You Are My Sunshine

Chapter 10

            Gabby couldn't believe it. The little girl wasn't oblivious as she seemed, and in fact saw through more things than most people gave her credit for. Thus the fact that her older cousin had never gone out of her way to do anything explicitly nice for her before had not completely escaped her. She had thought it was a teenager thing.

Now she gasped with delight, leapt out of her chair, and flung her arms around Fallon's waist in a death grip of ecstasy.

"You're welcome," gasped Fallon as the air was slowly forced out of her lungs.

"I knew it!" squealed Gabby.

"Knew- what?" Fallon managed.

Gabby looked up, and Fallon saw that her eyes were actually filling with tears.

"You really really love me!" She exclaimed, and hugged her with renewed enthusiasm.

Well, Fallon had no idea how to answer that, so she didn't. Instead she gently pried Gabby's arms off and gulped for breath.

"Sorry, but you're kind of killing me," she explained, but Gabby didn't notice. She was talking a mile a minute and running with the stack of sheet music to the piano, her math homework forgotten.

"I mean I knew you did the entire time but I was starting to kind of wonder about it and now I know for sure because you're so nice!" (a short pause for breath) "-This is perfect because my teacher hasn't given me anything new in like forever because I'm busy memorizing stuff but now I can do this on the side and-"

"So are you gonna play it?" interrupted Fallon. She had discovered that the only way to shut Gabby up was to derail her train of thought and start it in another direction.

"What should I start with?" asked Gabby, handling Fallon's dog-eared sheet music as if it was made out of gold.

"Anything you want," said Fallon magnanimously, plopping down on the couch. She was really enjoying this whole generosity thing.

Gabby beamed and rifled through the stack for a few moments, finally pulling out a book of classic movie songs from the middle. She flipped through the pages and suddenly squealed with excitement. "Over the Rainbow! I love this one!" She set the book on the stand and started picking out the melody, murmuring the words to herself.

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.

There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are- Hey Fallon?" she said suddenly.

"Hm?" Fallon shook herself out of the musical reverie she had been sinking into.

Gabby stared curiously at the older girl and proceeded to drop the bomb.

"How come you don't play piano anymore?"

Fallon started, caught totally off-guard. How was she supposed to answer that? How could she explain this to a little child who had never had any kind of tragedy whatsoever in her life?

"Why do you ask?" she blustered, stalling.

"Well, you really like listening to it, and you have a piano, and all this sheet music, but you don't actually play. So I was wondering," Gabby explained frankly.

Fallon squirmed.

It's a simple question. So give her a simple answer.

"Oh, I uh, kind of got tired of it... all the practicing, you know," she said finally.

Gabby cocked her head to the side and continued staring at Fallon with her bright blue eyes that seemed to see straight into her soul. Fallon felt uncomfortably exposed, as if there was a bright strobe light shining over her.

"What's the real reason?" the little girl asked without batting an eyelash.

Fallon flushed. Gabby was taking this a little to far.

"None of your b-" she began, but something stopped her. Something that was choking her, threatening to rise out from the deep place she had buried it. Something that would not let her cop out of the truth.

"Because of my dad, okay?" she said tightly.

Gabby's eyes were wide. "Your daddy-"

Fallon glared at her. "He died." She said in a low, dangerous tone. "He got cancer and died. And it reminds me of him too much."

Gabby bit her lip. "Then why-"

"Just shut up!" Fallon exploded, and Gabby visibly wilted. Fallon knew then that what she was doing was terribly, terribly wrong, but she was so angry she didn't care. She stood up and bore down on her cousin, her voice growing louder with each word. "You would never understand. Your life is perfect. You don't have a care in the world." She balled her fists and slammed them into her thighs. "I lost my dad." Her voice broke. She angrily dashed the moisture from her eyes.

Gabby sat as still as a statue on the piano bench staring at her cousin with a face that would have melted a softer heart. Her blue eyes were filled with tears, not for herself, but because she felt the older girl's pain and was suffering with her. Such mature compassion should not have been in someone so young, but there it was.

"My Daddy says that God-" she began hesitantly.

"Don't you talk to me about God!" shouted Fallon.

Suddenly both girls heard the garage door opening. Angela was home, and would walk into the room at any moment. Fallon wiped her nose on her sleeve. Then without another look at her cousin she spun on her heel and stormed to her room.

Gabby winced as the door slammed. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. Then with trembling hands she put away Fallon's movie book and pulled out her sonatina. When Angela came in, she found Gabby at the piano playing her F sharps with such fierce concentration that her head was bent low over the keys and her blonde hair fell over her face.

She stayed this way for a long time.

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