His Sweetest Song

by Victoria H. Smith

  I wondered if he’d done so in the past.

  I glanced away, giving the two their moment but I looked at them again when Laura forced her arms around Gray, her hold tight and steadfast. I had never actually seen her initiate a hug between them before or really Gray hug her. He’d pick her up or hold her hand but no hugs.

  Well, they were hugging now.

  It was a hug that, yes, she gave him, but it didn’t read of fear. I’d seen fear in her. No, this was different.

  This was her letting him go.

  I think the hug in itself shocked Gray, but it seemed to be exactly what he needed as he relaxed and returned his child’s embrace. He kissed her cheek, cupping it before standing back and I think I was so lost in their moment that I almost missed mine. I’d been here, but this wasn’t my moment.

  But she was making it mine too.

  Laura came over to me and I didn’t know what she wanted at first. It was only after she opened her arms, wanting a hug too that I broke it down.

  I wanted to break down.

  I didn’t though, holding her tight.

  “You’ll be okay,” I whispered to her but like Gray’s reassuring words I think these were mine. I’d be okay.

  I’d be okay if she would.

  I heard Gray’s voice what seemed like only moments later, but it couldn’t have been.

  We were driving now.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” he said to me, my thoughts lost in a sea of emotions. They were lost reminiscing on moments I probably shouldn’t let alone should keep. I shouldn’t keep them because they weren’t meant for me, this place not mine and neither was this man beside me.

  A wash of dissipated clouds casted my way in the form of Gray’s eyes, the ocean inside them settled and the usual storm behind them at bay. Gray had his hands on the steering wheel of his truck, watching me with a light in his eyes that eerily peaked of calm, peace. He should be careful with that.

  He might grow to love it.

  Dampening his lips, he faced the road.

  “That is if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to take you here for a while.”

  A curiosity filled me but something more lingered just behind that. It was something that made me warm, something that made me calm.

  Sitting back, I trusted him and this journey. We didn’t drive for long after what he said but it did seem as if he was taking me out to the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t seen buildings for a while, only country.

  And then that.

  The country so familiar turned to fencing, rolling meadows of prairie grass both kept and carefree. The only outlier was what occupied that land.

  The various grays and stone of tombstones filled my vision and before I could fully get a grasp on what that meant, Gray had stopped, putting his truck into park. He got out without another thought, and when I turned, he was reaching for something in the bed of his truck. I noticed it to be a toolbox and, by then, I’d been so confused. I figured there was a reason so I turned, unbuckling. He opened the door before I could get out and had something so beautiful in his hands.

  The roses could thrive in the worst light, their drive for life full and plentiful. He had dozens, looking fresh and wild with leaves of bright green as if cut fresh from a bush outside. He had them wrapped well in a thick towel, which protected from thorns.

  He lifted them, staring at those vibrant petals.

  “You’ll need these,” he said, handing them to me.

  And then he gave me his hand.

  He gave it without reprieve, unabashed, and roses cradled, I let him fold his thick fingers around mine, helping me out of the truck into a meadow of gravestones.

  He took me for a walk through the paths, something definitely different. My questions tapered down only by sheer curiosity. Gray didn’t do things like this. He never put himself out there or did anything out of the ordinary. If anything he was too ordinary, too safe.

  Pulling me closer, he brought me in front of him and I realized right away this journey did not go without intent. He very much had a reason for bringing me here and that surrounded the life of a woman named Josephine.

  Her grave may not have been one of the biggest or even the flashiest, but it had the cleanest script and the most polished marble one could see.

  “I figured…” Gray started, his hand falling away from mine. “I figured since you weren’t at the funeral you might not have known about it, or maybe were too busy to…”

  He shook his head out of that last thought, smiling at me with just his eyes and in a way that made my tummy dance. It made everything dance.

  “Whatever the reason you weren’t there I figured you’d want to at least see, visit with her sometime while you were here.”

  He’d been the first to offer such a thing and he was right. I didn’t know about my aunt’s funeral. I hadn’t known about her death at all until several weeks later, and by then, her passing had been that of an afterthought. No one cared to tell me how she was in her last moments or even if she suffered prior. I was just the long-lost niece that a woman, however so kind, thought to think of when drawing out her will.

  I stepped forward, chilled by the moment. I hadn’t known what to do, the reality of where I was at and what was happening heavy upon me.

  But I guess I didn’t have to do it alone.

  Gray came up behind me, his heat close but never close enough. He kept his distance, but I could feel him, his width seeping through me.

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  I shook my head.

  So he stayed, touching the back of my arm and telling me things about her. He admitted he’d been the one to find her. He’d been doing work for her that day and she hadn’t answered the door. My heart hurt that it’d been him, but was very grateful that of all people it was. She seemed to care about him and he definitely cared about her.

  “She was good to us, Alicia,” he said, soft behind me. “A good woman and her funeral was beautiful. The community made sure of that. I made sure of that.”

