It was a dream and I knew it. Not a lucid dream, where I might possibly control what was happening, but a disturbing dream that barreled through my mind like a freight train. Like many dreams it lacked a plot in the classic sense, yet there was a theme that was noticeable.
In the waking world I am an account manager in a mid-sized ad agency. In the real world there are two copyrighters: an intern and an administrative assistant. In the dream, they were there but, unlike the real world, our section of the office I work in was sinking as though we were in quicksand. My employees were screaming and doing their best to save their computers, notes and anything else that might be important enough to be saved. Surrounding us, floating in space were wind instruments, heavy on the French horns. French horns were my mother’s favorite instrument, something that seemed relevant during the dream. They and a variety of instruments, including trumpets and oboes, danced around us. Somehow they seem to be the source of our floor’s descent.
The descent increased in speed and even I, in my dream state, began screaming. The oboes floated near, pointing at me, or so it seemed, accusingly, as though I was the reason for the whole disaster. I waited for them to hit me as the floor finally broke up into pieces, tossing all of us into the air before descending towards the lower floors.
I jerked up, feeling the sweat on my face. This was the fourth similar dream I’d had in as little as a month. Though the dreams didn’t always take place in my office, there was always a reference to my career and some sort of musical instruments. I reached over and took a drink from a bottle of flavored water to clear my throat. Then the phone range and I jumped. I looked at my phone; my sister.
“Ted?” she croaked.
“What’s wrong? You sound strange.”
“I’m sorry to call so early. I just wanted you know if you were coming.”
I stood up and stepped into my slippers. A robe was next; it was the beginning of winter. “Well coincidentally you caught me at the end of a bad dream. Maybe you sent it to me.” I smiled.
“That’s not funny, Ted. You know how I feel about these things.”
“Yup. New age to the end.”
“Hah hah. What was the dream about?”
“Oh no. I’m not involving you in this. Next thing I know you’ll have sheep entrails laid across my floor, reading my future.”
“You’re an asshole! Just because I believe in the paranormal doesn’t mean you have to make fun of me. I’m not the one who’s having weird dreams. What was it about?”
I explained the dream as best I could. My sister gasped. “That’s Mom. I know it. She wants you to come.”
“We’ve been through this ad nasueum, Anne. I’m not coming.”
“Your mother is being honored by an entire school of vocal music in her name and you can’t come to the dedication?”
“No. My mother is having her memory exploited. And she’s not here to defend herself.”
She groaned. “You’re going to regret not coming.”
“No. I won’t. I already went through enough pain. No more. If I thought this would honor her, I’d be there.”
My mother was a source of many bad dreams and trauma. A famous, world-class soprano, she had died young at the hands of her manager who took his own life immediately after. My sister and I both lived with the lurid legacy of her rise and fall for years. It probably was one of the reasons I had left music in the first place. The ability to free myself of my mother’s sturm und drung was far too tempting.
“So why do you think you have this dream two days before the dedication?”
“Oh please, Anne. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“You know I don’t believe in psychology. Except Jung of course who included dreams and the collective unconsciousness. But Mom warned you not to give up on your birth right when you were in college. You broke her heart.”
“You are a freak, Anne. I gave up on music after Mom died. You’ve conflated reality as usual to satisfy your eldritch fantasies.”
“You broke her heart anyway. Somewhere, wherever she is.”
“Prove it.”
“I can’t prove what I know by faith.”
“Faith? Faith as in religious faith? Believing my mother’s ghost has a broken heart is not faith. It’s not a religion.”
“Suit yourself. You should have gone on with her work.”
“Yes. I’ve heard this before. Mother didn’t have to live my life. Schlepping my violin and amp out to the car or a cab at three in the morning. Giving lessons to brats who were just doing it to make their mother’s happy. Struggling to make my bills.”
“I’ve done okay.”
“You got lucky. And not all your success is artistic. What about all those commercial voice overs? I doubt Marilyn Horne sang for commercials about cars.”
