Porcelain Keys Read online

  I hadn’t wanted to think about the music box back then. To me it was nothing more than a sad representation of what would ultimately replace her. She and her warm embrace would leave me, and in return I would get a cold porcelain box of trinkets. In truth, I’d forgotten about it. But now, here was a piece of it, in the dirt, a mile from the house.

  With a trembling hand, I bent down and picked it up, folding my fingers over it before Thomas saw it. I stood there, clutching it in my hand, trying to figure out what this meant. How had it gotten up here, and where was the rest of the music box? Had Dad dumped it in the lake? Had he buried it? Destroyed it? The thought of never knowing what Mom had placed in it brought tears to my eyes. I swallowed them back, not wanting Thomas to see how upset I was.

  “Aria? You okay?” I felt Thomas’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I said, turning to him with an automatic smile.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Come on. Let’s head back.” I started walking away, but he caught my arm and turned me back toward him.

  “You can trust me, you know?” His hand was warm on my skin, and goose bumps rose on my arm. Somehow I sensed the honesty of his words.

  A sigh filled my hesitation while I tried to figure out the best way to explain. I opened my hand and showed him the little piece of porcelain.

  “What’s that?”

  I brushed my thumb over it. “It’s a piece of a music box.” I explained where it came from, and that I didn’t know what had happened to the box after Mom died.

  “So how do you think a piece of it got up here?”

  “I don’t know. My dad must have brought it up here for some reason.”

  “Why don’t you just ask him about it?”

  I didn’t respond right away because my answer was pathetic. Because I’m too afraid to ask. For the past five years I’d lived in fear. Fear of doing or saying anything that would remind him of Mom, because of how he reacted every time he was. But Thomas’s question forced me to see the truth of my situation. I was seventeen. A senior in high school. When would I have the courage to face my own father?

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “But I will.”

  seven

  The closer I got to home, the more determined I became to ask Dad about the music box. I left Thomas in the orchard, then walked home, trying to summon enough courage to confront Dad.

  I clutched the piece of porcelain in my hand as I entered the kitchen through the back door. Dad was leaning against the counter, the phone to his ear.

  “So it’s true, then?” Dad said into the phone, looking at me. He jerked his head toward the table as if to say, Sit down. I need to talk to you.

  I sat at the table, suddenly not feeling so brave anymore. I shoved the piece of porcelain in my back pocket, deciding to postpone asking about it until I knew what Dad wanted to talk to me about.

  “All right. Thanks for looking that up for me,” Dad said into the phone, then he hung up and turned to me, folding his arms across his chest. “I think you’re getting a little too friendly with that neighbor boy. I don’t want you hanging around him anymore.”

  I blinked. “Why not?”

  “I was talking to someone down at the station today about his family. They said the Ashby boys have a record.”

  I shook my head. “I think you mean Thomas’s brother, Richard. Thomas told me his brother got into some trouble with drugs or something.”

  “No—I mean both the Ashby boys. I don’t mean to judge, and I don’t know all the details, but I know for a fact that they both have criminal records.”

  “That can’t be right. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the criminal type.”

  “It is right. I just checked with Gabe. And I want you to stay away from him. The last thing I need is you getting into trouble.”

  “I’m not going to get into any trouble. And believe me, Thomas is as straight-laced as they come. He isn’t the type to—”

  “Let me be a little more specific, Aria. I don’t want you doing anything illegal, and I don’t want you doing anything that will get you pregnant.”

  “What?” I glared at him, my face turning hot with humiliation. “Having a baby is the last thing on my mind.”

  “A baby doesn’t have to be on your mind to have one. In fact, that’s rarely how it works.”

  “I’m seventeen, Dad, and I know how it works. Believe me, I won’t be doing that any time soon. Thomas is just my friend. He doesn’t even date.”

  Dad snorted. “Guys don’t go around being friends with pretty girls just for the conversation. I saw the way he was looking at you yesterday.”

  “He’s not like that.”

