Page 109 of Perfect Pitch

I flush. “First, I didn’t drink that much. And second, no.”

We stand in the open doorway awkwardly before she draws me into the room. “I ordered some food in the event you’re hungry.”

“I’m fine, Mama. I’d really like to know what’s going on.”

“I know you do, baby. I brought everything with me to substantiate what I’m about to share. Before we get started, I’d like to tell you a story before you look at everything I’ve laid out.”

“Mama, I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

She grasps my hand and leads me to the sofa. “It started with Gramps telling the story of how he proposed to Grams.”

“He always tells that story,” I murmur.

She brushes a hand across my forehead, brushing back a few stray pieces of hair. “True. But I don’t know what made that day so different. Maybe it was because he wasn’t just telling it.”

“What was it, then?”

Her face becomes contemplative. “It was their anniversary. Your Uncle Jesse and Uncle Ethan were missing her something fierce. And, of course, so was Gramps. But no one could see how much I was hurting.”

I immediately grasp why. “Because you were alive and she wasn’t.”

“Yes, darling. It’s... difficult... to know your very breath has caused someone else’s to cease. To know if I wasn’t inside Grams, they could have tried different drugs to stop the infection. A cut from a fence she let go too long.” Her voice trails off, wonder and bitterness filling it. “I still don’t understand why.”

“Um, Mama? You’ve met Gramps, right? He’d have had her bedridden for months over a scratch,” I inject drolly.

“Have I mentioned how much of a smartass you are?”

“Must be from my father’s side of the family.” I give her my usual response.

“No. It’s from ours.” Then she takes a deep breath and tells me the first piece of truth. “Your musical talent comes from him. The night I met him, he was at the old homestead. Somehow, he found the old piano, and he was playing a song I’d never heard.”

I inhale sharply. “He was a musician?”

“He still is.”

I absorb that blow. I’ll think about it more later. “Okay.”

My mother, intuitive as always, gives me a moment before continuing, “The first thing I ever said to him was, ‘You know you’re trespassing?’”

I stare at her mutely before asking, “What did he say?”

Then she launches into a story about how when she saw his face, she knew him. He was a boy from her high school—again, I give thanks it wasn’t my chemistry teacher as I’d secretly wondered all these years. “His fingers raced up and down the keys. It was like he could hear the missing notes in his head, Austyn. He was pressing ones that weren’t there.”

I can picture every word she’s saying as she stands on the old wall of my family’s original homestead watching this outcast—an emotion I can completely relate to—play.

“But after I began to clap, he turned beet red and walked away. So, I called after him and brought him back.”

Entranced, I ask, “What did he say?”

Gruffly, as she imitates my unbeknownst before now father, “Like you said, I’m trespassing.”

“To which you said?”

“So, who cares. According to my daddy, so am I.” She can’t quite hide the bitterness in her voice. “He went on to ask me, ‘How can you be trespassing on your own land?’”

“Because you’re just a girl.” I stress the last word, knowing exactly how my grandfather thinks.

“Exactly, Austyn. Exactly.”

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