Porcelain Keys (30 page)

Thomas nodded and collected his hat and gloves, then I watched wordlessly as they both walked out the back door.

I sat on the couch later that night next to Devin, who had nine pages of sheet music spread out on the coffee table. He tapped the tip of his pencil to the beat and hummed through the different passages, pausing now and then to make a notation. I glanced up from the book in my hands at the clock. It was eight thirty and Thomas and Dad still hadn’t come back. I’d borrowed a novel from Vivian to keep my mind from speculating where they were and when they’d be back, but the melodramatic romance she’d given me only served to further agitate my uneasiness.

The anger I’d been unable to rein in earlier had begun to lose momentum. It trotted along now, slow enough that I saw things I hadn’t noticed before. Like the fact that Thomas had probably saved my life earlier, or at the very least, the toes on my right foot. He’d pulled me out of the stream, given me his coat, gloves, and hat, and allowed me to put my ice-cold foot against his skin. Remorse poked at me, urging me to apologize for my anger and to thank him for helping me as soon as I got the chance.

“Would you stop bouncing your knee?” Devin said. “You’re messing up my rhythm.”

I hadn’t realized I was bouncing my knee. “Sorry,” I said, making a conscious effort to stop.

He turned to look at me. “Why do you seem so anxious?Is everything okay?”

The sound of the back door opening delayed my answer. They were back, and I felt a strange sense of relief come over me. I realized Devin was still waiting for me to answer, so I nodded to my book. “I’m in a tense scene.”

Vivian came down the stairs and went into the kitchen to greet them. I listened as they chatted and dished up leftovers. They were talking fishing. My eyes stayed on the page, following the same line of text over and over, but I didn’t comprehend a single word. All I could focus on was Thomas’s voice, going on about nets and bait and trawlers. Dad laughed and shared his own fishing anecdotes like he’d found a new best friend in Thomas.

I’d gotten through two pages of my book, still not knowing what I’d read, when Thomas came out of the kitchen. He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to glance at me. His expression held an odd mix of remorse and impatience, like there was still more he wanted to say to me. I considered getting up and initiating a conversation with him, but Devin put his hand on my knee, and suddenly I was too concerned about what Devin would think. I turned back to my book, and Thomas went upstairs, closing the door to his room.

I glanced at Devin. His eyes were still on his sheet music, but his jaw was rigid. He turned and fixed an assessing gaze on me. In a hushed voice, he said, “It was him. Wasn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“The guy you were so hung up about last year. It was him. Am I right?”

I dropped my gaze, then nodded reluctantly. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I didn’t know he was going to be here.”

“So . . . what is he doing here?”

“I don’t know. I asked him earlier, but he gave me a vague answer.”

“Huh.” He was quiet for a moment, lost in thought. “So all that time you were pining over him at school, moping around like the living dead, he was just . . . hanging out in the Netherlands?”

I nodded slightly, but said nothing. I didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Do you remember that night we went out after the concert at the Concertgebouw? There were some pretty seedy places in Amsterdam. Discothèques, drugs, legal prostitution. I think the legal drinking age is fourteen or something.” His brow wrinkled in contemplation. “I wonder what he was doing there all this time.”

“He was fishing.”

“Yeah, but what does a fisherman do at night?”

I closed my eyes and grimaced, trying to shut out the images Devin had planted there. Thomas’s words replayed in my mind.
I became someone you wouldn’t recognize.
A sick feeling wrenched my insides, and I stood. “I’m tired,” I said, and I was. Tired from the previous sleepless night. Tired from hiking all over a frozen mountain. Tired from the confusing thoughts and feelings that had continually bombarded me since Thomas’s reappearance. “I’m going to bed.”

He stood and hooked my arm, turning me around gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I let out a long sigh. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Listen,” he whispered and threw an anxious glance up
the stairs. “I can see you need to get some answers from him. And I want you to know that you’re free to do that. You don’t have to tiptoe around me. I don’t see him as a threat. I know you love me.” His words were confident, but behind his eyes was a fear and insecurity I’d never seen before.

