One Last Sonata

I always loved it when she played the piano. The way her fingers would dance over the keys in an effortless waltz or samba was enough to put me over the edge. She would embrace the instrument and they would slowly, yet surely meld into one entity. Every time I played at a concert or in the privacy of my own home I would close my eyes and try to embody the way she played, but I could never amount to the brilliance she had when it came to playing.

I have a piano that sits in my living room that we used to play all the time. I remember the first duet we played together. I admit it was “Heart and Soul,” but together we made it sound like we were writing it together and showing it off to the world for the first time even though our ears were the only ones that heard it that day. Sometimes in the middle of the night I’d come home from a show and she’d be awake, sitting at the bench and playing a melody I’ve never heard before.

Sometimes I’d just lean against the doorframe and listen to her play, not alerting her of my presence. Not like she’d hear me anyway. Whenever Maggie’s fingers reached those ivory keys, she’d slip away into her own little world of fermatas and pianissimos and it’d take a loud yell on my part to pull her back into the world of the living.

It was amazing to see the way her head would bob in time with the beat and how she would lean forward with each crescendo of the music or tap of the pedal. Maggie would become the music and the instrument and it was truly a wonder to watch her perform to an audience of one; even if she didn’t realize I was standing behind her.

And I say she was amazing because she doesn’t play anymore. She can’t. Because God took away the one thing she loved in his efforts to prove that in some sick way, he has a plan for all of us.

Some plan. It killed her in the end.

It came out of nowhere, the accident I mean. One moment she was driving to the music shop to pick up some newly released concerto and the next I was speeding like a madman to the hospital, praying to that same God that He wouldn’t take away the one thing I could depend on in this world.

Maggie had been exiting the freeway when the truck came barreling towards her, the brakes apparently cut and not working. It was a sick twist of fate and freak accident but soon her little car was pinned between the exit ramp and this large truck that should have been registered as a semi rather than a civilian vehicle. They had to use the Jaws of Life. The Jaws of Fucking Life to pull her out of the car. She was like a sardine in a tin can and they had to peel away the roof just to get her out.

I never saw the pictures of the car but the cops told me it was totaled and she was extremely lucky to be alive. But they didn’t see how unlucky she was in the hospital after she came out from surgery. Both her wrists were broken and she had ruptured her spleen and had a concussion. Maggie was definitely banged up but they said her injuries weren’t life threatening, which was a good thing. That meant she could come home and get back on the road to recovery.

The first few days after her initial release, it killed her to sit in the house and not play that piano. She would beg me to sit at the bench and play a few songs although the passion I had for playing and the need to play well for her own sake were nothing compared to the enthusiasm she held. Watching the mixture of sadness and appreciation in her eyes broke my heart every time I tried to play ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and I could tell that she wanted to jump up and push me aside so she could play it herself. She could probably play it better than Beethoven himself.

Late at night, I’d wake up sometimes and find that Maggie wasn’t sleeping beside me. And if I strained my ears enough, I could hear the cacophonous sound of clashing keys coming from a piano. Even from my position in bed, I knew she was trying to play the standard C Major chord and it was a challenge.

One night I walked to the top of the stairs and peeked through the railings to see her sitting at the piano below me, her hands set in heavy plaster casts. The top of her auburn head was bowed in embarrassment and I knew her green eyes were staring intensely at the keys, her heart breaking because she couldn’t play the simplest tune. It killed me to watch her sit there so helpless as she tried to pluck out the simplest melody her complex mind could construct and I wanted nothing more than to yank the casts off her healing hands and free her from the cage that was holding her back from composing some of the most beautiful and complex melodies I’ve ever heard.

“Help me,” she said softly and I knew that she was aware of my presence. Silently I padded down the steps and sat down slowly beside her trying my best to not notice the slight shake in her shoulders or her labored breathing as her hands pressed down on the keys.

The sounds argued with each other and I winced slightly at the terrible sound knowing that she couldn’t’ see my face because of the curtain of hair that was shielding her face from my questioning eyes. Maggie bit back a small cry and she brought her fingers together in a slight fist, the only finger visible was her index.

Pressing her finger down on the keys, she started out the melody of “Heart and Soul,” strong yet true and once she had finished one round by herself, I came in with the bass line.

I don’t know how long we sat there and played that song but it felt like we were there for hours. But the smile on her face and the light that came back in her eyes was something I will never forget. In that moment I saw the old Maggie and reveled in the sight of her bobbing head and her foot pounding on the pedal as the song rose and fell on and on and on. It never stopped and even now I can still hear that simple tune rolling through my head even though the times we played it before the accident were brilliant enough to be performed at Carnegie Hall.

