Thanks so much, everyone, for sticking with me on this fic. I own nothing. I owe Charmed Mummy big time. Thanks for all your reviews and for the pleasure of reading all your work as well.
Epilogue
Chapter 33
July 2007
Daniel's cousin Marty, also a sober alcoholic, had opened The Java Junkie in Tarzana in early 2005. It was cozy and comfortable, furnished with groups of couches and easy chairs, looking as if several living rooms had come together for a party. A bookshelf held board games and paperbacks and tables and chairs were set next to Internet portals. The menu offered snacks and baked goods, as well as assorted coffee, tea, juices and water – flavored, sparkling and plain – but no liquor. There was also a stage, and Daniel had been running a weekly music open mic almost from day the place opened.
Lydia had spent countless Sunday nights there – in the beginning, clutching a cup of coffee as if the act of holding the mug would keep her sober. Later, she'd come for the music and the company and over the last several months had started playing tunes of her own.
Now she was standing on the small stage with Daniel and Don, checking wires and microphones, trying to calm the churning in her stomach. Friends were coming in and calling hello as she tried to adjust the speakers, and when she saw Larry and Megan wave in her direction, she had to fight back a small panic attack. She liked Megan well enough and she'd known Larry for years, but still …
"This may have been a really bad idea," Lydia murmured.
"This was an excellent idea," Daniel corrected her gently. "Even if the CDs don't show up, it'll be fine."
Lydia groaned. She'd finished her disc on time and they'd set the date for the party and performance, but then the courier service the recording studio used went on strike. The copies had been sitting in San Francisco for days; that morning, even though it was the weekend, they'd arranged to get in and Lydia's roommates had gone after them.
Don held up a wire. "Does this go here?"
"No, no, blue to blue, red to red," Lydia said hastily. She leaned over him to make the correction and he saw how her hands were shaking.
"You can't be nervous," Don objected with some amazement. "The high school auditorium was way bigger than this is and I can't even remember how many times that place was packed when you played."
"I've never played without some booze in me," she said quietly.
"Come on -- you started playing to audiences when you were what? Fourteen?"
"Yeah. Well."
"Here." Don handed Lydia a small package wrapped in plain paper. "Maybe this will make you feel better."
She furrowed her brow at him. "You're the one with the birthday next week," she said as she tore the paper off. Her breath caught. It was a small frame with two pictures – one of the Eppes siblings from Don and Charlie's graduation and a copy of the formal portrait they'd had taken right before Margaret died.
"Last fall, when you told your story, you said these were some of the most precious things you had, and you had no idea where they'd gone," Don said quietly. "I know some things are lost forever, but these were easy enough to replace."
She hugged him. "You always get me, Donny."
He laughed into her hair. "Yeah. Ditto."
Lydia looked up. "Hey. There's Charlie and Amita and Dad and Millie."
"And Cindy and Sharon, with a large box," Don added. "There they are, hot off the presses."
As if she'd heard him, Sharon set down the box and waved. "Some nice guy you are, standing there letting us haul this stuff in," she called over amiably.
"Hey, women's lib and all that, you know." Don had come to know most of Lydia's friends; on his free Saturday nights, he'd fallen into the habit of stopping by Bickford's to see if any of them were there. He'd invited Liz a couple of times, but she always turned him down, saying she'd be seeing plenty of Lydia and Daniel once the Eppes siblings closed on their duplex. Don wasn't sure if she saw that as a good thing or not.
He glanced at the table Alan had secured. Both his father and brother had brought their women. Liz had begged off.
Lydia tore the box of CDs open and Sharon reached in and handed one to Don. The cover showed a faded photo of the Los Angeles skyline. The title was superimposed over it: Federal Numbers Building Justice.
Don grinned. "That's awesome."
Charlie came up behind his brother. "Lemme see," he said, sounding for all the world like the pest he'd been twenty years before. Don and Lydia watched him puzzle over the cover and finally Don took pity on him.
"Charlie. Look – it's us. Federal Numbers Building Justice. Me, you, Dad and Mom."
Charlie colored. "Where are you?" he asked his sister.
"I sang the damn thing."
He laughed and turned the disc over, scanning the songs on the back. "I'd like to have one -- how much are they?"
