THANKSGIVING FELT a little like a jail sentence.
I’d been avoiding my parents. I let their calls go to voice mail more often than I picked up, and when I did talk to them, I tried to get off the phone as fast as possible. I was still working out what I wanted to do after I graduated, I wasn’t ready to tell them about Peter yet, and I didn’t want to deal with the continuing pressure to be a brilliant concert violinist.
I hadn’t even planned to spend the entire long weekend in Springfield. I figured I’d eat dinner with my parents on Thursday, maybe spend the night, and then get back to the WMU campus as fast as possible. Peter had a similar plan. He’d caught the bus to Boston Wednesday night to see his own family in Brookline, just outside Boston, and he’d said he would come back Friday night, on the pretense of needing the quiet away from his family to get some big assignment done. In reality he didn’t want to deal with his father, who had called him almost daily the week before to talk about the big internship in Boston. I could see how unhappy Peter was whenever he and his father spoke, and it bothered me, but I couldn’t think of how to help besides just to listen when he complained afterward.
A couple of weeks after we’d first kissed, things with Peter were going well. We had talked about putting our beds side by side, but as soon as we started moving the dorm furniture around, it became a bigger project than either of us wanted to embark on, so we’d settled for trading off whose bed we slept in. Sharing a twin bed with Peter was not doing great things for my back, but I didn’t care. I figured if we were still together next semester, we could worry about the furniture configuration then.
I drove home to Springfield Thanksgiving morning. Aside from seeing my parents, I also planned to get my gray suit out of my closet—the semiformal was a week away—and grab my concert violin. I dreaded dinner, which was to be a formal affair with my parents and friends of theirs, a couple who owned a theater in the Berkshires that was a popular stop for a lot of touring casts of Broadway productions. I found them insufferable; they loved to talk at length about The Theater as if they were putting on Shakespeare and not second-run performances of Wicked. Not that I didn’t love Wicked, just that I recognized it was not the sort of production literary scholars would be writing about in a hundred years.
I debated how much to tell my parents about what was going on in my life. I was curious to see if they, my mother in particular, would react to the fact that I had a boyfriend. I was tempted to bring up the music education plan too, but that was a lot for a visit I didn’t intend to last more than twenty-four hours. Springfield was only a thirty-five-minute drive from WMU, and I wanted to be in bed with Peter Friday night.
With Peter still on the brain, I pulled into the driveway of my childhood home. Then the bubble burst. The first thing my mother said to me after I walked through the front door was “What on earth did you do to your hair?”
My dad was out picking up Ron and Cindy, presumably so he could drive them home later after Cindy had too many glasses of wine. My mother insisted I sit down in the kitchen to talk to her while she finished making dinner.
I watched her baste the turkey and peek in several of the pots on the stove. “I’m making homemade cranberry sauce this year,” she said. “I got the recipe from a woman at work. Just thought I’d try something new instead of eating the stuff from the can.”
“Aw. I kind of like the stuff from the can.”
“I know, darling, but this will be better. Now tell me what’s going on with you. We’ve hardly talked at all lately. How’s school?”
“Good. Classes are hard, but I should get As in most of them. Costner has been pushing me hard, but, you know, the December concert is a big deal.”
“Will there be orchestra directors in the audience?”
My mother knew well that Costner treated the December concert like the orchestral equivalent of an important football game. He invited all of the orchestra directors he knew to come scout his best musicians. “He said so. I have three solos, so they’ll see plenty of me.”
“That’s excellent, sweetheart.”
I walked over to the counter and snagged a dinner roll, which Mom tried to slap out of my hand. I danced away from her and shoved the whole thing in my mouth. It was buttery and delicious. Mom rarely cooked, even though she was good at it, so Thanksgiving was always the rare culinary bonanza in our house.
I waited to see if there would be follow-up questions. When there weren’t, I said, “Also, I, um, started dating a guy.”
There was a long pause. “Really?”
“Yeah. His name is Peter.” I did not add that he was my roommate. Mom rarely seemed interested in anything that wasn’t related to my violin, so I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned my roommate’s name to her, or if I had, she probably didn’t remember it. If she asked, I’d confess, but the last thing I wanted was for her to picture all the alone time we spent together. Instead I said, “He’s an accounting major. Does a lot of stuff with the Theater Club. They’re putting on Oklahoma! this semester. I decided not to do pit because Costner put me in extra rehearsals.”
“That’s good. Better for you to focus on what matters and not on extracurricular shows. And I don’t know about dating this boy.”
“He’s a great guy, Mom.”
“I’m sure he is, but I don’t want you to do anything that will take away from your music studies.”
Ah. Of course. Nothing to jeopardize my future.