  I wondered how much of a part he did play in all that. I bet as much as he could, as much as others would let him with him not being family.

  Holding out the roses, I set them down, squatting ahead.

  “Did she suffer?” I asked, looking up at him.

  His jaw moved, his gaze shifting to the tombstone. “I don’t think so. She never complained of anything before. Her body just gave out. It happened in her sleep.”

  I did know that, told by the people who ultimately found me.

  Standing, I moved back and dared to stand back into him. He let me, his hands on my forearms. We never talked about our kiss the other day or even how he held me softly just yesterday. We never talked about why he let me be a part of letting go of his daughter today or even what led to this moment we currently experienced. We just did and I thought that’s all we needed to do.

  It just made sense for us.

  “Laura used to spend a lot of time here,” he said behind me, his hands warming my arms in wonderful ways. He squeezed. “I’m happy to say she doesn’t anymore. I think she understands now. She understands and accepts.”

  I closed my eyes, falling back into the thoughts of how this would be for her, the little girl already experiencing so much in her life with her mom leaving. But he said she didn’t visit now. Things were different now.

  I turned, letting him know I was ready.

  I was ready to go home.

  We didn’t do much talking on the way, not unlike how it’d been on the way out there, but something had changed, the tone of the world a little bit different. I didn’t know what it was until Gray opened my door and I got out of the truck, but the moment I was in this man’s arms again I deciphered it fully.

  Gratitude.

  Gray’s broad body stiffened, his arms slack like he hadn’t known what to do or how to receive the embrace I bestowed on him. He’d done the same with Laura not long before, surprised, and it made me
sad that he didn’t get many hugs. He deserved to be hugged.

  He deserved to be loved.

  I was showing him that, my love for him in our embrace and his hands slow, they moved into that warmth around him, his hold tight once I had it.

  “Thank you for taking me to her,” I said to him and he pulled a piece of my hair back when he brushed his fingers along my cheek.

  “You have no idea my thanks for you,” he said and might have done more if not for the streetlights.

  Gray’s hold went stiff on me again at the many cars that pulled in front of my house, but as one struck me as familiar I noticed his hold loosen. He must have recognized her too.

  Ava’s old beater was comfortable almost as much as her laid-back style, her smile wide. She was hanging out the side of her window, grinning from ear to ear at me.

  “Join us for a good time at the lake?” she asked, laying her arms on her open window. “We’ll provide the drinks if you provide the lake.”

  Letting loose in the middle of the day wasn’t something I always did.

  Maybe that’s why I chose to do it in the end.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alicia

  Ava’s friends proved to be just as lovely as her playing, the girl coming fully equipped with her guitar to the lake. Had I known her skills we could have definitely gotten together with some sort of jam session, but I supposed that was for another day.

  She had an ethereal sound about her tunes that paired well with the tone of the day, the world a dream for me since shortly after I woke up this morning.

  It’d started with my view outside and into the wonderful land that I had somehow come to own. Standing out on the veranda, I simply watched the earth move until Gray had arrived, our journey to take Laura to school shortly after that. I felt I was living in a place of borrowed time and in a place that may have belonged to me on paper, but ultimately was on loan to me. Josephine Bradley’s life was on loan to me and I was currently reaping the benefits of it from this lake with people enjoying it around Ava to the man that stood at the shore by himself, Gray a true wanderer.

  He stood by the edge of the lake, the sun high and wide and cascading on his brawny frame. His stance tall in his t-shirt and jeans, he resembled a man who ruled the world, but I’d known different. He showed me just that day, a vulnerability he allowed me to see. I believed I was always fortunate because his daughter let me play for her, but a true gift came in the form of this man and his trust. He trusted me.

  He showed me that today.

  I saw that trust in his eyes when I came over, his hand dropping from his bicep and coming around me. The gesture felt natural and I caught an eye from behind him when he did it, Ava’s over the strums of her guitar and I merely shook my head at her before finding the sun like Gray had. I used to have a boyfriend. I used to have a lot of things.

  I used to have my heart in something only to leave it and used to wear an armor I quickly shed upon experiencing Mayfield, a town and a people that came to find me. I thought I was helping them but proved to be the one who needed the help. I felt that in Gray’s embrace.

  I felt that in his love.

  Neither one of us had said it of course, but maybe like his arm around me we just did.

  “Your friend plays so nice,” he said almost absentmindedly. His fingers played with the plaid shirt I currently wore—his shirt. It’d been breezy today.

  It smelled of him and I lost myself in it, only a soft sound escaping from my lips as I lay my head against his chest.

  He allowed me to do so, cradling me more but something raised his heartbeat, his chest rising with more and more breaths.

  I looked at him. “Everything okay?”

  He said nothing, merely looking at me when he took a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear. Behind those light-colored eyes he seemed to be at war with something, a small storm creating behind his eyes before he spoke.