"Oh my God, you're not serious," Lydia said incredulously. "You're my brother. It's free to you. Good Lord."
Mildred Finch paused beside them. "I'm going after tea; can I get you anything?"
They all declined. Millie leaned forward and squeezed Lydia's hand. "You're going to be wonderful," she said confidently. "And I know your father is so happy to watch you sing again."
"I like Millie," Lydia said as the older woman made her way across the room.
"You can afford to be magnanimous about it," Charlie said woefully. "She's not your boss." He fiddled distractedly with the plastic wrapper on the CD. "And she's nothing like Mom."
Don stared in surprise, but Lydia said immediately, "Well, no, thank God. That would be kind of weird, don't you think?"
Before Charlie could reply, she turned to Daniel. "They look good, huh?"
"They look great. And they'll sound even better." He gave her a gentle tug. "Why don't you find a seat – we're going to start soon."
"Are you playing too?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah. We're going to do a couple of songs and then turn it over to Lydia." Daniel put his arm around her. "I'm trying to talk her into doing her Joan Jett impersonation."
"No," Lydia protested. "I told you, I'll sing with you, but not that."
"Rock and roll, baby."
"No, Daniel." She pointed to where Alan was sitting, waiting for Millie. Alan misinterpreted her gesture and waved. She waved back. "My father is here; I'm not singing a song about where you want to touch me. The closest thing to risqué I want is a Barenaked Ladies song."
"Or Kid Rock," Daniel said thoughtfully. "Can you cover Sheryl Crow without giving your father a heart attack?"
Don watched them playfully bicker and he suddenly knew, as surely as he knew his parents had been soul mates, that he would someday stand in a tux and watch his sister marry this man. He also knew that if he wanted that same thing for himself, he was not going to find it with Liz.
Don actually had no idea how right he was. Three days before, Daniel had taken Alan to lunch and asked his permission to marry Lydia. Alan had responded by offering Margaret's engagement ring.
"Donny?" Lydia poked him. "Come on, let's sit and let them get started."
Daniel's band was called "Bingo" and they performed only cover songs. "We're a cover-all, Bingo, get it?" he asked cheerily, amidst groans of protest. They did three songs and then he did indeed pull Lydia on stage for a Barenaked Ladies tune. Two minutes later, the whole room – FBI agents and mathematicians included – was amiably singing along to "If I Had 1,000,000 Dollars."
Then it was Lydia's turn. She kissed Daniel and sat down at the piano. Without a word, she launched into Billy Joel's "Angry Young Man," playing so quickly her fingers blurred on the keys. She was a little rushed in the beginning, as if she wanted to get it over with, but by the time the song ended, her body had relaxed and she was beginning to enjoy herself.
She played for an hour – "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," of course, a raucous version of Carole King's "I Feel The Earth Move," some Joshua Kadison and Leonard Cohen and a beautiful rendition of "In My Life" which made Alan dab at his eyes. There were a few original tunes as well and by the end of the set, she was playing with the confidence the liquor had stolen from her all those years ago.
"I want to thank you guys for coming out tonight," Lydia said as the applause died down. "If you liked what you heard and you'd like a CD, you can see Daniel --" Daniel waved from across the room "— and he'll set you up. They're ten bucks unless you have the same last name as me." She grinned at Charlie, who smiled back proudly.
"I'm going to end with a song I wrote for my family, my dad and my brothers, who really love me even when I think it might be in their best interest to walk away. It's called 'My Mother's Eyes.'"
When the first bars played, Charlie, Don and Alan recognized it immediately: it was the beginning of Margaret's "Etude in G Minor." But then it segued into something else, something more modern and melodic, not Margaret's music but yet still of Margaret's music.
Daughter music.
Don opened the CD case to look at the liner notes. Music by Margaret Mann and Lydia Eppes. Lyrics by Lydia Eppes and Daniel Michaels.
I don't remember when she wasn't there
With her laughing smile and her pinned-up hair
Cookies in the oven and dirt on her knees
The way her face lit up when she was pleased with us
We all lived in a house on a hill
A boy and a girl and other boy still
We didn't know how precious time goes by
So many tales to tell
So many songs to sing
Balls and dolls and integers in pi
All of us the same in my mother's eyes.
