Silent Melody [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter Two

Silent Melody- Chapter Two 

My father, though my having not seen him in so long, looked almost no different than what I remembered. He still wore a dark colored tie, having said bright colors clash horribly with his graying hair, and a business suit fit for his desire. His brown eyes were still as warm and playful, though he seemed more serious than before. The only thing that seemed different was that his hair was thinning, he’d lost some weight, and he looked more tired and worn out. He had laugh-lines etched into the outside of his mouth.

            When he entered my hospital room, I hadn’t really expected it. Well, I did, because I knew he had to pick me up and take me to a hotel with him. Even then, though, surprise flitted through my system at seeing a man who walked out on my family when I was barely ten years old. It was unexpected, since he was such a sensitive and insightful human being. But, and I knew this very well, it wasn’t my fault that he left. It was around the time my mother started what she called a ‘business in progress.’ My dad disagreed, throwing divorce down her throat and began to fight for custody, but lost because without proof of my mother’s misdemeanor, there was no case. Apparently, living with a prostitute was much “safer” than living with a man who ran out on my family.

            Since he had left, I had heard that my father remarried a woman when I was twelve. Her name was Shelbie and she had a son who was thirteen at the time—now probably sixteen or seventeen. From what I had heard, his father died when he was five-years-old from a fatal car accident. My father adopted him when he was fourteen and had raised him as a son ever since.

            When my father walked in and saw Kyle, who was sitting by my bedside reading one of his mock-comic books (The Hulk), his light and playful eyes narrowed and his face twisted into an expression of suspicion. He looked towards me, then back at Kyle, and nodded.

            Kyle seemed to have understood a hidden message, one I didn’t understand, and stood to leave. He squeezed my hand one last time and smile lightly at me, then left the room with the comic clenched between one of his fists.  Instantly, I missed him.

            I coughed uncomfortably, which made my throat ache for a moment or two, as I watched my father sit down in the chair Kyle was in seconds before. The room was steeped with heavy tension and awkwardness, threatening to burst on our shoulders.

            “Hey, Auden,” he spoke quietly, taking his glasses out of a glasses case from the large pockets of his grey pants. My father wiped them off on his tie and placed them on his face as if to see me better.           

            I nodded in response, not speaking. I cared about my father sincerely, but as the last time I’d seen him was in the backseat of my mother’s beat up SUV, staring with tears streaking down my 10-year-old innocent face, I felt that trying to communicate with him was useless.

            After a few minutes my dad cleared his throat ominously when a knock echoed throughout the deafeningly quiet room. We’d both been staring in different directions when a doctor, a young and tall man in his early twenties, entered and shook hands with my dad. He had a platinum shade of hair that was cut short enough to see his ravishing blue eyes peaking through. His white waist coat’s pockets were filled with informational packets and gloves.

            He turned on a light which brightened the dimly lit room and sat on a chair that attempted to roll defiantly away from him.

            “Hello, Mr. Rush, I am Auden’s doctor, Doctor Phillip,” he introduced politely. “I have been unable to come to the hospital for Auden’s case as I’ve been very busy. But, I am here now and ready to explain to both of you what has gone on with her speaking ability.