My father believes that every  person  is destined to do something great in their life.

He said this to the graduating classes of Wesleyan , NYU and Boston College.

He said this to my mother and now... she's in France teaching.

He said this to my brother and he is training hopelessly for the Olympic Triathlon

He says this to his own students and they love him for it.

He says this to me and everyday it scares me.

 

I don’t think he believed in destiny or greatness before he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Before he traveled the world to hear other people's stories

Before he wrote his second book

Before he wrote his first book

Before he met my mother

Before he lost his sight

Before he got sick.

 

-1-

Professor Colin Barrett’s office is in the basement floor of Rischman House and I wonder what he could have possibly done to be banished this far away. There was a whole new building for his department that had, among other things, central heating and front doors that opened the first time.

Despite a renovation to Rischman House just three decades ago, the creaky old elevator refuses to close for me. My claustrophobia sets in so I head for the stairs, the violin case bumping against my leg down all five flights.

I follow the maze of the old building and after numerous dead ends and supply closets, I come to his office. Professor Barrett's door is shut, but I can hear his tape player.

I knock loudly and when he opens the door he actually looks  happy to see another human being and I start to feel guilty.

“Jonah,” he says swinging open wider. “I’m glad you found me okay.”

I'm breathing a little too loudly from my jog down the stairs as I make my way inside.

My brother would be so ashamed.

The office is surprisingly roomy and I see an beige percolator bubbling next to his desk. It's plugged into a extension cord that looks like it's from the 80s. Professor Barrett is somewhat of a hypochondriac and drinks hellish concoctions of tea and herbs to keep away something I'm not sure of. I think he is only in his late 30's .

The bulk of his office is a wall of music and composition books and another wall of crooked music stands, broken instruments and parts. 

“Sorry I’m late. I had some trouble finding you.” I say, putting off the real reason I am there.

Not that what I say isn’t true. Besides the labyrinth design of the building, the sign for Rischman had been plucked from the lawn outside and after repeated attempts to open the front door I was told you had to go through the back way by maintenance staff.

“Yeah, they don’t make  it easy.” He says turning down the music.

“Why didn’t they move you into the new performing arts building ?,” I ask.

“I asked to stay.” He replies proudly. “This place used to be a church, back in the old days.  I kind of like the spiritualness of it. It’s inspiring, you know ? Are you very spiritual ?”

 I’d been to church exactly six times in my life. Which also correlates with the number of funerals I’ve been to. Still, when I had been in those churches I got a feeling there was something there.

“I’m spiritual, I guess.” 

“That’s a good answer,” he says. “We all gotta believe in something.”

“I believe in a lot of things,” I think aloud

“That’s good,” he compliments me again.

After a beat I decide it is time.

“Actually, there is one thing I don’t believe in.”

He keeps looking at me as he adds honey to his tea.

“Mmhm?” 

“I don’t believe I’m very good at the violin,” I admit and my eyes find a birthday card on his desk to concentrate on.

It has an anthropomorphic treble clef on the front and says Wishing you a treble-free year. I can see the wires and I know it’s one of those cards that once played music. I wonder if it played something classic like Beethoven’s Sonata or Happy Birthday or something more cheeky like Bridge Over Troubled Water. 

Trebled water I guess.

I realize I’ve been quiet too long and take another breath.

“I think I’m going to drop your class,” I mumble.

I expect him to get mad, but really he can’t get to mad at me.  He’s just a professor and I’m just his  student.  Former student.

 “I’m really disappointed to hear that Jonah” Professor Barrett finally says and I wished he’d just yelled at me.

“I know, I’m sorry--”

“Well, I appreciate you atleast coming down here to talk to me.” 

I start rambling.

“I didn’t want to not show up after you did all that work to get me in your class. I mean,  I learned a lot and I thought it could be my thing, but I’m just not sure I’m good enough or that I take music that seriously and I didn’t want to waste your time anymore--"

“You were never wasting my time," he tells me. "You have a lot of potential."

Potential.

“Right. Anyway I got this violin specifically for your class and I thought since I won’t be using it, you’d have more use for it than I would. Give it to another student or donate it to the school…”

 I place the case on his desk and pop open the lid for him to see it’s still in pristine condition. If possible, he looks even more disappointed. I'm afraid he's going to bring up or possibly even blame Matty, but he doesn't.

“ That’s very kind. But, I  think you should keep it. It’s already been measured for you.”

“I just don’t really see  myself taking more classes--,”

“You know you don’t have to take a class to play it. You have excellent musicality, Jonah and I’d hate to see you quit all together. You should play for recreation.”

I’d never thought about it like that. I don’t want him to know that, so I simply close the case.

