Thank You for the Music Read Online Free PDF Page A

laugh with a one-liner. Tim was so serious, they thought, so burdened by his own jumbled thoughts and hopelessly inarticulate and emotional. (Beautiful music made him weep like a girl; he had learned to run and hide.) “A bit of the solipsist in that one,” his uncle had once declared, but that was far from the truth; it was the world that interested Tim, and had there been a magic pill in those days to take the self out of his self, he’d have taken it more often than not. He often imagined that everything wrong with his daughter was a gnarled weed sprung from the soil of his own twisted genes.
    Early in life, he’d become an expert at breaking commandments. Susan Harkins (famous in Twayne, Nebraska, for being half Jewish) became pregnant when the two of them were sixteen; they’d married. When the child was two months old they’d given him up for adoption to an older couple in town. (Through the years he’d tried unsuccessfully to track that son down, then given up.) Tim and Susan Harkins divorced after two years, when Tim was nineteen, and the young ex-wife ran away with a vagabond, leaving Tim to settle into his role as black sheep. He’d had a yearlong affair with Peg Cassidy, a petite married woman twice his age. He’d stolen her husband’s money and taken her away for a week to Niagara Falls. He’d been arrested. His mother had disowned him for a year and said he was a wild Indian like his father’s father, which he told her was a compliment.
    But none of this memory could he take seriously; rather he enjoyed superimposing his own face on the body of a black sheep, then placing the sheep on a train. The sheep with his own face would be framed in the window as the train slid out of Nebraska into a sea of stars, Willie Nelson singing “This Land Is Your Land,” his Cherokee ancestors nurturing earth in their graves.
    â€œYou could even drive,” the pastor said. His voice was beginning to fade. Was he on a cell phone? The pastor wouldn’t have a cell phone, would he? “It’s not that far. If Rachel still hates flying. . . .”
    â€œWell, listen, I don’t know about any travel, I mean after September eleventh, Rachel is actually getting agoraphobic.” (The lie slipped out before he could stop it and now he was ashamed.)
    The pastor had indeed invited them for a week, was saying they’d be the guests of honor. Why did so many things come true exactly the way you’d imagined? And why could you still be such a fool at age sixty-two? He stood outside with the phone now, letting the snow hit his face.
    He said, “Hey, listen, John, we’ll be there, we wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
    And heard the pastor sigh with gratitude. “You’ve always been there, Tim,” he said. “I hope Maria can come too, though I’d understand if she couldn’t. I’ll just be glad to have you beside me that day. I’m a little conflicted about this retirement—”
    â€œSo don’t do it!” Tim chimed in. “You’re still young.”
    His brother laughed. “Not that conflicted. I’m ready, and Claire and I are excited about moving. Did I mention we’re moving to New Mexico?”
    â€œNew Mexico!” Tim felt his face grow warm; he bent and scooped up some snow. Why did his brother have to retire to his wife’s favorite place on earth? Such mean coincidence always made Tim believe in God.
    â€œ. . . and there’s a lot of Spanish-speaking people there so Claire and I are taking Spanish—have been all year.”
    â€œGreat. Great. I’m really happy for you. It’s just great.”
    â€œYeah, well, thanks, Tim. I have to admit I get a little teary when I think about it all.”
    Tim was quiet. He didn’t know what to say. Feelings charged out of his heart like wildebeest down a cliff. Feelings built of memories that showed up only