If I Stay

“I’m not sad. Your father seems happy and I think he’ll make a good teacher. Those are some lucky kids who get to read The Great Gatsby with your dad. I’ll just miss the music.”

“Music? You never go to Dad’s shows.”

“I’ve got bad ears. From the war. The noise hurts.”

“You should wear headphones. Mom makes me do that. Earplugs just fall out.”

“Maybe I’ll try that. But I’ve always listened to your dad’s music. At low volume. I’ll admit, I don’t much care for all that electric guitar. Not my cup of tea. But I still admired the music. The words, especially. When he was about your age, your father used to come up with these great stories. He’d sit down at his little table and write them down, then give them to Gran to type up, then he’d draw pictures. Funny stories about animals, but real and smart. Always reminded me of that book about the spider and the pig—what’s it called?”

“Charlotte’s Web?”

“That’s the one. I always thought your dad would grow up to be a writer. And in a way, I always felt like he did. The words he writes to his music, they’re poetry. You ever listen carefully to the things he says?”

I shook my head, suddenly ashamed. I hadn’t even realized that Dad wrote lyrics. He didn’t sing so I just assumed that the people in front of the microphones wrote the words. But I had seen him sit at the kitchen table with a guitar and a notepad a hundred times. I’d just never put it together.

That night when we got home, I went up to my room with Dad’s CDs and a Discman. I checked the liner notes to see which songs Dad had written and then I painstakingly copied down all the lyrics. It was only after I saw them scrawled in my science lab book that I saw what Gramps meant. Dad’s lyrics were not just rhymes. They were something else. There was one song in particular called “Waiting for Vengeance” that I listened to and read over and over until I had it memorized. It was on the second album, and it was the only slow song they ever did; it sounded almost country, probably from Henry’s brief infatuation with hillbilly punk. I listened to it so much that I started singing it to myself without even realizing it.

Well, what is this?
What am I coming to?
And beyond that, what am I gonna do?
Now there’s blankness
Where once your eyes held the light
But that was so long ago
That was last night
Well, what was that?
What’s that sound that I hear?

It’s just my lifetime
It’s whistling past my ear
And when I look back
Everything seems smaller than life
The way it’s been for so long
Since last night

Now I’m leaving
Any moment I’ll be gone
I think you’ll notice
I think you’ll wonder what went wrong
I’m not choosing
But I’m running out of fight
And this was decided so long ago
It was last night

“What are you singing, Mia?” Dad asked me, catching me serenading Teddy as I pushed him around the kitchen in his stroller in a vain attempt to get him to nap.

“Your song,” I said sheepishly, suddenly feeling like I’d maybe illegally trespassed into Dad’s private territory. Was it wrong to go around singing other people’s music without their permission?

But Dad looked delighted. “My Mia’s singing ‘Waiting for Vengeance’ to my Teddy. What do you think about that?” He leaned over to muss my hair and to tickle Teddy on his chubby cheek. “Well, don’t let me stop you. Keep going. I’ll take over this part,” he said, taking the stroller.

I felt embarrassed to sing in front of him now, so I just sort of mumbled along, but then Dad joined in and we sang softly together until Teddy fell asleep. Then he put a finger over his lips and gestured for me to follow him into the living room.

“Want to play some chess?” he asked. He was always trying to teach me to play, but I thought it was too much work for a supposed game.

“How about checkers?” I asked.

“Sure.”

We played in silence. When it was Dad’s move, I’d steal looks at him in his button-down shirt, trying to remember the fast-fading picture of the guy with peroxided hair and a leather jacket.

“Dad?”

“Hmm.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Always.”

“Are you sad that you aren’t in a band anymore?”

“Nope,” he said.

“Not even a little bit?”

Dad’s gray eyes met mine. “What brought this all on?”

“I was talking to Gramps.”

“Oh, I see.”

“You do?”

Dad nodded. “Gramps thinks that he somehow exerted pressure on me to change my life.”

“Well, did he?”

“I suppose in an indirect way he did. By being who he is, by showing me what a father is.”