“You always bring that up. I’ve sung at the met and in Europe. You know that.”
“How many classical singers have done as well as you. And you’re still struggling”
“It’s because I believe in what I do.”
“I’m sure all the struggling singers say the same thing.”
“You have no faith. That’s why you’re selling dogfood.”
“I’m not in the mood for this. These arguments always go around in circles.”
“Ted, you’re an idiot! This is to honor our own mother. Thousands of young men and women will be learning the craft from our mother.”
“Not from our mother. From professors.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t like exploiting my mother’s memory. If I had to guess, I think she would have been horrified by this idea. It was yours, not hers.”
“She deserves to have her memory preserved.”
“What is the point of making her into a legend or a myth. Her work stands on its own. I…you know her better than most. Let’s let her be our mother and not a myth.”
“I’ve worked for this for years. You’ve never been on my side.”
“The only good thing is that you’ll have an income being the director. That’s the only good thing that will come of this. But I think that in the wake of yearly concerts and graduations and the students making a name for themselves, in a way she’ll be forgotten because no one will remember who she was amid all the fuss.”
There was silence for a moment “Do you think I’m doing this for myself?”
“No. I don’t think you’re trying to do anything to make up for the fact that she’s been taken from us. So you’re doing the next best thing. You’re creating an empire in her name. Will people know who she was in a hundred years? She’ll just be a sound byte.”
“I’m not arguing with you about this. If you want to insult our mother’s memory by not coming to the ceremony, that’s something you’ll have to live with.”
“I’m trying to be able to live with myself. That’s the point.”
“You’re an idiot but I love you.”
“Back at you.”
“Bye Ted. Pick up your violin, won’t you?”
“It’s been years.”
“Pick it up. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Whatever crappy feeling I would have brought to work with me was now compounded by the usual arguments I always had with my sister. Always wonderful to go to a job I hated feeling like poo.
As I entered my office David, my senior copyrighter, caught my eye. I sat down next to him, interpreting his sickly smile as a sign that something was wrong. “What?” I asked him.
“Petroff Petfood called today. They want to make a change.”
“Oh God! We had the whole thing worked out. Dogs jumping over fences. What could be wrong?”
“They want their granddaughter in the ad.”
“Where?”
“They weren’t clear on that. They asked me and I had to improvise. I thought she could be at the other side of the fence encouraging the dogs to jump. But they wanted several shots of her.”
“And of course that screw
s up the shooting script and the timing of the entire commercial. It could push it past the time slot we were going to buy.”
“I suggested to them that they might have to pay more if we did this. They suggested that we could rearrange some stuff to keep the price where it is.”
“Ugh.”
“Yes. Ugh”.
“I’ll have to call them.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Make it seem like leaving it the way it is was their idea. That’s your talent.”
I thought of my conversation with my sister. “At least I have a talent.”
“You have more than one.”
“Thanks, David. I guess I’ll get this out of the way.”
Mr. Petroff became hostile at first when I suggested we leave his commercial the way it was. It had been obvious from the first that he thought that he was an important man because he was the richest person in his small town. I ran it down a few times and explained, diplomatically, that rearranging a commercial was like changing the recipe for his dog food. I had gone out there to see how he did things; a special touch I always offered my clients. Like any decent factory, in the tradition of Henry Ford, Petroff had broken down his production methods and had made them as efficient as possible. A Six Sigma course had tightened things up.
I was able to make him see that the commercial was just like any other manufacturing process and changing a piece of it changed all of it. Eventually he saw the logic behind what I was saying and we were back on track. I finished the conversation feeling relieved and like I needed to take a bath; there was an element of sleaze that was part and parcel of client based business. It was hard having to convince another adult what should have been obvious.
I went back out into the war room. David looked up. I nodded, telling him what he already knew. “I grovel at your feet master.” He told me.
You can start by getting me lunch. Kung Pao chicken.”
“You got it. We have kept the visigoths from the gate once more. Kung Pao chicken shall be our reward.”
