Broken Pieces: A Novel (23 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

For the next several days I worked odd hours at the opera house, installing the façade that framed the stage.

While Albert covered early mornings with Sydney, I worked. My subcontractors and I transported the finished paneling pieces to the opera house and completed the installation section by section.

Jessica visited most afternoons between school dismissal and dinner time at the café. As Max and Belle played with Ella, she sat with Sydney, holding her hand as she slept. They’d grown close during the time they’d spent together after Halloween, documenting Sydney’s messages for Ella. Thoughts, dreams, lessons, hopes, love.

I went home each evening to eat dinner with Sydney, Ella, and Dad, and each night after Ella was tucked in bed, my father and I slept beside Sydney, curled into chairs, wanting only to be close by in case she needed us.

Marguerite, true to form, became an invaluable member of our family, helping Ella each night with schoolwork, packing lunches, running laundry, and maintaining as much normalcy as was possible under the circumstances.

It was Marguerite who sat with Sydney on the day the Paris Opera House Board of Trustees viewed the newly renovated stage frames for the first time.

Albert, Ella, and I headed downtown a little before ten a.m.

The doors hadn’t yet been unlocked when we arrived, so Ella knocked, pressing her face to the glass impatiently. Jack Maxwell appeared immediately, ushering us inside and glancing about, acting as though we were about to be made privy to some sort of national treasure.

The nerves that had tormented me back on the morning of my first proposal to the selection committee reappeared now, sending waves of butterflies soaring through my belly.

Ella bounced up and down on the toes of her best sneakers. Up. Down. Up. Down.

“For the love of Pete”—my father pressed a hand to her shoulder, doing his best to press her feet flat to the floor—“this waiting is nerve-racking enough.”

So this was what it felt like to be part of a family who stood by your side in times of sorrow and in times of great expectations. My nerves were their nerves. My success would be their success.

Then he turned to me. “Breathe,” he said. “In and out. Slow and steady.”

My butterflies settled, soothed by the man and the little girl by my side.

“We’re ready now,” Jack said, gesturing for us to head to the main auditorium. “Byron’s got the board assembled by the lower doors,” he explained. “We’ll enter down there.”

So we followed him down the ornately carpeted hall that ran along the curve of the auditorium, paralleling the aisles inside, on a crash course with the back wall of the building and the side entrance to the stage.

Byron smiled as we neared. “Here she is now,” he proclaimed. “The woman of the hour and her family.”

Her family.

Ella slipped her hand inside mine and squeezed. Albert smiled and nodded, and although his countenance said cool, the twinkle of anticipation in his eyes said anything but.

“Could this blowhard move any slower?” he whispered in my ear.

Ella giggled, and I said, “Dad, knock it off.”

And then it was time.

Byron Kennedy and Jack Maxwell pulled open the heavy theater doors, and the fourteen members of the board filed inside, turning to take in the majestic panels, their faux finish, and their intricate woodwork with oohs and aahs that enveloped me like a warm, congratulatory embrace.

“The full paneling along the base of the stage will be next,” Byron announced, “followed by the box seats themselves.”

But even before those gathered responded, my father, the award-winning actor, leaned close and murmured, “My girl, I think it’s time you took a bow.”

Erma Leroy began to clap, followed by Polly Klein, Jack Maxwell, and Byron Kennedy himself. And then, as the applause spread and the volume rose to a crescendo, I climbed the steps up to the stage, keeping a firm grip on Ella’s hand, and we took a bow together before the appreciative board. The majestic panels hung from floor to ceiling, framing the opera house stage in all its original beauty once more.

And for just a few fleeting moments, my inner ten-year-old pushed aside the thirty-year-old and soaked it all in, wondering if this was how my father had felt at the end of every show.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Sydney left us in the quiet hours of the morning.

Her breathing had become labored not long after the three of us had returned from the opera house.

Dad had fallen asleep with his hand on hers. Ella had drifted to sleep curled by her side, her slight arm wrapped around Sydney’s waist.