He offers me some of his tea, it’s a custom mix of bark,  bitter black tea leaves, hibiscus and lemon zest and smells noxious. He tells me the health benefits of each as  he pours the hot water over the hand rolled bags and into  a Styrofoam cup.  Professor Barrett is kind of chatty in general, so I sit and politely listen to him tell me about his other classes and his life in general.

 I keep my eyes on the clock waiting for a lull in the conversation so I can make my excuses and get out.

He pauses in the middle of a story about his TA Posey Henry  having an audition with the Boston Symphony next week to  reheat the water and I take the chance.

“Look at the time, ” I say standing up. “I’m sorry to leave, but I have to meet someone for lunch.”

“Well, I hope I see you around, my doors always open.” he says to me and I nod as I make my way to the door.

It’s not a lie necessarily I say to myself as I make my way out of Rischman House. I do have a lunch to get to; it’s just not for another hour.

-2-

Feeling like the biggest disappointment ever I ride towards the south side of campus on Mom's bright purple Schwinn. I hate the color, but it's a necessarily evil and  I hadn't had time to get a bike of my own.

I learned in my first week of class that it's a pain  to do anything on the new south side of campus because it’s separated from the main campus by a rather large portion of the Plymouth Bay. The shuttle was always delayed and parking was a nightmare-- and technically freshman aren't supposed to be driving cars on campus.

The south side of campus used to have some houses and some kind of museum back before I was born, but in my own memory it always looked like a place people got murdered. When I was in middle school and they announced the college expansion Dad called it bullshit. He felt the school shouldn't buy more land and was too far from the main campus.

He’d come around since.

Usually, I am running or biking at light speed across Strauss Bridge to get from Economics to Russian History, but now I  take my time. I pull the bike over to sit down on one of the benches and close my eyes, looking down at the violin case.

I had just acquired the world’s most expensive paperweight.

It’s an unusually quiet day on the bridge. Normally the early fall winds cause crashing waves and  people rent  parasails from the school and have mini sailing tournaments.  But the skies is a bright clear blue and there isn’t even much traffic on the single lane stretch of road so it feels  serene.

In the distance joggers are getting in an afternoon run, a campus tour is admiring the Bay  and I see a few  art students painting the scenery beyond.

I imagine Dad sitting on this bench and taking it all in back in the day. I imagine  seeing things exactly as he saw them and I wonder how much has changed.

It’s just so quiet.

Too quiet.

Without thinking too much I flip open the case, take the violin out, sit back on the bench and check my posture. I had been playing instruments since I was 5-years-old and I know all the rules, even though I suck at everything else.

When I was 15, my brother and I tried to start a band. I played the bass and sang lead. He played the piano. Matty even joined but quit because he thought my brother and I argued too much.  We pretty much disbanded after two weeks, but we did learn one song together, and I had always liked playing it. I just never had a reason to.

I shake off my classically trained posture, stand up and pluck a few of the strings in the familiar chord rhythm. I do it a few times, when a middle aged man on the bench nearby notices me and actually nods approvingly. I take out the bow and with practiced precision  hit the first four chords.

I can perfectly mimic and memorize the notes of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to any teacher’s standards.

But I can play Journey.

I’d never done this in public before, I don’t do anything in public and I’m feeling possessed. People are staring at me.  I breathe through the anxiety and let the rest of the notes fall from my fingers to the bow and remind myself that I love this music and I love this song.

A crowd is actually gathering and I’m afraid of what happens when this moment crashes. I cast my eyes down and glance at my open case to see people have left money inside. I hadn’t meant to leave it open, but as I get to the final sections I can’t tell who put it in to give it back.

I’ve played the final chorus twice through. When I finally let the song fade it's is silent again.  TYhey clap and I look up.

That’s when I see her. 

This girl with a cautious glossy smile, large bright brown eyes surrounded by two long dark ponytails on each side of her head. She's  the only person near me who isn’t smiling , but she is clapping with the crowd and I feel an instant connection with her when we lock eyes.

I just know it.

She is my destiny.

 

***

 -3-

Half an hour later, my head is in a fog  and I’m afraid I’ll be late when I finally make it across the bridge  to Whitman’s, the new south side of campus dining hall. I’d placed my violin back in its  case with the money--which I figured I’d deal with later.

Dad is already outside the dining hall smoking a cigarette. 

For what it's worth, Aris Morrow doesn’t do much to embody the physical ideal of someone who has a Pulitzer Prize sitting in their  home office.  Dad’s daily uniform usually involves pilled sweaters, sneakers and the leather backpack Mom gave him for their first anniversary.

If I ever saw him in a suit, I'd assume Grandpa Jeremiah died again.

