Chapter Twenty-Seven Cromwell

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cromwell

Several weeks later…

I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. My chest was tight, but my heart beat like a heavy drum. Adrenaline rushed through me. A switch had flicked on within me the minute I came to Charleston several weeks ago. When I stepped into the rehearsal room and was faced with a fifty-piece orchestra. The orchestra that would be playing my music at the gala.

Music that I’d composed.

I shook my head and took a drink of my Jack. I hadn’t drunk in weeks. Stopped smoking that day outside the hospital when I’d thrown my packet of cigarettes into the rubbish bin.

But I needed a few shots of Jack right now.

I got up, taking my Jack with me, and walked out of the dressing room and through the corridor into the theater. The sound of the door closing echoed around the vast space. I stared up at the painted ceiling and down to the rows and rows of red velvet seats. I made my way up onto the stage and moved to the front. I stared out over the theater, and my blood spiked with heat.

I focused on a spot in the center of the theater. The chair I’d reserved for Bonnie. Doubt sat like a lead ball in my stomach. I had barely spoken to her in all these weeks. Christmas and New Year’s had passed. She’d called me on Christmas Day, sounding like the old Bonnie. Her voice was strong, and she told me her heart was beating hard.

But I could hear the thick lacing of sadness in her voice. She’d barely asked about the music. My music. “I miss you, Cromwell,” she’d whispered. “Life just isn’t the same without you here.”

“I miss you too, baby,” I’d said in response. I’d paused. “Please come to the gala. Please…”

She hadn’t said anything to that. Even now, the night before the show, I didn’t know if she was coming. But she had to. She had to hear this piece.

I’d written it for her. Because of her. Everything in my life was now all about her.

I didn’t want it any other way.

I jumped off the stage and sat on the chair on the front row. I stared up at the theater, at the background that had been constructed for my performance. I sighed and took a long drink of the Jack.

I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of the theater. I remembered this smell. Lived for it. “You belong on that stage, son . ” My father’s voice circled my head. “You’ll have them captivated the same way you do me”

The lump that always came to the surface clogged my throat. Then I felt someone drop down beside me. I opened my eyes and saw Lewis. He’d been with me all these weeks. He’d never left my side. Working with me day and night on my symphony. He hadn’t talked to me again about what I’d discovered. Just worked with me, composer to composer, synesthete to synesthete.

He understood me more than I ever could have known. He’d felt every note I’d played. And he felt every emotion my music tried to convey. And better still, he’d supported me when I decided to be different. My piece tomorrow night would divide opinion. I knew it. But it had to be done. It was the story I needed to tell, in the only way I knew how.

“You nervous?” Lewis spoke quietly, yet his voice echoed off the walls of the theater like thunder.

I sighed. I didn’t answer him at first but then said, “Not about the performance…”

“You want Bonnie to be here.”

I clenched my jaw. I wasn’t good at letting people in. With showing my emotions. But Lewis had seen me compose. He’d helped me all the way. He knew what my piece was about. There was no point in hiding it from him now.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “Not sure she will be. Her mum is trying, but she’s still in a bad place.” My stomach dropped in sadness. “Deep down she loves music. But since Easton, it’s been lost, and she doesn’t know how to get it back.”

“She sees this,” Lewis said, pointing at the stage that tomorrow would be filled with a full orchestra, lights and…me, “she sees you on that stage, conducting a piece inspired by her, and she’ll see. Music will find its way to her again.” I turned to face him when he went quiet. “I’ve never seen or heard anything like what you’ve created, Cromwell.” Lewis’s voice was husky, and the sound of it made my stomach tense.

I’d been good these past several weeks. Managed to not think of the truth. Of who he was to me. The composing consumed me. My days and minutes were taken up by notes and strings and crescendos. But right here, right now, I couldn’t fight it even if I tried.

“You’re better than I am.” Lewis laughed. “It’s not easy for a composer to admit that. But it’s true…and it makes me so goddamned proud.” His voice broke off, and I had to grit my teeth together to stop the lump in my throat from growing. My pulse beat faster.

“I was selfish,” he said, his voice raspy. I gripped my bottle of Jack so tightly I was sure it would smash under my hand. Lewis ran his hand through his hair. “I was young and had the whole world at my feet.” He inhaled deeply, like he needed the break. “Your mama was someone I didn’t expect.” I dropped my eyes to stare at the floor. “She walked into my life like a tornado and knocked me on my ass.” My hand shook, the amber liquid sloshing around in the bottle. “And I fell in love with her. Not just a little bit either. She became my whole world.”

