Blended

  This book is dedicated to all the young people who must meld and merge, synthesize and harmonize, to create family fusion.

  CHAPTER 1

  PLUNK.

  Plink.

  Ripple.

  Rumble.

  Tinkle.

  Twinkle.

  Boomble. I know that’s not an actual word, but it’s a real sound. I can create any musical combination of sounds on my piano. That’s my superpower.

  I sit, hands perched with thirsty fingers, as I get ready to play. I work hard at it, always trying to find the right melodies and harmonies. The upstairs-downstairs scales that rise and fall. The three- and four-finger chords that stomp. The fingernail-delicate tiptoeing up and down the keyboard, each touch a new sound. White keys. Black keys. One at a time. Chords all together. Two keys make a different sound than three played together. Four or five mashed at the same time is even better. I can do nine keys, even ten, to make a chord, but to be honest, that sounds weird.

  Each combination at the piano is different. Bass. Treble. Major tones. Minor wails. Bass like a celebration. Treble like tears.

  Five-four-three-two-one. One-two-three-four-five. Up. Up. Up. Down. Down. Down. Harmony. Melody. Chords. Scales. The black keys play sad sounds, like somebody crying. The white keys sometimes laugh. Using only my fingers, I can make the black and white keys dance together and do whatever I want.

  When I play the piano, I rock! It would be nice if the rest of my life came together like some kind of a magical musical symphony. But, nah, not usually.

  CHAPTER 2

  I STARTED PLAYING piano when I was three. Sort of. For my birthday that year, I got one of those plastic keyboard toys done up in cotton-candy pink, the kind with fat keys that played way out of tune and drove grown-ups crazy. But I loved it. I wasn’t interested in any of the dolls or blocks or tea sets I’d been given, only that piano—plinking and plunking on it nonstop. My parents had to take it away from me that night, just for a little quiet, and I cried myself to sleep. The next morning I demanded they take it down from the top of the refrigerator, where they’d put it out of my reach, and I played on it most of the rest of the day. I learned to pick out tunes, figured out the different tones of each note. I wanted more.

  So my big Christmas ask was always for a piano. Top of my list. Even though my parents would tease me and pretend they’d forgotten, every other year I’d find a big box wrapped in red paper. A toy piano. A red one. Another pink one. Each one a little better than the one before. I taught myself to create my own tunes and, later, to read a little music. Yeah, I was obsessed. But still, they were just toys, and usually some of the plastic keys would give out in a few months.

  The Christmas after I turned seven, there was no big box at all. I got a doll, which they should have known I was no longer interested in, some clothes, a few art supplies for painting and drawing, and a couple of board games, which was dumb because we didn’t usually sit down and play anything together as a family. I suppose it was selfish, but I was kinda mad.

  Finally, after all the gifts had been opened, Mom said, all chipper, “I’m hungry. Let’s have pancakes!”

  Daddy said, just as cheery, “Good idea! Isabella, would you check to see if we have pancake mix?”

  I couldn’t figure out why he was asking me to do that, but it was Christmas, so I said sure. I checked the cupboard, actually found two boxes of the mix, and returned to the living room to report.

  Sitting in the middle of the floor, where just moments ago there’d been only balled-up red-and-green paper, was a huge box wrapped in silver.

  On it was my name written in large black letters. I gasped.

  “Open it!” my parents said together.

  I hesitated just for a second, then tore through the wrapping. It was a portable piano. A real piano keyboard—a Casio!

  “Oh, wow!” I remember saying.

  It was black and shiny and seemed to fill up the whole living room floor. I was in heaven.

  With eighty-eight weighted keys, it almost felt like a real piano. Built-in speakers, too, plus buttons I could push for rhythms like jazz beats and military and drums. I didn’t really need those, but they added fun. I could record on it and play back stuff I’d created. It let me listen to myself, so I could correct mess-ups and smooth out the hard sections.

