If I were to capture their divorce in a song, I wonder what it would sound like.
What time signature would represent the uncertainty of everyday life? How many measures of rests would represent the days of icy silence within the house? Which key would represent the disjointed and broken nature of my family?
Which instrument would represent my father? Something strong and bright from the brass family? Something loud and abrasive from the percussion family? Something high-strung and frail from the woodwind family?
Which instrument would represent my mother? Something high-pitched and buzzing from the string family? Something insignificant and yet loud from the percussion family? Or maybe she would be a voice, screaming and throwing a tantrum in an attempt to be heard above all the instruments that easily drown her out.
Then there's me.
What's my role?
Am I hapless member of the audience, simply watching the music play out before me?
Am I another orchestra member, contributing to the music yet unable to control the action of the other instrumentalists around me?
Or maybe I'm the conductor. Maybe I'm the one holding the baton and leading the symphony. Maybe I'm the one telling the trumpets to blare brightly before having the nagging wails of the flutes answer the call. Maybe I have the power to put down the baton and stop the music.
Maybe it's all my fault that the song keeps playing on.
Maybe…
SLAM
Ah, I see, all these notes should be staccato to represent the suddenness and yet complete predictability of dad coming home from work. Then maybe I should make it dip down to a sudden pianissimo for those moments of precious silence as he takes off his shoes and coat before the day's music starts in earnest.
What will they provide me with today? Maybe it will be another night of heavy silences and icy fragility. There's been a lot of that lately. If so, I'll need the quieter instruments and more subtle notations.
"What's for dinner? I'm starved!"
Oh, today is going to be loud. Sudden fortissimo.
He's been drinking. I'll just place a portamento over his notes to emulate the slurring of his words; it'll add realism.
"If you had come back on time, it would have been steak and potatoes. But you've been busy drinking so I'm afraid there's none left for you to eat."
Mom is definitely a piccolo tonight; I can almost hear her notes straining at the highest spectrum available to them.
"I told you, it's expected of me to drink with everyone else. It will only help me climb up the ladder faster."
What notes did I use last time he used that excuse? I know it's around here somewhere…ah, here we go. Hm, but his words aren't exactly the same this time…maybe I'll just make this one a variation of the original one.
"'Climb the ladder'?! You've been stuck in the same place for years on end! Don't give me your bullshit!"
This is a new response. I'll have to think up something completely different for this part. A new passage of music; how positively exciting! There hasn't been one of those for a long time!
But I can't get too overzealous. This is only mom's opening gambit after all; maybe I'll start at a mezzo forte and build from there?
"At least I'm trying to do something! All you do is sit at home, stare at a TV all day, and expect me to bend to your every whim! What good is that doing anyone?!"
Dad's response is pretty good. His dynamic will have to be a little bit louder than mom's.
"I make food for both you and our daughter! I clean the house so you don't live in a goddamn pigsty! I make sure that you have a pleasant home to come home to! I make sure that your daughter is growing up in a healthy environment!"
Accent the first note of each phrase, fade slightly after that.
She mentioned me. Maybe I should hang a slight descant part of my instrument; a reminder to the audience of all the times my musical motif has been used so far.
"If that's the case, then why when I come home is everything just as disgusting as when I left?! And unless I'm mistaken, these 'dinners' that you make never seems to be there when I get home and it's time for me to eat!"
Loud, abrasive, assured, and beginning to overpower the other parts. It's the only instrument that will be noticed and refuses to acknowledge that everyone else has sunk down to a quieter dynamic.
"Because you're a selfish pig who only works and drinks – and I'm not even sure if you work anymore. When was the last time I actually saw one of your paychecks?!"
Quieter, frail, and desperately trying to have presence by being in a high octave. The audience should be privy to the game; they should know that she's going to lose the bout.
"The last time you saw one was when you spent all of my hard-earned money on buying yourself jewelry! Just how was that supposed to help maintain the house or raise your daughter?!"
Louder and more abrasive. Crescendo…crescendo…
My musical leitmotif again, louder this time. I'm being made the center of the argument.
"If you want to try raising your daughter by yourself, then be my guest! I don't have to put up with this! I'm leaving!"
Trying to be defiant – maybe one note at an assured forte? – but then slinking into weakness and piano.
"Don't bother coming back! No one here wants you!"
One final, fortissimo flourish. Should sound victorious and grandiose.
SLAM
A dying, quiet squeak that admits defeat for now but maintains the promise of further debate.
