Cassie
Alaska, 2024
Grossberg zipped her down parka.
She put on her left glove with her right hand and used her teeth to tug her right glove over her wrist.
She strapped a headlamp around her forehead, over the brim of her knitted wool hat, and opened the door.
It was nine o’clock in the morning, the starless sky still black as a pot of ink outside, with an icy, knife-edged wind blowing hard enough to make the sides of her wooden house groan.
Winter in Alaska felt like punishment.
It was cold, of course, and endlessly dark.
The sky was black at seven in the morning, when kids left for school.
It was dark again by three in the afternoon, when the dismissal bell rang.
The hockey teams played under floodlights; the kids on the cross-country ski team practiced with headlamps.
Everyone learned to live with it.
Either that, or they flew off to Hawaii.
Alaska’s winters suited .
The sharp-edged wind found all of the gaps in her clothing—the space between her scarf and her parka’s zipper, the gap between her hat and her collar—and probed at them zealously.
It felt purposefully cruel; a wind that held a grudge, that sidled close and whispered in your ear every shameful, stupid thing you’d ever done.
It was unrelenting and pitiless.
It felt like what she deserved.
That morning, felt the cold, but she felt something else, too—a prickle of unease at the back of her neck; an unwelcome sensation that meant that, somewhere, her songs were being played; her name was being spoken.
It had been that way for years.
She’d get that uncomfortably itchy feeling, that sensation of being watched, and she’d turn on the radio or the TV, and boom, there they’d be, her voice and Zoe’s, singing “The Gift”
or “Flavor of the Week”
or “Last Night in Fishtown.”
And she’d be forced to think of her sister, to remember, even though remembering hurt.
When they were girls, Zoe had been ’s companion, her protector; once, she’d believed, her friend.
Had things gone the way they should have, they would have grown up and gone in separate directions: , to a life in classical music, and Zoe, probably, to college, unless her sister had managed to find some other path to the stardom she’d always yearned for.
A degree, a husband, a regular kind of job.
That hadn’t happened.
And now . . .
“Never mind,”
rasped.
Her dog, Wesley, looked up at her.
His expression seemed vaguely startled.
wondered how long it had been since he’d heard her talk.
She crouched down to scratch behind his ears.
At just under twenty pounds, Wesley was conveniently portable, easy for to scoop up under an arm or tuck into her coat as needed.
had never planned on getting a dog.
Pets were a comfort.
They provided companionship.
hadn’t thought she deserved either of those things.
But six years ago, she’d opened her door to find a small dog with reddish-brown fur and white spots, his tail tucked neatly underneath him, ears quivering uncertainly as he looked at her.
“Hello,”
she said, before she could stop herself.
He hadn’t been wearing a collar, and when she’d brought him to the vet, she found that he wasn’t chipped.
“You could take him to the shelter,”
the tech said.
“But, you know, older dogs . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and, right on cue, the little dog had whimpered, as if he understood what he’d heard.
did not deserve the comfort of a dog.
She’d hurt everyone who’d gotten close to her.
But the dog didn’t deserve a death sentence.
had paid the bill and carried the dog to her car.
“I’m not going to be a lot of fun,”
she warned the dog, unlocking the car’s doors.
Wesley regarded her warily.
She put him in the back seat and googled the location of the nearest pet shop, where she bought a leash, a collar, a bag of kibble, and a crate that Wesley ended up never using, preferring, instead, to sleep curled up at the foot of ’s single bed.
had done her best to make a life where she saw, and spoke to, as few people as possible.
She’d had enough of people; enough of attention, enough of the world.
Early on, after everything had gone wrong, she’d thought about killing herself .
She’d wanted to die.
Only that felt like the easy way out, like she was ducking her punishment, avoiding what she deserved.
Which was to live out her days alone, with the knowledge of all the pain she’d caused the people who had loved her.
She’d started out in Oregon, three thousand miles from home, in an A-frame, an hour outside of Portland.
Stunning views of the Pacific Ocean, rolling sand dunes and Salmon Creek, the ad had read.
had ordered blackout curtains to cover the windows that faced the water, and had plodded through her days.
She didn’t have a TV, didn’t buy new clothes, didn’t go out to the movies or to restaurants.
She ate the same three meals each day: cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, a chicken breast for dinner.
She didn’t listen to any music, didn’t buy a piano or sing in the shower.
On the rare occasions when she needed to go somewhere, she kept the car radio tuned to the all-news channel.
She shopped for groceries early in the morning or late at night and did her banking online.
But there were too many people; too many eyes that lit up in recognition at her face; too many occasions when she’d hear a bar or two of the band’s music and be sent hurtling back to a place she didn’t want to go.
Seven months into a yearlong lease, had been at the drugstore, buying toothpaste and tampons, when she’d caught a tinny, string-heavy Muzak version of “The Gift,”
emerging from the store’s speakers.
It had been playing while she’d paid, and the checkout girl had looked at the name on ’s credit card, then up at Cass, her eyes wide and wondering.
The name on the card was C.
Grossberg.
She hadn’t become Griffin until the record label had officially signed off on the last name that her sister had chosen.
“It’s just easier,”
Jerry had told them, in his high, boyish voice, with a smile that showed all of his teeth.
Jerry’s last name had once been Nussbaum before it became Nance, a fact he hadn’t mentioned, that afternoon or ever.
Did the girl recognize her, in spite of the different last name? had grabbed her stuff, declined a receipt with a curt shake of her head, and hurried out of the store.
