The Sound of Letting Go Read Online Free PDF Page B

terror.
    My heart begs me to silence my brain.
    My embouchure rested, I retreat to beats and measures,
    resume the glorious, focused effort of practicing.
    For more than an hour, I work at slurs and songs.
    My lips buzz into numbness.
    I should take a break,
    but I push through another series of pedal tones,
    low strengthening notes,
    before I set down the trumpet,
    drop breathless into the nearest “listening chair.”
     
    Whisper again,
    “I’m sorry.”
     

31
     
     
    “Daisy?” Mr. Orson catches me
    as I’m assembling my trumpet
    before the start of jazz band.
    “I wanted to talk to you about the holiday concert.
    I’d like you to play a solo. Something festive.
    I’ve got some pieces for you to try out.
    Pick something you like. Maybe talk it over with Aggie.”
     
    “Um, okay.” I take the folder of sheet music
    from his hand. Add the task
    of bringing the pages with me to my next lesson
    with my private trumpet teacher, Aggie Nedrum,
    to my epic to-do list.
     
    Why don’t I open my mouth, say “I just don’t have time
    to learn another song
    between practice, schoolwork, and my brother”?
    But I can’t,
    or won’t.
    I just enjoy Mr. Orson’s approving smile
    as a jaw-snapping yawn splits my face.
    And the emotion I feel isn’t sorrow but anger
    at being imprisoned in an autism family.
     
    We start in on the Ellington piece,
    a smooth swing number called “Almost Cried.”
    I spit each angry thought into the notes I play,
    getting louder, fiercer, than I ever can in my own home,
    well, any part of it except the basement.
     
    “Daisy, a little gentler, please. You’re getting off tempo,”
    Mr. Orson says in that kindly, unaccusing way he has, which, today, makes me burst into tears
    while the ten jazz guys (including Cal) stare
    and the three other girls mouth “on her period”
    to each other.
     
    “Excuse me, Mr. O.”
    I set my horn as roughly as I dare on my chair,
    dash out the door,
    turn toward the girls’ bathroom,
    but find myself rushing headlong
    into the “Yes I Didn’t!” T-shirted chest of Dave Miller.
     
    “Hey there, Daisy-brains.”
    Do I feel him pull me toward him for a second
    before taking my shoulders and putting me straight?
    “You okay?”
     
    “Yeah!” I say, adding intense mortification on a dozen
    levels to my misery.
    Mumble as I twist out of his grasp,
    “Yeah, I’m just terrific.”
     
    I make it to the bathroom
    without crashing into anyone else.
    Blessedly, it is empty and I can let go my shuddering sobs
    without locking myself in a stall
    and hoping no one recognizes my ink-covered Keds.
     
    By the time the homeroom bell rings, it is over.
    I splash my face with water,
    rub away the mascara streaks as best I can.
    Before I leave the bathroom, I text Mom.
    “After-school project meeting. Home by seven.”
     
    I have no idea what I’ll do between last period and seven
    at night,
    but I won’t do it in the prison.

32

     
     
    In A-PUSH, the words Mr. Angelli scrawls
    on the whiteboard blur before my weep-worn eyes.
    My head droops against the window;
    the foreboding chill of near winter
    seeps from the glass pane into my scalp.
    Phrases filter aimlessly into my resistant ears.
     
    In the Emancipation Proclamation,
    Abraham Lincoln declares that
    “all persons held as slaves . . .
    henceforward shall be free.”
     
    If a slave is someone
    who cannot make her own choices,
    whose life is scheduled, controlled,
    then aren’t I a slave?
    Don’t I deserve emancipation
    from Mom and Dad, who schedule my actions?
    From Steven, whose whims rule my spirits?
     
    Where are the “liberty and justice” for me in life’s equation?

33
     
     
    I can feel Justine’s worried eyes boring into the back of
    my skull
    as I take down history notes with weary deliberation,
    go through the motions
    of free will.
     
    “Tomorrow, we’ll take a partial practice AP test,”
    Mr. Angelli announces, as if that’s some kind of fun.
    He closes his