The Encore of Us novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Stairs

We went down to the kitchen at three in the morning because neither of us could stand the dark.

Anders put the kettle on and then forgot it.

I sat at the table in his sweater with my hands wrapped around nothing.

"Start at the beginning," he said. "Start before the stairs."

"It starts in the spring. Your father held a rehearsal for the second violins on a Saturday and kept me back to go over bowings."

He sat down across from me.

"He stood behind me. He put his hand over mine on the bow, and he left it there."

Anders's jaw tightened.

"After that it was always something. A hand at the small of my back in a hallway."

"A comment about my dress in front of the section."

"He told me I had talent, and then he told me where talent went."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I won the chair on audition and I wanted it to be mine."

My voice caught.

"Because it was your father."

"Because I thought you'd quit the Hall, and your mother would never forgive me.

I'd lost my own father at fifteen, and I didn't want to be the one who took yours."

"He gave you a bracelet."

"He pushed it into my coat pocket in the cloakroom."

"I kept it in a drawer because I didn't know how to give it back without a scene."

His face was gray.

"That night," he said.

"After the encore, I went out the stage door for air. He was waiting on the loading dock."

I closed my eyes.

"He took my wrist."

"He said I belonged to him because he'd given me the chair.

He said there'd be a place for me in Vienna after the season if I stopped acting like a child."

"I came out looking for you," Anders said slowly. "I stood at the top of the stairs. I saw his hand on you."

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