“Okay,” I said slowly. “Okay. Do you want me to come?”
He hesitated. Then he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “You have to come.”
He went back upstairs without eating. I sat alone at the kitchen table and wondered what I’d just agreed to.
The next few weeks were strange.
Caleb was quieter than ever around me, but something in the house had changed. At night, after I’d gone to bed, I started hearing something through the wall between our rooms.
Guitar.
Very soft. So soft I thought I was imagining it the first time. A few notes, then stopping. Then the same few notes again. Then stopping.
I lay in the dark with my heart pounding.
David had taught Caleb to play when he was seven. They’d sit on the back porch on summer evenings, David with his big old acoustic, Caleb with a cheap little half size one we got at a pawn shop, and David would show him the chords one at a time. G. C. D. Caleb’s fingers were too small and he’d get frustrated, and David would laugh and say, “Everybody’s fingers hurt at first, bud. That’s how you know you’re learning.”
