The First Statement Came To My Own Front Door

Six months later, I hung my name beside a different door.

ODESSA BELL.

The label came in a packet of twenty for $3. I used one and put the others in my desk. There was room for a desk now.

My apartment sat on a quiet street above downtown New London. From the front window, I could see the top of a ferry moving past the roofs. The horn reached me a moment later.

The divorce was final.

We had sold the old apartment and divided its $184,000 net proceeds equally. We each kept the pensions earned in our own names. Franklin paid me another $12,600 to settle the agreed difference in their values. The catalog stayed entirely mine under our signed property agreement.

I had a copy in my desk. Lila had another.

Franklin lived in a smaller rental. His company had no rights, no collection role, and no booking work from me. After paying its debts and filing its final papers, he closed it.

I did not keep track of whether he liked his new place.

He wrote once, asking if he could come by to fix a loose cabinet handle. I had never told him a handle was loose.

I answered that visits were not welcome. Anything about the divorce could go through counsel.

Then I paid a carpenter $45 to adjust a drawer that actually needed help.

Lila's final trust statement lay in a green folder.

Recovered: $106,320.

Legal and accounting costs: $18,000.

Net royalties and interest left for the musicians and me: $88,320.

Eli received $7,065.60, including his share of interest. Celia and Nessa each received $5,299.20. Their signed receipts did not praise me or forgive Franklin. They simply showed the money had reached the right hands.

My share was $70,656.

Ruth's loan had already been repaid from the cost payment, as our written arrangement required. Every temporary legal installment was credited on the final bill. Nobody got paid twice.

I bought a wide-key practice keyboard with a light touch for $640. I could play ten minutes some days. Other days, I could only listen.

I stopped calling either kind of day a failure.

The clinic still treated my hands. I still needed rides sometimes. June and I traded favors, and I kept a cab number by the phone.

Needing help no longer meant handing over the keys to my life.

Ruth arranged for the masters to be checked and copied safely. I visited the archive with her. The technician brought out reel seven, and I recognized my handwriting on the box.

LAST SLOW SKATE. NO TALK OVER THE INTRO.

I had written that warning for Franklin when he first began announcing our shows.

"Still good advice," Ruth said.

We chose a fresh copy to play at a small gathering in a rented community room. Forty people came. Some had skated to my music as children. Others came because Eli had told everybody within reach of his grocery cart.

Celia brought her brushes. Nessa brought her clarinet. Eli brought the bass he had carried to my lawyer's office.

I played one tune seated at the light keyboard. Ruth handled the sound.

Before we began, Nessa's daughter came over.

"I should have called you directly," she said.

"You can now."

We exchanged numbers. No middleman.

The old reunion venue had corrected its file and sent me the canceled check copy with an apology. Franklin's other required letters had gone out. June's grandson made us a simple contact list, and we each checked our own number.

There were no missing people left in someone else's drawer.

Mara came too. Her company's false sale listing had been withdrawn and corrected. Later, she asked to license two tracks for a short film about community dance halls.

She addressed the request to me.

Lila reviewed the new agreement. Two named recordings. One film. One year. A $6,000 fee. I kept the masters and all other rights.

We signed after the band reviewed its shares. This time, the page with my signature belonged to the pages before it.

Harbor Ledger restored my access, removed Franklin's authority, and confirmed my new payment account. Statements went to me, with a second copy to the accountant I had chosen.

On a cool morning, Ruth came over with rolls and the last box of my archive copies.

I put tea on the desk. She complained about my coffee without being offered any.

The mail slot clicked.

Inside the envelope was the first new collection statement: $6,000 received, $300 collection fee, $5,700 ready to divide. My portion was $4,560. The band's payments were listed beside mine.

Ruth pulled up a chair. My cane sounded twice against the floor, rested, then sounded once. Beside my tea, the new statement lay open in a square of morning sun.