Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 96292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“You play Saturday night,” Grandma says with a proud smile while resting her cloth napkin on her lap. “I already called and arranged everything. They’re excited and honored to have you as a special guest.”
I squint, shaking my head. “I’m not ready. I need to practice.”
“Well, darling, we don’t have a lot of time,” she says.
Mom flinches. It’s a gut punch.
“We’ll practice after dinner,” Dad says with a reassuring nod. Always my biggest fan and most supportive cheerleader.
It’s not that my mom isn’t too, but she knows what it’s like to feel the weight of the world bearing down on you.
My phone vibrates on the table beside my plate.
“No phones at the table,” Grandma says.
“Sorry.” I wrinkle my nose, removing the phone from the table, but not without taking a quick peek at the screen. It’s another text from Flynn. It shouldn’t make my heart skip a beat, but it does even though I don’t know what it says because everyone is staring at me, so I set it face down on the chair beside me.
“Did you quit your job?” Mom asks. She has a pained expression because she knows I loved living in Minneapolis, and I loved my job.
“Everything is temporary,” Dad says, staring at my mom. “That was your motto when we met.”
She returns a sad smile and a nod. “Yeah.”
“This is temporary,” Grandma says.
We look at her while she chews slowly, blotting her mouth as she swallows. “I won’t live forever. With or without cancer.” She reaches for her water glass. “Promise me you’ll live here even when I’m gone and eat dinner at this table. And every night you’ll toast those who have moved on, say grace even if you don’t worship God. Laugh at the sheer silliness of life. Celebrate the journey because every single second of it is, in fact, temporary.” She raises her glass.
Mom blinks back her tears but lifts her glass. Dad follows suit and so do I.
“To this most spectacular temporary moment,” Grandma says.
We clink glasses, finish eating, and I quickly excuse myself.
“Are you going to practice?” Dad asks.
“Yeah, but I’m going to dry my hair and pull it back first.”
“Okay. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“K.” I snatch my phone and run upstairs to my bedroom.
Flynn: It was a kazoo. I just thought of the word. I played a kazoo
I cover my mouth and snort.
June: I was so close to choosing the kazoo but the cello called to me just a little more
Those three dots feel like the line going up and down on an EKG monitor; their existence feels like life right now.
Flynn: I could play row row row your boat
I giggle.
June: My first piano song was hot cross buns. We could have done a mash-up of the two
He sends a laughing emoji.
June: I have to go
Flynn: I have to stay
Is he being funny or heartbreaking?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Flynn
I don’t want Zoya Malone’s life, but I can’t stop stalking her online. Her band has played in stadiums around the world, even at the Roman Colosseum with some dude named Andrea Bocelli … and Buckingham Palace! The cello-playing girl I watch in videos doesn’t feel like the tour guide I met in the gallery. June blushed and flirted. She was vulnerable and seemingly relatable. Zoya is a larger-than-life force.
Like her band’s name, Zoya feels a world away to me.
She’s polished and elegant, playing classical music one minute, but in the next video, she’s playing Metallica and AC/DC songs … on a fucking cello. It’s mesmerizing as hell.
I can still feel her touch and hear her whisper I love you.
It’s not real. The woman on stage, with tears in her eyes every time a sold-out venue gives her a standing ovation, doesn’t feel like the woman I love.
And she’s not.
“What are you watching?” Callie asks, setting another box on her desk.
I lay my phone face down. “Nothing.”
“Looked like June,” she says, opening the box.
I pull out another stack of photos to scan. Callie has so many printed photos that belonged not only to her and Rupert, but to her parents and grandparents. Some are black and white photos from the early 1900s.
“Have you talked with her?” Callie asks.
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“She went back to California for a family emergency.”
“Oh no. Did she call you?”
“I found out from her roommate.” I scan another photo as Callie sorts them according to the people or groups of people in them.
“So you haven’t talked to her?”
“I texted her, but she didn’t say what the emergency was, and I didn’t ask.”
“That’s good. Respecting her space and privacy for now is smart.”
“I don’t think she’s coming back, so there’s plenty of space between us.”
“Well, Rupert told me you don’t want to live in her world anyway.” Callie holds certain photos longer than others. And some, like the one in her hands of her grandson, she holds the longest. Tears fill her eyes, then she quickly blinks them away and smiles at me before moving to the next photo.