The Sound of Letting Go (7 page)

“Where were you?

I texted four times!”

Mom accuses, before adding,

“I was worried.”

“I was in the library studying.

I lost track of the time.

Just go to yoga now. It’s fine.”

But Steven has noticed Mom’s frantic, angry tone;

picked up something about the sweat on my upper lip,

my rushed footsteps.

His hands start to twist, eyes roll upward,

searching or maybe seeing nothing.

“Look what you’ve done,” Mom says.

She turns to my brother. “Steven. Steven, are you okay?”

She knows better than to reach for him, touch him.

Together we watch.

“Want a cookie, Steven? Chocolate chip,” I try.

But he flinches at the burping whoosh

that opens the stay-fresh cookie bin.

“Damn. I haven’t taken him to the bathroom yet,”

Mom murmurs.

“Come on, Steven, let’s go watch Batman.”

I stupidly try to take his hand,

but he yanks it away, twisting his palms together.

With a wail, the pacing begins, slow and awkward,

around the edges of the kitchen.

He smacks his head against the doorframe.

Mom and I are frozen statues watching a tornado:

transfixed, terrified, unable to take cover.

“I’m calling your father.

Did we forget your meds this morning, Steven?”

she asks in her calming voice as she moves slowly

toward the phone,

trying to help him connect with some idea, some word, some safe, ritual notion

that will halt the danger, reconnect him to our world.

She pauses, holding the receiver as if it might sting her.

“I haven’t had to interrupt him at work in weeks.”

“Don’t!” I cry out.

Then, “Don’t,” more softly, smiling at Steven

even though I know he isn’t seeing me.

“I have an idea.”

I pull out my trumpet case,

searching my mind for something soft, simple . . .

I attach the mouthpiece,

press the valves a few times,

take a breath.

I try a few measures of the andante section of

Hummel’s
Trumpet Concerto

I’ve pulled from my music folder.

By the second page, his hands slow their writhing.

Mom, still as stone, just watches

as I try to play with the least possible motion—

no grandstanding,

no dipping my horn up and down like I’m in a marching band.

Soft, steady, twice as slow

as the Youth Orchestra conductor would’ve wanted it,

slower still as Steven finally stops, and mumbles

something that Mom hears as, “Cookie?”

She hands him two,

which she’d let him eat right there on the kitchen floor,

but Steven moves like a robot to his seat at the table, waits

until she brings him a napkin and a plate.

Soon crumbs litter the floor.

“What would I do without you?”

Mom says as she moves for the dustpan and broom.

“I’m so sorry you missed yoga, Mom.”

“I’m sorry?” I whisper

the question to myself

as I creep down the stairs with my trumpet.

“Sorry,” I say aloud

as I shut the door of my basement practice room.

It’s a word I say every time I feel like I’m the cause

of an outburst by Steven,

every time I get a grade lower than an A-minus,

or do something else to disrupt the equilibrium of our lives.

“Sorry!” I shout.

I’ve said it so many times

it has dissolved from syllables to sounds,

like those times when you look at yourself in the mirror

and see skin and teeth and hair

more than a face.

I close my mouth, look around

at my parents’ great investment

in their musical daughter:

a padded cell,

in voguish colors, of course.

Mom tried.

There’s a high-end synthesizer in one corner,

a bust of Haydn beside a vase of dried flowers,

a vintage varnished wood music stand,

and two cozy “listening chairs,”

their upholstery fabric strewn with black quarter notes,

the kind of custom material for which my mother trolls the Internet.

Though she hardly ever comes down to hear me play anymore,

and never with Dad.

Safe in my soundproof tomb,

I can close my mind to the absurdity upstairs.

Pedal tones and long tones fill half an hour of practice.

Now the time is 6:12

and my quirky mind notes that twelve is six times two.

