64
Lillian
On my desk, there are five earlier versions of the CD.
They’re missing songs or in the wrong order.
Ones where I messed up the cover.
There are pages of attempted liner notes and a notebook with crowded sketches and potential track lists.
I kept thinking of more songs for the soundtrack of every hour we’ve spent together.
Some I adore, some I emphatically don’t but they’ve found a spot in my heart.
They come from listening closely to Sasha and asking about what they hum along to.
Learning what’s playing in their head so I can sing along.
All around, crumpled wrapping paper from my numerous attempts to make it pretty and fold the corners tight.
It’s the late-night wreckage of wanting to get this just right for Sasha.
They deserve something perfect, and I wanted to be the one to put it into their hands and see their face respond before someone else did.
How could I possibly think giving the book back to Emelia was anything like what I made for Sasha?
In my backpack, I touched the book and pushed it farther down in shame.
A snap mistake compared to a gift I worked on night after night, that made me smile and didn’t fill me with dread.
When I give Sasha the music, it means what it says at the end of the liner notes.
Love, Lillian
They take a long time to get to that part.
People are noisiest about presents when they have to prove they like them.
Sasha’s quiet, flipping forward and taking in each page while I take them in.
Their towel tight across their chest and the beads of water on their shoulders and the way they cross one foot behind the other.
It was always this, fighting helpless against a riptide, pretending I wasn’t getting carried farther and farther out.
I am that sort of fool.