Then, “Don’t,” more softly, smiling at Steven
even though I know he isn’t seeing me.
“I have an idea.”
I pull out my trumpet case,
searching my mind for something soft, simple . . .
I attach the mouthpiece,
press the valves a few times,
take a breath.
I try a few measures of the andante section of
Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto
I’ve pulled from my music folder.
By the second page, his hands slow their writhing.
Mom, still as stone, just watches
as I try to play with the least possible motion—
no grandstanding,
no dipping my horn up and down like I’m in a marching band.
Soft, steady, twice as slow
as the Youth Orchestra conductor would’ve wanted it,
slower still as Steven finally stops, and mumbles
something that Mom hears as, “Cookie?”
She hands him two,
which she’d let him eat right there on the kitchen floor,
but Steven moves like a robot to his seat at the table, waits
until she brings him a napkin and a plate.
Soon crumbs litter the floor.
“What would I do without you?”
Mom says as she moves for the dustpan and broom.
“I’m so sorry you missed yoga, Mom.”
30
“I’m sorry?” I whisper
the question to myself
as I creep down the stairs with my trumpet.
“Sorry,” I say aloud
as I shut the door of my basement practice room.
It’s a word I say every time I feel like I’m the cause
of an outburst by Steven,
every time I get a grade lower than an A-minus,
or do something else to disrupt the equilibrium of our lives.
“Sorry!” I shout.
I’ve said it so many times
it has dissolved from syllables to sounds,
like those times when you look at yourself in the mirror
and see skin and teeth and hair
more than a face.
I close my mouth, look around
at my parents’ great investment
in their musical daughter:
a padded cell,
in voguish colors, of course.
Mom tried.
There’s a high-end synthesizer in one corner,
a bust of Haydn beside a vase of dried flowers,
a vintage varnished wood music stand,
and two cozy “listening chairs,”
their upholstery fabric strewn with black quarter notes,
the kind of custom material for which my mother trolls the Internet.
Though she hardly ever comes down to hear me play anymore,
and never with Dad.
Safe in my soundproof tomb,
I can close my mind to the absurdity upstairs.
Pedal tones and long tones fill half an hour of practice.
Now the time is 6:12
and my quirky mind notes that twelve is six times two.
I’ve spent too many nights
watching the LED lights on my alarm clock,
waiting for 11:10 to turn to 11:11—one, one, one, one;
too many days
hearing about my “uncanny,” “unchildlike”
dedication to practicing trumpet,
copiously copying symbols and colors
onto the white canvas of so many pairs of sneakers,
reading books recommended by Mom,
support groups, well-meaning outsiders,
meant to reassure me of the beauties, the gifts of living
with a special-needs sibling,
not to arrive at the question:
Is there something autistic about me, too?
There is research
backing a genetic component to the disability,
and some likelihood of autism running in families.
More evidence is that horrible sense of distance
I cannot close
between me and my best friend;
the way I cannot sort my feelings for Dave,
the desire from the fear;
how I want to smack my palms and bang my head
until it all goes away,
like I’ve watched my brother do
too many times to count.
The thoughts tsunami through my mind,
powerful waves of terror.
My heart begs me to silence my brain.
My embouchure rested, I retreat to beats and measures,
resume the glorious, focused effort of practicing.
For more than an hour, I work at slurs and songs.
My lips buzz into numbness.
I should take a break,
but I push through another series of pedal tones,
low strengthening notes,
before I set down the trumpet,
drop breathless into the nearest “listening chair.”
Whisper again,
“I’m sorry.”
31
“Daisy?” Mr. Orson catches me
as I’m assembling my trumpet
before the start of jazz band.
“I wanted to talk to you about the holiday concert.
I’d like you to play a solo. Something festive.
I’ve got some pieces for you to try out.
Pick something you like. Maybe talk it over with Aggie.”
“Um, okay.” I take the folder of sheet music
from his hand. Add the task
of bringing the pages with me to my next lesson
with my private trumpet teacher, Aggie Nedrum,
to my epic to-do list.
