There was no telling if I’d be reborn when I died, but the waltz began and ended with my four notes. He’d built the music around things that reminded him of me. And now this name. My name.
A hundred or a thousand years after I died, someone could play my waltz, even Li, who’d always resented my presence, and they would remember me.
Thanks to Sam, I was immortal.
.....................................................................
Chapter 19
Knife
TRUE TO HIS threat of having the rest of today be normal, we made our way downstairs, no time for me to bask in the revelation of my immortality. Still, I felt I glowed a little as I approached the piano.
Maybe the worst was over. Maybe we really could get back to normal, which meant I needed to tell him about the footsteps, but I squashed that impulse for now. He did need to know someone had followed me, but I could tell him later, when we hadn’t just discussed his many deaths, and when he hadn’t just immortalized me through his music.
I took my place at the piano, not entirely comfortable with the way he looked over my shoulder.
“Warm up again.”
I knew better than to argue, just donned my fingerless mitts. Scales and arpeggios flew from under my fingers while Sam perched on a stool nearby, looking thoughtful. “What?” I asked.
He shook his head, as if knocked from a trance, and reached for a notebook and pencil. “Play what you wrote.”
“Are you sure?”
“If anything happens, you’re right here to rescue me.” He flashed a smile, and for the next two hours I played and struggled to translate it to paper while he took notes and hmm-ed at me.
“This is much harder than I thought it would be,” I said when we took a break for lunch. “It’s not even a complicated song.”
“I think you’ll find that the simple things are often the most challenging. Everything shows in them. Everything matters.” He slid his notebook across the table and raised his eyebrows. “Another hour of practice before we head to the library?”
That was a good sign. All last week, he’d practically ripped me from the piano so he could get back to his research, though he never said what he wanted to know so badly. As anxious as I was to find out what else Menehem had written in his diaries, I was happier Sam was behaving more like himself. Learning about my father had waited eighteen years. It could wait another hour.
“That sounds perfect.” I leaned over to see what his notebook held. Scribbles and musical notes stared up at me. “What’s this?”
“Some things we might discuss about your music.”
I slumped. “It was awful, wasn’t it?” He’d let me work on it for hours before telling me? I couldn’t decide whether to be angry or devastated.
I wanted to run upstairs and hide my shame, but that wouldn’t help me improve. Instead, I grabbed the notebook and started toward the parlor. Might as well get it over with.
“Actually, I thought it was pretty.” He touched my elbow. “Did you even read what I wrote? Or did you just assume?”
“What do you think?” I pressed the notebook against his chest. “You didn’t say anything about it, and I just started. I knew it wouldn’t be perfect, but this page is filled. I think the next one is too.”
He gave me an exhausted look as his hands closed over the notebook. “Nothing is perfect, not even when you’ve been playing for several lifetimes.” Without waiting for me, he marched back into the parlor and set the notebook on his stool. “I know you think either you’re amazing the first time, or you’re a failure, but that’s not how this is. Nothing is like that. Yes, there’s room to improve this piece, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Remember? You just started. And you didn’t bother to notice I wrote things like, ‘This is lovely.’”
v
“Fine.” I sat on the piano bench again, determined to do better. Even my scales sounded angry.
Sam slipped onto the bench next to me, interrupting a major scale. His hands covered mine.
“Music is the only thing that ever mattered to me,” I whispered to the ringing silence. “Every time I hurt, I had one place to turn. I need to be good at it.”
“You are. I don’t, and probably won’t, tell you enough. Can’t have my students getting cocky.” He smiled; I didn’t. “But you are good at this. I’ve never enjoyed teaching someone as much.” He curled his fingers with mine and leaned toward me. Our thighs pressed together and his voice deepened. “I want to tell you something.”
“Okay.” All this touching today. It was disorienting and distracting, because he’d mostly been so careful to keep his distance. What if he did the same thing he had in the kitchen our first day here?
I couldn’t let him hurt me—even unintentionally—because he’d had a tough morning. I had, too.
“Wait,” I said when he started to speak. “Not right now. It’s just too much. I’m sorry.”