No, it was the simple rendition I fell in love with and will always remember as Maggie’s most glorious creation. And that creation was the last thing that we ever played on that piano. I can hardly stand to look at the grand piano without thinking of her and the pain she had to endure soon after that night.

Apparently the doctors had thought her concussion wasn’t anything to worry about. But apparently a blood vessel in her brain was starting to clog and it was a ticking time bomb. They called me the next morning to tell me that Maggie had to be brought back to the hospital as soon as possible so they could try to save her.

“Let me play, please just once more,” she begged me as I carried her past the living room, the lacquered black wood of the piano reflecting our image. She was so frail and small in my arms, like a baby.

“I wish I could, baby but we have to get you to the hospital,” I whispered in her ear and she looks at me with pleading green eyes but I put my foot down. At that time I was so convinced that she could be saved even though I think she knew she was nearing the end.

And now I wish I had let her play whatever it was she wanted to pluck out on that piano with all of my heart.

The hospital ate her alive. She was always being wheeled out of her room and into different rooms for testing and X-rays. I had to sit on the sidelines and watch helplessly as she faded into a sick young woman who had the spark expunged from her eyes. Gone was the spunky Maggie I had fallen in love with three years ago. She was an exoskeleton, a shell of what she once was and it killed me to watch her go through all the pain she had to endure.

“You miss it don’t you?” I asked her one day when she had finished a blood transfusion that would apparently help the blockage in her vessel. She was absentmindedly tugging at the ears of a stuffed bear my mother sent as a Get Well Soon present before she finally realized I was talking to her.

“What?”

“Playing, you miss it,” I repeat and she nods her head slightly before resting her head against the pillows. She’s been getting weaker with each passing day. I hadn’t left the hospital since she was admitted and I didn’t plan on leaving until she would come home or…

“Of course I miss it. Its like a part of me has disappeared and I’m afraid I’ll never see it again,” she whispered and I saw the pool of tears star to form in her listless eyes.

“You’ll see it again,” I said firmly even though I had a feeling I was feeding her lies she didn’t want to hear.

“I won’t. My injuries aren’t healing because I’m so sick. I don’t think my wrists will ever heal, unless this thing with my head clears up or I finally…”

“Don’t talk like that,” I said quickly. I didn’t need her to give up on herself when it seemed everyone else around me was quickly abandoning ship. The doctors had given her a week at the most and my friends were quickly telling me to leave her so I could go home and get some rest. But I wouldn’t leave her side because the moment I left could be her last…

“Why stall the inevitable, Justin?” she questioned as she squeezed the bear, “We both know its going to happen.”

“I haven’t given up and neither should you,” I said quickly, “The last thing you need to do is give up hope. Just think of the music, think that in a few weeks you’ll be able to go home and sit on that bench and play that piano into the ground. It’s going to happen, I know it.”

“Yeah,” she said softly as her head drooped to one side, a smile playing on her chapped lips, “It will.”

A week later and she was still breathing on her own even though the doctors were resilient about putting her on a respirator. She refused; my stubborn Maggie. Three days later and she couldn’t even get out of bed but we didn’t even notice that small obstacle, she was still there, still with me and she was going to pull through it. Even the doctors were changing their tune and saying that she was staring to get more color in her face and put on weight.

But she was still a time bomb and time wasn’t on our side.

I had set up camp in the far corner of her room. The nurses had set up a small cot for me and I had a little easy chair to sit in so I could read or write a few things while she was in rehabilitation or sleeping. Sometimes I would just sit in that chair and watch her chest rise and fall, grateful that she was still breathing.

The best thing about her slow recovery was that her bones were healing and Maggie’s fractured wrists were gradually on the mend. Her doctor announced that in a few days they could take the casts off and she would be able to do things like hold pencils and write within a few days.

Of course Maggie didn’t care if she wrote a single sentence ever again, I could read what was being exalted in her eyes; free wrists meant playing a piano, any piano, and I was ready to go once the plaster fell from her numb wrists.

But we never got that far. The buzzing machines by her bed woke me up in the middle of the night and I had half the mind to call a nurse if the expression on her face hadn’t stopped me.

“Come here,” she whispered and I rushed to her bedside, pausing only to grab her a cup of ice that was on her bedside table.

“You okay Mags? Want me to call a nurse?” I asked her and she slowly shook her head, that alone a huge effort on her part. She was growing weaker before my eyes and I couldn’t believe that this late night invalid had replaced the woman who had been in such high spirits only hours before.