Why don’t I open my mouth, say “I just don’t have time
to learn another song
between practice, schoolwork, and my brother”?
But I can’t,
or won’t.
I just enjoy Mr. Orson’s approving smile
as a jaw-snapping yawn splits my face.
And the emotion I feel isn’t sorrow but anger
at being imprisoned in an autism family.
We start in on the Ellington piece,
a smooth swing number called “Almost Cried.”
I spit each angry thought into the notes I play,
getting louder, fiercer, than I ever can in my own home,
well, any part of it except the basement.
“Daisy, a little gentler, please. You’re getting off tempo,”
Mr. Orson says in that kindly, unaccusing way he has, which, today, makes me burst into tears
while the ten jazz guys (including Cal) stare
and the three other girls mouth “on her period”
to each other.
“Excuse me, Mr. O.”
I set my horn as roughly as I dare on my chair,
dash out the door,
turn toward the girls’ bathroom,
but find myself rushing headlong
into the “Yes I Didn’t!” T-shirted chest of Dave Miller.
“Hey there, Daisy-brains.”
Do I feel him pull me toward him for a second
before taking my shoulders and putting me straight?
“You okay?”
“Yeah!” I say, adding intense mortification on a dozen
levels to my misery.
Mumble as I twist out of his grasp,
“Yeah, I’m just terrific.�
�
I make it to the bathroom
without crashing into anyone else.
Blessedly, it is empty and I can let go my shuddering sobs
without locking myself in a stall
and hoping no one recognizes my ink-covered Keds.
By the time the homeroom bell rings, it is over.
I splash my face with water,
rub away the mascara streaks as best I can.
Before I leave the bathroom, I text Mom.
“After-school project meeting. Home by seven.”
I have no idea what I’ll do between last period and seven
at night,
but I won’t do it in the prison.
32
In A-PUSH, the words Mr. Angelli scrawls
on the whiteboard blur before my weep-worn eyes.
My head droops against the window;
the foreboding chill of near winter
seeps from the glass pane into my scalp.
Phrases filter aimlessly into my resistant ears.
In the Emancipation Proclamation,
Abraham Lincoln declares that
“all persons held as slaves . . .
henceforward shall be free.”
If a slave is someone
who cannot make her own choices,
whose life is scheduled, controlled,
then aren’t I a slave?
Don’t I deserve emancipation
from Mom and Dad, who schedule my actions?
From Steven, whose whims rule my spirits?
Where are the “liberty and justice” for me in life’s equation?
33
I can feel Justine’s worried eyes boring into the back of
my skull
as I take down history notes with weary deliberation,
go through the motions
of free will.
“Tomorrow, we’ll take a partial practice AP test,”
Mr. Angelli announces, as if that’s some kind of fun.
He closes his notebook.
We all follow suit, me rather loudly.
“Hey there.” I look up to see Cal-for-short
hovering over my desk.
“If you need tutoring, ask Justine,” I sigh.
“Uh, no. Just wanted to be sure you were okay there, after . . .”
A faint pinkness
travels up the back of Cal’s neck to his ears.
“After what?” Justine pipes in behind us.
“Daisy here . . . she, well . . .
she had a rough band practice this mornin’.”
Now his face is a full-blown blush,
redder than Justine’s when she gets angry.
“You can tell her I cried.”
I stand up and grab my books to my chest.
“I just didn’t think I should . . . I mean . . .
It wasn’t mine to tell.”
Justine looks worried, puts her arm around my shoulders, guides me toward the door.
There is no place where I can go to rest, to be free,
so I just let her lead me down the hall.
“What were you crying for, Daisy?”
she asks when we’re outside the French classroom.
“I think my parents might be getting a divorce,”
is what I say, though where the thought came from
is as mysterious
as the question of who truly masterminded
the plot to kill Lincoln.
34
Divorces are all different.
