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

“Are you serious?”

“Shut up, Talia,” said Blaise, his eyes fixed on Miriam. “Can’t you see she wants this?”

“You are so selfish!” Talia shrieked, and stormed out of the kitchen.

And that, right there, was why Miriam needed this. Because she’d given up everything for those kids, and her daughter still called her selfish. “Phil,” she said into her phone, “I’ll do it. I’d love to do it.”

It took a couple more minutes to iron out the details. Miriam was only vaguely aware of Blaise moving around the kitchen behind her while she scribbled notes on a piece of scrap paper. When she disconnected, she found him running dishwater, unasked. “Thanks, honey,” she said.

He shrugged a reply, not really meeting her eyes as he squirted hand soap into his palm. “Don’t worry about Talia,” he said. “She’ll be okay. You deserve to do something for you.”

Blaise didn’t try to escape the kiss she planted on his cheek, but he didn’t accommodate it either. He just endured it, like a proper teenage boy, and then shuffled soundlessly in his stocking feet out to the living room to practice.

Talia didn’t speak to her for twenty-four hours.

But Thursday night, while Teo and Blaise labored outside in the yard, there came a knock on her bedroom door. “Mom?”

Miriam turned away from the computer. “Yeah?”

Talia held a package in her hands, neatly wrapped with a red bow. “I was thinking,” she said. “I mean, Blaise and I were talking. I guess I understand why you want to do this. I mean, I guess you should get to do something for you.”

The words fell like rain on scorched earth. Miriam couldn’t speak; she just crossed the room and enfolded her daughter in her arms.

“All right, all right,” said Talia after a moment, but she couldn’t quite hide her smile. “Daddy and I have something for you. We were going to give it to you—” She caught herself and started over without the accusatory tone. “We were going to give it to you on your birthday, but we figured maybe you’d like to wear it for your concert.”

Miriam opened the box Talia handed her. Inside, she found a beautiful dress—crinkled black, splashed with enormous crimson hollyhocks. Cap sleeves and a billowing skirt. A skirt meant for dancing.

“It’s beautiful, Talia,” she said.

Her daughter beamed. “I’ve been trying to figure out a whole ensemble. You can borrow some of my makeup, and I think if you do your hair right, you could use my red scarf.” She hurried over to the computer. “I know you never put your hair up, but I saw this tutorial—”

Miriam, mesmerized by the soft fabric, didn’t register the sudden silence until Talia’s voice broke it.

“What the … hell?”

“Language,” Miriam said automatically. Then she realized what her daughter was seeing, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

Gus von Rickenbach’s Facebook page, with its header photo of a man playing piano with an orchestra. The profile photo showing his hands on the keys. And, especially, the unfinished private message in the bottom right. The one Teo had been telling her for years to write, and which she’d finally worked up the nerve to compose tonight.

“‘I wish I’d done things differently’?” Talia read. “‘I’d like to see you while I’m in California’?”

Miriam dropped the box on the bed. “Get out of there,” she said. “That’s my business.”

“Your business.” Talia’s face was white. “Are you cheating on Dad?”

“Of course not!” When would she have had time to cheat on Teo? “I am not discussing this while you’re screaming at me. When you’re ready to be rational, you can come try again.” Miriam headed for the kitchen.

Her daughter followed. “What is the matter with you?” she shrieked; Miriam cringed, wondering how much the neighbors could hear. For some reason, her memory picked this moment to offer up her mother’s voice, screaming the word divorce at her father. All she could think of was the need for escape, even if the only escape available was work. She pulled out the cleaner and started scrubbing the stove top.

“What are you doing?” demanded Talia. “This is no time to clean! Don’t you care about us at all? You never do anything with us! You just work all the time! It’s always dishes or floors or—or stove tops! If you loved us—”

Miriam wheeled. “For your information, young lady, there’s a lot of work involved in raising a family!” She sounded just like Mom. She redirected. “I don’t ask much from you because I’m trying to make sure you have all the chances I never did!”

“Dad’s been so unhappy!” Talia swiped at her eyes, as if angry with herself for caring. “Even I can tell! He deserves so much more—why do you always push him away? And now you’re trying to hook up with some guy while you’re in California with us? Oh, my God, Mom! You’re always riding us about right and wrong, and look at you! You’re such a hypocrite! Such a two—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, ladies!”

Talia fell silent. Teo stood there with his arms folded, looking back and forth between them.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “What are you fighting about?”

Miriam shot him an agonized look, desperate for rescue, but he didn’t know what she needed rescuing from.

Face flushed, Talia flung her hands out. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. You can’t fight with someone who has no heart.”

With a withering glance at her mother, she stomped to her room and slammed the door.

 27

Wednesday, May 4

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska

THE SEAMS IN THE pavement passed beneath the tires, ka-thump, ka-thump, marking the passage of miles like a metronome. Ka-thump, ka-thump, counting the heartbeats between the past Miriam could no longer fix and the desolate future it created.

“Are you cheating on Dad?”

“Why do you think I want a divorce?”

The juxtaposition of her mother’s words to her dad, twenty years earlier, with Talia’s more recent, anguished accusation sent Miriam’s anxiety skyrocketing. Stripped bare of her defenses by the intensity of this pilgrimage, she recognized the fear