“I love you,” she murmured and I grasped her hand in mine as I sat down on the side of her bed, watching as her eyes disappeared behind thin eyelids. I could see the icy blue veins crisscrossing on the thin skin and my heart quickened its pace when she could hardly squeeze my hand.

“I love you too,” why was she talking like she’d never say those words to me again? I was confused, I was lost, and I was scared beyond belief. My hands were shaking, my heart was pounding and a light sweat broke across my brow when the thought of losing her quickly passed through my mind.

“You know what I wish?” she questioned and I looked at her with the same dumbfounded expression on my face. “I wish I could play for you. You loved it when I played.”

“Maybe you can,” I said softly. I don’t know what it is about hospitals and talking in hushed undertones but I was doing it now. I remember at the beginning of her hospitalization we promised each other we wouldn’t talk quietly, we’d be loud and crude and obnoxious. The complete oxymoron of how a patient should act.

But now I realize why people whisper and say things softly to their sick loved ones – they’re in complete awe that something terrible could happen to someone they love. Sure hospitals are the bringers and saviors of life but they also bring death and when you’re in the presence of something as powerful as life and death, all you can do is whisper.

“And how can I do that?”

“Well I can help you,” I quipped and I reluctantly pulled my hand out of her loose grip and walked over to my cot. I bent down and pulled out the large keyboard I had been saving for a moment like this and I made my way back over to her bed.

Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw the piano in my hands and I placed it on her lap softly before I kissed the top of her head. Her plastered covered hands ran up and down the white and black keys and I reached forward and turned on the piano.

She tried her best to play but all that came out was a garbled mess of different keys. I saw the tears of frustration fall down her face and my heart started to crack at the blatant determination that was plastered don her face. She was trying so hard to make the music she had been able to play so easily a few months ago and seeing her come to the realization that she would never play another concerto again was enough to make me sick to my stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered bitterly as she tried to push the keyboard away, “I couldn’t do it.”

“Don’t be. We’re going to play, hang on.” And before she could protest I climbed up onto the bed with her, positioning our bodies so that she was resting between my legs, her upper body resting against my chest. The top of her head just brushed the tip of my chin and I rested my head on top of hers, trying to ignore the fact that the horrid hospital smell had taken its claim on Maggie.

I leaned forward and pulled the piano closer to the both of us before I tell her to put her hands on top of mine. She looked back at me and smiled softly before I pressed down on a few of the keys, creating a perfect C Major chord.

“I missed that sound,” she stated and my heart swelled with happiness as we played a few more chords the sound heaven to her ears and mine. It didn’t matter that I was playing the majority of the board, her weak hands were merely resting on mine but we didn’t care.

“Do the Sonata,” she whispered lazily and I didn’t have to ask her which one she wanted. Beethoven’s familiar ‘Moonlight Sonata’ filled the hospital room and for a fleeting moment I could feel my head bob to the beat and my feet moving in time with Maggie’s as we both reached for the imaginary pedal at the foot of her bed.

 It seemed as if her love and undying devotion to the piano was flowing from her hands and into mine before it seeped effortlessly into the keyboard. The two of us melted into the piano and for the first time in my life I could feel the music floating through me, I could feel the pianissimos and the fermatas and the flats and accidentals filling me with more satisfaction and wonder than I’ve ever felt in my life. I wasn’t a person anymore, but a living, breathing entity of the piano and Maggie was the medium there to guide me through the land she loved and adored so much.

“This is nice,” she hummed and my head leaned forward to rest on her shoulder, “Thank you.”

“This is the least I could do,” I murmured back as the music escalated, “I love you, Mags.”

“I love you too,” she said her voice faint, “Please don’t stop playing.” I didn’t stop for a second. I played the Sonata once more before I flowed effortlessly into another song.

I don’t remember how long we sat there playing, but I do remember when her foot stopped tapping against the imaginary pedal. We were halfway through a melody we had written together and I almost brought our hands off the keys before I remembered she didn’t want me to stop. But when her hands slid slowly off of mine and into her lap, my hands immediately lifted off of the keys, the melody ringing in our ears but not filling the room.

The spell that had come over me when we were playing together had been lifted and I was thrust back into the reality of sickness, death, and the possibility that those things were finally knocking on Maggie’s door. Her head sagged against my chest and the only song that could be heard was her heart monitor, and it was a slow and frightening pace.