“Sometimes working in a creative office can be hell.”
He smiled. “Do you want to be bored?”
“I want to be peaceful.”
“Good luck with that. Off the to the Big Wok.”
I spent the rest of the day finalizing the shooting script and working with the film makers. We’d have the commercial filmed in a month and on the air in two. It would be a coup for me after three previous successful campaigns. I left the office feeling somewhat satisfied.
I walked out into the parking lot. There was a strange shifting haze in the air, something I attributed to the fall light. Even thought it was late evening, it was strangely quiet as I made my way through the reddish light of autumn. My car was perhaps thirty yards away. I thought of my evening: a couple of scotches, a movie or two. If I felt lonely enough there might be some time spent in a bar I knew of where there might be young ladies as lonely as I. Not the best prognosis but not the worst.
The red light seemed to shift. As I watched, rubbing my eyes, it formed into a shape that was vaguely human. As it coalesced into a form that seemed to represent something biped, it began to scream, setting my hackles on edge. I was reminded of ‘A Christmas Carol’ but this was far worse than any Hollywood attempt at horror; this was horror. The scream resolved itself into what sounded like a melody. Eerie and plangent, the melody scared the crap out of me; all I could think of was my mother.
As I waited for my mother’s voice to come to me from beyond the grave things got worse. A crimson stream made its way down the sides of the figure. I was confronted by a screaming, bleeding figure and I couldn’t help but think that this was some form of my mother. There had been years when I was much younger when I saw my mother in my dreams, screaming her pain and fear as the kitchen knife that killed her plunged into her body. I thought I’d left those feeling behind but here they were again, in spades. I wondered if this was the nervous breakdown I’d been expecting for years as a teenager. Why now?
“What do you want from me?” I screamed.
The figure threw its head back and bellowed even louder. “You!” it shrieked. “You!” “You!”
I fell to my knees, closing my eyes and keeping them towards the ground. It sounded like whatever this was wasn’t able to talk, like someone with a traumatic brain injury. “Me? This has nothing to do with me! You left me! I needed you and you stayed with that maniac! We told you to leave!
“You!” it screamed again. “You! You! You!”
It kept screaming the same word. I covered my ears but the voice was just as loud. I put up with it as long as I could.
And then I stood up. “You! You were so selfish that you wouldn’t listen to us. You stayed with a psychopath. Didn’t you love your children enough? Didn’t you give a damn? You go. Go! Go! Go! Go!”
The last word was screamed with such intensity that it made my voice raw. “Go!” I finally rasped. “Go!” I whispered.
And, unexpectedly, it did just like that. I found myself on my knees on the pavement of the parking lot, the red light gone. A man half a block away stared at me. The wind blew across me, moaning slightly like an anemic imitation of the specter that had just assailed me. I stood up, looking at the man staring at me. Would he come over? Would he call the cops? I wasn’t sure I could stand it if I had to talk to someone. So I ran to my car, slamming into the front seat and gunning the engine.
As I passed the same man who’d been watching me, only feet away from me as I came abreast of him, I could see he was horrified. Tears ran down his cheeks. He seemed almost ready to say something. But I was passed him in a moment and he was gone. I wondered what he would have said.
I got home, though I had to stop three times. I called the only person I could. I dreaded the new age ‘told you so;’ the conversation began with my making her promise to listen and not judge. I could feel the tension coming through the phone as I told my story, despite her silence. When I finished the story, she grunted.
“Yes I know you think it’s Mom. I think it’s probably Mom.”
“Then what do you think you should do?” she asked.
“Even if it is her, I’m not going to let her chart the rest of my life. I’m out of music. Why would she force me to do something she knows I don’t want to do?”
“Because she knows what you really want to do. And it isn’t selling dog food.”
“How can I know that for sure? And why am I asking questions about someone who’s been dead for twenty years?”
“This can’t be meaningless, Ted.”
“I’ve figured that one out. Unless I’m having a psychotic break. Then it could be meaningless.”