  “What you did for me,” he started, his expression fallen. “What you did today with Laura—”

  “What I did, you did for me,” I said reassuring him, as he seemed to be struggling with something. “You took me to see my aunt today. You’ve slaved over her house—”

  “It’s not the same,” he continued, his hand dropping from my shoulder and I missed it immediately. He cradled himself, standing back to look up at me.

  His expression stiffened. “You don’t ask for anything, Alicia. You don’t ask for money or even to be acknowledged. You just do. You played. You’ve played your goddamn heart out for Laura every day like Jo and—”

  I followed him when he took a step back, not understanding. The group was still listening to Ava, something I confirmed visually before getting closer. He shook his head the moment I was in his personal space.

  “I gave you nothing,” he emphasized. “I gave her… Jo, nothing.”

  “You gave yourself,” I said, not getting why he wasn’t seeing that. “Now, I can’t speak for her but I can speak for me. You let me in, be a part of your life, Laura’s life? Gray, you—”

  “But have I?” he challenged. “Have I really? I never told her much and I know I’ve never told you much.”

  I believed he referred to the conversation about Laura’s mom again, the one personal thing he did tell me about the pair. I had been given enough information that day to stop my questioning, my inquiry invasive anyway.

  I touched his arm, so warm and probably not from the sun.

  “You never have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me,” I explained then pushed my hands to his face, finding his eyes. “And again I don’t speak for her.”

  But I was sure it was the same for my aunt. She found something in him, the both of them and cared about them enough to respect their space as I have.

  Gray couldn’t keep my gaze, his eyes falling when he dropped his head.

  “You deserve to know the whole story,” he said. “My place in it. I made it sound like her mom is the only reason she is the way she is.”

  Is the way she is definitely stood out to me as that could mean so much. He addressed a clear problem here and one I didn’t feel was my place to question.

  He left my hands again in a breath, facing the sun and never letting him go I returned to his side.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “She wasn’t a great woman, Laura’s mom,” he started. “But I wasn’t a great man either. I met her at a party, fucked her at a party.”

  His crude language took me aback a bit but not because I was sensitive to such things.

  It seemed to hurt him when I touched him this time, squeezing his arm.

  His expression pained when he looked at me. “Alicia, we were strangers when Laura was conceived.”

  Not unlike Bastian and I had met, two strangers at a work event. It turned into something more after that first lay at his place that night and probably shouldn’t have.

  I rubbed Gray’s shoulders, the guilt coming off him. “Gray, that happens sometimes. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

  His laugh was cynical and something I didn’t like.

  “No, what makes me a bad person comes later,” he said, and though he didn’t physically pull away this time he didn’t have to, his emotions doing it for him. He panned to me. “You want to know what I did when she finally managed to find me and tell me she was pregnant? I didn’t remember by the way. I fucked a couple of girls that night.”

  I cringed though I hadn’t wanted to, so unlike him. But then again…

  I guess I didn’t really know him.

  His jaw moved. “I told her two words: prove it. I said ‘prove it’ and even after she did, I didn’t accept it. Not really. I gave her basic child support but that was it.”

  Even in all this, as graphic and hard to hear as it was, it was something that clearly changed him. Somewhere along the way Laura went from the result of a choice at a party to his daughter and I saw that. I saw it every day.

  “Gray?”


  He found me when I touched him, my hands moving up over his whiskers and up into the thickness of his hair.

  “That still doesn’t excuse what she did,” I said, shaking my head. “Leaving Laura—”

  “She left her because of me,” he came back with, surprising me. His voice retched. “She left because she didn’t have me, support from me…”

  He stopped like there was something else, shaking his head.

  “I cut her off from even the financial support eventually. I cut her off after finding out she had a drug habit, not another thought about it.” His expression stiffened, visual tears glassing his eyes. “Who cared what she was using the money for? It didn’t matter. It was support for our daughter. In the end, it was support for her.”

  “Gray—?”

  “That was the last time I heard her voice, you know?” he said and I didn’t take a step back at the sudden statement, though I wanted to. I was surprised, confused.

  Somewhere in there, he found me in all that, after all that and in my shock. His hands came to my hips, his head bowed in a clear shame.

  “The day I cut Laura’s mom off she’d been laughing in the background,” he said, his throat jumping. “That was the last time I heard it, my little girl’s voice.”

  My own tears stung my eyes and throat. Laura, she wasn’t mute.

  She’d spoken.

  And he heard it, well, at least her laughter. Was it the same?

  He didn’t let on, his hand coming up to mine and squeezing. He pushed his mouth into my hand, his breath still labored.

  “She left her shortly after that, Alicia,” he said, his voice strained. He dampened his lips. “And by the time I’d gotten to Laura, literally found her, I was too late. I was too late for her.” He cringed. “She was scared. She was alone… left alone completely.”

  And mute though he didn’t say. He didn’t need to. I got it.

  I finally got it.

  The details in which Laura’s mom left her stirred a taste in my mouth that I truly had to fight down to keep from doing something else. Gray had said her mom abandoned her but never in my life did I believe in the literal sense. How long was she alone?