Maestro (3 page)

Sure, she had known this day would come at some point, but why did it have to be now?

No. She'd think about Maestro, not herself. That was how she'd get through this. Be there for him, as long as he was here to be here for. She had the rest of her life to worry about herself.

The picture from the mysterious email flashed into her mind. Young, ruggedly handsome Maestro in tie and tails, after a concert performance, with a woman who looked exactly like her in his arms. A woman glowing with love. But it couldn't be true. Time travel wasn't possible. Wouldn't she be a fool, though, not to show the picture to Maestro? If there was a chance, no matter how small, to be with Maestro again, even if it were a completely different way from how she'd always known him... maybe especially if it were a completely different dynamic. She'd never been in love, at least not in the regular sense, but Maestro had been her soulmate ever since she could remember.

With shaking hands, she put her purse on the tray near Maestro's bed. She pulled out the picture, seized by the crazy thought that somehow it might have changed, that when she looked at it, she'd see Maestro with a completely different woman in his arms. Somebody blonde, perhaps. Taller, curvier. Annasophia could almost see the woman's face in her mind, almost as if she had seen her before. Temporary insanity, because of her grief? But no. When she unfolded the picture, there she was, Annasophia or a woman who looked just like her, cuddled in the circle of Maestro's arms. Maestro, at the height of his fame and power as an artist.

Oh, that look on her face! Love radiating brighter than the flashbulb on the long-ago camera, back when cameras used flashes and film. Love radiating from Maestro's hale and handsome face, too. She couldn't help herself. She smiled and felt another tear rolling down her cheek. Another chance to be together. A chance for a different kind of relationship. The prospect should feel strange, but it didn't.

Instead, it made her tingle all over.

“What's that?” Maestro asked.

Surely she was imagining things, but she thought his voice had been tinged by fear.

“Promise me you won't think I'm crazy.” She was smiling, but when she met Maestro's gaze, she saw the same fear in his eyes that she'd heard in his voice. Her smile withered and dropped off. Maybe she shouldn't show him the picture. But that was crazy. Maestro was dying. It might be now or never.

“I could never think you were crazy, dear,” he said gently.

Well, he was probably wrong about that. If he knew the kinds of things she'd gotten up to with her groupies.

She wouldn't think about that in front of Maestro. Her face flamed, and she looked away. How unconscionable to be thinking about sex in the presence of death.

For hours last night, she had tried to imagine how Maestro would react when she handed him the picture. Would he see the resemblance between her and the woman he'd held in his arms so long ago? Would he explain who the woman was? And – hope poked a tiny bud through the cold earth of her fear – if the woman was, indeed, Annasophia, might Maestro explain just how the heck she had gotten back there in time, before she had even been born?

Maestro had an IV in each arm, and multiple tubes snaked back to the bags that contained the IV medicines he was receiving. She wouldn't make him move. She would just show him the picture. First, she retrieved his glasses from her purse, where she had placed them last night, and put them on his face so he could see better. Leaning gently over, she positioned the picture about a foot in front of his nose, then she took a peek at the picture again, just to make sure she was still seeing what she thought she saw.

“Where did you get this?” Uh oh. Maestro's German accent sounded heavier. When she looked at him, she saw he'd gone pale. She swallowed past the knot that formed in her throat. She truly hadn't meant to upset him, but if the implications of this picture were in any way true, she had to know.

“Somebody emailed it to me,” she said.

“Who?”

“I have no idea. It was...” Operating on so little sleep, Annasophia had to strain her mind to recall the odd email address, but when she closed her eyes, it flashed into her mind. “Someone calling themselves
Lost in Time
.”

“Lost in time,” Maestro echoed, his German accent still heavy and gruff.

She had thought he would examine the picture at length, but instead, he folded it up and handed it back to her. “Somebody's playing tricks.”

“But there's no way anybody could duplicate me with such accuracy.”

“Dearest Anna, you've got lots of pictures out there.” Maestro's thorny accent was smoothing itself out. “And you've told me about the things people can do with pictures these days, using computers. That is the most sensible explanation.”

