String Boys Read online

  “Good job,” Mr. Arnold said. “What are you doing here, Kelly? I thought you had to watch your sisters today.”

  “Yeah, usually, but Mom wasn’t feeling good, so she took a nap with them, and Matty had homework. I came down to listen—” Oh no! No! He wasn’t supposed to listen. God, he was bad at lying. “—help. I came down to help Seth put up the Easter decorations. They look real good, Mr. Arnold. Way better than at Christmas. I helped put the eggs in the window. Don’t they look good?”

  “Looks great, Kelly,” Craig said, like he was humoring Kelly, but since Kelly was babbling, that was okay. “What were you listening to again?”

  Kelly looked at Seth unhappily, but Seth didn’t get mad or anything that Kelly spilled the beans. “I was practicing for the spring assembly,” Seth said, putting a handful of plastic eggs in the bowl with Kelly’s before going to find the others on the floor. He was acting like there wouldn’t be a follow-up question to that, but Kelly was pretty sure adults weren’t that stupid.

  “Singing?” Seth’s dad sounded genuinely interested, so Kelly looked at Seth, pleading with his eyes.

  “No,” Seth said, but whether to Kelly or to his father, Kelly couldn’t be certain.

  “Poetry?” Mr. Arnold said, and for the first time ever, Kelly looked at him and realized he was pretty too, like Seth. His skin was paler, and his hair wasn’t super curly, but he was very much Seth’s daddy. He even had the quiet smile that made Kelly want to make Seth laugh so much more.

  “No,” Seth told him, arranging the eggs carefully in the bowl.

  “Seth!” Mr. Arnold laughed. “What are you doing for the spring assembly? I’m curious. I’d like to go see you!”

  And the look on Seth’s face was a terrible mixture of hope and fear. Oh! Seth wanted his daddy to be proud of him, but who was proud of the violin? Matty and Kelly’s dad said he was proud of them, but that didn’t stop him from swooping them up on Wednesdays and taking them to indoor soccer.

  “He plays the violin!” Kelly burst out, the pressure so bad that he felt like he had to pee.

  Nobody said anything, so he kept going. “Me and Matty play too, but Seth plays it best of all of us. He plays best of all the string boys. That’s what Mrs. Sheridan calls us. String boys. I sort of want a T-shirt that says string boys, but Mrs. Sheridan says we can barely afford the violins.”

  Still, there was no response.

  “Not that my violin’s so great—there’s a big chip off the bottom, and I’m pretty sure that’s why it sounds so whiny, but Seth got the good one. His violin always sounds perfect. He can make it sing, sad, like on the radio. Someday his bow will get faster and he’ll make it funny, like ‘Turkey in the Straw.’”

  Mr. Arnold was looking at Kelly in surprise, and, well, that was a lot of information in one go. Kelly knew that, but Seth was staring at them both, stricken, and Kelly didn’t know what else to do but babble.

  “Have you heard ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ Mr. Arnold? It goes really fast, and it’s like all the ice cream truck songs. It goes dee-dee-dee-dee-da-dee-dee-dee-dee—”

  Mr. Arnold was holding up his hand and laughing. “I know what ‘Turkey in the Straw’ sounds like, Kelly. I did not know that Seth could play it.”

  “I can’t!” Seth said, sounding panicked. “We’re learning that for the big assembly in June. It’s not ready for spring assembly. Spring assembly is scales in rounds. And parts. But not—”

  “Seth,” Mr. Arnold said, his expression deepening to worry. “I’m not angry. I….” He looked away, and Kelly thought he looked sad and maybe ashamed. “I understand why you wouldn’t have told me earlier. But how long have you been playing the violin?”

  Seth looked at Kelly, who shrugged.

  “October? Right, Seth? We started the beginning of October, and then practiced through Thanksgiving, and then we did the Christmas concert. You remember the Christmas concert, right? It’s the night my daddy came home and….” Kelly trailed off and looked at Mr. Arnold’s face. “You might remember that night.”

  Mr. Arnold nodded. “I do. Seth, don’t be afraid to practice violin in front of me, okay?”

