(Blue Notes 2)The Melody Thief (29 page)

He took a deep breath and blew the air out from between his lips, trying to release the tension in his jaw and neck. He nearly opened the box, but he stopped himself.
This isn’t yours
, he told himself as he went back to making John’s bed, folding the corners as his mother had taught him years before. He found the monotony of the chore surprisingly comforting.

As he set the pillows back at the top of the bed, the box once more caught his eye. It hadn’t been there before; he was sure of it.
He knew I’d be coming in here. Did he mean for me to see this?
He ran his fingers lightly over the lid of the box, read the note again, and lifted the lid with a tentative hand.

The box was filled with papers, photographs, and newspaper clippings, most of them yellowing at the edges. His lips parted as he once more considered whether he should be going through John’s personal belongings without his express permission. In the end, his curiosity won out. He would apologize to John later and ask him about the box. What harm could he do by simply reading its contents?

He sat down on the bed and emptied the box onto the bedspread, taking care to keep the items in the same order in which he had found them. The first envelope he opened contained legal documents: a copy of his parents’ marriage license and a copy of the divorce decree. A beginning and an end. Also inside was a faded old Polaroid photograph of his parents on their wedding day. His mother looked beautiful in her wedding gown, and John looked young and full of life in his tux. John’s resemblance to Justin was even more striking in this photo than in real life. Cary could see himself in that youthful face, as well, and the realization was unsettling.

The next piece of folded paper was a copy of his own birth certificate. Inside the folds, another photograph, this time of him as a baby. Behind that, a photo of Justin, and a photograph of the two of them: Justin a bright-eyed five-year-old sitting next to Cary, who was wrapped in a blanket. Justin was clowning around for the camera, sticking his tongue out at baby Cary.

Cary smiled. He had seen the photo before, but it had been years ago, after his mother’s death, when he and Justin had cleaned out the house to get it ready to sell. Seeing Justin in the photograph reminded him that he should take Antonio and Massimo to St. Louis to meet his brother and his family.
You just never know. Sometimes tomorrow is too long to wait.

He continued to leaf through the contents of the box. Mostly, he found photos of himself and Justin as children—school portraits, and even a photograph of himself when he had just begun his cello studies at four years old. He studied each picture and tried to recall when and where it had been taken, with little success. After reviewing several dozen photographs, he came to a small manila envelope stuffed to bursting with the word “Cary” written across the front. It was his mother’s writing—he recognized the neat script.

He opened the clasp and gently emptied the envelope’s contents: newspaper clippings.
His
clippings. From the sheer number of them, he guessed his mother had saved every article, review, or mention of Cary Taylor Redding, from his first performance in the elementary school auditorium, to his Chicago Symphony debut as a young teen, to the last performance his mother had attended, shortly after her cancer diagnosis. Every last one of the clippings was cut neatly from the newspaper and pasted onto a piece of lined notebook paper. Not so surprising, really, from the woman who had promoted her son at every available opportunity. And yet there was more here than he had expected, for when he flipped the first article over to put it back on the pile, he realized there was writing on the back: “Cary Redding. Four years old.”

Cary’s first concert
, his mother had written.
Mrs. Filmore told me he was “cute as a button” and “a real star.” I worried he might be anxious, playing in front of more than just his cello studio, but he did a lovely job. I know it was only “Twinkle, Twinkle,” but he was so poised. So confident.

He turned to the next article, which was about a young musician contest he had won at the local performing arts center, and turned it over. “Cary Redding. Six years old.”

Cary played the Mozart sonatina beautifully. There was a moment when I think he realized the contest wasn’t so different than playing in our living room. He just knew what the music wanted, and he gave himself over to it.

He had no recollection of the concert—from the date on the note, he had been about six years old—but the words surprised him. More than that: he was stunned his mother would even write something like that about a concert. He had always seen her as detached and critical to a fault. And yet the praise and the pride in his mother’s words were evident.

He continued to read until he had gone through nearly half of the clippings, each with a sentence or two written on the back. His mother had never kept a diary, Cary knew, and now he understood why: these articles, and the notes scribbled on the back, had been her surrogate.

It struck Cary as strange that not one of them was critical of him or of his playing. At least not until he found the next article, the
Chicago Tribune
article reviewing his Chicago Symphony debut. He had no interest in reading the article itself; he rarely read his reviews, let alone ones from when he had been Cary Taylor Redding, child prodigy. On the back of this particular review, his mother had written four paragraphs.

“Cary Redding. Fourteen years old.”

The trip to Chicago flew by. Justin didn’t want to come, even though he’s on break from Wash U. He’s doing well in school and has decided to major in electrical engineering. He seems to be well past the adolescent rebellion of a few years ago. Cary, on the other hand, seems barreling toward it.

The concert was lovely. Cary’s playing was the best I’ve heard from him, although to be fair, John Fuchs’s conducting makes everyone sound better. Afterward, Cary was sullen and wouldn’t talk to the people who had gathered backstage. I did my best to smooth over any uncomfortable interactions, but I worry that Maestro Fuchs may have been left with less than a good impression.

Sometimes I wonder if we should be doing this, taking him from place to place so he can play. He seems to enjoy it, but then he complains that he’s not home with Justin, playing ball in the backyard. And then someone like Maestro Fuchs tells me Cary is a true talent, and that he’s following in the steps of the greats like Mstislav Rostropovich, Janos Starker, and Yo-Yo Ma. He says Cary will have a career not only now but when he’s older. But he has to stick with it.

