Yes, I definitely needed to call someone.
Nathan had listened to me cry about my mistake with Gregory after I’d gotten off the phone with my mother. He yelled some colorful language about Gregory putting me in the position to get hurt. That I deserved better than that, and I was wise to stay away from him. The fact that I was considering graduating from the other woman to full mistress status for an entire summer, rather than a single night, was not a conversation I could have with the hot-headed flutist. No one needed a broken hand, and Nathan would be the last to consider the effect one could have on his career.
Marcia had texted me several times when I didn’t call her back. I now had a hell of a lot more to tell her than I did after our initial call. Somehow I’d been fortunate enough to end up in a single sleeper room on the train. I have no idea who I’d have to thank for that, but they were getting thanked. A train is not typically a place that grants privacy, but I’d finally caught a sliver of a break.
Lying flat out on my bed, there was one person I had to call before my former roommate. I pressed send and spent a few seconds drumming up something to say.
“Hello?” His voice was groggy, unfocused.
“Dad. I know it’s late ... I’m sorry. I needed to … I needed to hear your voice. Can we talk?”
“Savannah! I’m glad you called. I never know when is a good time …”
“I know, Dad, it’s fine. We’re so busy all the time between playing and traveling, and figuring out which city we’re in.” I laughed for the first time in several days.
“How are things going?”
I chatted with him for a few minutes about the cities we’d been to, the various venues we’d played in, and how everyone was getting along. While the tour was mostly comprised of younger musicians, newer to their respective symphonies, there were some seasoned members amongst us. Some with long standing feuds with other musicians, which made for great storytelling during late night transit. Who would have guessed that trombonists could be so moody?
We never talked about my mom, apart from him telling me once in a while that I needed to call her back.
“Dad,” I sighed, “I talked to Mom the other day. She told me about Malcolm.”
“What … um, what did she tell you about Malcolm?” His voice had changed. He sounded slightly on edge. Not angry, though.
“About the story in Opera News.”
“Uh-huh …”
“Did it go on for the whole seven years, Dad?”
“Savannah …” As he exhaled into the phone, I could almost see him pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Come on, Dad, I’m an adult. This is my life, too.”
“Oh, sweetie, it’s so complicated.”
I chuckled half-heartedly, “Clearly. Did you know about him the whole time?”
My mother never admitted to a seven-year affair with Malcolm, but it was obvious. Given she was working in Italy and he was working in Boston, I gathered whatever relationship they had up until she moved back to the States was largely emotional.
“Malcolm was always a good friend to your mother. To the family. They have a lot in common and live in the same world.”
“Yeah,” I snapped, “a world you left for her.” I felt my cheeks heating thinking about the career my dad walked away from to support hers.
“I didn’t leave it for her, Savannah … it was for you.”
“What?” Tears stung my eyes.
“It was for us. For our family. You mattered more to me than to try to raise you on the road. One of us had to make the choice. She was further in her career than I was. Making her give it all up wasn’t something I could do.”
“But you both chose to have a family. Why did you have to give it all up?”
“That’s life, Savannah …” There seemed to be something he wasn’t telling me in that silence.
“Has it always been him?” I was whispering, disbelieving I was asking my dad something so personal.
“Your mother and I had a challenging relationship, Savannah. We wanted children together, but you came a little earlier than planned. That called for us to make some tough choices. It brought things out in us that … look, your mother is a good mother.”
He didn’t want to throw her under the bus, but it was clear that what went on—was now going on—between my mother and Malcolm was no secret.
“But you and Mom were married …”
“I don’t have anything I can say to make this easier to understand. But, I do want to tell you something.” His tone darkened to the stern set of notes he used when discussing drugs with me in high school. “Don’t make things harder on yourself than they need to be. Love shouldn’t be a fight, Savannah. It shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t tear people apart and leave everyone broken. If someone loves you, they give you all of themselves, not just parts. Do you hear me?”
My lips parted, startled by my father’s bleeding honesty. “Yeah,” I gasped, “I hear you. I have to go, okay? It’s late.”
“I love you. Check in again soon, okay? Even if it’s 3:00 a.m.”
“I will. Love you, Dad.”
I didn’t know before if my dad saw what my mom saw when watching my performance with Gregory, but that cleared it up. Of course he saw. He was wrong about one thing, though. You fight for what you love. Who you love. Giving up on Gregory six years ago left me empty. I had a chance to make that right, if even for a summer.
Spending a few weeks capturing what most people spend a lifetime searching for had to be better than nothing at all. Maybe Gregory and I had to grab whatever happiness was dangling in front of us. It was our window, and it was closing in a few weeks. I didn’t know if it would ever open again. I didn’t know what was going on in his marriage, and I didn’t know what went on in my parents’ marriage. All I knew was Gregory Fitzgerald was the only one who made me feel this way, and if this was the only chance we had to fully experience each other … I had to take it.
Even if it would break me in the end.
Gregory