 “Hey Dad,” I call walking up to him and chaining the bike to a nearby fountain.

“Jonah, how were your classes today ?” he asks, putting out the cigarette.

“Good," I decide.

Sure, I’d fallen asleep in my gigantic Poli Sci lecture this morning, just dropped my favorite elective class and had some tea I think is going to have some unfortunate consequences; but I’m still thinking about the girl and the conversation we had. I’d bring up meeting her with Dad but I know it’s too soon for that and I'm not sure he'd understand.

“Did you hear from Mom today?,” he asks, a small tremor in his voice

“Uh, no.” 

“Well... she’s busy and the time zones are off,” he reasons to me. Or probably himself.

“Yeah, I know. But she said we can call her whenever if you need to--”

“No, no. I was just asking.” He cuts me off.

I’m thankful when my brother, Ethan, comes running up towards us in just a Eastham College tank top and shorts.

“Aren’t you cold ?,” I ask him before he can get a word out.

“Nah, just starving.” Ethan responds. “Come on, let’s eat I gotta meet my trainer.”

Here are some things about my dad;

1.) I love him.

2.) He doesn't give up 

3.) He is kind of this living legend at Eastham College.

Dad is head of the Eastham College School of Graduate Studies, wrote a best selling novel about his time at the college, My Own Eternity. And even though it’s not the book that got him the Pulitzer, you can bet it’s on every freshman’s summer reading list. The college obligates him to do a live reading every year and exactly 30 or less of the 400 incoming freshman  show up every year. 

His opening joke is always ‘they told me it is a full house and I’ve decided to believe them’. And people laugh because they don’t expect the blind jokes so early.  I don't think they expect them at all, but Dad's gotten pretty good at disarming people. 

Most of the students who go here know his name or face (or that he is the blind man on campus) and he knows it too. And I sometimes think he feels like it’s his duty to take on eccentricities that go along with notoriety.

Like eating lunch in the school cafeteria when we are less than a mile away from some of the best restaurants in Massachusetts.

The dining hall is already brimming with people when we get inside, Ethan grabs a tray and heads for the salad bar while Dad and I take the regular line.

“What is it today ?” Dad asks

“Chicken a la King.” I observe

“Perfect. That’s not something you have every day, now is it ?”

I agree with him, it’s not something I’d eat every day but only because it looks like someone beat me to the chewing.  

Since Mom went bon voyage to teach a semester in France, Dad and I have been living off  meals from a rotation of his favorite diners. And even when Mom was here, she  had a natural aversion to anything that had ‘cream of’ on the can. The cooks at Eastham College however, use it every day. Still, I need more than  salad right now and I don’t want  hold up the line so I accept a tray of what could most accurately be called chicken pot pie guts.7.

 “We were just talking about Mom.” I tell Ethan when we get to a table. His plate is filled with dry green salad piled with cold cut turkey and hardboiled eggs. Too many hardboiled eggs.

“Yeah, she sent me some pictures from one of the campuses and the host family she is living with.” He says taking out his phone. I take note that his screen saver is of him and a blonde girl wearing a Delta Nu t-shirt.

He opens the camera roll and I see a picture of Mom in a restaurant with the French family she was staying with. She has her arms comfortably around the two people at her sides and a wide smile on her face.

It’s weird Mom being away like this, but it’s not like there is a place missing for her at this table. The weekly lunch  was something my Dad instituted between the three of us since Ethan started at Eastham 3 years ago.

 “Well, I think I’m going to start doing some short lectures at the undergrad poetry seminar classes.” Dad says, ”Monica has convinced me.”

“Cool,” I say

Ethan doesn't say anything, but it's mostly because he is responding to a text.

Monica Cremini is a guest lecturer at Eastham and  the poet laureate of New York. She and Dad both share an agent. Apparently she writes poetry about the Red Sox through the lens of women’s rights or something.  She has a lot of connections in the literary world and yet,  Dad seems to always be her first reader.

There is an uncomfortable silence, which is kind of uncommon at these lunches, but then Ethan is talking about the new place where he has been running that his training partner told him about and how well he is doing there. It all leads to him saying he will need to borrow Mom’s car to drive to a pool facility in Boston on the weekends.

My brother (like me) had gotten a car on his 16^th birthday. But Mom took back the keys of his precious Jeep and traded it in for cash after he got academic probation for the third time last semester. I'd never seen them both so pissed. Ethan broke a chair and we didn't see him for 2 days. He came back with a dozen pink roses for her.

“I'll talk to your mother about the car, but how are the classes going ?” Dad asks him.

I brace myself.

“Well, I’m still taking that history elective,” Ethan mumbles.

