Almost There

By Korinthia A Klein

What would happen if the one person you needed most did the one thing you couldn't forgive? When Maddie's best friend causes an accident, it shatters her world in a way she can't repair. "Almost There" explores the life of a mother in her thirties and her relationships with her best friend, husband, children, and herself, a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Korinthia A. Klein
• Release date: May 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781733388917

Korinthia A Klein

Korinthia Klein is a writer, luthier, and musician living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She runs a violin store with her husband, is lucky to be the mother of three wonderful kids, and will solve your Rubik's Cube for you if you haven't rearranged the stickers.

Book preview

ALMOST THERE

---

Copyright © 2013 Korinthia A. Klein

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Karen Anne Klein

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locales, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are being used fictitiously. Any resemblance to places, events, or people living or dead are coincidental.

Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7333889-1-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

---

ALMOST THERE

a novel by

Korinthia A. Klein

---

---

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my children for teaching me what matters, and my husband who found me the time to write.

---

PROLOGUE

There was before and there was after. A decade following the tragedy, that was all Maddie knew. She would have thought, probably when she was living in the land of before, that there would be something akin to insight by now. Something learned. Something valuable. But there was simply before and after. And the pain never changed.

Maddie sat on the edge of her bed and looked out the window. There was no road that could be seen anywhere from the house. Zander had made sure of that. Just trees that were bursting with leaves of that fresh green they produce when the weather turns definitively warm and the threat of snow has finally left. It was a green that didn’t come in a paint tube. You had to combine several colors to try and come close, and even then it came down to what you placed that green against. Most people didn’t realize color was all about context. The smallest bit, either right or wrong in a certain spot, could change everything.

It was early in the day and everyone was out. Zander had taken the kids to school for her that morning on his way to work. Some days it was still better to be alone and Maddie didn’t want to get out of bed. Not always, and not often, but sometimes. That was probably true before, too, but in a different way. An innocent way. There were some things Maddie couldn’t remember clearly about before.

There were many points in life that could be looked at in terms of before and after. Before she married her husband and after, before she had children, before she met her best friend. But those were gains. To view life in terms of not knowing what you were missing and then having more was not the same thing. Loss played by different rules. To have something, to have something that was everything, and then have it ripped away.... That created a chasm between before and after that made them different worlds, not part of some continuum where you could point to various spots in your timeline and amuse yourself by playing the If I only knew then what I know now game. There was before and there was after and there was nothing amusing about it.

Maddie missed her dad. He’d passed away in his sleep over a year ago. As she felt a pleasant breeze come through her window she wondered if you could call yourself an orphan if you were in your forties. It seemed as if there should be a time limit on such a term for it to retain any meaning, and yet what else do you call a person who has lost both her parents? If she lost her husband she would be a widow regardless of age. And some forms of loss had no name.

Maddie wasn’t sure yet what to do with her day. She’d left it open so she could improvise and maybe stumble upon something that felt right. She didn’t have to do anything if she didn’t feel up to it, but a walk suddenly sounded nice. She studied the trees that kept vigil outside her bedroom window and considered before and after. The lack of warning between one and the other still shocked her. You just never knew when things were going to change. Life ran along a course that looked like one thing, and then became another in an instant.

She ran her hands over the soft, pink sweater in her lap. She traced her fingers over the letters on the front of it as the tears came. In the land of after there were always more tears. She didn’t always shed them anymore, but they were there. Time didn’t change that. Time just provided more days in which to cry.

Maddie got up and walked over to her dresser. She kissed the sweater and put it back into its box at the back of her top drawer. She picked up her bag with her travel watercolor kit and reminded herself to refill her water bottle this time before leaving the house. She did not glance back as she headed out the bedroom door. A walk really did sound nice.

---

CHAPTER ONE: LUNCH

Lunch should not be so hard. Maddie thought this to herself every time she jumped through the hoops required of a married mother of two on her way to meet her best friend. She and Laona used to get together for lunch all the time and thought nothing of it, but now as she pulled up to the little restaurant that was a good mid-distance between their homes, Maddie realized just how much they had taken for granted the easy conversations and laughter of earlier days.

Maddie could see her friend already seated at their regular table by the window, tucking a bit of her blond hair behind her ear and looking through the menu even though she always ordered the same thing. Maddie smiled to herself. Laona, on time as usual, she said to no one but her car, which was as old as her marriage to Zander at that point. Her friend glanced up from the menu and caught Maddie's eye. Laona smiled and gave a little wave that Maddie happily returned as she made her way inside.

Hey you! said Laona, getting up to give her friend a brief hug. Check you out with no little girls hanging off you.

