25. Will you sing?
CHAPTER 25
Will you sing?
Mending Heart band is coming to the UK. Excitement and nervousness lance through me. My steps falter as I reach the Greene’s house with my bundle of joy. Mace’s pacifier keeps him from making a sound. So far, he has been compliant, but I know he will go on his knees the first chance he gets. Now that he can crawl, nothing can stop him from exploring.
The door opens, and Ashley smiles. The rat nest on her head is a testament to the toll this journey has taken on all of us involved. Luckily, I never have to worry about hair anymore.
“At this point, you deserve a key,” she says.
Maybe. Shuffling between Yorkrinth and Wells Spring is affecting me. Dad wants me to stay for the month. Pushing my way in without an invitation, I scan the place. The living room is empty. Jason must be in Amelia’s room. He loved the birthday surprise. Ashley pads in after me. She makes a funny face at Mace, and he giggles around his pacifier. I turn to her.
“Do you want to carry him?” I ask.
Ashley’s nod is slow, but she accepts him. I stretch, only now feeling the effect of carrying him for long. We sit on the couch across from the TV. My eyes wander to the staircase twice.
“How’s she?” I whisper. Ashley shrugs. I run a finger over my brow. It has grown back. She allows Mace to get on the floor. “Will you be okay with him? I’ll go check on her.”
“While you’re at it, try to convince her to go to the hospital. She’s not doing fine here,” she mutters. Amelia is stubborn, maybe more stubborn than I am. “It will be better for her there.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
Racing upstairs, I pause at the top of the stairs to catch my breath. The door to the guest room opens. Jason’s head pokes out. He waves, and I stalk towards him. “Hey, Cathie,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply.
His shoulders sag. He runs a hand through his hair. I lean a shoulder into the wall. Being the best friend of a sick person is one thing. Being the non-boyfriend is another. I hate both cases.
“How’s she holding up?” I ask.
Jason stares at his feet for too long, then his shoulder hitch up in a half-shrug. “Good.”
This new treatment has Amelia throwing up, feeling weaker, murmuring incoherent words in her sleep, and being unconscious half the time. The doctor said it will get worse before it gets better. It must count for something. She won’t go to the hospital. It’s futile fighting her on it.
I cross my legs at the ankles, my eyes on the door of my best friend’s room. On some days, I’m scared to go in. Today seems to be one of those days. Rose and Taylor will fly in next week. They check in daily. I’m slowly losing it, but my facade never cracks. I must be strong for me and Mace. Mace. Thinking about him makes me smile. He has absolutely no idea.
“When do you have to go back?” I ask him.
“Not anytime soon.”
Unlike us, his one-man business will suffer if he is away for too long and he has been away for weeks. I nudge him with my foot. He throws his head back, and it connects with the wall.
“What’s the point of it all, though?” Jason says. I don’t understand. His eyes half-close. He flexes his fingers and lets out a sigh. “The business will survive without me for a few days.”
I push away from the wall and nod towards her room. “Should we go check on her?”
Jason straightens up. He rubs his hand over his eyes, and I avoid his gaze. These days I avoid looking at his sunken eyes. Does he regret choosing Amelia? She hasn’t budged on her stance. She doesn’t want to be his girlfriend, and I’m up for anything my best friend says.
“You first,” he says. “She has been waiting for you.”
Why didn’t he say that since? I massage the back of my neck, my foot shooting out as I take the first step to her room. “Cathie?” he calls out. “If she asks for ice-cream, don’t say no.”
Is that good for her health? She didn’t eat out of Jason’s birthday cake. The quiet of the house hovers above me like an evil spirit. I reach the door, take a deep breath, and open it. The stench of drugs and death weaves into the air, a smell that overpowers me each time I visit. I tiptoe inside to avoid waking her up. Her eyes fly open when I stop at the foot of the bed. She smiles, and it brightens her face. How she manages to be happy amazes me. I crawl into her bed and pull the cover over us. There are no tubes in her nose, nothing connected to her arms.
