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It didn’t matter that she and Remy had shared more than a few quiet, soft moments, that they’d clasped hands and run their fingers over each other’s palms. She was still with Noel. She’d still be with Noel if Remy went to Europe. She’d be with Noel if he apologized to her, if she apologized to him. She was with Noel, even if she never saw him, even if she rarely mentioned him. Remy was just someone she spent time with, someone she had plausible deniability about, someone who was contractually obligated to never tell a soul how her eyes softened when she looked at him.
Remy took a step back from the trailer.
It was done. Whateveritwas, it had to be. The job, Vivi, the tour, his role in it, and her and the music. It was over almost as suddenly as it had started—the rest of the tour would belong to the original drummer, which was appropriate. It belonged to him, after all—this entire experience was just something Remy had borrowed for a time. Like being a one-hit wonder. Like living in Florida. It was a slice of a life, not a life.
After the show, when the crowd had filed out and the custodians were winding their way through the seats, Remy returned to the stage. He’d changed from his show clothes to his own, washed off the bits of glitter and confetti fired from the cannons during the finale. He walked to the front of the stage, looked back at the crew breaking down sets, coiling cables, talking into walkies. Things had to get packed quickly so they could leave.
Remy looked out at the empty seats, took a deep breath. He kissed the pads of his middle three fingers and waved in a small way, keeping his hand close to his chest. It was Quiet Coyote’s goodbye. That was the only thing that was trulyhis—his past, the band, his brother.
He lowered his hand, shoved it into his pocket, and walked away from the tour as he’d walked into it—alone.
Then
The music lessons stopped.
At least, the ones with the music teacher they liked stopped. Now, every Wednesday night, they met with a very old woman who taught Val to pick apart praise songs delicately. She knew nothing of drums, really, so she more or less just drilled Remy on reading sheet music, trying in vain to get him excited about playing the piano instead. He obliged but hit the keys too hard on purpose.
Remy thought they were lucky, frankly. Their father made it no secret that he blamed their music—the secular songs, the outside-of-the-church teacher, their supposed neglect of Bible study at the hands of music study—for everything with Mercy. Remy was surprised they weren’t forced to drop music lessons entirely.
Val did not feel they were lucky. His eyes would go dead as he sat through music lessons; whenever their parents were out of the house, he snuck onto the computer and watched videos that taught him how to play the songs he liked or sometimes worked on his own songs, shouting draft lyrics over and over until the right series of words snapped into place. Without a drum set at home, Remy aided in the songwriting by playing on jugs or tables. He learned the key in which the cabinet glass rattled when shut just hard enough, how to flip and turn plastic cups to create beats, a thousand sounds he could make clapping his hands in different ways.
And still, he felt guilty. It was a deep, gut-twisting sort of guilt—that he’d not only caused Mercy to become ill, but he’d kept her that way. What if she fell sick again because he couldn’t help but layer rhythms underneath Val’s voice? What if this time it was their mother? Or Val? If left to his own thoughts for too long, he felt dirty for his disobedience. When he heard his parents leave, he’d count down how long he made it before joining Val in the kitchen or bathroom, where the tile made his guitar sound haunted.
“I was going to read a book today instead,” Remy said one day when he met Val by the computer.
“You don’t want to read a book,” Val said without looking at him.
“Val—” Remy began.
“You have to help me,” Val said firmly. “Everything I write is better when you help.”
“I don’t want us to get in trouble.”
Now Val sighed and turned to look at him, eyes soft and older-brotherly and surprisingly lifelike. “We won’t get in trouble. We’re doing this together. Who’s going to tell?”
“Even if no one tells…” Remy said then darted his eyes upward, toward heaven.
Val scowled. “Why would we love music at all, if we weren’t supposed to?”
“But Pastor Ryan thinks—”
“I don’t believe Pastor Ryan,” Val said flatly. “Or Mom, or Dad. I think we love music because we’resupposedto love music. I think we love music because God wanted us to have a way out.”
“Are you sure?” Remy asked, looking a little longingly at the video that was cueing up—an artsy, black-and-white video of someone playing a slow and soulful song.
Val shook his head. “I’m never sure of anything. Except us, brother.” He paused then cocked his head to the side. “Write that down. Those words.”
Remy grabbed a piece of paper and did so. The video was paused then forgotten, as together they picked their way through a song about that: the feeling of floating, of being certain of nothing whatsoever. Nothing except the person who was standing next to you.
