A gist: set 30 years after the concert. The typical story follows through: Louis and Lyla meet August, get hooked, start a reasonably happy family, and the rest is history. I own nothing.
"So, what happened next, grandpa? How did it end?"
"Well, see sweetheart," her grandfather said, "The story has no ending. A new story takes its place. Which is followed by another story, and another story; that way, the story doesn't really end."
"Can you tell me the other story, please?"
"Now now, Rachel, it's past your bedtime. You wouldn't want your mum and da to find you still awake, now?"
"Come on, grandpa, grandma, please?'
"Listen to your grandfather, dear," Her grandmother added, "And Lou, how many times have we told her that story anyway?"
"Well over a dozen times, I think?" Grandfather added.
"He never ends it." Rachel added. "Do you know how it ends, grandma?"
Grandfather never told her why he never gave the story the same ending all other fairy tales. He never said that the stranger and the princess married, or if they ever got to meet the little boy that brought them together. She never tired of the story, mainly because it never seemed to give her the ending she wanted.
"Well, grandpa and I will tell you soon. But not tonight. You wouldn't want to be cranky all day tomorrow now would you?"
"Do you think it could be true?" She asked, her innocent blue eyes hungry for an answer.
The grandparents stared at each other.
"Maybe." Grandmother added as she tucked her in. "But now it's time for bed, little one. And it's time for grandpa to change baby Louis' diapers tonight. It's your turn; I did it last time."
"Do I have to?" Grandfather said jokingly. He never failed to give a smile on his granddaughter's face.
They kissed her good night and made their way to the door.
"Does daddy know this story, too?" She asked her grandparents before they closed the door. She figured that since they were her dad's parents, they probably told him the same story when he was a boy, too.
"He knows it just as well as we do." They said together, as the door closed.
She tried sleeping, but she just couldn't wait for it. Every story had an ending, she said. If it had no ending that meant the story wasn't finished at all.
Rachel had always loved the old days, when her family would be visiting his grandparent's home in the Upper East Side. It was always so warm and inviting. Grandma would be baking something at the kitchen while grandpa would be singing some of the songs he wrote when he was younger.
She could recall memories of happier times, where she and her brother Louis would sit and watch as their father and grandfather would play guitar together. They would later ask who played better, and Louis would say it was dad. She disagreed, and said they were about the same.
Daddy could play better, but grandpa had a better voice, she would often say. Dad agrees; while a lot of people told her that her father wrote great music, even he admits he couldn't sing as well.
It wasn't just her grandfather's singing that she liked. Her grandfather gave her the best advice, and while he wasn't exactly the smartest tool in the shed, he knew just what to say whenever she needed it.
Those were just memories now. They come and go like the raindrops that fell on the car's windshield. She wasn't the wide eyed little girl who used to look forward to visits from them; she was 17, too old to believe in fairy tales, let alone those romantic comedy movies her father writes music for. The youthful sparkle in her blue eyes was gone.
As their minivan parked near the old apartment where her grandparents live, she couldn't bear to think of those thoughts any more. Those thoughts were just like any other positive thought; a fantasy. Many things have happened that made those memories as fleeting and unreal as the fairy tales that she was told as a child.
Her grandfather was arthritic now, and a stroke had taken his kindly voice just when she needed it the most. Her father seemed so distant, cold; far-removed from what he had been when she was just a little girl. She was being sent away to this place as to not upset him any further.
She sat still on the passenger seat, while her mother—a stern, ebony beauty dressed in a close-fitting business suit—tried to look for something to say. Meanwhile, a pale-skinned creature curled up along the backseat, dead asleep.
She held on to her daughter's hand-and could notice the slight difference in their skin tone. Her daughter Rachel generally took after her; she had the same dark hair, and a skin which seemed like a halfway house between her mother's and the pale boy at the backseat. She had her father's eyes, her mother would often say. Her father once called her Angel, after the way she reminded him of her mother.
There wasn't anything that mother could say at the moment; what was needed had already been said the night before. She smiled at her daughter in a vain attempt at sympathy.
She turned to the backseat.
"Louis, we're here." Hope told her son. He wiped the dribble off his face and stared out. The rain showed no sign of clearing at all. She grabbed an umbrella.
These were the first words the family said since they left home earlier that day.
"It sure is raining hard." Louis said, his voice cracking at the onset of puberty. "I wonder if they'll be okay with Rachel hanging around."
"Of course they would, Lou. Your grandparents are wonderful people." Hope replied. She turned to her daughter and said. "Your grandpa and grandma would love to have you over."
"Why'd dad have to send Rachel away? That's too much."
"We are not sending your sister away. She told us herself that she wanted to stay with them for awhile."
Rachel couldn't help but give a brief smile. Her brother was many things, obnoxious being one of them from time to time. But unlike most people his age, he managed to keep a little innocence in him—an innocuous sense of naivety seen in the glint of his dark eyes. In his small mind, what was happening was senseless and cruel. His sympathy was more than enough to lighten her spirits, at least for a while.
