And the way her insides always relaxed when she walked in the door of that beat-up old bungalow.
Of course she had loved him. She’d worn herself out, taking care of him, because it was the only way she’d dared show him how much. She could not have loved her children any better than she had, and they could not have had a better father. She could not have had a better life partner, for that matter.
In fact, the only person who’d been harmed in this whole scenario was the man sitting before her. The man who, for the first time in her memory, had nothing at all to say.
Miriam reached across the aisle. “I’m so sorry, Gus,” she said. “I know I can’t fix this. I just want you to know how sorry I am.”
He stood, his face a hard, angry mask. “Don’t touch me,” he said. “Don’t you dare.”
He slammed the heel of his hand against the door on his way out of the hall.
46
MIRIAM SAT ON THE armrest, her hands on her thighs, struggling to breathe through the weight of her shame. In all the years she’d imagined this meeting, this was one scenario she hadn’t considered: Gus, justly outraged, and she, blistered by the certainty of her own guilt.
It couldn’t end like this. She couldn’t be powerless. That was the old Miriam, the one who played victim and refused redemption. Here, now, she had to do something. Find some way to make amends.
Blaise’s music satchel lay on the floor beside her. She didn’t know why she’d brought it—some fleeting delusion that perhaps she and Gus could, in fact, collaborate after all. Foolish. It lay there, accusing her. All her botched attempts to finish Blaise’s music, mirroring her botched attempt to tell what should never have been hidden.
Could the music be her way to make restitution?
It hadn’t helped her solve the mystery of her son, after all. All her plans had gone off the rails; it had been days since she’d thought about Blaise and what had, or hadn’t, happened at camp. Was her son gay or not?
Suddenly, she could hear Teo’s voice as clearly as if he stood beside her, saying: “It doesn’t matter.”
And he was right.
If Blaise were gay, if he’d come and told her so, Miriam would have loved him no less and no more. Either way, he was the same beautiful boy he’d always been. There would have been difficult and painful realities to face—religious conflicts to untangle—but she would have spent the rest of her life wrestling them by her son’s side. Because that was what love did.
She didn’t need to finish the sonata. She knew everything she needed to know about her son. And she couldn’t do justice to what he had begun.
But Gus could.
Miriam grabbed the satchel and left the concert hall at a run.
The atrium was crowded now, but through the passing bodies she glimpsed a tall form with a distinctive walk. “Excuse me, pardon me,” she said breathlessly as she wove through them. By the time she reached the spot where she’d seen Gus, he’d disappeared.
Outside, she planted herself on the sidewalk amid the crowds of people on lunch hour, shading her eyes as she scanned the area. There. Half a block away. He had his hands in his pockets and his head down into the wind. “Gus!” she shouted. “Gus! Wait!”
She took off after him, the satchel bumping her hip and Talia’s skirt swirling around her ankles. She finally got within earshot on a wide brick sidewalk shaded by tall trees, newly leafed out, their branches waving in the chilly wind. “Gus!”
A street car rumbled past, its bell dinging. Either he didn’t hear her, or he didn’t want to.
She put on one last burst of speed and grabbed his arm. “Stop. Please, listen.”
He stared down at her. His face gleamed. “You deprived me of my son, Mira.”
“And your daughter.” She couldn’t let him set Talia aside, no matter how enamored he’d been of Blaise.
“I had a right to know.”
If Miriam had walked into that recital hall nineteen years ago and interrupted his tryst, she felt certain the outcome would have been the same because Gus didn’t value then what he did now.
And because she was meant to be with Teo.
But there would have been closure, and with it, a chance for them both to live in truth, without regret. “I know,” she said. “I was wrong. I wish I could fix it, but I can’t.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Why are you following me, Miriam?”
She pulled Blaise’s notebook from the satchel. “I want you to have this.”
The crowds flowed around them, but they stood frozen in time. He took the notebook. Opened it. Flipped from page to page to see Blaise’s scribbled Star Wars doodles, the half-developed melodic ideas, and all her own cross-outs. He met her gaze and held the book out to her. “I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can. I can’t write that music. I wasn’t meant to write it. But maybe you were.” Her throat constricted. “He was my heart,” she said softly, pressing her palm against her chest. “I don’t need it to remember him. You have a right to have this piece of him. Finish it. Do whatever you want with it. It’s yours.”
He stood silently for a moment. “What about your benefit concert?”
She shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.”
He cradled the notebook against his chest. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “I’ll … I’ll come to Atlanta to play it. At your concert. If you want.”
The words got stuck in Miriam’s throat. Giving this task over to Gus would raise questions. If he came to Atlanta, those questions would only have to be answered more publicly.
It would mean telling everyone what she’d kept secret for so long.
Gus watched her, the tiny twitch at the corner of his eyes betraying how much he wanted her to say yes. She’d taken a lifetime of parenthood away
