A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (19 page)

But none of that mattered. She was
alive.
She looked sick, sure, but that was because she
was
sick. However, she wasn’t near death, as he’d feared after Grace’s phone call. Why the hell had she scared him half out of his mind like that?

“Emma Bear,” he said, leaning over her bed to place a big, loud kiss on her cheek, delighting in the tiny giggle that left her mouth.

“You’re so silly,” she declared. “Cool dude handshake?”

“Cool dude handshake,” Dylan agreed easily. They bumped fists, tapped wrists, pinkie swore, and then shook hands. The complicated greeting was something he’d taught Emma years ago during another hospital stay, and had become a little ritual of theirs.

Emma grinned up at him for a moment before her expression turned to a pout. “Mommy says we can’t go to Six Flags with you.”

Dylan brushed the hair away from her perfect little face. “Not this week, but we’ll go soon, I promise. Maybe for your next birthday. Ten is a very big year.” He glanced back at his sister. Her lips were pulled into that tight smile again.

Grace was a beautiful woman, and she’d always been strong. They’d both inherited their father’s coloring and their mother’s ability to bottle up all emotion. But now, Grace looked like a breeze might knock her over; she was frail and tired. He had never seen her this bad.

“Hey, you gonna introduce me, or what?” Melody asked, joining him at the side of Emma’s bed.

“Of course,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Melody, this is my favorite girl in the whole wide world, Emma. Emma, this is Melody, my second favorite girl in the whole wide world.”

“Second,” Melody said, holding a hand to her heart and smiling. “I’m honored.”

“Don’t feel bad. I’ve been first forever,” Emma confided.

“As well you should be. I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Emma.” She held out her hand to Emma. After a quick glance at her mother, who nodded, Emma gave Melody a delicate handshake. “Guess what?” Melody continued. “I brought you a present.”

Emma’s eyes lit up. “A present?”

“Yeah, well, I kinda wanted to make sure you liked me,” Melody confessed. “I’m not above a bit of bribery.”

Emma giggled again, and then gasped as Melody pulled a little lanyard-making kit out of her huge purse.

“Where did that come from?” Dylan asked. She hadn’t stopped at a store on their way here or in either airport terminal, not that he had noticed.

She shrugged. “We were going to hang out tomorrow anyway. I come prepared to play.”

“What is it?” Emma asked, watching in fascination as Melody started unpacking the lanyard supplies.

“It’s a weaving kit,” Melody explained. “We can make little charm bracelets or necklaces in all sorts of colors and patterns.”

“Can we make one for Mommy?” Emma asked. Her legs bounced up and down in her excitement, Dylan noticed with some excitement of his own. She was really feeling better. “And Uncle D, too?” she added.

“We sure can,” Melody promised. “Here, let’s pick colors for Mommy’s bracelet first.”

Dylan felt someone put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see his sister. Grace was there, staring down at him. From this close, he could see through the carefully composed mask she had put in place; she was more tired, scared, and frustrated than she was letting on. She looked like their mother.

“You guys think you can get along without us for a minute?” Grace asked Emma and Melody. The words were casual, but she spoke in a stilted manner, as if she had forgotten how regular conversation worked, and was doing her best to remember.

“Emma and I are all good,” Melody assured them, meeting Dylan’s gaze for a moment. Her expression was meant to be reassuring, but he caught a glimpse of wariness in her eyes. “You two go catch up.”

“Thank you,” Grace said sincerely.

“Yeah, thanks, Mel,” he said. He pressed another kiss to Emma’s forehead, and she playfully batted him away, much more interested in everything Melody was pulling out of her box of tricks.

He also gave Melody a kiss on the side of her head, his lips barely brushing her hair. She leaned into him slightly, offering silent comfort. He wasn’t sure how he’d ever tell her how good it felt to have her there with him. Then Grace led him outside, closing the hospital room door behind her. They faced each other in the hallway.

“I’ve never seen you with a girl before,” she said finally.

He laughed incredulously. “You’ve seen me with a hundred girls.”

