Piano in the Dark (16 page)

“Chase?”

“Yeah?” I replied, not recognizing the number. I had to remember where I was, focusing on the popcorn textured ceiling as I adjusted my eyes to the surroundings. Place still smelled the same—lived in. Maybe some additional moisture left over from Hurricane Ike. Bedroom definitely had more clutter than before I left for Sam Houston State. But Mom was nice enough to take me in while I plotted my next move. Where had my life gone?

“It’s Kelli Jo. Did I catch ya at a bad time?” she asked politely.

“Who?” I asked, shaking off the cobwebs and throwing off the covers. I could hear a bus or loud truck in the background, further making it hard to hear.

“
You know
,” she stressed, a little louder this time. “Kelli Jo. From work. I used to work with you.”

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t recognize the number and didn’t expect to hear from any of y’all.”

“I’m calling you from outside the building on my personal phone. They don’t know I’m speaking to you. We were forbidden. Sorry you’re no longer with us,” she said, full of sympathy and reverence. Felt like a dead man at his own funeral.

“Thanks. I appreciate it. Going to miss you too. But why the call? What’s up?”

“That gal. Charla something or the other. She called again. I had to tell her you’re no longer with the firm. Sorry. Apparently she didn’t believe me because she showed up causin’ a ruckus. We told her not to return, but I just thought you should know. She wants to get in touch with you bad. Must be important, but I don’t want to pry.”

I let out a deep, long sigh. Listened to Kelli Jo’s background noise on the phone while staring at the floor-boards beneath my feet. Dug deep not to hang up and seek shelter beneath the covers again.

“Well, I appreciate that, Kelli Jo. And I’m sorry for her bothering you. Sorry for a lot of things,” I said as I fidgeted with a fingernail.

“Hey. I gotta run, but keep your head up and chin out, Chase. Most people around here don’t believe that stuff about you.”

“Thanks for that. I’ll do my best,” I said, ending our conversation.

My morning was off to a roaring start. No solace and no further sleep. I shuffled into the kitchen, getting the coffeepot to work. Once my cup of Community Coffee was ready, I put on some clothes and stepped onto my mom’s porch.

A school bus, embossed with Houston Independent School District on its side, passed with a batch of students, probably en route to M.C. Williams Middle School over on Knox Street, as I looked over a wad of balled-up papers I’d retained. I took a sip of the strong blend and finally read the messages given to me previously by Kelli Jo on the day I terminated my employment. Ava, as I suspected.

Let’s get this over with
, I thought as I added *67 before dialing the number to block my number from the caller ID.

“Chase,” Ava stated rather than asking on the first ring.

“Yeah,” I said as I continued to watch the traffic on Montgomery. A rusted-out Chevy C10 pickup honked at me, to which I saluted with my cup. Didn’t have this kind of activity outside my house with Dawn out in the Spring suburbs. “You’ve been trying to reach me?”

“They said you no longer work downtown. Are you okay?”

“No. I’m not. And I’m tired of people asking me if I am. What do you want, Ava?”

“I need to see you.”

“I thought we came to an understanding outside the courthouse. I’m not of a mood to indulge shit at the moment. Just leave me alone.”

“I can’t. Look…I’m going to be leaving soon, but I want to share something with you before I do…and it’s too late.”

“Tell me over the phone. I can’t trust myself around you. You know that. And I’m in a bad way right now. Things are dark.”

“I really need to see you. Maybe it’ll do both of us good. Just a moment of your time. Face-to-face. It’ll change your life. Both of ours.”

“And I said, no. Damn, girl!” I cursed, pacing back and forth across my mom’s creaky porch.

“I could go by your house,” Ava stated, a sudden coldness sneaking into her voice. “I know where you live.”

“Now you’re threatening me?” I asked, angered while seriously worried about what would happen if Dawn saw her again.

“No. Not trying to cause further problems like that. But I…I’m kinda in a bad way myself. Feeling emotional these days. Mood swings. Anger sometimes.”

“Sounds like we’re in the same boat.”

“That’s because we’re linked.”

