Attack Decay Sustain Release

And there, framed in the doorway against the darkened hallway behind her, was Lucia. She looked like a warrior queen, with her shoulders thrust back, chin out, and her fists clenched tightly. Vivian quivered, hidden only by the fact that she had been shaking on and off for the last twenty minutes.

"Are you okay?" Lucia asked.

She had dreamed of this moment often. Vivian nodded.

"Alright," she said. "Clear out, munchkins. Let's get her out of there."

The girls dutifully hustled from the room, and when she extended a hand Vivian took it. This time, Lucia did a much better job of supporting Vivian at her own pace, and had her seated at the kitchen table in short order. She filled a glass of water and set it down in front of her, and Vivian took a long, grateful pull.

"You're okay," she said.

Vivian nodded, and pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was still pounding.

"You're okay."

"I'm okay," Vivian repeated.

Lucia sat down next to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Are they okay?"

The girls were back on the couch, watching something else, but they kept looking over at her. Vivian tried to wave them off, but she knew they wouldn't be convinced by a hand gesture. "Once they calm down," she said eventually, "yeah."

Lucia watched her closely. "It doesn't matter what happened. It's over now, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

"It's just a stupid door."

The echoing squeal of the hinges at the front of the house sent a cold chill straight down her spine.

"We're home," Darren called.

The girls moved like homing missiles, and by the time Ashley reached her father's legs she was already crying again. Tiffany was slightly more composed, but their overlapping retelling of the events of the previous hour was incomprehensible. He came up the stairs a moment later holding Tiffany, while Carly held little Ashley, still trying to get them to slow down, but it was seeing Lucia seated at their kitchen table that finally made their eyes bulge.

"I don't know what happened," Vivian said, her head ducking. "I just went to the bathroom, and—"

Carly darted in front, now cradling Ashley protectively, and said, "What do you mean, you don't know what happened? You can't greet a mother at the door with I don't know what happened, so start filling in some gaps! Why are my daughters crying?!"

"I just went to the bathroom," she repeated, pointing, "and-and—"

Carly zipped across the kitchen, her eyes wide with fury. "What the fuck happened to my bathroom?!"

"She locked herself in there," Lucia said.

"I was talking to my sister-in-law." Carly hissed. "You know, the one who was in charge of keeping my children safe?"

Darren moved carefully around his wife, and groaned. "It's okay. It's just part of the molding... and the strike plate." He hefted Tiffany and kissed the top of her head. "Were you scared?"

"It's not just a door," Carly yelled. "You can't break down! Not when my daughters are counting on you! What would have happened if there was a fire?!"

"Sweetie, come on—"

Carly turned on her husband, and raged, "Don't you sweetie me! We trusted her!"

"Hey," Lucia said, standing up and planting herself beside Vivian. "That's not fair."

Carly looked like she was going to explode. "Why the fuck are you in my house?"

"Viv called me, and I came right over. Took me ten minutes. I blew every red light to get here."

Carly stared back in quiet, apoplectic rage. "You called her? Not me? Not your brother?"

Vivian swallowed hard. "She was the first person I—"

"The first person you thought of was a junkie?"

"Back off," Lucia shouted, this time stepping in front of Vivian.

Just like before, when the girls had been arguing, her nerves started to fray. The tension around her made her stomach want to empty itself.

Lucia said, "It's not a big deal!"

"I think I'll decide what is and isn't a big goddamn deal," Carly roared back, "in my own goddamn house!"

"She was in a coma for a month! Do you hate her that much that you'd set her up to fail like this?"

Vivian almost corrected her, that she'd only been unconscious for a week, but she didn't when she realized that the reason she wanted to correct Lucia was so that she could be cut less slack and be held to a higher standard. She wanted to be screamed at. She felt like she deserved it...

...and the only person who disagreed was about ten seconds away from making everything a whole hell of a lot worse. She reached over and laid her hand on Lucia's arm. Lucia immediately stopped yelling and turned around, and the fact that no one was arguing with her anymore did not stop Carly from continuing to deliver the pitch-perfect rant of an aggrieved mother.

