Read The Sound of Letting Go Online

Authors: Stasia Ward Kehoe

The Sound of Letting Go

STASIA WARD KEHOE

the

sound

of

letting

go

VIKING
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA)

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Stasia Ward Kehoe

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Ward, S. (Stasia), date–

The sound of letting go / by Stasia Ward Kehoe.

pages cm

Summary: At seventeen, Daisy feels imprisoned by her brother Steven’s autism and its effects and her only escape is through her trumpet into the world of jazz, but when her parents decide to send Steven to an institution she is not ready to let him go.

ISBN 978-1-101-62655-9

[1. Novels in verse. 2. Autism—Fiction. 3. Trumpet—Fiction. 4. Jazz—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Family problems—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.5.W24Sou 2014

[Fic]—dc23

2013013098

Version_1

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

 

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Chapter 128

Chapter 129

Chapter 130

Chapter 131

Chapter 132

Chapter 133

Chapter 134

Chapter 135

Chapter 136

Chapter 137

Chapter 138

Chapter 139

Chapter 140

Chapter 141

Chapter 142

Chapter 143

Chapter 144

Chapter 145

 

Acknowledgments

For Thomas, Mak, Sam, Jack,
and Kevin.
Always.

1

 

 

Dave Miller grins in my direction.

At least, I think

his easy-eyed, right-cheek-dimpled expression

is meant for me.

 

It’s hard to be certain, since we are separated

by the fingerprinted interior window that divides my band room refuge from the chaotic dissonance of the rest of Evergreen High.

 

Dave was my best friend in kindergarten.

We split jelly (no peanut butter) sandwiches together,

told our parents that we’d marry

and build a house, someday, in Dave’s backyard.

But life isn’t kindergarten, and by now,

junior year of high school,

we live on different social planets,

our orbits rarely intersecting,

though sometimes, in the morning,

he’s there outside the band room

making my stomach flutter,

making me want a peanut-butter-free jelly sandwich.

 

I wonder what sort of smile would telegraph the reply,

If-you-are-looking-at-me-hey-there-but-if-you-are-not-

I-don’t-mind.

Whatever it is, I hope that’s my expression

as I pack up my trumpet,

smooth my hand over the once-black case

now customized with a zillion jazz-musician,

classic-album, instrument art stickers I’ve made

using mom’s scrapbooking gadgets

 

because my mother keeps things organized.

Our lives in labeled albums,

our showpiece house in designer paint colors

vacuumed, swept, so pretty that if you just looked

you might want to come inside.

But if you listened,

you’d hear another story:

incomprehensible wailing,

shouting, urgent phone calls,

crying. You’d want to ask if a monster

lived in our house.

 

I am not sure how I’d answer.

2

 

 

I snap the buckles,

hoist my backpack over one shoulder,

slide my trumpet case up onto a band room shelf.

I’ll retrieve it after school.

 

“Busy tonight, Daisy?”

Dave catches me at the door.

 

I resist the instinctive
why?

and say, “Not really.”

 

“A bunch of us are going to The Movie House.

Wanna come?”

 

Dave’s golden-brown eyes hold me,

his hopeful voice a beckoning bell

 

silenced by the drum crash of reality.

Wednesday is one of Mom’s yoga nights.

A night I watch Steven.

 

“I—I think I’ll have too much homework for that.”

3

 

 

Heart skidding, I walk down the hall to homeroom,

eyes pointed resolutely forward, resisting

the urge to glance back, see if Dave is watching.

I slide my backpack off my shoulder, straighten my spine,

give my hair a casual, carefree shake, just in case.

 

“The Movie House,” I whisper through near-motionless lips.

I have this habit of sometimes saying words out loud,

narrating my life as I wish it could be,

pretending the pounding in my chest is because I am, secretly, a spy girl or mad scientist,

that my reason for scurrying home, turning down Dave,

is something more exotic than unpleasant.

 

I let my imagination wander to the possibility of
yes
.

In my mind, I sit at The Movie House beside Dave

and he puts his hand gently over mine on the armrest

that separates us,

and it doesn’t feel anything like our old sandbox high fives,

and he isn’t the detention-garnering slacker he’s become

but the astronaut-engineer-firefighter he used to portray

when he wore a near-perpetual chocolate-milk mustache

and hair buzzed short by his dad, like a soldier’s.

 

“Wednesday at The Movie House”

could be the title for an album,

something brassy, instrumental, full of hope.

And that makes me smile a little,

thinking of music inside my head despite my pulsing regret

for saying no.

 

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