At home, she’d sat up all night, in the dark, trying to decide where she would run.
At five in the morning, she bought a plane ticket.
Several hours later, she was on an Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage.
When she landed, she took a taxi to a car dealership, where she paid cash for her SUV, and forced herself to smile at the salesman.
“Where do people go when they don’t want anyone to find them?”
“Excuse me?”
The guy was looking at her closely.
Did he recognize her? Or was she making him uncomfortable? Was she acting weird? “Stop staring,”
Zoe used to tell her, in nursery school and elementary school and middle school.
Zoe would deliver her instructions in a murmur, standing close to her sister.
When more lengthy or explicit guidance was required, she’d take ’s sleeve and tow her into a corner so that no one could overhear.
“Close your mouth.
Stop smiling, it looks weird.
Just act normal.”
The problem was that never knew what “normal”
was.
She’d always relied on Zoe to tell her.
In the too-bright showroom, with its gleaming tiled floors and shiny new cars, fumbled for a story.
“I ...My ex-husband has been harassing me.”
looked at herself, wincing internally.
Would this guy believe that someone who looked like her had been married, and that this putative former spouse would care enough about her to keep bothering her—that he wouldn’t, instead, just be relieved that she was out of his life? told herself not to worry.
Fat people got married.
Both of the sisters on the TV show My 600-lb Life had boyfriends.
There’s a lid for every pot, her great-aunt Bess used to say, and would think, I’m going to need a very big lid.
But there was truth to what she’d said.
There had been a man who’d said he’d loved her. Once.
remembered how he’d traced her eyebrows with one fingertip.
How he’d looked down at her when she’d been flushed and rumpled and smiling.
How he’d made her feel lovely and cherished.
She shook her head, shoved the thought into the soft meat of her memory, and told the salesman, “I want to be far away from other people.”
“Well, you’re in the right state, for sure.”
He’d shown her a map, pointing out the cities and the big tourist spots—Anchorage and Seward and Homer, the ports where the cruise ships docked, Talkeetna, the Denali range.
“But anywhere that isn’t one of those places can get pretty isolated.”
had looked at the map, considering all of the wide-open spaces.
“What do you do? For a living?”
the salesman asked.
“You’ll need a job, right?”
“My parents left me some money.”
felt bad for lying, because her parents were alive and well, still living in Philadelphia.
She’d barely spoken to them since that final, terrible night in Detroit.
Contact with her mom and dad was one more comfort she didn’t deserve.
My fault, had said, when she’d told her mother what had happened, and why she couldn’t come home.
All my fault.
The salesman had taken her money and had given her the map, along with the keys, and she’d started driving, following the highway out of town.
The road ran parallel to a river, and it was a struggle not to stare or be distracted by the grandeur of the landscape.
She’d never seen land so vividly green and mountains so close.
They crowded against the perimeter of the road, their peaks pushing into the misty sky.
Downtown Anchorage had felt like any medium-sized city, with strip malls and fast-food restaurants, the same stores and signs had seen all across the country.
But after half an hour of driving, the land felt enchanted, otherworldly and wild.
Best of all, it felt very far away—different, and distant, from anywhere she’d ever been.
She’d spent the first night in a hotel in Seward, the second in Homer.
She’d considered pushing on, maybe to Juneau, or all the way to the Aleutian Islands, but those, she suspected, would be just like any other small town, where everyone knew everyone, and where, eventually, people would know her.
And so she’d backtracked along the Cook Inlet, passing by some towns that had names that sounded vaguely Russian, and others that sounded Native American, and some with names that seemed to have been made up by children: Kalifornsky Beach, Kasilof, Clam Gulch, Nikiski, Anchor Point, Funny River, Sterling, Ninilchik, Soldotna.
She followed narrow paved roads and bumpy dirt roads that terminated in dead ends or trailed off into forests, until she found what she was looking for: a “for sale by owner”
sign on a likely-looking piece of land along a barely paved road between Seward and Homer, miles away from anything that resembled a town.
The owners were a young married couple who’d moved to Alaska to be homesteaders and live off the grid.
They had lasted a year.
When found them, the wife was expecting, and winter was coming, and they were desperate to move back to California.
was glad to offer them the price they were asking and they were overjoyed to take it.
She spent the night in a hotel, found a lawyer in Homer the next morning who’d given zero indication of knowing who was, and they’d concluded the deal in the woman’s office by noon.
She signed her name a few dozen times, wrote one very large check and several smaller ones, and shook the former owners’ hands.
And then Grossberg, once Griffin, was the official owner of fifty acres in the woods, a mile south of the Kenai River.
It was as far as she could go.
It still wasn’t far enough.
In the doorway of her one-room home, made a clicking noise with her tongue.
Wesley’s pointy ears swiveled in her direction and he trotted over, tongue lolling, looking up at her as his stub of a tail quivered.
When he’d first shown up, Wesley had been half-starved, so skinny that each of his ribs showed through his fur.
Now he weighed twenty pounds and had a lean, deep-chested body.
His paws were white, with brown freckles, and he’d cross them neatly when he lay on the bed or the rug and looked up at her with his big, dark eyes.
Soulful eyes, sometimes thought, with lines of dark-brown fur extending from their corners toward his ears, like Cleopatra-style eyeliner.
He was well-fed, and never alone, but he still had a mournful aspect, and he’d stick close to her heels whenever she went outside.