“Don’t go there again. I won’t allow it.”

“Okay. But maybe this will help both us. Get back to where we need to be.” A fiend is good with that hit, but is right back in a worse state as soon as that euphoria fades. Ava was that temptation for me no matter how barren the landscape of my life.

“You don’t give up, do you?” I said wearily.

“Not this time. I can’t. Just let me see you. No touching. No kissing. No—”

“Okay. Okay. I get it. Five minutes. And whatever it is better be important.”

“It is, baby,” she replied. I could sense the sunshine in her voice whenever she spoke like that. Damn her and damn me more.

“A public place. Has to be. Five minutes. No more.”

I walked across the grass toward the Water Wall Fountain on Post Oak next to the Galleria, wearing a gray hoodie and black jogging pants. Beneath my Houston Texans baseball cap, black lenses obscured any view of the equally dark bags beneath my tired eyes. Although a good spot for couples and tourists, the locals in the uptown area also gathered on nice days to picnic on the surrounding grounds or feel the cool mist off the well-known sculpture. For me, it was a decent public spot with no emotional attachment for either of us.

My mom had called from work to check on me. Told her I was fine. As far as she knew I was grabbing some lunch. I checked my watch, seeing I was punctual even with parking by Nordstrom and running over.

Beneath one of several oak trees, someone waved at me. She was closer to Post Oak and had maybe been dropped by cab there. Being less in view of prying eyes and with a little shade, I motioned for her to stay put as I approached. The brief walk across the park gave me a moment to get my head on straight before finding out what was so important for us to meet.

When I came closer, Ava stepped out from the shade of the oak tree.

“Hey, baby,” she said, extending both hands for me to take them rather embracing me in a hug. Maybe my words had gotten through to her. But I was immediately surprised by a change in her appearance. Ava’s hair was tucked beneath a colorful head scarf with just a few random strands breaking up the black Chanel shades that hid her eyes as well. She was covered in a loose-fitting white tunic with black capris and ornate flip-flop sandals. What surprised me was the fullness of her face as well as her feet, which appeared swollen. Also, a dash of acne had broken out across her cheeks and nose. For someone of who I had intimate knowledge, the sudden changes were puzzling. Still, I tried ignoring it. I wasn’t here to check her out.

“Five minutes starts now,” I uttered coolly. She still held my hands. Looked like we were about to break into a waltz.

“Chase. Please. Can’t I just enjoy this?”

“Okay. Hi,” I said, throwing a smile on before going blank-faced again. Ava giggled in response. She came closer, almost to embrace me, but stopped short. Part of me yearned for that proximity and felt cheated. But my life was too fractured to indulge it. Our fingers intertwined on instinct, though.

I shook my head at how foolish I was to come out here.

“I did have something to tell you. Just worried about how you’ll react.”

I slid my hands free, looking straight in her face; a face that seemed a little odd. “Oh my God. Did you give me an STD?” I asked, broaching the first thing that came to mind.

“No!” she chastised me. Then she bit her bottom lip, an odd grin surfacing. “But I am giving you something.”

“Huh?”

“Are you blind, Chase?” she asked.

I removed my sunglasses, becoming accustomed to the glare, then began scrutinizing Ava more closely. Suddenly my world began to spin.

“I’m pregnant,” she uttered just as the impossible began to register. The tunic was a maternity top. The fullness of her face made sense now. But…

“You’re pregnant,” I gasped.

“That’s what I just said. Yes, Chase, I’m pregnant,” she said, smiling.

“That’s not what I mean,” I spat out. “This doesn’t make sense. You’re far along, Ava. Too far. We just—”

“Calm down. I don’t understand it, either,” she said, allowing me to make out a definitive baby bump beneath her top. I placed my hands on her stomach and my eyes widened.

“No, no, no! I saw you just a few weeks ago at the gallery. When we—No. You didn’t look like this. You weren’t pregnant then. But now you’re like several months along or something.”

“I guess it has something to do with the differences in our worlds.”

