Finding the Pure Note

Leaving Only Broken Notes

I was starting to feel better until that last part.

"But how can that be a good memory?" I say softly, running the back of my palm across my eyes, fighting off lingering tears.

"Sure I got sick, but—" He coughs a few more times and then picks up his broken smile. "but you don't look at that. You just remember me with my butterfingers. And you remember that this instrument can take a few knocks, just like any of us, but after, it'll still play its melodies that stir our hearts. I know that's what I'll do."

I'm still not fully convinced, but I just nod, 'cause maybe I can't understand. Not just yet.

Dad picks up on my hesitance and pulls out the guitar, with some effort. I move to help him but he shoos me back. I watch as he begins to tune the guitar, fingers lithe, decades of practice and instinct kicking in, and when he's made a few practice strums, he begins to play a simple chord. As the notes bounce off each other beautifully, I feel my frenzied inside start to settle. He was right; it works, and that was all that mattered.

Dad beckons me over to him and I sit on the edge of the bed, accepting the guitar as he passes it to me. I don't say anything; nor does he, but we didn't have to. As I let my own soul's notes fill the small hospital ward, I feel my grin as a welcome guest, and my fingers move to share what I felt inside.

Occasionally my eyes fall upon the crack, but instead of shame, I only feel acceptance. This is a story to tell, one of thousands, but it doesn't define everything about the power this instrument still has. It doesn't stop it from shining at all, really. Not everything bad that happens in life need be destructive. Instead, it's better to turn the pain into a memory of different times and focus on the goodness that surrounds it, that can come from it.

If I could feel this every day, life would be pretty special, huh.

*****

My eyes flicker open, and the first thing I register is his arm curved around my bare chest. As my stomach rises and falls with my steady breathing, his arm moves with it, and his warmth radiates throughout me. Spinning around ever so gently to face him, I manoeuvre his arm so that it still wraps around my exposed hip, but it falls anyway, and I scrunch my lips in indignation.

We couldn't stay in bed all day, but, like, I would have, you know that. I would have just nodded off. You were nervous. You kept asking if it was good. You were so terrified you'd stuffed up, that I'd hate you or judge you. Like, maybe it gets better, gets easier. But it was still everything. Everything. And I kept telling you that, but I think you keep needing to hear it. It was everything.

Mum came home and almost found us curled up together on the living room sofa. Fletcher sprawled across my chest, asleep. I was nodding off when Max leapt from the sofa in between my legs, paws clacking along the ground as the front door swung open. I pushed his head off and Fletcher hissed, before he caught on, pulling himself off of me. He tried to kiss me but I pushed his head away. Not here, not now. Soon, I had whispered. Soon...

Mum sauntered into the kitchen, shopping in hand. Lightheaded and dazed from my nap, I helped her empty the shopping, but she had to stop me when I tried to put the dog food in the freezer. I didn't say anything, only endured her teasing, then Fletcher and I retired to our room, talking random shit, our favourite songs blaring through my stereo. Always coming back to before. We both were changed, I could feel it. Like he was glowing, and I needed to protect him with everything I had. Dinner was lasagne, and Fletch kept us in stitches with his dry humour, but we were both in a weird limbo state, changed by our new status in a post-sex world.