Epilogue
Cleo
Sixteen Years LATER
“Who’s gonna break it to him that he’s not a rapper?” Sean muttered when Auden stepped onto the stage at Concert Hall with all the swagger of a fourteen-year-old virtuoso.
My mom smiled. “He can be anything he wants to be.”
All the students in the orchestra wore sharp suits or dresses and there was my son looking like a vagabond.
Auden always wore the baggiest hoodies and the widest, baggiest jeans, and this evening was no exception. He’d painted Studio Ghibli anime characters on his jeans with fabric markers.
He was wearing his Timberlands, too. Laces undone, of course. And a smile.
My genes must have been taking a nap. Auden looked so much like Gabriel it was ridiculous.
He slid onto the piano bench behind the glossy black Steinway and closed his eyes. When the LaGuardia Philharmonic Orchestra started playing, Auden put his fingers on the keys and created magic.
What a gift.
When Auden was three years old, he sat down at the piano and started playing. Not just plunking the keys. He played the song Gabriel wrote for him, the one he sang to him every night before he was even born.
By six, our child prodigy was playing Chopin.
Now he was playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in the spring concert at LaGuardia where he was currently a freshman.
Auden played with so much intensity and passion that he threw his entire body into it. He looked like he was having a religious experience.
The music was emotional, intense, a perfect storm, and so technically demanding that Auden’s fingers flew across the keys at lightning speed without a pause.
I had no idea how he did it.
Gabriel reached for my hand and squeezed it. We shared a smile that said, Isn’t our son a wonder? Funny and loving and goofy, and he can play like this ?
Gabriel didn’t let go of my hand until the dramatic finale when the concerto hurtled to a heart-thudding climax, and then he was on his feet, wolf whistling and clapping louder than anyone else in the audience.
Auden took a bow and raised his arms, clapping for the orchestra and the conductor. So confident. So cool. With an incredible talent.
Our son was a musical genius. But he was still a kid.
He rode his skateboard in the house, left his wet towels on the floor, played too many video games, and was always hungry. Always.
After the concert, Auden met us out front.
“Hey, Grandma, hey, Grandpa.” He gave them big hugs. “Love you. Thanks for coming.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” my mom said. “You were extraordinary.”
Sean beamed with pride and nodded in agreement.
Auden shrugged one thin shoulder. “Wasn’t my best performance but I was okay. The orchestra blew me away though.”
Sean and Gabriel exchanged a look, a shake of the head, a raise of the brows. Can you believe this kid calling himself okay when he’s clearly exceptional?
I doubt that Auden missed a single note, but even if he had, he wouldn’t beat himself up over it.
We weren’t the kind of parents who pressured him. We didn’t want him to miss out on his childhood or get burned out at such a young age. If Auden wanted to play the piano, it was entirely his choice.
His dreams were all his own. Gabriel and I were already living ours.
We were more focused on raising him to be kind and caring so that one day he would be a good man, and we always endeavored to give him a well-rounded, normal life.
Or as normal as it could be when you were Gabriel Francis’ son.
“Hey, Mom.” Auden gave me a big smile and a hug, and I held on a little too long and a little too tight, but he never complained.
“You did great.” I ruffled his messy hair like he was still five years old. “Did you have fun?”
“When it stops being fun, I won’t do it anymore,” he said, quoting his dad. He dodged and weaved like a boxer, sending a flurry of punches into the air. “I’m all jazzed up.”
I laughed.
I loved this kid so damn much.
Then it was Gabriel’s turn. After the hugs were out of the way, Auden clapped his hands together. “Are we going out to dinner now? I’m starving.” He looked at me with a hopeful smile. “Do you have any snacks in your purse?”
I was like his personal vending machine. I handed him some cheese sticks, an apple, and a granola bar.
For such a skinny kid, he sure could put away a lot of food.
“God. He’s just like you.” I elbowed Gabriel in the ribs. He clutched his side, pretending to be wounded. No mystery where Auden got his flair for the dramatic. “In every way,” I added.
