A/N: Hello, lovely readers! I figured chapter 10 was a good place to pop in and say thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favorited this story. It makes me so happy to hear from you all. I've been working on this story for quite a while and I'm so excited to finally be sharing it. I hope you're all enjoying it so far. Please do leave a review—it really makes my day!
The thick clouds filling the sky promised snow as Meg and Christine loaded up Meg's car, ready to sit in traffic as they joined the rest of the university in going home for the holiday.
"Okay, fine, you may have been right," Meg sighed when they were met with a line of brake lights as soon as they pulled onto the main road. "We should have left last night."
"I don't understand how this is just now occurring to you," Christine laughed. "This is the third time we've done this. Did you really think traffic would be better this year?"
"Well, they say you tend to forget traumatic events, right? That's clearly what happened here," Meg said. "Besides, I have never claimed to be good at making decisions."
"You claim that all the time. In fact, when I asked why we were leaving this morning instead of last night, I believe your exact words were, 'Trust me, Christine, I am the master of good decisions.'"
"So I might have said something like that. But the fact that you listened to me should prove that you're just as bad as I am."
Christine chuckled and shook her head, settling back into her seat and contenting herself with watching the familiar town crawl by until it dissipated into grassy fields and interstate. The Girys' house had never exactly felt like home, but it felt good to be returning just the same. She supposed it probably should feel like home—even though she had only lived there for less than a year by the time she and Meg moved away for college, they always returned for summers and holidays, making it the house that she had inhabited the longest even with the fact that she only lived there for part of the year. Meg and her mother had done everything they could to make her feel welcome, to make her feel like she was home, especially right after her father had died. It was certainly the place that Christine considered her home. She had just never felt entirely settled there.
Still, the prospect of the week ahead of them was a cheerful one. A week without class or work would help her get caught up on everything, including sleep. A week without lessons was the one part of the break she regretted, but she'd be back in the practice room with Erik soon enough.
She hoped he wasn't completely alone this week. It seemed fairly unlikely that he had anyone, though she supposed he could have friends that she didn't know about. She didn't know him that well. But still. The idea of being completely alone on a holiday felt bleak.
Meg seemed to read her thoughts. "So Erik said he already had plans for Thanksgiving?"
"I don't know if he has plans or not. He just said that he didn't think it would be possible for him to join us."
Meg wrinkled her nose. "Cryptic guy."
Christine laughed. "I know. And I'm sure he could be even more so if he wanted to."
"And Raoul isn't planning on coming by at all?"
"No, it sounds like they're having a big family thing," Christine said. "So it's just the three of us."
Meg smiled. "I like it when it's just the three of us."
"It is nice," Christine agreed.
"I talked to Mom yesterday, and she says she has a list of things for each of us to make this year. She claims she's just trying to teach us how to cook, but I'm pretty sure she's actually trying to send us back to school with as much food as possible."
"I wouldn't complain about that," Christine laughed. "There are only so many ways you can make mac and cheese. I wouldn't mind a bit more variety."
"Don't tell Mom that. We'll just spend the entire week cooking. We won't be able to fit all the leftovers into the car."
"What a terrible problem that would be," Christine smirked.
"Truly awful," Meg agreed.
The drive home was long with everyone heading out of town, but it wasn't unpleasant. Meg turned up the radio, dancing to the upbeat pop songs as much as the confined space would allow her whenever traffic slowed to a stop, even when this started drawing looks from the passengers in the cars around them. Christine laughed as she watched her best friend, joining in only for her favorite songs and quietly humming along the rest of the time, insisting that she was trying to focus on some reading for class but really only rereading the same paragraph without absorbing any of it.
The atmosphere in the car sobered slightly when they entered town, though Christine wished it hadn't. She was fine, she told herself. She had spent enough time here that not everything reminded her of her father anymore.
She didn't miss Meg's glance when they passed the hospital where he had died.
"You okay?" Meg said eventually after Christine had been quiet for a while.
"Yeah. Yes," she repeated a little more surely. "I'm fine. It's just… a little jarring, I guess, coming back and seeing all these places. It always is. But it shouldn't be, right? Not at this point. I've spent so much time here. We come back here all the time. And once I'm here it's not so bad. It's just coming back that's kind of… weird."
"It makes sense that it would be jarring," Meg said gently. "It feels like you've been away and have been moving on with your life, and then all of a sudden you're surrounded by all these memories again."
