The inland house
Lila did not come down for dinner. Nina took a plate upstairs and returned with it untouched. She put it in the refrigerator rather than on the table. Julian watched her do it. The house had a place for every ordinary sound, but the click of that door seemed louder than the dishwasher beside it.
“She's texting her friend,” Nina said. “I told her she doesn't have to talk to us tonight.”
“I should go up.”
“You should talk to me first.” Nina pulled out a chair. She had sheet music spread at the other end of the table, an arrangement for the younger students she taught. One page had been crossed through in pencil and begun again. She moved it out of the way without hiding it. “Start with Mara. Don't start with a theory about two Julians.”
Julian sat. He told her about himself at twenty-one and Mara at nineteen, the pregnancy, the bridge and the call. He told her he had answered from the road while another man with his memories stood in Mara's kitchen. Nina listened without interrupting until he reached the part where he said the returned Julian married Mara.
“Did you know she was pregnant when you left?”
“Yes.” He had said it in the workshop. The word was no easier in his own kitchen.
“And after?”
“I didn't ask.”
Nina looked at the crossed-out music. “All these years we have talked about what to tell Lila when she asks where we came from. You let me tell her I knew the important things about you.”
“I wanted that to be true.”
“Wanting is not the part I asked about.” She stood to turn off the stove, though it had been off for an hour. When she came back, she asked him to tell the rest, including how he had found Iris. He described the funeral as accurately as he could without making it the worst thing that had happened to him. He was not sure he succeeded.
“Iris came here because you gave her our address,” Nina said. “Did you tell her I didn't know she existed?”
“She asked. I said not yet.”
“And did you tell her when you would?”
“No.”
Nina opened one of the music folders. Inside was the program from Lila's performance. Julian's name was written in Lila's quick hand on the back, next to a row and seat number. Nina had kept it folded. “When was your car repaired?”
He looked at the program. “Three twenty on the day she played.”
Nina took her hand off the folder. “You could have driven.”
“If I'd left then, I might have made it.”
“And you said the part hadn't arrived.”
“Yes.”
“To me and to her. And two days ago you said they needed to check it again.”
“They didn't. I was afraid to come back and tell you why I'd stayed. I let another night pass.”
He wanted to say that he had been standing beside another life, one he had not known existed, that he had needed a day to understand what he owed. All of it was true. None of it explained why Lila had held a seat for him while he walked the harbor.
“I wanted to stay and speak to Iris,” he said.
Nina pushed the performance program toward him. “She kept looking at that seat,” she said. “Even after they turned the lights down.”
He touched the corner of the paper. “I can tell her now.”
“You will. But not because I make the words for you.” Nina stood. “I need you to stay somewhere else for a few nights. Lila doesn't have to see you at breakfast while she decides what to ask. I don't have to keep asking if there's another part of the story you've held back to protect us.”
“Nina, I'm not going to disappear.”
“I didn't say you were. I said I want you out of the house for several nights.” Her patience had ended at a very clear point. She did not raise her voice to make him hear it.
He packed a small bag. In the hall, Lila's door was closed. He could hear a few quiet violin notes inside, stopped and begun again. He almost knocked. If she wanted to speak, she knew where he was. He sent her a message saying he was staying at a guest house nearby and would answer when she was ready. He did not put an apology in the message to make her reply.
Nina met him at the front door. “I have a rehearsal with my students tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “I'm going to it. Lila might go with a friend. If she wants to meet Iris, she can ask Iris herself.”
“I wasn't going to stop her.”
“All right.” She picked up the dishcloth he had left on the bench and folded it, an ordinary task she did while she was thinking. “I don't know what I want from you after these nights. I know what I want tonight.”
Julian took his bag and left. The red door closed gently behind him. On the pavement he heard Nina call up to Lila that her plate was in the refrigerator, and Lila's answer came too faintly to make out. The house carried on with its own voices while he walked toward the guest room he had been asked to take.