Back in the Day (Bay Area Blues Book 2)

by Katrina Jackson

After she died, Amir had gone through Ada’s work, trying to discover some hidden depths of her through her work. What he’d found was no surprise. Ada had loved to photograph Alonzo because she had loved him with her entire soul. Her cameras had captured her husband — the depth of him, all his kindness and promise and beauty and softness — because she saw him that way. Their love was all over Ada’s photography. The body of her work was a testament to the life she’d built with him.

Even though he had dreams of writing full-time, reality took precedence. Bills were due today, the money in his pockets only stretched so far, and there was no one to catch Alonzo when he fell because everyone he knew was falling too. But now there was Ada, and suddenly, all Alonzo could think about was a future he hadn’t thought possible. A future where maybe he wasn’t always falling, or maybe if he was, she was holding his hand as the bottom fell out from under them. And maybe they crawled back out of rock bottom together. It seemed naïve and embarrassing to want something that made him even more vulnerable than he already was, but he did.

Ada sauntered to the bathroom like she was walking on a bed of flowers, flaunting herself, not for him in particular but just because she could. Just because she knew how beautiful she was.

Alonzo never learned to sing on key, but over the next thirty-eight years, every time Ada was sad, he put on some Teddy Pendergrass and buried his face between her legs. Anything to make her shudder and smile and come like she had the weekend they met.

Amir got it now, why his father was telling him this story as slowly and in as much detail as he could. But Alonzo was right; there wasn’t any reason to hurry love. And there was sure as hell no rushing grief.

They mostly ate in silence, and it struck Amir that he had never eaten a meal in this house in silence. There was always music playing or someone singing, he and Amaya arguing about something trivial, and if all else failed, there was the soundtrack of Alonzo whispering to Ada and then her shocked, loving laughter. But maybe the silence was how they would say goodbye.

These albums were an extension of his parents’ love. The lyrics were baked into Ada’s photographs, and Alonzo’s books were sentimental prayers to them. This music was threaded through all Amir’s memories of his parents and this home. One day, Alonzo would be gone, and Amir wouldn’t be able to remember the exact pitch of his or Ada’s voices. But he would still have the music, and it would almost be like having them back. “They’re the soundtrack you and mama made together,” Amir said solemnly. “That’s my boy,” Alonzo whispered back.

“If we’re all heading toward freedom,” he said, “then maybe some of us are heading down the same road in different shoes.”