A Song for the Road by Kathleen Basi (classic literature books txt) 📕

“It’s me,” Dicey said. “I’m giving her sedatives.”

A brief pause. “Uh … hello,” Becky said. “I didn’t realize there was someone else in the car.”

“Yeah, I figured I better announce myself before it got weird.”

“Dicey, meet my friend Becky. She’s one of my choir members. And our social director. Becky, this is Dicey Smith. I’m giving her a ride to the bus station.”

“Oh.”

Monosyllables were not Becky’s style. “What’s going on, Bec?”

Becky hesitated. “Well, there’s a comment you need to see. On Blaise’s video.”

That didn’t sound good. “What is it?”

“You need to read it yourself.”

“Hang on.” Dicey’s thumbs danced over her screen. “Here, this must be it—it tags about a bazillion people.”

Miriam clenched her fists on the steering wheel. “So what does it say?”

“It’s a link to an old Instagram post.” She peered at it. “It’s a picture of two boys. I guess one of them must be Blaise. This guy says, ‘When I saw this video, all I could think of was those two fairies at science camp who got caught outside together after curfew. Went looking and guess what? This is one of them! You figure those queens—’”

Dicey stopped abruptly, but the lid had already blown off the hot, hard scab covering Miriam’s heart. “Finish it,” she said.

“Uh, Miriam—”

“Finish it!”

Dicey hesitated. Sighed. Clicked her phone off. “The gist of it is this prick questioning whether either of them …” She redirected. “If they were … actually equipped to have sex.”

Miriam’s rage raised the temperature in the car ten degrees. She had to open the window and let in the cool of the approaching storm, just so the cabin didn’t spontaneously combust. “Let me see.”

“Miriam—”

“Now.”

Dicey thumbed the phone and held it out. A quick glance showed her Blaise and another boy holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes with an intensity that leaped off the screen.

Miriam returned her attention to the road, breathing hard through her nose. What kind of person went after someone who was dead?

Dicey peered at the screen. “The original post got a lot of interaction.” She hesitated. “These comments are horrible. It went on for days. Can you imagine living with that for a whole week?”

“I thought the same thing,” said Becky softly. “Did Blaise tell you anything about it, Miriam?”

Her rage vanished beneath a wave of pain so powerful, Miriam felt as if her guts had been yanked out of her body and thrown on the pavement. “No,” she said.

She pulled off on the shoulder and bent over the steering wheel. She remembered that camp. Blaise had been so excited—a whole week devoted to astronomy. Yet afterward, he’d had nothing to say. He was quiet by nature, but this was different. For weeks afterward, he’d been moody and withdrawn. He’d only perked up when Talia brought home information from her cello teacher about a tiered competition whose final winners would earn ten thousand dollars in scholarships, payable to a music school of their choice. He threw himself into preparing for the first round, and Miriam breathed a sigh of relief and let it go.

She’d given him space and privacy when what he needed was love. Why hadn’t she dug deeper? He’d been suffering, and she’d done nothing to help him bear it.

“Ssssooooo …” said Dicey, “your son was gay?”

Miriam shook her head, the steering wheel rolling across her forehead. “I didn’t think … I don’t know.”

The music in her suitcase mocked her: the manila folder, the printouts, the manuscript notebook filled with her pathetic attempts to finish what Blaise had begun. No wonder she’d failed so miserably.

The clouds hunkered down, sucking wattage from the day. It couldn’t be. He would have told her.

Wouldn’t he?

Her body craved motion. Miriam sat up and accelerated back onto the highway. “I can’t talk about this right now. I gotta get off the phone, Bec.”

A long pause. Then Becky sighed. “All right. Call me tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Music replaced her friend’s voice in the speakers. The perky beat grated like sandpaper. Miriam punched the radio off.

Of all Miriam’s family, she and Blaise had understood each other best. Why wouldn’t he have told her? Did he think she’d be angry? Reject him?

Maybe he’d told Teo. Teo never got angry about anything. It was his most maddening trait. He never let anything get to him.

A fat drop of rain splattered the windshield. Another. And another. Miriam turned on the wipers, but they only smeared the dust. She punched the wiper fluid dispenser.

She had to finish that music. Find whatever message Blaise had left for her there.

“Um, Miriam?”

She glanced to her right. Dicey had a slightly strained look on her face.

“Sorry, but I need to pee. And eat. And I need a couple of prescription refills.”

Miriam winced. She knew what it was like to be pregnant. She should have been thinking about this without Dicey having to ask. “Of course,” she said. As the rain started in earnest, she flipped her turn signal and headed down the next exit ramp.

 11

THEY DROPPED OFF THE disposable camera and Dicey’s prescriptions at Walgreen’s before taking refuge from the downpour at the McDonald’s next door. By the time they headed back to pick up their purchases, the storm had passed, or at least, paused. Traffic hissed noisily on wet pavement. The sky spat small, hard raindrops.

“How’d you meet your husband, anyway?” Dicey asked as they hurried across the parking lot to the Walgreen’s.

Miriam hunched her shoulders against the rain. “At a convention for Catholic music ministers.”

“Love at first sight?”

Miriam snorted. “Not hardly.”

“Oh, come on. You said he was Italian-Argentine, right?” Dicey infused the sentence with the worst fake Italian accent ever. She had the hand motions and all. “You must-a had a spicy relationship-a!”

The laugh caught her by surprise. “Yeah, well, Teo missed out on that particular gene. He was more the nerdy professor type.” Talia’s ghost bared its teeth at her, but Miriam stared it down. He’d said it himself a hundred times.

Dicey sighed. “Oh well, I suppose it was too