“If you were going to go in this direction it would have happened already. Unless it’s physical, like a tumor, in which case you’ll need an MRI. I can call my friend who’s a neurologist and we’ll-”
“Anne! Shut up! I have to think it’s Mom. It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I can’t believe that it’s what it seems.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go pick up your violin and play the Chaconne. Maybe it will jar something loose in your head.”
“I’m not ready to go that far.”
“Have it your way. I have to go to sleep. Call me in the morning.”
Sleep didn’t seem like an option. I kept glancing at the closet where my violin was. Anne’s suggestion kept playing through my mind. The Chaconne wasn’t exactly an easy piece and I hadn’t played it in years. Though I supposed whatever magic that might come of this wouldn’t require virtuosity.
I did something I hadn’t done in ten years. Unbeknownst to anyone, I had built a shrine to my mother. I went to a cabinet and unlocked a door. Inside was a picture of my mother, one of her best recordings and some dried flowers she received at the white house. And a teddy bear she had given me as a child.
I poured a glass of wine, turned on the recording and sipped
the wine. I closed my eyes and sat.
And sat. And sat. The air seemed so paranormally charged that I expected to see the bloody specter I’d seen only hours before. All that happed was that I ran out of wine.
So I went to sleep. What else?
Morning. It would be sensible for me to say that the night before seemed like a dream but, in fact, I could still feel my nerves singing to the sound of my…ghost? Alternate personality? Psychosis? No explanation was satisfactory after years of surprising sanity after the murder of my mother. I had spent years in therapy, waiting for the explosion. And while my life wasn’t what I considered fully on track, I thought I had made it through.
I called my assistant. He would be petrified but I was leaving him to deal with the Petroff dogfood account for at least a day. In reality, Petroff was going to get his series of commercials; it was all set up. All David had to do was to hold Petroff’s hand. And that was only if something set him off. His wife and her roses not growing due to a short unseasonable cold snap. Or his favorite football team losing a game. Or re-runs of Gunsmoke being pre-empted for a news report. Petroff was not a Zen master. Or even an adult.
The phone call to David lasted three minutes. A lot of stammering and a final hang up. Then I put together what my sister liked to call a ‘go bag.’ My sister was fond of action movie phrases. I think it made her feel competent. In this case the go bag was useful; I wasn’t sure if I’d be back that day.
It was a six-hour drive to my destination. It wasn’t a place I liked to go. My aunt looked far too much like my mother for my comfort, much like she did when I was a child. I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. The family grape vine painted her as an alcoholic. Not all of us had made it past my mother’s murder with a healthy attitude. I had had my business aspirations. My sister had her new age schtick.
My Aunt had nothing. She had lost her twin sister.
Just as I was walking out the door I stopped. Something was eating at me and, after a few seconds, I could tell what it was. I smiled. Though it seemed like I was giving in to my sister and her whole new age, paranormal, analysis, I went and dug back into my coat closet. There, beneath bags, boots, and other junk was my violin. I hadn’t seen it in years.
The ‘go bag’ had been bought for business trips up to a week. I hadn’t put much in it and the violin fit easily. I zipped up the bag and walked out to my car.
It was six hours to my Aunt’s house. A lot of it required me to drive back roads. After my mother’s death my Aunt, who had been somewhat of a pretentious sophisticate like the rest of my family, had left the city and moved to a place that was conspicuously difficult to get to, far away from any major highway. The town she lived in had an honest to God town square with a Gazebo. At night you could hear very little besides Cicadas.
Even for a small town, my Aunt lived in an out of the way house. Right off a residential street, her house, small and decidedly ramshackle, was down a private dirt road. I stared through the window, half hoping that she might not be home. It had been so long since I’d been there that I was shocked at the old sixties era wall paper that was so far below her former interior decorating glory I had to wonder if she was entirely sane. The look on her face when she answered my knock confirmed my decision to show up without calling.
