Angela Morrison - Sing Me to Sleep

“I’m not.”

“Maybe it’s deliverance.”

“Sing it for me, Beth.”

“My solo?”

“It’s in the drawer.” He closes his eyes. “Sing me to sleep.”

I pull open the nightstand drawer. There’s a sheaf of wordless music on the top. “Beth’s Song.” “I don’t have any words.”

He doesn’t answer.

I wish I could find phrases to match his music that could tell him how much I love him, but all I can do is hum the melody, add “oohs” and “aahs.” His parents arrive while I’m singing. I start to leave—Derek’s mom doesn’t need me to tell her anything. She knows. She stops me, though. Keeps me there with them, singing to Derek.

I sing his song over and over again—aching for some kind of meaning to match this delicate melody so full of life and love. I’m afraid to stop singing. Afraid to let go of him.

A hint of dawn reaches the room. His eyes flutter open, his mouth eases into a smile. He looks like an angel already.

No one moves when his breathing stops.

“Good-bye, my Derek-boy.” His mom bends over and kisses his forehead.

I touch my lips to his one last time.

His father pats his head, awkward and manly. “You fought a good one, son.”

Derek’s machines sound off. Meg comes running. His mom caresses his hair off his forehead. “Let him rest.”

Meg backs out of the room, tears streaming down her face.

I wish I could cry like that. It’s not fair. She’s just his nurse. Give me those tears to soften the desolation I feel as he goes. His mom is crying. So is his dad. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so cold? Where did the music go?

I look down at Derek. His hand in mine is no longer warm. Oh, dear God, it isn’t him anymore.

I let go of the hand and lay it gently under the sheets. I shiver, have to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering. I am so cold, so, so, so cold.

Doctors and nurses grow around us like dandelions in the lawn. Meg guides us gently out of the room.

I stop and look back. “What are they doing to him?”

“Nothing.”

My mom is in the waiting room. I don’t know how she got here. She holds me and cries. I pat her back and try to remember how it felt to hold his hand.

chapter 32

WORSE

It’s dark. Even with my eyes staring wide open.

A bar of light falls across my face. I jam my eyes closed.

“Beth, honey, why don’t you try school today? I’ll drive you. It’ ll make you feel better .”

A stack of books on my desk. Notes from my teachers. They all look forward to my return— as soon as I’m better .

Sarah, Leah, and Meadow appear at the foot of my bed. How dare Mom let them in. There’s no music left inside me. “We miss you, Beth. Come sing with us. It’ ll make you feel better .”

Better? I don’t want to feel better. Even the damn minister at the confused blur that was Derek’s funeral so many days ago said Derek was better off now. No more suffering. Even Derek said it. Leaving me was better .

I am worse. Buried in worse. Cling to dusk and the four walls of my shadowy bedroom. I play his voice over and over and over. Hold him in my dreams, but he dissolves, and I’m left in the dark turning to stone.

No tears come to wash him away. I’m filled with cold, dead empty that started the night he died and grows and grows and grows.

A whisper comes to me when I wake in the night and stare out the window at the gloom of February snowstorms. Follow him, Beth. You’ ll feel so much better.

I bury that voice. Hear the evil in it. Derek would be so angry if I did that. I’m supposed to live. I want to live. But how can I without him? If he could see me now—crap—what if he can? He’ll hate me.

Mom again. Pale light. “I’m not sure she’ll talk to you.”

I roll over—shade my eyes against the brightness. She hands me the phone. It finds my ear. His mom again? No. A guy’s voice. Who is this guy?

“ . . . Would you be in it?”

“Is this Blake?”

“That’s right.”

“Can you say that again?”

“Amabile is holding a memorial CF benefit concert for Derek. You’re not the only one, Beth. We all miss him.”

“You want me to come?” Leave my safe darkness? The shadows? This solid pain that keeps reality at bay.

“We want you to sing.”

“For Derek?”

“Will you do it?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Blake. Yes.”

With trembling hands, I pull down the heavy quilt blocking my window. Gray winter day flows through the cracks and crevices of my den. The first thing I see—lying half-buried under undone assignments from school—is Derek’s pale pink rose, dry, delicate—but real. As real as my love. As real as my loss.

I rescue it, cradle it in my palms, and lift it to my lips. That faint scent, sweet but dead, finds its way through my senses. I glance around at the mess, searching for a safe place. It doesn’t exist in this chaos. I step on a roll of tape. Use it to secure the rose to the piece of wall I see if I lie curled on my side in bed. I try it, lie there, staring at Derek’s rose.

Something brings me to my feet, stumbling through the mess again and searching through the bag I haven’t touched since Mom brought me home from the hospital, darkened my window, and tucked me in bed.

I find white papers, carefully folded over. I press them to my heart and run back to my bed. My nightstand drawer yields a pencil. I pick up my choir binder off the floor. I sit cross-legged on my tangled blankets and lay the binder on my knee, unfold the music, smooth it out with a caress.

“Beth’s Song . ”

I pencil in “for Derek” under the printed words.

My eyes close as his melody winds through my soul. Words come slowly at first and then in a torrent. I weigh them, choosing, discarding, searching again, fitting the puzzle pieces together, clothing my bare words in the richness of his music.

My room fills with light as the thick gray clouds outside shift enough for the sun to break through.

chapter 33

FOR DEREK

The concert starts with the Amabile boys singing “Sing Me to Heaven .” People talk about Derek. Somebody gives a lecture on supporting assumed-consent legislation and keeping an organ-donor card in your wallet. The AYS sing. And chamber. Their young boys’ concert choir steals everyone’s heart with the soaring height of their pure voices. Even the youngest Amabiles take a turn. I listen from the sidelines, standing in my crimson choir gown so I won’t crush it.

My name is announced, and my feet carry me onstage. I’ve practiced. I can do this tonight for him. The piano plays a tinkling introduction. A violin comes in. I gaze into the sea of people who loved him long before my solo magically brought him into my life.

My eyes close and I begin to sing. Don’t steal away your love.

Don’t steal away your touch.

Without your smile I’ ll never find

The star you shine.

I take a deep breath and shake my head, open my eyes to the blur in front of me. Don’t leave me empty here.

Don’t leave me without hope.

Don’t say it’s for the best, love,

When I’m lying here alone.

Please stay, ’cause I can’t make it on my own.

I draw a deep breath as I move into the chorus. I’m not on that stage. There’s nobody out there. It’s just Derek and me. Who will be the boy who heals my heart?

Who will be the boy who feeds my art?