Lewis stopped speaking. His eyes were shut, his face pinched as if he was in pain. He kept his eyes closed as he said, “But I had my music…and I also had drink and drugs. Your mama didn’t know about that until later.” He patted his chest. “It was the emotions. They helped quell the emotions.”

I looked down at the Jack in my hand. I thought of how it was all I drank when I’d lost my dad. When it all became too much.

“My music was starting to get noticed, and the pressure built. And your mama stayed by my side, helping me by just being there and loving me.” I was frozen as he admitted that. I pictured my mum in my head. I tried to imagine her when she was young and carefree. She’d been so quiet and reserved my whole life. I struggled to understand her, but now I was starting to see it made sense. Lewis broke her heart. For the first time in years I felt like I knew her. Then I thought of Bonnie. Because Bonnie was that person for me. The one I let in. The one who helped me through the emotions when they became too much. The one who believed in me. The one who I’d tried to push away. But she’d stayed beside me. Right now, I felt sorry for Lewis, because he’d lost his Bonnie. My stomach fell as I thought of the distance between Bonnie and me now. The pain of it was unbearable.

“But the more the music consumed me, the more the alcohol and the drugs became the one real focus in my life.

“It went that way for months, until she found me with the drugs.” His face contorted, and his voice lost strength. “She begged me to stop, but I didn’t. I believed at the time I couldn’t, because of the music. But I was selfish. And it has been the biggest regret of my life.” He finally met my eyes. “Until I found out about you.”

“You left her pregnant?” I asked, the black, simmering anger I was feeling showing in my voice.

“I didn’t know she was pregnant at first,” he said. “I was an addict, Cromwell. And your mama did what was best for you both at the time. And that was not having me in your life.” Lewis ran his hand down his face. He looked exhausted. “I found out she was carrying you when she was six months along.”

“And?”

He met me square-on, let me see the shame in his eyes. “Nothing. I did nothing, Cromwell.” He blew out a shaky breath. “It was the biggest mistake of my life.” He leaned forward, and his gaze became lost on the stage. “My life was the music. It was all I had. Made myself believe it was all I had. Later, I heard your mama had met someone, a British Army officer, when she was pregnant. He’d been stationed over here in the States.”

I tensed. This was the bit that involved my dad.

“I found out she had moved to England to be with him. That they’d married…and that you’d been born. A boy.” He looked at me. “A son.” His voice cracked, and I saw the tears brimming in his eyes. “It killed me at the time, but like I did with everything else, I drowned the feeling in liquor and drugs.” He sat back in his seat. “I toured the world, playing packed-out theaters and creating some of the best music of my life.” He sighed. “I blocked it all out. Hardly ever went home.”

He clasped his hands together. “Until one day I did, to see a pile of letters. Letters from England.” My stomach flipped. “They were from your dad, Cromwell.” I fought back the tears that were threatening to fall. I pictured my dad, and all I could see was royal blue. I saw his smile and felt how it was to be around him. How he’d always made everything so much better. How he’d always prided himself on doing the right thing. He was the best of men.

“They were letters from him, telling me all about you.” A tear fell down his cheek. “And there were pictures. Pictures of you…” The lump in my throat grew thicker and my vision blurred. Lewis shook his head. “I stared at those pictures for so long that my eyes were strained. You, Cromwell. My little boy, with my coloring, my black hair.”

My heart slammed against my chest. “I fought for years to get sober after that. It was a battle I didn’t get a hold of until you were a lot older.” He went quiet. “I lived for those letters. I lived for those pictures. They became the only real thing in my life…and then, one day, a new letter came. One that had a video inside.” Lewis shook his head. “I’ve lost count of how many times I watched that video.”

“What was on it?” I asked, voice graveled.

“You.” Lewis wiped a fallen tear from his cheek. “You playing the piano. Your father’s letter told me that you’d never had lessons. But that you could just play.” His eyes became lost to his memories. “I watched you play, your hands so skillful…and the smile on your face and the light in your eyes, and I felt like I’d been hit by a ten-ton truck. Because, there, on that screen, was my son…a music lover just like me.”

