Page 30 of Again, In Autumn

Alice falls asleep within the hour. I carry her up to the bedroom with the bunkbeds and lay her down. Eyes closed, her arms instinctively grapple for something squishy to hold, so I stick a rainbow-shaped pillow in her arms before walking across the hallway to Heddy’s room, the one ready for Caroline.

Heddy always slept in this tiny room, on this full-sized bed, while the main bedroom stayed empty.

“That’s Mama and Daddy’s room,” she would say.

I remembered them from when I was very young.

Bill was an imposing, towering man who only ever smiled and laughed, and Bitty was tall, skinny, and bird-like, always flittering around with things to do. There was a falling out with Heddy’s brother sometime in the eighties, so Bill and Bitty invited us into their family home with a wide-reaching embrace.

My mother started coming to the house after she met Heddy in college, and her room is now my room. The summer before she died, my mother moved into the empty main bedroom, alone all summer, so Fran and I could have our own rooms, and every time my dad came for a single night, he slept on a bunk bed.

I’m convinced he showed up that one night a year just to make sure we didn’t change the locks, board the windows, and refuse to come home.

Heddy’s room overlooks the neighbor’s yard. I’ve never seen the trees so bare, the late evening sky so dark. Beyond the black tree trunks, a fire roars in the neighbor’s yard, and my family huddles around it with two other figures while Adam sits on a cooler with a guitar balanced on his knees. Although it’s too far to see their faces, I know he’s smiling. He always smiled when he played music for someone.

The first night he played guitar for me happened in front of that fire pit in brand-new cozy chairs. He didn’t light a fire; I had brought an extra-strong lantern.

Adam had asked me, “So…this is not a date.”

“No, not a date,” I answered, hugging my knees, and covering my hands with the thin fabric of my sweatshirt.

“How come?”

“We’re just sitting in the backyard,” I laughed.

He nodded, touching the guitar strings. “Anything’s a date if you want it to be.”

That shut up my laughter. I watched him through the light, focusing on his instrument, and repeated with a thick voice, “Not a date.”

He started to play right then. His fingertips plucked and pulled on the guitar strings, the sound twisting into the quiet night sky and wrapping us into this moment that felt intimate. The trees loomed overhead, and the rest of the world felt so far away.

I let out a sound.

He glanced up at me.

My hand fell atop my mouth, trying to hide a giggle.

He stopped. “Why are you laughing?” he asked with a husky, amused voice.

“I’m sorry.” I pressed my palms to my cheeks. “It’s just kind of…awkward.”

“You think my guitar playing is awkward?”

Careful not to make him think I was making fun of him, I asked, “Aren’t you, like, embarrassed to play in front of me?”

“No.” He blinked.

I swallowed. “Don’t you care if people think you’re good or wonder if they’re judging you?”

“No,” he said again. Adam scratched his hairline, a lump of folded hair rustling. “I play because I like it. It’s what I want to do. If I cared if people thought I was good at it, I’d keep it to myself and I’d never make it as a musician.”

I felt embarrassed to say it, but I did anyway: “It feels like you’re going to start serenading me.”

“I am.” His eyelids dropped, heavy.

My knees fell against the sides of the chair, cross-legged, my hands palm up in my lap. I remember tucking my shoulders in, feeling his gaze on my body and wanting it, but instinctively turtling for self-preservation. I covered a smile and muttered, “Now that’s awkward.”

Adam broke into a grin. He dipped his chin toward me and said alluringly, “I can think of awkward things I’d like to do with you. This isn’t one of them.”

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