I put a hand to his cheek and looked in his eyes. “I do love you.”

He bent and kissed me. “I trust you, Aria.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I climbed the stairs, and as I passed Thomas’s door, I paused. I listened, expecting to hear his movements. But all I heard was my pulse throbbing in my ears. I raised a fist to knock, but lost my nerve and lowered it. I rested my palm against the door with fingers splayed, the wood’s proximity exaggerating my shallow breaths.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing he wouldn’t hear me. What else could I possibly say to him that I hadn’t already said? What could I ask that I hadn’t already asked? There was no reason that he would open up now when he had refused to earlier. So I stepped away and went to my room. I lay down and stared at the wall separating him from me, thinking how he may as well be thousands of miles away, back in the Netherlands. Soon, my weary eyes closed and I succumbed to much-needed sleep.

T
he next morning
I awoke just before seven, as the sky was starting to lighten in predawn pale blue. I got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen to make breakfast. I halted in the doorway when I saw Dad sitting alone at the kitchen table.

“There’s oatmeal on the stove if you want some,” he said, glancing up at me and waving his spoon toward the stove.

Apprehensively, I went to the cupboard for a bowl and dished up some oatmeal. “Is Vivian still sleeping?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She was up late wrapping presents.”

I joined him at the table and smiled to cloak my uneasiness. “It seems Vivian has been good for you.”

He nodded. “It’s been nice to have someone to come home to, to talk to. I didn’t realize how lonely I was until she forced herself into my life.” He smiled to himself as though reflecting on her endearing persistence. After a long moment, his eyes returned to mine, and his expression turned apologetic. “Aria, there’s something I need to say to you.”

My grip tightened on my spoon, and I suddenly felt like I was ten again, standing in line next to Dad for the Zipper ride at the carnival.
It
’
ll be fun,
he had said, and the next thing I knew, I was being hurled in a rickety deathtrap toward the pavement.

“You don’t need to,” I said with firmness.

He stared at me. “But I do. I—”

“Please.” I held up a hand and let out a sigh. “I came here because I want things to be different between us. Better. But I don’t want to revisit the past.” My voice was pleading. “Let’s just . . . start from here. Like a clean slate.”

A disappointed crease appeared between his brows, and he said, “The problem is, it’s still the same slate, and it needs to be wiped clean before we can start over.”

I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. I know you’re sorry. You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to explain. It will only cause me more pain.”

His face fell, but he nodded slowly.

I paused, searching for a way to change the subject. “Are you working today?”He stared at me for a long moment as though still clinging to the prospect of his thwarted speech, then said, “Yeah. I volunteered so the younger guys could be at home for Christmas Eve.”

Christmas Eve.
My heart sunk with the realization that this would be a hard day for Thomas.

“That Thomas,” Dad said as if reading my thoughts, “he’s a good kid.”

“You didn’t used to think that.”

“I know. I was wrong. He was a good friend to you, wasn’t he?”

He was much more than that,
I thought. “Yeah, he was.”

“I saw him this morning—walking down the driveway toward the road.”

“He’s already up?”

“I think he went over to the fire site.” He paused. “Today is the day they died, you know.”

“I know,” I whispered.

He rose and took his dishes to the sink. “I could be wrong,” he said as he rinsed out his bowl, “but he’s probably the one who needs a friend right now.” He dried his hands and shrugged into his coat, then turned to me and smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, for Christmas.”

I nodded and returned his smile, then watched him walk out the door.

Imagining Thomas alone at the fire site made me uneasy. I leaned over my bowl of half-eaten oatmeal, recalling how a couple years earlier, he had been there for me when I needed him most. The least I could do now was be a friend to him.

I pushed away from the table and dropped my oatmeal in the sink, threw on my coat, hat, and boots, and hurried out the front door.

As I walked along the icy road, the sun peeked over the mountain, casting long shadows across the sparkling snow. The air was perfectly still and clear from the storm the day before.

