Days 8, 9, & 10

Henry woke up to a rhythmic prodding in his shoulder, and when he blearily opened his eye his mom was peering down at him with a smirk and one eyebrow arched. Then he felt the awkward curve of his spine and realized he had fallen asleep in the window seat, and that Klára had slipped away from him in the night. He sat up and stretched awkwardly; his neck cracked in about a billion places as he got up and looked around. There was a damp spot and plastic bag on the cushion where Klára’s ice-pack had melted. Dad was poking at some eggs, stretched to fill the pan with milk. No wonder everything tasted like milk lately.

 

“Where…?” Henry began to ask, but then the bathroom door opened and there Klára was, scrutinizing herself in the mirror with a slightly nauseated look on her face. Henry crept behind her to see what was so revolting to her. Most of the swelling had gone down on her left eye, but there was still a purple bruise under and outside it, and the cut over her right eye had reopened in the night and scabbed over. Her lip was still swollen, but looked a bit better. And yet she was staring at herself with such…anger? Regret? Shame?

 

He touched her shoulder, and she didn’t wince. “You’re so pretty, Klára.” Her eyes softened and hands began to shake, but she otherwise did not turn away from her reflection. Henry felt like there was a lot more he should say, but words didn’t come to him, so instead he gave her shoulder a squeeze and went out to help Dad with breakfast.

 

***

 

Klára’s hands were closed so tightly they shook. Once Henry was gone, an almost-painful grimace consumed her face, and tears streamed from her eyes as she opened her hand, palm-up, and carefully replaced the twenty or so different pills respectively into their little orange bottles. She closed the medicine cabinet with a firm snap. There were too many things to consider before considering that.

 

***

 

She seemed to have fallen back into her old silence during the night. She ate her cereal with her head ducked, bare feet swinging idly, still in her nightgown like a child. After they ate, Mom braided her hair and they both smiled serenely the whole time. Mom already saw this girl as the daughter she would never have the chance to raise. Then Dad gave her some pens and paper from his typewriter, and created quite the monster. She sat clumsily at the kitchen table, doodling and drawing all manner of things with her knees pulled up to her chest and arms splayed awkwardly as she worked. Soon, all of the pages were covered with all sorts of things both pretty and ugly, but only in content, not appearance.

 

Dad commented that she was quite the artist. She smiled up at him in thanks but didn’t speak.

 

***

 

“I know this is sort of inappropriate to bring up while you’re in this state, but…how would you like to make fifty thousand dollars?”

 

The pen dropped from her hand at last as she looked up at Henry with astonished eyes. He showed her the flyer and explained it very intricately, using some English words she didn’t understand, but she figured out most of it. Fifty thousand dollars…

 

She jumped out of her chair and practically ran to the keyboard that had been pushed aside so she could have a place to sleep. Then she looked at Henry as if to say well? What are we waiting for?! Fifty thousand dollars is at stake here!

 

Henry laughed outright and pulled his guitar out from its safe place under the couch. They started with the song about the branches of government.

 

***

 

They hardly slept or ate for the next two days, only stopping when his mom or dad ordered a snack-break. He talked enough for the both of them, deliberately planning and scheming all of his songs, but when he got too carried away she chose those moments as best to speak.

 

“Stop,” she would say in that eerily gentle and even voice of hers. “Too much. Takes away from the meaning.” Henry always stopped immediately, listening intently to everything she had to say with such respect that he felt like he was the teenager, and she the adult. “If there are…only two words to d’is song, what are those…two words?”

 

That usually got them a good twenty minutes behind while Henry struggled for the correct answer to her abnormally-wise question, Mom watching with her mouth agape, as fascinated as a child as she waited for Henry as well. She would shout out suggestions, but in the end Henry would have to quiet her with a look and come up with it himself. He always would find the answer, only because it seemed as if the words had always been there, waiting for him to find them. Then they had meaning, and everything tied together with such grace and purity that it was as though there had never been another song before it in the whole world.

 

***

 

“You might want a cover song or two,” Anne advised them late Monday night, the day before their audition. “I mean, yeah, original songs are great and all, but judges will wanna hear something they recognize.”

 

With a jump of her heart at being able to be useful (she honestly felt like she hadn’t been of late), Klára started playing ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,’ like she had back home in school. Henry grinned and gestured grandly at her, making a blush stain her cheeks, and Anne laughed. “We’re already good at it, and it’s a classic.”

 

“It is good,” Anne reasoned while she watched silently. “But it’s almost too familiar, isn’t it? You’d want something even less well-known; one that people might think is original but somehow know it isn’t. It’s more impacting that way, you know?”

 

They both nodded, but couldn’t really think of anything right away. After all, if no one else would know it, why should they? They started listening to some of Anne and Charlie’s older CDs, looking for something that would jump out at them. They were up until almost three in the morning, trying in vain to seek the song that would tie everything together.

 

Henry turned over one CD case and let out a tiny noise of delight (it was, by now, very late and they were both getting a little silly with fatigue). Klára looked up from the papers she had been writing song titles and drawing flowers on with a bewildered gleam in her eyes until he played the song. Then she laughed because really, it was perfect. That had been midnight; the other two hours were spent learning the words and music and harmonies. It was the hardest thing Klára had ever done, but also the most beautiful.