The Opposite of Music Read Free

for Mom. “It’s a matter of principle,” she says. She and her friend Jodie find old clothes in the attic crawlspace. Today’s look is a ponytail on top of her head and a mechanic’s coverall of Grandpa’s that says “Eddie” on the pocket. Mom never lets Linda know how annoying this is. They’re alike in that way.
    Mom is assistant director of our local museum, which is all about the leather industry. There’s more to leather history than you would think, she tells people. Often these are people who, she says, are trying to decide her social status. So: Indian techniques for tanning leather. The astonishing range of animal hides used to make leather. The barter value of leather in the colonial period. Mom beats people with this information until they soften up from boredom.
    But knowledge is not the whole job. She keeps up the collections and the bookshop. Manages the paid staff and the volunteer docents. Oversees maintenance of “the physical plant.” The trickiest part is managing her boss, Pudge. He likes to phone after dinner about museum business while Mom contorts her face into a mask of agony. “Was that the mercurial Pudge?” Dad will usually ask when Mom hangs up the phone. “Was that the irascible Pudge?”
    Mom not only works in a museum, she kind of is a museum. She has stick-straight black hair and wears red lipstick. She wears bizarre necklaces, each of which has a story. This one she bought in Mexico when she lived there for a year in college. This one was designed for her by an artist who photographed her wearing it. She stands taller than most men. She is like a museum because she never wants to be forgotten.
    â€œWe have a diagnosis,” Mom says. “According to the psychiatrist, Dr. Gupta, your father is depressed. Everything he’s experiencing—insomnia, anxiety, loss of appetite, tiredness—supports this diagnosis.”
    Linda wraps her arms around her middle, clutching the extra cloth of Grandpa’s overalls.
    â€œI’m not surprised,” Mom continues. “Something kept telling me depression, but I refused to accept it. I accept it now. Your father is depressed.”
    Linda snuffles and pushes her knuckles into her mouth.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Linda?”
    â€œI know what happens to people who are depressed. They kill themselves!”
    â€œNow where did you get that from?” Mom asks. She reaches down and clasps Linda’s ankle.
    â€œWe saw a video about it at school. They kill themselves. Sometimes alone, and sometimes in groups, in a suicide pact. One kid even shot himself right in the cafeteria during lunch period!”
    â€œOh, no,” Mom says. “No, Linda, this isn’t anything like that. Nothing in that video is going to happen to Dad.”
    â€œI saw the movie too,” I say. “One teenager intentionally drove into a brick wall with a car full of passengers.” The video said not “teenager,” but “teen.” This was like calling a middle-aged person a “middle.” It showed footage from the accident scene—sirens blazing, parents wailing as bodies were removed. I covered my eyes for part of the video, but it was the talk of school that week. The video also discussed copycat suicides, in which a musician or other celebrity kills himself and adolescents duplicate the act, choosing the same date and same method of death, or when one student in a town kills himself and others decide to do the same. While the video played I wondered, If copycat suicide is such a problem, aren’t they worried about giving us ideas? But everyone was so excited afterward, talking about this scene or that, that the teachers decided to dismiss us without a question-and-answer period. Among the student body it was universally agreed that the soundtrack was excellent.
    â€œNone of that will happen to Dad,” Mom says again. Linda climbs on the bed