Chapter 3 Seraphina #2
For a second, we simply looked at each other, connected by music and sorrow. However, before I could say anything further, I heard Tyler coming in the front door, calling out to us, breaking the spell.
“That’s Tyler,” I said.
“Let’s go see what the boy can do,” Hunter said. “Thanks for showing me your records.”
“We can play some whenever you wish,” I said.
“I just might take you up on that.”
I left them in the living room and went into my office, figuring I’d do a little writing while they had their lesson, mostly as a way to occupy myself. But I had trouble concentrating. I could hear their voices without deciphering exactly what they were saying, followed by notes and chords.
Forty-five minutes later, the lesson ended. I left my office and found them still in the living room, talking quietly as they put their guitars away.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“It went great,” Tyler said. “I think I learned more today than the last three years playing on my own.”
“He’s doing very well,” Hunter said. “He’s a quick learner. Good listener too.”
Tyler beamed. “Thanks, Mr. Sloan.”
“Please, don’t call me that. I’m just Hunter.”
“Okay,” Tyler said. “Hunter, you should stay for dinner.”
“No, I couldn’t impose,” Hunter said.
“You should stay,” I said, surprising myself. “As long as you don’t mind take-out. I don’t have much in the fridge.”
One of Hunter’s thick eyebrows shot up. “Challenge accepted. Show me what you’ve got in your pantry and I’ll make us dinner.”
“Oh, that’s a fun game,” Tyler said, sounding delighted. “Let’s do it.”
I lifted my hands in surrender. “I can’t wait to see your face when you realize how unlikely it is you’ll find anything to make in my kitchen.”
“Show me the way,” Hunter said. “And prepare to be dazzled.”
Hunter stood in front of my open refrigerator, his gaze sweeping the shelves. “Okay now, this is going to be too easy.” He pulled out the egg container, which I was glad to see had been filled recently. Thanks to Tyler.
“Eggs.” Hunter set them on the counter. “And you’ve got parmesan.” He held up the block, looking triumphant. “And, as luck would have it, you have pancetta.”
“We do?” I asked.
“Yeah, I got it last week,” Tyler said.
“Why?” I asked.
“For sandwiches. Vance told me about this baguette with butter and pancetta he used to get in Paris,” Tyler said. “I was going to make that for us but we went out to dinner last night.”
“It would make a great sandwich,” Hunter said. “But I’m going to make carbonara. You have pasta, I hope?”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah. We have a ton of that. It’s a go-to on school nights. That and bottled sauce we get from Costco.”
“I sound like the worst mother right now,” I said, laughing.
“You’re creating worlds, Mom. No time for cooking.” Tyler headed into the pantry.
“Thanks, honey.” Shaking my head, I went to the wine rack to open something. Best to lean into my skills.
Tyler returned with a package of linguini. “Will this work?”
“Perfect.” Hunter found the butter and asked if we had garlic, which Tyler grabbed out of a bowl near the cooktop.
“What about cream, though?” Tyler asked. “I don’t think we have enough.”
Hunter turned to face us, his hands tented under his chin. “Now, this may come as a shock to you, but the original carbonara is not made with cream.”
Tyler’s face lit up. “Really? I never knew that.”
I popped the cork out of a bottle of pinot and poured two glasses, setting one on the counter next to Hunter.
Hunter thanked me and then said, “Authentic Roman carbonara uses no cream whatsoever. The sauce is made entirely from eggs, Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, plenty of black pepper, and a splash of starchy pasta water to emulsify everything into a silky coating. The heat from the pasta cooks the eggs just enough without scrambling them. People add cream as a shortcut. But we’re not doing that. ”
“I never knew there was anything but the cream version,” Tyler said.
“Yeah, it’s a widespread American and northern European adaptation. Perfectly tasty but it’s not carbonara the way a serious cook makes it.”
“Cool. Will you teach me?” Tyler asked.
“Absolutely. Margaret showed me this years ago. It’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it.”
“Who’s Margaret?” Tyler asked.
“She’s known me since I was a kid,” Hunter explained to Tyler. “Kind of a mother to me.”
“Where was your real mom?”
“She left when I was ten,” Hunter said.
