Too late.
Madeline was already staring into the closet, then looking back at me with a quizzical smile. “You play the guitar? I didn’t know that.”
There’s a lot about me you don’t know, I thought.
I shook my head. “I don’t really play at all. It’s a hobby, not something I’m good at. You can close that door now, the broom is in the laundry room. I’ll go get it.”
But Madeline had already pulled the guitar out of the closet… along with all the sheet music of Dean’s songs. She looked through the pages and looked at me. The expression on her face was a strange mix of surprise and a dawning realization. “You, ah… you’re more of a fan than I thought. Of Dean’s music, I mean. You’ve learned all his songs?”
I was a bad liar.
Some people have it in them to fabricate the truth. Some people are good liars. Some people aregreatliars. Not me.
I nodded.
“Does Dean know?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you ever play the guitar for anyone?”
I shook my head again.
“Will you play it for me?”
“Oh, no. I can’t. I couldn’t. I’ve never played for anyone before. I don’t want to play the guitar for anyone.”
Madeline took a deep breath and said, “I think what you mean to say is, you don’t want to play the guitar forjustanyone.” She paused and added, “You want to play it for Dean. Don’t you?”
“Oh, no, not at all.”Thatwas true. I never wanted Dean to hear how terrible I was at playing the guitar. But Madeline was peeling away the layers of a much deeper truth.
That’s when we both noticed the card lying on the floor at her feet.
It was the card I’d tucked into the strings of the guitar. It must have fallen out when she pulled the instrument out of the closet.
She bent low.
“No, please—”
She picked it up, opened it. “You got a birthday card from Dean?” She read the message. “You’re his darling? His secret?”
“Oh God.” The sigh that came out of me felt like my soul was leaving my body. “It’s not… it’s not what you think. It’s…” Like I said, I was a bad liar. I had to come clean. “Dean didn’t write that. I did.”
Her brow furrowed. “You wrote a card… to yourself… pretending to be Dean?”
My head fell into my hands.
Madeline set the guitar and the card and the sheet music down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa once again.
For a moment I didn’t move, and she didn’t gesture for me to sit beside her, but there was a conversation that needed to be had and we both knew it.
I walked away from the smashed vase and sat next to her on the couch.
“You don’t think of Dean as just your best friend’s son, do you.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t look offended or betrayed or even shocked. Her voice was calm. Comforting even.
I shook my head.
“Does Dean know how you feel?”