He didn't say it was the right explanation
, Annasophia thought. And Maestro never lied. He might not want to admit what was going on, but he would never tell a bald faced lie. Somebody was playing games all right, but she'd lay a firm bet that he wasn't Lost in Time but lying here in this hospital bed right in front of her, and furthermore, she would bet that game-playing was the last thing he truly wanted to do.

“Okay, look at my face.” She showed the picture to Maestro again. Maybe she was saying too much, but she wanted to convince him. Or if he was already convinced – or knew something she didn't – and wasn't admitting it, then she wanted him to admit it. Damn it, they had so little time! “I look like a... well, I've never looked like that before in my life,” she said. “That expression. I'm glowing. I...”
Shit
. She was making an idiot of herself.

Looking at Maestro, she saw a blush poking through his pallor. Perhaps she wasn't an idiot, after all. When he spoke, though, his voice was level, and he nudged the piece of paper back toward her. “You glow when you perform. Every time.”

Well
. She hadn't thought about that, but she supposed he was right. The picture had to be a hoax. Somebody was having her on. Her and Maestro. Ridiculous, the pranks people could get up to in the digital age.

She had wanted so much to believe she could somehow get more time with Maestro. But she wouldn't get anything out of a silly prank. She folded up the picture and tucked it into her jeans pocket. Then she leaned over and kissed Maestro's forehead. “Matt and I will be with you once you are moved into your new room.” She shuddered at the word
new
. In all likelihood, it would be the last room in which he'd be conscious. Or alive. “Night and day.”

“There's no need for that. You need to take care of yourselves. You both have many, many years to live.”

She placed her hand over his again and spoke with enough bravado, she hoped, to cover up her agony at the thought of what was to come. “You might as well face it, Maestro. You're stuck with us.”

He nodded, and a nurse came into his room. “I'm sorry, Miss Flynn, but visiting is over for now.”

In her mind's eye, Annasophia saw the picture. She saw herself, cuddled close against Maestro, in the prime of his talent, his health, his life. What might they have shared together – could still share together – if that woman was her? Oh, how she wished it could be real! Could it be?

You glow when you play and sing
, Maestro had said.
Not exactly like that, though
, she thought. Yes, music made her glow. But that expression on her face: down to her bones, she knew that look could only come from a woman in love. So the picture couldn't possibly be a prank, regardless of whether or not a hoax were the most logical explanation. What reason would Maestro have to lie to her, though? He was scrupulously honest, and if the incredible were the truth, then surely he remembered it.

Annasophia sighed, then kissed Maestro's forehead. “I'll be back.”

If only
back
could mean
back in time
.

###

That evening, Annasophia and Matt sat in chairs positioned on either side of Maestro's bed. There was no way of knowing whether Maestro would pass away tonight, but neither Annasophia nor Matt wanted him to be alone when it happened. One of them would be with him around the clock. They would stay with him together as much as they could, and as necessary, one would remain while the other went to get a bit of rest.

Maestro had been moved to the regular hospital room a couple of hours after Annasophia and Matt's first visit to the ICU. The nursing staff gave him regular pain medication, and he was on oxygen to help him feel more comfortable. Some of his friends and colleagues had come by, but not nearly as many as Annasophia had called on the phone. When she'd given them the news, they had conveyed their sympathies and regrets, but many weren't able to muster up the gumption to come to a dying man's bedside. That made Annasophia sad, but staring death in the face was tremendously difficult for many people. She wasn't sure she'd have the gumption to face it, either, up close and personal like this, if the dying person weren't Maestro. To him, she would give all the comfort she could muster and then some. It was no less than he would do for her.

As time had gone by, Maestro had become less and less lucid. The doctor told Annasophia and Matt that it was part of the process. Sometimes, Maestro would doze for fifteen minutes at a time, then he would wake up and talk. Sometimes he made sense; other times, he didn't.

As Annasophia watched, he opened his eyes, waking from his latest doze, and turned his head slowly toward her. “Elena,” he said in a weak, yet urgent, voice.