  Seth’s expression was… hurt. And angry. “I don’t know if you’ll feel like that all the time,” he said, his eyes shiny. “What if you come home one day and hate it and break the violin? It’s the school’s, and it’s expensive, and I love it, and—”

  Mr. Arnold held up his hand. “And I haven’t earned your trust yet,” he said sadly. “I… I’m lucky I’m here to do it at all.” He nodded to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some spaghetti for dinner. You boys can go play in your room, okay?”

  Seth nodded angrily and ran into his room, and Kelly followed.

  “I’m sorry!” he said as soon as the door was closed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell him everything. I just—”

  Seth shook his head. “It’s not your fault,” he muttered. “I just… I’m so confused. If I knew he was going to hit me, I’d know what to expect. But now he’s… he’s nice. And I don’t remember him being nice in so long. And I’m so afraid, because what if he gets mean after he’s been nice—it’s so damned scary when you don’t know!”

  Seth curled up on his bed then, miserable and tense, and Kelly patted his arm gently, like he did when the twins were crying. He didn’t say anything about Seth using the grown-up word. He figured fourth graders got to do lots of stuff he didn’t get to do in the third grade.

  “Maybe… I don’t know,” he whispered. “Maybe just hope? We kept hoping our daddy would come back, and he did. Maybe you just keep hoping that this is the real daddy and not the mad one. And maybe it will be true, you think?”

  Seth nodded, but he didn’t look any less tense. Kelly just crouched there, patting his arm, until there was a knock on the door.

  “Seth? Kelly?” It was Kelly’s dad, and Seth scrambled up so quickly, Kelly fell on his ass.

  “Daddy?” Kelly ran to the door. “Daddy, what are you doing here? Seth’s daddy was making spaghetti. Is it done?”

  Daddy shook his head. “No, son. We turned off the spaghetti. I think Seth’s going upstairs to eat with us tonight. We need to go to a meeting.”

  Kelly knew his eyes got huge. “You and Seth’s daddy work in the same place?” How marvelous!

  His dad laughed. “No. We have some of the same friends. Seth’s daddy got sad tonight—”

  “Because Seth plays the violin?” Oh, he did not understand why this was such a big deal!

  “No.” Daddy crouched down and looked Kelly in the eye, and Kelly knew it was important. “Because he did bad things, and it’s hard when you do bad things and hurt the people you love. He knows it’s going to take a while before Seth can forgive him. He needs some help dealing with that so he doesn’t drink some more.”

  Oh. Kelly nodded, only a little confused. “Seth is afraid he’s going to hit again.”

  “Yeah, I know. Seth gets to feel like that. His daddy is the one who’s got to work at making him believe he won’t. Tonight’s a hard night, so you take Seth upstairs and get some food. And did you guys decorate the apartment? It looks really good.”

  Kelly grinned. “I put the paper eggs up on the window.”

  Daddy nodded. “Nicely done. Seth?”

  Seth just looked at him. “Sir?”

  “We’ll be home before bedtime. Don’t worry. Your daddy wants to keep coming home and being your daddy. Is that okay?”

  Seth nodded, his expression unreadable.

  Kelly’s dad sighed. “Sure, it is. Come on, boys. Let’s get moving. Mom needs to know we’ve got one more for dinner.”

  And that was that.

  SETH’S DADDY and Kelly’s daddy went to lots more meetings together, but fewer and fewer over time. Soon it was down to once a week, but they never missed that once a week, and Kelly’s mom said that was a good thing. Pleasing Kelly’s mom was a big deal to Kelly’s dad—her belly was getting big. By the time the end of the year concert
rolled around, one of the girls could sit on that belly and dangle her legs.

  But the end of the year concert was wonderful. Seth’s daddy bought Seth a new shirt, made sure he did his hair, and bought him new shoes.

  They all dressed up pretty and walked to the school together, and Seth played “Turkey in the Straw” and a slow song, something in C, which Kelly didn’t understand because C was a note they played all the time and having a whole song in it didn’t seem that big a deal, but Seth played the song like… like… like angels and starlight and the purest song of God and church and Christmas all wrapped into one.

  It was a big deal, and both of their fathers were in the audience, listening to them.

  Seth’s daddy cried.

