The past didn’t just come back to me when my daughter’s music instructor looked up across the auditorium and we locked eyes. In front of a room full of parents and courteous applause, it struck me like a wave I hadn’t anticipated, heavy and chilly, taking my breath away.
Even at 35, I can still relate to the feeling of being caught off guard by a memory you believed you had thoroughly buried. Not all chapters fade. They bide their time. They act as a splinter beneath your skin until they abruptly catch, causing you to bleed once more.
A year and a half ago, my husband, Callum, passed away. He was giggling at something dumb on TV one minute, and then I was on the floor with him, putting my hands to his face and pleading with him to take a breath. It was abrupt, cruel, and unjust in a way that gives the impression that the universe is rigged. I discovered what quiet sounded like after the burial. Without his humming, it sounded much like our kitchen. He never touched the instrument again, but it sounded like it. It was like my kid shutting the door to her bedroom and leaving it there.
At that time, Wren was ten. She had no fear before Callum died. Callum used to smile and wonder, “Does she even breathe between sentences?” She was the type of child who talked so much, made friends in five minutes, raced across playgrounds like she owned the area, and asked a thousand questions. She folded in on herself when he was gone. No more birthdays, no more sleepovers, no more unplanned giggles. Only her room, home, and school. She would shake her head and mumble, “I’m fine, Mom,” as if she had learned the line by heart and didn’t know any other, when I asked if she wanted to talk about her dad.
She wasn’t doing well.
Music was the only thing that could still reach her. Almost every night after supper, Callum had entertained her with a guitar performance. The way he woven serenity into our house was his routine. That guitar, lying against the wall as though it were waiting for his hands to return, remained in the living room after his death like a relic. Wren stayed away from it. She would ignore it as if it were dangerous.
Then, around six months prior to the school concert, I heard chords coming from upstairs one afternoon. Not a kid hammering strings, not a random noise, but real music. Fearing that the moment would be lost if I unlocked her bedroom door, I paused outside it, my fingers lingering close to the knob.
“Wren?” I knocked.
“Come in,” she uttered too hastily.
She had Callum’s guitar in her lap while she sat on the edge of the bed. When she noticed my face, her shoulders tensed.
“School is the reason,” she said. “My music instructor. Heath, Mr. I wanted Dad’s one, but he said I could use his.
“Dad” struck like a slap.
“You’re enrolled in classes?” I inquired.
Her gaze remained focused on the strings as she nodded. “It brings him closer.”
She didn’t appear lost for the first time since the burial. She appeared intent. Alive, but quietly.
I noticed the difference in the weeks that followed; it was slight at first, like a wall crack opening to let light in. She began to hum in the corridor. Her door was slightly open. She occasionally grinned naturally. Then she requested to stay for further practice after school.
One evening as we were clearing the table, she said, “Mr. Heath gets it.” “He doesn’t act as though I’m damaged.”
Broken. My chest resonated with the word.
“What does he do?” I inquired.
She remarked, “He just listens.” And he says that’s part of it when I make mistakes. As if it’s acceptable for me to be bad before being good.
All I wanted to feel was thankfulness. I made an effort. But I still felt uneasy about something. I couldn’t remove a loose thread without tearing everything apart.
When Wren came home a week later, she gave me a little envelope.
She remarked, “He said this was for you.”
There was a well-written message inside, straightforward but incisive in a way that seemed too personal for a teacher-parent conversation.
Love without a place to go is grief. Wren’s music is making a difference.
My eyes stung from staring at the words. It was nice. It was accurate. Additionally, I felt as though Mr. Heath knew more about our house than was appropriate, which made my skin tingle.
The recital came sooner than I thought it would. The theater had the scent of perfume, floor polish, and anxious perspiration. Programs were clutched by parents. Children shifted around beneath the curtain. My throat constricted as Wren entered the stage with Callum’s guitar. Grief and pride are like cousins, showing up together when you least expect them to.
Mr. Heath was standing behind her, composed and steady, his hands folded as if no one had ever been broken.
Then he raised his head.
I was acquainted with him.
Everything inside of me changed, yet the room remained the same. My blood froze. I felt sick to my stomach. The program was so tightly gripped by my hands that the paper wrinkled.
Heath.
My initial love. The boy who made a lifelong pledge and then vanished silently. My pride followed the boy I had been waiting for until my porch light went out. Since it wasn’t his name at the time, I hadn’t recognized it. I had been too preoccupied with getting by to investigate why he had altered it or used something different.
Before I could get to my feet or catch my breath, Wren started to play. She moved her fingers cautiously confidently. The notes sounded honest and unvarnished, the kind of music that doesn’t brag but instead speaks the truth. I’m her mother, so I know how to maintain a straight face even when my insides are trembling, so when she finished, the applause erupted like a wave, and I applauded along.
Then Wren, her cheeks heated, ran to me.
She said, “Mr. Heath wants to speak with you.”
My heartbeat quickened.
He was in the corridor by the music room when I found him. He appeared older yet identifiable up close. The same eyes. He held himself in the same manner, as if he were always preparing for impact.