He sat on her lap when she was reading; he curled beside her when she napped; he licked her cheeks when she cried and seemed to listen when she talked to him, so attentively that was almost convinced that he understood everything she said.
She started down the steps.
Wesley trotted beside her.
When they reached the bottom, he hopped up on his hind paws to give her one of what called his Patented Looks of Beseechment.
pulled a piece of salmon jerky out of her pocket and tossed it to him.
While Wesley daintily devoured his treat, she double-checked her bucket to make sure it held everything she’d need for her morning.
All-purpose cleaning spray for the counters; a spray jar full of a water-and-vinegar solution for the windows; toilet cleaner and a scrub brush; microfiber cloths for dusting; and rags for scrubbing the floor.
Murphy Oil Soap and Lestoil; Lysol and Febreze.
Cozy Treehouse in the Woods! was how the Airbnb ad she’d written described the tiny houses she’d had built.
She’d moved into the trailer the married couple had left behind and spent a year working with an architect and a general contractor, until the construction was complete.
The three houses had been built on stilts, tucked into the forest, completely invisible from the road, and from their neighbors.
They perched above the tree line, overlooking the river and the treetops and, at night, the wide-open, star-filled sky.
Each house was just one rectangular room, plus a bathroom and a kitchenette, thoughtfully constructed, with built-in storage and creative use of space.
had hired a decorator to furnish two of the interiors with a comfortable king-sized bed, a two-burner stove and a miniature fridge, as well as a small, high table with two barstools, a love seat, and a writing desk.
The floors were hardwood, except for the bathroom, which had heated tiled floors.
She’d hired a kid with a drone to take aerial photographs of the houses, the land, and the river, and a professional photographer to shoot the interiors.
Then she’d posted ads on different websites, writing the descriptions like she’d once composed songs, working to find the rhythm of the language, tweaking the listing for maximum response.
The two rental cabins were booked an average of two hundred nights a year, at an average of one hundred and fifty dollars per night.
Even minus the expense of upkeep and utilities, they brought in more than enough to keep and Wesley clothed and fed and happy, their expenses covered, their taxes paid.
They lived in the third treehouse, located even farther into the woods, at the end of an unmarked dirt path.
Her street had no name, her house had no number, and had never had visitors.
No other human being had ever set foot inside her home; no other voice had ever moved through its atmosphere, setting subatomic particles bouncing off each other until time ran out and the world ended.
Every piece of music you’ve ever played is still playing, at a level too quiet for anyone to hear.
Her first piano teacher had told her that, and had been fascinated by the concept.
It was a kind of immortality.
Once, she’d liked to imagine the pieces of music she loved going on forever.
Later, it made her shiver with pride to think that every song she’d ever sung was still out there, echoing in the world.
Now it just made her feel guilty and sad.
She walked with her headlamp lighting the way and Wesley trotting beside her, their breath puffing out in white clouds as they followed the snow-covered path in the darkness.
A squirrel chittered, and Wesley darted ahead of her, his head in constant motion, turning left, then right, then left again.
She’d never seen him actually catch a squirrel, but he’d gotten a bird once.
had watched as he’d snatched the tiny brown feathered body right off the ground and gobbled it down, still twitching, in three gulps.
It had been horrifying.
The bird’s wings had been beating inside of Wesley’s mouth, in his throat, still, as he’d swallowed.
There’s a song here, she’d thought.
Something about those desperate, tiny wings, something about that casual savagery, and how you could just be moving, heedlessly, through your life, never knowing how close you were to its end.
A scrap of the unatanah tokef, the prayer she’d once recited with her parents at Yom Kippur, came to mind: On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: how many will pass away and how many will be created, who will live and who will die; who will come to his timely end, and who to an untimely end; who will perish by fire and who by water; who by the sword and who by beast.
Who by tooth and who by claw, thought.
Who by knife and who by gun.
Who by love.
She’d made herself stop, clamping down on the thought, hard and fast, like she was cauterizing a bleeding artery, sealing a wound with fire.
There would be no more songs.
Not ever.
That was the deal.
She’d traded music for her life, such as it was.
She’d struck a kind of fairy-tale bargain she’d thought would comfort her or, at least, would let her live with herself.
Some days, it worked.
Other days—most days—she could admit that it didn’t.
Most days, felt like she was wearing a shirt made of thorns, like she’d swallowed a ball of fishhooks. She was in constant torment, a crushed-glass sorrow that would never end. There would be no forgiveness for her. Not ever.
She trudged through the unyielding darkness with her bucket in one mittened hand, its handle biting into her palm, chin tucked toward her chest, letting her feet carry her body up the eight steps to the first treehouse.
She knocked on the door.
“Hello! Housekeeping!”
When she’d started renting the cabins, she’d set up a system to ensure that her guests never saw her.
The doors had digital locks.
would text her tenants a code to unlock them the day they arrived.
She’d communicate with them exclusively by text, answering questions about restaurants and the Wi-Fi password and what to do if the microwave wasn’t working, never using a name, never revealing that she lived on the property.
If her guests ever spotted her, with her bucket in one hand and her broom and mop in the other and a little dog trailing at her heel, they’d think she was the housekeeper, the hired help.
They’d have no reason to believe she was the owner, or that she’d once been someone else entirely.
As soon as had the cabin door open, Wesley beelined for the unmade bed, hopping up and nosing at the pillows to make himself a nest.
