The Piano

Abby and I have parted ways. She's home, I work, two worlds. It's strange. For as long as we've known each other we've worked together except when I went to Bosnia briefly. We haven't talked too much about what she wants to do after the baby. I told her she can do whatever she wants, work or not. We'll do fine with what I earn. We don't need her income, lucky that way. She didn't seem sure. I sort of think, once she has the baby she'll want to spend the time at home. Maybe if she doesn't want to I will. But I don't think our bank account would appreciate that, or more like the mortgage company. We could juggle shifts, but I'd miss her if we did that. By the way, it did turn out to be just a contraction, no labor, no baby, not yet. And, we never did make it out to get that tree.

It's funny, life is like a book, you read a chapter, and for awhile that's all there is, but it ends, and then you have to start a new one. I feel like that's what we're doing now. We're in this gap between life as we've known it and life as we will know it, life as parents. These last days or weeks or however much time we have. It's all an unknown, inevitable, but mysterious. Mother, father, that will be us, terrifying and wonderful all at the same time. Speaking of terrifying and wonderful, my father's been calling a lot lately. I think he's a little worried about me still maybe, and then there's his grandchild and Abby to consider. I think Abby spends as much time as I do with him on the phone now. They seem to understand each other. Maybe she understands him more than I do, or maybe it's easier to appreciate someone else's parent. Case in point, tonight's phone call . . . .

"Luka. How are you, how's Abby?"

"Fine, we're both fine."

"Little Ivica getting big?"

"The baby is growing just fine."

"So, I have a Christmas present I want to send you."

"That's nice Tata, you were actually planning to get it in the mail before Christmas this year?"

"The holidays are a busy time, don't be ungrateful. This is special, I'll need you to pay for the shipping."

"Why? Is it big?"

"Big enough, your Mama's piano. No room in my new place."

"What? You've got to be kidding you don't ship a piano from Croatia to Chicago, I could buy one here for less. Give it to Damir"

"He won't have it."

"What do you mean he won't have it? I won't have it."

"I mean, you know your brother and he won't have it and that's that."

"And what I'm a push over?"

"You have a soft heart, your brother on the other hand. . .. "

"Tatijana?"

"She defers to Damir you know that, I get no help from her." He goes on about how Damir tries to tell him what to do, interferes in his life. This goes on for awhile till he comes round to the piano again.

"Tata, I don't want it, I can't play. It will just gather dust."

"Abby?"

"I don't think so".

"The baby will play."

"I don't want to saddle the baby with that expectation."

"Oh, so you had terrible parents who saddled you with expectations."

"That's not what I said."

"That's what you meant."

"No. . .. . Tata?" He's upset.

"It was your mother's Luka, she loved it. If you won't take it I'll have to sell it to someone she didn't love. . . .your Mama's piano."

"It's absurd for me to take it, you understand that don't you? Of course you do." He says nothing. "I'll think about it, but I'm not promising you anything." I say good-bye, he grunts, and that's it we hang up. Damn him. I'm angry that he's asking this of me. It seems so unreasonable in so many ways.

I tell Abby what he said, that I don't want it and that he's upset. She says we should take the piano. It means too much to Ivica to let him down. Great, two against one. She's been spending too much time on the phone with the old man. I go up to bed to think. I don't want to talk; I'm a tangle of emotions. I have to sort them before I can even think of talking.

My mother's piano. She played so beautifully, tried to teach Damir and I. We were terrible. Oh, I became relatively proficient with the notes, simple songs, but I couldn't really play with heart, couldn't bring it to life. The last time I played I was 13. My mother sat listening, gently correcting when I made a mistake and trying to encourage me.

"That was very good Luka, you're improving."

"No, I'm no good, it doesn't sound like when you play."

"You just need to put your heart into it, like when you paint. You're not trying."

"I am trying. You're not a good teacher." She looks so hurt. "I'm sorry Mama. You are good, I just can't do it."

"You're doing fine."

"No, I don't want to play anymore, I can't make it sound right. I'm not good enough."

"You play fine, but if you'd rather not . . . .I won't make you."

"No more."

"Alright Luka, no more."

It was the first time I ever let down a woman that I loved. Unfortunately it wasn't the last. I can't stand the thought of looking at the thing every day, the symbol of my failure. I didn't have the heart to put into my playing. My mother called me on it. Just like . .. .

"You're married to a ghost." She called me on it too, my heart wasn't there, not really, not all the way. For some women, playing the right notes just isn't enough.

