Chapter 146

“Even grief can be selfish.”
—David Pedreira, Gunpowder Moon

10 APRIL 2021

I can’t dwell on it. I’m overloaded. The funeral yesterday was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever been through. It was beautiful and sad. Pey’s whole fifth grade class was there at the Methodist church. Worse, the other siblings gathered around us. Joyce and Lisa Adams, Donnie and Barb Dayton, Richard Evans. They looked at me and I gathered them into my arms to cry with them. We still need to protect our siblings in their infant pod.

There was an urn. I carried it in my arms as the family was driven to the memorial park. That’s the new word for cemetery around here. Mom and Dad had a vault out there and had already made arrangements for as many of us as wanted our ashes stored there. I guess it was Dad’s parents who bought it and his grandparents were the first interred there.

I don’t think we’d have made it through the week without our pod. If anything, this showed what we were building—a family that could reach out and support each other across boundaries that once would have been forbidding. It wasn’t just my girlfriends, but their families, too. There were twelve in our pod, but thirty more who sheltered us in their love.

A building inspector showed up at the house and indicated what areas were safe to collect our personal items from and what weren’t. Tomorrow, everyone has promised to gather to help transport and pack what is in the front half of the house.

Em and I have spent all day every day with Mom and Dad, helping with what we can and making sure there was food on the table and coffee in their cups as they struggled with the adult business of funeral arrangements, insurance adjusters, and safety officials. A security fence was erected around our whole property as soon as we visited it on Wednesday. The city wants everything cleaned up within thirty days. Fuckers.

And at night, Em and I have spent our sleep cradled in the arms of our lovers, absorbing peace and energy from them. There was no orgy this week, but Em says we’ll make love with each other this afternoon. I trust her.

I’m numb. I think I need to run.

Nanette was in the kitchen when I came downstairs. Em and I weren’t taking up Donna’s bedroom every night. She was dressed in running gear as I was and I asked what the plan was.

“This is my last really long run before the race in nine days. Twenty-five miles. Think you can keep up?” I just nodded. I sipped a cup of coffee and took the bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar and cream Nan handed me. We’d need our carbs this morning. We filled our CamelBaks and hefted them on our shoulders. Two liters was a lot to carry on your back, but it would get lighter as we ran. The objective was to return with no water left.

“Twenty-five miles?”

“We can take a right out of the drive. We’ll stick to county roads and won’t cross any state highways. We’ll work on maintaining an 8.5-minute mile. That’s the qualifying pace for the race and I’ve done it before. I just wish it was a little later in the season.”

“I haven’t been much of a running partner this winter,” I sighed. “I should have been more supportive.”

“I’m the one devoted to marathoning,” she laughed. “I’ll show you the cutoff to come back half way. I know you aren’t used to running this.”

It might come to that, I thought. But Nanette and I stretched and took off up the driveway with first light. It took a few minutes to hit and maintain the pace we needed. We didn’t talk much but the companionship of my running partner was all I needed. Before long, the music settled in to my head. I could feel it wrap up my body. I just kept running. ‘Run, Forrest, Run!’ All there was in the world centered on the beat of my feet and the measured cadence of my partner. We ran. She pointed to the cutoff and I just shook my head. If I couldn’t make it all the way, I could walk. Just now, I needed to run.

And when we turned back down Donna’s long drive at the end of the run, Nanette slowed to a walk. I ran on to the smooth wet grass of Donna’s backyard driving range and collapsed on my face. The tears were gone. Only dry sobs as I tried to get enough air in my lungs to stand up again. We’d been gone three-and-a-half hours. As Nanette collapsed next to me, our girlfriends poured out of the house with water, towels, and love.

Nanette got on the plane with Em Sunday morning. She’d decided to take extra time off work and join Em in Kansas for a week before she had to fly to Boston. I was thankful Em wouldn’t be alone for this first week after the funeral.

That meant Nanette’s house would be empty for another two weeks, so Mom and Dad didn’t need to worry about moving. Sunday morning, our families showed up with a portable storage bin and enough cardboard boxes to move an entire household. Mostly, Mom, Dad, and I handed things to people who itemized them, boxed them, and labeled the boxes so we’d know exactly where things were. Even a few broken treasures were put in the boxes. Ignoring the safety warning we’d been given, several of the men moved into the demolished section of the house and removed anything from our bedrooms that wasn’t totally destroyed. They managed to rescue a lot of clothes. My computer came out of my room with a smashed screen but Randall was sure the data could be recovered. My recording gear was in similar condition. John Adams brought a chainsaw over and finished cutting the fallen tree into segments that we hauled into the back yard. It was a long process and I understood both how long it took the rescuers and how they could lose a piece of log into the hole.

The last thing I carried out of my room were the broken remains of my guitar and lute guitar. I didn’t put them in storage, but placed them in my truck. I was thankful we had insured them separately.

“I’m glad you’re back, Jacob,” LeBlanc said at the beginning of orchestra. “I know this is a tough time for you. Do you think you can play the concert? We’ll be rehearsing after school every day this week.”

“Oh. Uh ... My guitar ... I guess I can use my practice guitar,” I said. I was back at school but still a little in shock.

“You mean...”

“My good guitar and my lute guitar were both smashed in the tornado.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry about my guitar? My sister died.”

LeBlanc did something very uncharacteristic. At least in my opinion. He hugged me. That’s pretty much a no-no for teachers in general, but it was way out of the zone for LeBlanc.

“Music soothes the soul,” he whispered. “You need a guitar. Use your practice guitar for today.” He turned to the orchestra and directly to our violinist in the sextet. “Carol. Please come to the podium. We will take the Schubert from the top. You have the baton.” He must have seen something he liked in the way Carol was managing our sextet. She was shocked and open mouthed when he handed her his baton and left the room.

“I restrung it with gut, so you’ll need to retune frequently for the next few days,” Vinnie said. “It will have a slightly crisper sound than your classic, but guitars don’t develop that mellowness until they’ve been played for a number of years. We’ll work on finding a good replacement. Until then, use this.” He pressed a new Cordoba Reyes Flamenco guitar into my hands. Its spruce top looked a little plain and too shiny compared to my 1950 Marcelo Barbero from Zaveleta’s. But it was a beautiful instrument and I cut the rest of my classes for the afternoon to play it. What difference would it make? I’d already missed three days and they’d just tack this on.

Vinnie was right that I had to retune frequently. New gut strings stretched under their first tightening and playing. I was managing to get all the way through a three-minute piece without retuning by the end of school. I was still playing when I heard the haunting tones of my partner’s flute joining me. It threw me for a second because I didn’t know what I was playing or that she knew it. We just kept going and I recognized it as a piece we’d practiced but never performed. The tone of the flute complemented the guitar perfectly.

I simply sank into the music and let it carry the two of us along.

The tapping of LeBlanc’s baton brought us to a sudden halt and I realized the orchestra room was full. People were scuffing their chairs around and getting their music stands in position. I quickly got my own ready for the first piece. LeBlanc pointed to his concertmistress and she brought us all into tune. Then we were off.

We rehearsed the pieces that involved the entire orchestra, even if the piece included a solo instrument—which nearly all of them did. The Spring Preview Concert was an exhibition of sorts, in which as many people as possible were given the opportunity to shine.