"That's exactly it. Like there's normally some distance between my life now and… and that time. But when I come back here and see all these places where we spent his last months, it all seems so fresh again. I wonder if that will ever go away."
"I don't know if something like that could go away completely," Meg sighed. "But I'm sure it will keep getting better over time. It has been getting better, hasn't it?"
Christine smiled a little, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "It has. You're right."
Mrs. Giry was waiting for them to arrive, and she hurried out to greet them when they pulled up in front of the house, her normally stern face breaking into a warm smile. The older woman carried herself with a well-practiced grace and poise, her posture always perfect, her elegant face hardly showing any signs of her age, and her dark hair always in a neat bun. She was astute and demanding, keeping both Meg and the young girls she instructed focused and in line. Christine remembered finding her intimidating when they had first met, and while Mrs. Giry could certainly be intimidating, she had a kind heart and was fiercely caring toward Meg and Christine. She had taken Christine in without hesitation and had treated her like a daughter ever since.
When Christine and Meg had first become friends, they had joked that maybe Christine's dad and Meg's mom would fall in love and they would be sisters. And while this romance had never developed, they had become a family of sorts for a short time. Everyone got along, and with Meg and Christine rapidly becoming so close, they had ended up spending quite a bit of time together. During the summer, just before everything had fallen apart, there had been many long nights of movies and ice cream and music. It had been the first time that Christine had felt that there was someone permanent in her life other than her father. Even then, she knew that Meg and Mrs. Giry would always be around. Then once her father had been diagnosed, Mrs. Giry had taken it upon herself to oversee everything—she made meals and kept track of doctor appointments and made sure that Christine hadn't stopped doing her homework. Christine didn't think she could have made it through her father's death if Mrs. Giry hadn't been there to take care of her.
"It's good to have you both home again," Mrs. Giry greeted, wrapping them each in a hug. "How was your drive? I don't understand why you would wait to leave until this morning— wasn't everyone leaving this morning?"
"Don't look at me," Christine said. "I thought the same thing."
"But I wasn't ready to go last night," Meg defended. "Besides, traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town."
"Maybe next year we'll finally have the timing down," Christine laughed.
"Well I'm glad you made it," Mrs. Giry said.
Christine followed Mrs. Giry and Meg up the walk to the house, duffle bag slung over one shoulder and a sense of ease settling over her at the familiar environment. She remembered expecting, when she had first moved in, that the welcoming, comforting nature of the house would have just the opposite effect; the house, though modest, stood in stark contrast to the string of dingy, bare apartments that she had inhabited with her father, and she had feared that it would serve only as another reminder of what she had lost.
And, true, it took a while for her to start to feel settled there. The walls of her bedroom—previously a sparsely decorated guest room that had been hastily converted for her—remained mostly bare. Almost everything that displayed her personality or held any sentimental value had gone with her to college: photos, the colorful quilt that her mother had made, most of her books, the beat-up guitar that she and her father had bought on a whim from a garage sale. She had left a few little things behind for when she came back for vacations, as if to remind herself that this place was more of a home than any other place she'd ever lived. But ultimately she found that the precaution was largely unneeded. Living here with Meg and Mrs. Giry felt natural, even when the majority of her possessions were back at the apartment. It might not exactly feel like home, but it certainly felt close to it.
Christine slept deeply that night, waking languidly to the sound of Mrs. Giry bustling about the house. Her limbs were heavy but her mind was clear after a significantly more restful night than she'd had for most of the semester. She even let herself doze off again for a while longer, having nowhere to be that morning and confident that, though she had plenty of schoolwork to do over the break, there was enough time to justify the rare indulgence of sleeping in. She woke again to the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway—probably Mrs. Giry leaving to run errands—and made herself sit up and stretch, forcing the last remnants of sleepiness to clear.
As she shuffled her way downstairs to pour herself a bowl of cereal, it occurred to her that Meg and Mrs. Giry would hear her practice while she was here. The thought made nerves pool in her stomach even though she knew there was no reason that she should feel like this. They had heard her sing plenty of times before, and she'd sung a little bit around Meg since she'd started her lessons. But there was such a difference in her voice now. She was sure they'd both be surprised by how much she'd improved. It wasn't as if her lessons or her advancement had been kept secret, but up until now she and Erik had been the only witnesses to the full extent of her progress. The idea of sharing that with someone other than Erik felt a little strange, as if those hours in the practice room had existed in their own universe, detached somehow from reality. The thought of sharing the effects of those lessons outside that private little world made her oddly self-conscious. But, she supposed, if the goal was that she would someday sing for an audience, this was a good first step.