It’s a surprise but welcome sight.
“Hey, you,” I say with a cheeriness I don’t feel.
Amelia closes her eyes. “You don’t have to fake it.”
The veins in her face are visible. Her scalp hides inside a beanie. I place my palm over hers. She doesn’t open her eyes but visibly relaxes. I place an elbow on the pillow and stare at her.
Questions hang on my lips, but I settle for, “Why don’t you want to go to the hospital?”
“I want to die at home. In my bed.”
“Amelia.” My voice goes higher than I intended. I point my index finger at her nose. “You are not dying, okay? You’ll be fine. All right?”
“It’s not working, Cathie.” Reaching a bony finger to her head, she yanks the beanie off her scalp. I swallow. There’s no single hair on her scalp. Mine is growing. “It’s not working.”
“It’s just hair,” I say more to myself. People lose hair from chemo all the time and regrow it when they recover. I pry the beanie from her and slide it over her scalp. “It will grow back.”
“Okay.” She laces our fingers, and I push a pillow behind her so she can sit up. It takes a few deep breaths, but she succeeds. I sit facing her. “What have you been up to? Where’s Mace?”
“With your sister,” I reply.
“How are you, Cathie?”
My cheeks heat, and the initial excitement sneaks up on me again. “I wrote a song.”
I have never written a song. I’m just good at covers and singing what I’m instructed to.
Amelia beams. “You did?”
My head bobs so fast I’m afraid I’ll have a whiplash. “It’s a work in progress.”
Amelia might not understand the extent of my excitement, but I’m glad to share this moment with her. She has heard me sing in the past, but this moment feels special. I pry my phone from my purse and give it to her to read the lyrics. She squints at the screen and laughs.
“I don’t understand how you guys do it. It looks like a bunch of random lines with rhymes until you put a beat to it.” Music is hard to explain sometimes, but Mr Dissick would get it.
Why am I thinking about him? The tour. I was stalking his social media pages and saw it.
“I guess,” I reply. “It just flows when you start singing. The melody will come naturally.”
“Pretty angel?” she says.
That’s the song title. It’s not complete. I’m not sure I’ll complete it but being able to write half a page… wow. Her absence inspired it. The first line of the song shows that. Rolling onto my stomach, my feet dangle from the edge of the bed and I prop myself up on my elbows.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
“I love it,” Amelia replies, her eyes on my phone. “How are you, Cathie? The truth.”
The truth is too heavy. “I don’t know. I’m still mad. But what if…” My thoughts surround me in a dark bubble. “I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself if something bad were to happen to him and I never told him about his son. It’s tough. I’m still mad, but I want to tell him.”
“Then tell him.”
“How?”
The emails I sent were all returned with the same message. His number doesn’t exist.
“Social media?” Amelia whispers. An unexpected yelp escapes my lips. She laughs. I don’t want pictures of my baby on the internet. “How else are we going to do it?”
“We can go to New York,” I say. We should have gone the first time she suggested it.
“New York is big,” she says. Her hands open to show how huge. It will be tough. “Maybe we can go after your birthday? We will go with my boyfriend.”
“Okay.” Wait. I gasp. “You said yes?”
Amelia nods. “Memories, right? Life is too short, anyway, to not make new memories.”
“You did good, Amelia Greene.”
She pouts. “Thank you, Catherine Jenkins.”
I pick up my phone on the bed and type their band’s name in the search bar. I don’t know if I was expecting to see their house address on the internet, but my lips pull into a frown when nothing shows up. Scrolling through their official page, I stumble on the ticket for their tour.
“They are coming to Europe,” I say.
My heart flutters. They will be in Europe. Yorkrinth is on the list, though they will be here later into the tour. I inch closer to Amelia to show her the screen. Should I wait or go to him?
“Go to him,” Amelia says.
