Page 67 of Broken Chorus

“Erik,” she whispered, the softest, most serine look smoothing her face out into something beautifully peaceful and at ease.

It was the last word she spoke. Somewhere around the forth song she closed her eyes and never opened them again, while the numbers on the heart monitor kept dipping lower as she started slipping away. Each song was harder, but he pushed through, singingImaginethenHey Judefollowed by several others, but it wasBlackbirdhe was singing when the monitor went to flatline and the alarms began to sound while Aaron sat stunned into silence, trembling, lost and too numb for tears.

Chapter 16

So Far Away

Hawk was fingers deep in Play-Doh when his phone vibrated, so he was left no choice but to ignore it until he and Ella were done making ice cream sundaes with her new playset. All he’d had when he was a kid was his mom’s old cookie cutters to use with his Play-Doh. These new sets were a real upgrade but getting things to look the way they did on the box, that was a challenge.

Forty-five minutes later he was finally able to look at his phone. The message had come from Aaron, the first one since he’d returned to their hometown.

Do you have a few free minutes, I really need to talk to you?

A shiver of unease tore through him when he read the message and he hit the call button without thought, despite knowing that one of the kids could wake up at any moment. Aaron never asked for help. It was infuriating at times to watch him struggle and know that any offers of aid would be met with resistance, something that had been a point of contention between them over the years.

It took four rings before Aaron answered and when he did, his voice had a flat, hollow ring to it. “Hey.”

“Sorry I couldn’t reply to your message sooner, Ella and I were playing with the Play-Doh set you got her.”

“Cool, I hope she likes it.”

Expressionless, that was the only way to describe the words.

“She loves it,” Hawk said. “But I don’t think that’s what you were messaging me about.”

“No, I….I just….”

His voice wavered, then Hawk heard him sniffle and the earlier unease he’d felt ramped up to pure fear.

“Aaron…what’s going on?”

“My….I….I went home.”

“Yeah, I know, Kelly called and told me you’d gotten a phone summons but that you turned down his offer to go with you.”

“Wish I hadn’t.”

“Why?”

“I thought she was already dead.”

“Who?”

“My mom.”

“Wait…so she’s alive.”

“She was, until about an hour ago,” Aaron said, his words coming out choked and broken.

“Shit, Aaron, where are you?”

“The hospital. I was sitting with her when she….Gram never said she was still alive. All those years I just figured that if she didn’t come back for me, she had to be dead, only she wasn’t. But now she is and that’s the real reason they wanted me to come home, so I could pay for everything. I didn’t even recognize her. I could have passed her on the street anywhere in all the places we’ve been and I’d never have known.”

His voice broke again and Hawk heard his ragged inhale and wished he could reach through the phone and hold him the way he’d held Hawk the night they’d gotten the horrible call about his brother’s accident. He’d had the whole band by his side in the absolute worse moment of his life while Aaron sat fifteen hundred miles away, alone.

“I’ll be on the next flight.”

“You can’t. The kids. Don’t bring them here. It’s as awful as it ever was.”

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