She practiced in her room that afternoon, carefully working through each of her scales and exercises before turning to the songs that Erik had given her. She was pleased to find that her practice went smoothly, though, of course, it didn't compare to her lessons, and she was sure to make notes of what she wanted to ask Erik about. It felt like it had been ages since she had seriously practiced without his guidance. There had been a few times during the semester when she had slipped into the practice rooms over a weekend to go over some choir music or something relatively inconsequential that didn't seem worth taking to Erik, but for the most part their morning lessons had provided more than enough practice. She found that she didn't stumble and stutter through pieces with the same uncertainty that she had before their lessons; she made her way through difficult passages with more patience and confidence than she had anticipated, as if adopting Erik's attitude in his absence. Practicing alone like this now just made it even more obvious how much she had to thank him for.
When she had finished practicing she headed back downstairs to where Meg and Mrs. Giry sat in the kitchen. Her nerves from earlier had vanished, and she found that she was actually eager to see their reactions. She found them at the kitchen table with a plastic binder full of recipes open between them as they planned who would make what that week. They both looked up when they heard Christine coming down the stairs. Meg applauded, making Christine laugh embarrassedly, while Mrs. Giry smiled approvingly.
"You sound wonderful, Christine," she said. "You've made a lot of progress this semester. I'm glad this new teacher seems to be working out."
"If only Erik knew what a high honor it is to have impressed Mom," Meg grinned. "But really, Christine, you sound amazing. I mean, you've always been amazing, but now…"
"Thanks," Christine said, blushing a little at their praise. "It's good to know that you can hear such a big difference. It feels like a huge difference to me, but sometimes the change isn't as obvious to other people as it feels with things like this. It's nice to know that all this work is paying off."
"It really is," Meg told her.
"You should be proud of how hard you've worked and how far you've come," Mrs. Giry said, adding gently but assuredly, "Your father would have been very proud of you. I know we are."
Christine blinked back the tears that had suddenly sprung to her eyes. "Thank you," she said, the words seeming to fall short after such a meaningful sentiment.
Mrs. Giry understood, though, and only nodded and smiled with her characteristic reserve.
Christine spent the rest of the day in a kind of dream, not exactly detached but more feeling like she was in two places at once. Her father's memory was never far from her mind, especially when music was involved, and it seemed even more present here, where he had actually been—where he'd spent the last months of his life. He was the one who had driven her to this house for the first time, insistent that, despite her age, he should meet the mother of this new friend she kept talking about. He and Mrs. Giry had sat there in the living room talking while Meg and Christine giggled in Meg's room, both a little embarrassed by their parent but too close to them to really resent their involvement. The four of them had even sat around that kitchen table eating dinner together. A few blocks away was where they would go every Wednesday evening that summer, waiting in a line long enough to snake out of the little ice cream parlor for buy-one-get-one-free night. Just beyond that was the little apartment that she and her father had shared. Everything that had happened during the final months she'd had with her dad, good and bad, all of it was here.
And it wasn't that being away at school allowed her to escape those memories, or that she even wanted to escape them. It was just an odd feeling—the feeling that two separate parts of her life were coming together. Not odd in a bad way. Just odd.
There was a story that her father used to tell her that she hadn't thought about it in a long time. He'd told her innumerable stories over the years, weaving together events from his childhood and her mother's, fairytales, local folklore, anything he could think of to satisfy Christine's insatiable appetite for his stories. Many of them had blurred together and had become hazy in her mind in the years since; her favorites remained mostly vivid, but she had pushed them to the back of her mind after his death when it seemed that everything in the world was determined to remind her of the loss. She wasn't quite sure what it was that made her think of the story now.
The story had been about an angel of music who would visit those who were lucky enough and talented enough. Anyone who heard someone visited by the angel would always know by the touch of divinity in their music. Christine would always ask her father if he had been visited by the angel, and he would smile a little sadly and say that he hadn't yet, but that he was sure she would be someday. And then she would promise to be very good and try very hard so the angel would come.
She wasn't sure what had made the story come to mind, but, as silly as it felt, she couldn't help but think of Erik.