“Oh, no you don’t. Off,”
said.
Wesley’s ears and tail drooped as he hopped off the bed and curled neatly in front of the wood-burning stove in the corner.
He crossed his paws, left over right, and rested his head on top of them with a sigh.
pulled off her parka and pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves.
At the kitchen sink, she filled up her bucket with hot water and cleanser, and started on the floors, sweeping, then mopping, welcoming the exertion, the mindless repetition.
Work would ground her in her current reality, and get that unsettled, prickling sensation to go away.
It would remind her what she really was, and help her not to think of how, once, she’d been something else.
worked quickly, with the efficiency born of experience.
When she was done, she refilled the basket of treats she left for her guests: a bag of locally roasted coffee, a bottle of wine, and a tiny carved wooden bear keychain (she bought them in bulk from a woodworker in Homer).
She set the basket in the center of the bed, then stood by the door and looked around.
“What do you think? Good enough?”
Wesley had fallen asleep.
At the sound of her voice, he worked one eye half-open, and his tail gave a desultory quiver.
reloaded her bucket.
She clicked her tongue for Wesley, and locked the door behind her.
At eleven o’clock, the sky was as light as it got in the winter, less inky black, more dove gray.
walked down the path, thinking about Treehouse Two and what she’d find there, when she heard raised voices.
She lifted her head and saw two women, bundled up for the weather, trekking across the yard.
froze, but it was too late.
They’d seen her, and one of the women was waving.
“Hi! Hello there! Can you help us?”
hunched her shoulders and dipped her chin.
For one moment she found herself wishing, desperately, to be who she’d been, to be what she’d been, twenty years ago.
There were things about life in the public eye that she’d hated, but had learned that fame conferred a strange kind of invisibility.
When she was out in the world, she had people—her bandmates, at first; security, eventually; not to mention managers, hairdressers and makeup artists and stylists, and all of their assistants, plus assorted hangers-on.
She could place herself in the center of the scrum, where she couldn’t be seen.
She could let her sister take the brunt of the attention.
Let Zoe wave and pose and smile, while plodded forward, head down, eyes on her feet and people all around her. Safe.
And onstage ...
felt her eyes slip briefly shut.
That was how she’d sing, with her eyes closed for as long as she could get away with it.
It was, she knew, a little kid’s trick, pretending that if she couldn’t see the audience, they couldn’t see her.
But it had worked.
When she had to look, the spotlights would erase the audience, those avid faces and hungry eyes.
And sometimes, with her hands on the keyboard, or wrapped around the microphone stand, with her sister on one side of her and Russell on the other, she would feel something even better than invisible.
She would feel appreciated.
Respected. Loved.
The woman was still waving.
“Yoo-hoo!”
she called.
“Can you hear me?”
Yoo-hoo, thought, amused in spite of herself.
She hadn’t heard a yoo-hoo since she was a kid, in the company of her great-aunt Bess, whose thick Philadelphia accent had delighted her and her sister.
“Say water,”
Zoe would instruct her, sitting at her kitchen table while Bess rolled out dough for rugelach, or stirred chocolate chips into cookie batter.
“Wooder.”
“Say Eagles.”
“Iggles.”
“Say bagel.”
“Beggle.”
pushed the memory away and held still, not responding, but not running, doing her very best impression of someone who was not quite right.
It was funny, she thought, as the woman approached (a little hesitantly, was pleased to see).
For a long time, had done her very best to approximate normalcy, trying as hard as she could to look and talk and behave like a regular girl.
She could remember reading the Archie comic books and Nancy Drew mysteries that Bess had in the bookshelves of the third-floor bedroom where her daughters and nieces and nephews, including ’s own mother, had once slept, and Baby-Sitters Club books that Zoe brought home.
had read them carefully, paying attention to how the characters spoke to other kids, thinking it would help her.
It had never worked.
Especially because she hadn’t realized that some of her great-aunt’s books were quite old, and nobody her age said that things were “swell,”
or referred to their friends as “chums.”
She’d wanted friends—or, at least, a friend.
And if she couldn’t have that, she wanted the other kids to leave her alone.
After a dozen bruising years, she realized that neither of those things was likely to happen.
She was fat, she was ugly, and there was something fundamentally different about her, something strange and wrong.
Nobody was ever going to like her.
She would never have a friend.
The best she could hope for was to go unnoticed.
“Hi there!”
The woman was trotting toward her, still waving.
“Hello! Do you work here?”
nodded, raising her bucket of cleaning supplies, hoping the two gestures, combined, would say, I am but a humble, possibly mentally challenged cleaning lady.
“Um, we were just wondering if there’s anywhere near here we can buy . . .”
She lowered her voice to a stage whisper.
“Feminine supplies.”
did her best not to flinch away from the woman’s inspection.
She tried not to hear the echo of long-ago voices, to notice how the women’s gaze reminded her of every other girl and woman who’d ever looked her over and found her pathetic.
She cleared her throat.
“Fritz Creek General Store,”
she muttered, and pointed in the correct direction.
“Thank you!”
The woman bobbed her head and went trotting back to her rental car.
kept walking.
That buzzing, unsettled feeling was back: the prickle under her collar, that wobbliness in her knees, and the air was so cold it stung.
At home, she gave Wesley a bowl of kibble and a breath-freshening bone and looked around.
Sometimes, she imagined Zoe inspecting her house, taking in the single bed tucked against one wall, the cheap plastic-walled tub in the bathroom, which lacked the fancy tiles and heated floors she’d used for the rentals.