"So, you're staying here until you're due?" Louis asked. "I don't want to miss the chance to be an uncle."
"I guess so." Rachel replied.
"That or until your father cools off." Hope answered, "Honestly I never expected him to react that way. Louie, once we get home, remind me to talk to your father, again."
The family disembarked, and approached the apartment's stoop, where they were greeted by a kindly old woman. Grandma spared no time in greeting them.
"Hope, you made it." Grandma said gleefully upon seeing her family.
Grandma gave her two grandchildren a tight hug.
Hope asked Louis to pick up his sister's baggage. Not too long ago, it was their grandfather who would—as a manner of boasting how he had aged with grace—offer to help unload.
Grandma led the two ladies to the living room.
Rachel observed the place. She hardly saw any changes at all. The living room still as it was, decorated with various pictures of times long past. Among them old ones featuring her father—a blond haired, blue-eyed man the image of her younger brother and grandparents.
Her grandparents made a rather beautiful (if not odd) couple when they were younger, as seen in their old family pictures. Grandma was an elegant woman, refined in manner and bearing befitting a member of a grand convocation of formally-dressed gentry. Grandfather was scruffy and handsome, as expected from a man who once was at the front of a band.
As a testament to this difference, a cello and a guitar delicately cared for by their respective owners stand side by side on one corner. Right next to it was a framed piece—her father's first composition, which her grandparents look on with so much pride. She couldn't understand why, but they swore that they heard this piece shortly before they married.
Interestingly there were no baby pictures of her father anywhere. His graduation pictures, his wedding, and photographs of his children were all there. But any photo of him with his parents at an age younger than 12 did not exist. For her the explanation was simple; she always assumed that her father was adopted.
Hope and Rachel sat down in a sofa next to an upright piano. Across the room was their grandfather, Louis' namesake.
"I hope it isn't too much trouble, Lyla."
"It's nothing we can't handle, dear. If anything, we should have them visit more often."
"A weekend is a visit, Lyla. She'll be staying for 6 months."
"I'm telling you, it's nothing your father-in-law or I can't handle."
Louis enters, his overcoat wet with precipitation, dragging his sister's suitcases down the hall. He wasn't exactly very big, and carrying women's luggage was the equivalent of carrying ten tons of lead.
Grandpa Louis watched, somewhat amused by the events. He has been wheelchair-bound since the stroke, and could barely get around. He held a little writing slate on his hand; he lost his ability to speak, but could write just as good—if not better—than before the stroke.
"Very funny, gramps." Said Louis, reacting at what Louis the elder had written.
Good old grandpa. He never fails to bring a smile on a face, Rachel thought. It's as if the old days have returned. Back before she became a teenager and her parents got busier and busier.
Reality's poisonous bite, however, caused a pain that was hard to remedy. It could never be like the old days, back when she was six and her grandparents weren't limp with arthritis. Back when her grandmother could still play the cello, and her grandfather could sing to it.
This wouldn't have been so bad, if it weren't for a little romance that ended in an accident.
"It's nice to hear that you decided to keep your baby, Rachel." Lyla said as she tried to cook dinner. Arthritis had taken its toll, and only medicine kept it from being too unbearable. Rachel had chosen to help around the house for as long as she can; with a baby on the way, she wasn't the type to want to be a burden.
"We never expected this to happen to you dear." Her grandmother added. "Although personally I think your father's reaction is uncalled for. Of all people Evan should know better."
"It's just so hard to be optimistic when everything's closing in on you." Rachel replied.
"Your father may not understand dear, but I do. Believe me."
"Please, grandma, are you going to tell me another feel-good yarn?" she said, in a bitter tone. "It's not like this is one of those stories you told me when I was a kid! This is real life; there are no happy endings in this story."
Grandma seemed visibly hurt, and not by the way her knuckles hurt as she chopped the leeks.
"Grandma, I'm sorry if I said anything." Rachel said apologetically, as she poured the soup base into the saucer.
"You're your father's daughter, all right." Lyla responded.
Rachel stood silent.
"I didn't talk to him after our argument, grandma. This is why I came here."
She sobbed; she couldn't speak anymore. Grandma approached her, giving her a shoulder to cry on.
From the adjacent room, Louis listened on. Knowing of the pregnancy made him partly depressed, partly angry, and partly sympathetic. This all seemed eerily familiar to him.
He had a lot to say, but couldn't say it. While he was glad he couldn't yell, he laments how he couldn't comfort his granddaughter with his voice. It wasn't so much the advice that Rachel desired (to be frank, he wasn't really good at coming up with words of wisdom at all, but they seemed to work anyway), but the tone of Grandfather's voice. That was something that could never be replicated in a touchpad and stylus.