  Kelly hadn’t seen a daddy cry since his mom kicked his own daddy out of the house and told him not to come back until he got his shit together. And now he had his shit together, and Seth’s daddy did too, and they were all playing music and getting ice cream afterward and that was the best thing.

  No.

  Scratch that.

  Kelly got to see Seth’s face, beaming and lovely, as he finished something in C.

  He was the most beautiful thing Kelly had ever seen, and if Kelly had been a grown-up and Seth had been a grown-up, Kelly would have kissed him. It was so beautiful, and Kelly wanted all that beauty just gobbled up in his heart.

  It wasn’t until he was a little older that he realized this moment—this moment of seeing Seth happy, on stage, showing his beautiful soul to the world—was the moment he fell irrevocably, implacably, forever in love.

  Baby Steps from Home

  “OH NO!” Seth whispered harshly, peering out from behind the curtain.

  “What? Didn’t they make it?”

  Seth glanced affectionately at Kelly, who was still hanging on to the violin, mostly, Seth was beginning to suspect, to keep Seth company. Matty, God love him, had quit after the fifth grade, but Seth and Kelly had been playing for two years.

  “No, they made it,” Seth muttered, seeing his father in the audience. He closed his eyes, hating the awkwardness. Two and a half years—it had been two and a half years since his dad had gone to rehab and come back a changed man.

  And he had changed.

  All of the promises he’d made—no more hitting, dinner every night, activities on the weekends, being there—Craig Arnold had taken that shit seriously. Seth had to give him that.

  And Seth was grateful. So grateful. Not just for not being used as a punching bag, but because the world was starting to feel… solid again. It was like those dark times, right after they’d moved to Sacramento, were just a bad dream, and the better times now were what was real.

  Now, when he didn’t tell his father things, it wasn’t because he was afraid he’d make him angry. It was because he was afraid of… changing things. They’d made a big change in second grade, coming from Arizona to here. For a while, that change had meant… bad things. Bad things all the time.

  But he was keeping his grades up, and he was practicing the violin all the time, and… and he was getting promoted to the seventh grade, which meant a different school and different teachers and….

  And it was all going to shift again.

  And that change would be even worse if he couldn’t keep Mrs. Sheridan away from his father.

  “They’re there, right?” Kelly said, peering through the curtain. Then he groaned. “No… no. Mom brought everybody!”

  Everybody was the twins, now almost ready for kindergarten themselves, and Agnes, who was almost two. Seth had a special fondness for Agnes—he’d seen Linda and Xavier bring her home brand-new. When she’d been tiny, he’d held the bottle of expressed milk for her while Kelly and Matty had chased Lulu and Lily around the house so Linda could get a little bit of work done. He’d held Agnes’s hands as she’d learned to walk and read her stories while Matty was getting the other two girls their baths.

  All of the girls were special—they were like his little sisters too. But Agnes was… his. His dad had teased him gently about picking out a little sister just for himself, and he’d actually smiled.

  “I don’t mind your little sisters,” he said to Kelly.

  “But Agnes is gonna go nuts when she sees you on stage,” Kelly muttered. “And when you and Matty are up there for the promotion thing, we’ll be lucky if Mom and Dad can keep them from swarming you guys.”

  “My dad’s there too,” Seth offered, then bit his lip. Well, his father really had changed, right? He’d watched all the kids once every other week or so, so Kelly and Matty’s parents could go to the movies.

  Seth wondered if his dad ever wanted to go out with a girl himself, but he never asked.

  It was one of those changing things he didn’t want to do.

  “Crap!” Seth muttered. “It’s time to go out there!”

  The choir had finished, and the band too. Mrs. Sheridan stood up and asked her string boys to come up on stage.

  Then she did something that blew Seth’s mind.

  “Now, before we have the boys play,” she said in her sweet, high-pitched voice, “I want to introduce you to someone very special. Dr. Barnard Boyle has taught music at CSU Northridge for the past ten years, and has had some very prominent students go on to play in the LA Symphony. He’s now working at UC Davis, and as part of an outreach program, he’s coming to Joseph Crocker Junior High to teach music to our newly promoted string boys. He’s been working with our students—one in particular—to perform this next piece. Now, I haven’t talked to every parent, but for those of you who haven’t heard from me, please find me after the ceremony today. I have the paperwork to get your child enrolled and on the bus to Joseph Crocker. Don’t let me forget to hand it to you in person.”

