Saving Elijah

lucky man is."
    She shrugged and put her napkin to her lips. "Stop it, Dad-dy."
    Sam gave her his big, dimpled smile. "Oh, come on, Kate, I'm having fun."
    "Bet it's Greg Laurence," Alex said.
    "You don't know what you're talking about, Alex," Kate said, with a haughty shrug of her beautiful shoulders. "We're just going to the movies, a bunch of us. Mom, would you tell him to chill?" A hint of amusement turned up at the corner of her mouth.
    I was glad my two older children had a natural, easy relationship, right down to their usually good-natured ribbing. My daughter had a large group of nice friends. In high school I had no gang to hang out with, and only one real friend, whom I hadn't spoken to for ... well, too long. Tall, gangly Julie Bronstein, with the incredible head of frizzy orange hair. She was forever wrapping, ironing, and processing that hair so she could wear it long, straight, and parted down the middle in the style of the day, an impossible effort. We became known in high school as the Red Twins, even though our two shades of red hair were as different as they could be, mine auburn, and hers, well, it looked like her head was on fire. We were so close we even went to the same university, but by the end of sophomore year, she stopped speaking to me. Julie was not a subject I liked thinking about.
    "Or maybe it's Ben Papp," Alex was saying.
    "Mom, are you going to tell him to shut up?"
    "Give it a rest, Alex," I said.
    "Are you coming to my concert?" Kate asked then. She'd taken up the flute when she was ten, and now played the instrument beautifully, with grace and delicacy. Her teacher said she might have a chance for a career in music if she really set her mind to it. So far, it didn't seem to be where she was going, but you never knew. For Sunday's concert, she was planning to play a Bach piece she'd been practicing diligently for weeks. She'd done many a concert before but for some reason this one had her jittery.
    "Of course," I said. "We'll all be there. All grandmas and grandpas. And Elijah, of course." Music was one of the few things that consistently held Elijah's attention, whether it was Elvis, Kate playing the flute, or my own off-key lullaby singing. I love listening to everything from folk, to jazz, to doo-wop, to acid rock, but I can't produce anything, instrumentally or vocally, that could remotely be called music. For two years I took lessons from a dictator named Anna Drum, who was unsuccessful in her attempt to hide her disappointment at my lack of talent, the lessons having begun the way everything did, by the command of my mother's fierce will.
    I was nine. Charlotte had screamed at me about something or other earlier in the week, and the gleaming white Steinway grand she had delivered to the house we lived in then was her way of making up. She was at work, of course, but Nelda seemed not only to be expecting it but also to know exactly how to rearrange the furniture in our living room to accommodate it. From the sidelines, Julie and I watched her direct its placement, no easy task, as it took up most of the room.
    "Who is going to play that thing?" I said finally.
    Julie looked at me and grinned. "I have a feeling you are."
    And that was how I learned that I was to study the piano.

    *    *    *

    "Kate changed the subject because she doesn't want to talk about Greg," Alex was saying now. "You're not going to buy that load of crap about the movies, are you? What about you, Elijah?"
    Elijah didn't seem to be paying attention. He wasn't eating either.
    "Give your sister a break," Sam said.
    Alex snorted. "Why should I?"
    "Because she's the most wonderful sister you '11 ever have," Kate said.
    Just then Poppy yelped. Poppy operates under the assumption that any food stared at long enough will eventually find its way to his mouth. He'd been sitting quietly at Elijah's feet, waiting. I realized that Elijah had been unusually quiet all the way through dinner. Come to think of it, he hadn't even wanted his usual horsy ride on his father's shoulders when Sam came in the door. Before Sam even put down his briefcase, it was always, "Horsy, horsy!"
    Not tonight.
    Elijah laid his head down on the table then, and he closed his eyes. And that was how it began.

four
    Can I come in?" Becky was standing in the doorway of the NAR. She'd come nearly every day since it began, and she didn't avert her eyes from Elijah when she walked in, the way everyone else seemed to do. She looked this