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when bobby’s parents move out, they sell the house to rose and ray.
he doesn’t have time to thank them, for selling it to people he trusts, for removing everything except the contents of the garage, they’ve already started on their long list of vacation destinations.
it hurts, but he knows it doesn’t really matter, he still has his family in his house.
he’s doing better than he was at this time last year, and the year before that.
it’s hard to believe it’s been over two years.
bobby’s moved forward, he’s about to start his second year of college, and rose has been encouraging him to play in public again.
he performs in small bars, at open mic nights, nothing that really matches what their band’s music deserves.
maybe, someday, if music feels really right again, he’ll record things, make it big or whatever. but that’s the future.
his life has a new routine now: work, school, the occasional performance, and dinner with ray and rose.
tonight, dinner means actually clearing through the garage.
ray has just ordered a pizza, he sits next to bobby at the kitchen table, and they both wait for rose to come home from work.
it’s a comfortable silence, the kind that bobby prefers.
when they hear the sound of rose’s car parking, ray stands up to greet her at the door.
rose has a kind smile on her face when the door opens.
“are you ready to do this?” she asks.
“yeah, yeah i am,” bobby responds.
the studio is in nearly the same state it was two years ago, luke’s guitar and reggie’s bass are hung up on the wall. they’re in the wrong order, but bobby doesn’t bother making the correction.
alex’s drum kit is carefully disassembled, laid out next to the piano.
bobby and rose notice it at the same time. the piano is covered in a sheet of fabric, it has been for years, he remarks to himself.
“can i?” rose asks.
“you don’t have to ask me,” bobby responds, “it’s your house.”
“but they’re your memories,” rose says, and bobby shrugs.
she doesn’t push any further, just takes the fabric off of the piano. the dust flies in the air and in the light, they watch it fall.
rose sits down at the bench and uncovers the keys. she begins to play something, bobby doesn’t recognize where the piece is from, but he thinks she should be accompanied by an entire orchestra.
she’s in her element, one with the music like his boys used to be, and bobby is reminded of the day they actually bought the piano.
alex, luke, and him had been saving up for months, intending for it to be a birthday present for reggie, the only one of them who really played.
they hadn’t had the funds in time, but eventually, the three of them scraped up enough cash to buy it and haul it back into the studio.
reggie had looked at them with pure joy, hugged all three of them, and sat down to play the star wars theme, just to make alex put head in his hands and pretend he was annoyed.
which made bobby laugh, and luke joined him on the guitar, making them all laugh harder.
bobby thinks it’s a good memory.
as he looks at rose, illuminated by the windows and the sound of the keys, he thinks she’ll make good memories with it too.
-
sometimes, julie forgets that the studio doesn’t just have her circle’s memories in it.
she knows about the boys living in her garage before her family bought the house, obviously, they’ve slept in there since becoming the sort of living sort of humans they are now.
she remembers the years of being there with flynn and carrie, making music that was far from good, but fun.
but as julie hosts the studio concerts more often, she remembers the other people that have good memories in there too.
some of the most frequent audience members are her mom’s former students. people both younger and older than her that rose taught piano.
when the boys make their stage exits, after carlos helps her wheel the piano back into the studio, and the concert becomes less of a concert and more of a backyard party, that’s when she sees them.
the girl that used to babysit her, maybe, or the guy whose family still brings over a pie whenever they “have extra”, on one occasion, it was trevor, with the confused expression on his face from watching the boys sing with her. she hasn’t explained it to him yet, the boys aren’t comfortable with it, so she’ll wait.
they make their way over to her, tell her how proud of her they are, how proud her mom would be, how great it is to see music being made from the garage again, it feels almost shocking.
but at the same time, she isn’t shocked at all, because of course her mom made a positive impact, one that reached farther than julie could even fathom.
one that broke all of the laws of science and logic julie knew and brought her people to her, that helped her build a larger, stronger family, made of friends.
as she spends more nights in the studio, rehearsing music that more and more people seem to love, music that more and more people tell her have positively affected their lives, she’s reminded of her mom, and her impact.
julie says she can feel her mom with her whenever she plays, and it’s true, but she thinks it goes beyond that. she can feel it after their gigs, their gigs that are at bigger venues now.
when she pauses after a song to look into the crowd, reading signs that people had hand drawn for them to see, hearing cheers from people who want to hear what she creates.
she feels her mom’s legacy, the ability to improve people’s lives, make something with meaning, and do what she loves at the same time.
luke looks at her with wide eyes from where he’s sitting, next to her on the piano bench, fully invested in the lyrics she’d written down earlier, and julie knows more good memories are in the making.