“Maggie?” I whispered and I shook my body a bit to jostle her awake. She didn’t move.

“Maggie,” I said a bit louder this time, my voice on the borderline of sounding frantic.

Still no response.

“Maggie!” Her eyes fluttered open for a split second and I could just make out the soft outline of green staring back at me through squinted eyes. I held her close to me, hoping that some of my warmth would be able to keep the cold away. I wasn’t going to let her go this easily.

“Don’t stop playing,” her voice came out faint and I nodded my head slowly as I brushed a strand of hair out of her face, “Don’t stop. Just one more Sonata”

“I won’t. Don’t go,” I added and she smiled softly before slowly bringing a hand up to my cheek. I started the slow, dulcet tones of ‘Moonlight Sonata’ as the rough plaster scratched at my face but I didn’t care. The cast could have peeled off half my skin and I still wouldn’t have cared because she was still there, still looking at me, and still alive.

“Just, I love you,” she whispered her voice so weak I could hardly hear the words.

“I love you,” my voice cracked and a single tear traced down my face before it buried itself in the hard plaster of her cast. Maggie gave a half smile before a finger pulled itself out of its plaster cage and brushed the side of my face. I bent down and kissed her forehead and with a shuddering breath her hand went limp against my face.

I closed my eyes as I tried to drown out the sound of the monotone beeping coming from her heart monitor. The harsh sounds were a stark contrast from the soothing melodious we had been playing moments earlier and soon her hand fell from its position against my face and landed on the keys of the small piano, sending a clashing noise of jumbled keys against my ears and Maggie’s now deaf ones.

It’s been three months and I still haven’t had the nerve to play the piano. The grand sits in the living room, a layer of dust covering its once clean surface and I can almost hear it groan every time I walk past, begging to be played. I know Maggie told me to not stop playing but the sight of the white keys makes me think of how much I miss her and how much I would give to have her sit at that bench once more and hear her play for hours and hours.

Trace tells me that the only way I’ll be able to move on is if I can sit at that piano and play just one song. What he fails to realize is the fact that I don’t want to get over Maggie and I would do that piano a great disservice if I sat down in front of it and tried to attempt to play one song.

Just last night I stood by thebench and looked at the keys. My hand even went up to touch middle C but I pulled it back at the last second because I knew once I put my hands against the cold material I wouldn’t be able to stop and I think that’s what scared me.

If I don’t play I’ll keep her memory alive, but if I do I’ll keep her alive and move on as well. I’m stuck in limbo and I hate the feeling and I wish she was here to tell me that it was alright and I could sit there and play until my fingers bleed.

The most peculiar thing is sometimes when I’m in that little place between being awake and falling asleep, I can hear the piano far off in the distance. The passion and utmost control that Maggie played with is vibrating in my ears and it’s only then I find myself falling into a relaxing sleep filled with concertos and composers. The music follows me everywhere but it stops short of that piano bench.

It’s been three months and one day since I’ve played. Now its one o’clock in the morning and I can feel the onslaught of fatigue begin to overtake my body. I’m ready to go upstairs and let the music that died within me three months and one day ago take over me but something stops me. I don’t know what it is, but there’s a feeling inside that is pushing me towards the bench and while the majority of me is screaming to go to sleep, I manage to take a few steps towards the bench.

My knees brush against the black seat and I draw in a sharp intake of breath knowing that over three months and one day ago she sat on this very bench and played ‘Heart and Soul’ with me for the last time. The keys are staring back at me and daring me to touch them and I want to with all my heart but I stop. No matter how much I want to, I can’t play, it would be an insult to her memory and that is the last thing I want to do.

I’m about to get up and head to bed. After all, sitting on the bench is a huge feat in itself but something stops me. Just one Sonata isn’t going to hurt and it was the last thing she heard before…

My hands reach for their familiar position on the keys and I press down on them, the opening chords of the song filling the stale room. The reverberation is a bit daunting at first because the sound of a piano hasn’t been heard in over four months in this house. But soon I’m playing the next set of chords and the next and the next until I’m playing the entire Moonlight Sonata and the noise is heaven to my ears.
And then it happens. My foot reaches for the pedal and my head starts to bob back and forth before the music creeps up through my fingers and into my entire body. She’s here; she’s in the piano and in the music and its then that I realize she won’t ever leave. Maggie is the piano, she is the music and I can be with her as soon as my fingers brush those keys.

Now I really don’t want to stop playing. I don’t ever want this feeling to go away. And suddenly this one last Sonata, Maggie’s Sonata, becomes the first again.