Page 11 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door (Stuck Together In Mermaid Shores)

Chapter Eleven: Alina

D espite the doctor’s reassurances, as well as the pills I took a few hours ago, my mind won’t stop spinning with anxiety. My wrists ache as the meds start to wear off slightly, each throb pulling me deeper into the rabbit hole.

It’s not just pain anymore—it’s panic.

I’ve never been like this, so illogically worried about undefinable things I can’t control, and have always preferred to focus on the things that I do have authority over. Yet, here I am, scrolling through yet another ominous article: Autoimmune Disorders & Joint Pain .

The words blur together as my pulse hammers in my ears. A dozen search tabs are already open, filled with descriptions of symptoms that match some of what I’ve been dealing with, as well as others that don’t seem entirely relevant. I don’t care. I read through it all, leaving no stone unturned.

Carpal tunnel. Early onset arthritis. Chronic inflammation. Mysterious, unnameable autoimmune disorders that haven’t yet been studied enough to have a cure, let alone treatment.

And, worst of all, degenerative conditions that whisper warnings of permanent damage.

That word sends a chill down my spine. Degenerative. It goes along with other horrible things— irreversible and incurable and hopeless.

I flex my fingers experimentally. They ache in response, a dull protest that makes me slam my laptop shut. Deep down, I know that the fact that I haven’t iced them since this morning, and that I’ve been typing and scrolling with my hands at awkward angles as I hunch over my computer on the bed won’t help. I know that I could blame my current pain on those things. However, my mind seems determined to fixate on worst case scenarios.

The room is dark except for the faint glow of the bedside lamp, but the shadows on the walls seem to inch closer as my chest tightens. The second floor of the house is quiet, but I can hear Karina and Andy downstairs laughing. I think they’re playing a ridiculous board game they found at a novelty shop earlier today. They invited me to join them, but I refused because I didn’t want to kill the mood.

What if this pain never goes away? What if this is what the rest of my life will be like? What am I supposed to do with myself? It’s not like I can become a composer like Gabe. For starters, I’m not interested in it. Also, composing music still requires you to be able to play the instruments. For that same reason, I’d have no hope as a music instructor. Or a conductor. Or anything at all.

Basically, if I don’t get better, I am well and truly doomed. I have no other skills. All of my education and experience revolves around my ability to play the violin. I’m a one-trick pony.

I drop my head into my aching hands, content to spend the rest of the evening feeling sorry for myself.

Except the sharp ring of my phone yanks me rudely out of that panicked spiral. My hand fumbles for it on the nightstand.

The caller ID makes my stomach drop: Mom .

It’s only five in the evening in Oregon. They’ll be having dinner soon. With any luck, this is just a quick check-in call that won’t cost me too much emotional energy. I’m already running on nothing but fumes.

My thumb hovers over the screen for a long moment before I force myself to swipe and answer the call. “Hey, Mom.”

“Alina,” she greets me, her tone as cool and precise as ever. “What’s the name of that hotel near your apartment?”

My grip tightens on the phone. “Why? What’s going on?”

She huffs impatiently, as if she’s not in the mood to explain herself. “Well, I was hoping to keep this a surprise, but your father and I booked tickets to Chicago for next weekend. We’ll be attending the Saturday evening performance at the CSO, and then I thought we could go out to dinner at that nice steakhouse we took you to last time.”

My mother is, above all else, a creature of habit. The fact that she even tried to plan a surprise trip is a shock.

It’s a blessing that the surprise has been ruined.

My stomach squirms. The anxiety spikes. For a second, a wave of nausea rolls through me so determinedly that I wonder if I’m actually about to be sick.

“Oh,” I breathe.

“You didn’t tell us the orchestra was performing Chopin this summer,” she continues, letting out a light, disdainful chuckle. “But I told your father that you must have been too busy to mention it, because you know that we love his nocturnes so much.”

I close my eyes, pressing my free hand to my temple.

I have to tell her the truth. If I don’t, they’re going to board a plane to Chicago and very quickly discover that I’m not there.

