The Strings That Hold Us Together
Ava had always loved music. I had known that since she was 5, when she began listening to classical and pretending to play the instruments. Lola had noticed too. One day, over breakfast, she’d asked our daughter what instrument was her favourite. Ava answered without hesitation.
     “The cello.”
My Ava loved the cello. I’d gone out the next day, searching around the neighborhood. Finally, surprisingly, I found it. A family down the street was having a garage sale, selling almost everything they owned. They must’ve been moving. The father had been a musician of some sort.
       No wonder they’d had to move, I’d thought. Music is not a career.
My father had been a musician. He made no money, made my mother do all the work, and then cheated on her.
      “Musicians are no good, Michael. They are worth nothing,” she said. And I believed her. The rest of the town seemed to agree. When the Tomferd's son decided to go to New York City to play music, the whole town shook their heads and turned up their noses. The Tomferds were left on their own, and soon they moved. This happened only a few more times, but each time further reinforced that music was not a career.
Make no mistake, I was not giving Ava this cello to become a musician. She was going to be a doctor, or a lawyer. But Ava’s eyes had lit up the second I’d opened the trunk of the Lexus. It made me happy to see her like that.
“Better not get any ideas,” I’d said to her. She looked at me, confused. She was 11. She still thought she could just be whatever she wanted, and she’d have all the money she’d need, and an untainted reputation.Not if she was a musician.
  Ava practiced everyday, every moment that she could. My wife got lessons for her, against my wishes. She was good. A prodigy, apparently. Ava’s teacher was always talking to Lola about it.
         “Ava could be one of the greats,” the teacher would say after a lesson.
“There isn’t anything great about being a musician,” I’d answer. Ava will be a doctor or a lawyer. Nothing else. The next daughter wasn’t much better. She ran around singing instead of speaking, and she spent hours drawing anything and everything in the house. Emma and Ava would hold concerts in the den, Ava on her cello, and Emma singing. Lola always stayed to listen. I would go in the study, the only place where you couldn’t hear the noise.
The depression came when Ava was 15. Emma was 6. I was a lawyer, and my firm dropped me. Ava still hadn’t dropped her cello. I was trapped in the house, and I grew restless.
“What do you mean we can’t afford it anymore?” I yelled at Lola. 
“I’m the only one with a job now Michael, and I’m sorry but it doesn’t pay as much as yours did.”
“So we can’t have a maid anymore? Who the ---- is going to clean this house? You?” My face was red now. I don’t know why I was so angry. The maid didn’t do a very good job anyway. It hurt that Lola had a job and I didn’t. I was even worse than a dead-beat with a dead end job. I was worse than a musician.
Lola and I started getting in more and more fights. I always started them. They were usually about our daughters. Ava was still playing her cello. Emma had drawn on every inch of wall in her room. They were beautiful drawings. She had talent, just like her sister, but still I couldn’t approve.
Ava was nearing the end of highschool. She had begun her college applications. She’d applied to Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, just like I’d asked. I didn’t know it at the time, but Lola had helped fill out the application for Juilliard. Months later, when the letters came in, I was angry. I’d come downstairs, early to get the letters first, and there was Juilliard, laying on top. I sat next to the warm fireplace, waiting for the girls to come down.
Lola was up first, and froze on the stairs when she saw me. She started begging, and crying. She yelled too, but mostly she was sad, not angry.
    “Just let her go, Michael,” she’d said.
The loud shouting had woken up the girls, and they came down in slow, panicked fear. Ava saw the Juilliard letter in my hands, but she didn’t cry or beg like Lola had.She just sat on the bottom step, and Emma sat right beside her. She looked numb. I opened the letter, and started to read.
“Dear Ava, congratulations! It gives me tremendous pleasure to inform you that after careful review of your admission, the Administration Board of the Juilliard School has decided to promote you to the next round of admission. All promoted admissions must audition at one of the enclosed locations on its corresponding date. More information on the other sheet in this package. Again, I congratulate you your promotion and I hope to see you at the audition. Sincerely, Bruce Kovner, chair of Board of Trustees,” I finished. I looked up. Ava was crying, one hand over her mouth, while Emma hugged her tightly.
“You did it Sissy! You made it!” she said.
“Not quite Emma,” I said, “she needs to do the audition.” I threw the letter in the fire. “Let’s see where you won’t be on…” I scanned the other sheet for the date of Ava’s audition. “Ah, here we are. You will not be at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on March 1st.” I threw the rest of the package in the fire.
“I’m done,” Ava said quietly. She walked towards the door, stopping to pick up her cello where it sat      from last night’s practice. “This is my decision, this is my life, I’m leaving,” she said.
“Ava, this is for you!” I was starting to panic. “Can’t you see? You won’t be able to-,” I struggled to    find the words, “-to survive off a job like this. You can’t make a job out of music! What will people think?”I said.
“It’s not like that anymore!” she said with frustration. “No one cares if you’re an artist or a musician, Dad.”
I didn’t want to lose her, but she kept walking towards the door. I grabbed the cello, she didn’t let go and-
          I’d gotten that cello for her 5 years ago. Now it lay broken on the floor. I broke it.
Ava choked. Everyone looked at the splinters of her cello on the floor. It was inhumanely quiet. Ava turned, opened the door, and left. I didn’t stop her. Lola headed for the stairs.
    “Lola-,” I started.
“You’ve done enough, Michael.” She didn’t sound angry. Just overwhelmingly disappointed. She went. Emma slowly moved to the cello. She bent down and picked up all the pieces. She put them down in a pile. She realized she didn’t know how to fix the cello. I didn’t either. Emma stayed there, sitting on the floor next to the cello. I sat on the couch across from it. We sat from some time, staring at the mess I’d made.
Ava came back home late. Emma and Lola were already in bed. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep. I sat in an armchair, reading, under one, lonely light. She came in quietly. She didn’t look at me.
     “I had to Ava,” I said. She still didn’t look at me.
Things continued like this for several weeks. I tried not to pick so many fights, but the house was so tense, and I was so angry. I’d forgotten about the audition, and went out on March 1st. Lola took the chance to bring Ava to the audition. A week later, the letter came in. Ava had been accepted to Juilliard. More weeks passed. Ava and I still didn’t talk. Soon, it was her last day at home. Lola, Emma and Ava went out to celebrate. She was celebrating leaving me.
The day Ava left was the first time I’d been to a liquor store in a long while. How can a child just leave her father like that? But it was my fault. Alcohol filled the hole in my heart. Lola left too, with Emma.
“It’s not safe for us, when you’re like this,” she’d said. She was trying not to cry. “Please Mike. You have one more chance.” I couldn’t look at her. I’d break and cry if I did. I didn’t put the bottle down. She picked up the keys. She left.
Now I sit alone, telling stories to empty bottles.