My older niece grinned. “Sure, Grammy.”
The little girls giggled and ran out of the room and I waited for her to lay into me.
“Mom, what is it?” I asked. Her heavy stares had been boring into the side of my face in a way that only moms knew how to do.
“Why have you been telling us you were fired? Why did you let everybody spread those rumors about you?”
“It’s complicated.” I pushed away the half-eaten slice. “They didn’t understand me. Once they found out I was Erik Jones, that’s all they cared about. They asked me to play the song at performances for the symphony.”
“So, play the song,” Wes said. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s not theirs.” I slammed my fist down. Wes’s eyebrows shot up. “And I’m tired of that being all people care about. All the work I’ve done kept getting pushed to the back burner.”
“You quit to prove a point?” Wes asked.
I lowered my voice. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
Wes raised his eyebrows like I was crazy. He looked to Ma for support and she shook her head as though to tell him to stop. “I’m sorry, sweetie.” But she held something back. “Where will you go?”
“Ma, you know I can’t stay here. Not now. I was only supposed to be here for the season anyway.”
Wes and Kelly exchanged a look. The same look my parents gave each other.
“It’s just such a shame when you leave this big house empty while you’re gone,” Ma said.
“We will move in,” Wes jumped in.
“I just don’t understand what happened. We’ve seen what the news said. But we know there has to be more to it than that,” Dad said.
“Not really. I have a temper. I punched Roderick Chagny in his rat-face and I was fired. Well, I quit before that. Technically.” More or less.
“Is this because of Kim?” Dad asked. “I was hoping she might still come around. I watched that documentary she suggested.”
“Kim is gone. She’s on tour with Chagny,” I said.
“She’s doing really well. I follow her on Instagram,” Kelly added. “I never got to meet her, but she seems … lovely.”
“That’s not her. That’s a doll being dressed up to get downloads. That’s Christine Day.”
The table went silent as I brooded.
“I’m sorry. You seem very upset about her being gone,” Ma said.
“I’m fine. She’s the one that left. She chose that guy who is clearly using her. It’s the life she picked.”
Wes sat back and sighed. “You can’t put it all on her, man.”
“What?” I glared at him.
Ma flicked a glance to me. Dad and Kelly stayed quiet.
“You’re playing the victim in all this,” Wes continued.
“I am not. I just don’t care.”
“You clearly do.”
I might as well put it all out there. Everybody else was going to take Chagny and Kim’s side in all this. I wanted somebody on my side.
“I gave her a choice. She chose him. She walked away after committing to me—to the solo.”
“You gave her a choice?” my mom asked. “How? What does that mean?”
I explained about the notes. About how close we’d grown. About how that asshole had pretended they were his. How I punched him, and how he’d fully deserved it.
“She could never make a choice. Never. She wanted somebody like him to take all that pressure off her shoulders,” I finished.
“So,” Dad started. “Knowing that she finds decision making difficult, you put her on the spot with Chagny. The man who she’s spent her whole life thinking was the author of those notes. Then made her choose, and risk hurting somebody no matter what? All the while not telling her the truth.”
I blinked. Well, when he put it that way, of course it sounded bad.
“She had no qualms about hurting me. She chose him. I was only ever the fun-time guy before Chagny.” My fork flew as I slammed the table with my fist. “And come on, she should have known about the notes. Chagny? Really?”
“Do you honestly believe that?” Ma pushed her plate back too and crossed her arms. “Because we all met her and don’t believe for a second that she uses people. And were you two close back at camp? If she didn’t know the notes were from you, then how would she have ever guessed you’d sent them? Especially if he’d claimed to be writing them. Why would she doubt that?”
I frowned at the table, scratching my beard. “She asked me to give her a reason to stay. She asked me to tell her that I would choose her long term.”
Three blank faces glared back at me. I wished I hadn’t said that last part out loud. Out of context it sounded bad on me.
I pressed on, trying to explain my point of view. “But that was her making me do the work again, don’t you see? I needed her to decide. I wouldn’t force her hand only to face her resentment as the years went on.”
My dad at least nodded once as though he could see my point of view.
“Yeah, but what did you do?” Wes asked. He drained his bottle of beer and set it back down loudly before going on. “Did you tell her how you felt? Did you explain that you sent the notes and Chagny is a lying bastard? Did you fight for her even a little?”
“Language,” Ma scolded.
“Why should I?” I asked. I sounded petulant. Dammit.
“Because that is what you do when you love someone,” Wes said with vehemence I’d never seen in him. “You don’t just give up before it begins. I’m really starting to see a pattern with you now. This quitting. Your talent, as always, comes so easily. You work so hard, but you quit before you can ever fail.”
Kelly grabbed her husband’s hand and made a face. “What you and Wes have told me about Kim, she has had some trouble in her past right? Well, Kim is chasing her life now. She is trying to do the best thing for her. She has made bad choices before. Maybe she’s just trying to do the smart thing now. For her. He offered her everything she wanted.”
“She doesn’t want any of it,” I spat. “She only thinks she does.”
“Yeah, there you go. Deciding what she wants,” Ma said. “She thinks that’s what she wants. Love is about wanting what the other person wants and trying to make it happen for them. Supporting their dreams. And Chagny tells her all the right things. I’m not saying I like him, but he lays it out for her. He makes it an obvious choice. You just said that Kim struggles with making the right choices.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s trying to be smart.” Wes slammed his fist on the table. “You’re broody and moody. You run around the world leaving any time things get hard. She doesn’t know where she stands with you. Did you talk about any sort of life outside her playing? About what her performance means to you? Chagny says, hey, I’ll do everything for you.”
“He won’t challenge her.”
“No. He won’t and that’s exactly why she picked him. But you have to make it clear to her that you are worth the fear and the uncertainty. You’re the real deal,” Wes said. Kelly reached out and grabbed his hand to squeeze it.