Chapter One

~One~

The silence hanging in the background was broken by Graham.
“I heard that Jessica had a baby”

Jane looked up from the item she was distractedly reading on her phone.
“Who with?” she asked.
“I doubt she knows” Graham offered pessimistically. “I shouldn't have said that.” he quickly apologized.  He went back to shuffling papers and trinkets around on the stand next to the piano. The room was already tidy but Graham needed something to get his mind off of things. He paused. The small antique clock hanging on the wall above the old upright seemed to pause with him.

     It was one of those crisp days that seem to exist outside of time. The white sky was preventing the sun from shining directly, and although it was bright out, it seemed impossible to tell the passage of
time in the stillness. Only the birds singing on the bare branches at the far end of the hill marked the passage of minutes, or perhaps kept time stopped through repetition… Drops of cold water fell from
the ice that had lightly coated the trees during the night. It was early winter, before the snow, and the
frosts had taken to leaving a brittle and icy world behind them. 

     The weather mirrored the feelings that Jane had for Jessica, a mixture of cold disinterest and cruel
dislike. She didn’t care what happened to Jessica. In fact, she had all but forgotten that Jessica existed. The fact that Graham hadn’t annoyed her. She deliberately put her phone down on the end table beside her. Turning it face down as though she was getting ready to say something she turned instead and stared out the large window across the small living room, across the little bit of deck, and
into the sparkling forest.

“Who did you hear that from?” she finally asked.
“Ezra. He thinks it might be his.”
“It could just as easily be yours. You saw her a lot more than he did.”
Graham thought momentarily and in a gentle, resigned and almost cold tone explained that even if he was the sire Jessica would never let him be the father. Jane could hear the regret and sadness in his voice.

“No,” he continued, “She knows who the father is. And if she wanted any of us to know she would have looked for an opportunity. She knows where we are.”

“Ezra will be disappointed.” Jane couldn’t help but feel a little sad for her brother. Although he was older than her, Ezra was always the kid in the family. He was just so damned innocent and trusting. Jessica had known that Ezra adored her. She wasn’t his first, but she was important to him. He had been easy for her. Prey that wanted to be caught. A distraction. Learning this had hurt Ezra a lot. Jane didn’t like how it had changed him. He was still warm and kind, but the cloak of naivete was gone and he now knew that people can be heartless, insincere and even deceitful simply for their own pleasure. 

There were selfish hedonists in the world. And then there was Jessica. 

***

     A match grew quickly in the darkness. The scraping sound and pop of the ignition echoed between the buildings. It was warmer here than in the country, but the same cold nights had left a film over everything that was now dripping down the eaves of the buildings. A man lit his cigarette and then threw the still lit match into the gutter and the light went out with a hiss. The streetlamps further down and the red glow of the ember the only thing peering out of the brown darkness that can only exist in a polluted city.

     The alley was lined with a series of back entrances and loading bays for the bars, strip clubs, and one really good vietnamese restaurant on the road out front. It was early for a Saturday, the bars just starting to fill up and diner rush of families and customers at the restaurant finishing and moving on with their night. It was early November and had been dark for three, almost four hours. The figure looked at their watch, took one last drag on his cigarette, and headed back into the kitchen to clean up. Perhaps he had hoped to catch her singing again as he often had these past few months, her voice carrying over the noise coming from the other kitchens and back rooms, clear yet distant. There was no doubt about it; she was good.

***

     Graham wiped the thick layer of dust from the cover on the piano and lifted it up to expose the cracked ivory keys. There was something about the wind and the darkness that begged him to play it. “Has it really been that long?” He wondered to himself as he wiped the grime from his hand onto the thigh of his pants. 

***

     It hadn’t been the same without Ezra. Karaoke for tips was little better than stripping, but ever since she walked away from her master’s in the mess of things that spring, there wasn’t a lot of money. All of her grants and funding had been tied to her work at the college, and she was not going back there. No one wanted to see a pregnant stripper anyway, she told herself. Besides, the world had more pity for a knocked up musician than a sex worker anyway. She picked hopeful, happy, and inspiring tunes and the patrons had been taken by the contrast with her situation and her sunny ‘resilience’ and kept the tips coming. Maybe it was pity. Maybe it was because they liked her singing, she didn’t really care.

***

     The only one who still played was Ezra. He was quiet, with shaggy hair so fine you that couldn’t tell if it was blonde or gray. He seemed not to care what he looked like and yet the smile lines at the corners of his soft blue eyes drew people in, regardless of the mesh backed trucker’s hat that always covered the thinner parts of his hair. It was his warmth and kindness and his love of honest mirth that made him seem ageless. He was almost forty with weather beaten pale skin and light features. But it was impossible to tell. Most people thought he was slow and a bit undereducated when they first looked at him. He had the look of a hard working bachelor with a mind for simple things. He never seemed to say much, just laughed along with others and watched their faces with pure joy.

     He sat on the stage in a tiny little bar. He often came to the city to play. It was more anonymous than playing for people he knew, he liked it that way. The patrons in the bar sat and mingled, unsure why this giant redneck-looking man was holding what appeared to be a tiny tuba. But they were used to amatuer musicians eager for an audience. It wasn’t open mic or karaoke night, so they just sipped their cocktails and drank adulterated coffee with their friends, largely ignoring the man on stage. No one expected much or seemed to give more than passing notice. It was a warm place to sit with friends, and everyone was enjoying the break from the driving rain that had kept everyone indoors the month prior. Some groups even sat on the patio out front, bathed in light from the windows, and highlighted by the streetlamps. A young man at a far table nudged his friend and said loud enough for the young ladies at the next table to hear, “Wasn’t expecting to see some farmer play his toy tuba. If it’s awful I’m out of here.” And leaning a little bit further over towards the girls “You should come with us, music at the next party is going to be killer”. The girls giggled from the attention.

“Alto Horn” Ezra shyly mumbled. Only one or two people looked up. Most hadn’t heard him. Leaning over the instrument he adjusted on his stool. He blew two short gusts of air into the mouthpiece, barely audible, but enough to warm it and clear out any moisture in the leadpipe. He didn’t know how to talk to people, and his poorly cut suit and outdated shirt were just good enough to be allowed in this kind of bar, but probably not on stage.

     None of that mattered to Ezra. Apart from working with his hands he knew one thing. He knew how to play horn. It was the only thing that he had been doing longer than working.

     The noise in the room slowly died as a clear, deep tone ran imperceptibly up the spines of everyone within earshot. It was a sound you felt deep in your soul before you actually heard it. It was the sound of everything that Ezra wanted to say but could never find the words. Slowly, a haunting sound filled the room as the melancholy beauty of Saint-Saens ‘The Swan’ rose to its sad and lingering crescendo. The girls two tables over from the party boys were transfixed. Their backs completely turned to the young men they had forgotten the temptation to party with their own kind and instead found their souls aching to know more about this quiet, gentle man. He played to a hushed crowd for about an hour and then carefully packed up his case, muttered something about how they could find him on youtube and walked out the door, hailing a cab before the crowd even knew it was over.

     The girls turned to each other, flicking the straws in their out of season bellinis and talking to each other about him. Any chance of leaving to listen to blaring rock music and dancing with drunk schoolmates had been replaced by romantic musings about music, life, art, and the beauty of a simple life. Their transformation would be gone by morning and they would be back to gossiping and plotting against boys and other girls, but for now, everyone in the room was lost in their own thoughts, as if dreaming of the Paris that exists only in our dreams.

***

Graham closed the lid of his battered piano without playing a note.