John was at the concert again. He’s living near Chicago. I was tempted to confront him and ask where the support checks have been, but I didn’t want him around Cary. I know I have to do what I have to do, but I worry someday Cary will think it was wrong of me to take some of the money he earns to pay for our expenses. I also worry Cary will learn to hate music because he works so hard. But I don’t know what else to do. I need to know that when I’m gone, he’ll be able to support himself. He’s not like his brother, who’s good in school. Without his music, what would he do?

For a moment, he just stared at the writing. He smiled inwardly at the knowledge that John Fuchs hadn’t been at all deterred by whatever teenage attitude he had displayed at the concert; he had played many more times during the conductor’s tenure with the Chicago Symphony. It also wasn’t a surprise to read that his playing had helped feed their family; he had always known that, and he hadn’t begrudged her for it. His mother had never hidden it from him. No, it was the rest of the note that surprised him.

John had been there.
Again?
He remembered John saying something about retirement accounts and the mortgage on the house. He wondered how often John
had
sent his mother money. He remembered nights when she had barely slept and the mornings after, when she had home-schooled him, and the dark circles under her eyes.
How old was she when she died?
Just a few years older than David Somers.
Forty-four?
Far too young, really. He hadn’t thought of it at the time—he had been so young himself that she
seemed
old.

He leafed through more of the articles, scanning the notes on the backs. Here and there, his mother had mentioned their finances. He stopped when he got to an article from a concert in Madison, Wisconsin.
John met me backstage, and I realized he had been drinking. He told me three months earlier he had stopped and begged me to take him back. I just couldn’t do that to my boys. I couldn’t take the chance.

Without reading the rest of the notes on the backs of the intervening articles, he skipped forward to the last one. Cary Redding. Nineteen years old.
Cary and I drove to Chicago. The new CSO conductor, David Somers, had heard Cary play in Boston and invited him to fill a guest spot on a modern music series. Charming man. I was sorry to hear he recently lost his wife.

Cary remembered the trip well—the last one he and his mother took to one of his performances. He was already doing most of them on his own, but she insisted they drive up from St. Louis together. It was summer, and he was home from his second year at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

He drove; his mother was too exhausted from her first round of chemo to do the driving herself. He was surprised she’d found the energy to come at all. Maybe she knew this might be the last time she’d hear him perform.

I know Cary isn’t fond of modern music, but however he felt about it, Maestro Somers was impressed. He’s taken Cary under his wing, booking him next season and suggesting a European agent. It will be a challenge for Cary, keeping up with his studies at NEC and performing, but his professors have promised to work with him.

Cary told me something on the ride home. Something I had suspected for some time now. I didn’t want to hear it. I tried to make him understand that his choices will leave him unhappy in the end. He didn’t listen. It’s not only that God tells us it’s wrong, it’s that his life will be so much more difficult. In the end, though, he’s still my son.

Cary leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. He remembered the conversation as if it were yesterday. They had been listening to music, but the signal had faded and they had turned off the radio and driven in silence for quite some time.

Even now, he wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to tell her. Did he want to start a fight with her? Probably. But there was more to it than that. He was tired of hiding it from her and tired of pretending to be interested when she called him in Boston to tell him about a friend of hers who had a daughter he should meet. He was tired of her trying to make his life “perfect.” It was far from that. If she’d known that even at nineteen, he was cruising the clubs on weekends when he wasn’t performing….

He still remembered the cornfields that lined the highway and how flat the road was. He could almost smell the manure, even now. He felt the guilt that always accompanied the memory of that conversation. Guilt at having hurt her, after all she had done for him.

“I need to tell you something, Mom.”

“You’ve decided to take the gig in Paris in December?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

“Oh.”

“What I wanted to tell you… is that… I’m… you know… gay.”

She did not respond, and he wondered if she had heard him. Then he noticed her hands, which were now clasped tightly in her lap.

“I just thought you should know.”

There was more silence, and she finally said, “Just because you haven’t found a nice girl to date doesn’t mean you’re gay.”

“There are plenty of nice girls, Mom. I’m just not interested in them.”

“I’m sure you’ll realize that—”

“It’s not a phase, Mom,” he interrupted, gripping the steering wheel tightly and doing his best not to raise his voice to her. “I’m not going to grow out of it. I’ve never wanted to be with a woman—not like that.”

“It’s wrong, Cary. Whatever you think about it, it’s wrong. God says it’s—”

“I don’t give a shit about what God says about it,” he shouted.

“You won’t be happy living that way, Cary,” she said. “It’s not natural. It’s a sexual… perversion. It’s sinful. An addiction.”

“I’m not a pervert, Mom. This is me. This is what I am.”

“How can you say that, Cary Taylor Redding? How can you risk everything we’ve worked so hard for?”

“Mom, I—”

“After all that I’ve done for you, you tell me this? Do you
want
to hurt me?”

They hadn’t spoken about it again for the rest of the trip. In fact, they hadn’t spoken about it ever again, not even when Janet Redding lay dying in her hospital bed eight months later.

He drew in a long breath, then blew it out gently between his lips, as Aiden had taught him.
She understood
, he thought.
She didn’t accept it—she
couldn’t
accept it—but she understood.

T
WO hours later, his practicing finished, he lay on the couch, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and tapped it several times.

“
Pronto
.”

“Tonino?”

“How are you, caro?”

“I’m okay.”

“How’s John?”

“He seems to be doing well. He’s meeting his AA sponsor. They’re having dinner together.”

“Massi’s at his mother’s. He wanted me to say hello for him. He asked when you’re coming home.”

Not soon enough.

“I told him you’ll be back when your papà is feeling better.”

Cary debated telling Antonio about the clippings and his mother’s notes, but decided against it. He still wasn’t sure what to think about it, and he wanted to talk to John first. There’d be time later, when he made sense of it.