Zoe would walk around slowly, with eyebrows arched, taking note of what was there, and what was not, how there was no art on the walls, no photographs on display.
She would ask Cass if she was trying to live like a nun, or when she’d be announcing her candidacy for sainthood.
She’d rub ’s comforter between her fingers and ask if there wasn’t a bed of thorns available.
You’re beating yourself up, she’d say.
Her eyes would look silvery and cool in the thin winter sunshine.
Her voice would be light and mocking.
You’re punishing yourself.
And how’s that working out for you? Do you really think you could ever punish yourself enough to make up for what you’ve done? That you could ever suffer enough for anyone to forgive you?
groaned out loud, which made Wesley come trotting over.
He hopped onto his back legs, set one paw on her thigh, and looked up at her.
thought his expression was concerned.
But maybe—probably—that was a lie.
Wesley cared about her only because she had opposable thumbs and access to the dog food.
If she died, he’d probably move along to the next doorstep.
Possibly after eating her face, just like he’d eaten that bird.
She wasn’t special.
She didn’t matter.
Not to him.
Not to anyone.
In the tiny kitchen, she brewed a cup of peppermint tea and sat at the table, letting the fragrant steam warm her face.
A small pleasure, one she decided she could allow.
It’s okay.
You’re okay, she told herself.
You’re safe.
No one will find you, and you won’t hurt anyone else.
The songs she’d sung could go on without her, vibrating at increasingly minuscule increments.
The music she’d made would have its own life.
Her lyrics would be sung by girls she’d never meet, the fat girls, the frizzy-haired girls, the strange ones.
Girls who were lonely, like she’d been, who felt invisible, like she’d felt.
Maybe her songs would comfort them.
Maybe that comfort would help to offset the devastation she’d left when she’d fled. Maybe God would take it into account, and when she died, there would be nothing. Not torment. Not heaven. Just nothing. That was all she allowed herself to hope for.
When her phone rang, jumped, and couldn’t keep a tiny screech from escaping her lips.
She stared at it for a minute as it buzzed and vibrated on the counter like a thing possessed.
If it was a tenant, she’d let the call go to voicemail, she decided.
Why did people insist on calling, anyhow? Didn’t everyone text these days?
She looked at the screen, frowning.
There were only three people in the world she actually knew who had her number.
One was her mother.
(“You don’t have to talk to me, , not if you’re not ready, but at the very least, Dad and I need to know that you’re alive.”) wouldn’t pick up the phone when Janice called, but she would text her mother a monthly proof-of-life message, keeping it as short as she could.
I’m here.
I’m fine.
If she didn’t speak to her mother, she couldn’t be tempted to ask questions whose answers she did not deserve.
The second person was Aunt Bess.
“Talk to your sister,”
Bess had told her, after had called from Detroit on that terrible morning.
“Whatever happened, , you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
But that was a lie.
would never feel better.
The third person—the one who was calling—was the band’s former manager, CJ, who’d also insisted on having a way to reach her.
The stated reason for this was so he could keep her apprised of any band-related financial or legal issue that arose.
The reality was he’d call to tell her about proposed Vegas residencies (“They’re offering a fortune, , an absolute fortune, and it would just be one show a night, five days a week”) and possible jukebox-style Broadway musicals (“It’s the team that did Head Over Heels, and listen, if it does a tenth of what Mamma Mia did for ABBA, your children’s children’s children will be rich”) and rappers who wanted to sample a snippet of one of their songs (“It could be good, could introduce you guys to a whole new audience”).
always told him no, whenever it was in her power to refuse, which was not always, but still, no matter how many times she told him no, CJ would insist on calling, dangling opportunities in front of her like they were plums.
Or, she thought sourly, apples in the Garden of Eden.
CJ didn’t call more than three or four times a year.
But every time he did call, would endure a moment of breath-stealing, skin-crawling dread, terrified that, this time, it wouldn’t be a question about tax payments or Broadway shows or reunion tours; that, instead, it would be more bad news, and he would be calling to tell her that someone else had died.
“Hello?”
“! Good to hear your voice.”
CJ always began the same way, and from his bluff, hearty tone, she could tell that this wasn’t the call she was dreading.
“What’s going on?”
CJ paused.
tried to picture him, not as he’d been, with his round face and easy smile, but how he would look now.
His dark blond hair had been thinning when she’d known him.
Had he gone bald? Or had he gotten hair transplants or a toupee? Had he gained weight, or lost it, becoming one of those middle-aged guys that she’d seen in Portland, fit almost to the point of gauntness, zipping around on their carbon-fiber bikes like Lycra-clad strips of fruit leather? Maybe he’d had kids.
She realized with a jolt that it was even possible he had grandkids by now.
“Listen,”
he was saying, speaking rapidly.
“And please hear me out before you say no.
We’re coming up on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the album . . .”
“No.”
CJ kept talking.
“And there’s this show on Netflix, Evermore . . .”
closed her eyes.
CJ had begged and pleaded and used every weapon at his disposal to get her to agree to giving Evermore’s producers permission to use a handful of the band’s songs.
She would have said no, the way she always did, except CJ had told her that Russell’s niece was a production assistant on the show.
“It would mean the world to her,”
he’d said.
“It would be a kindness.”
Left unsaid was how many unkindnesses the family had endured; how owed them.
Fine, she’d finally told CJ.
