For the Love of Music

Chapter 5

♪ Chapter 5  ♫

“Why do you have an engagement ring?” I winced at his hurt voice. I wanted to apologize for keeping this from him but I didn't know why.

The ring was once my mother's engagement ring when she was still alive. After my social worker, Mary, had me taken out of the Hastings home, she had returned my mother's ring to me along with my father's lucky green handkerchief, the same color as his mossy colored eyes. I kept the ring wrapped in the handkerchief with me at all times because I could care less if I had to sleep on the streets or if I didn't have a home to go to at the end of the day, as long as I had the last things of my mother and father and could remember them forever, I would be okay.

Instead I straightened my shoulders and prepared to tell him the truth. For some reason, I felt like I could trust Daniel, and that wasn’t something I felt often.

I held the ring up close to my face and for once, I let myself smile softly as I remembered my parents.

“This was my mother's engagement ring. And this was my father's lucky handkerchief.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “He thought that if he wore this handkerchief anything could go in his favor. He wore it to every meeting, job interview, and birthday party he ever attended. And my mother never took this ring off. From the day she got it from my father, she even wore it in the shower. She used to tell me that it didn't matter if the metal rusted a bit, she could always clean it, but if she lost it, then she would lose her second most loving memory. She always told me that my birth was the first.” I giggled for a second thinking of the times when she would wag her finger at me and tell me that I was the most important thing in her life, and when I asked her about my father, she would say that he was the second most important person because he gave her me.

When my eyes caught Daniel’s again, they were a mix between the deep gray I was so accustomed to and a softer shade of blue that I had never seen before.

“Where are they now?” Daniel asked me softly. His face was softer than I had ever seen. He was patiently leaning against a desk waiting for me to answer him.

Tears gathered in my eyes like every other time I thought of my parents and the life I had before that horrible accident that took away everything I ever loved.

Breathing through the lump in my throat, I spoke again, “They died when I was seven. It was my birthday actually,” a laugh escaped my throat but it sounded choked from the unshed tears, “They were taking me out for a surprise, which they knew I hated. My mom got me this new dress with I don't even know how many bows on it, and it was purple. They remembered that my new favorite color was purple that week. We got in the car and drove off like normal. We were singing at the top of our lungs and dad was holding mom's hand and for a second, he turned his head to smile and her and then there was a flash. I don't even know what it was to this day. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital, a little bloody, bruised and broken, with no family left. Dad was an orphan and mom had run away from her family long ago and changed her name. There was no trace back to her family but only her dad was still alive and by now he is probably dead too.”

“I was stuck at an orphanage for around three years. It's a dog eat dog world there, every child for themselves. Everyone knows that only the younger children get adopted. Nobody wants damaged kids.” A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “A month after my eleventh birthday, I remember a man walking into the orphanage with this huge smile on his face and a spring in his step. I remember thinking, I bet dad used to walk like that. By then, I had forbid myself to even think about my parents. It hurt too much and it would do me no good if I had just stayed depressed and in the orphanage forever. Now that I think about it, I probably would have been better if I had never approached him. If I had never left my bed. If I had never pretended to be happy when on the inside I knew I wasn't.”