This is another one of Akilah’s ideas, though this one I so vehemently refused to write that I didn’t even jot it down in my “Ideas” notebook. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story idea. Well, really, that’s the problem – it’s too good. I knew that I would be a crying mess writing it and… I didn’t want to put myself through that. Until I did.
Now, this revolves around a specific song – Blind Pilot’s “3 Rounds and a Sound”. You don’t need to know the song. If you’ve never heard of it, then make it any song that synchronizes with the rhythm of your heart. If you want to hear it, here’s a link to the song on YouTube.
“You know we don’t have a song,” June said, her head in my lap on the couch as I played with her dark hair.
“Do we need one?” I asked. This was well-trodden territory. We could never agree on a song – she was pop, I was indie; she was sentimental, I was practical. We’d navigated the philosophical differences during the five years we’d been dating. The notion of “Our Song” had come up quite a few times. In fact, I think June has an iTunes playlist for “Our Songs” – not realistic ones, but all the tracks we’d bandy back and forth without really intending them to really be our song. Like June once jokingly (was she joking?) suggested Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” (we might have been in a rough patch), to which I responded we should use The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps.”
My question suggested I was willing to run this track again, but June turned to look directly at me – this was different. “Theo? You just proposed to me. Yes, we need our song!”
“You have a compelling point,” I acknowledged. “But we’ve tried to figure out ‘Our Song’ for as long as we’ve been dating.”
“I know. I even have the playlist…”
See? I knew it!
We were both quiet, thinking about the impossibility of choosing a song.
“Okay, I have a crazy idea…,” I said.
“Is it crazier than when you asked me out on a dare that first night?” I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
She smiled back at me then asked, “Crazy idea…?”
“Pandora. We fire it up, put ‘our song’ in the prompt and abide by whatever it gives us,” I suggested.
“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. I love it. But log out, clear your cookies – I don’t want your indie obsession to influence the algorithm.”
“Fair,” I agreed and reached for my laptop. Logged out of Pandora, cleared my cache, dumped my cookies and brought the app back up. I gave it the prompt and hit play.
A plaintive guitar strumming started, slow and even. The singer started, “They’re playing our song… they’re playing our song…”
I stared at June who stared back at me with wide eyes. “They’re playing our song?”
The singer went on, “…can you see the light…. Can you hear the hum… of our song. I hope they get it right, I hope we dance tonight, before we get it wrong…”
By the end of that line, we were both standing in the living room of our tiny apartment, on our threadbare second-hand carpet, my arms naturally encircled June’s waist, her arms around my neck.
“…Blooming up from the ground, Three rounds and a sound, Like whispering, ‘You know me’, ‘You know me’….”
When the last note faded, the room was quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the sound of our breathing. We separated enough to look into each other’s eyes, June spoke first: “I guess we found our song.”
“We sure did.” I smiled and then kissed her.
***
There are words you don’t ever want to have to hear from your partner. Right at the top of that list are “lump,” “malignant,” “inoperable.” When they do, the world shrinks, the music stops, the focus collapses into the immediate.
The fifteenth wedding anniversary is crystal or a watch. Maybe it’s a round enough anniversary to talk about vow renewal or going to France like you’ve always wanted. It shouldn’t be… it shouldn’t ever fucking be making memorial service arrangements, deciding between burial or cremation, figuring out how to say goodbye. It should never, ever, ever be that.
There’s no rhythm at the end, when breathing stops, when the last beat of the heart has sounded, when the joy drains from your soul.
The service was a blur. I remember moments, but I couldn’t give you more than that. Liz, June’s best friend, was my grief sherpa and led me through the motions but my brain couldn’t parse the idea that June was gone.
Gone.
“Theo, there’s a casserole in the fridge,” Liz explained. “You need to eat, don’t forget.”
I didn’t respond.
“Theo!” She snapped. “You need to eat.”
“I know,” I said, but my tone belied my hopelessness.
“Theo… you have to…” she cocked her head. “What’s that… music?” Then she went pale.
The plaintive guitar notes reached my ear and I realized why she went pale.
“They’re playing our song… they’re playing our song…can you see the light…. Can you hear the hum… of our song. I hope they get it right, I hope we dance tonight, before we get it wrong…”
I stood and walked to the living room where the song – our song – played from our stereo speakers.
“…Blooming up from the ground, Three rounds and a sound, Like whispering, ‘You know me’, ‘You know me’….”
The stereo was turned off.
I let the tears flow completely unchecked. I choked back my sobs long enough to say, “I love you June.”
***
In the beginning, getting out of bed was an act of will. Eventually, it became a habit.
Breathe, coffee, days, weeks, months…
I moved… certainly not “on,” but maybe “through.”
I tried to give myself space, to try new things – and I did – but I was always acutely aware of the empty spot in my chest.
I tried dating again. Liz even set me up with a friend of hers – a woman who teaches kindergarten at the same school. Elaine. She was nice – smart, pretty, I liked her smile. But she wasn’t June, and that wasn’t fair to Elaine.
I embraced the term, “working on myself” whenever someone would try to push me to date again. Eventually, they stopped pushing.
I mean, it’s true – I was “working on myself.” I started bicycling again. I took up kayaking. I bought myself a drum kit and terrorized the neighbors.
Sooner than I had expected, my coworkers stopped walking on eggshells around me. To be fair, some changed jobs or left the department, and the new folks had no idea what had happened, and I realized that wasn’t a bad thing.
I started traveling a lot for work and that led to new friendships – I even learned Mandarin. Before I knew it, I was jokingly referring to the color of my thinning hair as “salt and pepper” and insisting I had laugh lines and not wrinkles. Of course I imagined June teasing me, but it didn’t have the gut-punch after a decade; I was used to the dull ache of well-worn grief.
What I wasn’t used to was the twinge behind my right eye, sharp and bright. I was in the break room and I had just taken a sip from my second cup of coffee for the day. Sound faded out. I realized I dropped my mug, but didn’t hear or feel it hit the ground… then realized I had hit the ground and blackness swallowed my vision.
I saw myself in the ambulance, in the trauma center. I heard “aneurysm,” “near-instantaneous,” “painless.” I saw the doctor tell Liz there were no signs. Nothing anyone could have done.
And then darkness again. Cold, empty, darkness.
Then the sound of a single guitar strumming chords…
“They’re playing our song… they’re playing our song…can you see the light…. Can you hear the hum… of our song. I hope they get it right, I hope we dance tonight, before we get it wrong…”
June stood in front of me in her favorite dress with the black cats on it.
My mouth moved but I couldn’t form words.
“Are you going to stand around and look stupid or are you going to dance with me?” She grinned.
My arms naturally encircled June’s waist, her arms around my neck.
“…Blooming up from the ground, Three rounds and a sound, Like whispering, ‘You know me’, ‘You know me’….”
“I love you, June.”
“I love you, Theo.”