Okay. Fine.
“Evermore is the top-rated show for the past month.
The past month, .
It’s completely unprecedented.
The director’s a Griffin Sisters superfan.
She’s given interviews talking about how much she loved your music when she was in high school.”
didn’t say anything.
“The songs are blowing up.
They’re actually charting again.”
CJ was talking faster and faster, like if he got the words out quickly enough would be fooled into saying yes.
“If there was ever a moment to capitalize—there’s all of this new interest, all of these new kids connecting with your music, and I think—”
“No.”
“.”
His voice became gentler.
“Your songs meant something to girls.
And girls are in trouble right now.
You read the news, don’t you?”
did not.
She didn’t bother telling CJ that.
“This country is having a mental health crisis,”
CJ said, assuming a lecturing tone, “and women are getting the worst of it.
The pandemic was devastating to kids.
Especially teenagers.
Especially teenage girls.
They need you,”
he said.
Which set off an echo in ’s brain, a familiar voice saying, What’s the point of being able to sing like you can if no one hears you? What’s the point of a gift if you don’t share it?
Shut up, told the voice.
“What?”
CJ asked, sounding offended.
realized she must have said it out loud.
“No one needs me.”
She felt herself flush as soon as she heard how self-pitying it sounded.
“They’ve got the songs.
Isn’t that enough?”
“I think that you have more to give.”
I think you’re wrong, thought.
“Goodbye,”
she said, and ended the call.
Her hands were shaking.
Her knees felt watery.
She sat at her desk, opened her elderly laptop, logged into her banking account, and blinked when she saw that a sizable sum had been deposited the previous week.
That, at least, explained the prickling sensation.
Something had been happening with the band’s music.
It must have been the show CJ had mentioned.
As quickly as she could, like a criminal hiding evidence, got rid of the money in a series of four-figure donations: one to the animal shelter where Wesley had almost ended up; another to the national office of Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Doctors Without Borders, the ACLU, the NAACP.
An organization that helped new immigrants find jobs; another that helped abused women.
Anything that uplifted the sick and the needy, the young and abused, the powerless of all races and nations.
When the money was gone, she looked over her bank statement, to make sure that her utility bills were being paid and that the online security expert CJ had found for her, a young woman whose job was to keep mentions of off the Internet, had gotten her monthly retainer.
Then she pulled a notebook off the stack of papers beside her laptop, opening it to a fresh, blank page.
She picked up a pen.
Once, she’d used notebooks like these to write down lyrics, bits of melodies, ideas for songs.
Then she’d tried writing letters.
Dear Mom and Dad.
Dear Zoe.
Dear CJ.
Dear Tommy.
Dear Cam.
Dear Mrs.
D’Angelo. But no matter what she said, it all came down to two words, which became her routine.
I’m sorry, she wrote, in neat cursive, in black ink.
She wrote it again, and again and again, over and over, in neat rows, until the page was full, and then she flipped open a fresh page and kept writing.
knew that apologies, sent or unsent, wouldn’t do what she wanted.
A hundred thousand notebooks filled with a million repetitions of I’m sorry would still never be enough.
But writing filled the empty hours.
It kept her hands busy.
And if it didn’t make her feel any better, at least it didn’t leave her feeling any worse.
Janice
Philadelphia, 1987
When Zoe was almost five years old and was almost four, Janice came to the synagogue for the twelve p.m.
preschool pickup, and found the teacher, Miss Lori, waiting at the door.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Miss Lori asked, as the other moms and nannies streamed past her.
“What is it?”
Janice asked wearily, preparing herself for the This school is no longer a good fit conversation.
Every minute of ’s life had been a struggle—a struggle to get her to sleep when she was a baby; a struggle when she wouldn’t walk or talk when she was a toddler.
Janice was unsurprised that preschool had become a problem too.
Still, she had no idea what she’d do if the teachers told her they couldn’t handle , or what that would mean for her daughter’s move to kindergarten.
But Miss Lori didn’t seem angry, which would have been bad, or concerned, which would have been worse.
There were pink ovals high on her cheeks and her voice, normally low and lulling to the point of being hypnotic, was high and animated.
“How long has been taking piano lessons?”
she asked.
Janice was certain she’d heard wrong.
Maybe Miss Lori was trying to sell them on some additional programming, or the extended-day sessions, which Janice would have loved, but which she and Sam couldn’t afford.
Sending two kids to preschool, even with financial aid, was already straining their budget.
“Oh, no, we can’t afford lessons.
Or a piano.
Ha-ha-ha!”
Miss Lori looked at her strangely.
“So isn’t taking lessons somewhere?”
Janice shook her head.
“Because Miss Carlie played the ‘Good Morning Song’ on the piano this morning.
And then, when it was circle time, didn’t sit with the rest of the class.”
As usual, Janice thought, but, before she could apologize for her daughter, Miss Lori continued.
“ went over to the piano, and she played the whole song.
Perfectly.
She didn’t miss a note!”
Janice stared at the teacher.
Her brain felt sluggish.
“She did?”
Miss Lori nodded.
Janice followed her into the classroom, which was cozy, low-ceilinged and warmly lit, and still smelled like the muffins the kids had baked for snack.
Zoe was coloring at a toddler-height table with a group of other children, the ones whose parents could afford extended days.
Zoe’s hair was still in neatly braided pigtails, her outfit still pristine.
Cass was alone in the corner, crouching in front of a pile of Lego Duplos, building something hulking and shapeless.