Elena, Matt's mother, had been Maestro's wife from 1963 to 1970, when they had divorced. They had briefly reunited in 1974, the year Matt had been born, but had separated again in 1978 and divorced for good in 1980. A weird relationship, to be sure. Elena had died ten years ago, and Annasophia had never met her or even seen a picture of her. There weren't even any pictures of Elena on the Internet Annasophia had been able to find. It was almost as though she and Maestro had never been married at all, except that Matt was proof. Of sorts. Matt hadn't been close to Elena, either. She'd asked him about his mom once, and he, ever-tight lipped, had replied, simply, that he and his mom had never gotten along. Strange that Maestro would be asking for Elena now.

With most of the odd things Maestro had been saying, Annasophia and Matt just played along. She didn't feel right playing along with this, though. Elena wouldn't be coming, even if Maestro wanted her to. Her heart seemed to crawl up into her throat. How sad for Maestro to yearn for Elena, after so many years of estrangement, then death. He must have loved her far more than Annasophia could have thought. A surprise, to say the least, given his apparent indifference the few times he had spoken about her.

“Maestro, I'm sorry, but Elena can't be here–”

He shook his head. “Don't let her know...” His voice trailed off into a mumble, but the urgency that had been in his tone remained on his face.

Poor Maestro. Perhaps he wasn't yearning for Elena at all. He might have traveled back in time, if only in his head. For him, Elena was still alive. Maybe he was remembering a difficult patch of their marriage, sometime during the period they had tried to live together again following Matt's birth. Annasophia looked over at Matt to see if any of this made sense to him, but he looked as perplexed as she felt.

“It's okay,” she told Maestro.

He looked at her again, and his gaze was more clear and sharply focused than she'd expected it would be. “No, it isn't. She knew what to do, and then...” His eyelids fluttered and his head fell back against the pillow. He'd probably be out another few minutes or so. Every time he lost consciousness, he lost it for a little bit longer time.

Annasophia's eyes welled with tears, and she put her hand on his. It wouldn't be long until he was gone. His hand jerked slightly under hers, as if he were still trying to communicate. She looked fixedly at her hand, which partially covered his large one. For all she knew, before he had slipped into unconsciousness again, he had gone back in his mind to when he'd been a little boy.

She glanced back up and started when she found that Maestro was staring at her, his eyes huge and haunted in his ashen face. “The door. You've got to guard the door. If you don't, you'll die.”

Annasophia shivered. Where was Maestro? With her, with Elena, with someone else? The sharpness of his gaze, though, didn't lie. He looked like he was with her here and now, not somewhere else in his mind. What he was saying, though, didn't make any sense. Was he afraid someone was going to come into his hospital room? It wasn't like Maestro to have worries like that, but who could tell what a person might come up with, filled with pain medicine and with body processes that were slowly shutting down.

“Don't worry,” she told him. “I'll guard the door.”

His mouth worked, but nothing came out, and to her surprise, tears welled up in his eyes and spilled onto his cheeks. His eyelids slowly slid shut and his head fell back onto the pillow. She hoped next time he came to, he wouldn't feel so anguished. Bad enough for him to be passing away without specters from the past haunting him, whoever or whatever they might be.

Annasophia sat back in her chair. Matt still sat on the other side of Maestro, but his face was almost as white as his father's had been. Staring fixedly at the floor as though he were afraid to look anywhere else, he looked as shocked and distraught as he had when Annasophia had told him about his father's diagnosis.

“Matt, are you hanging in–”

Someone started humming the melody line from the second movement,
Adagio Sostenuto
, of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. It wasn't Matt's voice. Though he adored music, he never sang or hummed. When Annasophia had asked him why, he'd told her he was too shy. She pressed a bit, and apparently, from what little she was able to get out of him, she figured out that his mother had behaved nastily to him when, as a little boy, he tried to sing. Annasophia scanned the doorway to see if anybody else had come in.
Nope
. The humming increased ever-so-slightly in volume, and Annasophia realized the sound was coming from right beside her.