I Should've Known: Book Two

Madeline

I furrow my brows at the sound of music coming from my mother's hospital room. I hear her laugh. She's laughing? Even after a tiring treatment?

But I recognize the voice singing to her almost immediately. I can't help but smile and I'm so glad Matthew is awake to see this.

There she is. In all her glory. Hazel singing with a wide smile and playing the guitar!

"Since when do you play guitar?!"

Hazel quickly turns and stops playing as I take Matthew out of his stroller so he can see the happy scene. My mother immediately reaches for him and I let her hold him on her laps. Hazel giggles when I give her a small kiss on the cheek and says, "I haven't played since I was ten, but looks like I still got it in me!"

"Wow. You're so good. Keep playing."

"Oh no. I'll let you talk with your mom. I just thought she would really like having some music other than the boring sounds of Darcy calling out doctor names and whatnot."

"Darcy?" my mother says with furrowed brows.

"Its the woman that announces things on the speaker," Hazel says with a warm smile. "She's really cool. She's also our Tech Goddess."

My mother furrows her brows and looks at me. I chuckle at her confusion and try my best to explain Hazel's words. She only nods and turns back to Matthew.

I sit on the small sofa next to the chair Hazel's in and watch her smile down at her guitar. I haven't seen that smile in a long time. The last time I saw it was when she held Matthew for the first time. It's a silent kind of happiness that grows deep within her hidden peace. It's a rare sight that I forgot how beautiful it is. Her genuine smile has always been contagious and I smile with her as I say, "Where did you get that guitar?"

"I had it in my closet."

"You just had a random guitar in your closet? Is it Adam's?"

I kick myself for saying his name, but she only does a sad smile. "No. He only has ties there. You should pick them up. But this is a guitar my father gave me when I was four. He taught me for a year and then he left. But my mother decided to put me in classes with a neighbor for five more years. For free! Plus. She took care of me when she went to work. But then the neighbor moved out of state and my mother decided to not make me continue anymore classes. I stopped playing and just read. That became my pass time, you know?"

My heart shrinks for her story, but I'm surprised to see that peaceful smile on her face again. It's like those years in music really numbed out all that pain going on in her house as a child. No. It became her escape. She's found it again.

I watch her play again. A slow and soft melody. It almost seems to reflect her heart and Matthew begins to clap. Hazel smiles wide and begins to sing. Matthew's eyes shine. I wonder if he remembers the first time she sang to us. It was at Christmas in France. He was still inside of me but I knew he could hear her. I hope he remembers.

My brother would remember. It was the day he first fell in love with her. I wonder if he would fall in love with her again if he were here. Nevertheless, it would hurt her again. He would fade out again.

He's doing very well for someone that broke up with their lover. But despite of the deep sadness it gave me, his words he told me on New Years Day was, "As much as I miss her, I am relieved. I'm sad but...I truly feel...light. I just miss my dear friend."

If only he knew how much she needs him. But my brother will never understand. Their love was not like the one I have with Mateo or the one our parents have. Theirs was not deep enough for it to hold on. At least not his...

I realize the lyrics of her song and recognize them as the first song she put out loud in our dorm. I was drunk. I don't know how I remember it. But I remember throwing a pillow at her speaker and it broke. She got really mad at me and I had to buy a new one for her. But it was that day we went to get a speaker where we really bonded as roommates. Since then, I let my walls fall and let her in. I don't regret breaking that old speaker of hers. She needed a better one anyways.

Matthew jumps on my mother's laps with happiness and babbles with shining eyes. I laugh along with my mother at his happiness and Hazel once again stands to play and sing for him. It's like she never had her heart broken. It's like I never heard those words that break my heart every time I remember them.

Why can't the world see what I see? Why must the world destroy the beautiful melody of her heart?

Just as the world seems to at least see the beauty of this moment, I quickly catch my mother's eyes start to turn back and I run to catch Matthew before she drops him.

The music stops. The world stops as Hazel drops her guitar and runs to one side of her bed to turn my mother's shaking body sideways. The loud noise of the heart monitor rapidly fills our ears and my tears blur my vision from looking for an escape from this suddenly small room. Matthew begins to cry in my arms as I call out to my mother.

But she does not look back with those tender eyes. She doesn't even smile as she continues to shake uncontrollably and Hazel holds tight of her body as she wraps her arms and legs around her. She looks up at me as she puts her finger in my mother's mouth so she doesn't hurt her tongue and shouts, "I have a code blue! A code blue!"

I quickly push the blue button behind the bed and I run out with the stroller, Matthew, and Hazel's guitar as I watch Keon and Wolf run in to take care of my mother. I watch Hazel. She's trained for this. I know. I trust her. She ignores the blood running from her forefinger and tends to my mother. I let quiet tears run down with Matthew's as I watch my mother stop shaking with her eyes tightly closed. Her heart is still fighting. The heart monitor does not die down.

She will not die down. She can't...

Please. Fight. Fight. Stay alive. Mom...Don't leave now.