Her light-brown curls were matted, and her pants had a new rip at the knee.
“,”
called Miss Lori, “can you come to the piano for a minute?”
got to her feet, glancing toward the table.
“Go ahead,”
said Zoe, with her eyes on her construction paper.
“It’s okay.”
walked to the piano and clambered, laboriously, onto the bench.
Janice watched, wishing, for the thousandth time, that her second child possessed some of her first one’s grace, just a little bit of Zoe’s ease or charm.
Being pretty made life easier for girls, Janice thought.
It wasn’t fair, but it was true.
Miss Lori crouched down to put her face at ’s eye level.
“, do you remember the song you played this morning?”
she asked, speaking slowly and clearly.
“Can you play it for your mommy?”
was still expressionless, but she set her hands on the keys and began to play.
Janice stared, watching ’s fingers moving nimbly, hearing the music, and the words to the song in her head: “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you! Good morning, my friends, and it’s nice to see you, too!”
wasn’t just picking out the melody with one finger, either, Janice saw.
She was playing with both hands, moving them both fluidly, her fingers unerringly finding the right keys, like she’d been doing it all her life.
Janice blinked. “,”
she said.
Her tongue felt thick and strange.
“Who taught you how to do that?”
“No one,”
mumbled.
“So how do you know how? How did you learn?”
shrugged.
Miss Lori looked at Janice before turning back to the piano. “,”
she said.
“Can you play ‘Happy Birthday’ for us?”
Again, looked at her sister.
“Go ahead,”
said Zoe.
’s fingers moved over the keys, right hand picking out the familiar melody, left hand playing chords. “My God,”
Janice murmured.
“Do you have musicians in the family?”
Miss Lori was asking.
“Are you musical yourself?”
Janice shook her head and laughed, a little wildly.
“I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
One of my brothers played the clarinet in the high-school marching band.”
“You should get her a teacher,”
Miss Lori said.
“She has a gift.”
Janice looked at the floor, thinking, guiltily, that if Zoe had been the one to evince this unsuspected talent, Janice would have been delighted.
She would have rushed to tell her husband and immediately started scheming about getting a piano and finding the money for lessons.
She felt her face flushing at the evidence—at least the fifth or sixth piece of it since she’d woken up that morning—that she didn’t love as much as Zoe, that she was failing her daughter.
Even if was hard to love, Janice was her mother.
Loving her children—both of her children—was her job.
And she couldn’t do it.
“We don’t have a piano,”
she finally managed.
“And—they’re expensive, aren’t they?”
“She can use ours,”
said Miss Lori.
“She can come early, or stay late.”
Shit, thought Janice, feeling helpless and trapped.
“Do you know anyone who gives lessons?”
she made herself ask.
Miss Lori said she didn’t, but that Miss Rachel would, and excused herself, leaving Janice alone with her daughters.
“ knows lots of songs,”
Zoe announced.
“She likes to sing.”
This, too, was news to Janice.
“ sings?”
she asked, hating how surprised she sounded.
What kind of mother didn’t know something like that about her own daughter? What kind of mother had to be informed by a teacher that her kid was some kind of genius?
“We sing together,” Zoe said.
Janice walked to the piano bench, where Cass was still sitting, legs dangling, back slumped, looking, for all the world, like an appliance that had been unplugged.
Janice made herself put her hands on Cass’s shoulders.
They felt stiff and unyielding as blocks of wood.
“Can you sing me something?”
she asked.
just shook her head.
“She only sings for me,” said Zoe.
“Ah,”
said Janice.
“That—that’s nice.”
How did I miss this? she wondered again.
Was it possible that Zoe was lying? And if she was lying, why?
When Miss Lori came back with a phone number on a Post-it note, Janice folded it carefully and slipped it into her wallet, hoping she at least gave the impression of love and competence.
“What a gift she has,”
Miss Lori said softly.
“You’re very lucky.”
Lucky, Janice told herself as she navigated the icy sidewalk toward her car, holding her daughters’ hands.
This was a good thing.
Cass had a gift, a wonderful gift.
Then why did Janice feel so burdened, like she’d been given bad news instead of good news? Why did she feel like she’d been cursed instead of blessed?
That night, Janice fed the girls dinner, bathed them, and supervised toothbrushing.
She read them a story (Zoe listened attentively and helped turn the pages; listened quietly).
“Good night, girls,”
Janice said, when the story was over, and kissed their cheeks.
An hour later, she crept back up the stairs, and held her breath as she stood in the hallway, outside their bedroom door.
Sure enough, they were singing.
It took Janice a moment to recognize the song as “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
Janice’s aunt Bess was a big Elvis fan.
She must have played the girls one of her records when she’d babysat.
Zoe still had trouble with her l sounds so love came out wuv, but it wasn’t her older daughter’s articulation that made Janice’s breath catch in her chest, as she stood, rapt and unmoving.
It was ’s voice.
It was low, and tuneful, and rich; adult, somehow.
It was lovely and wistful and sad.
It was gorgeous, so beautiful Janice found herself shivering with something that felt like awe.
She stayed frozen in place as the girls finished the song, and didn’t even notice that she’d started to cry until she felt a tear drip off her chin and onto her collar.
She stayed in the hallway, listening, until their voices faded, and, presumably, they’d fallen asleep.
She felt a little bit like she was dreaming as she went back down to the kitchen.
