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The first halfway decent guitar Joel finds has four broken strings.
Ellie is less than impressed, “Thought you were going to teach me how to play.”
“It’s a starting place.”
He places her fingers along the fretboard, humming approximations of the right notes. It’s strange how foreign his voice sounds to his own ear, ragged and low, so unlike the confident sound he used to hear when he sang Sarah to sleep.
Joel shuts his eyes, trying to focus on the scales he’s showing Ellie, but also to prevent tears from spilling onto his cheeks as he imagines Sarah joining in.
Except it’s not Sarah’s voice; Ellie harmonizes with Joel, naturally picking up the tonal differences between notes.
Clearing his throat, “That’s good. Keep practicing that and we’ll find you the other strings soon enough. Then I’ll start teaching you chords and strumming patterns.”
“Yeah alright, old man. Maybe next time you’ll think before giving someone a broke as shit guitar.”
Joel snorts. He knows Ellie’s not really mad, just trying to lighten the air in the room.
“Sure thing, kiddo.”
----------
Ellie diligently practices her scales to the point of driving Tommy up the wall.
“Joel better get around to teaching you more than that soon.”
Ellie pointedly finishes humming the upward note progression.
“Finally,” he sighs in relief. “It’s like Joel learning all over again.”
“Did he learn on a broken guitar too?”
“No, but I swear his instructor didn’t let him play anything real until he could play it by ear.”
Tommy’s fairly confident that’s not how Joel intends to teach Ellie, but it sure as hell seems like it.
Putting the guitar down, “Was he any good?”
Tommy scoffs. Of course, Joel still hasn’t sung or played anything for Ellie yet – not that he has a true instrument to play on.
“How else do you think he got girls to like him?”
Ellie cackles.
“Yeah, he was damn good. Would’ve gotten plenty of scholarships on account of it too, if it hadn’t been for… Christine getting pregnant.”
Tommy can’t begrudge his niece for derailing Joel’s life; Joel doesn’t. But he can blame Christine, even if Joel won’t.
It was always funny to him that every football captain in the district wanted Joel on their team, but how his heart was never in it. Joel preferred to stay after school in the empty music room, not gearing up in the locker room.
Ellie gives him a curious look. He’s probably already said way more about Joel’s ex than Joel can string words together.
Clearing his throat, “Problem was, he never played anything good. Joel was always into old-timey music.”
“I knew it! I knew he was born an old man.”
Tommy chuckles, “When you finally get some strings on that guitar, let me know and I’ll introduce you to some real music.”
He may not have had any talent for music, but at least he had good taste. And if Ellie’s half as good as Joel is, she should have no trouble picking up some Pearl Jam from his humming a few bars.
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Chords have a fuller sound Ellie discovers when Joel finally finds the missing strings for her guitar; all those notes humming together at once. Still Joel insists she continue to practice her scales with the new strings.
Calluses form the more she plays. The nylon strings are gentler on the soft pads of her fingers, but they are slipperier than the steel. Either way, she is glad to hear the notes resonate from the body of the guitar rather than just herself. There’s a deepness to the sound her voice can’t replicate.
In a way, it reminds her of Joel. He still reluctantly only mumbles anything he wants to hear her to play. But she manages to pick up on the notes and play it back to him anyway. At least he’s always in key.
Strumming doesn’t come as easily. Two months without strings have taught her left hand the positions of all the notes but taught her right hand to be stationary.
Joel shakes his head, “You know most kids have more difficulty slowing their hand down to finger pick, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”
“I bet you were one of those kids.”
Joel grumbles slightly but doesn’t deny it.
Ellie holds to the hope she might surpass him at some aspect of this.
“You gonna teach me any songs soon?”
“We’re getting there.”
----------
It’s a rare night when Joel doesn’t come home to Ellie practicing, but the house is empty and dark.
“Ellie?”
“I’m out here,” she calls from the deck.
Joel joins her looking out onto the lake, “What’re you doing out here, kiddo?”
“Shh. Shh,” she hushes him. “Listen.”
Crickets sing in a light chorus. The sound seems to echo for miles out into the hills. It is entrancing.
“Well, ain’t that something.”
