Page 64 of Broken Chorus

“I guess I’m heading to the airport after the show, but I’ll be back as soon as I find out what the hell this is all about,” Aaron promised, hating the flash of disappointment that crossed Kelly’s face.

“No, we’ll go together, that way if it’s some bullshit, we can blow off steam at my sister’s place and catch a plane back tomorrow.”

“Naa dude, if it’s some bullshit, I don’t want you walking into that viper’s nest with me,” Aaron explained, still desperate to keep his best friend from seeing the full level of shittiness his grandparents and aunt aspired to.

“Are you sure?” Kelly said. “Because I’ve got no problem getting on that plane with you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it. Now let’s go blow them away again!”

He headed for his guitar without another word, anxious anger making the opening words come out growled when they launched into their first song. At least it gave him an emotion to play with. Judging by the response from the crowd, they could relate.

Chapter 15

House of Pain

The old house was still yellow. He knew, without even getting out of the car, that the inside of the house was nowhere near as bright as the exterior. Dark wood, dull yellow bulbs instead of sunshine. The curtains were there for show, pretty, frilly, the kind most everyone else on the block had framing open windows that let fresh air and light in. The windows to this house had been painted shut in his childhood, and the one in his mother’sold room had been nailed shut too, the same way his had been, once he was older.

Asking why had only resulted in him being told not to touch them, but he’d seen pictures once, in an old photo album he’d found in a box in the basement, where the windows were open, sunlight streaming into the room where his mom and aunt Kay played.

No one had ever told him what had happened to change things, or why his mother had gone away, just that she wasn’t coming back and Aaron better get used to it and do as he was told, ‘cause if he wouldn’t behave for his grandparents, then he was going to find himself sent somewhere they’d teach him the meaning of discipline.

Now here he stood, a grown ass man scared shitless of what he was going to encounter when he finally got up the nerve to make his presence known. The doorbell glowed the same orange it had when he was a kid, but the buzzer sounded like it was dying. When the door opened, there stood his aunt Kay, a little grayer and a little thinner, with weathered lines etched deep into her face.

Never married, she’d lived there with her parents, his grandparents, a constant presence in his life from the time he’d come to live with them until the day he’d decided to leave. Her nose scrunched up when she saw him, eyes narrowing as she peered into his face, then slowly took in the black t-shirt, black jeans, black motorcycle boots he’d changed into at the airport after cleaning up as best he could manage in the bathroom sink.

“I see you decided to show up,” She said, still sneering at him. “Though the least you could have done was be certain you were presentable.”

“Well, there are no holes in anything and my fly is zipped, which is about as presentable as I’m going to get these days,”Aaron said, flashing that fake ass phony grin he used whenever he hoped to be left alone.

She sighed, but stepped out of the doorway in order to let him in. “I see all the praying for you we’ve been doing has been in vein.”

He rolled his eyes, grateful that she wouldn’t be able to see him do it. “I told you that a long time ago,” he grumbled as he stepped deeper into the entry room.

“You did, but like before it’s just the devil talking. Someday, he’ll loosen his hold on you, and we’ll be here to welcome you back into the flock where you’ve always belonged.”

He couldn’t help it, he snorted before laughter bubbled out of him, bitter edged and brittle. She just shot him a dirty look and led him deeper into the house, to the kitchen, where the glossy wooden table was as highly polished as he remembered. One of his grandmother’s favorite punishments for him was to have him spend an hour making sure it, and the chairs, gleamed.

His grandmother sat at one end, her once ash brown hair completely silver now. Her fingers had grown gnarled, the skin almost tissue-like as she lifted a delicate teacup to her lips. The sight of him almost made her drop it. Her mouth opened and closed before she finally set it down, sloshing tea over the rim, not that she paid the spill any attention, her eyes never left his as she stood, pinched frown growing more severe as she appraised him. Like his aunt, she was tinier than he remembered, perhaps because her back was stooped, and she leaned a great deal of her weight on a shiny silver cane.

“Looks like someone dipped you in the devil’s ink,” she said as she hobbled closer.

“Hi Gram.”

She shook her head, one hand covering the other as she clutched the handle of her cane. “I tried to be a grandmother to you, but you never did like to listen when someone tried to teachyou something. You were too much like your mama. I’ve prayed for her soul since the day she was born, and now the times come to hand her back to the lord and hope she finds the peace in death that she never did in life.”

Blinking, Aaron struggled with the words between the words, all the things she didn’t say, until it dawned on him why he was back here. “I thought she died a long time ago.”

His Gram shook her head and huffed. “I never told you she was dead.”

“You never said she was alive either, just that she wasn’t coming back!”

“No, what I said was she wasn’t coming back any time soon.”

“That’s semantics, Gram, and not very fair when you’re talking to a kid!” Aaron snapped, then immediately lowered his tone when the sound of ice cubes rattling around in a glass echoed from the living room. It was always his grandfather’s favorite place to sit.

“So what happened? How’d she die?” Aaron asked, desperate for answers.

“It’s liver-failure that will kill her, probably within the next few days or so,” his aunt said. “She asked for you. We told her we didn’t know how to find you, just in case you decided not to show up. All those years of hard living just rotted her away from the inside out.”

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