Free Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 by Dell Magazines

that way for me)
Forgive me my cowardice. I thought that I could live out my karma in this life
     with acceptance but I could not. I broke up a family to be with David because I
     loved him with a passion beyond anything I had ever experienced before. I
     thought that this passion was enough to sustain me through any loss, any
     punishment. When you damaged my hands, in a strange way I accepted it. I always
     knew that my love for David would carry a price and I resolved to have the
     courage to pay that price and not surrender to despair. I just wanted him to
     love me. That was all, and that was granted to me. He gave me as much as he
     could possibly give and I could not ask for more.
Ah but it gets so hard.
     The music never leaves me, the memory of fingering stays with me every day, yet
     half of my fingers can’t move and the rest of them are crippled in pain. My
     colleagues I have not seen for a long time. They are afraid of me because I
     remind them of what they stand to lose. I cannot love, since I lost David, nor
     can I play, since I lost the use of my fingers. But the thing is, you may stop
     being a musician in your hands, but you never stop being a musician in your
     mind, and the one consolation I might have had for losing love has been denied
     me.
But my child, please don’t feel guilty. You did what you did because
     you were on to me that day. I was the one who suggested playing Lily’s old
     rosewood piano again, not your father. I framed it as a surprise for you when
     you came back that evening. And yes, I even chose the Gymnopédie. Why did I do
     it? Jealousy, pure and simple. Even after thirteen years of marriage I was never
     sure that I could take Lily’s place in your father’s heart. I was desperately
     jealous of the one unassailable place she held there, those first years in which
     I played no part. I sought to eradicate it completely by restaging her actions.
     I did not see what was wrong until I looked up and that terrible, terrible anger
     was on your face. After all, I was so much her superior musically. (How I missed
     the point!)
I destroyed your mother’s lize—I’ve always carried the
     guilt—and she, in her own way, has returned to destroy mine. Did I tell you I
     saw someone who looked like her on the street the other day? I am haunted by her
     image, time after time. Lily, Lily, Lily—I cannot get her name out of my mind,
     it repeats like a mantra. I have nothing left now to distract me and as the
     years progress her call becomes louder rather than otherwise. You may understand
     me. We both betrayed her, didn’t we, for love?
I am gabbling now so I must
     draw to a close. Please know that I tried to love you and I believe I achieved
     something close. And I loved your father beyond all reason and to this day I
     regret none of it, except for hurting you.
    Your loving stepmother
Dearbhla McKernan
     
I fold up the letter and put it away. Now grief should arrive—I have
     nobody in the world left to care for me—but it will not come, even though I repeat
     out loud: She’s gone, Dearbhla’s gone. Yes, I am still full of what passes for
     normal thought here: Is cabbage on for dinner again tonight? Should I go out for
     exercise tomorrow? It does not hit me, this new reality.
    All the pieces
     Dearbhla played for me were beautiful: nocturnes, mazurkas, the Moonlight Sonata, a
     waltz called “Adieu” which Chopin wrote when he was dying of tuberculosis. But force
     myself as I may, I cannot recall any of them. Another piece intercedes, yes, that
     broken piece again, the Gymnopédie, replete with mistakes and laughter and sunset on
     the pedals. Dearbhla is overshadowed, just as she feared. She should never have
     played that piece, not even once.
    Haven’t we both betrayed her for
     love?
My mother plays on, her eyes shut and a little smile on her face.
     Nothing complex, nothing overwhelming. No cross-signatures or bombast. Just her
     playing, done for love.