Gabriel wrapped his arm around me and steered me up the street to the Escalade with tinted windows idling by the curb. “Not true. He inherited your sense of style.”
I guess I did dress like that in the 90s, and for that brief period in the early 2000s after Auden was born too, so I couldn’t completely deny it. “I never owned a pair of Timberlands.”
Gabriel and I ducked our heads and dove into the back seat as the flashes went off. Click. Click. Click.
Auden was holding his cheese stick like it was a cigar. He blew fake smoke into the air before climbing into the front passenger seat where he’d have full command of the music after asking our driver if it would be okay.
“Jesus, how do you live like this?” Sean grumbled after he’d hustled my mom into the SUV and closed the door on the camera flashes.
“We just ignore it and go about our business,” Gabriel said with a shrug, like it didn’t affect him in the least when, in fact, he hated it with the passion of a thousand suns.
Unfortunately, this was part of our lives. Videos and photos and commentary on social media. Camera phones. Crazy fans. And the paparazzi.
When Auden was a toddler, we packed up and moved to a farm in Upstate New York to get away from it all. I’d envisioned myself making jam, baking bread, and doing yoga every morning. Gabriel had all these lofty dreams of growing his own vegetables, keeping chickens, and living off the land.
None of that came to fruition. Neither of us felt inspired to create art, much less bake bread or raise chickens, and despite the drawbacks of fame, we missed our life in the city. So, we moved back to our loft, and whenever we needed a break now, we retreated to our house in Montauk.
“That’s what happens when you marry a rock star,” I said with a sigh.
Gabriel shot me a scowl.
In the front seat, Auden was rapping to a sample melody he’d mixed himself. Just like his dad, he had music in his soul. “I think I’m gonna start a band,” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Oh, here we go,” Sean said, throwing up his hands. “Another rock star.”
My mom shushed him, laughing.
“What kind of band?” I asked, humoring him.
“A marching band,” Auden responded then snort-laughed. “A rock band. I’m already working on like two songs.”
“Yeah?” Gabriel perked up at that. “You need any help with the songwriting?”
“Nope. No offense, Dad, but I have my own ideas and my style is waaay different from yours.”
It took everything in me not to laugh at the look on Gabriel’s face.
“How could he possibly know what his style is?” Gabriel said under his breath. “He’s fourteen .”
I shrugged. “He’s been surrounded by music all his life.”
“And I’m not a rock star,” Gabriel scoffed.
“You’re ridiculous,” I said in the most loving way.
Gabriel had been nominated for numerous Grammy awards, two of which he’d won.
He’d released over a dozen albums that had all gone multi-platinum, and headlined more tours than I could count.
And if that wasn’t enough evidence to support my argument, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame two years ago.
And yet he vehemently denied that he was a rock star.
“I’m just a guy who can sing and write half-decent songs.”
I gave him the side-eye. “You’re still sticking to that story, huh?”
“Yup.” He leaned back in his seat and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to his side. “I’m sure your son would agree,” he muttered.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. When that failed, I coughed into my fist to cover it up and patted his arm.
“Lucky for you, I loved you before you became a rock star and I still love you even now that you’ve denounced the title.”
“I feel like the luckiest man in the world,” he said, cracking a small smile.
This was our little game. I snuggled up next to him. “You still make me laugh.”
“You still drive me wild.”
“I’m still your biggest fan. Selling out Madison Square Garden. Imagine .”
“I’m still yours. Exhibiting your work at the Guggenheim. What a fucking dream come true.”
My wildest dreams imagined. What a beautiful life we’d created. Look how far we’d flown.
And yet, we were still very much us .
I glanced at him. “You still have all your hair.”
“You still hog all the covers.”
We laughed.
I kissed his jaw. “I adore you.”
“Good. Because you’re stuck with me forever.”
“What a hardship,” I teased.
I would always choose him. Again. And again. And again.
In this life and the next.
My twin flame.