The melody of life

"How are you feeling?" Andre asked as he stepped inside. "Are you still in pain?"

Melody managed a small smile. "I've been in pain worse than this, Andre. I grew up poor, with little food. Yet... despite being poor and hungry constantly, my parents and I... we had..." Her voice broke. The rest dissolved into sobs. "I miss them so much."

Andre crossed the room at once and sat beside her, careful not to crowd her. "Of course you do," he said quietly. "They sounded... they sounded wonderful." He didn't reach for her without asking this time; he simply stayed there, steady, so she wasn't crying alone.

"Why? Why were they so cruel to me?!" she sobbed.

"Unfortunately, Melody," Andre said softly, "they were cruel to you for the same reason David was. They were jealous." He exhaled, almost in disbelief. "Jealous of you... and of my affection for you."

Melody looked at him, "You... like me? For who I truly am?" Melody asked.

Andre smiled and nodded. "From the moment I first saw you in rags on the street, playing for coins, your kindness shone as bright as your love for music, and your beauty-inside and out-stopped me. I'm not handsome, I'm not the heir who'll inherit much, but I hope-if you'll let me-that, in time, you'll come to care for me as I care for you." He took her left hand and held it gently to his chest.

Melody could feel his heart beating against her palm. Her father had done this, too-pressed her small hand to his chest and told her to listen. That was how she had first learned tempo and rhythm: not from a metronome, but from the steady drum of a loving heart. When they died, she pressed her hand to his chest again, desperate to find the old rhythm. There was none. Nor in her mother. She wept for days in the charity hospital. She was small enough to be mistaken for six, thin enough to look breakable, and the doctors said girls who had survived scarlet fever so recently were too frail for the workhouse anyway.

"Melody?" Andre asked, looking concerned.