***

Lucia's apartment had never been very clean, but it was a special kind of wrecked when Vivian shuffled in. She let the duffel bag slip from her shoulder, brushed a slice of pizza out of her way, and sank down onto the ancient plaid couch. That couch had seen a lot of action over the years, good memories and bad, and Vivian had very mixed feelings about sitting on it again.

Lucia hustled in a few seconds later, and between the two bags in her hands and the one Vivian had just dropped they contained the entirety of her property. It was humbling.

"Sheets," Lucia mumbled. "I've got some sheets for that."

"I know where they are," Vivian said. "I'll get myself set up."

"Alright then. Food. Let's see." She set the other two bags down and looked around. "There was some pizza here somewhere."

"I'll order something in a little bit."

"Right." Lucia licked her lips and turned slowly. "I, um... I'll pay you back for the gas after I get back... um, now what else. What else." Her eyes popped, and she said, "Oh! Do you need to shower or anything? Do you need help with that?"

Vivian rolled her eyes. "Luc, I've been here before. I know where everything is."

"Yeah, but—"

"I'll be fine!"

"Okay, yeah. Sure." Lucia nodded vigorously, and shoved her hands into her pockets. "I-I don't have a whole lot here right now, but obviously you can help yourself to whatever I've got. There's some chips in the top cabinet, and maybe some PBR in the fridge." She stared at the refrigerator for a moment, as if suddenly unsure of whether or not there was any PBR left, but Vivian interrupted her.

"Hun, just go. The gig started ten minutes ago. You're already gonna be late, and I feel bad enough as it is."

She nodded twice, and then two more times, before taking a last look around. "Alright. Just, uh..." After a moment, Lucia shook her head, waved, and left, and then Vivian was alone.

That was good, because she didn't think she could have held off the tears any longer. She held her face in her hands and bawled. She didn't try to stop, or calm herself down. The day had started off so well.

It was maybe an hour later when she stood up. Her breathing had finally steadied, the tears had dried, and she felt better. She couldn't remember who had told her that it was okay to be sad sometimes, but whoever it was had been right. In hindsight, she hardly ever let her emotions out like that before the accident, and she'd also needed to use to cope. The two were probably related.

She picked up her phone and ordered some groceries. It was tempting to just order takeout, but she'd get more for the money by getting something that might last more than a meal or two. The market wasn't far, and it only took about an hour to arrive. Vivian tipped the delivery boy a little extra to help her get it into the kitchen, and then set to work. Lucia only had a couple pots and pans, so she had to make do, but the rice came out completely unburned and the quesadillas were perfectly burned; the best amount of char. As she sat there, on the one chair in the kitchen, staring down at her meal with a side salad, she felt immensely pleased with herself.

The pile of dishes in the sink looked to be more than a week old, so when she was done eating Vivian went to work on cleaning. It occurred to her that what she was doing might be considered 'domestic', and that on more than a few occasions she and Lucia had ridiculed the entire concept. Still, it was oddly satisfying. She had no plans to become Susie Homemaker but it had also become painfully clear to her during her time living with her brother that she had neatly sidestepped some basic adulting skills, and she wanted more for herself.

She couldn't go on living like she had so it was adapt or die, and that apparently meant learning to cook and clean like a normie.

After she was done she took a pass on cleaning the counter around the sink, and the top of the stove, and by the end of that she was exhausted in body and mind. She made her way to the closet in Lucia's bedroom and found a set of sheets. She had to unfold them and sling them over her shoulder on her way back, though, to keep her hands free. She wanted to be done with her cane, which meant trying to keep her balance unassisted as often as possible, so she walked back through the apartment with her arms held out beside her just in case she needed to try to catch herself.

The fitted sheet was a problem. After turning it around and around for a solid five minutes trying to find the top of it, Vivian couldn't find a way to put it on the couch. Everything she tried looked off, or felt weird when she tried to lay on it. It was wrong but she couldn't see why, and then, just as she was starting to get very upset, she realized that what she had hit was a blind spot. Just like the lock on the door.

She couldn't see the problem, even though she knew there was a problem. Having a name for it changed her perspective. She'd been told she might encounter those, but it hadn't occurred to her what they might look like.

