Page 150 of String Boys

His instrument, singing the songs of the gods, just because Seth asked nicely.

Craig came downstairs in the morning, early, and found Kelly asleep on the couch surrounded by sheets of computer paper, each one specially marked like a snowflake. Kelly woke up and tried to sit up without crumpling them, only to find Seth’s dad pulling random pictures out from under his behind and his hips.

“Something on your mind?” Craig asked dryly, setting the sheaf of rumpled pictures on the coffee table.

Kelly gave him a watery smile. “He’s coming home.”

And this morning, Craig Arnold’s smile looked just like his son’s. Slow and dreamy like a sunrise.

“Good.”

Reckoning

SETH HADhis carry-on and his violin, and a splitting headache and blurry vision that came from spending three days on standby in Newark and three different flights after that with eight hours of layovers.

He wasn’t sure of the last time he’d eaten, and he was positive he didn’t smell so good.

He knocked tentatively on his father’s door, hoping his dad was home. Was the Cadillac there? Who was driving the Caddy these days? Wasn’t it Lulu’s car? Was Agnes driving? He couldn’t remember.

God, let his dad be home.

Agnes opened the door instead, and he stared at her, surprised. She was short, topping out at five three, but she looked so grown-up since…. God. Had it been a year since he’d seen her? ’Cause he was going to see her at her play, but that hadn’t turned out so well, and after that, Skype was always so chaotic.

“Agnes, are you driving yet?”

“No, I’m still fifteen. Jeez, Seth, you look like shit! Kelly said you were coming, but we would have had someone come get you from the airport—”

“I had to take a Lyft from San Francisco,” he told her, and that still boggled him. So had the price. Yikes.

“That’s horrible. Come in—God, come in.”

Seth wandered into the apartment he’d always known. Same denim furniture, same brown drapes, beige carpet, same dust.

But Agnes was apparently sleeping on the couch because there was a shit-ton of pink sheets and a comforter folded up on it, as well as a small suitcase with her clothes and a porta crib in the corner with baby supplies—formula, diapers, a bag with what looked like all the baby’s clothes.

And a baby in the middle.

Seth smiled a little. “X-man?” He’d heard about the baby and seen the baby on Skype, but he hadn’t yet held the baby, and he yearned to. This was part of the family he hadn’t had a chance to get to know.

“Yeah. He’s asleep. You can hold him in the morning.”

“Where’s—”

“My stupid brother is upstairs, talking to the hospice nurse because my other stupider brother is….” Her rant, so much like one of Kelly’s, trailed off. “Dying,” she said with a sigh. “Whatever. You’re here, and I’m glad. Come here. I need a hug.”

Mm. He needed to hold her, but she peeled out of his arms way too soon.

“You need a shower,” she said bluntly. “Oh my God, Seth, what happened?”

“Three days on standby,” he said. “Twelve hours in layovers.”

“And a Lyft from San Francisco. Jesus, it’s like a holy quest!”

“Well,” he repeated the thing he’d heard sixty-dozen times in the last four days, “itisa week before Thanksgiving.”

“Damn. Get in the shower. When’s the last time you ate?”

Seth tried to think about it. “There was a noodle place in Newark,” he mumbled, “and a Panda Express in Houston, but I had a lot of walking in Houston. And that was just to get to the Sky Tram. Was Houston yesterday or today?”