“Ted. I don’t hear from you for years and then you show up without calling. Thanks.”
“Is it that much of a problem?”
“Played your violin much lately?”
“Touche.”
She stood to the side. “Come in. I was just making a drink.” She laughed, clearly tickled by her alcoholism.
I put down the ‘go bag’ and took in the house. “Late era depression style,” she quipped.
“Excellent example.”
“Why don’t you sit on the saggy old lady couch and I’ll make us both a drink. Gin and tonic as I remember.”
“Close enough”.
She busied herself in the kitchen and I tried to remember what it was like when we would have fabulous parties with my father, my Aunt and my mother’s entourage. It seemed sort of like a movie that I had seen somewhere. I sat down just in time for my Aunt to return with two cheap supermarket glasses. I stared at mine after she had handed it to me.
“A far cry from cut crystal.”
“It has a sort of Walmart charm.”
“Ah, Ted. Always quick with a clever remark.”
“I inherited it from my mother.”
There was a moment of silence as I realized I’d said the “M” word. Finally, she sat in a chair across from me. “So this isn’t a reunion, is it? You need to speak to me about something.”
“I’m not sure how to start.”
“Are you having trouble with your mother’s memory?”
“I wish it was that simple.”
Her eyebrows rose up. “What is this about?”
I paused, wondering how I could gracefully describe my experiences the night before. In the end I just opened my mouth and let it out. While I spoke my Aunt took only one sip of her drink, putting it down once it was clear this wasn’t going to be an ordinary story. When I finished she blew out her cheeks. Then she gulped her drink.
“I have never known you to be dramatic or even psychotic, Ted. I’m not getting that from you now.”
“I considered the psychosis angle.”
“I’m not a professional but I think there would be some evidence of…diminished capacity.”
“Believe me. I plan to see someone. Anne suggested it could be a tumor.”
“Beware of free advice.”
“I’m aware of my sister’s deficiencies. But something made me imagine a ghost. Or see one.”
We made small talk for a while, avoiding the issue.
Suddenly, she stared at my bag. “Did you bring it?”
I laughed. “Who’s new age now?”
“It seemed to make sense.”
In the waning light I went to my bag and pulled out my violin. She studied the case. “That was where I nicked it with a screwdriver by accident. Daddy wanted to kill me.”
It had been my grandfather’s, a much better musician than I had ever been. “I’ve always thought that it gave the case character.”
“I know.”
“Well, where do we go from here?”
She looked out the window. “Well it’s sufficiently dark to be creepy. Why don’t you play it?”
We both knew what ‘it’ was The Chaconne, the last part of Bach’s Partita for violin. It had garnered incredible praise throughout the history of music. Violinist Joshua Bell described it as “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.”
I put the case on the couch and opened it. I immediately saw one of mother’s earrings; I’d forgotten I’d put it there. “I gave her those,” my aunt whispered.
There was a slight smell of mustiness resulting from the fact that the case hadn’t been opened in years. I picked up the violin, finding it felt strange in my hands. I wondered if the lack of use might have loosened the strings on the bow but it seemed to have kept its bounce. There were two cakes of rosin in the case. I chose what looked like the newest one and rosined the bow, something that seemed unnatural and weird.
“I’m not sure how this is going to sound.” I tuned it, carefully.
“I know. Just do it. If anything is going to shake something loose, it’ll be this. Your mother said it gave her chilly bumps.”
“I’m glad she’s not here. It’s going to be rough after ten years. Or more.”
“Go and do it, Ted.”
I put the violin on my shoulder and poised the bow, offering a little prayer that I wouldn’t butcher one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. My Aunt smiled at me. Do it, I told myself.
The first few measures came out abominably. I was reminded of the first few years
I played violin, the scratchiness, the awful tone. I remember that our cat had to be removed to the other end of the house or I could look forward to an hour of wailing cat while I practiced. But after a minute or so I began to get my bicycle riding skills back. The tone evened out, sweetened. And I began to remember what I had felt about this particular piece years ago and all the emotional peaks and valleys it had created as I played it. I closed my eyes and I began to feel it.
