The Stolen Child(35)
himself, teaching others after a second-rate career? I would rather play in a bordello.
Over breakfast one morning, I opened with this gambit: "Mom, I don't think I'm going to get any
better."
"Better than what?" she asked, whipping eggs.
"At the piano, at music. I think it's as far as I can go."
She poured the mess into a skillet, the eggs sizzling as they hit butter and hot iron, and said nothing
while she stirred. She served me a plate of eggs and toast, and I ate them in silence. Coffee cup in hand,
she sat across the table from me. "Henry," she said softly, wanting my attention. "Do you remember the
day when you were a little boy and ran away from home?"
I did not, but I nodded in the affirmative between bites.
"It was a bright day and hot, hotter than Hades. I wanted a bath to cool off. The heat's one thing I
can't get used to. And I asked you to mind Mary and Elizabeth, and you disappeared into the forest. Do
you remember that?"
There was no way I could remember, but I nodded my head as I swal-lowed the last slug of
orange juice.
"I put the girls to bed and came back down, but you were gone." Her eyes welled up as she
recounted the experience. "We looked over hill and yon but couldn't find you. As the day wore on, I
called your father to come home, and then we telephoned the police and the firemen, and we were all
looking for you for hours, calling out your name into the night." She looked past me, as if reliving the
experience in her mind's eye.
"Any more eggs, Mom?"
She waved her spoon toward the stove, and I helped myself. "When it grew dark, I grew afraid for
you. Who knows what lives out in that forest? I knew a woman once in Donegal whose baby was stolen
from her. She'd gone out to pick blackberries and left her child sleeping on a blanket on a bright summer
day, and when she came back, the baby was gone, and they never did find it, poor thing, not a trace. All
that remained was an impression left on the grass."
I peppered my eggs and dug in.
"I thought of you lost and wanting your mother, and I couldn't get to you, and I prayed to God that
you'd come home. When they found you, it was like a second chance. Quitting would be throwing away
your second chance, your God-given gift. It's a blessing and you should use your talent."
"Late for school." I mopped the plate clean with a heel of bread, kissed the top of her head, and
exited. Before I made it down the front steps, I regret-ted not being more forceful. Most of my life has
been ruled by indecision, and I am grateful when fate intercedes, relieving me from choice and
responsibil-ity for my actions.
By the time of the winter recital that year, just the sight and sound of the piano made my stomach
churn. I could not disappoint my parents by quitting Mr. Martin altogether, so I pretended that all was
well. We arrived early, at the concert hall, and I left my family at the door to find their seats while I
moped about backstage. The folderol surrounding the recitals remained unchanged. In the wings of the
theater, students milled about, mentally preparing for their turns, practicing their fingering on any flat
surface. Mr. Martin paced among us, counting heads, reassuring the stage-frightened, the incompetent,
and the reluctant. "You are my prize pupil," he said. "The best I've ever taught. The only real piano
player in the whole bunch. Make them cry, Henry." And with that, he pinned a carnation on my lapel. He
swirled and parted the curtains to the brightness of the footlights to welcome the assemblage. My
performance was the grand finale, so I had time to duck out the back and smoke a Camel pinched from
my fathers pack. A winter's night had fallen, clear and cold. A rat, startled by my presence in the alley,
stopped and stared at me. I showed the vermin my teeth, hissed and glowered, but I could not scare it.
Once upon a time, such creatures were terrified of me.
That frozen night, I felt entirely human and heartened at the thought of the warm theater. If this was
to be my farewell performance, I resolved to give them something to remember me by. I moved like a
whip, cracking the keys, thundering, floating, the right pressure on all the partial notes. Members of the
audience began rising from their seats to lead the applause before the strings stopped humming.
Enchanted, they showered their huzzahs, so much so that I almost forgot how much I hated the whole
business. Backstage, Mr. Martin greeted me first, tears of joy in his eyes, squealing "Bravo," and then
the other students, half of them barely masking their resentment, the other half consumed with jealousy,
acknowledging with grudging graciousness that I had outshone their performances. In came the parents,