Hannah’s British friends in the symphony would recoil in horror. Even more so if she confessed to them that half the time her mother made the water for the tea in the microwave.
The kitchen felt so small now. Every time she came home it surprised her. The cast of the light was yellow, the wood too warm. It was nothing like her big, open apartment with black and chrome and high ceilings that carried her music up and filtered it down all around her so she was consumed with it.
A space all her own.
A space dedicated to what mattered to her.
One where no one ever told her to stop playing.
“I’ll have a beer,” Hannah said, when her mom went to pour a second cup.
Her expression was vaguely disapproving. “You smell like cigarettes.”
“Am I fifteen?”
Her dad turned to her, holding the beer and handing it to her. “Does being over eighteen make you immune to the negative effects of cigarettes?”
“How’s your cholesterol, Dad?” she asked sweetly. “And did you have steak for dinner?”
“It’s not your job to monitor my health, Hannah Banana.”
“Well, seems fair since you’re doing it to me.”
“And are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
“Saw a man a for a whole night a couple of weeks ago.”
That earned her a gruff grunt.
But a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Because as much as she knew he disapproved, even when she was irritating him she knew he enjoyed it. He had raised his daughters to be strong women with their own minds.
Even when those minds weren’t quite the same as his.
And in her mind, marriage was silly. It was for people who wanted houses in neighborhoods like this one. Who wanted kids and who wanted to be normal.
She wanted to be something more than normal.
Her dad took a sip of his beer. “I just hate the idea of you being all alone over there.”
“I have a lot of friends. Playing in a symphony is a whole group thing.”
“It’s not the same as being in love,” he said.
Her dad was a romantic, beneath all his alpha bluster. Hannah had always found that funny because her mom really wasn’t. Joe Ashwood liked to bring his wife flowers just because and Mary appreciated them...but Hannah had a feeling she’d never have asked for something so frivolous.
Hannah appreciated her dad, but she wasn’t like him.
She could remember when she thought love was supposed to be bright and blinding like a summer day. That it was supposed to consume you and keep you up at night. That it was okay if it hurt, or didn’t fit quite right.
That it burned with the ferocity of the rest of her dreams. But she knew better now. That was... It wasn’t anything you could live with.
Not when you wanted something else. Not when you had a big and bright dream to follow.
But even though she’d let that go, being in Bear Creek always reminded her of that kind of summer. That kind of feeling.
It was uncomfortable, but an uncomfortable she accepted as part of coming back. It was why she only did it once a year.
Knowing she was settling in for a couple months was unsettling.
“How’s the fiddling going?” Her dad leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, fixing her with his thousand-yard blue stare that had never failed to strike fear into her heart when she’d been a teenager, contemplating any level of rebellion.
Fortunately, her fiddling, as her dad persisted in calling it—for the sole purpose of irritating her—had kept her too busy to get into classic rebellions.
“Good. I am...” She took a breath. She’d been avoiding saying this out loud. Now she wondered if she should. If she was making it a big, superstitious thing when it really didn’t have to be. “There’s a principal spot open. I’ve been first chair now for a couple of years, and... I think this is it. I think this is... I think I’m going to get it.”
She’d said it now. It was there. Out in the universe.
“That’s... That’s great news,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
“Because I’m nervous about it. I might not get it.” But even as she said that, her stomach twisted, and the echo inside of her was fierce and strong.
That was unacceptable. She had to get it. She had to. There wasn’t another choice. She hadn’t started this journey and kept on it so doggedly to not get this spot. She’d been with the Boston Symphony for over ten years, and she had more than proven her worth.
This was her dream. Her practical dream. To be the lead position in the orchestra.
She knew it wasn’t common for a violinist to ascend to the heights of world fame as a soloist, and sure, she’d held some of that hope in her heart. Everyone had those kinds of dreams. But this was possible. More than possible, it was likely.
It was what she’d been working toward since she’d left Bear Creek.
And the timing for her to get away for a while as the board reviewed everything was actually great.
“You’ll get it,” her dad said. “You know you will.”
Unfailing confidence in her. He’d always had that. Pressure accompanied the warmth in her chest and she found it hard to breathe around it.
“You’ve worked for it,” her mom said.
“You’ve always been special,” Dad said.
Special.
Her mom had always worried her dreams weren’t practical. But her dad had always said that. Special.
But she’d believed it. She’d known it, down in her bones. That she wasn’t meant for this place. That she was bigger than this house, this town.
This had been her obsession, her focus, for nearly thirty years. And anything other than the top was a failure.
And Hannah could not fail.
3
April 12th, 1944
I know you cannot control when you return. And I know you will come back to me. But it