  Mom signed me up for piano lessons at school. Daddy bought me sheet music. But even though my parents were the ones who’d bought it for me, they started getting annoyed at my constant banging on that Casio. Some days they looked angry when they told me to “give it a break,” and it took me a while to realize they weren’t really mad at me, but at each other. The noise probably jangled their nerves. And their nerves were plenty jangled—they had always fought about stupid stuff, but now it seemed like they fought All. The. Time.

  They bickered over whether we’d have hot dogs or hamburgers for dinner. They squabbled over whether I should wear jeans or leggings. An argument could break out at any moment—over lost car keys or bars of soggy soap or burned toast. Then there was the Kool-Aid incident—who woulda thought something as simple as Kool-Aid would cause a fight? But yeah. That was about three years ago—I guess I was around eight.

  They started arguing right before dinner. Daddy hated blue Kool-Aid for some reason. He said the turquoise color and the raspberry flavor just didn’t make sense, so he wouldn’t drink it. I was sitting at the table, getting ready to pour myself a big glass of it. Mom’s voice got loud. Daddy’s voice got louder.

  By this point, I was shaking. Really shaking. Then Daddy actually started shouting, and I dropped the entire container of the stuff on the floor. The pitcher broke. Blue, sticky mess went everywhere. And the shouting turned to bellows and Mom started crying, and I knew I was in so much trouble!

  I ran to my room, curled on my bed, and covered my ears with a pillow.

  When the hollering finally settled down, it was way past my bedtime. I tiptoed into the kitchen and grabbed two slices of cold pizza from the refrigerator. Mom and Daddy had forgotten about dinner and, apparently, about me.

  CHAPTER 3

  I WAS JUST getting up the next morning when Daddy knocked on my door.

  “You ’wake?” he asked gently.

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?”

  “I guess.” I sat up against my pillow.

  “I’m sorry, Isabella. I’m so very sorry that the problems between me and your mom get all mixed into your life.”

  “Mom was crying,” I told him. I’m not sure if I was accusing him or wanting an explanation. Probably both.

  “I know. I guess all I can tell you is how sorry I am” was all he said.

  “I’m sorry I spilled the Kool-Aid. I made a mess. . . . And I know sometimes I forget to wash the dishes.”

  “No, no, no!” he said quickly. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Not one thing. And it was our fault, not yours! We were being ugly to each other, and you shouldn’t have had to hear it. I’m so sorry. None of this is about a drink that has too much sugar in it.” He gave me a little hug and a smile. “The Kool-Aid was just the thing we disagreed about this time. It could have been the carpet, the toothpaste, even the weather—we just can’t seem to agree about anything anymore.”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve noticed,” I said in sort of a mumble. “It’s kinda hard not to.”

  Daddy traced my nose with his finger. “We argue about lots of stuff, but never about you, Isabella. That we both agree on. We both absolutely adore you! You understand that, right?”

  It was clear he wanted me to say yes, so I nodded.

  “Your mom is upset with me, Izzy, not you,” Daddy went on.

  Weird. Daddy hardly ever called me that. It was Mom’s nickname for me. He liked the sound of “Isabella” when he said it out loud, he’d always say. “None of this is your fault.”

  “So why are you two always yelling and mad at each other?”

  He nodded like I’d asked a smart question. He nodded for so long I wondered if he’d forgotten what I actually asked. Then he said, “Because . . . because, uh, we’ve kinda ended up growing in different directions.”

  I pressed my lips together, hard. This didn’t sound like a good thing. So I told him, “But you’re grown-ups! You’re already done growing!”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said again. It made me kinda itchy, listening to my daddy keep apologizing to me. Somehow that just didn’t feel right either. Then he started sniffling.

  “Sweetheart, the thing is . . . I’ve been unhappy for such a long time. So has your mom. The frustrations just piled up. . . . It’s just not working anymore.” Daddy was blinking hard.

  What wasn’t working? Our family? Because of frustrations, he’d said. I gulped; I’d caused lots of frustrations! A couple of weeks ago I burned the cupcakes I was making because I forgot to set the timer. I lost my math homework and Mom had to call the teacher. And twice last week I forgot to flush the toilet—ick. What was wrong with me?