Truthfully, I can’t recall ever being in a position where I had to disappoint my parents. I don’t really know how to do it. I’ve always been well-behaved and exceptionally talented, which is everything they’ve ever wanted in a child.

I figure the best way to do it, then, is to cut right to the chase and rip off the Band-Aid.

“Mom… I’m not performing.”

The silence that follows seems oddly sharp, like a knife poised above my head.

“Not performing? What on earth do you mean?”

“I…” My throat tightens. There’s no good way to say this. “I’m on leave. Medical leave.”

“Leave?” she repeats, the word dripping with disapproval. “Leave from the orchestra? Why? Alina, what are you talking about?”

I swallow hard. I try to remind myself that I’m a grown woman. That I’ve been an independent, fully capable adult for many years now. That I have no reason to feel so small and stupid in my parents’ eyes. That it’s foolish to think they might love me less for this.

Unfortunately, none of those reminders really stick. It’s easier said than done to erase a lifetime of being a people pleaser.

“It’s complicated,” I answer.

The line crackles with tension before her voice slices through it.

“Complicated? Alina, we have spent years—decades, to be exact—sacrificing everything to help you succeed in this career. What do you mean by ‘complicated’?”

I can hear my father’s voice rumbling in the background as a low murmur of concern. His stern, thickly-accented voice echoes in the back of my mind, looping through memories of cold encouragement and high expectations.

I take a shaky breath. “I’m having some issues with my hands, Mom. It was bad enough that the conductor and one of the managers picked up on it, and so they encouraged me to take a medical leave so that I can seek treatment and rest.”

Despite my clear, concise explanation, my mother scoffs as if I’ve just told her I’m taking the entire summer off because I had a brief headache.

“Your hands ? What happened to them? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s from playing too much. Years of lessons, years of rehearsals… it caught up to me.”

There’s a long pause before she speaks again, her tone harsher than I’ve ever heard it—at least, while directed at me.

“That shouldn’t have happened, Alina. Not if you were practicing the way your father taught you.”

“Well, it did happen,” I snap, surprising myself. I’ve never talked back to my parents, not even during my teenage years. “Do you think I want this, Mom? That I’m happy about it?”

Still, her voice rises. “This is your career, Alina! Do you have any idea what this means? How this looks? You’re supposed to be performing with the best orchestra in the country, not taking a break out of nowhere!”

“It’s not a break,” I mutter. “It’s a medical leave. Also, I didn’t have a choice. Diana Crane herself insisted that I take a step back.”

Both my parents know of Diana, given her fame in the classical music world. Still, I should be counting myself lucky that they don’t know her personally, otherwise they might bang down her door themselves and demand a more thorough explanation.

When it comes to ambition and success, my parents know no boundaries.

“Of course you had a choice,” she fires back. “You could have kept pushing through it, like your father and I always encouraged you to do. Do you think we’ve made it this far in life without sacrifices? Success implies a certain tolerance of pain, Alina.”

“I’ve been sacrificing my whole life!” I argue back, not caring when my tone reaches a volume that I hardly ever resort to. “I’ve never done anything but work myself to the bone, even at the expense of a normal childhood. Every moment of my life has been devoted to mastering the violin, and now I don’t—”

I stop myself, unable to finish the sentence. My mother doesn’t respond right away. I brace myself, expecting nothing but the icy venom of Maria Sokolov when she’s at her most petulant, but then there’s a shuffling sound as my father takes the phone.

“Alina,” he says, his voice slightly calmer but no less disapproving. “You need to stay focused. This is just a bump in the road. You’ll find a solution.”

“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.

“It can be,” he says firmly. “These things happen, especially when we are careless with ourselves. Our body is just as much a part of the instrument as the bow and the strings. You must take care of it, and if you have failed to do that, then there is no use in wasting time wallowing. You must simply do better and then return to the orchestra.”

Wallowing . My chest tightens as the word sinks in.