“No, I’ve seen a hundred girls with
you
,” Grace clarified. “I’ve never seen you with anyone. And boy, are you with that girl. Thank God I think I like her...not that I’m in any state to make that kind of a judgment call right now.”

“About that,” Dylan said. “I never mind a trip to see you guys, but you really scared the shit out of me with that middle-of-the-night phone call.”

Grace burst into tears.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Dylan muttered, wrapping his arms around his sister’s heaving body. The last time he could remember her crying like this had been after their father had left. And after she’d cried herself out, she had never cried again. From that day onward, she had been calm and stoic, Dylan’s anchor and protector. “Hey, it’s okay. Emma looks great. She’s gonna be okay.”

Grace pulled away from him and angrily wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “No, Dylan, she’s not.” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. How could you? I barely understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” he said, his throat feeling tight and overused, the way it did at the end of a tour. But this
wasn’t
the end of the tour; it was the middle. They still had a week left on the road. Three days until the next concert. He suddenly realized Grace’s mouth was moving, but he wasn’t listening to her. He didn’t
want
to listen to her.

“…like a false victory. After all the treatments, her body just can’t handle it anymore. The doctor says this is a last burst of energy before she…”

“They can’t know that for sure,” Dylan said. He didn’t need to hear the whole explanation—or any explanation at all—to know that all the doctors were wrong. “Miracles happen all the time. They can’t be explained and they get written up in medical journals.” He was no doctor, but he read the news. People recovered on their deathbeds all the time.

“I want to believe she has another miracle coming,” Grace said slowly. “But they said she was going to die when she was six. And then again when she was eight. It was always different. Every time, I had this feeling, I just
knew
she wasn’t going to leave me.” She shook her head, her face crumpling. “But I don’t feel that way this time. My little girl is so tired. I can’t ask her to fight anymore.”

“So you’re just giving up?” Dylan asked, outraged. “That’s bullshit!”

“I’m not giving up,” Grace replied in a harsh whisper. “I would cut my chest open if I thought it would give her another happy day on this earth.”

“Then for God’s sake, don’t just write her off,” he yelled.

The door to Emma’s hospital room opened suddenly. Melody poked her head out, a deceptively bright smile on her face. “Hey, guys, we’re making lanyards in here,” she said loudly. Then, she added in a harsh whisper, like the one Grace had used, “And we’d be having a really good time, except we keep hearing screams out here. So I suggest you keep your goddamn voices down.” The door slammed shut again without another word.

Through her tears, Grace managed to choke out a laugh. “Yeah, I really like her.”

**

Dylan’s lanyard was bright pink.

“You’re funny,” he told Melody.

“What? Emma chose the color for yours, not me.”

He dropped his irritated expression and smiled at her. “You were really great with her earlier.”

“She’s easy to be great with,” Melody replied. They had spent hours with Emma, smuggling in a cheeseburger lunch to replace the disgusting sludge the hospital passed off as food. Melody had been especially delighted to find she and Emma shared a love of French fries. Dylan had enjoyed watching them together, even if they were eating mountains of grease, because it had been so bracing to see Emma have an appetite.

In the span of four hours, Melody had made six lanyards with Emma, located an awesome burger joint and brought in provisions for them, finished a load of laundry for Grace, and found a place to pick up gelato on their way back to the hospital.

Now they had retired to Grace’s house, and Melody was currently unpacking, hanging up their clothes in the small closet of the guest room. Pictures of Emma were everywhere. Dylan watched as Melody walked over to one and stared at it silently. It was from a concert a couple years ago; Emma was cuddled up to Snake, hugging his arm and clutching an oversized teddy bear with a bow on it, a present which he had obviously given to her just before the picture had been taken.

“He’s not as much of an asshole as he’d like you to think,” Dylan confided, walking up behind her.

She turned and looked up at him. “I don’t think he’s an asshole.”

Dylan watched her carefully for a moment. “But you do think something about him.”

Melody sighed. “This isn’t really the right time.”

“There’s never going to be a right time,” he said. “We’re not due back at the hospital for an hour, so you might as well get it out of your system now.”

‘It’s not like I’m bottling up a fountain of rage,” Melody said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just…I wonder if he’s a bad influence.”