The next morning, when Zoe was in the bathroom, Janice got by herself in the bedroom, as she was climbing out of bed.
“, I heard you singing last night.”
No answer.
“.
Can you look at me?”
Nothing.
was in her pajamas.
Her hair was a snarled mess, and she had her thumb plugged in her mouth.
She was already an inch taller than her sister, and eight pounds heavier; a blocky, thick-bodied girl with muddy brownish-green eyes.
Janice put her hand on ’s chin, tamping down her frustration, reminding herself to be patient.
Zoe would have looked at her, offering answers.
Zoe had no trouble having a conversation.
But wasn’t Zoe.
“Can you sing me something?”
Janice asked.
“She won’t sing for you.”
Zoe emerged from the bathroom and padded, on her bare feet, to the dresser the girls shared.
“Is there toast?”
Janice went downstairs, popped two slices of bread into the toaster, and poured two cups of milk with hands that felt like they belonged to someone else.
“Why not?”
she asked her older daughter.
“Why won’t sing for me?”
Zoe looked thoughtful.
“I don’t know.
She just won’t.”
She took a sip of the milk and said, “She only sings when I sing with her.”
The next night, after the girls had been put to bed, Sam and Janice both stood outside their bedroom for the concert, which featured songs from Mary Poppins.
Sam’s eyes were wide, his expression awed.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Can anyone in your family sing like that?”
Janice whispered.
“No one in my family can sing at all,”
Sam whispered back.
“You’ve been to synagogue with us.
You know.”
Janice nodded.
Her husband wasn’t lying.
When Sam came home from his shift the next night, he had an electronic keyboard tucked under his arm.
“Got it at a pawnshop,”
he said, setting it on the kitchen table.
Janice wondered if pawnshop meant evidence locker.
She decided not to ask.
The keyboard’s speakers had been covered in glitter, and a few of the black keys had been decorated with flower stickers.
Sam loaded in new batteries and set the keyboard on the kitchen table.
“Play us something,”
he said to .
Janice held her breath, waiting to see if would refuse, the way she’d refused to sing.
But instead, climbed obligingly into her booster seat and played “Happy Birthday.”
“Okay,”
said Sam.
“Play . . .”
He paused, trying to think of a song.
“Play ‘Think of Me,’”
Janice said.
For their anniversary, Sam had taken her to see Phantom of the Opera when a touring production came to the Academy of Music on Broad Street.
“Do you know that one, ?”
Cass nodded, bent over the keyboard, and started to play.
Janice watched as her daughter’s hands moved confidently over the keys, and the song poured out.
’s eyes were closed, her face was tranquil, and her mouth was curved into something that was almost a smile.
She looked happy, Janice thought.
Happier than she’d ever seen her looking before.
“We need to find her a teacher,”
Janice told Sam.
“Why?”
her husband asked.
His eyes were still on .
He looked mesmerized.
“If she can already play like this, why does she need a teacher?”
“So she can learn to read music?”
Janice said, knowing she was on shaky ground.
Her own musical education had concluded after sixth grade, when participation in the schoolwide chorus was no longer mandatory.
“So someone can help her?”
So someone can help us, was what she meant.
So someone who understands all of this can tell us what to do with our strange and gifted daughter.
And maybe, she thought, this was ’s chance.
The best chance her daughter had to find a calling.
A hobby.
Maybe even a career.
It was ’s best chance to be happy, or something close.
Later, when reporters came with questions, when friends and acquaintances and neighbors and even the UPS guy all wanted to know if Janice had seen it coming, if she’d always known that her girls were special, destined for stardom, for greatness, she would think back to her daughters’ parent-teacher conferences and recitals.
Not any specific conference or any one recital, because they were all, in their way, the same.
At every conference, the teachers would begin with Zoe.
They’d praise her cheerful nature, her sociability, her ease with the other kids.
She needs to pay attention and focus, they would say, but they’d say it with a smile.
The teachers never smiled when they discussed Sam and Janice’s second daughter, whose homework was competent and whose test scores suggested intelligence, but who never spoke in class, never raised her hand, and had no friends.
Does talk about feeling left out or lonely? they’d ask, looking concerned.
No, Janice would tell them, honestly.
Maybe did feel that way, maybe she longed for friends and companions, but she never said so.
And had her sister.
She wasn’t completely alone.
Janice would leave every conference feeling disheartened, convinced that she was failing her daughter, that, no matter how hard she tried, she’d never do any better.
But then, the same week as the parent-teacher conferences, there’d be a recital, and everything would be different.
was always the last kid to play.
She would walk to the piano, head down, feet dragging.
Her shoulders would be hunched, her curls tangled and hanging in her face in unlovely clumps.
Sit up straight, Janice would think, trying to communicate with via mental telepathy.
It never worked.
Eventually, would set her hands on the keys, head cocked slightly sideways, eyes closed, like the piano was telling her a secret, and she was listening as closely as she could.
And then she’d begin to play.
Her body would sway a little to the music, bending close to the keys, as if the notes were flowing down her arms, from her fingers to the instrument.
She’s good, Janice would think, and she would find herself smiling as her daughter played, all the anxiety and guilt she usually felt replaced with happiness and pride.
She wanted to stand up and announce, That’s my daughter.
Never mind that was clumsy or ungainly, that her dress didn’t fit and her hair was a mess.
Never mind that she had no friends, that Janice found her hard to understand and harder to love. That’s my daughter, and she has a gift.