“Difference in what? What are you talking about?” I muttered, cutting my eyes at her. This had to be some kind of joke. A sick, cruel one, but a joke.

“Where I’m from,” she offered, fumbling for an answer. “I’ve been trying to read up on this. Maybe time flows a little different.”

“Stop. This isn’t making sense. You’re not from some other world, Ava. That’s a bunch of crazy bullshit that you got me caught up in.”

“But it’s the truth. Look at me,” she urged, presenting me with the basis for her argument.

“No it’s not! And you can’t be pregnant from me. Certainly not this far along. It isn’t humanly possible.”

“But I am. With your child. Our child.”

I went to grasp her stomach once again, placing my hands under her top this time. Ava calmly looked up at me, smiling serenely as I tried to fathom what was going on. She placed her hands atop mine. It wasn’t a pillow or some piece of special-effects makeup. It was flesh and I could feel a life kicking inside.

But how?

Oh my God.

Dawn.

“I had to see you, Chase. Do you understand now? We’ll be together forever. Our child…our child will link us forever.”

I pulled my hands off her and began backing away.

“Ava, I gotta go. I gotta figure this out,” I voiced. Back-pedaling as I tried to wrap concepts and notions completely alien to me around in my fatigued head.

“Chase no!” Ava screamed. I didn’t understand her tone. I just knew I needed to get away from here. And her screaming wouldn’t stop me.

But in my haste, I had backed off the sidewalk and into the street.

Where a speeding taxicab on Post Oak struck me.

She was trying to warn me.

I came to, riding a wave of confusion and nausea.

As well as the inability to move my right arm.

Ouch.

It was in a sling and encased in a cast. I began to panic and tried to sit up. But I ached badly. Could feel bruises all over my body beneath the thin gown.

“Take it easy,” she said. A soft voice of comfort as her hand rested on my arm—the good one.

At Ben Taub General Hospital. Thoughts jumbled. It was nighttime now. I think I’d been here a long time. From my perspective, a marathon of bright overhead lights, ceiling tiles, and doctors talking. And she was here. Just like last time I was in a hospital. At my bedside.

Ava.

But now Ava was pregnant. Way pregnant.

It was as if dunking my face in ice water.

I remembered how I got here.

“What did you say, Chase?”

“Huh?” I groaned. I was afraid of what I may have said without knowing.

“Do you understand me?” Dawn asked. Dawn my wife. Not Ava, the mother of my unborn child.

No. I imagined that. She couldn’t be pregnant. At least not that far along.

But if I did imagine things, what was I doing here in the hospital?

I gazed at Dawn and smiled. She’d come down here to be at my side. Nothing else seemed to matter.

“They called me. I was home,” she offered to my unasked question and perhaps false hopes.

“They worry that you tried to kill yourself.”

“No, no, I—I was backing up. I must’ve slipped,” I mumbled, my voice cracking as I went to speak louder.

“Into the street? In front of a moving car? You were by the Galleria, Chase. You mother doesn’t even know what you were doing there. This doesn’t make sense,” Dawn proposed. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, her way of facing the onset of a stress headache.

How could I tell her I got Ava pregnant? And if I dared mention the circumstances or what I saw, they would be sure to commit me. If I couldn’t trust my mind and my own eyes, how could I trust my actions?

“What’d the doctor say?” I asked, giving up on trying to reason away my actions with Dawn.

“Broken arm, concussion, bruising, and some muscle sprains or strains. You’re lucky. Very. They’re waiting on results from your CT scan. Just to ensure you don’t have a closed head injury.”

“Is my mom here?”

“Yes. She’s speaking with the doctors. She brought somebody with her. I’ll go get them.”

“Wait. Stay with me,” I said, snagging her wrist before she could leave. She still had trouble looking at me.

“Chase. Don’t do this. I came because I was concerned, but don’t read anything beyond that.” Dawn gently removed my hand and placed it back on my chest.

“Do you still love me?” I asked as I tried to sit up again. This time, with effort, I was able to right myself in the hospital bed.