My instrument should continue on even though everyone has fallen away. It's wavering unsurely between a bass note and a treble note. End up holding somewhere in the middle.
Then nothing.
The music isn't done.
It will pick up again tomorrow.
And it will be my job to dictate it all.
I allow my pencil to roll from my hand as I finish the last note on the sheet. My eyes quickly scan the new page that had been added to the continual growing collection of music sheets that litters my desk. How long have I been doing this?
Oh, right, it was after the first time I heard them arguing.
How long ago was that?
I don't know.
Answering to some desire I have no ability to name or identify, I allow my hands to rife through the pile next to me, eventually digging to the bottom and rescuing the first page I ever wrote. The page is scratchy and uncertain; notes are smudged and the musical notations aren't as polished as they've become over the years.
There are also obvious watermarks on certain parts of the page.
I had been crying when I wrote that first page.
I've learned to control it since then.
I can't cry when there's music to be composed. I can't cry when I have to capture the sounds of their screaming, the sounds of their silences, the sounds of their mirthless jabs at one another and transfer it into notes.
I was weak then. I've grown stronger.
I've grown stronger.
I've grown stronger.
The paper falls from my hands and back onto the pile as I exit my bedroom and creep down the stairs. I attempt to be as quiet as possible so I won't disturb my father; maybe today will be one of his good days, maybe it won't – I don't want to take any chances.
But my desire for self-preservation is quickly overwritten by my music's demand that I investigate further. I have managed to record the climax of the piece, but the aftermath is just as important to catalogue. If my composition stops now it will be abrupt and fake.
This composition has to be realistic; it has to be perfect.
My feet stop as I reach the doorway to the kitchen. I can hear my father muttering to himself and rummaging within – he hasn't bothered to turn on the light, so all I can see are vague shadows that speak of the bigger picture.
"That you IA?" I hear his gruff, slurred voice call out to me as the shadow in his shape shifts to look at the entryway to the kitchen.
"Yes."
"When did you get home?"
"Just now. I was at a friend's house studying for a math test."
I've found over the years that it's easier to pretend that I haven't heard the arguments. When I lie, I don't have to listen to their half-formed excuses and apologies that really only serve to comfort themselves.
The lies don't even have to be viable – my parents like to believe that I haven't heard their arguments that often.
I wonder if dad will call me out on the fact that school ended about three weeks ago and I'm not taking any summer courses.
"Good. You make sure to keep studying and keep those grades up; don't want to being a good-for-nothing like your mother, now do we?"
It's a phrase he used often when I was a child, but back then it had an entirely different meaning. Back then he would say it with a smile and a wink while mom mimed horror at such a suggestion before giving in and smiling. At one time, that phrase had been happy, silly, and warm.
Now, even though I can't properly see his face, I know he's wearing a scowl. There is no warmth – there is only bitterness and scorn.
Childhood was a long time ago.
"I'll try my best dad."
A response that takes no sides.
"Good, that's all I ask of you. Now go up and go to bed; your mother is staying at a friend's house for a few days – can't remember when she said she'll be back. You can take care of yourself during that time, right?"
"Sure."
"Good," He repeated, once more slurring the word on his drunken tongue, "Then head off to bed."
"Good night dad. I love you."
I wait for the response that is to be expected in this situation, but he has already turned away from me and is once more rummaging through the kitchen. Whether or not he's heard me is a moot point; all that matters is the fact that he gives me no response. How many additional seconds I wait there hoping for any form of acknowledgement before I give up and turn away, I can't really say.
He didn't hear me; that's the only explanation. Being drunk can affect your hearing, right?
I head back up to my room and lock the door behind me. As I walk to the desk that contains pages upon pages of recorded fights, silences, and other indicators of divorce I feel light-headed. I pick up that first sheet that I wrote so many years ago and for several seconds, all I can do is stare at it.
Sometimes I wonder if my parents are even aware of the inevitable end of their marriage. When I started composing this piece, I had been just as oblivious as them; I had thought that maybe my composition would go on for only a little while before my parents worked out their problems and life wound its way back to the warm, lilting tune I had been surrounded by as a child.
There are now hundreds upon hundreds of pages scattered on both my desk and my floor.
In my hand I hold the first page of the first movement of their divorce.
Back then I hadn't understood the intricacies of capturing loss of love, misplaced feeling of entitlement, burden of unwanted responsibility and the dark feelings these phenomenon breed and transferring them to music meant to be enjoyed by the masses. I'm far better at recording the song now; it's become an art form that I'm dangerously close to perfecting.