Just as I hit the point where the piece started to shift from slow and mournful to more active and angry I got another feeling; I felt a chill going through my body and slight singing in my head. I opened my eyes, still playing. And there was what I expected to see: my friend the specter.
Only this time it was silent and unmoving and there was no blood. If I could say that a being that had no eyes was staring at me, I could say it at that moment. I felt tears run down my face as I continued to concentrate on the piece. I looked toward my Aunt and her eyes were wide. She felt it too. This was my mother.
I wondered what Bach would have thought if he could have seen his piece being played in a scene that was more emotional and strange than any he could have imagined. My mother stayed silent during the piece. When I got to the last few drawn out, agonizingly extended notes, the specter let out a moan. I put the violin in its case and both my Aunt and I looked toward our faceless visitor.
I expected a performance like last night’s but, instead, my mother bowed her head and said, “Please,” she moaned, again sounding like someone who had trouble speaking. “Real killer.”
And she was gone. I fell back into the couch. “Oh shit. Oh God. What just happened?”
My Aunt’s eyes were stuck wide open. “I don’t know, Ted. I think we just saw some form of your mother. That’s what I think.”
“I need a drink.”
“You’re on your own.” She began crying.
“Are you sure it was her?”
“Oh Ted. I remember the way she would hold her body when she watched you play the Chaconne. It was her.”
I stumbled into the kitchen and made both of us generous drinks, light on the chasers. Back in the ugly living room I handed my Aunt her drink. She was still crying.
“I miss her so much. I know I was an ass to have a tantrum and move out here-”
“Aunt Grace I don’t think-”
She waved her hands impatiently. “Let me finish. I’ve been waiting years to say this. I loved…love my sister. And it just wasn’t right that she was murdered. And I was angry. And I took my bat and ball and went home. I don’t want to be separated from you and your sister any more. I’m sorry.”
I put my arms around her and we stayed that way for a long time. Eventually she stirred. “You’re keeping me from my drink, Ted?”
I smiled. Our family sense of humor was back. Back on the couch I asked her, “What does real killer mean?”
“Do you think I know?”
“I’m thinking. The only thing that is obvious is that her manager, Gary, didn’t kill her. I can’t see that anyone else killed her. And that would be what blinds us if there is a different explanation.”
“Oh, come on, Ted. You’re not going to make an Agatha Christie mystery out of the biggest disaster in our lives.”
I shrugged. “Then who was that? And why did she say what she did? If you want to try to convince me that we both had the same hallucination and we can ignore this as D.T.s I’d be very happy.”
“I’m the one with the D.T.s.”
“Hardly the point.”
“We need to go to that dedication, Ted!”
“You know about that?”
“Don’t you think Anne called me?”
“She disgusts me some times.”
“I’m not saying I agree with this whole ‘School of vocal studies’ thing. I agree with you. But I think if we go…”
I leaned forward. “Do you think Mom will be there?”
“If anything is going to represent the next chapter it’s this. She wants us to do something. I can’t think of anything else that’s as important.”
“This is a bad dream.”
“Yes. It is.”
I drove my Aunt back to the city. She brought an evening gown which she modeled for me, worrying that her years of drinking might have ruined her figure. She looked so much like my mother in her diva days that I started crying.
“Ted. Stop. I’ve been locked away for years. This is hard enough as it is.”
“I seem to be one of the few children of murder victims who’s unlucky enough to have his Aunt look almost exactly like his mother.”
“I’m sorry, Ted.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I think we have to. What happened today couldn’t be a coincidence.”
We had a drink and I fixed up the couch for my Aunt. She took my face in her hands. “It’s okay, Ted. This is meant to happen.”
“I guess so. It just occurred to me that I haven’t told Anne we’re coming.”
She got an odd look on her face. “Don’t.”
“Why not.”
“I don’t know. Just bear with me, okay?”
