Moondance by Karen M. Black Read Free Book Online

stuff. He has most of it in Kingston, but —”
    “Throw it out.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t owe him a damned thing. Not after this. You trusted him.”
    “Yes.”
    “He betrayed you. They both did.”
    “Yes.”
    “They don’t deserve your compassion. Get angry about this. Stay angry.”
    “I am angry, but I also just feel ... I miss him, I just miss him.” She began to cry again.
    “Of course you’re hurting. Of course. But you don’t have to let them see it.”
    Althea considered. She wasn’t sure if she could throw out Kevin’s things. But that didn’t mean that she had to see him to do it, or talk with him, or be civil. Sophie was right, she definitely didn’t want either of them to feel okay about this. Not at all. She wanted them to feel like she felt.
    “Guess I’ll be doing my MBA in Toronto now.”
    “Good. New people, a new start. Forget them. They’re not worth it, Althea. People like that just aren’t worth it.”

    • • •

    ALTHEA WAS CONVINCED THAT no one had a more organized and better stocked kitchen than her mother. Sophie loved to cook — and to drink. That night, she prepared a feast — barbeque rack of lamb, home-grown swiss chard, late summer corn and roasted sweet potatoes, a pitcher of martinis, an Australian sauvignon blanc, and after that, Sophie’s homemade stash.
    Comfortably numb, Althea settled into the familiarity of her childhood home. For now, her mind wandered from the emptiness in her heart to the ricochet in her head. Overnight, her life had changed completely. When she got back to the city, she had so much to do: finding a new apartment she could afford on her student’s budget, buying books, giving notice at Continuum. She didn’t know if she was up to it. Life without Kevin .
    “Music please,” Sophie commanded, rousing Althea from her thoughts. In the living room, she opened the top of a wooden console, which held an old turntable and three feet of vinyl. She flipped through the albums — mostly jazz, including a few by Albert, the man who was as close to a father as she had ever had.
    Albert Brecht had been twenty-three years Sophie’s senior. He contracted liver cancer when he was fifty-eight and Althea was seven. Althea had many memories of Albert in this house: his huge warm brown hands, the crinkles hugging his eyes. And more than anything else, his piano. He had been a jazz musician from New Orleans who toured in Chicago and New York before moving to Canada in 1959. Albert’s mother, as Sophie liked to say, was a black woman from the wrong side of Canal Street, and it was clear by her tone that Sophie admired her.
    Albert learned music from his uncle, “Doc” Hayes, a cornet player who couldn’t read a note of music. From Doc, Albert also learned how to drink.
    He developed an early passion for the piano. At age twenty-five, Albert left for Chicago in search of his father, who was rumored to be a Creole pianist who had joined the exodus of jazz musicians to Chicago around 1910. Instead, he met Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Though he never actually played with Armstrong, meeting him launched Albert’s career.
    After years of playing in Chicago, Albert was thrown in jail one night for being drunk and disorderly. When he sobered up, he learned that his best friend had been beaten to death that same night. He had blacked it out — forgotten the whole thing. After that, he stopped drinking, stopped playing, and moved to Canada to live with his half-brother and apprentice as a carpenter.
    Althea leaned over the console, and flipped through the albums. She pulled out a swing recording from the late 1930s.
    “Good choice,” Sophie said, as Althea returned to the kitchen.
    “Can I do anything?”
    “Set the table and pour us another martini.”
    Althea opened the freezer to retrieve the pitcher of martinis. The freezer was stuffed with meat and Sophie had another large freezer in the basement.
    “You down to half a cow in the