  Dad pinned me with an icy glare, and I wondered why he was so upset. His mouth was tight, his neck turning red. “Believe me, Aria,” he shouted. “It will ruin your life!”

  “I’m not going to get pregnant!” I shouted back, angry that he would think so low of me.

  We glared at each other, and after a while his breathing slowed and the tight line of his mouth loosened. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said, and I wondered if he recognized the hypocrisy of his own words. “When you’re eighteen, you can move out and do whatever you want. But for now, no boyfriends. Especially not Thomas Ashby. Got it?”

  I clenched my jaw, trying to contain the turbulent swell of anger that rose with each breath. I opened my mouth to object, but the fire in his eyes seared it shut. I dropped my eyes and nodded, but my anger turned inward, going deeper, flooding my marrow with a toxic torrent.

  “I’ve got a wildcat to skin,” he said. “Come get me when dinner’s done.” The back door clapped shut behind him, and I stood there fuming. I’d come home intending to get answers from him, and instead I had to be the one to answer to him. How could he have so much control over me? The answer chimed inside me like an alarm clock. Because I let him. No—I had to be stronger than that. I wasn’t like the piece of porcelain in my back pocket that would shatter if I tried to stand up for myself.

  I marched out to the barn, determined to ask him what he’d done with Mom’s music box. But the closer I got to the barn, the more hesitant I became. When I peeked inside and saw a wildcat hanging upside-down, Dad scraping out its guts, I almost turned around and went back to the house.

  “Be brave,” I whispered to myself, then stepped inside. I wrinkled my nose at the acrid smell of dead flesh that filled the barn. Two long florescent lights hung from the rafters, along with a few tagged and numbered antlers. Containers of chemicals crowded the shelves—tanning cream, degreasers, pickling agents. Glass eyes and tongues filled a chest of drawers, and a couple freezers clung to one wall, lids rusted from years of corrosive blood. Half-completed projects lined a workbench—a deer hide waiting to be attached to a mannequin, a fox with hollow eyes, a duck, a beaver, and other hides I didn’t recognize. As I approached Dad, a battle between terror and determination raged inside me.

  “Dad?” I said when I was about ten feet away from him.

  He whipped his head around, startled by my presence, then turned back to the wildcat. “What do you need, Aria?”

  I gulped. My mouth was suddenly dry, and my heart throbbed in my throat. It felt as if a vice gripped my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Forcing in a deep breath, I wrestled the words out. “Remember when I was a kid, we used to . . . go fishing at the lake up here?”

  “Sure,” he said as he tossed the cat’s innards into the garbage.

  “Well . . . I went up to the lake today, and I found something.”

  He froze for a few seconds, then slowly went back to work.

  My heart wasn’t just throbbing now, it was about to leap out of my throat. My face and ears felt hot, but my hands were ice cold. Dangerous words teetered on the tip of my tongue, and I opened my mouth, willing them to fall out.

  “What did you do with Mom’s music box?” I whispered.

  He paused again, then set his tool down on his workbench. He tu
rned to face me, but to my surprise, his face wasn’t angry. It was vulnerable. Pleading. And it gave me more courage.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was firm, but laced with sadness.

  I opened my hand to show him the porcelain sheet music. “Yes, you do. Your expression tells me you know.”

  “Aria. You wouldn’t understand if I tried to—”

  “That’s what you said when I was twelve, Dad. Every question I asked you about Mom, you told me I was too little to understand. Well, I’m almost an adult. And I think I’ll understand any explanation you can give me.”

  He turned back to what he was doing.

  “Did you throw it in the lake?”

  He carried on, scraping, tugging, cleaning.

  “Or did you bury it?” I stood there, arms folded tightly across my chest, hands squeezing my arms, nails digging into my skin. If I held on tight enough, I could keep my resolve. I would stand here until he answered me.

  But he didn’t answer. He scraped every bit of flesh from the wildcat. He applied a salt rub. He rubbed and pressed and kneaded. A good five minutes later, he tossed the wildcat hide into a tub of salt solution.