After a little while, she ended up taking all of the cushions off the couch, laying them on the floor in a line, and wrapping the sheets around them. It was lumpy and uneven, but it looked right. Or, at least, it looked right-er.

***

Once upon a time Vivian had slept like the dead, but her rest was often light of late and she woke up to the sound of keys jingling in the hall. The clock read five forty-two when Lucia stumbled in, giggling and trying to hide it, and Vivian sat up.

"Aw shit," Lucia snickered. "Busted."

Vivian said, "Hey," as she brushed the sleep from her eyes and stretched. "H-how did it go?"

"Oh my god it was so good. Those guys are so good. The crowd was insane! God, I'm still wired!"

Vivian licked her lips, and thought better of commenting. "I did the dishes," she said, after a minute.

Lucia glanced into the kitchen, but said nothing as she knelt down on the floor next to Vivian's makeshift bed.

"I got some food too," Vivian said. "There's leftovers. I made quesadillas."

The Latina, lit by moonlight, took Vivian's face in her hands and kissed her. It was passionate and intense, just like she was, and though it only lasted a few moments it still left Vivian completely breathless.

"When are you going to go back to being more fun?" She looked over Vivian's face, and shook her head. "I miss the old you."

Without another word, Lucia wobbled to her feet and laughed to herself as she stumbled deeper into her apartment. The door slammed shut behind her. Within minutes came the sound of heavy snoring, and Vivian was left alone.

***

Vivian winced at a bad note, but kept playing. The bass in her hands was new, and although she was still getting a feel for it, it wasn't her old bass. She didn't love it. She hadn't needed to relearn any songs, as the melodies were all still there in her head, but the extensive retraining of her left hand was still ongoing.

"Seven out of ten?" Lucia asked, from her seat behind the drum kit.

"Something like that." Vivian shook her head, and flexed her fingers. The calluses had started to heal during her extended recovery, and were cracking now that she'd started playing more often again. "Maybe less."

"It sounded good," the other woman said, with a little upturn in tone that she used whenever she was lying.

"It sounded like shit," Vivian said, "but hank you... thank you. I'll take it."

"You need to practice more scales."

Vivian groaned. "I know. It's just easier to... to feel like I'm progressing toward something when I'm playing something that... I don't know. That sounds like something."

"I don't know what that means, " Lucia said sternly, "but you said you wanted to learn. Scales are how you learn."

She had really hoped that getting back to playing would be the first real fun she'd had in months, but it wasn't to be. There was a reason old her had only ever learned to play the bass; old her had been intensely lazy. Like everything, it was a grind, and Vivian girded her loins. One more thing to work on.

"Well hang on," Lucia said, interrupting her thoughts. "Maybe we can work on something a little different while I'm here. You can play scales on your own time. You don't need me to watch you to know when you fuck it up."

Vivian sat up and waited, unsure of how to respond.

"I mean, getting back on stage isn't really the priority for you, right?"

Vivian narrowed her eyes in uncertainty. "I mean..."

"No, but, like... what you want to be doing is songwriting, right? That's what you really loved."

After giving it a few moments' thought, Vivian nodded.

Lucia popped up to her feet, waved her over to the corner of the room, and opened up her laptop. Really, it had been Kevin's laptop, but its major use had been for the band. Vivian stood and waited, hands on her hips, while it booted to its desktop.

"Okay," Lucia said, clicking on a little box. "This... is Pro Tools."

Vivian leaned down and looked at it.

"We only ever really used this to record." She flew through some menus faster than Vivian could follow, and then the screen was covered in a variety of horizontal, multi-colored bars. "This is what Run 'em Down looks like. Each of those little sections there is a snippet of a recording." She scrolled to the right and clicked on one, and one of the backing layers of Kevin's solo played. It was almost ghoulish to hear it in isolation. "You take a bunch of pieces, paste 'em together, and then this puts 'em all together."

She clicked play, and the whole song came out. Then she paused it, moved one of the bars around a little bit, and when she played it again the rhythm guitar was out of time.

"Okay," Vivian said slowly. "How've I never really seen this before?"

