KEYS OF LIFE

INTERCONNECTED FLASH FICTION | CAROUSEL TOWN

Late at night, when the church was empty, Lily would sit at the piano bench and stare at the keys, sure she could make something of them if she weren’t so afraid of making a sound.

Lily knew she was lucky to have her job. When she first moved to town, she went up and down the only street in town with businesses and walked into every single one with her printed resume only to be turned away. Not hiring, not hiring. It wasn’t a very long street, but it was a hot day and her heels slid inside her too-small flats until she had blisters waiting to pop. She didn’t have a car, so she did it all on foot, with her daughter Leia in tow, until Leia complained so much that they walked a block over to the mega church just to sit in some air conditioning without having to pay for food or at least a drink.

She was feeling really sorry for herself by that point and she was wondering why she ever thought it was a good idea to sell their trailer and leave the trailer park that had been their home for six years, even though she knew exactly why. But she started to wonder. Maybe she could have figured out a way to stay. Maybe she could have just driven the trailer somewhere else, even though she knew the damn thing hadn’t been driven since years before she bought it.

And at the point where she was about to start panicking, that’s when he showed up and asked if she needed help.

“Not unless you have a job for me,” she said. And it turned out he did.

Pastor Joel saved her. Lily knew this. She was grateful. He hired her as an administrative assistant when she had no assistant experience, trained her himself and was patient when she made mistakes – that time she accidentally sent an email to the whole congregation about the budget, that time she photocopied the AA pamphlets 1000 times instead of 100.

And yet, she wished she weren’t so afraid of him. It wasn’t that he’d done anything. Not like what happened at the trailer park. But there was something in the way he looked at the silver cross she wore around her neck that set heart pounding, but not in a good way. Or maybe it was the way he evaluated her work, sometimes being incredibly, even overly praising and other times unfairly cruel in a way that seemed more to do with his mood than her work.

Or maybe it was the way he liked to tell her how to live her life. He remarked on the way she was raising her daughter, who she dated, what she did with her money, all in the name of helping her, guiding her.

“I know I’m being confrontational,” he said one day, when she got visibly upset against her better judgement. “But you’re too smart to live like this.” It was the way he complimented her and put her down at once.

“You’re getting in your own way,” he said again and again. “You’re holding yourself back,” was another one. And anytime she tried to defend herself, he called her defensive, which she guessed was true, but somehow felt unfair at the same time.

But he filled the pews to the brim every week. People travelled to their small town just to see him, to be blessed by him, to be forgiven by him, as if he were God himself. So if she was the only one who could see it, then maybe it was because there was nothing to see.

She really thought that, really believed it, or at least tried to.

Until one night, when she was working late, in anticipation of the big carnival in the church parking lot, which she was in charge of coordinating, he sat down next to her and breathed his chicken breath onto her screen as she tried to continue working, and he put his hand on her leg and said, “How’s your daughter doing, Lily?”

She didn’t know if it was the mention of her daughter or the exact placement of his hand, but she stood up. Immediately. And he looked up at her with sad eyes and shook his head and said, “I see it all the time.”

“See what?”

“Women like you,” he said.

“What do you mean women like me?”

“Survivors,” he said. And she was still confused. The first thing that popped into her mind was the TV show. “You’re letting him claim your voice,” he clarified. “It’s why you’re so meek.”

“I’m not meek,” she replied, in the meekest voice.

“Then tell me this, why don’t you ever play that piano like you said you always wanted to?”

She gulped. She wished she hadn’t told him that. It was before, when she still thought of him as charming, when she still thought him her savior. When she was still grateful, or trying to be.

“I don’t know how to.”

“But you could learn. You’re smart. We have books, introductory piano books that you could learn from. You could ask me for lessons. But you don’t. Because you’re afraid to make a sound.”

She opened her mouth and shut it. She felt hot and cold at the same time.

“Lily,” he said. “I know I’m being confrontational.”

“I have to get home to my daughter.”

He pursed his lips, shook his head.

“How about this? I’ll give you 15 minutes at the end of every day for a lesson.”

“You’re too busy.”

“I’ll make time.”

“No, that’s alright. I’ll learn from one of the books, like you said.”

He smiled, his lips tight and thin pressed together, so thin it was almost like there was no mouth at all. “Alright,” he said at last, “but if I don’t hear you playing Beethoven soon, I’ll have to intervene.” He chuckled and left the office.

Every night after, Lily sat in front of the piano, willing herself to learn Beethoven.

It should have been easy, the way the keys were all laid out in front of her, in order from low to high.

But really, she couldn’t help but think of them like her life in chronological order. The black keys were missteps, and the white keys were good choices and life was a mix of every step she took, almost like it was in a pre-ordained pattern, one that could never be broken. It just went on, repeating and repeating. Because wasn’t this how it started before?

Life did not start at the low end of the keyboard. Life started at the high end, with the high pitch screams of a newborn baby that needed to be changed, moving down with each choice and each step. And some people, like her, made it down the keyboard faster than others.

Lily was sure she was somewhere past middle C by now, though she didn’t know how far past. And when she played the keys of her life, usually just three, maybe four keys a night, as quietly as she possibly could, she always threw in a higher note than where she thought she was, or assumed she would ever be again.