  “Is it my fault?” I blurted out.

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” he cried, reaching for me. “Isabella, you are absolutely, one hundred percent perfect! It’s us, not you.” He paused then and looked me straight in the eye. His face was so close that I could see a couple of beard hairs he’d missed when he shaved. “I want you to understand that your mom and I love you very, very much.”

  I waited. I could tell there was a “but” coming—a reason, an explanation, an excuse. And it came, the worst “but” ever.

  “But we have decided that it would be be
tter if I went to live in another house so that we can stop all this fighting.”

  I shook his hand from my shoulder. “You’re moving out?”

  I couldn’t even make my mouth say words. “To . . . to . . . where?”

  He looked down, traced the pattern of my bedspread with his finger. Then he said something even worse. “Isabella, I’ve been offered a job in California.”

  “California!” I jumped off the bed and glared at him. “That’s a million miles away from Ohio! How will I . . . ? When will I . . . ?” And I couldn’t finish either question ’cause I knew I’d start bawling.

  “You can visit every summer. And at Christmas. And spring break. And I will always be here for you, baby girl. Always.” He tried to sound positive, but it sure sounded like a load of fake to me.

  “Parents like to say stuff like that,” I told him, balling my hands into fists—open, closed, open, closed. “But if you live in California, Daddy, you won’t be here for my piano recitals or . . . or . . . my soccer games! You won’t ‘always be here’ for me!”

  Daddy started with the nodding thing again. “Uh, there’s FaceTime and video chats and all that computer stuff you kids are so good at. You can show me. We’ll stay in constant contact. Every day. I promise.”

  Those tears in his eyes were getting ready to fall. No! He was not the one who should be crying, even if he did look like the saddest dad on Earth right now.

  So I said, “Pinkie swear?” to make him feel better, even though this felt way too big for a little old pinkie.

  He offered me his left hand—strong and brown. I offered him mine—soft and pale. My hand was trembling. But then I pulled away suddenly. I had to ask him one more question. All the whispers and giggles and stifled remarks I’d heard at school kinda flooded my mind. Stuff I’d ignored or brushed off. I had to ask. I had to know.

  “Daddy, are you and Mommy splitting up because you’re Black and she’s white?”

  He got real serious. He circled my face with his hands—so gently. Then he whispered, “No, my precious Isabella. This has nothing to do with race. Please believe me. When your mom and I first met, we simply fell in love. We didn’t see color—she saw me. I saw her. And for a while, that was enough. . . . You’ve gotta believe that.” His eyes seemed to be pleading for me to understand.

  I said nothing for a minute, staring at him a long time, trying to memorize every inch of his cocoa brown face; his wide shoulders; his thick, black hair. Slowly I offered him my pinkie finger again.

  “I pinkie swear that I will love you forever,” he said, almost in tears.

  I bit down on my lip. No crying. No.

  “Me too” is what I said. I didn’t add that the idea of a forever without my daddy seemed to me like music without sound.

  CHAPTER 4

  AT FIRST THE word “divorce” scared me. It was like our family had come down with a horrible, incurable disease or something. Like that Kool-Aid pitcher, we were shattered, and my parents couldn’t fix whatever was wrong.

  I was stupid sad after Dad left. I looked at a map of the United States at school. The distance from Ohio to California was so huge—he coulda been on another planet. It would take three days just to drive there! But even if he had just moved across town, he was gone from me. I couldn’t see him or sit in his lap when I wanted to or needed to.

  And never mind what he said, deep inside I did feel like it was partly my fault. I’d messed up a lot. The Kool-Aid. The cupcakes. Then there was the time they’d given me a necklace after my first piano recital—it was a shiny musical note on a silver chain. Mom had warned me not to wear it to soccer practice, but I didn’t listen. It fell off on the field somewhere and I couldn’t find it. They said they were disappointed in me. That made my stomach hurt. So yeah, I really was one big frustration.

