North Road {HS}

Epilogue II

London 1927

Somethings in life have the ability to impress the life changing gravity they posses in their physical presence. You can hold them in your hand or keep them in your pocket and know by their weight or their size that they must bode change.

A new piano score, fresh from the shop, still smelling of ink you know has the ability to change your very perception of music that you hold against your chest, beneath crossed arms, as you walk home.

A hand in yours as you shake on an agreement of rent, allowing them a place in your home. In your heart.

A body on yours, heavy with the weight of love and devotion.

A note, neat and folded, riddled with tears as you lift it from your drawer to read it for the hundredth time and a battle wages in your chest- of betrayal, of anger, of pain, of love.

A ticket. One for some great boat with a name like the Excellence or the Majesty or something silly for a big, dirty boat full of lost people. The ticket is steerage, the only thing affordable. But in its weightlessness as it nestles in a pocket near your breast you feel the very feeling of freedom.

The feeling of the knocker of some great, strange house in your fist as you knock for the first time in search of work.

A set of instructions scribbled in haste for the master of said house, who's future wife has taken you under her wing, with instructions to go to an expensive, established club in search of music for their impending nuptials. The future wife is young and desperate to remain on the cusp of cutting fashion even if it means having that awful new jazz music at her wedding and so she whispers to you as you leave to scribble out the original name on the note for one she has heard of. One that anyone who is anyone is starting to be seen at. One with a strange, animal like name that makes you laugh.

A dress, simple and white- made from cast offs from the mistress' wardrobe. But the gravity of the frock weighs on your shoulders with the delicious weight that second chances have.

A baby, heavy against your chest as you snooze in the early hours of the morning. A small, snoring object- the substance of the love of two people.

I have held these things and so much more.

He was not in bed with me as I held our child who looked young and cherubic in the early morning light. It was evident he had a nightmare last night and had disappeared for a walk alone before the darkness swallowed him whole. Memories of those days were a weight he once carried tightly in a white knuckled fist but now they sat loosely in his palm, running out through the cracks between his fingers. But he had held them for so long it had soaked into his skin and there would always be some part left running through his veins. Part of the very essence of who he was.

A creak from the front of our small home signified his return.

"Love?" I called.

Moments later his body appeared- large and beautiful in the light- and filled up the doorway.

"Yes," he answered and there was a smile on his face. On mornings like these there had never been a smile on his face.

I had known the moment I held that ticket in my hand that it was the most valuable thing I had ever held. I had kept it on me and looked at it until it was worn and faded up until day I was to leave. I only told Adelaide and my father of my departure and they worried, but I told them it was what I needed.

I arrived in England In January of 1920- alone and naive with a few dollars that my father had given me sewn into the waist of my skirt.

I had planned to find Harry, but first I needed to find myself. I found work in the home of my landlady's cousin's brother just before I ran out of money. If I hadn't received work that day I would have had to find him and admit defeat. But both my heart of hearts and fate knew it would be too soon.

I fell in love with my work and time passed the feeling of desperation that had become a constant friend began to only show up on certain days of the week when I woke. I learned independence. I battled with the idea of finding him, but as the days went on I found it less and less in the front of my mind. It was there, but it no longer painted itself on my eyelids in large print.

Then one night I went to Porky's Club on the opposite side of town. I met a girl who had a brother who played the piano that could possibly be hired out for my mistress' wedding. I didn't know many men who could play the piano, but I said okay, anxious to leave.

The brother stopped my heart that had just learned to beat regularly again.

I had dreamed of those green eyes for so many nights, but as I saw them again they were almost unfamiliar. It had been a matter of years since the summer nights where we had fallen in love. We were both older, stronger, not oozing with the familiar scent of young people wallowing in pain.

But in the winter we fell in love again. We had never fallen out of love, but we needed reacquainting. Like hearing the notes to one of your favorite pieces years later in your mind. You can still play it perfectly, but the moment you sit down at the piano you realize there are certain notes that have been forgotten or are different than you remember. To relearn a song can be more difficult than the first time when nothing was familiar, but the second time- oh the second time- when you sit down and play it perfectly, it seems to surpass any memory you ever had of it. You are sure to never forget it for all the extra time and work you have put in.

Harry could play. He could out play anyone in a room. But Harry never learned to read music. The only song he could read was me and he spent everyone of those days convincing me that I was, in fact, an exquisite, symphonic piece. That I was the only score he felt worth engraining into his memory.

I don't suppose I knew when I saw him, sitting behind Pierce in the kitchen of North Road. They were just two boys who were well broken and lost. But I had an affinity for broken things.

He crossed his arms across his chest and surveyed me and his child as we lay in our bed.

"Well isn't this a pretty sight," he smiled, slowly like the beginnings of the morning, "Mind if I join?"

I smiled at him in return.

Because that was what we did now.

We smiled.

Because we were home.
--------------------------
Oh you thought? 😏
But holy crap, holy crap, HOLY CRAP... North Road is finally over. What am I gonna do?
Love you all. Thanks to anyone who made it to this point. You're amazing. 💕