Then she reached back and turned my palm up. “What happened?”
“Nothing, I cut it on the tour. Broken glass backstage, I picked it up and there you go. Cut myself. It got reopened somehow, I haven’t had time to change the bandage.”
“It’s not too deep, is it?” Concern made her look even older, even more tired. “That’s not why you’re back, because of your hand?”
“I’m . . . I needed some time off. Van and Click are still touring, they’re going to finish out the schedule.”
“I’m getting the first-aid kit.”
“It’s not a deal, Joan.”
She retrieved the metal box with its scratched white enamel paint and brought it back to the table, flipping it open and telling me to keep my hand still, then began unwrapping the old bandage. When my palm was revealed she used some cotton and antiseptic to clean the dried blood away. Her fingers were long and very strong, pianist’s fingers, with neatly trimmed nails. The second knuckle on almost every finger was slightly swollen, going arthritic. Steven used to massage her hands after she’d been playing for a while.
“Thanks,” I said.
She murmured that it was all right while she tore the wrapping on a fresh square of gauze. “Looks nasty.”
“It’s just a cut.”
“You should have someone look at it, honey. You don’t want it to turn into something that threatens your playing.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I lied.
She used some strips of cloth tape to hold the gauze down. “You’re as bad as Steven was.”
I moved my look from her hands tending mine to her face, saw the bitterness. Steven had suffered from the sore throat for months before he’d been willing to see anyone about it, and even then, only because he’d started bringing up blood in the morning. By the time the cancer had been found, the only possible treatments for it had been devastating and, ultimately, futile ones. No one ever said so, at least not to me, but the feeling was that he’d just waited too long.
“I’ll go to a doctor tomorrow,” I said. “I promise.”
Joan closed the kit and said, “You’re a grown woman, you’ll do what you like. You’re home until June?”
I grinned. “That’s the plan.”
She didn’t buy it. “Who’s filling in for you?”
“Oliver Clay. You don’t know him, out of L.A. He’s good. He’s not me, of course, but he’s good.”
The joke didn’t even get a smirk. “Did you and Vanessa have another fight?”
I shook my head. “I just wanted to come home.”
She started to frown, then stopped it before it could take hold, deciding to let this matter drop, too, which wasn’t really like her. My coffee was getting cold, and it felt like it was cold in the house, too, as if the furnace wasn’t working.
“I heard ‘Queen of Swords,’ ” Joan said, after a moment. “You’re doing things with the instrument that Steven would have been thrilled to hear. It’s very accomplished playing.”
“He wouldn’t have thought it was too glib? I kept thinking he’d have told me I was being glib.”
“No, he would have been very proud of you. Steven was always very proud of you.”
Pressure came thundering hard behind my eyes, and my head began to ache, like I had a migraine. I wanted to say that I hadn’t come back for the funeral because I’d been angry and scared. I wanted to say that if I could do it again I would do it right, I would be there for her. That I would know how to say good-bye to the man who, as far as I was concerned, was my father, more than the man who’d given me my genes.
But I hadn’t, I’d chickened out and hidden in the Beverly Hilton behind all the bottles I could find.
Joan was looking at the clock on the stove, and getting to her feet, saying, “I’ve got to get to bed, sweetie. I’ve got to teach tomorrow, and I have to get up early.”
I started to nod, then blurted, “Can I stay? Just in the guest room or maybe up in my old room, please?”
She stopped, looking surprised. “Of course you can, hon, if that’s what you want.”
I nodded again, more vigorously, feeling shamefully young.
Joan came around to my side of the table, dropping down on her haunches and putting her hands on my arms. It created strange nostalgia, as if the moment now could have been a moment ten years ago, with me in pubescent misery and Joan offering all the maternal guidance she knew how to give. She put a hand on my cheek.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
I tried to open my mouth and say something coherent, but there was just too much to say, all of a sudden, and none of it could come out. All I could do was shake my head and try to explain that I didn’t want to sleep in my house alone, and she told me that she understood, and that I was always welcome, and that I should always know that.
“You’re our little girl,” Joan told me.
The sting of guilt stayed with me to morning.
CHAPTER 12
When I came down in the morning, Joan was already up and preparing to head to work. She looked very proper for school—navy slacks and a cream blouse, the uniform of a woman ready to fill fresh young minds with the infinite possibilities of music. She pressed a mug of coffee into my hands, then went back to loading sheet music into her book bag.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked.
“Fine. You’re teaching all day today?”
“Fridays are busy. I’m at school until three-thirty, then lessons until eight.”
“I was thinking of taking you to dinner tonight. We could go to that Lebanese place you like, Riyadh’s?”
“Tonight won’t work, honey,” Joan said, pulling the bag onto her shoulder. “I’ll be exhausted. But tomorrow’s a Saturday, and the only lessons I have are done by three. We can have dinner after that, if you like.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“That would be fine.”
I nodded, dumped the rest of my coffee out in the sink. She waited for me, and we walked outside together. It was clear and cold, but there was no wind, so the chill didn’t hurt.
The old Volvo was in the driveway, and as I walked her to it, I asked, “You’re okay? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I’ve got plenty of money, now. I’d be happy to spend buckets on you. It’s the least I can do.”
She unlocked the door to her car, then stopped, holding the keys, looking at herself reflected in the window. I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
“I don’t want charity,” Joan said. “That’s not what we ever wanted from you.”
“That’s not what I meant, Joan, I’m sorry—”
“Steven asked for you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Would it have been so much to come home, Miriam?” she said. “Just for one day?”
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s a lie. You didn’t want to.”
“I was filming—”
“That’s the excuse. You were his daughter, Miriam.”
Joan opened her mouth, ready to say more, to say what came next, but she abandoned it, shaking her head slightly instead. She climbed into the Volvo and tossed her bag across to the passenger’s seat, then followed it herself. She fitted her seat belt, then the key, but didn’t start the engine.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Over dinner.”
“I’ll call,” I told her.
She nodded and started the engine, and I watched as she backed out of the driveway, then went to the Jeep. When I reached it, I turned around and looked back at the house.
It was still big and worn and old and wonderful, and yet it just didn’t feel the same inside, and I understood enough to know it wasn’t only because Steven was gone. Nothing is constant, nothing remains, and the things we rely on go so quickly, quicker when you try to keep them, it seems.