Ellie only hums in agreement, letting the crickets’ song wash over them like water lapping at their toes. Pleasant and comfortable, no desire to break the evening’s spell.
“How come you don’t sing anymore?” Ellie asks out of thin air.
“What do you mean? I sing.”
“Barely. Tommy told me you used to be really good.”
Joel sighs, that was all a lifetime ago – two really. Before Sarah, it was his whole life, practicing every spare moment. And when Sarah came, his heart was so full, it felt like he was singing even when he wasn’t. She was his everything and he would have sung day in and day out if she had asked it of him.
Music and Sarah are entangled in his mind; without her, Joel felt as if there was no music left in him. He thought he could teach Ellie, but he didn’t realize how Sarah haunted every melody he knows.
“I’m sorry, Ellie. It was such a long time ago, that’s not who I am anymore.”
“On account of her?”
Joel nods.
Ellie snorts, “That’s a bullshit excuse.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t you think she would’ve wanted you to do what you love?”
“Doesn’t stop it from hurting.”
Then again, Joel thought letting himself love couldn’t hurt him more than it already has. Sarah gone. Tommy left. Even Tess’s departure hit him harder than he anticipated. But it’s made him stronger too. Gave him the strength to raise Sarah on his own. To save Ellie.
Joel squeezes Ellie’s shoulder, “Your technique is improving. You’ll be playing in no time.”
Turning into the darkened house, Joel almost doesn’t hear Ellie whisper, “Not if you won’t teach them to me.”
His heart sinks, but he’s not ready to open up that part of himself again.
----------
The flames lick her cheeks and Ellie panics, unable to find the exit. She’s not sure if the blood on her hands is hers or someone else’s.
A voice rises over the roar of the fire, cursing her name.
Ellie turns. David leaps at her.
Screaming, her eyes snap open, staring into the darkness of Joel’s shoulder as he rocks her back and forth. Hot tears run down her face.
She tries to tell Joel about the dream, but the right words to describe her terror don’t seem to want to come.
He hushes her, “Shh, baby girl. It’s alright. They can’t hurt you now.”
Ellie sobs harder, burying her face deeper into his chest.
Joel’s voice rumbles like soft thunder, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep you little baby. When you wake, get some cake; ride them pretty little horses.”
Through her tears, Ellie feels both calm and confusion wash over her. Joel’s not making a lick of sense – saying nonsense but speaking comfort.
“Black and bay, sorrel and gray; whole heap of little horses.”
Not speaking – singing.
Whether he realizes Ellie’s sobs are subsiding, she can’t tell because his voice doesn’t fade. And when he finishes his lullaby of horses, he doesn’t stop. Joel continues to lull her to sleep with gentle songs of rolling hills and a vast country calling her name.
Ellie is fast asleep before Joel tucks her back under the blankets, but come the morning, he sings even as he fries eggs for breakfast.
----------
“I knew he’d teach you nothing but oldies!”
Maria rolls her eye at Tommy’s consternation, “Like you could teach Ellie any better. You can’t hold a tune against a clicker.”
Still strumming ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ but neglecting the lyrics, Ellie laughs, “They got a better sense of rhythm than him too.”
Maria chuckles at Tommy’s expense. Good thing she didn’t marry him for his singing ability.
“What can I say? Joel got all the talent and I got all the taste.”
Ellie snorts and Maria shakes her head. She grew up in the same generation as Tommy and heard the same music on the radio, but still doesn’t understand Tommy’s devotion to the likes of Kurt Cobain.
Starting a new song, Maria picks out the opening chords to ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ and it strikes her Joel’s only been teaching Ellie songs made famous by men. And while Ellie’s learned to change the key to suit her voice, Maria wishes she had any talent to teach Ellie the songs Katey introduced to her.
Most of Maria’s friends didn’t even know who Neko Case or Brandi Carlisle were, but that was the benefit of having an older sister. It meant Maria had more sophisticated taste than her peers and didn’t have to wade through all the popular crap.
Digging out a shoebox of keepsakes, Maria rifles through it until she finds the one CD Katey let her have from her collection.
“Here, Ellie. Have Joel help you learn some of these.”