And then she's lying next to me, telling me she wants the damn thing for her birthday. I tell her how my playing disappointed my mother, and that I don't want it. She thinks it will break Tata's heart to sell it and maybe mine. "Do it for me." She says. So, I can either have a painful reminder of how I let down someone I loved in my house to look at everyday, or I can disappoint two people that I love. Nice. She tells me she's going to rent a movie for me to watch, "Pretty Woman." What this has to do with a piano, I don't know. She won't tell me, but that ends the conversation, and she falls asleep.

I toss and turn for awhile. "Do it for me." How can I not? How can I say no to Tata and to Abby? Impossible.

A light flicks on in my mind. My addiction, my guilt, it didn't start when Dani and the kids died. It started long before that. I'm sure before Abby ever took her first sip of alcohol. My mother called me her golden boy. I was the favored son. And I knew it. And Damir knew it. It wasn't an easy place to be. I wanted to be who she wanted me to be, but I couldn't, not all the time. That's not easy to know. A kid's supposed to mess up, right? Well, it was complicated, and then she got sick and it got more complicated. Let's just say the monkey landed on my back pretty early in life. So how do I do it? How do I look at that piano in my house? How does Abby do it? How does she pass the bars and the liquor stores, kiss me when I've had the occasional drink? I watch her sleep, Damn she's strong, stronger than me I think. Kicked the booze, kicked the smoking, kicked the enabling, kicked the fear . .me I can't even kick the guilt. Bad attitude Kovac, try again.

I need to think about this a different way. I look over at Abby, curled around her pillows, hair splayed. Maybe self-awareness is contagious, because suddenly it hits me. What if, instead of seeing the piano as a sign of failure, an icon of guilt, I see it as a reminder, that in life as in music, playing the right notes doesn't mean much if there's no heart, no soul. Actions, choices these should come from love, not from guilt or fear. That's the thing isn't it? No guilt, no fear - maybe I need a t-shirt., huh? Or maybe the piano could remind me. Eventually my mind gives up and I fall asleep.

She rents the movie. I don't know if you've seen it, except for some very long legs, it's pretty crappy, but there's this scene with a piano. Julia Roberts sits on the piano in front of Richard Gere, and well he takes her on the piano. I get the sales pitch. It's slightly appalling, the idea of having Abby on my mother's piano, but very sexy. She really is hitting below the belt. Get it? Below the belt. But I take the bait, and tell her I'll have Tata send it. If she really wants it, far be it from me to say no. A man should please his wife when he can. Sometimes in life you have to make the hard choice, be big about things. I was already kind of thinking we should do it. Get the piano I mean, for historical familial reasons of course. Maybe the baby will be musically inclined. You're not buying any of this are you?

I come home from work to hear Abby say into the phone, "Go boil your head, old man."

I sneak up, and kiss her on the neck, whispering in her ear, "Ivica?"

"Who else?" she mouths

"Give him to me." She hands the phone over. "So Abby told you we'll take the piano?"

"It's right that the piano ends up with her. Abby's a lot like your mother."

"Like Mama? How?"

"Both smart and sexy enough to have their husbands by their balls, but too kind to abuse the power. . . . too much."

"That's not exactly . . . .. You?"

"Yes, and if you're smart your children will be grown before they understand this about you too."

"It's a partnership, Tata"

"Yeah? You tell me how she convinced you."

"She made a lot of good points, appealed to my sense of family. Abby can be . . . . persuasive."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"Tata . . ."

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

I try to protest, but he's laughing so hard he couldn't hear me anyway. I roll my eyes, and Abby looks at me. "What?" she asks. I hold out the phone so she can hear his cackle.

"You've entered an unholy alliance." I shake my head at her.

Finally, he has to take a breath, I don't think I can listen to him gloat about this tonight. "I have to go, it's getting late. Call me with the shipping cost and I'll wire you the funds. Okay?"

"Okay. Hey Luka, go make love to your wife for me."

"There is something very wrong about you saying that to me."

I hang up and turn to Abby. "He's very pleased with himself . . . and with you." This pleases her, I can tell, although she shrugs it off. Damn, she is pretty, and soft, and well those breasts. . . . .maybe. I lean in, press my forehead to hers. "There's something else my father asked me to give to you."

"Not another instrument."

"Not exactly."

I run my hands down her. She pulls back and looks at me. "He didn't"

"It's Ivica, of course he did."

She looks slightly scandalized. "There's something really wrong about him saying that to you."

Now it's my turn to laugh. And you know what they say, he who laughs last . . . . .has a crazy man for a father.