For the first time, I looked around Mom’s room and noticed that the shelves were packed with old records and cassette tapes and CDs. I realized that when she put one of them on the record player or tape deck connected to an amp, music played from the speakers on either side. Her collection hit on all the key points in the history of classical, jazz, and rock music history. I had no idea back then of how much value and meaning this fabulous collection had, being in a house in the middle of nowhere.
In that room, I played the keyboard app over and over, recording the notes. When I pressed play, they sang back to me in order. No matter how outrageous the tune I tapped in, the app played it back faithfully. It made me so overwhelmingly happy I jumped up and down on my chair. Mom smiled, too, her face glowing under the warm light of the incandescent bulb.
From that day on, I was obsessed with the app. I would beg Mom for her phone and play with it morning, noon, and night. It was intuitive and easy to use. Since it wasn’t designed for children, there were lots of words I couldn’t read and functions I didn’t understand. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t get enough of this exciting new experience of creating music. I wrote countless songs, demoing them all for Mom. After hearing each one, she would give me a few words of advice: Do this and it will be even better. The trick is this. Sometimes she would pull out some of her records and play them for me as inspiration. Mom wasn’t a professional musician or songwriter, but when I think back on her advice, all of it was spot-on. One time, I remember her listening to one of my melodies and saying “Oh!” as if she’d noticed something, then singing it back to herself softly.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Not bad,” she said.
According to her, she’d been watching nervously as I composed it. I was putting notes in places they normally wouldn’t go. She was sure this song would be a failure and all my hard work up till then would be for nothing. But as it took shape, she said it mysteriously came together in a good way. I was so overjoyed I wanted to roll around on the floor in celebration. Even when she admitted that she was probably listening with a mother’s biased ear, I still felt happy. I wasn’t writing music for some stranger to listen to. All I cared about was that Mom listened to it. She sang out my melody, tapping the beat with her right hand. She sang so beautifully, too. She used to have a singing group with her friends, and her voice was clear and free. She sang my weird little song for me over and over. I was so happy, I sang along with her, although somehow my voice didn’t sound as amazing as hers.
That’s where my happy memories of Mom abruptly end.
August came.
All the memories after that are horrible and painful.
The cries of a little girl echoed over the river.
She was stuck all by herself on a sandbank.
I’d say she was four or five. She looked younger than me.
It had been so sunny a minute earlier, but all of a sudden, heavy clouds blanketed the sky. I’d looked away from the pretty, peaceful river for what felt like a few minutes, and when I looked back, it was a muddy, swollen swirl sweeping branches away with astounding speed. There must’ve been a rainstorm somewhere upstream.
Earlier that day, when the water was still clear, a group of people had been shouting happily on the opposite bank. Now they were on the same side as us, staring blankly at the little girl. I could tell right away from their colorful outfits that they were from the city. The little girl, too, was wearing clothes brighter than anything I was used to. How could those people from the city have lost track of a little girl wearing such a bright outfit? How could they have forgotten her when they came back to this side of the river?
All the people hanging out by the river, canoeing and fishing with their friends and family, were standing there like statues, like there was nothing they could do. In a way, it made sense. That’s how violent the river separating us from the little girl had become. Everyone understood that rescuing her wouldn’t be easy. One of the adults was talking to someone on their cell phone, but all of us could see the sandbank steadily shrinking; we knew that no emergency crew would ever make it on time. That’s why we were standing there so helplessly.
Was our only choice to stand here and listen to the little girl cry?
Just then, someone grabbed a red life jacket from a canoe and stepped forward, pulling it on without taking her eyes off the stranded child.
It was Mom.
“Mommy!” I cried, desperately clutching the hem of her shirt. I could tell she was about to do something really dangerous. Fear overwhelmed me. I pulled on her as hard as I could, screaming her name, trying to hold her back. She squatted down and squeezed my hand and told me something; I can’t remember what. Maybe I couldn’t hear her because I was wailing so loudly.
She stood up, shook me off, and ran toward the water, buckling the life jacket as she went. I tried to chase her but stumbled on the rocky riverbank and fell. Still, I got back up and screamed after her.
“Don’t go!”
I don’t think she heard me. She ran upstream, one eye on the little girl, then stepped into the water. The current carried her toward the girl.
A light rain began to fall.
I’m not sure how much time passed. Suddenly, the people around me were in an uproar. The little girl had been saved. The adults pulled her from the water, drenched and exhausted. I watched as the rain drenched me. People were running toward the girl. Joyful voices mixed with sobs. “Are you okay? Open your eyes. Oh, thank God. Thank God you’re safe.”
The little girl was wearing a red life jacket just like the one Mom had been wearing.
In that instant, I understood what was happening.