You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

I shift in the train seat and scroll through my phone. Arjun hasn’t answered my last few messages. Lately his replies have been a mere couple words, and I’ve initiated almost every conversation. I send another casual text. How was your day?

Aba orders us coffee from the train café. When he takes a sip, he sucks in his cheeks and says, “Not as good as the coffee at home. How can you bear to leave that behind?”

He’s trying to make a joke, but we don’t share a sense of humor. If Tovah were here, she’d find a way to make him laugh, but I just give a weak smile before adding sugar to my own cup.

“Aba . . . do you still think going to conservatory is a bad idea?”

He takes another sip of his subpar coffee before responding. “I don’t know what to say. You know I wanted you to apply elsewhere so you could get a more well-rounded education.”

“You didn’t think I’d be successful.”

“That’s not it. No parent wants their child to fail. Of course I think you’re talented, Adi, but things happen. I wanted you to have options, that’s all. But now, if this is what you want . . .”

Because I am dying, I can do whatever I want.

Even Aba knows it.

“It is.”

“I understand this is difficult for you. The most difficult thing you’ve ever had to deal with. If there were a way to make it so you never had to go through what your mother’s going through, a way for me to switch places with you . . . well, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” He sighs. “I won’t pretend I understand how you’re feeling. I can only know what it’s been like for your mother. And on the outside, she handles it well. As well as anyone can. Better, even.”

His candor renders me speechless. He’s never spoken like this to me, not about Ima.

“Aba,” I start when I find my words, but I can tell he’s not done.

“I don’t want you to think you don’t have time, Adina.”

I shiver. Of course he doesn’t know my plan, but his words hit dangerously close to it.

“Ima is forty-six. She was diagnosed when she was forty-two. You’re eighteen.” He slides into the seat next to me, grabbing my hand, holding it tightly. His hand, which sprouts black hairs and weird speckled spots, is starting to wrinkle, his skin forming dozens of miniature accordions. “You can do everything you want to do.”

And in a way, this feels like Aba is giving me permission.

“I love you, Aba,” I say in a voice barely above a whisper, unable to remember the last time I said this to him.

He smiles. “Ani ohev otach.”

When I am gone, perhaps Aba will be sad for a while. He will mourn the loss of a daughter he never really knew, but that is far better than the alternative: forcing him to watch me wither after watching his wife. That is too much for one person to endure. I want to believe he knows that deep down.

Margarine sunlight slants through the windows of the small studio. Two women and one man, all smartly dressed, sit in chairs in front of a music stand. I prepared four pieces, including “Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” and rosined my viola with the Larica Tovah gave me. My auditions in Manhattan and Boston went flawlessly, and I don’t expect this one to be any different.

“Welcome, Adina,” says a woman with sleek blond hair and a slight Eastern European accent. “I am Vera Mitrovic, head of viola here at Peabody.” She stands to greet me, and we shake hands.

“A pleasure to meet you,” I say. “You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Her mouth curves into a smile. “Have you ever been to Baltimore?”

“First time.”

“And?” She says it expectantly, as though there is a right answer.

“I love it.” I am not sucking up. Not entirely, at least. I love the architecture, the cobblestone streets, the row houses. Mount Vernon, the neighborhood home to Peabody, is more historic and artsy than anything I’ve seen in Seattle. Before my audition, I took touristy photos of the Washington Monument and sent them to Arjun. (He did not reply.)

“That is what I like to hear.” The other two professors introduce themselves as Angela Romar and Donovan Green, and then I set up my viola and launch into my prelude.

This is when it all becomes real. I could live here. This could be my studio. I know from my research that Professor Mitrovic played in the New York Philharmonic for twenty years. I can only imagine what I’d be able to learn from her.

When I’m done, I exhale a long breath that trembles on its way out. I never get a substantial amount of air until I finish playing. This was my final audition, and I’m convinced it was the best of the three.