Read Night Blindness for Free Online Page B

ones.”
    â€œSend me the Brooks Brothers boy, and I just might. Ta-ta.” The line went dead.
    I held my phone in my hand and studied the hearth, remembering Jamie on her knees with a bucket and a sponge, a week after Will died, though there never was a stain. She’d been talking to herself. I hadn’t tried to hear what she was saying. I’d backed away, frightened to see my mother like that, her hair falling limply around her face. A few days later, I came home and found shiny black marble had replaced the flagstone hearth. All these years later, no one had ever asked why she had it replaced.
    Now I thought I should go upstairs, put on a pair of shorts, and run the seven-mile loop along the beach out toward Luke’s, run away this sick feeling that was coming over me. Or I should put the stereo on loud, smoke the weed I’d stupidly stuffed in my suitcase, and set up the art supplies I’d packed, so I could start painting again.
    But I walked into the living room and sat at the piano. My father had bought it for me when I was six years old, after I’d played “Joy to the World” by ear at Sid’s Christmas party. Everyone in the room had gone quiet, and my dad and Luke had crowded around me, asking where I’d learned it. I told them I’d heard it on the radio.
    Luke had sat next to me. “Can you do it again?” I remembered feeling scared, not sure if I had done something good or bad. He watched my hands as I played. Everyone applauded. He asked what other songs I knew. I told him whatever I heard on the record player.
    The piano smelled like lemon furniture polish. Claude Debussy’s “Reverie” was still propped on the music stand, the notes trailing across the page. I could hear it as I read the lines, could feel the way the piece spoke, a dramatic rise and fall, as though two people were slipping over each other. I had never played it for anyone. I’d sat in front of the keys at Will’s funeral and stared at the pages until someone—my father, I think—led me away.
    I thought of those pianos I used to pass in the music building at the University of Colorado on my way back from modeling for Nic. They sat in single rooms, waiting, obedient and patient, and I used to feel as though I’d betrayed every one of them. At the same time, I’d felt an incredible, almost visceral pull that reminded me what it was like to fall in love.
    I hadn’t played this piano in more than a decade. The keys were slick beneath my fingertips. Closing my eyes, I waited for muscle memory to take over. If I could play something, anything, maybe I could break that thick glass that separated me from my feelings. I pressed a few keys, but they were singular sounds in the quiet room, and “Reverie” was nowhere to be found. I opened my eyes and reached to bring the top down.
    â€œShe exists,” I heard a voice say. Luke was watching me, rings on every finger, dreadlocks down to his elbows, smiling his big white smile.
    â€œThere you are,” I said.
    â€œWhere else would I be, baby girl? That guest bedroom drugged me.” He ran his hand over his dreads. “I slept till about thirty minutes ago, when your father called to whip up a surprise for his best girl.” He took up the whole room when he crossed it.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    He put his huge arms around me. “I ain’t telling his secrets, but it’s shiny and red.” He lifted me up, twirling me around, so the living room was a blur. Finally, he set me down, and we sat on the bench. I was laughing.
    â€œYou eating out there in the high desert?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, it’s all going down your hollow leg.” He lifted the back-fall. “I didn’t know you’d started playing again.”
    â€œI haven’t.” I leaned against his shoulder. “You heard me; I lost it.” He smelled like musk.
    â€œYou’re