Page 39 of Sounds Like Love

MOM WOKE UPin the middle of the night in a panic. I had barely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes by the time she’d gotten dressed and pulled her shoes on. She was already going for the Subaru keys, but Dad—still in his pajama boxers, hair sticking up in a cowlick he tamed with pomade—snagged them from the hook before she could reach them. I stopped at the top of the stairs, watching quietly, confused.

“Hank, I have to go. I’m late,” she said. Her voice was strained as she said it. She’d buttoned up her shirt wrong, one hole off, and that was something she never did.

“Where do you have to go, heart?” Dad asked, sweet and patient.

“There’s notime.”

“There’s always time, heart, and it’s the middle of the night.”

She frowned. Then looked out of the front stained glass, the windows dark. “No, it’s not …” She faltered. “I need to go, Hank. I need to go.”

The realization of what I was seeing was slowly beginning to dawn on me, and I sank down behind the staircase railing so my parents wouldn’t see me. I did that often when I was little, Mitchell beside me, on nights when Mom met Dad at the door and they whispered softly to each other about the Revelry. That was when we first found out that Grandma had passed, and the first time we overheard about Dad’s uncle skimming off the top of the books, all the disasters not suited for children’s ears. I wasn’t a child anymore, but this still felt like the kind of moment I shouldn’t be privy to. The kind of moment my parents didn’t want me to see as proof that they were human.

And that life was nothing like love songs.

As I watched from the top of the stairs, I began to put everything together. Mom was confused. She’d woken up in a different time, in a different era. I’d read about this happening, but I didn’t think … and Dad hadn’t mentioned …

He hadn’t mentioned a lot of things, come to think of it.

“I need to get to her. I need to see she’s okay,” Mom went on, her voice breaking. Her eyes glimmered with tears. “Hank, she has to be okay. Ami has to be.”

Ami? I frowned. She mentioned her a few days ago.

Dad seemed to know immediately whom she was talking about, because he grabbed her tightly by the arms and squeezed them. “Okay, okay, dear heart,” he said gently, “we’ll go. I’ll drive, okay?”

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she? And what about—”

He grabbed her purse, and his wallet, and gently followed her out of the door. “Things turn out okay,” he replied, and just as he reached back to close the door, he caught sight of me peering down between the railings. We locked eyes.

There were so many things I wanted to ask: This wasn’t the first time,was it? But how many other times had she woken up in a different memory? How many more times would she? How would he get her back? How hard was it for him, each time?

And by the look on his face, it got harder each time.

Mom was asking a question now, voice carrying away in the breeze on the porch.

Dad turned away from me and stepped outside with his hand on the knob. “He’s safe, dear heart. Take the passenger seat. Watch your step …”

And the door closed behind him.

I waited for a moment until the headlights of the Subaru flickered on, and Dad backed out of the driveway, lighting the stained glass panels surrounding the front door. They threw colors across the walls for a brief moment, and then left me in darkness again as my parents drove away. It was only after they were gone that I moved, and only to sit on the top step of the stairs. I felt sick to my stomach, because I was helpless. There was nothing I could do, even though I was here.

That knotted, terrible ball in my chest grew tighter—

How often did this happen to Dad, when he had to throw on shoes and grab his keys, and go after her? How much longer would it happen?

What if she managed to leave without him knowing?

My ears were ringing, my head full of awful noise. I held tightly to the stair railing, trying to keep a handle on myself. I had to. Ihadto—

Faintly, in my head, Sasha began to hum. It was that sweet, familiar melody. The first few notes, over and over. I concentrated on it. On his voice. On the notes.

And hummed along.

“Breathe,”he whispered.

I did.

In, and out.

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