He smiled. “You noticed that, huh? It didn’t start out that way. To be honest, I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
“Maybe you’ve been listening to my iPod.”
He smiled. “No, I can assure you that I haven’t.”
She looked around her. “So when’s the church going to be finished?”
“I don’t know. I think I told you that the insurance didn’t cover all the damage—it’s stalled for the time being.”
“What about the window?”
“I’m still going to finish it.” He pointed to a plywood-covered opening in the wall behind him. “That’s where it’ll go, even if I have to install it myself.”
“You know how to do that?” Ronnie asked in disbelief.
“Not yet.”
She smiled. “Why is there a piano here? If the church isn’t finished? Aren’t you worried it’s going to get stolen?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be delivered until the church was finished, and technically, it’s not supposed to be in here. Pastor Harris hopes to find someone who’s willing to store it, but with no completion date in sight, it’s not as easy as it sounds.” He turned to peek out the doorway and seemed surprised that night had fallen. “What time is it?”
“It’s a little after nine.”
“Oh, geez,” he said, starting to rise. “I didn’t realize the time. I’m supposed to camp out with Jonah tonight. And I should probably get him something to eat.”
“Already taken care of.”
He smiled, but as he gathered up his sheet music and turned out the light in the church, she was struck by how tired and frail he looked.
25
Steve
Ronnie was right, he thought. The song was definitely modern.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her that it hadn’t started out that way. In the first week, he’d tried to approximate something by Schumann; for a few days after that, he’d been inspired more by Grieg. After that, it was Saint-Saëns he heard in his head. But in the end nothing felt right; nothing he did captured the same feeling he’d had when he’d recorded those first simple notes on a scrap of paper.
In the past, he worked to create music that he fantasized would live for generations. This time, he didn’t. Instead, he experimented. He tried to let the music present itself, and little by little, he realized he’d stopped trying to echo the great composers and was content to finally trust himself. Not that he was there yet, because he wasn’t. It wasn’t right and there was a possibility that it would never be right, but somehow this felt okay to him.
He wondered if this had been his problem all along—that he’d spent his life emulating what had worked for others. He played music written by others hundreds of years earlier; he searched for God during his walks on the beach because it had worked for Pastor Harris. Here and now, with his son sitting beside him on a dune outside his house and staring through a pair of binoculars, despite the fact he most likely wouldn’t see a thing, he wondered if he’d made those choices less because he thought others had the answers and more because he was afraid to trust his own instincts. Perhaps his teachers had become his crutch, and in the end, he had been afraid to be himself.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, Jonah.”
“Are you going to come visit us in New York?”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
“Because I think Ronnie will talk to you now.”
“I would hope so.”
“She’s changed a lot, don’t you think?”
Steve put down the binoculars. “I think we’ve all changed a lot this summer.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’ve gotten taller, for one thing.”
“You definitely have. And you’ve learned how to make a stained-glass window.”
He seemed to think about that. “Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I want to learn to stand on my head.”
Steve hesitated, wondering where on earth that came from. “Can I ask why?”
“I like being upside down. I don’t know why. But I think I’ll need you to hold my legs. At least in the beginning.”
“I’d be glad to.”
They were silent for a long time. It was a balmy, starlit night, and as he reflected on the beauty of his surroundings, Steve felt a sudden rush of contentment. About spending the summer with his kids, about sitting on the dune with his son and talking about nothing important. He’d gotten used to days like these and dreaded the thought that they would soon be ending.
“Hey, Dad?”