Cherry
Haddonfield, 2024
Ladies and gentlemen! Here in Haddonfield, New Jersey, for one night only . . .”
“You can do this,”
Zoe whispered, and squeezed Cassie’s hand.
took Cassie’s other hand and said, “I believe in you.”
“I believe in you too,”
Cassie said, to both of them, which made snort and Zoe smile.
Then the three of them walked onstage together, as Principal Deakins, the emcee for the night, said, “Put your hands together, and let’s give a great big Haddonfield Elementary PTA welcome to the Griffin Sisters!”
For a moment, there was silence.
heard a few whispers—Griffin Sisters? and Is this a joke? Then the lights came up, and Cassie walked toward her piano.
After a moment of shocked, awed silence and more whispers—Is that really them? Is that really her?—the applause began.
It went on and on, growing louder and louder as people finally understood that this was happening, that this was real.
couldn’t see past the spotlights’ glare but imagined hands creeping into pockets and reaching into purses, phones coming out to record this unprecedented, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime event, along with the cameras that The Next Stage producers were using for their own recording.
Then heard her bandmates, recruited for the night, begin to play: the snap of the snare drum, the murmur of the bass.
For a single terrifying instant, her hands seemed to belong to someone else, but, after a breath, they knew just what to do as they found their way to the strings and the fretboard.
looked at her aunt.
There was color in Cassie’s cheeks and her eyes were clear.
She looked excited.
Happy.
Best of all, she looked comfortable—like she was completely at home and exactly where she was meant to be.
And then she started singing.
Cassie’s voice was, as always, a revelation, strong enough to rattle the floorboards, delicate and restrained as a thread of gold.
Rare and precious.
A wonder and a miracle.
sang with her, and she’d never sounded better, with her mother harmonizing with her, their voices braided with Cassie’s.
Somewhere in the crowd were Bess and Janice and Sam, cheering for them.
Jordan was there, and Schuyler and Noah, and David and Tori, her friends from The Next Stage, who’d flown in special for the show.
“No one ever saw me / And I was so alone,”
Cassie sang.
could hear that famous ache in her voice, but she could hear happiness too.
“But you were right there with me / And your heart was my home.”
And then the guitar and bass were roaring, and Cassie was looking at Zoe, singing right to her.
And I know
Even so
If you come back, I won’t say no . . .
wondered what would happen next.
Maybe there’d even be an entire, official reunion tour.
could hope.
She could dream.
It would be everything had ever wanted, and, maybe, more than anyone deserved.
Cassie sang, and Zoe harmonized with her, and, as played, she realized that, as many times as she’d listened to the song, she’d heard it wrong.
Or, at least, she’d missed something.
She’d never realized that it could be about a lover who’d broken your heart, but also about a sister, or anyone you’d loved who had cared for you, then hurt you; a person you loved in spite of yourself, because you couldn’t do anything else.
One by one, the instruments went silent.
and Zoe’s voices fading away, until it was just Cassie, holding the final notes, all sorrow mixed with longing, regret leavened by hope.
Take me in, take me back, take me home.
There was a brief, ringing silence when the song ended before the audience exploded.
The applause was loud enough to shake the walls of the auditorium.
The people in the auditorium looked astonished and stunned, as if they’d been woken up from a dream.
They clapped and whistled and whooped and hollered and shouted and called for more.
It went on and on and on.
Cassie and Zoe looked at each other.
Thank you, Cassie mouthed.
Zoe blew her sister a kiss.
’s heart ached fiercely, so full of pride, and regret at the years the two of them had wasted, and excitement for everything to come.
And gratitude.
That too.
For her mother and her aunt, who had found their way back to each other. For the boy, or the girl, who was out there somewhere, waiting to meet that special person, or to find out who to be. For all the songs that she would write. For the talent she’d inherited. For the mother who loved her, imperfectly, as best she could.
For these gifts and more, make me grateful, thought.
And then, along with her mother and her aunt, kissed her fingertips, and raised them to the sky.