A Room With A View

Chapter Fifty-Three - David

November 24, Friday

David picked up his coffee mug, but immediately set it back down as Alice walked into the kitchen. Her hair was disheveled and her mascara had left shadows under her eyes. For a brief moment, she looked just as she had any morning of high school. But then Sam followed her in, and the moment was gone.

"Good morning," David said without inflection. He picked his coffee mug back up and took a swig, burning his tongue.

"Morning, Dad," Alice said with a yawn. She reached for a fresh mug and popped a pod into the Keurig. Sam sat down at the counter, looking every bit like he'd simply walked straight out of a catalog.

David was torn between being proud of who Alice had picked for her potential husband, and being upset that she'd made such a good choice. If Sam had had even one fatal flaw, David could've slept more easily.

"What time do you both head out?" David took another sip of coffee, burning his tongue yet again.

"Three or so. We have an evening flight back to LA," Sam answered. Alice sat at the counter next to him, and he looped an arm almost reflexively around her shoulders.

"Alice said something about not wanting to miss the famous Finlay Day-After Sandwiches," Sam said with a smile. He gave Alice a fond look.

David sputtered on his coffee. He finally set his mug down.

"Ah yes," said David. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the counter. "Everything from Thanksgiving loaded up between two slices of bread. It's a tradition."

"But can we--"

"Nope," David said, cutting Alice off, "everything on two slices of bread, even the cranberries."

Alice rolled her eyes, but a ghost of a smile crossed her face.

This back and forth was yet another aspect of the tradition. David sometimes wondered if Alice had secretly developed an affinity for cranberries, and simply continued to pretend for his sake. Or perhaps she truly disliked them.

Tanya walked in at that moment and laid a hand on David's back. 

"Morning, dear," she said, kissing him lightly on the back of his head. His hair had started to thin, and so her touch was increasingly more tactile with every passing day.

"So I was thinking we could go to brunch at that new place overlooking the park," Tanya said. She leaned against the counter next to David.

"Sounds good." Alice's perkiness was beginning to come back. David wondered when it was she'd become the sort of person who needed coffee to get her day started.

Tanya looked at her watch. "We should probably head out in a few minutes then, in case there's a wait."

Alice took a final swig of her coffee, and pushed back from the counter. She placed her mug in the sink, and disappeared down the hallway to her room.

David had hoped Sam would follow her.

"So, Sam," he began, "you ever been married before?"

"David why don't you go make that work call you were telling me about," Tanya said shrilly. She pulled at David's shoulder, forcing him to turn away from the counter.

David sighed and let himself be pushed into the hallway toward his office. He sat heavily down in the roller chair and swiveled around to face the window. There wasn't much by way of a view from his office, which David preferred. He didn't want to be distracted when working.

He opened his laptop and launched his word processor. His story hadn't progressed beyond the title: Tango 9. It was a loose reference to a TI-89 graphing calculator, which David thought his protagonist spy could use to solve the code hidden within the accounting sheets. The overall concept had come together the night before, but David still hadn't been able to find words apt enough to convey the story of Wall Street's James Bond.

There was a soft knock on the wall. David spun his chair around to face whomever it was.

Alice was standing just within the door frame, her arms clutched around her middle. She'd combed her hair and put on a plaid knit skirt with a black turtleneck. She looked...old. Well not old, exactly, but older. Mature. There was no trace of high school Alice in the young woman who stood before him.

"Mom says you're writing a book," Alice said, nodding toward the open computer.

David closed the laptop's cover. "It's not going well."

"Writing's hard," Alice said in support.

A quiet minute past. David nudged the foam ball on the ground with his toe.

"Why haven't you picked up your violin?" Alice asked.

David shook his head. "I don't know where it is," he lied. His fingers drummed a quick staccato on his thigh.

Tanya had pulled it out for him just a few weeks ago. It had been resting in the back closet on an upper shelf, hidden behind cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations.

"I was scared too," Alice said, stepping into the room, "when I went to California. I hadn't really done anything with music since I was a kid, and I was nervous that I would fu--fudge it all up." Alice cut a quick glance at David, as if looking to see if he'd noticed her slip-up.

He had.

"But then when I got there and just totally immersed myself in it, it all came flooding back. It was amazing," Alice finished.

David hadn't known she was nervous to go to California. He just remembered the day she'd called him up to say that the moment she got her pre-med degree, she was moving to California to pursue music. She'd loved music when she was little. She'd always danced to David's violin, and banged soup spoons against the kitchen's pots and pans. That had apparently developed into a love for mixing and producing music, but she'd kept that part of her secret, choosing instead to follow a degree in medicine. Tanya and David had thought she'd become a doctor. After all, she'd always wanted to help people, but clearly that wasn't her greatest love.

A thought crept into David's mind. Perhaps she'd hidden her music because he had. Maybe watching David let his violin atrophy in the closet had made her think that she couldn't show him this side of her.

But Sam had seen that side of Alice; he had probably only ever known Alice as the music-loving free thinker she was now.

David swallowed. He hadn't let her follow her dreams in front of him. And perhaps a twisted part of him hadn't wanted to see it.

"I'm sorry," David said, breaking the silence.

Alice looked at him, confused. "For what?"

"For...not seeing it," he said.

Alice stepped back into the doorway. She reached out a hand and pulled his violin case out from where it had been resting just out of view.

"That's okay. I know it was hidden behind boxes. Of course you wouldn't have seen it. But I...I brought it out for you, if you want it."

Alice picked up the violin case and brought it over to David. She gently placed it on the desk behind him.

That hadn't been what he'd meant by "not seeing it", but perhaps that was a conversation for a different day.

David didn't move to touch the case, so Alice did. She unlatched the silver clasps and opened the top cover. David's violin sat nestled in red velvet. His fingers itched to play.

"So," Alice said, stepping away from the desk, "I just thought you could, you know, give it a go if you wanted. Mom says you haven't really played since you stopped."

David stared at his violin. He could almost hear its sound.

Almost.

"Thanks, Alice," he said, and shut the lid of the violin case. 

He felt her look of disappointment before he saw it. It was exactly the same as Tanya's, and cut him to the very core. 

Someday David would pick it back up, but he couldn't do it today, not with Alice standing there beside him. He couldn't bear the thought of his instrument not singing for him as it had, or the fear that he might not live up to the memory Alice had of who her father once was.

Someday David would try it again. Someday.