“Okay.” I turned and then turned back. “It’s great to have you back. It’s sort of like getting my mother back…at least a little.”
“I love you, Ted.”
“I love you, Aunt Grace.”
I called David the next morning. As expected he was twice as agitated as he was the morning before. I was in no mood to go to work with my whole world turned over but I was barely able to make it through the day. I would stand up and walk around my apartment. Then I would walk outside. I went to a restaurant and had a meal which I barley tasted. Aunt Grace went for a walk with me and we made of point of not discussing the outrageous concept of having seen what had to be my mother’s ghost.
Finally, I sat on my couch put my head in my hands. Aunt Grace tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a gin and tonic. “I don’t recommend it as a steady diet, believe me. But we’re about to go to a party where your mother’s ghost may show up. I think we don’t need to stand on ceremony. I think that this is an unprecedented situation.”
I stared at the drink and started to laugh. I thought of what Aunt Grace had just said. If I tried to explain this to anyone, they would commit me. I took a sip of my drink. Then another.
And finally I stood up. Not drunk, but still laughing. And perhaps relieved. This trauma had had too much of a hold on me for too many years. It had limited my options and my life. I hadn’t had a decent relationship with a woman in years. I was a loner. And I was tired of it.
I put on a tux and my aunt put on her evening dress. We got in the car and I drove to the university. It was all I thought it would be: valet parking, glasses of champagne, a string quartet. People strolled back and forth in their finery, stopping to pick up Hors d’Oeuvres or to exchange a few words with people they may or may not have liked at all. What did my mother say? See and be seen.
I walked in with Grace on my arm. We were royalty here, despite the cheesy nature of the whole affair. People stared at us, wondering who we could possibly be. Finally, one woman ran up to us. “Ted! My God. It’s been years. What are you doing? What have you been playing?”
It was Bethany. She had done two or three duet albums with my mother. She was still a powerhouse in the music world. I had always thought she was an air head, despite being one of the best coloraturas that ever existed. I couldn’t quite tell if she was stupid or just so narcissistic that she missed anything that wasn’t about her.
I did the air/cheek kiss as required. “Sorry Beth. I haven’t played in years. Though I did play the Chaconne last night.”
“Oh! I remember your mother would rave about that. Oh. I’m sorry. Should I have mentioned that?”
“Tonight is about her. Don’t worry, Beth. It was something that I treasured.”
She kissed my cheek. “Of course. Sorry, let me speak to someone. We’ll talk later.”<
br />
As she walked away Aunt Grace snorted. “It’s always amazed me that someone with talent like that is so vapid.”
“It’s been one of the greatest mysteries I’ve ever encountered.”
We walked up the stairs up to the balcony that surrounded the room. As we crested the stairs we saw Anne. Her mouth opened and for a second I felt like she wasn’t happy to see us. But then the moment passed and she ran forward and hugged both of us. “Aunt Grace! What brought the two of you here? I just spoke to Ted and he said he wasn’t coming.” She laughed somewhat shrilly.
“We thought it would be good for us to come,” my Aunt said airily.
“This is wonderful”
“Are you okay?” I asked. There was something off about her.
“Of course.” She looked around the room. “Why don’t you come upstairs? We can have some champagne.”
“Okay,” I answered. “But don’t you want to be here with your friends. With Mom’s friends?”
“We can have a family moment. We haven’t had one in years. Aunt Grace is here!”
“Well, when does the ceremony begin?”
“Not for an hour. We have time”
“People will be upset.”
“Okay. Twenty minutes. One drink.”
Aunt Grace tapped me on the arm. “Okay. One drink.”
We followed her up to what would be her office. She fussed around with the champagne. Finally, she twirled around. “I think that you were right, Ted. You don’t need to be here.”
“What? You’ve been harassing me to come. I bring Aunt Grace. What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t want you to ruin it. You’re going to be sarcastic. You told me I was exploiting Mom’s memory.”
