Jane's Melody

by Ryan Winfield

  When she entered the Devil’s Cup, she knew right away that it was Lewis behind the espresso machine, because he had giant spikes of pink hair encircling his otherwise shaved head, giving him the appearance of a cartoon Statue of Liberty, just as the redhead had said. Jane ordered a latte from a new girl at the register, and then she moved toward Lewis and caught his eye while he was grinding her espresso.

  “Hi,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Hi, there.”

  “My name is Jane. I’m Melody’s mother.”

  Lewis nodded, as if he’d been expecting her.

  “Becky told me you were in last week,” he said. “Sorry about what happened. Melody was a cool chick.”

  “Did you know her well?”

  “No, I just met her when she hired on here,” he answered. “But we hung out a couple of times.”

  “Hung out?”

  His cheeks blushed a shade of pink that matched his hair.

  “Not like that,” he mumbled. Then he looked up at her again and added: “Although I wouldn’t have minded. She was a pretty girl. She looked like you.”

  Jane didn’t know what to say, so she just smiled.

  “Anyway, we just met up with mutual friends after work for a couple beers at the Garage. You know, usual stuff.”

  “Do you know if she had a boyfriend?” Jane asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied, twisting the dials and dodging a spray of steam from the machine.

  “What about the guitar player?” she asked. “The one who hangs out around the corner?”

  He shrugged.

  “Maybe. He came in here a lot when she was working. They seemed to always flirt a bit.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  He poured the steamed milk over her espresso and shaped the foam into a flower.

  “You might try the Pike Place Market,” he said, sliding the latte in front of her. “I see him playing there sometimes. Or maybe Pioneer Square.”

  By the time Jane found a downtown parking spot and paid the meter, she had nearly half a mile to walk and she was glad she’d worn flats. The Public Market was bustling with tourists and locals taking advantage of the rare break in the rain, and Jane threaded her way through the crowds, listening to the timeless sounds of giggling children and their parents’ calls to rein them in. Couples walked hand in hand, sharing pastries or fresh fruit purchased from the various outdoor stands, and everywhere were sprays of color from fresh cut flowers for sale.

  She stopped to watch as the fish mongers lured a young boy to touch the head of an evil-looking monkfish, placed for just such occasions on a mound of shaved ice, only to pull the hidden rope tied to its tail and open the fish’s fanged mouth beneath the boy’s finger. He screamed and ran into his parents arms. Then he laughed, and the crowd clapped.

  Farther on, Jane walked red cobblestones with the sunlight on her face, and for a few delicious moments she forgot why she had come, and she soaked the city in with the smile of a carefree woman, which she had been once so long ago. Hadn’t she? She could hardly remember anymore. Then the realization that her daughter was dead stabbed her heart, and she jerked painfully awake from her reverie and back to the task at hand.

  She searched the faces on the sidewalks for the stranger, but she had no luck. She passed a group of soul singers in front of Starbucks, belting out gospel tunes in exchange for coins tossed into their upturned hats. On yet another market corner she encountered a lanky man, swimming in coveralls two sizes too big, playing a banjo and a harmonica at the same time while twirling several brightly-colored hula hoops around his slender waist. No wonder the stranger she looked for wasn’t here, she thought. Who would want to compete with that?

  She left the Market and continued down First Avenue to where the tourists gave way to a quieter crowd of city dwellers running errands or heading home from office-tower jobs. She walked for a long time, losing herself in the rhythm of her steps, until she reached the old red-brick buildings of Pioneer Square. There she strolled the quiet streets alone, past the art galleries, past the neon signs of missions and shelters, past the shadows of broken men slumped in doorways with brown bags propped between their legs. She saw last night’s broken bottles in the street. She saw a pair of abandoned shoes turned upside down as if someone had vanished into the concrete.

  The sun had dropped behind the buildings, leaving the sidewalk in shadow, and Jane shivered with a chill that made her wish she’d brought along a heavier coat. The air smelled of wet brick and coming rain. She was about to turn around for the long walk back to her car when she passed a man lying on a bench. He was charging his cell phone in the public power outlet at its base. He had a familiar ball cap pulled over his face.

  “Hello, there,” Jane said, looking down.

  “This is bordering on stalking now,” he said, without even bothering to remove the cap from his eyes.

  Was her voice that identifiable, Jane wondered.

  “Give a girl a break,” she said, “I just want to talk with you for a while.” When he didn’t respond, she added: “It doesn’t matter about what; just anything.”

  “Why?” he asked from beneath his hat.

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  And she was telling the truth. She didn’t know why she was here, why she had come to find him. Maybe just to have some connection to someone who knew her daughter.

  He sighed loudly. Then he sat up, catching his hat in his hands as it fell away.

  “Oh, my God!” Jane exclaimed, dropping to her knees to inspect his bruised and battered face. “What happened to you?”

  “Life on the streets happened,” he said.

  “You’ve got to get this looked at,” she insisted. “Your forehead needs stitches.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve lived through worse.”

  “Is your nose broken?” she asked.