“I’m not wasting time,” I say through gritted teeth. However, I am, admittedly, wallowing. I’ve been stuck in the depths of my wallows since that fateful meeting in Diana Crane’s office.

“Then figure it out,” my mother snaps, her voice returning to the line. “Because this isn’t just about you, Alina. It’s about all of us. We have given too much for you to be such a fool.”

Then, without a goodbye, the line goes dead.

I stare at the phone in my hand, numbness seeping throughout my limbs.

I don’t know how to feel, so I’m settling on feeling nothing at all. I can’t handle the guilt of knowing that I’ve failed my parents. That I’m shaming them by being forced to take the summer season off despite all the time and money and energy they’ve poured into me becoming a violinist.

My own mother thinks I’m a fool. She thinks this is my fault. That I’m the one who broke my own hands.

Maybe it is my fault. After all, when I started to notice that the usual soreness in my wrist joints was lingering for longer than usual, I chose to ignore it. Then, when the pain started spreading down to my hands and settled deep in my knuckles and fingers, I kept on playing. Because, as my mother said, it’s what my father taught me to do.

Push through it, he used to lecture me. Your hands will learn to endure it. Tune your body the way you tune your violin.

Just like that, I feel like a child again. Merely five years old, tears streaking down my face because my neck hurt from being bent out of shape for too long as I held my violin on my shoulder. I’d been crying over the pain, but my father had no sympathy for me.

In hindsight, maybe they were even more brutal than I remember.

A soft knock on the door startles me.

“Alina?” Karina’s voice is muffled, yet audibly concerned.

I manage to croak, “Come in.”

The door opens, and she steps inside, her expression cautious. “Hey. I heard yelling. Are you okay?”

“No,” I whisper, my voice cracking as tears prick my eyes.

She doesn’t hesitate, coming to sit on the bed beside me and pulling me into a hug. I answer the embrace awkwardly, never having been one to seek physical touch for comfort. Not with parents like mine.

Karina pulls away slightly, her brow knit with worry. “What happened?”

I try to explain, but the words tumble out in a disjointed mess. My parents. Their expectations. The unbearable weight of letting them down.

“They don’t get it,” I finally say, my voice shaking. “They think I made a mistake and that’s why my hands are… I don’t think they even believe me about the medical leave. They probably think that I’m just being lazy and making excuses.”

Karina sighs heavily. “You are so much more than this. So much more than that darn instrument.”

“Am I?” I laugh bitterly. “All I’ve ever been is a violinist. Every single aspect of my life revolves around it, just as it has for my parents. I mean, my mother doesn’t even play, but she’s still devoted to it by virtue of being married to my father. The Sokolovs are all about being classical musicians. And now I can’t even do that.”

She shakes her head. “Aunt Maria is crazy. My mom said she was always very hard on herself and everyone else around her, even when they were kids. But you’re not a robot, Alina. You’re a person. It’s okay to need a break. It’s okay to take a step back. It’s okay to be something other than a violinist, even if only for a little while.”

Her words are kind, but they don’t quite reach the storm in my chest. Something horrible is still raging inside me, and suddenly all I want to do is scream.

“I just don’t know what to do,” I admit.

“Don’t do anything at all, silly,” she replies with a soft smile, as if the answer is obvious. “Stay here. Rest. You’ll heal, Alina, and in the meantime, you can figure out what you really need from this life of yours. Forget what anyone else thinks. All that matters is what you want. And if the violin really is what you want more than anything else in the world, then you’re doing yourself a favor by taking this chance to confirm that.”

I nod, but the knot in my stomach doesn’t loosen. My phone rests on the duvet, mocking me with its silence. I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents decided to give me the silent treatment until I return to the CSO.

And then there’s the reality that I can’t bring myself to ignore: somewhere on the other side of the wall, Gabe Sterling and all that he represents continues to haunt this place.

He’s seen me like this, broken and aimless. Truly, I can’t decide what’s worse—my parents’ disappointment or his impending smug satisfaction.