“What else ?,” Dad continues

“Dad, I’m busy, okay ? I’m cutting to the chase  and taking just one class now so I don’t end up just withdrawing from all of them--”

“Ethan, son, you need to concentrate-”

“Concentrate on school.  I know. I’m trying," he sulks.

Ethan gives me a desperate look to change the subject and  even though I, like every little brother, love to see him get taken down a peg, I concede.

“Hey Dad, I saw that new film house downtown is doing a local film festival later this week. There's a documentary  on Morton Gates. Wanna go ?”

Gates is my dad’s favorite journalist who worked at the Boston Globe.  The documentary is by some film students so it may suck, but the topic gets him in a better mood. Soon he is telling us his favorite Gates’ stories again. That's another thing about  Dad-- he can tell other people's stories even better than his own. I think that's why his second book did so well.

Ethan give me a thankful look, but I don’t return it. I focus on my plate and listen to Dad talk reverently about The Boston Globe's role in the dismantling of 1980’s Boston City Council.

And I think about her.

 

***

-4-

I feel bad that for the first day I knew Abigail  I called her the girl on the bridge. I had just been so caught up in what she was saying and the look in her eyes that I almost forgot she told me her name.

I did remember her favorite coffee order, it was vanilla latte with cinnamon sprinkled on top, she said when she was cold it always warmed her up. So, before I met her on Strauss Bridge the next day I stop by The Thinking Cup--this pretentious, overpriced coffee shop that I seemed to spend every waking moment in.

Abigail looks disappointed when she sees me and I hand her the latte.

“No violin ?,” she asks

“I left it at home, sorry.” I admit. I hadn't realized she wanted me to bring it.

“That’s okay,” she placates.

The parasailers are out and we sit on the benches and watch them riding the waves. She's wearing a long pink peacoat and pair of  black heels that  hover barely an inch off the bench. One of the parasailing guys completely wipes out and we both go into a fit of laughter. I don’t think he can hear us from where he is over the crush of the waves.

“So, do you know who my Dad is ?” I ask. I just have to because I hate to assume.

She shakes her head and her manicured eyebrows come together.

“His name is Aris Morrow, he wrote some books--”

“How My Light is Spent ?,” she finishes.

So she does know.

“That book about blindness, right ?," she continues.  "They sell it at like every gas station  from here to the state line. Didn’t it win like a Nobel Peace Prize ?”

“Pulitzer.”

“ Wow. That's impressive--,"

"Not really. It was 15 years ago, he hasn't really published anything since."

"Still, that’s pretty awesome.  I really like books....poetry, mostly.  I kinda love poetry...probably because it's shorter," she laughs.

She seems embarrassed to be confessing this to me.

“I get that," I say, even though I kind of have issues with poets now. "Anyway, my dad's wrote a book before the famous one. It's based on his experiences here. It's called My Own Eternity  and at readings he reads from a chapter about this bridge. He wanted the bridge to be one of the last things he saw before he got really sick and lost his sight completely.  He said he came out here every day and just looked at it for hours to soak it all in.”

“Well, he made a good choice. It’s  beautiful out here," she agrees.

“Yeah, sometimes I forget because I’m too busy trying to get across it. I’m glad I’m finally appreciating it.”

"Is it weird reading your dad's college life ?"

"I don't know," I admit. "I've never actually read the entire book. I prefer to remember my parents as they are."

She nods understandingly.

After finishing the latte, Abigail insists on visiting the pretentious, overpriced coffee shop in person and she loves it just as much as I do. Going along with it’s name, The Thinking Cup has an amazing library and we sit on the bean bags and she reads aloud in a quiet voice to me. She did love poetry, she knows a lot of poetry volumes just by sight and I soon learn her favorite is Sylvia Plath.

"I like how everything she writes is deeply personal and  honest . I feel like I know her through her writing." Abigail explains.

Aside from tulips,  Abigail  doesn’t tell me too much about herself that day. Underneath her quick jokes and persistent smile is something dark or afraid.

 And I know I need to know what it is and see if I can fix it.

Because I think her real smile will be beautiful.

----

(Scroll for A/N)

If you can read this, I'm having a mini-panic attack ! I did it, I finally posted it and I've only been thinking about doing something like this for about 3 years !

A/N

Can you see the SH-LL parodox line ? A character named Jonah with an older brother and a close relationship with a blind person.....seriously, I wrote this before Lux I swear !  I just realized Isobel and Abigail rhyme too ! Also Paris and Aris.

@Darcy_Love - Wow, you totally guessed Jonah was a people pleaser, he was talking to a teacher and he was about to quit something based on the snippet ! Good job !