Wait, watch this. Maddie stood up a little straighter and cleared her throat theatrically. Those sable brushes I've been wanting? They were marked down at the art store last week and I bought three.

Laona laughed. Is that what you were trying to say to me the other day on the phone when Annabel spilled the milk?

Maddie nodded as she took her seat at the small table. I know. I can't believe I spent, like, twenty minutes trying to spit that out, but good lord with Jonni toddling through that mess and Annabel trying to be helpful with the cleanup and making it all worse.... It had been annoying at the time, but now with Laona in front of her to laugh about it with, it was just kind of funny. Laona didn't have children, so Maddie felt guilty that all the interruptions to their conversations were always at her own end.

Well, you're here now, and we can finish lots of sentences and I promise not to spill anything. Or at least nothing you have to clean up, said Laona.

As Maddie started looking over the menu Laona pulled out her day planner. Hey, are we still good for lunch next month, too? she asked.

We haven't even ordered lunch yet for today! Give me a minute to settle in first. I can't think that far ahead yet, said Maddie. She was glad her husband had helped her carve out in stone the first Friday of every month as a day she could get out to lunch without the kids, but it was a soft kind of stone, probably a soapstone or a pumice, because even though one afternoon a month sounded easy it still didn't always happen.

Maddie was done looking at the menu quickly, and studied her friend a moment instead as Laona continued to scrutinize the day planner. It must be nice to own shirts without stains, thought Maddie wistfully. Laona was always put together in a way Maddie admired but could never achieve herself.

What? said Laona, catching her friend looking at her. Did I mismatch my earrings or something?

No, said Maddie laughing. You look great. You always look great. But could you, like, look at me for a second? And Maddie tilted her head slightly in a demure pose.

Are you fishing for a compliment on your haircut? asked Laona.

Not fishing! Just, geeze you didn't say anything and I was starting to worry it looked bad, said Maddie.

Laona grinned. I just wanted to see how long it would take you to bring it up yourself because I'm mean like that. Actually, it really does look good. Your hair's so dark it frames your face better when it's short.

Ugh. My hair's so dark it just makes me look pasty.

Hey, at least you're not going grey at 34!

No one sees it, Laona. It just blends into all that blond, so you look fine.

A waitress finally appeared and took their orders of sandwiches and salads and promised to come back and fill their coffee mugs. As Maddie looked forward to the arrival of much needed caffeine, Laona dug through her purse until she found a small packet of photos. She played weddings with her string quartet, and she always brought a camera to get photos for her friend.

For Maddie it was like having an art spy because Laona had been inside nearly every church and synagogue within a sixty mile radius, and the variety was staggering. The old churches were the best, and the odd choices made in the new buildings were either strange or interesting depending on your taste. She loved the old architecture and the windows and the paintings and the candles, and Laona always found odd statues or strange nooks for Maddie to pore over and consider for use in later projects. Some of her best paintings were derived from ideas and shapes from those photos. And it wasn't just churches; Laona played in museums and mansions and small private homes and parks and gardens, and through her camera it was as if Maddie got to poke around all of those places too.

Maddie looked with interest at the photo stack Laona began flipping through. Ooh! What have you got for me today? I'm looking for something cool to sink those new brushes into.

Hold your horses! Let me get these ones of me and Robert from that last recital out of here first.

Maddie liked Laona's husband, even though it had taken her a while to figure out what her friend saw in him at the beginning. He was so quiet and her friend was so outgoing, but it seemed to work.

The waitress finally arrived with their coffee and promised the food wouldn't be far behind. Maddie stirred sugar into her cup just as Laona finished separating out the photos. Laona lingered briefly over a picture of her husband from her own half of the stack as she started to put the photos she was hanging onto back into her purse. Maddie, did I tell you Robert's still having trouble with that new client? she asked.

Maddie shook her head as the waitress returned with their salads and sandwiches. Laona continued, They should just let him do what he does and trust it, but they feel the need to comment on every little thing, and they just don't know what they're asking for. They hire him because he's the best website designer around and then act like they can do better. I don't know how he can be so patient with them. Makes me want to scream just hearing about it.

Well, good thing he's doing it and not you, then. That's the real price of your fancy shmansy violin and all those kitchen gadgets, said Maddie. Their friendship was secure enough that she knew she was safe in teasing Laona about the disparity in their incomes. That had been true to some degree their whole lives, even before her best friend married into money. If anything, Maddie admired that even though her friend didn't need to teach privately or do freelance playing that she did it because it was what she loved, and she only taught kids who normally couldn't afford violin lessons. She still charged them a token fee (Because when you charge nothing that's what people think what you do is worth, she explained to Maddie), and often she could even provide them with instruments to keep that she would pretend had somehow fallen into her lap and she didn't know what to do with. She and Robert had managed anonymously to keep all of the local string programs afloat at a time when other places were slashing arts programs for kids left and right. It was nice to know someone who chose to do unselfish things with money. Maddie liked to think she would be as generous, but she suspected her first priority would be to buy a nap.