  “Why did you take it from me? She wanted me to have it. She said she was going to put things in it, things she wanted me to have.”

  He turned to face me, half-sitting on the thick edge of the tub. His lips were pursed, his face pale and beaded with sweat.

  “Listen to me.” His voice was weak, like it was difficult for him to speak. “When you lose something, the only way to heal is to move on.” His hand trembled as he wiped sweat from his brow. “If you keep digging up reminders, the wound that’s almost healed will just keep getting split open. Do you understand that?”

  I’d never seen Dad so vulnerable. Normally I would have just nodded and gone on my way, but within my reach was the door to his heart, cracked open ever so slightly. If I wanted answers, now was my chance to pry it open.

  “Almost healed? No, Dad. I’d say both our wounds are still wide open.” My voice broke and tears brimmed in my eyes. “And remembering Mom isn’t what keeps my wound open. Not being allowed to remember is what keeps mine open.” The words flew from my lips like liberated birds. “My memories are all I have left of her, and you’ve spent the last five years trying to erase them. So, no,” I said, shaking my head, “I don’t understand.”

  He stood up straight, and I instinctively took a step back. He hadn’t been drinking, so I didn’t think he would hurt me, but maybe I’d just driven a nail too close to the edge of his tolerance, making it split. As he took a step toward me, I gulped down the fear that had suddenly risen in my throat.

  “It’s been five years. It’s time to move on.”

  I closed my fist around the piece of porcelain and stared eye-level at the black button on his flannel shirt. “I can’t—and neither can you.”

  He strode over and glared down at me, and his hands came up and rested on my shoulders. A shiver of anxiety shot through me, and I felt I might collapse under the weight of his hands. I focused on his button, unsure what to say or do.

  “Trust me,” he said, “You need to let this go.”

  I bent my head and gazed through blurred vision at my hands, twisting and fumbling like they were trying to untie an invisible, intricate knot. “You don’t know how much you’re asking of me,” I whispered.

  “Please, Aria. For me. Please.” His voice was thick with emotion, and when I looked up at him, there were actually tears in his eyes. But the compassion I expected to feel didn’t come. All I felt was anger and resentment.

  “For you, Dad? What have you ever done for me?”

  “What have I done for you? I’ve loved you as only a father can love his daughter. I’ve fed and clothed you. I’ve raised you. Isn’t that enough?”

  When I didn’t answer, he dropped his hands, lifting the heavy burden from my shoulders. He wiped his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, cleared his throat, and walked out of the barn.

  I stood there for a long time trying to process our conversation, until my knees began shaking and I sank to the floor. My fingers clutched a nearby towel, as if holding it would help me grasp the reality that my father had kept from me the things that mattered most to me. The piano. The music box. Pictures and memories of Mom. And now he wanted to keep Thomas from me as well. A sick feeling washed over me as I realized just how much he disregarded my feelings. I wrapped my arms around my waist and curled over, breaking into quiet sobs. The ounce of hope I’d had that he would someday change was gone.

  The tide of anger I’d felt earlier spilled over, mixing with loneliness and despair. The torrent surrounded me, pressed on me until I was suffocating and gasping for air beneath its current. Darkness enveloped me, and my heart felt like a void, with nothing and no one to fill it. Dad was a sick man. As long as I stayed in his house, he would hurt me, hold me back, keep me in the dark. I closed my eyes and searched the darkness, groping for something to hold on to. An anchor . . . a pillar . . . something unmovable and dependable. In the darkness, I saw a face with bright blue eyes and a smile that made my spirit sing. I heard his name, like a sound on the wind or a whisper piercing through a crowded room.

  Thomas Ashby.

  ~

  The sun hung over the horizon as I emerged from the barn, and I hoped Thomas was still working in the orchard. I swiped at my tears and walked to the orchard, taking deep breaths along the way to calm myself.

