Finding the Pure Note

Leaving Only Broken Notes

Eight Years Ago

I feel like hospitals are designed to drain the life out of you. Dad would be better now, but all that happens when he wakes up is he sees white and all that emptiness just... sucks it all out of him. His will, his spark. And dad has a crazy spark, which is why I don't get why he's not up now kicking ass. This shouldn't beat him.

Dad talks about how wild he was in his rock days: hitching a ride on a party bus, being chased by wolves—not actual wolves, just of the hallucinatory kind—through the forest with his friends, running half-nude onto a stage with a crowd of thousands watching; tripping wires, setting fire to some recording equipment and burning half the stadium down in the process...

Okay, well, he probably made up half of that, but it didn't matter. He sounded like he meant every word, like he really lived it, and when he spoke about it... Nothing else mattered. The cruel world slipped away, leaving only dad and music. A potent combination, and one that could change the world, if not burn it down in some freak wire-tripping accident.

Gripping the guitar case in my lap, I play with the latches, but don't open them. I can't. Not after what I did. I don't even want to look—the shame will kill me.

After a while of just sitting there, legs moving up and down, humming a tune which I couldn't put a name to, dad stirs, murmuring something. I don't catch it, and then he says it again, louder, through coughs.

"With or Without You... U2. '88?"

I grin, shaking my head."'87."

He laughs bitterly, losing himself to a coughing fit. I start, but he raises a hand to stop me. I just have to wait out his attack, feeling my heart beating in time with a frenzied drum solo.

Finally, he stops and I stand up, setting the guitar case down against the wall, wondering for the tenth time why I brought it. I suppose I just didn't want to leave it in the car where someone might steal it. Maybe it would have been better that way. If someone had taken away that shame. Maybe we could have started again...

No, it's ruined, and it hurts, but it's still dad's, and it would crush him to lose it.

"I taught you well," he mocks as I stand at his side. His rough fingers pinch my cheek, and I take hold of them with my childish, useless hands. I'm not a little kid anymore, yet I still feel small next to him. Funny, how that works out. We'll always be small next to our parents. From the day we realise how much they mean to us, to the day we realise how much they meant.

"I don't know why I was singing that," I mutter, refusing to meet his eyes. "I hate it."

"No, you don't." He looks deeply offended. I smile, but roll my head, feeling my cheeks flush.

"It's your fault it's stuck in my head."

"All the good ones are."

I frown. "What about the song in that car ad?"

His face breaks into a look of pure disgust. "That's shit if I ever heard any!"

"Catchy shit," I laugh weakly. Dad doesn't mind me swearing. He encourages it. Says it's good to express myself like that. Of course, we're both tight-lipped around mum.

Our words don't come, don't break the suffocating silence. It's always so damn awkward in hospitals. Like it's all some big waiting room, where the clock's hands click louder than a heartbeat, and time is some big illusion. More than that, you find yourself choking over your words. It's just... It's never really happened with dad before. I don't know what to say... What to feel.