Turning down his driveway, the cavernous tomb where his house once stood came into view. The blackened ruins stood out in the snow like ink splattered on white paper. All that remained was a scarred foundation littered with ash and rubble. Above it, singed and leafless branches arched like arms attempting to conceal the tragedy of what had occurred there.

In the shadow of the foundation, my eyes were drawn to a flicker of movement. There, camouflaged against a charred wall, Thomas leaned with head bent and hands stuffed in the pockets of his black peacoat.

I paused to watch him, puffs of my breath obscuring his figure with each exhale. His disheartened posture caused compassion to flood through me, making my heart ache with a desire to comfort him. Setting aside my own feelings and needs, I slowly approached him. When a twig snapped under my foot, he glanced up at me. His face was wet with tears, and his hand came up to wipe them away.

I lowered myself into the foundation and stepped carefully over the rubble to stand before him. His face was composed in a fragile mask, but beneath it his shining eyes were pain stricken.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said softly. “I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. It was selfish of me.”

He nodded, a feeble smile touching his lips. “All things considered, I thought you went pretty easy on me.” The smile gradually collapsed into a frown. “Aria—I’m so sorry. I never imagined my actions would hurt you so deeply. If I had known—”

I put a hand on his arm and shook my head. “It’s okay. I mean, I’m okay now.” I gazed into his face, searching his eyes for something, but not entirely knowing what. “What about you?” I asked gently. “How are you these days?”

His eyes strayed from mine, instead wandering over our dismal surroundings. Scraping his boot through the ash and decomposing leaves, he released a sigh. “It’s hard to be here, to see . . .” His voice broke and he turned away. “I miss them.”

Instinctively, I went to him and pulled him into an
embrace. He stiffened at first, then his body relaxed and molded into mine. “I know,” I murmured, hoping he’d understand that in some way I knew how he felt and shared his burden.

“You do know, don’t you?” His voice was faint, his lips buried in my hair. I could feel his chest trembling, like it took all his effort to restrain whatever storm was raging inside.

The woods around us were quiet, but somewhere off in the distance I could hear a blue jay’s call. A warbling A-flat to C, like an old iron gate, swinging open and closed. Open and closed. Open and closed.

Thomas pulled away first, and it was then that I noticed a scarf coiled around his neck and tucked beneath his coat. Blue and gray herringbone. The same one I’d knit and given him for Christmas two years earlier. I reached up and touched it. The fibers were beginning to fray with wear. “You kept it,” I said with wonder.

His eyes softened and a faint smile appeared on his lips. “I kept everything you gave me.” His husky tone was rich with unspoken meaning. I gazed at him, waiting for him to expound, but he didn’t.

“Please, Thomas. Talk to me. Tell me what happened to you.”

He backed away, then slid down the blackened wall and rested his arms on his knees. “Does it really matter anymore?”

There had to be a way to make him see that he could trust me, that I was safe to confide in. I went and knelt in front of him, and in a gesture that took a great deal of courage, I slipped my hand into his. For a brief second, his face slackened in surprise, then his callused fingers softened
and formed carefully around mine. I looked into his eyes. “It matters to me. I’m still your friend, and no matter what, I always will be.”

He stared at our hands, and when he looked back at me, his fragile mask had all but disappeared. His face was hauntingly expressive, a medley of eagerness and terror.

“You left me that morning in the motel parking lot,” I prompted when I could no longer bear his silence, “and then you went to Pasadena, and then what?”

I saw a change come over his face—like he’d been arguing with himself about something and had now made a decision. “I went to the funeral,” he said, shaking his head. “It was awful. Having to face my parents’ friends and our family, and explain to them what happened. Some were kind about it, but others . . .” His hand stiffened in mine, like he was reliving some hurtful memory. “I never realized it was possible for someone to offer condolence and condemnation all in the same look, with the same words. Richard made sure that everyone knew I was to blame. ‘Thomas, the grim reaper.’ ”

I squinted. “Why would he say that?”

Something like guilt washed over his face. “Aria . . .there’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”