Page 109 of A Boy Called Lovesong

“Sorry.” He put me down, then pulled out a hanky and blew his nose.

Maybelle was busy getting her last goodbye kisses from Chet before she finally handed him over. As I slid him onto the passenger seat, Maybelle took my face in her hands. She kissed me on the left cheek and said, “This is so you look after Chet.” She kissed me on the right cheek and said, “This is so you look after Lovesong.” She kissed me on the lips and said, “And this is so you look after yourself.”

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

Maybelle grinned. “Thank you for breaking down… exactly where you needed to.”

Opening the passenger door, I said to Lovesong, “You ready to go?”

He nodded in my direction, tears in his eyes. “As I’ll ever be.”

I helped him into his seat, picking up Chet and putting him on Lovesong’s lap before I fastened the safety belt for him.

I climbed in behind the wheel.

I started the engine.

And with a honky-tonk piano bouncing on the box trailer behind us, Lovesong and I waved goodbye to Clara’s Crossing.

We drove between cotton fields.

We reached the crossroads.

And suddenly I had to think. “Shit, which way is New York?”

Lovesong laughed. “You tell me.”

I turned right, and as we drove away, I couldn’t help but look in the rear-view mirror, expecting to see little Iggy Spoons dancing in the crossroads.

But there was no sign of him.

It seemed his job of fending off the Devil was finally done.

EPILOGUE

Snowflakes drifted downthrough the branches of the Sitka spruces, and I watched Lovesong turn his face upward, catching the flakes on his tongue and letting them melt on his cheeks. He held his knitted glove tighter in mine, and with his other hand wrapped the scarf around his neck so he wouldn’t catch cold. Somewhere in the woods nearby I heard Chet barking at a squirrel, confident that if a battle brewed, Chet would be at our heels in no time.

“It’s beautiful here,” Lovesong said with the kind of smile that might never leave his face. “But why here?”

“Because this is where Steinway comes to make their pianos. These trees are older than anyone living, and the music that’ll be played on their pianos, will outlive all of us.” I pulled the urn from the pocket of my jacket. “This is where he should be. This is where he wants to be.”

I took the lid off the urn.

I sighed away my tears.

And with a shake of my wrist, I sprinkled Joel’s ashes onto the wind.

In a flurry they swirled upward, dancing through the snowflakes and up into the trees…

Each speck settling on the branches like a melody…

Like fingertips on a piano, playing a tune that would echo through this forest… and the classrooms of music teachers… and the concert halls of the world forever.

A week later we were back in New York.

The halls of Juilliard were busy with students prepping for recitals and rushing to dance classes and tuning their violins in the hallways outside their classrooms.

I hastily led Lovesong by the hand through the corridors like I was dragging a kid through a candy store, pulling him away from this sound and that.

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