----------
Despite Maria’s generosity, Ellie doesn’t touch the album.
She stubbornly plucks away at the more challenging songs Joel’s been teaching her. And even some of the stuff Tommy’s picked out – though Joel’s probably right, they don’t sound quite as good on acoustic as they would on electric like they were intended.
Ellie stumbles over the fingering again. Muttering, “Fucking shit.”
Frustrated, she puts the guitar down, inserts the CD, and presses play on her discman.
She’s not entirely sure why she’s avoided Maria’s gift. Though she has a lot of respect for the woman, Ellie had an easier time breaking through Joel’s shell than she has connecting to Maria.
But as soon as the song begins, it’s almost as if Maria understands Ellie better than either Joel or Tommy. And each song after tells of feelings she can easily imagine or knows only too well. She doesn’t understand how it’s possible for someone who is probably long dead to understand the hell she’s been through.
By the final song, Ellie is certain, the singer has been a ghost over her shoulder. The lyrics haunt her like the bad memories of this past year – the ones only Joel has been able to chase away.
Ellie doesn’t notice the silent stream of tears rolling down her cheeks until she’s laughing at the singer’s suggestion to feed children to tigers.
Skipping back to the final song, Ellie picks up the guitar and starts sounding out the chords.
----------
Joel doesn’t mean to pry, but Ellie’s door isn’t quite shut, and he can’t help but listen. He leans on the doorframe.
Back to him and headphones on, Ellie plays along with whatever album she’s listening to. Joel won’t admit she’s as good as him yet, even as out of practice as he is, but he finds himself lost in the sound.
He hums along, low and undisturbing, but it isn’t until Ellie starts singing, Joel realizes he recognizes the tune.
“I am a poor wayfaring stranger a-traveling through this world below. But there’s no sickness, toil, or danger in that bright land to which I go.”
Her voice aches with the strain and loneliness of their long journey – of the years before they knew each other. And it echoes in his heart.
Though Ellie’s fingers move in an automatic pattern, the words catch in her throat.
Picking up where she left off, “I know dark clouds will hang ‘round me. I know my way is rough and steep.”
The headphones fall from her ears as she turns towards him. As he sings to her, Joel realizes she might be the only one who understands those empty years without Sarah, when all the world’s burden felt has though it had been lain on him.
When his own voice starts to waver from the strain of it all, Ellie’s voices rises up – stronger together as they were along that weary road.
“I’m only going over Jordan. I’m only going over home.”
And like that the song ends.
Ellie’s eyes meet Joel’s, “How do you know that song?”
Taken aback, “How do I – how do you know it?”
Popping the CD out of the discman, “Maria gave it to me.”
Joel examines the disc then the track-listing on the back of the case, “Huh. Didn’t think she did much of other people’s songs.”
“Other people’s songs?”
“Yeah. There isn’t much original stuff on here. Loretta Lynn was one of mama’s favorites – can’t say she much cared for ‘Rated X’ in particular.”
Ellie’s shoulders sink beneath the guitar strap. “I thought Neko Case wrote her own music.”
“She did mostly – so far as I know. But it was a sign of respect to cover someone else’s work.”
“Oh.”
“Isn’t much different from what you’re doing now.”
“I suppose not.”
Not that Joel can boast having written any of his own music, only having dabbled in song writing. The music itself was not the problem, but lyrics – Joel has enough trouble saying what he means. Luckily, everything he wanted to say has already been sung better by someone else.
He sighs and tries to catch Ellie’s eye again. “Sorry. I should’ve thought about teaching you music you actually like.”
Ellie’s brow furrows, “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you like pop or hip-hop or whatever? Sarah and her friends used to listen to –”
“I like what you’ve been teaching me just fine.”
Joel sighs again, relieved. He’s not sure he could’ve let Ellie waste her talent on that crap.
“Gee. You really are an old man – complaining about kids’ newfangled music.”
“Now you sound like Tommy.”
She shrugs, “Tell you what I wouldn’t mind more of though –” She waves the CD case in the air.
“I’ll see what else I can find for you, kiddo.”
“Maybe find yourself a guitar too – so we can practice together.”
Joel smiles, “I’d like that.”