She had zero regrets about skipping karaoke. It wasn’t as if someone was going to get up on stage and sing a song explaining what had happened to Hannah and Kyle. Sometimes people disappeared, and sometimes people showed up again. Susannah’s father, for example.
If she’d gone to the karaoke thing, Laura and Ruth would have made her sing with them, as if Laura hadn’t been yelling at her an hour earlier. Even minus the yelling it would have been a whole Family von Trapp, Family von Partridge situation and Susannah was just not in the mood. Had never been in the mood, honestly. Singing with your sister was one thing. Lots of people did it. Haim, Heart, First Aid Kit, the Pierce Sisters, plenty of others. But the whole family? That was either country music or a whole horror movie with Wes Anderson directing.
And karaoke was such a weird scene, anyway. People got up there thinking the goal was to hit the right notes. You could tell how much time they’d spent practicing, trying to perfect the song the way the original sounded. But performing was about a point of view, about how you felt. It was better to get up and yell the whole way through a song and really mean it than to try to get all the notes right. You knew it when you heard it.
She lay on the white couch zapping through television shows, not in the mood for any of them. Daniel had gone away when she’d refused to talk to him through her bedroom door. Probably he was up at the Cliff Hangar, too. Fuck him, whatever. Susannah went and got all the clean sheets and her blanket and duvet from the laundry room. She made her bed.
Ruth texted a couple of times and Susannah responded to each with a series of randomly chosen emojis. Ruth could interpret these however she wanted. Snake plane crying-face rainbow rainbow rainbow 100.
How had she ever come up with a name like Bogomil? Bogomil her magical wolf friend and his spooky midnight kingdom. It probably had something to do with the divorce, her father leaving. What a sad kid she’d been. How much better her life was now. Ha!
She had a bowl of cereal for dinner and a bag of gummy bears, and then around eight the doorbell rang. When she turned on the porch light, Mr. Anabin was standing there.
“Mr. Anabin? What are you doing here?” She pulled her hair back, tucking it down the neck of her sweater.
“Susannah,” he said. “Your sister left this in my classroom.” He held out a guitar case.
“Laura?” Susannah said. “When?”
“No matter,” Mr. Anabin said. “But I thought I would return it. It would be better in your keeping, I think.”
Susannah said, “Laura’s out right now, but when she gets back—”
“Or you could put it somewhere safe and not mention it to her,” Mr. Anabin said gently.
He was still holding out the guitar so Susannah took it. The handle was warm from Mr. Anabin’s grasp, but the old cracked case was freckled with snow. The Harmony would be horribly out of tune. “I guess so?” Susannah said. “But—”
“Wonderful,” Mr. Anabin said. “And Susannah? Take care of yourself.”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Susannah said. “You, too. Still snowing out there?”
Mr. Anabin said, “Still it snows. But is this music?”
“Okay,” Susannah said. “Um, good night.” She closed the door, trying to figure out where she should put Laura’s guitar. How kind of Mr. Anabin to return it. Next time he came into What Hast Thou Ground? she would make his weird drink for free. He seemed down.
The upstairs hall closet, she decided. Laura couldn’t even reach the top shelf. But first she took it out of its case. Ran her fingers over the strings, and then sat down cross-legged in the hall to tune it. Poor old guitar. Everyone kept leaving it behind.
She sang a little song to cheer it up.
“Oh you weren’t ever as good / as we wished you were / my sister has boughten new guitars / so much fanci-ar / but a piece of you remains with me yet / like the smallest splint-ar / and I’ll wash my sheets again before I forget you / you old guitar / may that day come oh never / oh nev-ar—”
As she was singing the doorbell rang again. She laid the Harmony back in its case, put the case up on the high shelf, and closed the door to the closet.