I laughed out loud. What would Belén do if a hit man showed up at the door with a lead pipe? Probably tell him that he’d brought an ineffective weapon.
Not to pry, but I’m an excellent listener, er, typist, and I have another fifteen minutes of time paid for. Feel free to vent, but only if you want to. No pressure.
Kwaheri,
SK
P.S.—that one’s Swahili. It means goodbye, not sure if it’s appropriate for a letter; I never did pay enough attention when my dad was trying to teach me.
His dad spoke Swahili? Interesting. Did he do the same kind of thing as my dad, or had he grown up speaking it? My dad knew enough Swahili to get by in the countries he frequented where it was spoken. In fact, he knew enough of most major world languages to get by, since it was pretty much required for work. It made me wish I was better with words. I took boring and useless Latin because Belén thought it would help me on my SATs.
I replied right away.
So are both of your parents immigrants? That’s cool. My stepmom immigrated, but she’s pretty much the opposite of cool.
I snuck out of the house when I wasn’t supposed to. Got caught. Got lectured at by said stepmom. Kinda deserved it, but still. Though the knight-in-shining-armor offer is tempting. Rain check?
No point in spilling my guts to a stranger. I didn’t think my fingers had the energy to type it all out anyway.
P.S. Where’s my picture?
I sent the email and changed into my pajamas. The worn flannel of the pants and the nubby cotton T-shirt provided another layer of comfort, like a fabric bandage for my smarting soul. I sat back down at the laptop to find the most beautiful photograph of rolling emerald hills, dotted with a weathered wooden fence and stones marking a footpath.
Sorry, I forgot! Better late than never, right? I actually took this yesterday, intending to send it to you for the site. Great minds think alike. It’s the field at the end of my grandparents’ road. Rural doesn’t begin to cover this place. I thought you’d appreciate the green.
Yes, my dad’s from Kenya originally. He came here for college and never left. I think meeting my mom probably had a lot to do with it, though. That’s a story for another day—my time is up, unfortunately.
I hope you get some sleep and that whatever you snuck out for was worth it. I’ve found it usually is.
SK
I looked at the photograph again; it made my heart hurt. I wished more than anything that I could teleport myself somewhere peaceful and quiet, where people smiled and laughed instead of keeping themselves buttoned so tight they choked themselves.
I fantasized about a family vacation, only with a warped version of the family I actually had. My dad was still my dad, because in all honesty, he was great the way he was. Blanche was there, in all her contradictory loveliness, only kicked up a notch. She wore feather boas and tiaras, the eccentric grandmother who pinched cute boys’ butts and spouted kooky advice to strangers. Tilly spoke on a regular basis with everyone, including me, and she and I together eerily looked like we were friends. And Belén smiled—a real smile that reached her eyes—gave hugs when someone cried, and laughed full and unabashed when something funny happened. She let go and didn’t bother to care who was looking when she did. The five of us rode a red double-decker bus around a random European city, phones out snapping pictures, smacking each other on the shoulders to look at the sites we passed, and bickering warm-heartedly over where to go next.
I sighed loudly, knowing that’s all it was, a fantasy. But that didn’t stop me from wishing it could be true anyway. Intent on listening to some quiet music to relax me as I drifted off to sleep again, I put my laptop on the bed next to me, slid in between the cool sheets, and pressed play on “Chaconne” as my head hit the pillow.
The first strains of the cello were hesitant and timid, like it was afraid to show itself due to a small case of stage fright. I waited patiently for it to become louder, like a parent waits for a scared child to gain confidence, coaxing him out of his shell. As the volume picked up, so did the emotion, and suddenly I was awash in a sea of sounds. If those first few notes were trickles, there was now a raging ocean of crashing waves, washing over my head one after another. I’d been half expecting something that was just a deeper violin, but this cello had a mind of its own. The sound was rich and saturated with molasses and electricity. It was like a human voice, a melancholy song of longing, pleading with the listener to ease his frustration. People say there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain, and that was exactly the message this cello was sending out. Even though the sadness was undeniable, there was also an underlying sensuality, a slow-burning passion reaching out, begging for the listener to hear the want, the need.
As I lay there listening, I knew there was no hope of me relaxing. The tears that had magically disappeared at the words on the screen came back with a vengeance as the notes filled the air and invaded my head. Scalding my skin, they dripped down my cheeks silently. I cried for the girl whose voice remained unheard, who did her best to be good but didn’t always get it right. I cried for the girl constantly trying to forge a connection, to find someone who took her at face value and didn’t ask her to be something she wasn’t. I cried for the doors that had closed and cried for the ones that might never open. I cried out of want, out of thirst for something nameless, my heart beating itself into a frenzy, my body completely boneless beneath the sheets, now heated and damp.
When the song ended, I couldn’t move. My face was slick, tears clinging to my eyelashes as I stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing. I willed my breathing to slow until I was calm and sated. It felt like I’d just run a marathon, the exhaustion was so overwhelming. I closed my eyes and marveled at how magical it was that I could feel all of that, an eruption of emotion, from a song. And if the song could communicate all of that sadness and yearning, what did it say about the musician breathing life into that song? What had SK been thinking that allowed him to play with such fervor?
The sorrow fled as quickly as it had arrived, moving over for a meddling curiosity. I sat up and opened my email once more.
That completely wrecked me. Bravo.
T
Chapter 11