3 After You've Gone

My father once told me that when he dropped me off on my first day of preschool, I wouldn't stop crying after letting go of his hand. The caretaker would tell him that the crying would persist for the next 6 hours; I would cry out my lungs, fall asleep, wake up, and cry some more. I had no recollection of the events but that didn't stop him from bringing the story up time after time. It never failed to embarrass me, and that was probably his goal for telling it anyways. It was a frustratingly believable story after all-- a small child lacking the perception to understand that he wasn't actually being abandoned. For a growing boy who was slowly trying to prove his manhood and independence, it was a particularly humbling story.

The constant effort of trying to distance myself from my pitiable younger self was stretched to the limit when my mother left. The loving mother who I had confided every secret left without as much as a word. The same mother that had told me that she loved hearing me play the piano, who had listened to every lesson and recital I went to. Were we not enough? Had she grown sick of my father's insufficiencies? I wondered later on if she had decided to gamble on an old flame. No matter the reason, I knew from that moment that I would never forgive her. It was frightening just how much hatred a child could shelter in their heart.

So my father and I wept. He wept as the future he envisioned slipped through his fingers. He wept for the woman who he still loved. He wept for the man that he once thought he was.

With mounting bills and having lost the reason to be there, we left the suburbs and returned to my father's hometown. He buried himself in his work until one day he collapsed from exhaustion. It was at that point that my grandfather decided to retire from running his restaurant and moved in with us. The scene of him scolding my recovering father at the hospital was the first time I had seen him in person. When he found out that we had a piano, he wasted no time and dug up his old records and a spare guitar from his church.

"Xiang Xiang*, I heard from daddy that you're great at piano. Can you play something for me?"

I adamantly refused so he switched up his tactics, undeterred.

"How about I teach you how to play this?" He held up the guitar. I knew that the other children found the instrument far cooler than the piano so I couldn't hide my interest. When I agreed, he put on an old record and started playing the song from memory. I had never heard or seen anything quite like it. His hands shifted across the keys frenetically but with purpose, and I could hear that he was freely adding his own embellishments to the piece on the record. It existed in a different dimension from the classical music I used to play for my mother.

After showing me how to play the guitar, he would teach me the song inside and out every day until I had memorized it by heart. Turner Layton's "After You've Gone." I would play the melody with him accompanying one day, and we would switch up the next day. He started singing the lyrics once I had nailed the parts.

"There'll come a time, now don't forget it

There'll come a time, when you'll regret it

Some day when you'll grow lonely

Your heart will break like mine and you'll want me only

After you've gone, after you've gone away---"

The music-making attracted the attention of the girl across the street, who would visit time and time again to sing along. She had a strong voice but we had to teach her how to stay in pitch. We must have gone through dozens of his favorite records that way, and grandpa eventually taught me the songs on piano as well.

"Can you do that?" Evelyn asked me one day, referring to when grandpa would launch into a flurry of notes that never seemed to sound the same if we played the song a second time through, but always sounded "right." That was the first time grandpa didn't know how to teach me something. He described it as singing what you want with rules which didn't really help.

"I have some friends who can teach you. Let's visit them on Sunday," he said.

---

Age spares no man. It was a truth that I did not want to accept. I wanted to believe that grandpa would be there once I had grown old enough. Once I was old enough and had something to show to assure him that I was going to make him proud. The first stroke robbed him of his speech but not the twinkle in his eyes. Nevertheless, a second wasn't going to be necessary. His condition worsened by the week but by some miracle he was able to continue playing. I indulged him whenever he wanted, as did Evelyn and several musicians from the church.

When he lost function of half his body, I resigned myself to the fact that our duets would soon come to an end. But he kept on playing as long as he was able.

December 14 in my last year of middle school was the last time he could properly play the piano. I didn't know it at the time but it was also a week before his departure.

I was drying the dishes when he walked over and tapped me on the shoulder. A signal that he had adopted after losing his ability to speak.

He would show me the record and point to the song of whatever he wanted to play. I helped him onto the piano seat and sat next to him. After the third, I think he knew that my heart wasn't in it so he stopped playing.

"I'm sorry."

Grandpa shook his head. He looked through the stack of records and fished one out. I recognized it right away. Ella Fitzgerald's "Rhythm is My Business." Side Two. Track 5.

He played the famous pickup* with his working hand and stepped back to let me take the lead but I wasn't moving. I was fighting back tears but he kept playing the harmony waiting for me to come in.

It was then that I remembered something grandpa had told me several summers ago.

"When my parents taught me Chinese, I became a citizen of China. When my teachers taught my English I became a citizen of America. When Ella taught me music I became a citizen of the world."

Grandpa could no longer speak but he could still sing through music. "Too bad Ella sings in English," I mused. I took my hands off the keys and started to sing.

"After you've gone and left me crying

After you've gone, there's no denying

You'll feel blue, you'll feel sad

You'll miss the dearest pal you've ever had."