  Seth grimaced and looked down at his toes so he could avoid his father’s irritated glower. Joseph Crocker was a charter school known for its art program—and not the neighborhood junior high.

  He was surprised by a punch on his arm. “You knew?” Kelly whispered harshly. “That she wanted you to go to Crocker?” Kelly had known Dr. Boyle was there, of course. But he hadn’t known it might mean Seth would go to a magnet school instead of the scary neighborhood junior high.

  “I was trying to avoid it!” he whispered back, and before he could explain that he didn’t want to go to a special school that would split him up from Matty, the auditorium grew hushed as Dr. Boyle stood up.

  A handsome man in his late thirties, Dr. Boyle had skin the color of faded ebony—just enough brown to give him warmth. He’d shaved his head and kept a neatly trimmed goatee.

  He stood in front of the students and winked, partially raising his hands with the baton in them.

  “Hi, boys. You ready for what comes next?”

  They all nodded, and Kelly sighed unhappily and pulled his violin up.

  “Bows ready?” Dr. Boyle prompted.

  Seth straightened his spine and positioned his violin, taking in a deep breath. Abruptly his concern about going to a different school faded away, as well as his father’s possible irritation because Seth hadn’t told him it was even a possibility. Even Kelly’s hurt over Seth keeping secrets diminished, although it burned brightly as a presence next to him for the entire rest of the night.

  All that remained was the music.

  He’d progressed past “Turkey in the Straw” and moved on to “Running Dry.” Dr. Boyle had written an adaptation of the violin classic so Seth played a slightly simplified solo part, and the rest of the boys played the other melody line.

  The result was stunningly haunting.

  They wrapped up the song, and Seth closed his eyes during the breathless pause that followed, holding those last notes close to his heart.

  When the applause erupted, he opened them again, and was ready to face the consequences of his silence.

  “WE’LL MEET you at the ice cream place,” Seth’s dad called to Kelly’s dad. “Kelly, buck up. I promise, we’ll be there.”

 
Kelly nodded weakly, and Matty scowled. Nobody was happy with Mrs. Sheridan’s announcement, and Seth knew they were holding back from going to the local Baskin-Robbins for one reason only.

  They needed to talk.

  Please don’t get mad, please don’t get mad, please don’t get mad.

  “Seth?” Craig Arnold said after the Cruz family had walked about fifty feet ahead. “Are you still afraid I’ll hit you?” He asked it gently, but Seth knew if he answered this one wrong, his dad would be hurt. So hurt that maybe he’d have to have another meeting, and Seth always felt bad when that happened.

  “No,” Seth answered, voice a little rusty. “It’s… it’s not that.”

  “Okay.” His father’s relief was palpable. “Then why? Why would you keep an opportunity like this a secret?”

  Seth shifted uncomfortably, still clutching his violin case to his chest. He was outgrowing this one; he knew it. There were notes he wanted to get from it, but no matter how well he tuned it, how carefully he drew his bow, it still sounded tinny and flat sometimes. But he loved it. It had been his first instrument, his first love.

  “Matty can’t come,” he muttered. “And Kelly’s only playing because I play. By the time he gets to junior high, I’ll be on to high school—”

  “A different one than they’ll go to,” Dad said, as though he understood. “And you don’t want the change.”

  Seth looked at his father miserably. “Things just got good,” he pleaded, hoping his dad would understand.

  “And you don’t want to change the balance,” Dad said softly. “Got it.” He sighed. “Seth, we’re not moving. You’ll still be home often enough to practice where Kelly can hear you, and help Matty with the girls. I promise. I wouldn’t take that away from you.”

  Seth swallowed. “But high school—”

  “Well, maybe they can go to the high school with the orchestra,” his dad said hopefully. “I’ll talk to their parents. It’s a better school than the one in walking distance, and I’m home in the mornings. I can take everybody, maybe, if Linda can get you home. And you’re getting old enough to take the city bus. But that’s two years away, son. In the meantime….” Craig sighed. “I saw your face light up when Dr. Boyle stood up. You really like him, don’t you?”