When Abby got home from school Friday afternoon, Chester was on the porch swing playing his guitar. The bay wind swirled around him. The tune was unfamiliar to Abby. The music was sad and gentle, even beautiful. Chester looked up at her as she opened the screen door. She hesitated as he studied her face. He seemed to be looking for something in her, and she felt herself looking for something in him. A single moment of reaching stretched between them. The moment ended when he said, "You don't look nothing like me."

"Grammy says I favor Grandy mostly."

Anger filled Chester’s eyes. "No, not him. Not EVER him. No kid of mine would look like him.” He paused a moment then swore. He glared at Abby and said, “Susan swore you were mine, but honestly, I don't remember creating you. Too drunk I guess." He leaned over his guitar and started playing again. This time the melody was hard and fast.

Stunned and confused Abby walked across the front porch and into the house. He had claimed her and disowned her all at once. Did he even think she was his? It sounded like he had doubts. Now, she had doubts. This just sucked. Why would the topic of her first conversation with her father be about her own conception? She had always hoped there had been a little love involved. There wasn't. It hurt. She closed the door and raced up the stairs. She ran into Grammy.

Grammy asked, "What is it child?"

Abby shook her head.

"Something upset you?"

Abby shook her head again. If Grammy had recently taken to lying she could too. Abby brushed passed Grammy and went into her room. She closed and locked her bedroom door. On her bed, she curled her body into a tight ball. She didn't cry she just lay there too hurt to let herself feel.

*

Still locked in her room, Abby heard David arrive at 6:00 p.m. to make up the piano lesson he had missed on Thursday. She stayed in her room. The last thing she wanted to deal with tonight was his flirting. David began his warm up. He was Grammy's best student and though he didn't know it, he was the only one Abby ever listened to. She never wore her head phones when David played. There was power and grace in his music. He could take notes and make them reach places inside of her that no one else could, not even Grammy. When he began to play “Moonlight Sonata," she put down her algebra home work and unlocked and opened her door. The song always made her want to cry. It was her favorite. She turned off her light and went to her window. The white face of the moon peeked over the darkening waters. A path of dancing light spread from its face. It called to her, begging her to run up its silver path. If only she could.

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When David finished, Abby sighed. He began playing some Bach. Abby wasn't much of a Bach fan. She closed her door and turned her attention back to her homework. For the fifth time, she erased the answer to an algebra problem. It was her hardest subject. Letters never transformed themselves into numbers for her just like notes never transformed themselves into music for her. The words Chester had spoken on the porch haunted her. What if she wasn't his kid? What if Susan had lied? If she wasn't really Chester's, then she wasn't really Grammy's either.

The music downstairs stopped. Abby heard flip-flops slapping up the staircase. She groaned, “Oh, God, not tonight.” Before she could lock her door, David opened it.

He smiled at her with a warmth she did not know she needed. The little turkey was too charming. She was just about to welcome his presence when he dropped to one knee and recited,

"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it sight,

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

Romeo and Juliet Act I Scene v."

A direct quote from Romeo and Juliet was not a good thing with David. Why a twelve year old read Shakespeare straight up and memorized it was beyond Abby. In a flat voice she said, "So, reading Romeo and Juliet again. It is so depressing."

"Just the end, the words are like music." Without invitation he crossed the floor and flopped onto her bed beside her. He looked at her homework and said, "Algebra is not my Juliet's subject."

"You can leave."

David asked, “Do you need help?"

She needed help. "Yes, but not from you."

"I will make a deal with you, no Juliet cracks or Romeo quotes. You really need help and I want to help."

"Promise to behave."

"Promise." For thirty minutes David carefully unsnarled the mysteries of x and y for Abby. When they finished Abby said, "I wish I was as smart as you."

"Everybody does." David propped himself up on his elbow and whispered, "I was hoping I'd get a glimpse of the mysterious Chester Pierce. Is he invisible?"

"I wish."

David narrowed his eyes at her. His expression was so similar to his mother’s. "What's the trouble?"

"Chester. He just stays in his room, plays the guitar and eats. If he speaks at all he's rude. Grammy acts like he is perfectly normal. Well he’s not." Abby slammed her algebra book closed.

David said, "Mama's been asking about him. She wants me to tell her how he looks. I won't be able to though."

“No you won’t.”

*

Long past midnight the soft sounds of Chester's guitar thrummed through the house. Yesterday Grammy had told her she thought Chester wrote the song he was playing. Abby didn't understand how he could create something so beautiful when he was so awful. In his music, she could hear the water murmuring, she could hear the gulls crying and feel the sun shining. He played the song over and over changing a cord here, slowing down the tempo there. The music went on and on but Abby didn't tire of it. It made her feel the way she imagined having a father might make her feel, safe and comforted.