Well, they'll probably come around. Once they get a look at something he's finished I can't imagine they'd mess with it, said Maddie.

Laona shrugged as she began dipping bits of her salad into the dressing she always ordered on the side. You'd think. Ready for photos?

Maddie happily moved her own food over slightly so she could continue to eat as she looked through the stack her friend pushed across the table toward her. The new photos turned out to be from a ceremony at a Quaker meeting house the previous month. The bride and groom were not themselves Quakers, but they were nature lovers, and the facility had a beautiful clearing out back that felt strangely removed from the city even though streets and cars were only steps away.

 Maddie scrutinized the first picture as her friend started in on her sandwich. Maddie shook her head. The building is so bland!

I know! said Laona, still chewing and putting a hand over her mouth so as not to seem rude. She paused to swallow then continued, I expected it to be sparse, but there is almost no feature worth remembering in the whole place.

Huh. Was it more interesting inside?

Well, keep going. The stuff I thought might interest you is coming up, but seriously the interior of this wedding venue wasn't worth even my virtual film. Look! The only thing in there is folding chairs.

Maddie frowned slightly, and wondered if all Quaker meeting houses were this uninspiring or if this particular place was an anomaly. There's not even anything on the walls, she said in disbelief. Maddie habitually checked out what people put on their walls. She was usually disappointed. Do you think it's normally this empty, or did they hide the good stuff from the nonbeliever guests?

Laona smiled before finishing off the last of her salad. Can't tell. We weren't inside very long anyway because it was more like a staging area for the wedding. But now check out the windows! It's like the whole purpose of the building was to point you toward the woods so you would forget the building. Ironic, if you consider how much they had to cut down so you could admire the trees.

Maddie sifted past a few more photos of unadorned walls and unmemorable spaces, but then paused when she got to the pictures of the clearing behind the meeting house. Laona's shots of weddings were unusual, because since she was there to work she never had pictures of the bride or any of the attendants or anything connected to the ceremony. They were pictures of places prepared for an event, but never the event itself.

The one photo from this wedding that truly caught Maddie’s attention was of a central space that was sectioned off in the clearing by simple white velvet ribbons, but the addition of the ribbons almost wasn't necessary. The trees and plants seemed to understand they were holding a sacred space in their branches. The woods were dense and very little light was filtering in, but it looked as if it felt safe and holy. It was green and fresh and calm.

Maddie held her breath for a moment, excited by the possibilities. There were subtleties to the different greens mixed with shadows and they gave her ideas. She was already thinking about which pigments she could combine to get the proper effects.

Laona didn't interrupt her friend while she was contemplating something visual. She signaled the waitress for more coffee and studied the dessert menu even though they wouldn't order anything off it.

Maddie finally set down the photo of the clearing in the woods and picked up her own sandwich. She took a small bite, still staring at the trees captured in the picture while she chewed slowly. It's beautiful, she said after a moment.

Not an easy place to play, though. Outdoor weddings are the worst! You never sound very good in all that open space, and the bugs were unreal in those woods. Laona cringed at the memory. Violin and mosquitoes don’t mix.

Did the couple look happy? Maddie always asked that question, but she wasn't sure why. She didn't know them. Laona didn't even know them. It just seemed to be the most natural question.

I guess. The ones who don't look like deer in headlights from all the attention usually do. Maddie knew from years of wedding quartet stories that in truth Laona never looked at the faces of the couples she played for. She kept one eye on her music and one eye on where people were walking, but she didn't have time for such casual observations during a ceremony the same way Maddie would. The pressure of getting the music for someone's big day right kept Laona focused on only her job once it started, but weddings provided a unique musical challenge for her, which was why she kept doing them.

Did you even catch their names this time? Maddie asked.

Yeah, you think you're funny, but why should I care? That's the violist's business to know those details and it drives him crazy dealing with the minutia of those people's lives. Organizing all that music for new couples every time without mixing any of it up—bleah! I did, however, take note that the bride did not change her name, said Laona, grinning as she popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth.

How do you know they didn't switch names, or each come up with something new altogether? asked Maddie, teasing.