“Oh, that sucks,” Tyler said.
“Yeah. But I have Margaret. Her mother passed this recipe on to her and then she passed it to me.”
“And now you’ll pass it on to me,” Tyler said.
Pass it on to me? The longing in my son’s voice made my stomach clench.
“Margaret thinks all men should learn to cook,” Hunter said.
“In case they marry an author?” I asked.
“I think some authors cook, Mom.”
“Yay for them.” I climbed onto a barstool at the island and accepted my role in this production, which was clearly to drink wine.
Tyler and Hunter settled into a nice rhythm. My son knew where everything was, obviously, so fetched whatever Hunter asked for. The whole room filled with warmth and the smell of garlic and crisping pancetta.
“Should we put on music?” I asked.
“I made a playlist,” Tyler said enthusiastically. “Just in case Hunter stayed for dinner.”
Just in case? My son was definitely not out of the matchmaking game.
Tyler connected his phone to the speaker.
“This is Hunter Sloan’s greatest hits,” Tyler said. “I found a whole list online of every hit song you’ve written. There are a lot of them.”
“Sixty-one,” Hunter said. “That made it into the top twenty anyway.”
I looked up. “Sixty-one? No way.”
“It’s a popular number, I guess,” Hunter said, smiling at me as the first song came on.
Tyler started asking questions about the songs and the artists who recorded them. Hunter answered them all, seemingly unbothered by my son’s curiosity.
“How do you think of your ideas?” Tyler asked.
I was often asked the same thing about my books.
“Different ways. Sometimes a line will just pop into my head and I build the whole song around it.” Hunter added the pasta to the boiling pot, stirring as he spoke.
“Or sometimes it’s something painful from my life, and the only way to get through it is to make it a song.
” He looked at me. “Is it like that for you?”
I nodded. “In that writing can be cathartic, yes. Especially if you get it just right.”
The song changed.
I knew it in the first three notes.
Already Gone (But Still Here).
Ivy James’s voice filled my kitchen. I closed my eyes for a moment, her voice as pure and pretty as anything I’d ever heard in this world. “Perfection,” I said under my breath.
“Why is this one your favorite?” Tyler asked.
I opened my mouth to say oh, you know, I just love Ivy James’s voice and it’s such a good song. Instead, I found myself saying the truth.
“In college, I dated a boy I was completely gone for.” I turned my wine glass slowly on the marble.
“Almost a year. I thought he was the one. But he didn’t agree.
” I lowered my gaze, remembering that night on my couch when he’d told me he wanted out, the painful squeeze in my chest still there even after all these years.
“He said I was too much. Too needy. That I loved too hard and exhausted him.”
Tyler had gone very still. Hunter continued to stir the pasta, not looking at me.
“And I filed it away as evidence of what I’d already suspected about myself.
That I was too intense for anyone to truly love.
” I paused, thinking through how to describe it to my son.
“The thing is, I’d felt from the beginning that he would leave.
So I held on tighter, which of course made it worse.
A self-fulfilling prophecy I wrote myself into without realizing it.
” I laughed a little, the way you laughed at things that weren’t really funny.
“The first time I heard this song I was driving and had to pull over because I couldn’t see the road.
It was my story exactly.” I looked up at Hunter.
“You told it in three minutes and fifty seconds. Made me feel understood while also explaining myself to myself, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does,” Hunter said softly. “I wrote it after my wife left me for another man. She said I suffocated her. I took the breath away from the one person I desperately wanted to give it to. And I knew it all along too. That she would leave. But, in hindsight, I wonder if my assumption is the thing that made her leave.”
“Thank you for writing it,” I said. “You have no idea how much it’s meant to me.”
“That’s kind of you,” Hunter said. “I’ve felt the same way about your books.”
Tyler placed both hands on the counter, his knuckles white.
“You’re not too much, Mom. That guy wasn’t enough.
” Tyler turned toward Hunter. “Same goes for you. She wasn’t enough for you, not the other way around.
If your partner feels insecure, you should reassure them, not make them feel ashamed for asking for love. ”
“That’s not their job though,” Hunter said. “I learned that. We have to validate ourselves. Any time we look for it in others or in our successes or whatever, we’ll never get what we need. That has to come from within.”