  “I dunno,” he replied. “I don’t think so.”

  “Has it always been crooked?”

  “A little, I guess.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  Jane noticed that one of his hands was badly bruised and she took it in hers and looked at it. It was lean and strong, his fingertips calloused from years of playing guitar. She saw the bruised and swollen knuckles.

  “Did you at least get him good?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, flashing a grin, even though it reopened his split lip. “But not before they got all my stuff.”

  Jane kept his hand in hers.

  “I’ll help you up,” she said. “I’m taking you to the hospital right now.”

  “I’m not going to any hospital.”

  He pulled his hand away, but Jane maintained her grip.

  “Come on, lady. It’s just a few bruises and a black eye is all. I’ve been through worse. I’ll survive.”

  “I’m not letting go,” she said, tightening her hold on his hand. “Not until you agree to at least let me take you to your home and clean you up. Better not to add an infection to the list of injuries, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Well, you’re in luck then,” he replied, sweeping his free hand out to take in the square, “because we’re already here.”

  “Already where?” she asked.

  “My home.”

  “You live on the streets?”

  She looked around, as if suddenly realizing that danger might yet lurk in the growing shadows.

  “Just temporarily,” he said. “I’m on my way to Austin.”

  “What’s in Austin?”

  “What’s it matter?”

  She tugged his arm.

  “Get up. You’re coming with me.”

  “Coming where?” he asked, half-rising but still hesitating.

  “What’s it matter?” she asked, mimicking his tone. “You’ve got some place to be? Just come along. You look like you could use some food and a clean bed.”

  When she had helped him to his feet, she wasn’t expecting
him to be as tall as he was. He bent down and unplugged his cell phone from the base of the bench and slipped it in his pocket along with the cord. Then he followed along beside her as she led him back toward her car.

  “It seems odd that you don’t have a bed, but you have a cell phone,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “It’s the only thing I managed to hold onto,” he replied. “It doesn’t have any service, but there’s free Wi-Fi downtown so you can at least check your email. It’s a little trick you learn on the street. Of course,” he added, flashing her a boyish smile, “I mostly use it to keep up with my stock portfolio.”

  Jane laughed, and then they walked again in silence.

  She noticed that he was limping.

  “I suppose I should know your name,” she said. “Now that I’m taking you home.”

  He cast her a mischievous grin.

  “Don’t try and tell me you’ve never taken a man home before without knowing his name.”

  “Not without making him buy me a few drinks first. And certainly not one half my age.”

  After another minute walking, he said:

  “My name’s Caleb.”

  “Nice to meet you, Caleb. I’m Jane.”

  “How far did you say your car was again, Jane?”

  “You want me to get it and come back and pick you up?”

  “No,” he said, “I can make it.”

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, he was sleeping beside her in the reclined passenger seat of her car as the ferry carried them into the setting sun toward the island and her home.

  His face was turned away, but she could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. She wondered if he dreamed, and if he dreamed, she wondered what he dreamed about. He wore a faded denim jacket and its collar was torn and stained with his blood. His jeans were riddled with holes, and his boots were unlaced. Only his hat seemed to remain from what he had been wearing when she spotted him playing his guitar in the doorway near the Devil’s Cup last week. She wondered what it was like, life on the street. She couldn’t imagine the vulnerability that must come with having no safe place to call home.

  Eventually her thoughts turned to Grace and what she might say about her taking him home like this. She guessed she wouldn’t say much, except maybe to caution Jane to check herself if she felt she was slipping into “fix it mode,” which was Grace’s code for a relapse into co-dependence. But what was wrong with fixing someone if they really needed fixing, Jane wondered. As long as it didn’t harm you in the process.

  The sun had fully set by the time the ferry docked, and Jane followed the other island commuters off, driving cautiously so as not to wake Caleb. When she pulled into her garage, she crossed around behind the car in the blue twilight and opened his door. He stirred and looked up at her and the expression of pain on his face nearly re-broke her already broken heart.

  “Come on,” she said, “let’s get you inside.”

  She helped him into the house and down the hall to Melody’s old room, the only other bedroom besides hers. She considered running him a bath, but he seemed far too tired to bother, so she sat him on the bed and helped him out of his jacket. Then she stripped off his boots, and laid him back on the bed. She tried to remove his hat, but he raised his hand to keep it in place and she let it be.

  She went to her bathroom and searched the medicine cabinet, but she had disposed of anything stronger than Advil the last time Melody had been home—just visiting between rehabs, of course. She filled a glass, then ran hot water over a towel, and took them back into the room. She turned on the lamp. The swelling had gotten worse, or maybe it just looked like it in the shadows cast by the lamplight. But even so, his face was still attractive and there was a distance in his eyes that she couldn’t account for, given his age.

  “Here. Take these.”

  After making him swallow the Advil, she used the towel to gently wipe the dried blood from his face. When she finished, he leaned his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

  She stood for a while, holding the towel and looking down at him. When she finally spoke to ask him if he was hungry, he didn’t respond, and she realized that he was sleeping. She switched off the lamp and backed from the room, stopping at the door and listening for a moment to his quiet breathing before stepping into the hall and shutting the door.

