet caught me as I crumpled to my knees, shaking with fear and panic. 

The money. The time. 

I already had sunk my family into thousands of dollars of debt. They already put so much time and money trying to get me to an elite school. 

My dad. My mom. My uncles, aunts, grandparents.

When they get the news of what I've done, how I screwed myself over and fucked my entire career by running away-

My face grew hot, wet tears brimming my eyes. I couldn't make out the furnishings and piano in the room. My chest hurt. 

I can't catch up. I can't do this. 

My hands trembled, more violently than they ever have at a competition or performance. No crowd could ever make me more scared than my own mind. A crowd still applauds when you mess up. 

It felt like my ears were filled with water.

No amount of playing could help me focus and make progress. All the notes sounded muffled and wrong and warped. Whenever I remembered the emails, the calls, the messages, my senses were caught in that whirlpool. Breathing was a struggle, like I was being dipped under the surface over and over.

Eventually, I threw all my music onto the floor and tore it apart. Every speck of ink, every paper, every annotation, every hour, every synapse to complete the muscle memory, all put to waste at the carnage at my feet. Claire de Lune and April in Paris were reduced to individual morphemes that didn't mean anything. 

Sleep was impossible. 

I had enough energy to push myself onto my feet, trudge to the kitchen, and pour myself a tall glass of scotch. No ice. 

I couldn’t count how many times I did that. But I'm sure the stars could. 

The brightest one was visible from the cellar window, just between the drapes. I was too far gone to feel any guilt. 

Strings, hammers, pins, wood,

All the gentle little bones. 

Little fingers attached to hands, 

Little feet attached to legs, 

Operate and work this intricacy, 

On those gentle little bones. 

A song drifts away, 

All calculated vibrations, 

Air compressing and expanding, 

From those gentle little bones. 

The house once silent, 

Carries these harmonies throughout, 

A grandeur mastery once thought impossible by one so young,

Plucking away, 

Navigating,

Upon all those little bones. 

The scotch bottle lay empty across the room, right on the floor next to the coffee table. A few drops had fallen on the white carpet, staining it.

The entire room was swaying like waves.  

I lay upon the floor, paper scraps twisted into my hair. Obscured notes, dynamics, rhythms. Meaningless. 

My train of thought was foggy, like a smoky veil that kept the panic at bay. It cut off the thoughts that led to panic. I was swimming, drifting, floating…

Drifting…

A woman stood in the open entryway to the cellar, staring at me. 

"Darling,"

I had forgotten how her voice sounded. With the soft tone echoing into the back of my mind, the recall, I choked up. I could hear the disappointment, along with the affection that laced it. It felt like a knife. 

Words jumbled in the back of my throat, hundreds of them, and I couldn't bring myself to speak a single one. It didn’t help that my brain was on the brink of combustion, my stomach twisted upon itself hundreds of times. How could I even choose which word to say? What sequence of words to say? 

"You've grown up. I remember when you were so little, you were barely tall enough to get up on the piano." 

Please stop talking. Please. 

They were all like slick knife blades, inflicting cuts that bore deeper and deeper each time. She was ravaging into my chest like a devil with that loving smile on her face, not even realizing what she was doing to me. 

"I remember your first recital. You were so adorable, wearing that dress I had sewn just for you." 

The scotch wasn't doing anything for me anymore. I had reached utter clarity, tears falling onto the carpet beside my head. 

"Can you play for me just like you did at Christmas? I loved the way you played Linus and Lucy. Can you do it again?" 

I moved my jaw, begging her to stop talking. I couldn't breathe, all I could see was the drips in her arms, the nauseating smell of cleaner, the grey look in her eyes, the gentle bones that cupped my cheek and told me that everything would be okay-

"What happened to you?" 

My mind cleared. 

Finally, she realized the discourse that had wrecked the room in the last several days. The destroyed sheet music, the empty dishes taking on mold, the empty bottle of scotch a few feet away. 

I couldn't imagine how I looked. 

"I..." I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to disappoint her. I didn't want that to be the way this went. 

She didn't wait for my answer any longer. She got enough from the way I averted my gaze. 

"Come here." 

She opened her arms to me. 

I realized what I wanted, and what I didn’t.

I remembered the state she had been reduced to – a failing body held together by brittle bones. 

Like a child, I sobbed loudly before I ran to her, throwing myself against her chest.