Page 112 of Crescendo

I shut the door, walked back, carefully opened the front door and stepped out of the apartment, and I waited a second before I pushed back inside, making more noise this time. “Ella?” I called, and from the sound in the music room, I didn’t scare her like a murderer breaking into the room this time.

“I’m in here, sorry,” she said.

I pushed open the music room door, stepping inside and holding up the bags of takeout with a small smile. Looking up from the floor, she returned the smile, a hundred emotions there in her eyes—deeply and bitterly sad, grief about spilling out fromher features, but at the same time, something so beautifully confident, powerful.

“Do you want to eat now, or in a second?” I said quietly, and she turned her attention back to the clarinet.

“I suppose I should eat now…”

I set the food down on the end table, sitting next to her, a hand on her back. “Take your time, darling,” I said quietly, and she relaxed, closing her eyes.

“It’s been a long time… since I even got this far.”

“You don’t have to play it now, if you’re not ready yet.”

“I want to.” She shook her head, opening her eyes. “Ihaveto. Ever since I talked to Dad and Papa about it yesterday, I… I can’t let it sit there anymore. If I want to respect Callum’s memory, letting the clarinet he loved so much sit gathering dust in a box on a shelf is the worst possible way to do it.”

I squeezed her shoulder. “Will it be easier if I play it first?” I said softly. “Just to break the barrier.”

She swallowed, pushing out a breath and closing her eyes, and after a long moment, she nodded, handing the clarinet to me. I took it gingerly, reverently, the same way she handed it to me, and I turned it over, looking at it from every angle.

Well—this one was just the one supplied in the music room. It was probably the second-cheapest one at the music store. It wasn’t exactly a treasured keepsake. But it was clearly representing a different clarinet in Ella’s mind, so I probably needed to treat it as if it were that other one.

“I’m not exactly a woodwind virtuoso,” I said lightly. “Always did focus more on the strings.”

“What was it you said Olivia told you? Doing the ugly things you can’t do well?”

“Ha. I guess so. I’ll be my very ugliest, only for you, darling.” I lifted it to my lips, feeling the unfamiliar posture. It wasn’t like I hadn’t played it before, but I always had focusedmore on the oboe as far as woodwinds went, and as I always did, I went too hard with the embouchure and airflow. The clarinet honked, and I made a face, and it might have been what she needed—Ella scrunched up her face, and she broke out laughing, tears in the corners of her eyes springing up through a smile.

“Oh—that was beautiful.”

“Thank you, I’m very talented.” I closed my eyes, relaxing and settling into the posture with the instrument, and I tried again, playing lower and softer. Ella’s soft steadying hand on my thigh next to her tightened at the sound, fingernails lightly digging into my pants and pressing against me, but I kept going without any indication I noticed. I only paused when I could hear her breathing getting thinner, and I looked over at her, and she waved me off, a frustrated look in her eyes, akeep going, I’m fine.I kissed her quickly on the cheek before I turned back to the clarinet, playing it longer, more expression in it, and it was a minute longer there before I rounded out a passage, and she put a hand on my wrist, lowering the clarinet away from my lips.

“That’s enough,” she said softly.

“Are you okay?” I said, and she strained a smile at me.

“I’m all right. I just think maybe… maybe I’m trying too much, too hard, too fast.” She hung her head. “I wouldn’t even be able to play well. I’m so hung up that even if I got to playing, it…”

“It’s not about playing it well, though, is it?”

She folded her hands in her lap, looking down. “Because I’m not a musician.”

I set the clarinet back in the case, pulling her into a gentle embrace. “Ella,” I said, softly. “You make music. You’re a musician. Even if you went back to medicine after this and never touched an instrument again, you’ve brought more music into this world. You’re a musician.”

She closed her eyes, softening into me. “Thank you,” she said, but her voice was small, thin, weak, and I don’t know if it got through to her. Don’t know if anything got through to her.

Guess I’d been trying for a while. Clara and Melinda had both told me from the get-go that she wasn’t a pet project to rehabilitate. Was it so bad to care? Was it so bad to see someone hurting and want to make it better?

The thoughts continued to haunt me all through a quiet dinner, Ella clearly exhausted from the emotional effort and not saying much, and even after we went to bed together, Ella falling asleep with her dark blonde hair fanned over the pillow and falling across her face—even with her right there in bed next to me, she felt like a thousand miles away, and all I could think wasI only meant well, too.

I circled around and around on it, that song looping in my head a million times as my chest ached for her like I’d ripped my ribcage open to bare my beating heart, and it sank in slowly.

This was why we created art. Not as safe, casual, relaxed things—not as a factory-line process I could automate and streamline to do it without thinking—but as a way to scream out to the cosmoscan anyone hear mewhen the emotions threatened to get so big, so volatile, it felt like they would tear you apart.

Something like falling in love with the most beautiful woman you’d ever known, and despite everything you did, watching her slip away.

I bent over in the bed, pressing a kiss to Ella’s temple, and I slid out of bed, standing up quietly, stealing across the room with my heart beating faster as I slipped out and shut the door behind me. I waited until I was downstairs in the music room before I pulled out my phone, a little shaky, my head so full with music that it felt like it would explode.

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