This time, I won’t chicken out. Even when I want to scream, I’ll keep it all in until I tell him about Mace. There’s a flicker of hesitation as I hit the purchase button and buy two tickets. The prices have gone up since it’s a late purchase. His dreams came true, and he forgot me.
“You’ll come with me?” I ask Amelia.
She nods. “I feel sleepy.”
My lips pinch into a frown. Amelia laughs, and I grin. Nothing is wrong. I’m being paranoid.
“Okay.” After helping her into a sleeping position, I follow suit. “Go to sleep, Amelia. I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Will you sing for me?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything for you,” I promise.
She groans as she tries to roll on her side. I shake my head to stop her from doing that, but she has always been so stubborn. When she’s finally lying on her side, she flashes me a triumphant grin and tears leak down my cheek. How can something this simple be so hard?
“You never listen,” I tell her. “So stubborn.”
Her hand trembles as she stretches it to catch my tears. “Stop crying, Cathie. I can’t handle it.”
I hurriedly wipe the tears on my cheek. I can’t cry. I won’t cry. Not here, not now.
“Mr Dissick is an idiot for taking so long to reach out to you,” she says.
“An absolute idiot,” I reply.
We laugh together. It’s not like old times, but it soothes my soul. Amelia grabs my hands in a vise-like grip. I dart a glance at her face, and she whispers, “Don’t let it consume you, okay?”
“What?”
“The darkness. The hurt. The bitterness.” A smile flits to her lips as she releases me. “Forgive him. I want you to be happy, Catherine. I want you to be so happy because you deserve it.”
“Then stay. Don’t die,” I answer. It’s selfish of me to make that request, but she’s giving up. She’s slipping while I watch. She can’t give up. We can’t let leukaemia win this battle. “We will fight it together. I’ll be with you every step, Amelia. Stay here with me. With all of us.”
“Even when I’m not here, I’ll still be here,” she says. Her words don’t comfort me. Tears roll down my cheeks. “I’ll never really be gone. I’ll just be in a different world, watching all of you.”
“I don’t like when you talk like this, Amelia.”
“I feel sleepy, and you promised me a song.”
My heart kicks up a storm in my chest. I force down the tears clamouring to escape.
“I’ll be here, okay?” I reassure her. I help her find a comfortable spot and pull the cover to her waist. Linking our fingers, I press a kiss to her temple, then her forehead. “I love you.”
Amelia’s browns size me up, lingering on my face as if to memorise it. “I love you too, Catherine Valentina Jenkins.”
Her eyes shut, and my head lowers to my pillow. Eyes cast up, our lives replay on the ceiling. I hear her laughter. The true Amelia Greene laughter before the bitch leukaemia came along.
Leukaemia cannot win. I give her hand another squeeze. I’m here. We will fight it together.
“I’m going to sing for you now,” I tell her.
Amelia says nothing. She looks so peaceful. The lyrics to the new song roll out of my lips. My voice is scratchy, and I make up the tune as I go. I’m not sure when I fall asleep, but when my eyes open again, my fingers are still intertwined with Amelia’s. I push myself up as best as I can without letting go of her hand. That’s my new mission. Never letting go of her.
“Amelia?” I whisper. I need to check on Mace. Her eyes are still closed. My fingertips trace the curve of her nose. I don’t want to leave the room without telling her my location. I nudge her gently with my shoulder. She doesn’t move. Panic creeps in. “Amelia. Amelia Greene!”
No response. I shoot to my knees and press my ear to her chest, then her nose. Tears well in my eyes.
“Amelia?” I mumble. Maybe I was too loud the first time. I shake her, gently at first, then with more force and desperation. “Live, Amelia. Amelia Greene, I command you to live.”
She cannot die on me. I raise her hand to my ear, listen for a pulse, but there’s none.
What is going on?
“Mrs Greene. Mrs Greene,” I scream at the top of my lungs. I sit on the bed, my head on her lap. “She won’t wake up. She told me she was feeling sleepy and now she won’t wake up.”