Marguerite had fallen asleep in the chair we’d dragged in from my father’s room, and I sat waiting. Waiting to say good-bye to the sister I’d just come to know.

When Sydney’s labored breathing fell quiet, Ella said, “Momma” softly in her sleep, smiling.

Sydney gasped, her soul leaving midbreath. Her pale lips curved softly, and peace washed across her beautiful face, as if she’d traveled to Ella’s dream and danced beside her daughter.

While I’d told myself I was ready, how could I ever be ready to say good-bye to someone like Sydney?

I loved her as much as I’d always imagined I might love a sister.

No.

I loved her more.

Far, far more.

I scrambled to my feet, laying my palm flat to her frail cheek, pressing my lips to her cool forehead. “I love you.”

And then I sank to my knees and cried softly, reaching gently to wake my father, while Sydney danced free in her daughter’s dreams.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The morning after Sydney’s funeral, I walked toward Jessica’s café. Ella had cried late into the night, finally falling asleep sometime after midnight. My father had fallen asleep in his chair, clutching Sydney’s baby photo to his chest. I’d tucked one of her favorite quilts around him before I sneaked out the door, hoping the familiar fabric would bring him comfort when he finally awoke.

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, and daybreak painted the sky with streaks of coral and violet. Yet, as brilliant as the day promised to be, every step I took felt as though I were slogging through muck or mud. Or life.

I thought of what I’d said to Sydney when she’d first convinced me to try yoga.

I’m going to hurt in places I never knew I had.

That’s how you know you’re alive,
she’d said.

The front door to the café remained locked, even though lights glowed from deep inside the restaurant. Jessica no doubt busied herself for the day, hustling around behind the counter, stocking glasses, napkins, and silverware, filling glass-topped pastry dishes with doughnuts and coffee cakes and muffins.

I lifted my hand to knock, but instead let it fall back to my side.

I leaned my forehead against the door and shut my eyes. Every inch of me ached in a way it had never ached before.

I wanted Sydney.

I wanted all the years we hadn’t had.

I wanted to ask her why the space between her third and fourth toes was bigger than the space between the rest of her toes. Had she fallen, tripped, stubbed her foot on a piece of furniture? Had she fallen off a bike?

If we’d grown up together, I would have known most everything about her. After all, wasn’t that what sisters did?

But I did know her.

Sydney and I had crammed a lifetime of sisterhood into three months. A lifetime of finding our way around each other. A lifetime of laughter, sorrow, hope, and good-bye. And as much as this moment hurt, I wouldn’t trade anything that had led to it. I wouldn’t trade the betrayal I’d felt when I’d learned she existed, and I wouldn’t trade the love I’d discovered as I’d let her into my heart.

The only thing I’d trade would be this thing. Grief. The seemingly unbearable weight of defeat and sorrow and aimlessness that blanketed me now.

A soft click sounded, and the door vibrated beneath me. I straightened, opening my eyes to meet Jessica’s. Tears ran down her cheeks, two stoic lines of moisture.

She pushed open the door and pulled me inside, wrapping me in her arms. She squeezed, holding on so tightly I remembered all the times we’d knocked each other to the floor as kids with hugs and vows to never let go.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “So sorry.”

My tears came then, hot and fast, pouring down my face. My shoulders heaved and my knees buckled, but Jessica held tight, not letting go, sinking to the floor beside me.

“You’ll be all right,” she said. “I promise.”

“For the love of God, do not tell me she’s in a better place,” I said, my tone sharp as I pushed away from her. “I heard that so many times yesterday, I thought I’d scream.”

Jessica’s features softened, and she reached to brush my hair from my face. “Never.” She shook her head. “Just a different place.” She touched her fingertips to my heart. “And this place.”

Jessica pushed to her feet and held out a hand. “I was just about to pour your coffee, and I baked chocolate-chip muffins just for Ella. I set one aside for you.”

Small towns. How did people who lived anywhere else survive without them?

I’d just settled at the counter when the bells above the door sounded. Ella raced across the space between us, winding her way between the tables before she climbed into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

Marguerite appeared a few seconds behind her, slightly out of breath, cheeks flushed.