"Kevin liked to control the sound. He didn't even like me playing with it, and I knew more than him. He had no idea when I fucked with his parts. We've also got some plug-ins, though we never really used them." She cleared the track, and then added a couple bars to an empty field. She picked out some trumpets from a list, made a sound in the back of her throat, and pushed play. The trumpets gave a short, harmonious report before falling silent.

"He was always trying to keep it so we sounded like we were live, but you can assemble some pretty complex stuff from spare parts with this. Samples, and synths. Some techno and trance guys, they aren't even musicians. I mean, they can't play any instruments. They just fiddle around in here until it sounds like something and call it a day."

"Okay," Vivian said, even more slowly.

"You could put together a whole song without playing a single note. You just sort of... paint them."

And then it clicked. Comprehension must have dawned on her face too, because Lucia smiled broadly.

"I still want to play," she said, as she eased into the seat in front of the laptop, "but I want to be able to do this too."

"Listen," Lucia said, letting her hand rest on Vivian's shoulder. "I can play drums, bass, guitar, piano... couple different wind instruments. I'll teach you whatever you want. I'll learn something if I have to. You never really cared before, but... you know... I'll put that out there."

Vivian thought for a moment. "Can you show me how to record a sample?"

Lucia grinned and nodded.

***

In the early hours of the following morning, through a lot of trial and error, Vivian had cobbled together a thing that had been in her head for weeks. Lucia was asleep in the next room, and had been for a while, but she was still busy toiling away. She'd even figured out how to add a barebones drum arrangement. It was simple, but it was a thing. It was a thing she had made all on her own.

There was such a sense of accomplishment. Even though the recording was warbly, pitchy garbage, she could hear the potential, and she knew she was just scratching the surface. Learning how to add polish would come later.

In her head, there were strings. It was slower and heavier; very different than things she'd written in the past. It was set in a minor key, and even though it was just music at that point it was also intensely sad. She played it back, listening closely. During a part she had loosely constructed as a chorus there was a four-note ascending phrase, B-C-D-D#, and to it Vivian softly sang "In-vi-si-ble."

It gave her chills, not only because of how right it felt, but because she immediately knew who it was about. She stared through the wall, to where she knew Lucia was sleeping, and sighed.

***

"I don't want to watch this anymore," Ashley said, as she moved away from Vivian. She had to bodily scoot herself several times to move out from the back of the couch and drop down to the floor.

"That's rude," Tiffany said, narrowing her eyes.

Vivian tapped her phone, to pause the playback and sighed.

"But I don't!"

"You can't just say that!"

"It's okay," Vivian assured the older sister. "It's good for Ashley to be able to explain how she feels about things, and being blunt is sometimes better. Not always, but that's okay. She's only four."

"The phone is too small," Ashley said, as she fiddled with the velcro strap on her bright pink sneakers. "Why can't we watch Ponies on a TV?"

"Because they don't have a TV," Tiffany said with exaggerated enunciations, "remember?"

"Why not?"

At this, Tiffany just looked up at her. The truth was that Lucia had owned a TV at one point, and its absence was curious. There was still a blu-ray player nestled in the entertainment center. Of course, Vivian couldn't just say she thought Lucia had traded it for coke, or sold it for money to buy coke. All of this ran through her head in the course of a few seconds.

Rather than answering the question, she thought a distraction would work better. "Would you gals like to hear me play something?"

"Yeah!" they answered in unison and ran ahead of her toward the converted second bedroom.

Vivian followed the advice of her therapist and took a moment, as she walked, to be proud of herself. Her gait, aside from being a little slow, looked completely normal. You almost couldn't tell she'd been in an accident. She would always carry some scars, inside and out, but she was on the tail end of recovery. Best of all, she was ahead of schedule.

"Are those egg boxes?" Tiffany asked, pointing to the walls.

"They help make it so that, if we're loud in here, it's not so bad for people on the other side of the wall."

The girls nodded, accepting her at her word. It was hard to tell if they really understood, but she took it on faith that they would ask follow-ups if-and-when they had them. She picked up Lucia's crappy acoustic guitar, because she always felt guilty about playing badly on the good one, and sat down on a chair while she tuned it up. Ashley immediately sat down with her legs criss-crossed right in front of her, while Tiffany slowly made her way around the practice space.