“Delaney,” he uttered softly.
I folded my arms. “You were aware. You were aware of my identity.
His expression tensed. “Yes.”
You were aware of whose guitar she was carrying. Even so, you became close to her. What do you desire, then?
With a sigh, he reached inside his backpack and took out a battered black notepad. “This was written by your husband.”
The corridor drew closer to it. My hands stole it from my brain without my consent. When I opened it, I noticed Callum’s handwriting, which was three weeks before to his passing.
Wren entered the hallway as if she had been waiting for this moment before I could say anything.
With a shaky but determined voice, she replied, “Mom, I asked him to find you.”
I jerked my head in her direction. “What?”
She took a swallow. Months ago, I discovered my father’s journal. within the closet. behind storage containers.
I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t stand to open the journal, so I pushed it there. Because sadness alone isn’t grief. It’s survival disguised as avoidance.
She added, “There were pictures inside.” “Of Dad and you. And of Mr. Heath and you. from your youth. Additionally, Dad wrote something about “the boy Mom used to love.”
I exhaled the air.
I turned to face Heath. He seems unsurprised. He appeared to be guilty.
“You read it?” I questioned Wren.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” she responded sharply, her voice breaking. “All I wanted was something from Dad.” I miss him.
My rage subsided because I couldn’t condemn her for desiring fragments of her father because grief is a part of her too.
Sharper now, I said to Heath, “And you.” “You didn’t consider telling me?”
He said, “She asked me not to.” She was also in pain. I had no intention of stopping her.
Wren used her sleeve to wipe her cheeks. “I wanted you to read the journal at last, so I gave it to him. You wouldn’t.
That was more painful than any charge. since she was correct.
Heath gestured to the notebook’s folded corner. “You should read his writings.”
I wanted to go and get my daughter. I wanted to flee the past in the same manner that I had taught myself. However, I wouldn’t be choosing truth over fear if I did, and Callum didn’t deserve that.
I turned to the page that was marked.
I didn’t say some things aloud, Delaney, because I didn’t want to revisit the scars you’ve fought so hard to heal.
My throat constricted.
I am aware that Wren’s father is Heath.
The corridor slanted. I steadied my hand on the wall.
I chose you even though you were pregnant when we first met. I also choose her. Since the day I held Wren, she has been my daughter. I am aware, though, that you never told him.
Before I could stop them, tears began to fall down my cheeks.
I’ve been aware of my sickness for some time. I don’t want pride or past hurt to prevent Wren from having all the people who could adore her if something were to happen to me. She requires every bit of assistance available to her. Perhaps you do, too.
Allow Heath to appear if he is willing. Not to take my place. Nobody can. but to be by your sides.
Callum, love.
I didn’t care who saw me sobbing aloud in a school hallway by the time I got to the finish.
I said, “He had no right,” even though the words didn’t express how I felt.
With a whisper, Heath added, “He loved her.” He had no intention of replacing himself. He was keeping her safe.
Wren’s eyes were full of tears as she gazed up at me. This didn’t frighten Dad. Why are you?
Because I recalled waiting for a man who never showed up while standing on a porch at the age of 25. Because if you hide it long enough, humiliation hardens.
I turned to Heath. “You went out.”
He clenched his jaw. “I was unaware of her existence.”
“You didn’t give a call. You failed to return.
“I was foolish and young,” he claimed. “We got into a fight. I felt that the wisest course of action was to keep you out. And when I did visit you… I was told by your father that you didn’t want me. I should let you leave, he said. He didn’t say you were expecting.
The reassembling of old memories into a new shape made my stomach turn. My dad’s rage. His authority. He claimed that Heath would ruin my life by calling him reckless.
Wren said in a quiet but firm voice. “So you didn’t go because you didn’t give a damn?”
He took a swallow. “No. I would have battled if I had been aware of her.
Breathing through the pain, I closed the journal.
Callum was aware. Silently, he had carried it. Even so, he had picked us.
I stared at Wren, this intelligent, courageous, and hurting child who would not allow our family to live in lies.
“If this occurs,” I stated firmly, “it occurs gradually.”
Heath instantly nodded. “Obviously.”
“Delimitations,” I said. “You can’t just show up and pretend that you’ve been here the entire time.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“First supervised,” I stated. “And no more secrets.” Not from her. Not me.
“Anything you require,” he answered.
I informed him, “I’m not doing this for you.” Callum requested me to, so I’m doing it. Additionally, she deserves to be honest.
Wren grabbed both of our hands and held them tightly as if she was worried we would slink away once more.
She muttered, “I just want everyone to stop hiding.”
She sat with Callum’s guitar in her lap that evening at home, her fingers lightly touching on the strings.
She questioned, “Dad would still be proud of me?”
“Yes,” I replied, this time steadily. “He would.”
“And he remains my biological father?”
“Yes,” I said. “Always.”
As I saw her shoulders slightly relax, I realized what I had been avoiding: I couldn’t shield my daughter from suffering by keeping the truth from her. I could only watch from the sidelines as she figured out how to carry it.