  Jane checked on him several times as she passed the evening watching the late shows on her bedroom TV. When she finally turned out her own light, she lay awake for a long time, just thinking. Her mind was an open file drawer which she could not shut. One after another, she pulled the memories out and inspected them before filing them away again.

  Having someone in Melody’s room brought up memories of other tortured nights lying awake, wondering if her daughter would still be there come morning. She remembered the night she was woken by police knocking on her door. They presented her with a drunken Melody when Melody was supposed to be in her room sleeping. That had been the beginning. From that day on her little girl was locked away somewhere behind a set of tortured eyes—eyes that Jane just couldn’t penetrate to find her daughter, no matter how she tried. And she had tried. She’d tried counseling together. She’d tried bringing her to AA for teens. Outpatient treatment. Inpatient. She’d even tried scaring her straight by letting the police keep her for a weekend when she had wrecked Jane’s car after stealing it to drive across the bridge to the reservation to buy booze with her friends. But nothing had worked. And as she got older, she got bolder, and all Jane could do was watch. Watch and cry.

  Then one night she didn’t come home at all. The local police wouldn’t file a missing person report until three days had passed, so she called everyone until the State Patrol put out an alert. Two days after filing the report, she received a message from Melody saying that she was staying at a friend’s house in the city and wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon. And she didn’t. Not until her first overdose when Jane collected her from county detox and brought her home to wait for a bed to open in one of many treatment centers to come.

  Jane had been friends with Grace for a long time by then, but that was when she asked her to be her Al-Anon sponsor. She needed to find some way to live with the pain, and she found it in the company of men and women who had been through just what she was going through. She remembered some of them talking in meetings about losing their loved ones to the disease, and although she thought at the time that she understood their grief, she had had no idea until she received that fateful call of her own from the coroner.

  Enough, she thought. No more tonight.

  But the thoughts kept coming so she stopped fighting and relaxed into them, letting the images wash over her and trying to direct her attention to the stranger in her daughter’s bed.

  She was back at the cemetery, and Caleb was standing in front of her car with rain dripping off his cap and that pained look in his eyes. Then she was on the sidewalk again, listening to his beautiful song. Now she was standing over Melody’s bed, watching him sleep. She wasn’t sure how yet, but he was the only connection to her daughter that she had. And she was determined not to let him slip away too soon.

  Chapter 4

  JANE WOKE IN THE MORNING to the screech of an alarm. She jumped out of bed, pulled on her robe, and raced from her room, running headlong into Caleb, who was standing in the hall waving a kitchen towel at the ceiling smoke alarm. They were briefly entangled in one another’s arms. Jane looked up and saw a smile in Caleb’s eyes as they embraced. The alarm stopped and Jane broke free and stepped back, taking a deep breath to collect her thoughts.

  “Sorry about the alarm,” he said. “I was trying to make you breakfast, but I guess I’m a little rusty in the kitchen.”

  “It’s my stupid old toaster,” she said. “It does that if you’re not careful.”

  Caleb gestured to her robe.

  “Looks like I woke you.”

  “I needed to get up anyway,” she said, pulling it tighter. How about you? Did y
ou sleep okay?”

  He grinned, despite his split lip.

  “Like a puppy.”

  “Well, you look great,” she blurted out.

  “Thanks,” he said, shrugging. “So do you.”

  Jane blushed.

  “I meant that you look rested. The swelling’s gone down.”

  They stood there in the hallway, looking at one another for what seemed an eternity to Jane. Finally Caleb said:

  “I think the eggs might be edible if you’re hungry.”

  “I’m starving,” Jane replied, happy to have the awkward moment behind them.

  She followed him into the kitchen, wishing she’d had a few minutes to check her appearance in the mirror and maybe apply a little light makeup. It had been a long time since she’d had company in the house, other than her family, and forever since she’d had a man—even if he was just a kid compared to her.

  Rays of sunlight slanted through the kitchen window and showed the lingering smoke, and Jane could smell the burnt toast as she looked at the spread on the table. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, her bottle of sugar-free syrup. Even the coffee was percolating. Very impressive.

  She moved toward the drawer to get silverware, but Caleb blocked her and pulled a chair out for her. She sat. He retrieved forks and knives and brought them with napkins to the table.

  “Do you always make breakfast for strangers in their own houses?” Jane asked, enjoying the rare chance to be served.

  Caleb scooped eggs onto her plate.

  “I’ve done my share of couch surfing,” he said. “You learn to earn your keep.”

  Jane forked a pancake onto her plate and drizzled syrup on it. Then she waited for Caleb to take his seat before trying her eggs. They were good. Not too dry, not too wet. And the pancakes were golden brown, just the way she liked them. It had been a long time since Jane had eaten a solid meal, but this morning she cleaned her plate and then ate some more. The coffee pot beeped when it finished percolating, and Caleb got up before Jane could rise and poured them each a cup. They stole glances at one another across the table, but neither said a word as they drank their coffee and enjoyed the quiet.