She plays for an empty room.
Her fingers slide up and down the neck effortlessly, dance from string to string with the intimate familiarity that only comes with years and years of practice. From her cello she coaxes long, deep cries, and tremulous notes that hover in the air like a question posed to the universe, knowing it won’t be answered. A music stand is positioned in front of her, sheaves of music spread across it, some carelessly collapsed to the floor, but she plays with her eyes closed. She sways with her instrument, and the glossy red body of it glimmers in the sunlight filtering through the leaves outside her window.
Her room is small but bears all the markings of a haven. Her bed is rumpled from a fitful night, and still cradles a small teddy bear whose foot is sewn with her initials. There are scratches on the door jamb from where her parents measured her growth from toddlerhood to now. Warm lamplight pools on the floor, despite the sun streaming through her gauzy green curtains. The small desk situated in front of the window has chipped black paint and music notes carved into its surface, probably from some evening in adolescence when she daydreamed of being a famous composer instead of focusing on the algebra homework which always vexed her. A small, precarious stack of books balances on the edge, pushed there by piles of sheet music separated out across the rest of the space. The books, too, look well-loved. Their cracked spines and bowed covers and dogeared corners—the pages of which contain small sticky tabs--boast many rereads.
Photos line the walls, of January with her parents and a street violinist on the pier when she was six; January playing her first recital at ten, her cello then smaller, darker, older; January and her friends at camp when she was sixteen, arms slung around each other and bows dangling in their hands; her granny and grandad renewing their vows at eighty (two years before he passed, but five years after the dementia started to set in and creep its way through her granny’s brain) where January served as the officiant at nineteen; and more, chronicling the story of January’s life. Some are framed, some hang on a thin wire, held in place by a clothespin, and still others are chained to the wall by pushpins.
There is nothing in this room January loves more than the instrument in her hands.
Her door opens—she hears it open, but she doesn’t care—and nothing changes for the several moments that January continues to play, drawing her bow across the strings with precise, practiced grace. When the last note dissipates, she slowly opens her eyes, blinking against the light.
Her mom leans in the doorframe, watching January with a ghost of a smile and her head tilted to one side. “I think you were flat on the last bit.”
January inhales sharply, but a twitch of her mother’s lips unravels the ball of anxiety that surged to her throat. She rolls her eyes. “Thank you for your humorous contribution, Dawn, it is appreciated and not at all ill-timed.”
“It suits a daughter who still uses her mother’s first name to express displeasure.”
Dawn looks at January with raised eyebrows, and lets herself into the room entirely, drifting toward the bed where January’s battered old backpack sits open, clothes and toiletries spilling out of it haphazardly. Without another word, she begins refolding her daughter’s clothes.
January makes no move to help her mom, instead draping her arms over her cello and hugging it to her chest, the way a child would a precious toy. The way January once held the bear on the bed. Her eyes fix on the music in front of her, and she takes deep breaths, trying to settle the sudden flood of anxiety coursing through her. It isn’t the same anxiety her mom encouraged mere seconds ago, but a much deeper kind. This is an anxiety she has felt her entire life—a thrilling, terrifying kind.
Her heart beats out a hard, heavy rhythm in her ears. Her right leg bounces rapidly, rubbing against her cello.
“Was it good?” she asks, with nonchalance she doesn’t feel.
Her mom could scoff; January braces herself for the dismissal. But Dawn’s hands slow, tangled in a soft navy-blue sweater that is faded and thin and admittedly a little too shrunken to fit January as well as it once did. She sets the sweater down gently, and looks above January’s bed, at the large painting that dominates her wall.
