Chapter Twenty One #2
“I thought they’d need changing,” he said. He offered the packet as Jonah came inside. “The man said these were what you’d want.”
“Thanks.” Jonah took it. He hadn’t wanted another reason to be grateful before he’d even opened the case.
His mother was out. The kitchen smelled of furniture polish, and a row of glasses stood upside down on a towel beside the sink. Thanksgiving preparations had begun early enough to make Jonah think of Summer worrying about what she should bring.
He put the case on the kitchen table and undid the catches. One stuck, then sprang open so abruptly that he stepped back. His father looked away toward the garden, and Jonah wished he had simply said something.
The guitar lay beneath a piece of old fabric. He lifted it out, surprised by the weight of it, and found a pale patch where a sticker had come off. He’d forgotten the sticker entirely, though he remembered being furious when a friend had put it there.
“Still all right?” his father asked. He drew out a chair, leaving another between them.
Jonah sat with the guitar across his legs. “Let’s hear it first.” The chord sounded dreadful; he stopped it with his palm and laughed despite himself.
His father smiled. “That’s familiar,” he said. “Your mother used to shut both doors.”
“She said she liked it.” Jonah turned a tuning peg and tried the string again.
“She did like it. From the other end of the house.” His father reached for the packet. “Shall I get these open?”
“Not yet.” Jonah picked at a corner of the label on the case. “Let’s find out if I remember anything.”
He remembered where his fingers went, which proved different from being able to put them there. His little finger wouldn’t stay where he wanted it; the string buzzed beneath it, and when he moved to the next chord, the first had already gone wrong. He started the progression again, more slowly.
His father listened. Jonah kept his eyes on his hand, feeling the old awkwardness return with a force entirely out of proportion to three badly played chords. At seventeen he’d have blamed the strings, the chair, anyone asking him to play in the first place.
“That’s the one,” his father said. He leaned forward. “What’s it called? You used to play it all the time.”
“I used to play this bit all the time.” Jonah moved his hand. “I never learned the rest.”
His father laughed and took out his phone. Jonah saw the lens turn toward him and stopped playing.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He put his palm over the strings.
“Your mother’ll want to hear.” His father lowered the phone a little. “She was sorry she couldn’t be here.”
“I don’t want you recording me.” Jonah could hear the harshness, but the phone was still pointed at his face. “Put it away.”
His father set the phone on the table. “All right. I should have asked.” Jonah kept looking at it until he turned it facedown.
Through the open back door came the scrape of a rake from next door, then somebody swearing at a bag that wouldn’t stay open. Jonah listened, wishing he could get up and go over there without having to explain himself.
“I’ve heard you play before,” his father said. He pushed the phone farther away. “I wasn’t making an occasion of it.”
“You were recording it.” Jonah set the guitar across the case. “You wouldn’t have done that last month.”
His father looked down at his hands. A strip of tape had come loose from his split thumbnail.
“Probably not,” his father said. He picked at the loose end of the tape. “I was glad you wanted to come.”
“I come here.” Jonah leaned back. “I’ve been coming here for years.”
“You sounded pleased about the guitar,” his father said. “When you mentioned it. I thought—” He stopped picking at the tape on his thumb.
“Don’t say better.” Jonah looked at him. “Please don’t.”
His father sat quietly. Jonah waited for an explanation, the one that would make it necessary to apologize for snapping. Then the man next door swore again, much louder this time, and his father got up to close the back door.
“You want me to leave you to it?” he asked. He kept his hand on the latch.
“No.” Jonah reached for the guitar before his father could go. “I want you to stop looking pleased every time I do something.”
His father took the chair nearest the back door, away from the phone. “Summer working today? Your mother was asking whether she could call in for bread.”
“Until two,” Jonah said. “She’s trying to get ahead of Christmas. Tell Mom not to go at one fifty-five and keep her talking.” He checked his watch, then put his hand back on the strings.
“Your mother says she’s doing the dessert.” His father glanced toward the counter. “I’ve been told not to buy anything. Apparently I ruined the arrangement last year.”
“You bought three pies.” Jonah tried the first chord again, keeping his head down. “For six people.”
“They were on sale.” His father waited until the string stopped buzzing. “And you took one home.”
Jonah had taken it home to an empty house.
He’d eaten a slice standing at the counter, then wrapped the rest and brought it to work because he was sick of looking at it every time he opened the refrigerator.
Now Summer was deciding what they would bring together, and he wanted to call her so badly that he put the guitar down again.
His father watched his hand reach for the pocket with the phone. He said nothing, which made Jonah leave it there and pick up the packet of strings instead.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” Jonah turned the packet over. The instructions were in print too small to read without holding them closer. “It’s been years.”
“We can look it up.” His father reached toward his own phone, then stopped. “That’s all I’m doing with it.”
Jonah nodded. They watched a man explain the first step, paused the video, and argued about whether it was necessary to remove all the old strings at once. His father wanted to wipe the wood beneath them; Jonah wanted to avoid having six loose strings and no idea what to do next.
They changed one at a time. The ends were sharp, the first coil untidy, and his father kept interrupting the man on the screen to say something the man then explained. Jonah told him to stop helping for a minute, and his father told him to stop pausing it in the middle of a sentence.
By the time they finished, Jonah had forgotten to check his phone. He tuned the guitar again, then tried the same chords. They sounded brighter, though the change between them still came a beat late.
His father stood to get his glasses from the counter. “Those suit it,” he said, looking into the open case. “The old ones were pretty far gone.”
Jonah played the progression twice more. When he looked up, his father was putting the empty wrappers in the trash.
“Dad,” Jonah said. He waited until his father looked at him. “Thanks for getting them.”
“You’re welcome.” His father went to wash his hands. Jonah tried the next chord while he was at the sink.
At home, Jonah left the guitar out while he worked through the bit he’d never learned. Summer came in and stopped in the sitting-room doorway, a paper bag held against her coat. He lost the chord he had almost managed.
“I thought you were listening to something,” she said. She put the bag down on the nearest chair. “You got it.”
“Dad helped me change the strings.” Jonah glanced at his fingers. The tips were sore already. “I can’t remember half of it.”
Summer came across the room. She kissed his temple, then bent to see what he’d written on the scrap of paper beside him.
“Are those words?” she asked. She turned her head to try reading them.
“Chords. Badly written ones.” He moved the paper out of the way before she set her keys on it. “I haven’t got to singing.”
“Tell me when you do.” She took her keys with her and went to hang up her coat.
He played the missing change again. This time his finger landed where he meant it to; he tried to repeat it and failed.
From the kitchen, Summer called that she’d bought the wrong flour, then asked him to ignore whatever she said for the next five minutes.
He kept playing until she came to move the paper bag off the chair and sit down.