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

plans for this baby. I’m going to sell it once you guys have tested it for me, and pay for my college tuition.” Talia made a kissy face. “You’re welcome. Now, get packed for your summer vacation, parental units. Over and out!”

The video ended with fanfare and the words slowly writing themselves across the screen: Love, Talia and Blaise.

Miriam sat on the edge of the bed, savoring the sensation for a long moment before recognizing it.

Joy. It was joy.

The time these kids had invested in this project! Miriam could see from the number of files—some of them recognizable formats, most of them not—the complexity of this undertaking. And all while they were practicing for the finals of their scholarship competition in San Francisco. The one they’d won just before departing the world forever.

“A flip-a-coin road trip,” Becky said. “Genius.”

What Talia might have accomplished if she’d lived. Miriam’s joy was draining fast. Trying to hold onto it was like trying to hold the sea in a sand castle moat. Her gaze caught on something beyond the laptop, a family photo tucked into the corner of the dresser. It was taken after Talia subbed as principal cellist with the civic orchestra—a high honor for a sixteen-year-old. They’d gone out for ice cream afterward. Blaise and Talia had shot water at each other through their straws. She’d gotten so mad at them, especially when Teo joined in. “It’s like I have three children!” she’d snapped.

“I never deserved them,” she said softly.

Becky made a soft tutting sound. “Miriam, you know better than that. We all admired your family. Envied you, even.”

Miriam looked around the shabby bedroom they could never afford to update. The idea of Becky, with her pristine house with gleaming stainless steel kitchen appliances and vaulted ceilings, envying her was laughable. Yet Miriam understood. Teo and the kids had a gift for happiness.

She knew she’d done right by her children. By scrimping and saving, she and Teo had given Blaise and Talia the opportunities they needed in order to find out who they were meant to be. Which was more than she’d had; her parents had tried so hard to discourage her from pursuing music, right up to the day Dad died. She’d promised herself she’d do things differently. She’d let her children find their passion and follow it. She could cling to that, at least.

But she’d always cherished a little regret for the life that could have been. How could Teo compete with that? Teo, who had always greeted her with a kiss and a hug, while she responded with a stream of logistics and scheduling conundrums. Teo, who’d come home every few days with some inexpensive token of affection. She’d never managed to offer him more than a semi-clean house and a good meal.

The truth was, she was a fraud. Talia had figured it out, in the last few months, when Miriam had begun to look forward to the day the kids left home, and had started dreaming again. Her whole life had been about her.

The edges of the room whispered silence to the shadows. Miriam longed to get away from it all—from the too-quiet house and the incomplete sonata languishing on the piano; from the need to hide from the world all the ways she’d failed her family.

But she didn’t deserve a respite from this torture. She needed to stand face-to-face with the tempest and let it batter her until she felt something again. Something other than resentment and bitterness.

Suddenly, everything seemed crystal clear. “I’m going to do it,” she said. She walked over to the closet and stood on her tiptoes. The house was so small, they’d had to store suitcases on Talia’s top shelf. She pulled one down and threw it open on the bed, gathering up Talia’s blouses and skirts and tossing them in helter-skelter.

Becky watched, frowning. “Do what? Get rid of it all?”

“Huh?”

Becky gestured at the clothes piling up in the suitcase.

“No,” Miriam said. “I’m going on the road trip.”

Becky grabbed her arm. “Honey, you’re not thinking this through.”

“I’m thinking just fine. I can find somebody to cover me for a weekend. I’ll be gone, what, a week? Ten days?”

“A road trip across the US? You’ll be lucky to be back in a month!”

“So what? I can’t go on like this. You said it yourself.”

“I did,” Becky said slowly.

“Simeon told me to take all the time I needed.” He hadn’t meant an extended vacation, but she didn’t really care. She’d been wearing the mantle of the grieving widow so long, it felt shellacked onto her spirit. She wanted it gone, and it never would be as long as she stayed here.

She would point herself toward the west and a beach her family had died trying to reach. And when she stood in that place they’d never gotten to see, she’d be able to look her ghosts in the eye and say that once, at least, she’d given Teo everything she had to give.

 4

Thursday, April 28

7:50 AM

“ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE about this?” asked Becky as she set the tent into the trunk of the Sonata.

At this point, Miriam didn’t think it mattered if she was sure or not. They’d been up until midnight, taking care of details: calling Simeon to approve the time off, stopping the mail, finding subs to cover the next few weeks’ music at St. Greg’s. And of course, getting Talia’s app loaded onto Miriam’s phone. They’d had to call in John Merrick, who worked as an IT specialist. He’d figured out the transfer, but it had taken a while.

She was committed now. She flashed Becky a cocky grin. “Are you sure you want me taking your car?”

“That van of yours won’t make it, and you know it.” Becky sighed and shook her head. “Just call me, all right?”

“I will.”

“And follow the speed limit.”

Miriam chuckled and slid Talia’s cello into the back seat of the Sonata beside Teo’s beat-up guitar case.

Becky winced as it smacked the frame. “Why do you need the instruments,