The Musician's Assassin

All I can say is that I'm sorry for the shortness.

Enjoy...

[not exactly edited]

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Mom was so upset with me that she locked me out of the room. Unbelievable. The last time she’d been this mad, well, let’s just say it took Dad along time to get her to open the door.

I was five when my mom locked my dad out of their room because he forgot to lock up her music shop, and some stupid kids came in and sacked it. I remember hearing her yell at him through the door as he tried to pick the lock, eventually giving up because Mom was ten times more stubborn than him.

{Memory}

He came down the stairs and I asked him if Mom was making him sleep on the couch, and if so whether he wanted to sleep in my room.

“No thank you, pretty girl,” He’d smiled down at me with determination. “I’m sleeping in my bed tonight.”

“How?” I’d asked, my five year old brain unable to comprehend how it was possible to go against Mommy.

“Because,” He’d told me with a secretive grin. “I have a plan.”

And then he’d gone down to the basement and brought up a dusty banjo case. The banjo was old and hadn’t been used in years, but that didn’t stop him from striding back up the stairs to fix things with my mother. Neither did the fact that he had zero musical talent.

He sat down in the middle of the hallway, leaning against their locked bedroom door, as he proceeded to arrange himself into a comfortable position.

“I’m sorry,” He’d said before he began to sing.

“Oh, I had a lot to say

Was thinking on my time away



 I missed you and things weren't the same

 Cause everything inside it never comes out right

 And when I see you cry it makes me want to die

I'm sorry I'm bad,

I'm sorry you're blue,

I'm sorry about all things I said to you

And I know I can't take it back

I love how you kiss,

I love all your sounds,

And baby the way you make my world go round

And I just wanted to say I'm sorry.”

{End of Memory}

He sang that song over and over for hours until she finally let him in, mostly, she’d said later, because she was tired of hearing his awful banjo skills.

Unlike Dad, I didn’t have a banjo or even a guitar, which was why I’d been sitting on the middle step for who-knows how long sniffling into my sleeves. And not for the reason’s you might be thinking.  Let’s get one thing straight; I am not a crier. Every other time Mom and I fight (and we used to fight a lot) or someone in the family fights, there’s always a bunch of screaming, yelling and the occasional flying orange, but nobody ever ends up crying.

No, I was crying because, well, I missed my Daddy.

Eventually, though, after I’d finished wallowing in self-pity and long after the cement stairs had let their cold seep into my bones, the stairwell door squeaked open, and footsteps echoed through the quiet. I didn’t move from where I was sitting on the step with my arms crossed over my knees and my head resting on my arms.

There was some shuffling and then someone came and dropped something down beside me. I kept my eyes closed, trying to pin point what they were doing since I already knew which person it was.

 Carter forced a blanket and a pillow into my hands, leaving the guitar case at the top of the landing. I took them without looking at him.