I was too young when she moved away
Too angry to call her every day
So resentful to be left alone
I didn't know I was still home in her heart
It seems I didn't let her in
Instead I turned to whiskey and gin
And figured I could stop that by and by
When my life crashed in on me
I turned the only place I could
She listened and she never asked me why
My own tears stood in my mother's eyes.
Her sickness came with blood and pain
The days were filled with dark and rain
She was strong and she was brave
I'd have traded my life to truly save her then
It was hard not to let desperation show
In the end we had to let her go
And we had no more tears left to cry
But I did what she asked of me
When we laid her to rest
I sang until the notes shook up the sky
Still protected under my mother's eyes.
She was looking out for me
When I put down the drink
She's still looking out for me
That's what I choose to think
I'm on my way back from insane
I can feel the hope, I can feel the pain
If my head is clear, I can deal with the rest
And I can't believe this life I lead is blessed
You really can go home again
My relatives are also friends
And my mother gave us wings so we could fly
I know she's with us still, somewhere deep inside
In the way my father looks at me
I feel her in my piano keys
Both my brothers have our mother's eyes.
There was a moment of perfect silence and then Charlie and Don both stood up, as if the move was choreographed, applauding. Don put his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply as the rest of the room joined in the thunderous standing ovation. Lydia stepped away from the piano and gave a little embarrassed bow, saying, "Thanks – no, God, sit down, thank you."
Alan ducked his head and said to his sons in a low, husky voice, "I can feel your mother in this room."
Don nodded. Charlie, however, glanced past Alan to Millie to see if she had heard. To his utter surprise, she was smiling fondly at Alan, one hand resting lovingly on his back. "Your Margaret was certainly quite a woman," she said, with no animosity at all, and Charlie suddenly realized that if he let himself, he might like Millie Finch quite a bit.
Daniel abandoned his post by the CDs to scoop Lydia off her feet. "You are a diva!" he declared.
"No, I'm not, I just --"
He took her firmly by the shoulders. "Do you remember what Donna says?" he interrupted.
She giggled. Donna was a woman they knew from AA, who had been sober for more than ten years. "Yeah. Sometimes you should just shut up and say thank you."
"I love you, Lydia, but shut up."
Lydia kissed him as deeply as she dared in the middle of a public place. "I love you, too. Thank you."
There were no more words as she was surrounded by her family and friends, everyone wanting to hug and congratulate her.
"The Billy Joel tune was outstanding – but who's the angry young man?" Don wanted to know, pretending he was kidding. "Me or Charlie?"
Lydia began to laugh. "I dunno. I always thought it was me." She looked fondly at her loved ones. "Do you guys want to stay a while? Marty'll put on some music and maybe later we'll jam a little."
"You're not embarrassed to hang out with your old man?" Alan teased.
"No, I like my old man," Lydia answered, giving him a fierce squeeze.
"Water all around?" Don asked, and when he got nods in return, he made his way over the counter, stopping to share a smile and a word with Sharon.
Lydia turned to Charlie. "So you liked it?"
"Liked it?" Charlie echoed. "It was wonderful – it was almost a dichotomy of music and poetry."
"Music is poetry."
"No, that's not what I meant. You not only play the notes, you somehow play emotions – you take the pattern and while you're true to its form, you adapt as you go …" His voice trailed off and he shook his head, frustrated that he couldn't make his point more succinctly. "You know what it is?"
"What?" his amused sister asked.
He put an arm around her. "You still have perfect pitch."
The end
For anyone interested, a couple of liner notes
Here are the songs on Lydia's album:
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Anomoly
Crossing back to California
In My Life
A Long December
My Mother's Eyes
Amazing Grace
And for what it's worth, here are some albums that I love and so, Lydia loved them, too.
"Honky Chateau" by Elton John
"Painted Desert Serenade" by Joshua Kadison
"Recovering the Satellites" by Counting Crows
"Turnstiles" by Billy Joel
"Tapestry" by Carole King
"On the Border" by the Eagles
"Toys in the Attic" by Areosmith
"Centerfield" by John Fogarty
"Moving Pictures" by Rush
The soundtrack from "Shrek" and – go ahead and laugh – the soundtrack from "Chicken Little." Five for Fighting does a cover of "All I Know" that's outstanding.
Thanks so much for reading.
P&P :-)