“Did you run all the way here?” I asked Ella. She nodded, the tangle of her hair covering my face.

I tucked her against me and squinted at Marguerite. “Where’s my dad? Does he know Ella ran out?”

I spotted the answer in Marguerite’s face before she spoke, in the moment in which she adjusted her features, searched for her words.

“He’s gone.” The heartbreak in her eyes belied the steady cadence of her voice.

I grabbed the counter to maintain my balance, the world suddenly unstable beneath me. “Gone?”

“Nothing in his chair but Momma’s quilt and the picture,” Ella said, the pain in her voice palpable.

“Luggage?” I asked, unable to believe he’d leave. Not this time.

Marguerite shook her head. “Gone.”

“Car?”

“Still in the driveway.”

I sat and thought about where Albert might run off to if he hadn’t taken my car. There was a bus stop at the far end of town, but to get there he’d have to walk past the one place where I imagined he might stop to think, if only for a moment.

“Come on,” I said, setting Ella on her feet and rushing toward the door. “I have an idea. Maybe we can catch him before he gets too far.”

We found him less than two blocks away.

“There he is,” Ella proclaimed several moments later as we neared Lookout Rock.

My pulse quickened at the sight of my father’s figure perched atop the boulder. His luggage sat on the ground, discarded several yards off the edge of the paved path, still a few feet from the massive stone.

I squeezed Ella’s shoulder and shot Marguerite a quick look. “Why don’t you wait here for a second? Let me talk to Grandpa Albert.”

Ella nodded, and I steeled myself as I headed off the path, willing my brain to find the right words, to ask the right questions.

Yet when he turned to face me, his eyes rimmed with tears, I realized the only words I needed were the truth.

“You promised me,” I said, as I scrambled up onto the giant rock to sit beside him.

He shook his head, the move sad, beaten. “I did.”

“And now?” My heart beat so forcefully against my breastbone, I felt sure he must hear it.

Another shake of his head, this one wordless.

I took his hand in mine, intertwining his slender fingers with my own, callused from work and life.

“You know all those times I told you to leave? It was because I was afraid you actually would.” I chuckled. “Actually, I was terrified.”

His brows drew together, a question in his eyes.

“I was afraid that if I let you into my life, you’d break my heart again,” I said. “It was safer to keep you out.”

My father’s features crumpled. “And now?”

I inhaled slowly, my breath catching. “Now I’m asking you to stay.”

I realized something amazing in that moment. I wasn’t scared anymore. If my father left now, I’d survive. Ella would survive.

But I wanted him to stay.

I was willing to run the risk that even if he stayed today, he might leave tomorrow.

“Please stay,” I said, forcing the words past the tangle of emotion in my throat. “I love you, Dad.”

A sob slipped between his lips then. Just one. Then he gathered himself and dragged his sleeve across his face. He squeezed my hand.

“All my life, other people’s emotions have been easier,” he said. “But I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“I love you, Destiny.”

His words ignited a warmth deep inside me that helped ease the anguish of losing Sydney.

We sat motionless for several seconds before Ella’s voice broke the silence. “Now can I come over there?” she yelled.

I sniffed, unwinding my fingers from my father’s. “Someone’s waiting for you. I’ll grab your bags.”

Ella met him halfway between the rock and the path. Dad dropped to one knee, and Ella wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into the sort of hug only a nine-year-old can give.

“The man was a genius onstage,” Marguerite said a moment later, when I had dragged the luggage to where she stood waiting. “But he couldn’t keep your mother alive, and he failed miserably at raising you. I suppose it was easier to stay in New York than it was to face his shortcomings.”

“I get that,” I said, nodding. “I finally get that.”

Marguerite looped her arm through mine. “Watching him with you and Sydney made me realize I’d spent years hating the man because I thought he was a selfish asshole. I never stopped to think he might simply be scared.”

She was right.

My father kissed Ella’s cheek, then lifted his gaze to meet mine. In his eyes, I spotted raw fear mixed with heartbreak. Yet there he knelt. Still here.