Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
The backstage hallway smells like rosin and hairspray.
Musicians mill around, tuning their instruments. Cathy is marching up and down like a general with a clipboard, shouting things like, “If you’re not ready, pretend you are!” and “Smile with your eyebrows. Your faces are useless to me!”
I’m dressed in a black fitted jumpsuit with a cinched waist and simple heels. My makeup is soft but bold enough that I feel present in my own skin. I can breathe here.
“Piper!” Cathy calls, waving me over. “You’re on for the solo after the second movement. Don’t be late. Don’t faint. Don’t embarrass me.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
She pats my cheek like I’m her prodigal child returned from war. “Good girl.”
I laugh and keep moving. My violin is warm in my hands, polished and tuned. My fingers rest along the neck, and everything inside me settles.
Six months ago, I couldn’t look at this instrument without feeling the weight of who I used to be. Now it feels like a promise I can make to myself.
I don’t get the bad kind of nervous anymore. Not the bathroom floor kind. I get the clean, electric kind that lives in your hands and makes everything sharper. It’s the kind that means you care.
We take our seats minutes before the lights dim and the curtains pull back.
When the spotlight hits me, my breath catches for a second. It’s blinding, and I can’t see the audience, but I know my family is out there.
I don’t let myself look for him. I’m not ready for the disappointment of the empty space where he would’ve been sitting. I’m not ready for the ache that comes with wanting something that isn’t mine yet.
So I lift my chin and focus on the conductor.
The first movement is warm and controlled. The second is sharper and faster, with the strings swelling in ways that pull the audience forward in their seats. Then it’s my turn.
The conductor nods at me.
I step forward.
The auditorium goes impossibly still as I lift my violin, place my bow, and breathe once.
Then… I play.
∞∞∞
The flowers are the first thing I see in my dressing room. There are several bunches of different sizes propped against the mirror and the table.
I catch myself in the mirror and stay there for a second.
The woman in the glass looks like herself. She’s flushed from playing, with bright eyes and a steady jaw. She looks like the version of me that only surfaces when the music has been good.
I think back to the moment the final note faded. The silence in the hall had been perfect for one heartbeat, and then it shattered. A standing ovation erupted. A smile forms on my mouth at that memory. I let it linger for a long moment before turning to the flowers.
Mom’s ones are wildflowers. She always sends wildflowers.
Madison and Beckett sent roses, which if you know my sister, is a little disturbing. Rowan sent a bunch of white peonies and Noah sent sunflowers.
Those different flower choices pretty much sum up my siblings.
Cal and the band sent a small bunch of wildly mismatched blooms.
The card says: Violin girl. The Anchor forever.
There’s one more that catches my eye.
It’s tucked at the back of the table, half-hidden by a massive display of lilies. It isn’t a standard florist arrangement. There’s no cellophane and no stiff, pre-printed card. It’s a large, generous bunch of sea lavender and white coastal blooms.
The stems are thick and sturdy, held together by a simple piece of twine.
I reach for them. My fingers brush the sea lavender, and I feel a sudden, sharp pull in my chest. These aren’t just flowers.
They’re a memory. They’re the salt air in Mira Cove and the way the light looked on the water when we sat on the hood of the Camaro.
They’re a piece of the road I left behind, brought here to this dressing room.
My hands are trembling when I reach for the card.
It’s a small envelope. My name is on the front in handwriting I know.
Dammit, I’m already wiping a tear before it falls.
When I open it, my breath catches.
Pipes,
I’m so damn proud of you.
— Griffin
I read it twice before I sit down in the dressing room chair with the card in my hand and the applause still echoing in my ears. I think about a man who drove south with no destination and told me he could wait when it was all over.
He was here tonight.
I think about the third piece, the one where something opened up. I stopped performing and started truly being with the music. I wonder whether you can feel the people you love in the dark of a room without seeing them.
I think I might have felt him.
I put my hand over my mouth. There are six months in that card.
Six months of silence that wasn’t really silence.
It was space. It was the kind of space he promised and kept.
He didn’t push. He didn’t call when I hadn’t called.
He let me do what I said I needed to do.
He showed up tonight without announcing it.
He didn’t wait around for thanks. He just left flowers and a note, then left.
I’m so damn proud of you.
God, I miss him so much it’s painful.
There’s a knock at the door. “Everyone is waiting for the star of the show,” Cathy calls from the other side.
“Coming,” I call back.
I look at the card one more time before I look at the sea lavender and the white blooms. I reach for my phone, look at the blank screen, then put it down again.
Not yet. Not in a dressing room in stage makeup with my hands still warm. When I go to him, I want to go to him properly.
I stand up and look in the mirror.
Griffin was here. He saw it.
I take a breath and head back out to find my family in the lobby. Mom’s arms wrap around me. She smells like home. Dad is behind her, with his eyes crinkling into a smile. Rowan launches herself at me. Noah has his arm around Madison and watches with a quiet smile.
“The third piece,” Rowan says into my hair. “Piper, I cried.”
Noah pulls me into his chest for a solid second. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
I hold my family in a concert hall lobby. The flowers are in my dressing room, and the card is in my hand. Somewhere in this city, Griffin Hayes is waiting. He’s at home, or he’s working on a bridge that looks like two harps facing each other.
I think about what I said the night I went to his place. When I find her, you’re the first person I’m going to call.
I found her. I’ve been her for a while now, quietly, without making an announcement.
I look at Mom’s face, and I think about a man who told me that Donna Callahan was one of the bravest people he’d ever known.
“Come on,” Dad says. “Your mother made a reservation.”
“A good one,” Mom says, not apologizing at all.
Rowan takes my arm, and we go out into the night.
I carry the card in my pocket. All through dinner, every time there’s a lull, my hand finds it there.
I’m so damn proud of you.