It’s a painting of January, but no one knows it exists except those closest to her. Only those closest to her know that her mother spent weeks in her studio, trying to perfect a portrait of her daughter that captured her in her most genuine form. Many canvases had been discarded in favor of this one. January, with her wine-red hair all swept over one shoulder, didn’t look at the artist. In fact, she didn’t look at anything. As it happened so many times when she played, her green eyes were closed, the slight purple of her eyelids painted in such detail that the blue veins crisscrossing the thin surface were visible, a bewitching detail that made something catch in January’s throat the first time she ever saw the painting unveiled. But it was a small detail, lost in the grandness of the rest of the image, which featured January arching her body against that of her cello, head tilted just enough that, while you could see the veins on her eyelids if you looked hard enough, the most accentuated part of her face was her jawline, and her slightly parted lips, the rest of it mostly obscured by the angle and her hair. Her head is thrown back to expose her neck and collarbones. The scroll of the cello nearly kisses her cheekbone.
Her fingers, long and pale and delicate, poised against the neck of the cello, are bone white as she presses the strings down. Her opposite hand pulls the bow so far out that her elbow is almost, but not quite, totally straight. The color is such that her cello is the brightest part of the picture. Her mother cast her in a forest green dress, which January has never owned, but it complements the red of her hair and her instrument. The background is black. It’s as if January was thrust into a spotlight.
“January,” her mother sighs. “It was perfect.” She turns to face her daughter but doesn’t approach. She sits on the edge of her bed and smiles. “It always is.”
Some of that burning fear fades away at her mother’s words, but another small, nagging part of January’s mind insists: She’s lying because she loves you.
“If it’s not,” her mom continues, as if reading her thoughts, “the judges will tell you and you can come home and I’ll admit they’re absolutely right, and I’m a fraud and a coward. I know nothing about music. I’ve coddled you all these years, and bribed every tutor, teacher, friend, and family member to sing your praises.”
The burning evaporates. Her leg stills, and her heart hums more quietly.
“Thanks, Mom,” January laughs. She lowers her cello to its side, using all the care she would to defuse a bomb. She sets about collecting the sheets of music scattered on her floor, organizing and returning them to their rightful places with the music that remains on her stand. Her mom watches her for a few seconds, like she wants to say something, before she returns wordlessly to her packing.
It’s always been like this between them. Neither of them is particularly inclined to verbally express themselves. January is a musician and a composer, her cello an extension of herself that speaks more eloquently than she could ever hope to. And Dawn is a painter, whose thoughts are more beautifully expressed through brushstrokes coming together over months than clumsily constructed sentences in the heat of the moment.
Sometimes they want to say something to the other, some grand expression of love. But words fail them.
That’s why January has the painting.
And it’s why January plays her cello in the living room every night, even when she doesn’t want to, and why her mom lingers every night, even when she’s exhausted.
They finish packing and fill the silence with small talk (“Dad said your car still isn’t done, so he’s sending James to come get you.” “Naturally.” “It’s not his fault you didn’t get your tires changed when he told you to.” “Yes, but it is his fault he forgot I am fundamentally incapable of caring about cars, and cannot be trusted to maintain the integrity of my vehicle.” “Ah, yes. We failed you as parents by not instilling you with any automotive interests.” “Precisely.”), and Dawn follows January down the stairs with the backpack while January lugs her cello in its case in one hand and carries her suit in a plastic bag in her other.
Granny waits for them in the living room, although January can tell, just from the slight indent of her brows, she doesn’t really know where she is or who she is waiting for.
“Mom, January is leaving in a couple minutes,” Dawn says. Her voice is light, but January didn’t miss the weary expression that flowed across her face the moment she, too, realized Granny isn’t here with them in this moment. “She’s going to her festival. They’re going to play her songs. You’re going to have to say goodbye for the weekend, wish her luck.”
Granny frowns. Dawn doesn’t look at January, but January glances at her in time to see the way her jaw clenches.
January drapes her plastic bag over the back of her father’s armchair, which is nearest the front door, and settles her cello case next to it. She brushes her mom’s arm with her fingertips when she passes her, crossing the room to crouch in front of Granny’s chair.
Her heart twinges when she takes her grandmother’s hands. It is strange, the things passed on through a family. People always think of eye color, hair color, intelligence, trauma, talent.
But January has her mother’s hands. And Granny’s.