“She was my mother too. We’re here. We’re staying.”
“I think you should leave! I set this up! I sweated for years getting funding and setting up the program. You’re just a hanger on!”
Aunt Grace shook her head. “What are you doing, Anne?”
“Who cares what you think? You’ve been drinking yourself to death for ten years. If you weren’t there when we needed you, you can leave.”
“What is wrong with you?” I asked her.
“I don’t have time for this. I have a dedication to do.”
She lifted a box from the table behind her. As she walked out Aunt Grace grabbed her arm. The box fell to the floor, spilling the contents to the floor. I saw a dress, clearly my mother’s. There was a libretto, a tuning fork, pictures, any number of important items that represented my mother’s life. Near the dress lay a dried rose that looked like it had some black substance on it.
Aunt Grace stiffened. “What’s that?”
“Nothing, “Anne said stiffly.
“No it isn’t. I remember those. Roses. They found them next to her body when she was killed. And that looks like dried blood.”
“So. It is something to remember her! I want them be part of the dedication!”
Aunt Grace turned to me. “Those roses were found by the police when she died. Anne wasn’t there.”
I stared at both of them. “What does that mean?”
Anne looked down at the floor. “It means that Anne was there when she died before the police showed up.”
“What? What does that mean? Anne. What does that mean?”
Anne stared at the wall. “What the hell does this mean?” I screamed.
“Maria Callas,” Anne Whispered.
“Oh God!” Aunt Grace shouted. “Are you serious?”
Maria Callas was one of the greatest singers of all times. She had deteriorated early and died young, making her a legend, a mythical figure.
“She was greater than Callas. She was at the top of her game. What was left but decline. When she died she was the best. And everyone who came after her was nothing. I used to think of her sitting on some news show with talking heads when she was seventy and couldn’t sing anymore and I couldn’t stand it. She knew it too. She talked about it. So I prevented it from happening.”
“You can’t make that kind of decision for someone!” I screamed. “You don’t know what her life would have meant to her when she was older! What she might have done. You did it for you! Because you wanted to be the daughter of a Maria Callas. You haven’t honored her.”
She smirked. “You weren’t with her. You didn’t hear what she said.”
I walked forward and before I realized what I was doing I had grabbed her around the neck and started squeezing. She grabbed my hands and tried to pry them loose but she couldn’t. I started to watch her die, happy to let it happen. Her eyes started to lose focus and I kept on squeezing. That continued until I felt a heavy impact on the side of my head.
I fell to the floor and rolled over on my back. My Aunt looked down on me, a heavy ash tray in her hand. “Do you want to be like her, Ted? She’s insane.” To my left, Anne grabbed at her neck gasping. She saw me and began to crawl backwards though she lacked the strength to really move. I stood up, holding my head. Leaning over my sister, I screamed at her, “Did you kill her manager too.”
She stared at me, eyes wide. Her face gave me her answer. “You’re worthless. An insult to our mother’s legacy.”
No,” she said softly.
“Do you think that she would have wanted this, that it wouldn’t have violated everything she looked for in life? Even as an artist!”
She began crying. My Aunt sneered at her. “Her legacy will go on,” Aunt Grace whispered. “But you won’t be making the dedication. Nor will you be running this school. You want to honor her? Then Ted will be the one who does everything.”
“We should send her to jail!” I shouted.
“Do you want that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then she’ll be committed. And you’ll take over. There are thousands of students who will want this opportunity. Don’t take it away from them because her daughter is a murderer. Many of them will be scholarship students.”
I gritted my teeth and collapsed into a chair. “Whatever. I need a drink.”
“Me too,” my Aunt said. “And I don’t feel ashamed of it.”
We never saw my mother again. I supposed it had been hard enough for her to communicate as it was. But she had gotten what she wanted. I considered telling my sister about her ghost. It would have made her see that she was wrong. But there was no point.
I returned to music. I even made a CD. The first cut was the Chaconne.
Death Has a Sound
Rocky Rochford