Dave’s parents’ was the kind of fiasco
that turns one happy-ish upper-middle-class family
into two less happy, poorer ones.
Justine’s family’s was a quiet dissolution
in which she and Shirley, her mom,
stayed in the same house,
repainted thoroughly in lavenders, pinks,
erasing all traces of the man
who had tired of lawns, encumbrances, women,
and simply walked into the sunset, into another life,
leaving a giant chunk of change
and a mountainous lump of bitter disbelief
behind him.
Now that the word divorce has escaped my lips,
tied itself to my family, my fears,
Justine is glued to my side.
After school, we hang out in the student commons
until four o’clock,
when she has to leave for her voice lesson.
“You sure you’ll be okay?” she asks as we stand at our
side-by-side lockers.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine,” I answer.
It might be true.
If divorce happened, would things change for the better?
Would I be able to practice music someplace other than
the basement sometimes?
Alone by my locker, I whisper to myself,
“My parents may be getting a divorce,”
draw the c out into a long hiss,
find a kind of softness in the word.
Part of me wishes it would happen,
that my parents would shatter something
Maybe it would make me stronger
like Justine, like Dave;
braver, more independent.
I wander up the hall to the library,
determined to fill the hours from now till seven,
to make a point by my absence from home,
as if Mom will ever see me
as a laborer on strike, a slave in rebellion.
I will finish the Overton application today.
For my musical inspiration,
I’ll write about Miles Davis,
about Kind of Blue.
I put buds in my ears,
call the tune up on my phone,
and feel that album fill and float my heart
the way it always does.
The egg chair is empty.
With time to burn, I decide on half an hour of listening before I start my essay,
but ensconced in the black leather,
science-fiction-style seat,
I fall asleep.
“Hey, you’re in my chair.”
A boot is kicking my Keds.
It’s dark inside my egg cocoon, and it takes a few minutes
to go from unconscious to vaguely conscious to
“Who in the—?”
“Tired much?” Dave asks, ignoring my hostile greeting.
He smiles his tantalizing smile
into the oval entrance of the egg.
I yank the buds from my ears.
“This chair is damned comfy.”
“Don’t I know it. Move over.”
Without waiting for me to speak or slide,
Dave drops into the chair beside me,
shoving until there’s enough room for us both to be
half-comfortable,
which suddenly becomes awesomely cozy as DAVE
OMG-I-wish-Justine-were-here-to-see-this MILLER
slides his arm over my shoulders and draws me close.
“You okay? Seemed like you were having a shit morning.”
His voice is low. His breath tickles my ear.
“I’m okay.” I let my head loll against his shoulder,
close my eyes, wonder at how a morning of sobs
can morph into my own unbelievable,
real-life HBO movie moment.
35
I hear the second hand of my old-school Swatch watch
tick-tick-tick around i
ts giant plastic dial.
Dave leans back, closes his eyes,
and just sits with me.
I try to stop the million thoughts—
fantasy, fear, what-is-happening-here,
wish-I-could-tell-someone,
I-should-be-writing-the-Overton-application—
racing through my brain
and let myself be silent
like Dave.
36
A few minutes before six,
the librarian starts her gentle tour,
quietly letting the few remaining students in the study carrels, around the stacks,
know that it’s time to close up.
Her eyes open a little wider
when she gets to the egg chair,
but she just taps our two pairs of knees and says,
“Time to go.”
Embarrassed, I leap up,
almost smack my head on the upper lip of the egg.
Dave is slower, unashamed.
“Wanna grab a bite somewhere?” he asks.
“Somewhere quick, I guess. I’ve gotta be home by seven.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“But my car is in the parking lot.”
“I’ll bring you back here then,” he says.
I nod, follow him to his vintage (well, late nineties)
Ford Fiesta in the corner of the parking lot.
“You’ve got a gorgeous mouth, Daisy-brains.”
He pushes me with gentle roughness
against the car door.
I know what’s coming, close my eyes,