Page 118 of The Cost of Forgetting You

But I can’t say any of that. Instead I have to repeat, “Click the X in the right corner. No, your other right,” ad nauseam until my voice cracks from overuse.

Emails are stacking up in my work inbox, but I find myself staring at my phone where it rests on the smooth, dark oak of Dad’s desk instead. There’s an automated message from the office for Dad’s speech therapist, letting me know she’s sick and needs to reschedule. A text from Truett asking what Dad and I would like for lunch from the Grille. And finally, the latest in a long thread of unread messages from my mother.

Why should I read them when I know what they’ll say? Line after line telling me I have no right to be upset. That it wasn’t even that big of a deal. That she wouldn’t have had to lie if I loved her as much as I love Dad, so really it’s my fault that it all happened in the first place.

Months ago I might have believed her. Those words would have torn me up inside until I lay at her feet, eviscerated by guilt and begging for forgiveness. Now all I feel is the exhaustion filling my head. Seeping into my bones.

At what point do you stop hoping your parents will change and finally start to accept them for who they are? People who are equally as damaged as you, and doubly as set in their ways.

At what point are you justified in saying that their love isn’t worth having if you must cut yourself open and bleed in order to keep it?

I lock my phone and push back from the desk. My joints crackle as I rise and stretch my arms toward the ceiling with a groan. I yank open the bottom drawer of Dad’s filing cabinet, where he used to house cleaning materials for the instruments. Spare bottles of valve oil rattle in protest as I search the contents. I retrieve a microfiber cloth from a stack at the back and a half-empty can of cleaner, then use it to dampen the cloth in my hand.

It doesn’t take long to wipe down Dad’s trumpet and return it to its case, which is worn at the edges and rusted at the clasp. I dust off the other leather cases and his music stand for good measure, then drop the cleaner back into its drawer. When I turn toward the door, prepared to discard the rag in the laundry room down the hall, my gaze catches on the box of items Alicia gathered from his office at the school. He still hasn’t gone through them, or at least, hasn’t bothered to put them away.

Guilt spears me. I should’ve offered to do it for him. I press my thumbs against my temples. The lemon scent of cleaner lingers on my skin, burning my nose and making my eyes water. I blink, trying to clear it. Sometimes it’s so hard to remember that the person I once needed help from now needs it from me. Even in these small, seemingly insignificant ways. It tangles the map I’d drawn from my parents to me, and leaves us with something far less direct. With no beginning and no end. Just a never-ending loop of give-and-take until, one by one, we disappear altogether.

There are a few trophies in the box, no bigger than the palm of my hand, for superlatives given out by his fellow teachers at the end-of-year staff parties that Dad always volunteered to DJ. I flip one over. On the base they’ve engraved the words Most Likely to Bail You Out of Jail. Laughter bubbles in my throat, effervescent. Another reads Band Teacher of the Year. It’s Dad’s favorite. I remember it being displayed proudly on his desk, the first thing you’d see when you walked into his office. Never mind that he was the only band teacher in the school. The sentiment still meant the world to him.

How badly he must have felt about what he’d done, to have left it behind.

Looking back, it’s so easy to see how he was a different person at school than at home. Completely in his element. Outgoing and playful in all the best ways. Other students used to tell me how much they wished he was their dad, and my chest would swell with pride. But at home? He made himself so small. We both did. We cut our edges into the exact pattern of Mom’s roughest ones, just to make it all fit a little better. Keep the peace a little longer.

I blow out a long, weary sigh. I take the trophies to his bookshelf and add them to the few already there. Maybe it’ll make him smile to see them again. It doesn’t begin to make up for all the years he spent compartmentalizing those parts of himself, but it’s something.

In the bottom of the box are binders of music sheets with my dad’s signature scrawl coating the pages. I turn them over, smiling at each enthusiastic reminder to pause a little longer, draw a note out beyond the cliff of its stanza.

Savor it, he’d always tell me. Hold the music on your tongue and really let yourself taste it.

I set those binders in one of the drawers of his filing cabinet. When I glance back at the box, amid a few framed photos and loose cards from students through the years, I notice a cluster of papers wrapped in a rubber band. Some are torn at the edges, others folded into squares. Dark pen marks bleed through the thinner sheets. I can just make out my dad’s handwriting on the top one.

I grab the stack and take it over to the desk. The age-weakened rubber band snaps when I go to remove it. The top paper is thin and soft to the touch. When I unfold it, a back-and-forth exchange fills the page, starting with my dad’s chicken scratch and followed by a loopy cursive that feels two degrees shy of familiar, like I’ve seen something close before but not quite the real thing.

To my co-composer,

So, what did you think? I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to hear how much you loved the man, the myth, the legend. PHIL COLLINS!!!

-Mozart (this will never not be weird to write)

To the next Mozart (just accept it),

Ok. You were right. I listened to the CD you made and Phil Collins is totally incredible. Against All Odds was my favorite, as you predicted. Are you psychic?

Love, your co-composer

To my co-composer,

If I were, I’d have seen that pop quiz coming in English. So much for going out this weekend with the guys. I’ll be grounded once Dad sees that grade.

-Mozart

To the next Mozart,

Let me know if you ever need a tutor. I’m more than just a pretty face, despite what my father seems to think.

Love, your co-composer

Beneath that note, my dad’s handwriting starts and then stops a few times. A dark line has been scratched through all the random letter combinations that never made it into words. What remains is a simple thank you to Co-Composer, followed by a scribbled smiley face.

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