One Last Thing Before I Go

great lengths to avoid anything resembling it. But the sense he gets from Rich is that, despite his consistently bad behavior, Rich would like to be his friend, and for some reason, this notion, as strange as it may be, fills him with something that, if pressed, he would define as hope.
    The office door swings open and Casey comes in carrying a glass of water. “Hey,” she says to Rich. “How’s the patient?”
    “Breathing,” Rich says, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s your mom doing?”
    “Circulating.”
    Rich and Casey share a knowing grin. Silver can see that they have a shorthand between them, and he feels that familiar sense of loss tweak something in his belly.
    “I’ll go check on her,” Rich says. Then he turns to Silver. “We’re supposed to leave for Turks and Caicos tomorrow. But I will gladly shift that by a day or two if you would agree to let me operate on you tomorrow.”
    “That’s very nice of you, Rich.”
    “I need to know, today.”
    “I understand. Thank you.”
    Rich nods and leaves the office.
    Casey comes over to Silver and sits down next to him.
    “He’s a good guy,” Silver says.
    “Yeah. How are you feeling?”
    “Suitably embarrassed.”
    “They’ll edit you out of the video.”
    “And I was trying to be inconspicuous.”
    She smiles and hands him the glass. “What do you do when you’re trying to get noticed?”
    Silver grins and takes a greedy gulp of the water, then immediately gags and spits it out, coughing violently.
    “Shit! What the hell is this?!”
    “Vodka rocks.”
    He clears his throat, panting heavily as the vodka burns his throat. “Jesus Christ, Casey. I was unconscious five minutes ago.”
    “I know. I figured you could use a stiff drink.”
    He looks at her through the haze of the shock-induced tears brought on by the drink. “And why is that?”
    “Because it’s time to decide.”
    “Me or you.”
    She gives him a serious look, and he can see in it the formidable woman she will be. “Both of us.”
    He takes her hand in his and pulls her against him. “I missed you,” he says.
    “When?”
    “Always.”
    He can feel her vibrating against him, and when he turns to look at her, he is surprised to see that she is crying.
    Be a better man.
    Be a better father.
    Fall in love.
    He understands now that they’re all the same thing, all connected, all about this beautiful young girl he doesn’t deserve to have sitting beside him, her robust tears leaving a gentle trail on the smooth surface of her gown.
    “Did you know that your mother was a bridesmaid when I met her?”
    She turns to look at him, curious. “No. You tend not to ask your divorced parents how they met.”
    “Well, do you want to know?”
    She leans her head against his shoulder. “Yes, please,” she says in a voice so soft and high, she could be seven again.
    So he tells her. And when he finishes, they decide.

CHAPTER 55
    S ilver sits behind his kit, giving his drums a workout. He has set up two bass drums, as he always does when he’s looking to sweat. He plays in common time, bass-comping wildly, shifting in and out of broken-up beats, luxuriating in the solid
thunk
of his beaters against the bass-drum skins. His hands are a blur, his left rolling and sliding across the snare, his right tapping out a separate rhythm on the cymbal bell of his ride. He shifts rhythms thoughtlessly, starts his fills three measures back, so that by the time he crescendos they’ve told their own story. He jumps out of the beat, keeping it in his head while he goes into a complex drag sequence, and then diving back into it seamlessly. He can play like this for hours, with no accompanying music, no audience, just him and the beat, keeping time. His tinnitus comes from his years behind the crashing cymbals, but it is only here that he can drown out the ringing in his ears.
    He plays himself into a frenzy until he reaches the place where all sound retreats, and he is completely absorbed into the rhythm. It’s here, in this sweet spot, that he has always found his peace. And now he plays with ferocious intensity, feeling each stroke, each beat, trying to internalize it. For all he knows, this might be the last time he ever sits behind his kit.
    He has already begun to drive himself crazy with thoughts like that. It’s around five in the afternoon and he is walking around his apartment, just as he has for the last seven years. But tomorrow he could very well be dead. And