Why was the song still playing?
Who was the person that just wouldn't let the song die?
What was preventing the musicians from moving on to bigger and better works?
The paper in my hand provided no answers; the papers scattered everywhere in my room provided no answers; the pages that had yet to be written but were inevitably in my future provided no answers. I can only guess.
The answer I've come up with is myself – I'm the conductor holding the baton. I'm the one telling them to keep playing on.
It's always my leitmotif that keeps showing up ad nauseam within the music.
It's always my name that keeps showing up ad nauseam within my parent's arguments.
Suddenly there's a bag in my hand and I'm shoveling all my pages upon pages of music hastily into it. The sound of the paper crinkling in protest greets me, but I ignore its pleas and continue to force it into confinement in the bag. The rest of the packing is done hastily and without much thought – clothing, money, snacks, and personal effects; all of them are shoved into the bag and within minutes the music is buried under a layer of trinkets of my life.
I don't even have to bother waiting for my father to go to bed. I can hear the TV blaring downstairs, effectively masking any noises I may end up making. The giddy, light-headed feeling from earlier remains as I bound down the stairs and touch down on the landing.
Perhaps answering to some childish instinct within myself, my eyes wander to look at the TV where my father is sitting. A gaudy game show host is parading all the fabulous prizes the contestants can win by just answering a few simple questions.
My father loves watching game shows.
I can't stand them.
Whatever words I might have wanted to say or second-guesses I may have wanted to ponder quickly evaporate as the game show continues to drone on. The host's smile is obnoxiously fake as he turns towards the viewing audience, including them in on the suspense:
"We'll see if she has the right answer...after this commercial break."
The door clicks closed behind me before the first advertisement even has an opportunity to start.
Somehow I've ended up on a train.
When I had first bowed out of my role of conductor by escaping into the night, I immediately ran to the large dumpster behind one of the local restaurants near my house. I plunged my hand in the bag and began to pull up fistfuls of sheet music. For the longest time, I simply stood there staring at the carefully annotated music notes.
Wherever I ended up going, I wouldn't need them. Wherever I ended up going, I wouldn't be surrounded by the sounds of divorce. Wherever I ended up going, I would be free to compose anything else in the world.
I could compose something happy and wonderful and amazing.
All I had to do was throw them away and never look at them again. It was a task so simple that I shouldn't have even hesitated. It should have been so easy.
I couldn't do it.
The music of divorce was shoved hastily back in my bag, this time placed above all the little trinkets and baubles that I had chosen to bring with me. As I hefted the load on my shoulder, it and the weight within my chest felt heavier. I knew then that I would never be able to escape the music if I stayed in that town. I had to get far, far away.
So now I'm headed to destinations unknown.
The train is swift and smooth and only a few other passengers dot the spacious car. Each of them is absorbed in the own world, some reading, some listening to music, some simply staring out the window. I can't help but wonder what they would do if they knew I was running away from home. Would this knowledge even be able to permeate their private worlds that they have established?
Even though I can't see my musical score, my mind keeps snagging on it whenever I try to clear my thoughts and look towards my now uncertain future. Now that I've stepped down from my place as the conductor, I'm curious to see what the audience will say. After all, what I just presented them is an incomplete and imperfect piece. Will there be boos or cheers?
In the end, I hear nothing. It's as if the audience is waiting with baited breath for the piece to progress.
Maybe this isn't the grand finale but is rather the beginning to another movement of the piece.
Maybe the music isn't done and all I'm doing is adding superfluous rests in a vain attempt to hold off the eventual end.
I hope not. I dearly hope not.
I've put down the conductors baton, I've told the music to stop playing, so everything should be alright now. As long as I don't come back into the picture, everything should be okay.
The ride begins to lull and calm me. It's a mother's lullaby – all the other instruments have dropped away and now there's just one sweet and yet entirely imperfect voice leading the way. The sound is both comforting and strange as it buzzes within my skull; this is a type of music my life hasn't given to me in years. There are possibilities and hope contained within that I never even dared to imagine before.
I can feel my eyes grow heavy and I allow my cheek to push up against the window next to me. The lullaby continues to play inside my head and I find myself drifting further away from reality and closer to the realm of dreams.
Yet I can't complete the journey.
No matter how soothing the song of the train is, the notes are continually challenged by a far harsher melody that my mind keeps producing. It's been an integral part of my existence for so long that I don't even have to wonder where the melody stems from.
Even while I'm running away, the unfinished song of divorce continues to haunt me.