“I feel like I don’t know you anymore. The better question is,
Do you love yourself
? If so, get some help and we can revisit this. Much later. Maybe. Now, just rest and I’ll go get them.”

When Dawn said
them
, I wondered who’d accompanied my mom. If it was Ava, I didn’t know how I’d react. Where had she’d gone, anyway? Had she stayed by my side to the hospital like last time? Or did she figure she’d do me a favor and get ghost when the ambulance took off?

One of my myriad questions was answered when my mom entered the room with my dad in tow behind her. I guess Dawn wasn’t sure how I’d react if she’d told me. Joell wore a clean shirt for a change and was moderately presentable—my mom’s handiwork, no doubt. For him to travel this far without pitching a fit was a miracle. I tried to look alert and comfortable for them.

“I hope you got my clothes so I can get out of here,” I uttered merrily.

“They want to keep you for observation, Chase. Worry you might have a head injury. The doctor will be in here in a little bit to talk to you,” my mom stated. She never called me by my birth name.
Boy
held more love on most days. “What’s going on with you, boy? You fightin’ everyone, you losin’ yo job, you sleepin’ around—”

“Mom, it’s not like—”

“Be quiet, I’m talking!” Earnestine roared, continuing her diatribe. “You was supposed to be getting some lunch. Not stepping out in front of cabs! Boy, now you got people worried you tryin’ to commit suicide. If all this is a cry for help, we listening, baby. Me and your daddy. We both listenin’.”

Seeing my mom full of so much passion and concern hurt when it should’ve been touching. It hurt because she should know me better than to believe I was intentionally deconstructing my life. Thing is…I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Because even I was lost when it came to that.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered, breaking down and shedding tears over the grief I was causing her. She came closer, cradling my head on her chest.

“It’s okay. We’ll get you the help you need,” she cooed.

Help? No! Nothing was wrong with me. Sure I’d been erratic…but Ava brought it out in me.

Ava, who claimed she was—

“I think I just need to get away for a little while. I’m too close to my problems. Need to go to Austin or something for a week. Come back recharged. Can you see about getting me checked out?” I restrained myself from grimacing over the constant throbbing behind my eyes.

“They gonna probably want you to stay overnight…at least, but I’ll go find the doctor. There was a shooting on Harwin, so they’re kinda busy tonight.”

As my mom left, I eyed my clothes in a neat little stack on the chair beside the bed. My dad remained in the room, clinging close to the wall. This was straining him. Both his hands stayed in front of him, clasping that damn trumpet of his. He kept his head bowed.

I lowered the railing and kicked one leg over the side of the bed, gauging whether I could walk.

“They think you’re like me,” Joell grunted, pointing to his head and whatever imaginary beasts roamed inside it.

“I’m not,” I remarked. “Stuff’s been rough, though. I went down a path that I gotta see through to the end now. Things have taken an unexpected turn.”

“Overheard your momma talkin’ ’bout you and some woman. A lot like me,” he said, this time pointing downward on his body.

“Not if I can help it,” I scoffed. “This was different. A woman told me things…taught me things. About myself. It’s like they’re not true, but they could be. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Did you know…I can play the piano?”

“Yeah. I know, boy,” he said, acknowledging me with his eyes for the first time tonight.

“How?”

“Because I’m the one who sat you down at the piano. A little bar off Shepherd where my band used to play. They weren’t supposed to let you in, but…You were good too.”

I lowered my other leg onto the floor, startled by my dad’s revelation as I tried to find my balance. “I don’t remember any of that,” I stated.

“You were little still. Tiny little thing. I could tell, though. I wonder about that. How different stuff mighta been if I’d stayed around.”

“Maybe I’d be famous like you,” I joked, hearing a certain woman’s voice in my head. A voice with fanciful tales I blew off.

“Fame ain’t nothin’ without family,” Joell grunted.

Family.

“Dad, there’s something I need to do. I gotta get out of here. Now. Will you help me?” I asked.

Joell Hidalgo found the courage to step away from the wall on which he’d been leaning. He released his hold on his trumpet and came forward, moving into the center of the room.

A solitary nod was all he gave me.