  During those first few weeks after Dad left, I spent the days walking around what was now the house for just me and Mom, touching all the “Dad places”: the green kitchen chair—the one that didn’t wobble; the empty bathroom shelf where he used to keep his aftershave that smelled like peppermint patties; the old pottery ashtray where he used to toss his keys.

  After dinner I would carefully wash his favorite plate—the blue ceramic one—even though it hadn’t been used, just so it wouldn’t get dusty. I’d put it back in the cupboard next to that big red bowling plate he’d won a couple of years ago. I don’t know why he didn’t take those when he moved out, but I was glad they were still there, ’cause maybe that meant he might come back, right?

  Plus, Mom’s place was just so quiet all the time. So I hauled out my Casio again and again, just to make some noise.

  When my parents finally got official custody papers with legal instructions from a judge, I guess that sealed everything. We were no longer a whole, but three separate pieces. A mom. A dad. A kid sliced in half. Actually, that made us four pieces—’cause I have to be two people: Mom’s Izzy and Dad’s Isabella.

  But even though I got to go to the beach whenever I visited him, and even though Dad’s California house was awesome—with a big old Steinway piano he got just for me—I always felt like a visitor. Which I was. I only visited him. Daddy wasn’t . . . home. But I got used to it. What choice did I have?

  The system worked, basically, until last year. When Dad decided to move again. And suddenly he was just across town.

  And now that he’s once again living in the same city as I do, the custody rules have changed. It took a little getting used to. Okay, truth? It took a lot of getting used to.

  CHAPTER 5

  DAD LIVES IN a really nice house now that he’s back, and I mean ridiculously nice—the kind of house you see on TV shows about movie stars. It’s in a ritzy suburb just outside of town.

  Mom still lives in the small house we all used to share. It’s crisp and clean and usually smells like the candle fragrance she bought that week. Last week she was burning a lavender-lime—a purple-green swirled combination that actually smelled really good. She got it at Target. I wish I’d been with her.

  But unless we’re doing a custody exchange, it’s never the three of us together anymore. Probably never ever again.

  When Dad moved back, and he and Mom went to court so a new custody arrangement could be worked out, I was not allowed to go. Excuse me, but I think I should have had a say in it, especially since the whole thing was about me anyway. But I didn’t.

  Right before the court date, I spent one whole Saturday night on my laptop, researching custody laws in Ohio. Mom is my legal guardian because she’s, like, my mom. But she and Dad have shared custody of me, which means they have to take turns. But I have no “legal right to choose.” That’s a real phrase from a custody article I looked up. Makes me feel pretty small. Some judge who had never even met me decided to split me in half. Like that’s even humanly possible.

  So I live with Dad and Anastasia—Dad’s “lady friend,” as he calls her—and her son, Darren, one week. Then, every Sunday, at exactly 3:00 p.m., in front of the Apple Store at the mall, I am exchanged like a wrong-size pair of jeans. And I live with Mom and her boyfriend, John Mark, the next week. Yeah, they love me and all that, but it doesn’t stop them from slicing my life in half every seven days and then acting like that’s normal or something.

  Every Monday I wake up in a different bed than the one I slept in the week before.

  I hate that!

  Birds make nests in trees, right? One nest. One tree. Who ever heard of a robin moving her eggs every week to a new tree? That’d be crazy, right?

  Yep. Crazy.

  Welcome to my life.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mom’s Week

  JOHN MARK METZKER has been around longer than the other six guys Mom sorta dated, whose names I choose not to remember. Before I got to know him, I used to call him simply Number Seven, but not to his face. After a couple of years, it was clear that he and Mom really liked each other. And I can tell he really likes me. He’s honest, real polite, and he likes crunchy peanut butter and apricot jelly—never grape—just like I do.

  Mom smiles, sometimes even giggles, when she’s around him, and I can see a little of the tired, pinched look leave her face when he comes into a room. I like that he makes her happy.