Dylan snickered. “Babe, I hate to remind you, but I’m a fuck-up all on my own.”

“Yes, that wasn’t in doubt,” she replied, flashing him a saucy grin. “But I’m not talking about the little things, like, I don’t know, falling off the stage because you’re too drunk.”

“That only happened once,” Dylan protested.

“I’m talking,” she said, ignoring him, “about the kind of self-destructiveness that can swallow you and everyone around you whole.”

“Well,” Dylan argued. “He’s got some demons. We all do.”

“Sure, I get that. What I’m worried about though is that his demons might be too much for him,” Melody cautioned. “And you, too.”

“They’re not,” Dylan said tightly. “I’ve known Snake for half my life. He can get a little intense, sure, but he’s not going to go off the deep end. You don’t even know him.” His chest constricted uncomfortably; he wanted to end this conversation. Her words made him feel like she could see inside him to the places where he was more damaged than Snake would ever be.

If she thinks Snake’s a lost cause, what would she think about me? She’ll leave when she finds out. Hell, she’ll run.

“You’re right,” she agreed quietly, placing a tentative hand on his forearm. “I don’t know him. And if you say that Snake is…” She wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t his real name something like William?”

“Wilson,” Dylan said.

“Wilson McCreedy,” Melody repeated. “Wow. He sounds like someone I’d hire to do my taxes.”

Dylan laughed. “He’d actually be able to do them, too. Before we could afford a business manager, Snake took care of our finances.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“In a parallel universe, he probably would have gotten his MBA,” Dylan confirmed.

“Well, if you say he’s a good guy, I guess I need to trust you,” she said. A little bubble of warmth ignited in his chest.
She trusts you. Don’t fuck it up.
She smirked at him, oblivious to his inner dialogue. “And what would you be doing in this parallel universe?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Probably tending bar somewhere. Trying to get a certain gorgeous, green-eyed girl to notice I’m alive.”

Melody pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” Her mouth moved from his jaw to the hollow of his throat. “I’m going to say something here that you’re probably not going to want to hear, but bear with me, okay?”

He sighed. “Just say it.”

“If Snake is more than the sum of his parts…maybe your father is, too.”

He groaned. “Not this again. Why are you so hung up on this?”

“We’ve talked about it twice,” she noted dryly. “I’m not exactly nagging you.”

“You’ll notice that my father didn’t ever bother to reach out to Grace,” Dylan said. “He tried to reach out to me. Because I’m the one with the money.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how to talk to the little princess he left behind,” she said. “Maybe he’s more comfortable talking man to man. Or maybe he’s exactly what you think he is, a person who has no place in your life.”

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist looking him up?” Dylan wondered.

She folded her arms over her chest. “My point is, you’ll never know if you don’t bother to reach out back to him. You deserve real answers about who he is and why he left you.”

Dylan groaned again. “Mel, I can’t deal with this bullshit. As soon as Emma’s out of the woods, we’ll talk about it, okay? Just not right now.”

“I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” she said quietly. “I just want…” She sighed. “Never mind. You’re right. Right now it’s time to focus on Emma. Speaking of, we should get going if you want to make dinnertime at the hospital.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, pulling her close and pressing a hard kiss to the corner of her mouth. “For everything.” He knew her heart was in the right place. Hell, she was probably right about everything she’d just said. But he’d been running from this shit for half his life, and he wasn’t sure how to stop. Or even if he would ever be able to stop...if he’d be able to face his own demons. Still, it was touching that she cared so much.

“Mel...” he began, but he trailed off. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel, but he didn’t have the words. He was a songwriter, a poet—yet every phrase that came to mind seemed sad and insignificant in the face of her actions. He just stood here like a jerk, staring down at her.

“I’m here because I want to be here,” she said, letting him off the hook, as usual. She hugged him hard around his middle. “Because I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”

**

They ended up getting a gratuitous amount of gelato to bring back to the hospital. Dylan wasn’t sure if Emma was still in her raspberry phase or not, and he wanted to get her favorite, so he decided that he’d bring her a little bit of everything.