“Or maybe it’s just that you two weren’t with the right person,” Tyler said. “Someone who understands what it’s like to be creative and soulful and deep. Not someone who runs away just because you’re intense.”
“Equal intensity? Is that the answer?” Hunter asked, smiling. “You may have a point. But for now, let’s eat.”
We enjoyed a long, chatty meal, with Tyler telling Hunter more about his baseball team and the upcoming game.
Hunter shared some gossip from Nashville about some of my favorite singers and bands, which of course I loved.
I told them about the new book I was starting and that it was a slow beginning.
By the time the last of the food was gone, it was nearly nine o’clock. Hunter helped clear the dishes, stacking things beside the sink, while Tyler loaded the dishwasher and I wiped down the island. I had this eerie feeling of déjà vu, as if we’d done all of it in a former life.
“I should get going,” Hunter said when the kitchen was once again spotless.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said. “Which is a strange thing to say to a guest.”
“Thank you for the wine. And showing me your dad’s record collection.”
Tyler gave me a sideways glance, and then the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
We followed him out into the front room. Hunter picked up his guitar case from where he’d left it earlier.
“Don’t forget to practice what I showed you,” Hunter said to Tyler. “Same time next week?”
“Yeah, totally. I’ll practice every day. And thanks for agreeing to the lessons. It’s really cool of you.”
“I’m glad to do it. And to get to know you better.” He glanced at me. “Both of you.”
“You’re welcome here anytime, right, Mom?”
“Yes. Especially if you make dinner,” I said.
Hunter laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“My first game’s tomorrow evening,” Tyler said to Hunter. “Wanna come?”
“I don’t have to work tomorrow, so, yeah,” Hunter said. “What time?”
Tyler, grinning. “Awesome. Starts at five.”
“I’ll be there,” Hunter said.
“I’m heading up to do some homework. Night, Hunter.” Tyler gave him a little wave and then bounded up the stairs.
I opened the front door and followed Hunter out to the porch. The sky was deep and clear, the stars enormous and the air scented with fresh grass and sweet peas and the sea.
“The smell of spring. I wasn’t sure it would ever come after the winter we had,” I said.
At the top of the stairs, he halted, looking into the night. “I was thinking they should make a perfume that smells like Willet Cove in the spring because there’s nothing quite like it.”
“Oh yes, that would be lovely,” I said. “What would we name it?”
“Seraphina?”
I laughed to hide my embarrassment. “It has a nice ring to it.”
He watched me for a moment, as if I were the most fascinating person in the world. “Thank you for … the conversation tonight. It was refreshing to talk to another artist.”
“Someone as intense as you?” I regretted it the moment I said it. Would he think I was referencing Tyler’s idea that we needed partners who shared intensity? And would he be completely opposed to the idea?
But, if he thought so, he didn’t say anything. “You’ve got quite a boy. I’m sure you’re proud.”
“More than I could ever say. I’ve been blessed.”
“His father was a fool,” Hunter said.
“He was, but I’m not sorry he bailed. We weren’t meant to be. But I was meant to be Tyler’s mom.”
He looked at me for a moment longer than was necessary and then away, out at the stars. “I can hear the ocean. It must be soothing to hear the waves crash to shore.”
I smiled. “Yes, it is.”
“Thanks again for tonight.”
“My pleasure,” I said.
He crossed the porch and headed toward his truck, guitar case in hand.
I stood in the doorway, noting his long, purposeful stride.
At his truck, her turned to give me a wave and then slipped inside, turning on the engine, flooding my yard with light.
For a moment, I was blinded by the intensity of the headlights but then stepped back inside and shut the door.
I stood with my back against it, my heart beating hard against my ribs. What had just happened?
I thought about Ray Sloan’s name in the liner notes and all the nights I’d sat with my dad, listening to those records—while his son, alone in an empty apartment, waited for him to come home.
It was sad but beautiful too. We’d been in each other’s worlds without knowing it.
Was there more at work here than I could see or explain?
Our fathers working together in heaven to make sure we found each other?
I dismissed it as fanciful, yet there was a small part of me that was beginning to think all the coincidences weren’t happenstance at all, but rather fate.