“It’s not that serious.” I felt like I was betraying Peter as I spoke. “We’re just seeing each other. I thought you’d be happy that I’m not completely lacking in social skills.”
“Oh, of course, darling. I want you to be happy. I’m glad there are people at school who you connect with. I just know that sometimes relationships can be a distraction.”
“I won’t let this be. I haven’t missed a single rehearsal all semester, and I basically have a practice room at the FAC with my name engraved on the door, I’m there so much. And Peter studies more than I do, so he’s not a distraction. I really like him, Mom.”
She turned toward me, away from the burbling pots, and pursed her lips, giving me her sour disapproval face.
Since I’d already earned her ire, I decided to keep pushing. I wanted to at least drop the hint and see what her reaction would be. “Also, I was thinking. What if no orchestras accept me?”
My mother gasped. “You’re a brilliant musician, Logan. That won’t happen.”
“But just in case. What do you think of me going to grad school for music education? I think I’d like teaching.”
“You’ve worked toward violin performance your whole life. You want all those hours you spent practicing, all that money we spent on lessons, to go to waste?”
“I’d still play. Just on a lesser scale. And I’d take what I learned in those lessons and apply it to teaching.”
But my mother shook her head. “Is this boyfriend of yours putting ideas in your head?”
“What? No. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I need a backup plan. Orchestras are really competitive. In the event I don’t get chosen for one some year, I’d like to have another career to fall back on. I’d still be doing something music related.”
“Nonsense. Keep working hard and you’ll get it. You’re enormously talented. It would be a shame to waste all that talent on teaching.” She said “teaching” as if I wanted to work in a brothel. The message was clear: as far as my mother was concerned, teaching was beneath me.
“All right. It was just an idea.” I watched her silently for a few more minutes, feeling defeated. But at least I had one positive thing to look forward to. “While I’m here, I want to get my gray suit. Do you know where it is?”
My mother nodded. “It’s in your closet upstairs. I had it dry-cleaned after the last time you wore it. Why do you need it?”
“I’m going with Peter to a semiformal dance next week.”
“On a weeknight? Shouldn’t you be focusing on rehearsals?”
Anger bubbled up in my chest. That was new; I was so used to acquiescing to my parents’ wishes that this resistance was unfamiliar. But I liked it. It burned in me, reminded me that what I wanted was something else from what they wanted. Today was probably not the day to begin my protest, though. “The dance is after practice Thursday.” This was a lie. I’d actually already talked to Costner about taking a night off. Costner had seemed enthusiastic, wanting me to enjoy myself at the dance. I suspected he realized he’d been monopolizing my time. He probably would have been less willing to part with me if I hadn’t mastered all three of my solos. I was concert-ready. One night off wouldn’t derail my performance.
“All right. Well, do what you want. As long as it doesn’t interfere with school.”
“No, I know.” I sighed. “I do really like this guy, Mom. I don’t know if it will work out. But my life can’t be all music all the time. I’ll go crazy.”
She frowned. “You can focus on other things after you get into a good orchestra.”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath, trying to keep my frustration at bay. “I’m gonna go look for the suit, okay?” I got up from the table and went up to my room.
“Your father will be back soon. Don’t spend too long upstairs.”
I seethed the whole time I sorted through my closet. I probably yanked on my old clothes harder than I needed to, and found my suit still wrapped in plastic from the dry cleaner. How dare Mom imply I shouldn’t date Peter. My parents had met in college. Mom had been an aspiring flautist who had never been good enough to do more than play in her college’s orchestra, and Dad had been a voice major who stopped singing after he graduated to focus on his real job at a bank. Now they channeled all of their creative energies into me, as if I could be the child who lived their dreams. I had no siblings, so I was the singular focus of their devotion, and it exhausted me. Part of me wished I’d gone to school farther away; I never quite felt like I was free from under their thumb.
But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Even at school I felt tremendously guilty for wanting something beyond the path they’d laid out for me.
I took the suit out of the closet. I hung it on the closet door so I’d remember to grab it when I left. I’d always liked this suit; it was well-tailored and fit me well. My parents had bought it for me the year before, when we’d all gone to a very formal wedding. I had a dark red tie that I thought would go with it nicely. I looked over the suit, imagining myself wearing it with Peter by my side. I liked that image of us, all dressed up, out for a romantic night.
I had just located the tie when I heard Dad’s car in the driveway. Cindy’s upper-class accent rang through the air, and the car doors slammed.
I jogged back downstairs, where Mom waited near the front door. “Are you upset?” she asked quietly.
“No.”
“You seem upset.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” I walked over to the living room piano, the one my parents bought when I was five, the one my private tutors had used to tune or accompany me during lessons. I could play the piano some. Not as well as the violin, but I’d had to learn as part of my overall music training. Plunking out a melody on a piano could sometimes help me understand what a piece of music was supposed to sound like.
