Instrumental Emmett
Instrumental
Emmett
[on a page of Jacob’s journal, written in a cramped, jerky hand, as if every word is an effort]
…Proverbs teaches that each commandment is a lamp, and the Torah the light, and to be rebuked is the way of life, how we are disciplined, how we learn.
If this is true—what should I have learned?
What will my punishment be? Or will that be my reproof: to not be punished at all, and to simply live, knowing all I should have done?
“How are you feeling?” Delilah asks, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight as she sits down and leans over to comb her fingers through Emmett’s wind-mussed hair. “Any better?”
Emmett hums an affirmative without opening their eyes, turning their head into the gentle pressure of Delilah’s hand.
It had been a relief to sink down onto the motel room bed after hours on the road spent curled up in the passenger seat with their eyes shut against the dizzy shakiness that took far too long to fade.
Delilah had marked the motel on one of her numerous maps and flirted outrageously with the proprietor when they arrived until he’d given them an early check-in and a copy of the menu for the on-site restaurant.
Emmett had been surprised when the door opened to a well-kept room with a king-sized bed and a Jacuzzi tub, but then, given that Delilah would have had to get Sam on board with the place, maybe they shouldn’t have been.
“It’s what passes for their honeymoon suite,” Delilah had said into their ear as they made their way across the parking lot, Emmett leaning unsteadily against her under the guise of an affectionate embrace. “Don’t laugh.”
She’d said it lightly, but Emmett had heard the strain in her voice.
The episode on the road had scared her, and she hadn’t tried to keep it from them.
Her concern had been obvious in the way she didn’t quite stop touching Emmett as she drove—reaching across the center console to hold their hand, to rest her own over the place where their neck meets their shoulder, to play with the soft, short hair at the nape of their neck.
It’s the same kind of reassurance-seeking contact Emmett is more used to seeing from children, from toddlers who wander halfway across a room and then double back for a comforting touch.
Question and answer: Are you still here? I’m still here.
And I am, Emmett tells her, wordless, every time they press back into her touch. Still here.
They close their eyes, sinking more deeply into the mattress, feeling loose-limbed and warm and more comfortable than they expected as the trembling finally starts to fade.
Delilah smooths their hair back from their forehead and presses a kiss to their skin, then replaces her lips with her hand. “You’re all clammy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be.” She pauses. Emmett can picture the furrow between her brows, the way she chews her bottom lip when she’s uncertain. “Are you cold? I could run you a bath.”
Emmett shakes their head. “No. This is good.”
“Okay.” She brushes the backs of her knuckles against their cheek. “Do you want me to sit with you?”
She’s already lost too much writing time taking over the driving. Emmett looks for the loophole around the clear yes-or-no question to get them through it without sounding too needy. They go to the side instead. “It’s okay. You have work to do.”
Delilah’s fingers stop moving. “Hm,” she says, and then, “I’ll be right back.”
The mattress shifts as she gets up, but Emmett doesn’t even have time to miss the comforting warmth of her thigh against their shoulder before she’s back again, this time on the other side of the bed, scooting over to sit properly next to them.
She drops another kiss to their forehead, as if to reassure them of her presence—Emmett swallows the sudden lump in their throat—and then settles back against the headboard.
At the sound of the rustle of paper and the dull twang of guitar strings as the instrument settles, Emmett opens their eyes and turns to look at her.
Delilah has Jacob’s leather folio propped on the mattress beside her, her notebook next to it, her guitar in her lap.
She catches Emmett’s eye and offers a small smile. “Is this okay? It won’t bother you?”
“No. I like listening to you play.”
“You flatterer.” She reaches over with her pencil and taps them gently on the nose. “Get some rest.”
For once, obedience is easy. Emmett closes their eyes.
They lose track of time after that. Delilah seems to sink into the trancelike state in which she works, her fingers flickering across the strings as she toys with melody and tone, her voice too low for Emmett to make out the words.
The music lulls them almost into sleep, but they fight against the urge to drift away.
