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Show CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN So it was decided. The town's festival at the site of the memorial on November 11, would be followed by Mother's music at the hospital. I was probably one of the few people in town who planned to attend both. And I cared for neither one. I was already living my life without Andrew, trying to make the space he took up in my life smaller so his going would not leave such a huge gaping hole. I still saw him regularly but I was already trying to face the afternoons after school without him. I looked around at the other men at the hospital, trying to imagine seeing only them, without Andrew nearby. But everything I did, only made me realize how hard it was going to be, how much I would miss my friend. I was surrounded by music, at home and at school. Mother practiced from early morning until I left for school with time only for a quick talk to say good-bye, all day until I came home with Father from the hospital, and then after dinner until ten or eleven at night. She was doing all new music with only a few repeats from the first concert, the ones the men had especially liked. She was nervous and quick-tempered but very happy, giddy almost, constantly asking Father and me how a piece sounded or which one she should play. Father and I suffered in silence. And at school, Miss Doweckie, our music teacher, was in command and could pull any or all of us from our other studies without even asking permission of our regular teachers. Whenever she appeared at the classroom door with the stacks of music in her hand, we put away our other books and left without her ever saying a word. Once I looked at Miss Norris when this happened in the middle of an arthmetic lesson in time to see her raise her eyes to the ceiling and shake her head. |