Page 110 of Meet Me at the Metro

I plop onto the ground beside her, lungs burning. She’s still giggling with delight as she leans over and lays her head back against my thighs. I watch the quick rise and fall of her chest while the pumpkin looming behind us cruelly reminds me of my loss.

Fuck that thing is big…How I’m supposed to carry it back to the flat is beyond me.

Nora’s got a satisfied grin on her face as she rolls over to look up at me. “Stop scowling at the pumpkin.”

“That pumpkin can go to hell for all I care.”

She laughs. “It was a good effort, Theo, but I warned you not to provoke me. I’m competitive.”

“I’d say. You get that attribute from your mom or your dad?”

She smiles. “Both.”

I brush the untamed strands of hair away from her face and snort as I find the long streak of dirt covering her lower cheek and chin. Ilick my thumb and considerately wipe some of the mess clean.

She stares off into the wide, bright blue and pink sky for a moment in silence.When she returns her eyes to mine, she asks, “Will you tell me what he was like?”

I know exactly who she’s inquiring about without even having to ask her to clarify.

My dad.

I release a heavy breath and contemplate her question. There’s no judgment or expectation while she waits for my answer—just sweet, impartial patience. Usually, I find myself refraining from all talks that include him as the main subject, but right now, I want to tell her.

So I do.

“He was witty. Selfless. The guy that would tell you he loved you a million times just to be sure you wouldn’t forget. He was confident and talented—he could hum a tune and create a whole symphony out of it.”

I don’t realize I’m smiling until Nora’s eyes fall on my lips. She’s also wearing a proud grin, and it gives me the will to continue, “He was brutally honest but kind. Authentic and wise—there was seriouslyno one like him. And I know some people say parents shouldn’t make friends with their children, but he was my dad as much as my friend.My best friend.”

There’s a bittersweet ache in my chest at that last confession.

Grief has a strange way of hitting you with waves of emotions that are so at odds with one another. It is the contradiction of sorrow and joy, of pain and hope.

Nora pushes off my legs and sits up attentively beside me. “It sounds like he did a good job of leaving traces of himself behind.”

The words are a sucker punch to my chest.

I’ve never received a greater compliment than the one that just fell from her lips—to be even a slither of the person my dad was is an honor.

“So he was a musician like you, huh?”

“Yeah. He was the musical director atGildenhillfor quite a few years. That’s how he and Kim met, actually. That piano, that’s in the music room on campus, i-it was his. He played piano, composed music, gave lessons…He did it all.”

“Is he the one who taught you to play?”

I nod. “Taught me and somehow even roped my stepbrother into it.”

I immediately regret bringing my stepbrother into the conversation. I can’t ever quite put my finger on my feelings toward him. Before my Dad passed, he and I were inseparable, but after that day, I couldn’t even stand to be around him. Deep down, I acknowledge that nothing that happened was his fault, but there was a sense of resentment that settled so deeply in my bones that I don’t think he and I could ever have the same relationship again.

I know there’s a part of my stepbrother that holds onto that same sort of anger, too, and the day we buried my Dad, we went ahead and buried whatever remnants of our relationship were left.

I blink and force my mind to go down a different path than the one it was just on.

“I wish my dad could have met you. He would have loved your determinedarse.”

She’s happy to hear this. I can tell by the sudden lightness in her eyes.

She answers my confession with a kiss, and as it deepens, I pull her over top of me, laying us back against the cold ground. I soak up the warmth of her as our mouths collide with one another, humming with satisfaction at the soft graze of her fingertips along the stubble across my jaw.

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