“You can tell me if you’re upset. Before Ron and Cindy come inside.”
I took a deep breath. “Just… try not to pin all your hopes and dreams on me getting into an orchestra. You know I’d move to Boston tomorrow if the Boston Pops wanted me. I just think it’s a long shot. I’m the best violinist at WMU, but I’m competing with kids who went to actual music schools like Berklee and Juilliard. I wasn’t good enough for those schools, remember?” She certainly reminded me often enough.
“You’ve gotten so much better since you started at WMU. Professor Costner is an excellent teacher.”
“He is, that’s very true.” I let out a breath and ran my fingers over the top of the piano. “We’ll see, okay?”
Dinner was… slow. Mostly I ate and listened. Cindy and Ron regaled us with tales of their vacation to Vietnam, and then Cindy delivered a monologue about the importance of theater in a community. I nodded my way through a conversation about the importance of arts education. It wasn’t that I disagreed, it was just that everyone at the table was so pretentious. It only got worse the more wine Cindy and Ron consumed. I was grateful when Cindy started slurring her words and Dad announced it was time to drive them home.
While they were gone, I went into the study to look at my concert violin. Mom followed me in there.
The violin was among my most prized possessions, an antique I only used in performances, and I needed it for the upcoming December concert. I opened the case to make sure everything was as it should be. My mother hovered, which annoyed me, but I ignored her as I checked the contents of the case. It had two bows in it, one of which was broken—the nut I turned to adjust the tension of the hair was stuck and wouldn’t move more than a quarter turn anymore—and should have been tossed, but I’d hung on to it as an emergency backup. The other bow was brand-new, one my mother had purchased for me after I’d complained that the one I used every day probably needed to be replaced. A round puck of rosin wrapped in a handkerchief rested in one of the pockets. I picked up the violin itself. It was made of a piece of maple with orange undertones. The varnish shone in the waning sunlight coming through the study window. Everything was in order, though the bridge was starting to warp. I had a couple of replacement bridges back in my dorm room, though, so I could fix that when I got back to school.
The truth was, I’d fallen in love with the concert violin the first time I saw it at a music store during a trip to New York City when I was fifteen. I’d been eyeing it as we window-shopped, and the clerk asked if I wanted to play it. As soon as the bow stroked against the string to make that first note, I’d wanted it. The sound was so much richer than my practice violin. That was how it worked with violins; often the older the better. Newer models didn’t generally resonate the same way. The wood on this one in the store in New York was weathered. It was clear it had been refinished a number of times. The pegs were a different kind of wood than I’d ever seen before, kind of a marbled brown, not the usual black pegs that seemed common in student violins. I’d stood in the middle of that store and played what I could remember from the Bach partita I’d been learning as an audition piece. That violin was made for me.
The clerk immediately went about negotiating with my parents. It hadn’t been cheap.
My mother stared at me expectantly, so I picked up the new bow. I played the first thing that popped into my head, a Bach minuet every violin student had to learn at some point in their training. It came out a little scratchy—the new bow had no rosin on it, my chin rest was back at school, and the violin hadn’t been tuned in months—but my mother seemed pleased.
I put the violin back and closed the case again. I pressed a hand to the top of it. I did love this instrument. I loved to play it. I planned to play it well into old age.
“It looks good?” she said.
“Yeah, it looks great. Thanks for keeping it.” I didn’t really have room for it in my dorm room, and the temperature control in the dorms was spotty at best, so I didn’t like storing it at school.
“You need anything? You’re good with school supplies? Rosin? Extra strings?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I really just needed the suit and the concert violin. I’ll take those up to school tomorrow.”
“I wish you’d stay a few more days.”
“I know. Thank you for dinner. You outdid yourself this year.”
She hugged me and kissed my cheek. “I love you, Logan. You know that, right? Your father does too. We want to make all your dreams come true.”
“I know.” But the line between my dreams and theirs had seemed less blurry lately. Resentment and fatigue simmered in my belly, but with no real place to put them, I didn’t know what to say or do. So I added, “Thanks.”
“Of course. Now, can I talk you into a piece of pie? We won’t tell your father.”
She seemed practically giddy as she led me back to the kitchen and took a beautiful—although store-bought—apple pie out of the fridge. As she cut us each a slice and put a healthy dollop of whipped cream on top, I thought about all that had happened that day. I did know my parents loved me. They had been incredibly supportive of my musical ambitions for my entire life. As we ate pie together, I tried to push my resentment aside and enjoy our time together.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said.
Her expression seemed knowing, like maybe she knew exactly what I was thanking her for. “Of course, sweetheart. Now eat up before your father gets home. This will be our little secret.”