The Missing Piece of a Piano By: Sean Roberts
Author's Note: Please send all feedback to seanr_13@yahoo.ca
Bar 11
As children Daniel and Mark both believed in the boogie man: a form of the monster in every child's closet. First talked about by parents and then created by the dark grey-blue shapes created by clothes and board games and shoes and boxes. And violin cases.
Almost every night he saw it. At fifteen, when Keith died, he was no longer a child but age does not tell the monsters when to stop haunting. Jackets fallen to the floor and discarded toys in the dark all had the curves of a violin. For months, until he finally managed to force himself to stop thinking about it, the violin was a part of each and every dream. Dreams that he remembered in the morning; the cause of him waking up sweating.
Two days have passed since the confessionary night in the hotel and Daniel comes downstairs. He wears pyjama bottoms and a red t-shirt. His hair is dishevelled and his nose blocked. He is hungry and this is all he can think about until he passes the music room on his way to the kitchen, where he sees two figures sitting beside each other on the couch. Mark and Faye.
"You look like hell," she says laughingly. They have not spoken since they have returned from the city. She is dressed in track pants and a jersey: her signature attire. She faces the door and Mark faces the opposite way. He turns around.
"Come here," he says. Daniel walks into the room and up to them.
"What are you doing here?" he asks Faye. "Well it doesn't matter. I was just about to eat--do you want some breakfast?"
"No I'm fine. We want you to try the piece, the Chopin. Mark wants to hear what it sounds like."
"Well I'm really hungry." Mark stands and tells his brother to sit. Daniel, whose tiredness has not worn off, does it. He watches Faye, who stands immediately and walks over to the piano. Mark has placed a music stand in front of Daniel and takes a notebook from Faye and places it, open to the first page, on the stand. Faye plays a quick scale. Mark, from behind another couch, brings out a familiar violin case. He brings it over to Daniel. Without a word he opens it, revealing the bloody interior, and lifts out the instrument that still smells like it has been freshly varnished despite the fact it has been sitting in a case in a closet for two years.
"I'm not playing that," Daniel says immediately. He watches the instrument approaching him in his brother's hands. He does not want to touch it but he can not move his eyes away from it.
"Just try," Mark says. Daniel shakes his head.
"No."
"Come on Daniel. We both really want to hear it and you're the only one who can play it."
"No." This time louder. He still stares unflinchingly at the instrument but every time he thinks of touching it the knot in his stomach tightens. Mark and Faye insist, this time together. The instrument is even closer and he can smell the wood below the varnish. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the red of the case--Keith's blood in the case and his sweat on the strings; Daniel's tears on his cheek. "Mark put it away." There is more urgency in his voice. His brother doesn't listen. Daniel stands quickly, threateningly. "I said put it the fuck away!" he yells. His sobs are now stronger. He barely tries to hold them back.
Though he is staring at the violin all he sees is the dream where Keith stands in his closet, holding the violin out to him, telling him that if he plays it everything will be different. In the dream Daniel listens. He takes the instrument. He plays some notes and the image of Keith becomes stronger. He plays some more and in front of his eyes Keith disappears.
Mark, startled, puts the instrument quickly and carefully inside its case.
"Okay relax Daniel," he says, trying to sound soothing. Daniel looks at his brother and he throws his arms around him, crying into his shoulder. Mark holds his brother's spine, providing as much support as he can. He looks over helplessly at Faye. She wants to feel compassion for the crying man she loves but all she saw was an instrument, not a silenced love.
The following day, in the afternoon, he picks up the phone but hears no dial tone. She is on the other end. She called him just as he was about to call her. They laugh about the coincidence and she tells him that she wants to meet him. They agree on the cliff above the lake. She tells him she'll bring dinner; he offers dessert.