I turned my head away. I didn’t know if I could hear this. “Your father told me of the synesthesia. He knew of my tour to Britain, to the Albert Hall, and asked me something I never thought would happen. He asked me to meet you. To help you…he thought I should know you. Because of how special you were.” My head fell forward. My dad had been special too. He’d loved me so much. I wished I’d told him how much I loved him when he was here.

“He knew you had synesthesia too. He knew you’d be able to help me.” My heart squeezed as I thought of the pride my father would have had to swallow to ask Lewis, the father who didn’t want me, for help. But he’d done it.

He’d done it for me.

A tear tracked down my cheek.

“That night,” Lewis said, his voice trembling, “I’d been sober for a few years…” He looked at me. It was the first time I’d really looked at him. And I saw myself in his face. I saw the similarities and the shared features. “When I saw you…my son, standing there in front of me, your mama so gracious in letting me meet you after everything I’d done…I went home that night and overdosed so badly that I woke up in the hospital with a permanently damaged liver.”

My eyes widened. Lewis’s tears were free-falling now. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take all of this. “Seeing you showed me how much I’d messed up. And my son, who was more talented than I would ever be, didn’t know me. Called someone else Dad.” He wiped his face with his hand. “It destroyed me. And from that moment on, I made myself a promise. That I would do anything I could to help you…” Lewis trailed off, and I knew what happened next. “Cromwell, when I learned of your father…”

“Don’t,” I said, unable to hear it.

Lewis nodded, and the silence hung heavily between us. “I’ve never met a more honorable man in my life. Your father…” I choked on the lump. “He loved you more than anything in this world. And because of that, he allowed me glimpses into your life—something I didn’t deserve. Still don’t.”

I dropped my head, and the teardrops from my eyes crashed to the floor. “He should be here right now,” I choked out. “Seeing this. Me, tomorrow.”

I felt a hand on my back. I tensed. I almost told him to move it, to fuck off, but I didn’t. After everything—after Dad, and Bonnie, and Easton—I just let it happen. I needed it. I needed to know I wasn’t on my own. I let it all out. On the theater floor where tomorrow I would conduct, I let everything that had been caged up inside me for so long loose.

When my eyes were swollen and my throat was dry, I lifted my head. Lewis kept his hand where it was. “I have no right to ask anything of you, Cromwell. And I’ll understand if you never want more from me than my help over these past weeks.” I met his eyes and saw the desperation there. “I’m not a good man like your father. And I could never fill his shoes. But if you ever want me, or need me, or would be gracious enough to let me into your life, even just a little bit…” He trailed off, and I knew he was struggling to finish. “Then…that would be the greatest gift I’ve ever received.”

As I looked at Lewis, I realized I was tired. I was tired of letting everything get to me. Of carrying all the sadness in my heart and the anger in my gut. I thought of Bonnie and of Easton, and of everything they’d gone through. Of how Easton hadn’t been able to cope. I didn’t want that for my life. I’d spent three years choking on the anger and sadness…the regret of my last words to my dad, and I didn’t want to go there again. Bonnie had shown me a new way to be. And I refused to go back.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know how much I can give you.” It was the truth. Lewis looked like I’d struck him, but he nodded his head. He went to get up. “But I can…try,” I said, and I felt a new kind of lightness settle in my chest.

Lewis looked back at me and took a quick inhale. Tears built in his eyes. “Thank you, son.” He started to walk away.

Son.

Son…

“Thank you,” I said as he approached the exit. Lewis turned around, frowning. “For everything you’ve done, these past months. I…I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I did nothing, son. This was all you. And tomorrow night, it’ll be all you again.”

I looked down at the Jack Daniels in my hand. “Will you be okay? Tomorrow?” I’d asked a favor of Lewis, for the sake of the piece. He’d accepted straightaway, without thought.

Lewis looked up at the empty stage, which this time tomorrow would be full of musicians like us. “I’ll be up there beside you, Cromwell.” He gave me a tentative smile. “I imagine I’ll be the most okay I’ve ever been in my life.”

With that he walked out of the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I sat there for another hour, playing the piece in my head, replaying how it looked in rehearsals. Just as I was about to leave, I took out my phone and texted Bonnie.

I hope you come tomorrow, baby. It’s all for you. I love you.

I pocketed my mobile and walked back to the hotel. And with every breath, I thought of Bonnie’s face, her brown eyes sparkling from my music. And I prayed to God that she’d be there.

Hopefully, with a smile once again on her lips.