I’ve spent too many nights

watching the LED lights on my alarm clock,

waiting for 11:10 to turn to 11:11—one, one, one, one;

too many days

hearing about my “uncanny,” “unchildlike”

dedication to practicing trumpet,

copiously copying symbols and colors

onto the white canvas of so many pairs of sneakers,

reading books recommended by Mom,

support groups, well-meaning outsiders,

meant to reassure me of the beauties, the gifts of living

with a special-needs sibling,

not to arrive at the question:

Is there something autistic about me, too?

There is research

backing a genetic component to the disability,

and some likelihood of autism running in families.

More evidence is that horrible sense of distance

I cannot close

between me and my best friend;

the way I cannot sort my feelings for Dave,

the desire from the fear;

how I want to smack my palms and bang my head

until it all goes away,

like I’ve watched my brother do

too many times to count.

The thoughts tsunami through my mind,

powerful waves of terror.

My heart begs me to silence my brain.

My embouchure rested, I retreat to beats and measures,

resume the glorious, focused effort of practicing.

For more than an hour, I work at slurs and songs.

My lips buzz into numbness.

I should take a break,

but I push through another series of pedal tones,

low strengthening notes,

before I set down the trumpet,

drop breathless into the nearest “listening chair.”

Whisper again,

“I’m sorry.”

“Daisy?” Mr. Orson catches me

as I’m assembling my trumpet

before the start of jazz band.

“I wanted to talk to you about the holiday concert.

I’d like you to play a solo. Something festive.

I’ve got some pieces for you to try out.

Pick something you like. Maybe talk it over with Aggie.”

“Um, okay.” I take the folder of sheet music

from his hand. Add the task

of bringing the pages with me to my next lesson

with my private trumpet teacher, Aggie Nedrum,

to my epic to-do list.

Why don’t I open my mouth, say “I just don’t have time

to learn another song

between practice, schoolwork, and my brother”?

But I can’t,

or won’t.

I just enjoy Mr. Orson’s approving smile

as a jaw-snapping yawn splits my face.

And the emotion I feel isn’t sorrow but anger

at being imprisoned in an autism family.

We start in on the Ellington piece,

a smooth swing number called “Almost Cried.”

I spit each angry thought into the notes I play,

getting louder, fiercer, than I ever can in my own home,

well, any part of it except the basement.

“Daisy, a little gentler, please. You’re getting off tempo,”

Mr. Orson says in that kindly, unaccusing way he has, which, today, makes me burst into tears

while the ten jazz guys (including Cal) stare

and the three other girls mouth “on her period”

to each other.

“Excuse me, Mr. O.”

I set my horn as roughly as I dare on my chair,

dash out the door,

turn toward the girls’ bathroom,

but find myself rushing headlong

into the “Yes I Didn’t!” T-shirted chest of Dave Miller.

“Hey there, Daisy-brains.”

Do I feel him pull me toward him for a second

before taking my shoulders and putting me straight?

“You okay?”

“Yeah!” I say, adding intense mortification on a dozen

levels to my misery.

Mumble as I twist out of his grasp,

“Yeah, I’m just terrific.”

I make it to the bathroom

without crashing into anyone else.

Blessedly, it is empty and I can let go my shuddering sobs

without locking myself in a stall

and hoping no one recognizes my ink-covered Keds.

By the time the homeroom bell rings, it is over.

I splash my face with water,

rub away the mascara streaks as best I can.

Before I leave the bathroom, I text Mom.

“After-school project meeting. Home by seven.”

I have no idea what I’ll do between last period and seven

at night,

but I won’t do it in the prison.

In A-PUSH, the words Mr. Angelli scrawls

on the whiteboard blur before my weep-worn eyes.

My head droops against the window;

the foreboding chill of near winter

seeps from the glass pane into my scalp.

Phrases filter aimlessly into my resistant ears.

In the Emancipation Proclamation,

Abraham Lincoln declares that

“all persons held as slaves . . .

henceforward shall be free.”

If a slave is someone

who cannot make her own choices,

whose life is scheduled, controlled,

then aren’t I a slave?

Don’t I deserve emancipation

from Mom and Dad, who schedule my actions?

From Steven, whose whims rule my spirits?

Where are the “liberty and justice” for me in life’s equation?