Page 61 of The Sound of Us

I had never forgiven Sasha for taking her life the way she did. She knew I would be the one to find her. She knew I would to try to save her. She knew I would haul her out of the bath slippery and wet and naked, while I begged the 911 operator to tell me what to do. She knew I’d be alone. Not just then, but forever after.

She knew and she did it anyway.

I’d blocked the house from my mind the way I’d blocked everything else about my family. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t think about it. As far as I was concerned, my life started the day hers ended and my memories of the past were gone.

But then I met Skye and my walls started to crumble. First my loss, then my pain, then stories about Fruit Loops and ham sandwiches. When I told her about my house, something broke inside me and the memories came flooding back.

Once upon a time, I had a home.

I borrowed Noah’s car and drove to River Forest. I didn’t know what possessed me, only that I had to go. Maybe some small part of me actually thought my father would have kept the house out of sentiment, or even as real estate investment. I imagined I would walk inside and see my mother’s paintings on the wall—vibrant colors and abstract designs that had made her the darling of modern art collectors. I would see the couch where she would curl up with Sasha and me to watch movies on the big-screen TV, run my hand over her treasured collection of vinyl records, and brush the dust off the turntable where she played her old-time rock ‘n’ roll whenever my father was out of town. My feet would sink into the thick carpet where we’d danced and belted out the lyrics to her favorite songs. I would see her everywhere in all the things she’d left behind.

And I would see Sasha, hiding in her pretty pink bedroom from the shadows in the night.

I parked a few blocks away and walked down the quiet tree-lined street until I reached the Victorian heritage home that I’d lived in until I was sixteen. For a split second, I thought it was still our house, but with a fresh coat of paint, and new front door. But I didn’t recognize the cars in the driveway, or the tire swing hanging from the oak tree in the front yard. The bicycles on the lawn were pink and pretty and someone had set up a teddy bear tea party on the front walk.

It took me a long time to process that my home was gone, along with all the memories inside it. He hadn’t even given me a chance to save a few mementos. No record collection or turntable. No paintings. No birthday cards or even one of the stuffed animals that Sasha had slept with every night.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest all over again. Somewhere in the darkness I’d nurtured a flicker of hope and now it was gone.

Just like they were gone.

Just like the pain had been gone until I tried to let light into my life.

I didn’t know how I made it back to the station for our weekly intern meeting with Noah. I didn’t remember walking back to the car, or driving through the city. I didn’t remember going to class or how I wound up in a chair in front of Noah’s desk.

“You’re early,” Noah said. “And you look like shit.”

“So do you.” His face was gray and the circles under his eyes were so dark it looked like he was wearing makeup.

“I have a reason. This station is my life and I’m not going to let it fail.”

“I have a reason, too.” My voice caught, broke. “My mother had a vinyl collection that included original pressings ofThe Black Album,Led Zeppelin, andElectric Ladylandand now it’s gone. Everything is gone.” It was a strange thing to blurt out with no context, but music filled the space when I didn’t have words.

Noah’s face creased in sympathy, and I knew he understood. He was the most intuitive person I’d ever met. “Rare vinyls, but not that hard to replace if you had, say, an inheritance in your pocket. If she’d had a copy of Wu-Tang Clan’sOnce Upon a Time in Shaolin,that would have been something. Or evenThe White Album,not for the overrated musical genius but because it’s worth almost $1 million.Now, if you told me she’d had a copy of Tommy Johnson’s ‘Alcohol and Jake Blues,’ that would be a tragedy because the master tapes were destroyed.”

And just like that he pulled me back from the brink. “I can’t stand his yodel.”

Noah pointed a finger at me across this desk. “Then you, sir, cannot call yourself a musician. Get your ass in here tonight before your show and I’ll give you a Tommy Johnson education. I might even let you listen to this.” He held up a twelve-inch vinylof Miles Davis’sKind of Blue.“I picked it up for two grand from an old lady who only listened to it on Sundays.”

“Thanks, Noah.”

He gave me the briefest of nods. “Don’t thank me. Thank Miles and the father of the Mississippi Blues.”

I managed to get it together before Skye arrived with Siobhan and Chad. They brought their own chairs and squeezed between the boxes and piles of papers scattered across the room. I couldn’t look at Skye. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but I couldn’t handle what she’d triggered inside me. I’d put walls up around my past for a reason and I had to stop them from crumbling, or I’d crumble, too.

“I’ve read your updates about the volunteers and interns,” Noah said. “Everything looks on track except the broadcast portion of the internship. Where are we with that?”

“Chad has done a few sports shows,” Siobhan said. “Still waiting for Skye.”

“I’ve been doing more digging into my story about the empty buildings,” Skye said. “My journalism professor helped me file some formal information requests because the administration won’t give me access to their files. What I’ve got isn’t broadcast-ready yet. I’ve also been looking into an issue with the garbage and recycling on campus and Professor Stanton just agreed to let me conduct an investigation as my year-end project.”

“Garbage?” Noah didn’t seem very enthused about Skye’s project, but her eyes lit up at the question.

“The university is mixing the garbage and recycling. I’ve been watching the pickups around campus. Two weeks ago I thought I saw something suspicious going on between the truck driver and one of the building maintenance crew, but I wasn’t close enough to see what went down. My gut tells me there’s something there, but I don’t know what it is… yet.”

Noah folded his hands behind his head. Nothing about hisexpression had changed, and yet I sensed his disappointment. “Anything else in the pipeline?”

“I met some ballers in the bar the other week,” she said quickly. “I told them I was interested in any gossip about the sports teams. One of them came up to me in the gym the other day and said he might have something for me. I’m meeting him for coffee next week.”

---