  The autumn evening had grown warm, and as I entered the orchard, fruit flies zipped around, feasting on rotten apples and buzzing in my ears. I found Thomas down a row of trees, shoveling apples into a wheelbarrow. He turned to look at me as I approached, his face glowing like honey in the light of the setting sun.

  “Do you have another shovel?” I asked.

  Dumping a shovel full of rotten apples into the brimming wheelbarrow, he paused to give me a little smile. He brought his shovel upright and his eyes swept over my face. “You asked him about it, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I sighed.

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. He didn’t really want to talk about it. I’ll have to ask him when he’s in a better mood.” In truth, I didn’t think I’d ever find out what happened to the music box.

  “Do you think it’s up there somewhere? Do you want me to help you look for it?”

  “It’s okay,” I said, not wanting to pull him further into it. “It could be anywhere. For all I know, it’s at the bottom of the lake.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to go take a look around.”

  I shook my head, feeling embarrassed that I’d already dragged him this far into my melodramatic family life. “It’s not a big deal.”

  He gave me a skeptical look, then nodded and went back to shoveling. He must have sensed I didn’t want to discuss it further, because although he looked troubled, he didn’t press me for more details or ask me any more questions.

  Seeing an extra shovel leaning against a tree, I picked it up and started helping him. I settled in beside him, and we worked in silence. Thomas shoveled continuously, letting beads of sweat drip off the tip of his nose. He was quiet, absorbed in the work.

  I thought about what Dad had said about Thomas having a criminal record and wondered if there could be any truth to it. I stopped shoveling after a while and watched him, sweat mingling with dirt on his forehead, and I knew Dad was wrong. Thomas was everything but a criminal. He was a hard worker, an intellectual. He was kind and giving. Dad’s claim was absurd. Surely someone had confused or coupled him unfairly with his brother, Richard. No, Thomas’s entire being emanated goodness, and I knew I could trust him. A peaceful feeling came over me, and I knew that as long as I had him for my friend, nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter what Dad had said about Thomas. I could never bring myself to stay away from him.

  After Thomas walked me home later that night, I watched him stroll away through the long grass and disappear into
the trees, but my thoughts stayed with him. I couldn’t help wondering why he’d been spending so much time with me when he didn’t date. Maybe his feelings for me weren’t as intense as my feelings for him. Or worse, maybe he just saw me as a friend, a buddy to hang out with in a boring small town. But I couldn’t deny there was a spark of attraction in his eyes whenever he looked at me.

  His words from earlier came back to me. I’m just . . . in awe, he’d said. What had he meant by that? My mind then latched onto something else he’d said. You could find a good teacher to help you prepare.

  A vague scene floated up on the screen of my memory, like a wisp of smoke that would vanish if I tried to grasp it. So I waited. Waited for it to form into something more substantial.

  Good teacher, I repeated in my mind.

  It was something about Mom’s funeral. Someone who spoke to me. A man with a kind face and sandy-blond hair. He’d approached me when I’d left Dad’s side to go sit on a bench. I was tired, worn down with grief, tired of people casting pitiful looks at me and saying trite things like, Poor little sweetheart, and Time heals all wounds. I’d retreated to a bench in the dim hallway of the funeral parlor to find solace, but I didn’t find it for long. This man approached me and sat beside me. I’d never seen him before, but he acted like he knew me. He said something I couldn’t now recall, but I remembered it made me feel different than the things everyone else said. Like he knew how I felt, like his sorrow was as great as mine. He told me he was a friend of my mom’s, that they’d gone to Juilliard together. Then he handed me a card and told me to call him if I ever wanted to take lessons.

  That was all I remembered. What was his name? What had I done with that card?

  I went to my desk. I opened the top drawer and sifted through some papers but didn’t find it. I searched the side drawers, turning over every piece of paper to make sure it wasn’t tucked in somewhere. I remembered playing with the card at the funeral, bending and folding the corners, but what had I done with it afterward? The only thing I remembered keeping from that day was Mom’s funeral program.