Chapter 40 #2
“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll find a lawyer, maybe even someone willing to take on his case pro bono, given Jake’s… history.”
“And if we can’t?”
“We won’t lose the house, okay?” I assured her, although I wasn’t so sure myself. “I’ve got a coworker whose wife is a lawyer. I can ask her for advice.”
“She’s a divorce lawyer.”
“Which might come in handy if I do lose the house.”
“Oh, no. You’re not getting out that easy.”
We shared a simple, secure look. It would take more than that to break us up.
“Maybe…” Michelle closed her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m saying this… but maybe we let it happen.”
I stared at her, certain I’d misheard. She wasn’t suggesting we sign the papers, was she?
“You—the most protective mother on the planet—want to sign our son to a record deal? At fifteen?”
“He’s almost sixteen.” She drew a breath, opening her eyes.
“Going on sixty. What difference are two years really going to make? He doesn’t go to school.
He doesn’t have friends. He’s better than half the musicians out there.
And he has stacks and stacks of notebooks with songs written and ready to go. ”
“Hey.” I raised my hands. “You don’t have to convince me. Juilliard would probably cost more than the legal fees anyway.”
She didn’t smile. “He’s not getting in there, Scott. Not anymore. If he wants a music career, this is the path.”
“I agree. I’m just surprised you’re willing to let him take it.”
“I know this sounds crazy coming from me. But Jake needs something to reach for. These last five months, since he’s been in that ‘garage band’”—she made air quotes, rolling her eyes—“he hasn’t been as angry. He looks… alive again. I’m afraid of what happens if this is taken away.”
“Me too, but if he doesn’t want the deal—”
“He wants it,” she cut me off. “Just on his terms.”
“His terms are pretending to be someone else,” I said.
“And that’s why we should sign the contract. Jake can’t outrun who he is,” she said. “Fame is coming for him no matter what we do. We can either let it explode on its own, or we can help shape it while he’s living at home and we can still protect him.”
Michelle was right. Jake’s future wasn’t a question anymore. It was already moving toward him.
All it required now was our signature.
“Okay,” she said, exhaling. “So. Who’s going in to talk to him? You or me?”
I quickly touched my nose to take myself out of the running. “Nose goes.”
“Oh geez.” Michelle glanced at an imaginary watch. “I just remembered I have to change the refrigerator filter.”
“You don’t even know what a filter looks like.”
“Too late. I already called it. Now go. I’ll be right here… with bandages.”
I headed for Jake’s room, calling over my shoulder, “Don’t touch the filter.”
Jake was on his bed when I let myself in, earphones turned up and his body coiled tight—one of the many habits captivity had carved into him.
To anyone else, he looked fine, like he’d walked away from it unscathed.
I knew better. Everything he didn’t say was still in there, compressed and volatile, and I didn’t know what it would take—or who would be nearby—when it finally blew.
Music was the only place he let any of it leak out.
It had become his way back into the world.
First it got him talking again—single answers, then full sentences, then stories we hadn’t known he was carrying.
Then it pushed him to write: pages of lyrics we weren’t allowed to read and chords scratched into notebooks.
Learning at home, on his own schedule, gave him long, uninterrupted hours with his piano and guitar. And he kept getting better—far beyond anything he’d been as a child prodigy.
“Jake.”
He ignored me.
“Jake. Earphones.”
He pulled them off and looked up. “What?”
“What?” I echoed, scratching my chin. “Huh, let me think. Has anything interesting happened in the last—oh, I don’t know—twenty minutes? Maybe the men in suits sitting in our kitchen?”
He shrugged. “What do you want me to say? That I’m a stupid kid? Because you already covered that.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
Jake stared at the earphones in his hands. I waited. When nothing came, I tried a different way in.
“Okay,” I said. “Then tell me this. What do you want to do?”
Still nothing.
“If you don’t want the deal,” I went on, keeping my voice level, “we’ll find a way out. I’ll get a lawyer. A real one. But I need to know what I’m fighting for.” I met his eyes. “Is music what you want to do with your life?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. Then, quieter: “But not this way.”
“Then what way?” I asked. “Because if music is the dream, this contract might not be a bad thing. They’re practically handing you a golden ticket.”
He hesitated, just long enough for me to know there was more. “Not under my real name.”
I nodded. He’d never said it out loud, but it was obvious Jake didn’t like being Jake McKallister.
“Even with the other band,” I said cautiously, “your identity would have come out eventually.”
“You’re acting like we were going to be some decade-defining band. We’d be lucky to get one hit.”
“Then why do it?” I asked.
“Because it’s something,” he said. “Because it lets me play. That’s it.”
“But you could do that onstage under your own name.”
He laughed, short and bitter. “No, Dad. No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not right,” he said. “I’m a freak. A murderer. A weak, fucking victim. That’s all anyone sees when they hear my name.” His voice broke, just once. “I don’t want to stand on a stage as… as…”
He swallowed hard.
“As me.”
I shook my head. “Jake—”
“Don’t,” he warned.
I took a breath, choosing my words carefully. “Remember that time on the beach,” I said, “when you swam out to the floating pier even after we warned you your knee was too weak to make it?”
“Yeah. And I almost drowned. What’s your point?”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Maybe I wanted to drown.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said. “Jake, you swim out there because you were tired of being the kid on the sand while everyone else was out living their lives. For a few minutes, you wanted to be Jake again.”
He didn’t look at me, but his shoulders sagged just a fraction.
“I won’t tell you what to do,” I said. “But know this—I didn’t raise you to be invisible.”
Jake looked away. I waited.
“So,” he said at last. “You think I should take the solo offer?”
“What I think is that you’re too young,” I said. “What I want is for you to be a kid—school, friends, prom. A normal life.” I exhaled. “But that’s not how your life shook out.”
He watched me closely.
“If you’re serious about music, if this is what you want to do with your life,” I went on, “there isn’t anything holding you back. You’re talented, Jake. You always have been. Everyone sees it. Even the suits in the kitchen.” I paused. “Especially them. That’s why they’re leaning on you so heavy.”
Jake stared toward the window, drawing a hand through his hair, like he was turning the idea over from every angle and hating all of them. But I knew what he’d choose. What he’d always chosen.
Music.
It was what made him Jake McKallister.