A Quiet Song

                           A Quiet Song

I was so young at the time that I wasn’t able to understand what was happening. My Dad woke me up in the middle of the night to take me to the hospital, but I had always hated the hospital and cried the whole way. Usually, he hated it when I cried, but on that night, he stayed silent as he stared out at the empty road ahead of him. For some reason, that only made me want to cry louder. As we parked outside the tall grey building, I refused to get out of the car, but my Dad picked me up and carried me inside. His fingers dug into my skin to keep me from squirming and I tried to tell him that he was hurting me, but as I looked up at his face I realized that he had been crying too.

We made our way through steel elevators and white hallways. It felt like we were walking through some kind of alien world. Finally, we stopped outside the door of one of the rooms. My Dad put me down and looked at me as though he was going say something, but only let out a sigh. He opened the door and lead me through, greeting the person waiting for us inside. The woman looked like my Mother, but thin and frail. Her once warm smile now hung low on her pale face.

I felt so scared and wanted to turn and run away, but my Dad kept leading me closer to the bed that the woman was laying on. My Dad talked to her, but there was a beeping sound that distracted me from what they were saying. I kept wondering what had happened to my real Mother. It had been so long since I had last seen her and I was really starting to miss her. The house just wasn’t the same without her and my Dad still didn’t know how to cut my sandwiches properly. He used to say that she would be coming home soon, but he hadn’t said that in a long time.

The woman reached out to me with a shaking hand and placed it on my cheek. Her touch felt cold and I couldn’t help flinching. The woman frowned and my Dad snapped at me. Then the beeping sound stopped, instead of becoming one long shriek. The woman’s hand fell on the bed and my Dad pulled me close against him, once more digging his fingers into my shoulders. We stood there quietly for some time until he finally leads me out of the room. He sat me down on a chair out in the hallway as he went to talk to one of the doctors. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, we were back in the car driving home as the sun was coming up.

My Dad didn’t take me to school that morning. Instead, he just put me back to bed and let me sleep the whole day away. I had a dream about my Mother. I couldn’t remember what had happened in the dream, only that she was there beside me. It made it hard to want to wake up, but as I felt my eyes slowly begin to open, I could hear the sound of a familiar song in the air. I leaped upright but was only greeted by an empty room and complete silence.

I ran downstairs only to find my Dad sitting alone at the kitchen table. He turned to look at me with red eyes and half attempted to smile. I asked him if he had heard someone singing and his smile fell. He turned away and stared at the empty chair across from him for a moment before nodding slightly. I watched as he sunk lower into his chair and buried his face in his hands. I had never seen him that that before. Hopefully, my Mother would be coming home soon and things could go back to normal.

I left him alone and went to play by myself in the backyard. It was a brisk late autumn afternoon and all of the leaves had already fallen from the trees—wrapping the yard in an itchy brown and yellow sweater. My Dad was usually quick to do the raking every year, but for some reason, he had yet to get around to it. Not that I minded; I had always loved running through the leaves and throwing big clumps of them in the air. I could entertain myself for hours just making a mess of the yard.

I heard the sound of singing again as the wind picked up—sending leaves spiraling around me. I knew the song so well that the cold air began to feel warm. It was a lullaby that I had heard every night since before I could remember, but lately, I had had to learn how to fall asleep without it. Hearing it again made me feel safe again after such a weird night, but at the same time, it made my heart sting with loneliness. I laid down on the bed of leaves and looked up at the grey skies—making just one wish in a quiet whisper.

The wind picked up again and the voice grew louder. I heard a rushing in the leaves that sounded just like footsteps. My heart started racing and I sat up to look. There was no one there, and yet I didn’t feel as though I was alone. The song in my ear only grew louder as though it were coming from right beside me. I could feel a softness brush against my cheek and I couldn’t help smiling. My wish had come true. After all this time, my Mother had finally come home.

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