Instead, they float just on the edge of it, ghosting their fingertips along the pattern of the bedspread to stay grounded, counting their breaths, and listening, listening, listening.
Delilah pauses her playing long enough to order dinner for them, then slips out of the room to get it.
Emmett watches the door close behind her, ignoring both the occasional buzz from their phone and the temptation to have a look at Delilah’s notebook of lyrics, the seductive draw of the latter almost enough to make them forget the itch to respond to the former.
In the end, they choose the lesser of two evils and unlock the phone, scrolling through Ruth’s messages with a rising lump in their throat.
It’s a relief to turn the screen off when the electronic lock clicks and Delilah comes back into the room, a plastic bag dangling from the crook of her arm.
They eat together in comfortable silence, cross-legged mirrors of each other on the bed, food spread out in front of them like a picnic.
Afterward, Delilah packs up the trash in the bag, then peers out the window.
“I’m going to go talk to the front desk,” she announces.
Emmett, folding up the towel they used as an impromptu picnic blanket, blinks at her. “Why?”
“This is supposed to be an incredible area for stargazing, and it’s a clear night tonight. The guide book said to ask around about the best place to set up to see everything.” She shrugs into her jacket. “You don’t want to miss the best astro-tourism spot in the country, do you?”
“That’s not a real thing,” Emmett says immediately.
Delilah grins, rummages in her backpack, and tosses Emmett a shiny brochure.
They try to catch it, miss when their hands don’t quite respond as quickly as they should, and play it off as an intentional fumble, exaggerating just enough to make Delilah huff out a laugh instead of furrowing her brow.
The pamphlet is all about the Nebraska Star Party, an annual summer stargazing about an hour’s drive away, but the high elevation and sparse population along the byway giving plenty of opportunities to get stunning views of the night sky without the extra detour to Valentine.
Emmett runs their fingertips over the glossy photos of the Milky Way. “We can see this tonight?”
“We’ll find out,” she says. She bends over to kiss Emmett’s cheek and ducks out of the room.
Emmett looks at the closed door, and then at the haphazard pile of what Delilah left behind on the armchair: notebooks and scrap paper and guitar picks and pens and Jacob’s journal.
They feel very grateful, suddenly, that whatever rule-breaking impulses they’ve developed to get around Jacob’s insistence on obedience haven’t gone so far the other way as to make them give in to the temptation to snoop.
They’re not sure how much time Delilah is spending looking for loopholes and subtext in Jacob’s notes rather than working on her music, but she seems to be making progress toward the latter, if the way she’s been playing today is any indication.
But something still seems—off. Instead of the open, easy smiles Emmett has gotten used to in just a few short days, there’s been a new guardedness in Delilah’s expression whenever Emmett glances over and catches her looking their way.
She’s hiding something. Emmett just wishes they knew what.
It’s probably just Delilah’s deadline, that ticking clock to getting her songs finished and recorded and off into whatever comes next for musicians and celebrities.
But maybe it was about Emmett too, about the responsibility she’d taken on without them asking, as if they were something—someone—worth her time, even now.
If Emmett were stronger, they would have told Delilah to focus on her music, not on going through generations of ramblings in search of a golden glint of lifesaving answers.
Emmett rubs the heels of their palms against their eyes, absentminded and restless.
There’s nothing in those journals that’s going to make a difference.
If there were, Emmett would have found it.
They’ve seen too much, have too many memories not quite their own, to be optimistic.
But all the same, it’s hard not to hope.
Their phone buzzes where they abandoned it on the nightstand. Half lost in thought, Emmett picks up the call automatically, then freezes.
“Oh my God,” Ruth says in their ear. “I didn’t think you’d actually answer.”
Emmett doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. They should hang up.
Make a clean break, Jacob would have said, with that excruciating gentleness.
That was how he always said things—so kindly that the ruthlessness never sunk in until later, like a blade honed so sharp you didn’t notice an injury until you were already bleeding out.
The fingers of their free hand move, unthinking, to their ribs, feeling the roughness of stone through the thin fabric of their shirt.
“Emmett,” Ruth says. “I know you’re there.”