Possible, said Laona, again covering her mouth as she finished chewing. But honestly the names weren't memorable so I doubt there was that much inspiration involved. Maddie knew Laona had never completely approved of her changing her name when she married, but Maddie didn't see enough difference between Taylor and Taggert to care, so changing it was convenient. It didn't even alter her monogram; not that she had ever owned anything with a monogram. The day they met back in sixth grade Laona had seemed proud of her unusual name, so it had never surprised Maddie that her friend insisted she would never change it because Laona Luna had too nice a ring.

Maddie had just a few bites of her sandwich left as the waitress came to refill their coffee cups and set down the check. Laona smiled at the waitress and handed her the camera out of her purse, saying, Would you mind? Then she turned to Maddie baring her teeth and asking, Is there any salad stuck in there?

Maddie shook her head in response to the salad question, then protested, Seriously? I'm not feeling photogenic today. She hated having her picture taken in general, but she was especially not fond of feeling put in direct comparison to her beautiful friend whose clothes looked tailored and didn't have evidence of old spit up on the shoulders.

Laona scowled. You're gorgeous, as always. Besides, I'll need to show Robert how cute your hair looks. It's a style closer to what you had in college and he didn't know you then so he won't know what I'm talking about if I describe it.

Laona showed the waitress what button to push while Maddie reluctantly scooted her chair around closer to her friend so they could lean in together. As the waitress amiably positioned the camera, the two friends tried too hard to smile naturally. Once the camera flashed Maddie said, Well, I'm sure that looked candid! At which point they both laughed and the camera flashed again. The second picture really did look natural when they checked it on the camera's screen, and Maddie liked it enough to request a copy next time Laona had pictures printed.

Despite the fact that they were essentially finished with their food they weren't ready to part. Without discussing it they let the check sit between them and they slowly sipped at their coffee as they continued to talk.

Are you working on anything right now? asked Laona.

Well, I've got a couple of things going that I keep setting aside because something's not working right. The gallery downtown where I did the group show last year? They sold that landscape I did a few years back, and some other guy who liked it wants me to paint another one, Maddie said, wincing slightly at the thought.

Why isn't that a good thing? asked Laona.

Maddie traced the top of her coffee cup with one of her fingers as she considered her answer. It's just... It's great to know someone likes your stuff, sure, but.... Well, I can't do that again. That idea is done. It's out there already. I can't just churn something out to order. Like, what if he sent me a swatch so I could get it to match his couch?

Laona laughed. Oh my God, I don't even want to imagine what kind of passive aggressive painting you would come up with if that happened. Wait, yes, I do want to see that, actually. But no, really, isn't it kinda good, though, if it gets your work out there?

Maddie thought some more, as she tried not to notice the waitress glancing over at their table as if they were overstaying their welcome, despite the fact that the restaurant was far from full. I know when you play something, it's fine for someone to hear it and ask you to play it again somewhere else, but what if you wrote the piece? Wouldn't it bug you to have someone request that you just say the same thing again rather than hear a new idea you might have?

Laona seemed to have no trouble ignoring the waitress or anything else in the restaurant. She was there to talk to Maddie and that was all that appeared to matter to her. I guess it depends on how many ideas you've got. The joke in the violin world goes that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 500 times.

Maddie laughed. But didn't he choose to do that?

Hard to say, said Laona. He wrote for the environment he was in. This whole musician and artist as independent idea person is kind of new. You created what the patron was willing to pay for. If the church hires you to paint the Sistine Chapel, you don't just get to paint a conga line of naked popes just because it's a new idea you have.

I suppose. But I won't starve or get burned at the stake or anything if Mr. Carbon Copy Landscape Guy doesn't get what he wants, so I'm turning it down, said Maddie.

That was good enough for Laona, so she nodded and reached for the bill. However they dragged it out their lunches always seemed to end too soon for Maddie. As Laona gestured for the waitress to come pick up her credit card, Maddie protested as she always did but her friend just made a face at her.

Don't be crazy! said Laona. Your contribution is finding time to come. Besides, I've always liked providing your food.

They compromised the way they always did by Maddie paying the tip, and then they headed out. When they got to their cars out front Laona started to get into hers when she said, Oh my God, Maddie! Wait! I can't believe I almost forgot.

What?

Laona reached into a pile of papers on the back seat of her car and pulled out a flyer. They're showing Duck Soup at the Wayback tomorrow afternoon! I thought if you and Zander wanted to go, maybe Robert and I could watch the kids if you don't mind bringing them over to us.

Maddie took the flyer with interest. Oh, Zander would really like that, and he's been working so hard lately on those revised blueprints for that office park.... I guess....

Maddie! Don't think about it so much. You guys never get to go out, and we always have a good time with the girls.

Yes, because they're such a breeze.

Laona grinned. "They are not nearly as bad as you like to make them out to be. Besides,