Unfinished Symphony by Jeffrey Allen White (ebook reader browser .TXT) 📕

just seemed to come easy to him. He loved music, especially classical. The great masters of music always inspired him.

Ken’s mind often drifted when he played. Especially today. Beside Kimberly, he thought of Justin and David. They were a handful. Brothers and twins at that. They were always a step ahead of him. He did not know how Katie did it. She worked part time but she managed to keep the apartment and the kids in order. Something that was definitely missing from his life now. He could not even think of dating, with the hours he worked to pay for Katie’s medical bills. It would take him another ten years just to pay them off at this rate.

He knew Katie had cancer when they met. She was very young and they had caught it early. She had chemo and wore a wig to her Junior Prom. She looked beautiful. They married the year after they graduated and Katie had her full head of blond hair back. She was very beautiful. She was intelligent and very witty. She taught violin. She was a much better teacher than he could ever be, he always thought. She had patience. A virtue he was lacking in. He had will power, which is why at thirty-five he had the body of a twenty-five year old. He always watched his weight and Katie was jealous of his eating binges and not gaining an ouch.

Katie had been cancer free for over ten years. She felt good, exercised and ate well. They both did. It came as a shock to them both. Katie had paged him to tell him to come straight home after his session. He had thought she was going to tell him the twins had gotten into a scramble at school or that she had a fight with Kimberly. However, it was neither.

When Ken came in that day, she was sitting on the sofa watching TV. The kids were out with their friends. There was no sound from the TV, just a picture and it was some home decorating show. Katie sat and stared at the mute set watching the hostess carefully pin a ribbon to a picture frame for hanging.

“Hello honey, I’m here. What’s up?” Ken set his cello down in the hall and went into the kitchen for a diet soda. Katie did not answer him. He walked back out to the living room. “Honey?”

Katie sat there saying nothing. He noticed she had been crying. “What the matter honey? Did something happen today. How were your lessons? That Schuster kid still giving you a hard time?” Ken sat beside her.

Katie fell into his arms and started crying. “Honey what is it? Look at me.” He was concerned.

Katie held him. “Hold me please. Don’t let go.” She said through her tears.

“What is it? You have to tell me if I am going to fix it.” Ken held her, trying to figure out her problem. He was always able to straighten out her problems.

“This is something you can’t fix.” Katie cried as she lay in his arms. “The doctors can’t even fix it.”

Ken’s heart skipped a beat and he felt the blood rush from his head. He swallowed hard. He knew where this was leading. “What happened today? Please tell me. Did you go to your doctor’s appointment?

Katie nodded yes and continued to cry.

Ken knew it was the cancer. It had returned. She had told him of a small lump in her breast several weeks ago. She had it tested but they always take second test weeks apart to be sure.

“They said not to worry.” Ken held her. His eyes filled with tears. He was sure it was not that bad, probably just a mistake. After all, people made mistakes.

Katie looked up at her husband of fifteen years. The man she fell in love with when she was only a freshman in high school. The boy who stood by her when she first was diagnosed with cancer. He was there all through her treatments. He took her to the proms and the senior class trip. They were voted Best Couple in their senior year. “It showed up as malignant this time. They took a biopsy of a node and it came back positive.

“But how, you always go to your check ups. How can this be? Maybe we should get a second test done.” Ken tried to make it seem not so harsh.

“No Ken, they found something in my bones this time. It is fast growing. I have cancer...again.” She was sobbing now.

Ken cried also. “Listen, we can beat this. We did it before. We can do it again.” His mind searched for ways to help her, maybe a new doctor, or diet or maybe just some medication.

“It isn’t that easy this time. Dr. Lovell says it is spread and it is in my bone marrow. That is why I was so sick this winter. I thought it was just the flu. I caught from the boys.

Katie was sick a lot this past winter. Then everyone else in the city was also. It was very cold this past year and there were a half dozen flues going around. “What did they say? Tell me everything.”

Katie sat up, wiped her eyes, and pushed back her long hair away from her face. She steadied herself next to Ken, her feet tucked up under her and his arms around her.

“The test showed the cancer to be in about several places.” Katie wiped her nose. She took a deep breath before continuing. “It is not operable.” Katie looked at her husband. “Dr. Lovell said it was very aggressive and evasive to treatment. And with a prior history of cancer, my body could not withstand the treatment that is needed.”

Ken started to speak. She put her hand on his mouth to stop him. “No. Please just hold me. For now, just hold me”

They sat there for hours not saying a word, just holding each other. The kids came home at five and they were still there.

That is how it all started again. The cancer returned the treatments, the hair loss, and the sickness. The doctors were right; Katie did not have a chance this time. She went downhill very fast. She died four months later in his arms in her own bed. The kids had been sent to Mac and Leslie’s, because they knew it would be any day. She had said her good-byes to them and they all cried and she told them she loved them.

She had lost consciousness and slipped into a deep sleep before she died. He held her hand and after a while, it went limp. She was gone.

He cried so hard he thought he would die also.

That was a year ago. The kids have adjusted pretty much. Kimberly was a teenager, but did not give him any trouble like all his friends were having. He felt blessed to have his kids. They were great. The boys cried for weeks, then they slowly to their former selves, with more energy than before it seemed.

A single tear rolled down his cheek just as they hit their final chord of the piece.

“You really get into your music Ken.” He had noticed his tear.

Ken wiped it and let him think it was the music. However, it was not always the music.


Chapter 2

The apartment was quiet when Ken got home. The boys were at the daycare until six o’clock and Kimberly said she was going to her friend’s after school to do her homework.

Ken walked into the foyer and put down his cello. He brought in the mail he had fished out of his mailbox in the lobby. Sorting through the pile of paper, he was amazed to see how much of his mail still Katie’s name had on it. It was if she was still alive and living here. He looked over to the kitchen expecting to see her walk out to greet him. A moment or two of holding his breath made him feel even more ridiculous. However, she was not there. Not anymore.

Picking up his cello behind him, he brought it into the living room and set it down by the piano in the spot that was relatively safe from flying balls, thrown schoolbooks and an occasional slide into second base. He kicked off his shoes, wiggling his cramped toes and went into the bathroom. His toes always cramped especially after a rehearsal as he tapped his toe when playing. Not a lot or even noticeable but enough to give those small toe muscles a work out and combined with walking they made them ache all the more

Ken turned on the lights. One of the kitchen lights were flickering. “I’ve got to get the super in to fix that,” he said. Looking in the mirror, he studied his face. He thought he looked older now or at least what he thought an older brother would look like but to was him just the same. He seemed to have aged this past year. Katie always said he had a baby face but now his baby face was showing more of lines that crept on everyone’s face at some time.

Ken went to the guest bathroom, turned on the water in the sink, and with a clean, dry cloth, washed his face of the city grime that hovered about the street at about head level. The cold water gave him the jolt to get moving. He was reawakened from his return to home after a long day. Looking at his watch, he noticed that the boys would be home in half an hour and he had to make dinner.

He went back into the kitchen with the broken light and opened the shade on the lone window to grab what daylight that was still available. He figured he has enough time to get their meal on the table before it became too dark. They would eat in the dinning room tonight. He looked in, saw the mound of papers and kid stuff, and decided they would have a dimly lit dinner in the kitchen. He made a beeline for the fridge and opened it, sorting through he shelves, and picking out the leftover meatloaf from yesterday and put it into the microwave to nuke.

He searched the cupboards for some canned vegetables and found some carrots. David hated carrots but Justin loved them. He thought it was funny how the twins were so alike and yet so different. “Carrots it is,” he said aloud to no one. He was just setting out the plates