Lost Melody

by Roz Lee

  She waited, breathless for him to speak.

  “Jonathan says I should let you go back to London. Is that what you want?”

  Was it? She didn’t know anymore. She needed time to think about what Jonathan had just told her. Like Alice, nothing was as it seemed. Should she confront her mother or search for another explanation? Her suspicions were too much to wrap her head around knowing Hank was growing impatient with her.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I know all I do is ask you for more time, but please be patient with me a little longer. I love you. You can’t think otherwise.”

  A tiny flicker of emotion crossed his face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

  “Time.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “How much more time, Melody? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives stealing a few minutes together in the back of a limousine or a hotel room? I want more. I want it all.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Do you?” Skepticism colored his words. “We’ll be in Boston for a week. After that, we go to Philadelphia. I’ll give you until we leave Philly to make up your mind. If you can’t make a commitment to us by then….”

  His words knifed into her heart. He reached for the door handle, and she put her hand on his arm, stopping him.

  “What about the gold key?” She pressed her other hand against her chest where the precious metal was cradled against her heart—a promise she clung to. “You said I could use it anytime. You said you would be waiting for me. Was that a lie?”

  His voice was cold as the raw New York winter. “Not at the time. I thought once I couldn’t go on living without you in my life. I was wrong. It will be hell, but I can do it. It can’t be any worse than the living hell I’m in now, waiting for you to decide how much you love me. Two weeks, Melody. We’ll be leaving Philly in two weeks.” He opened the door and slid out. The soft thud of the closing door reverberated through her body and sucked the air from the car.

  She gasped for breath and fisted her hands over her stomach.

  Two weeks.

  Two weeks or she would lose him for good.

  I won’t lose him. I can’t.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  .

  Hank had given her no choice. She couldn’t put off the confrontation with her mother any longer. Melody screwed up her courage and headed west.

  It was early when she landed at the small airport near her mother’s home in Encinitas. A rental car awaited her at the general aviation center, and within minutes of landing, she was on her way.

  She hardly noticed the beautiful spring-like day, the blooming flowers, and green lawns, so different from the barren winter landscape she had left behind in New York. She focused on the conversation ahead. So much depended on what she found out today.

  She hoped it would be the final piece that, once in place, would allow her to see the entire picture clearly. Only then would she be able to go to Hank free of the guilt she had carried most of her life.

  Her mother was surprised to see her but invited Melody in with a hug, fussing over her the way she used to do when Mel had come home on college breaks. She allowed her the indulgence, dreading the confrontation now that she was face-to-face with her mother.

  “What brings you all the way from New York? I can’t believe you came all the way here just to have tea with me.”

  She squared her shoulders. Get it over with. You already know the answer. Let her try and deny it. Justify what she did. “You knew there was water in the jet fuel, didn’t you?”

  Her mother flinched. “Yes, I knew. It doesn’t matter what happened. The result is the same. Your father died when that plane crashed.”

  She stared across the table at her mother. No denial. No apology. Her stomach cramped. “It matters to me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t think it mattered why the plane crashed. It did, and that was the important part.”

  Her blood ran cold. “You don’t think it mattered that because he died, three other people lived? You didn’t think it would matter to me? He was coming to my birthday party.” She stabbed a finger at her own chest. “Do you have any idea how much guilt I’ve carried around all these years?” She shook her head. “Now I find out he would have died the next day anyway? And the rest of the band would have died with him? I don’t understand how you can say it doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t change anything. He’s dead, Melody. What does it matter which day he died?”

  Who are you? She couldn’t believe her mother’s callousness. “It doesn’t mean anything to you that Uncle Jonathan, Archer and Nathan are alive because Daddy left a day early? I’ve lived with the guilt all these years for nothing. His death saved their lives, Mother.” She choked back tears of rage. “I’m sorry he died. Of course I am. But don’t you see? He was going to die anyway. The plane would have gone down the next day with all of them on it.”

  She stood and paced across the small kitchen. It was all crystal clear.

  “He loved you, Melody, and it killed him. That’s what I see.”

  There it was—the unspoken blame she had sensed her entire life. Disgust roiled in her gut.

  “Oh really, mother?” She crossed back to her bag and pulled out a file folder. She sifted through the news articles her mother had so carefully archived and pulled out a yellowed envelope. “Tell me, Mother. Whose fault is it Daddy was on that plane?”

  She slid the envelope across the bar. Her mother paled.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Don't you remember, Mom?”

  Her mother shook her head, refusing to meet Melody's gaze.

  She snatched the envelope back, opened it, and slid the contents across the counter.

  “It's a plane ticket to Denver. With my name on it.” She held the envelope up. “Daddy sent it. There's a note inside. Do you need me to read it to you, too?”

  Her mother turned her face away.

  “Daddy sent me a plane ticket for my birthday. He wanted me to come to the concert where he was going to record my song. What did you do, Mother? Did you tell him I couldn't come? Is that why he was on that plane, because you refused to let me go to the concert?”

  “You were only ten….”

  She froze.

  “I told him you had no business at a rock concert. It wasn't the kind of place a ten-year-old girl should be.”

  She thought she might be sick. She’d thought she had known the truth, but this…. Her mother became someone else right before her eyes—a pathetic creature she couldn’t fathom.

  “He said he'd come to see you instead. He said he had a special present for you. I knew he would come if I didn't let you go to the concert.”

  A new, disturbing insight took shape. “You used me as a pawn to keep him, didn’t you? Why didn’t you stay with him? Why didn’t we live at Ravenswood like a real family?”

  “Milton loved you, and he loved his music. I thought if I took you away, he would forget about the music, and we could be a family. But he wouldn’t quit touring, not even for you. I couldn’t stand competing with the music, the fans, and the adrenaline highs. I couldn’t live that way. I wanted to be a family. He wanted his music more than he wanted you…or me.”

  “You pushed him away, Mother. You could have had it all, but you laid out an ultimatum he couldn’t accept. Don’t you see? You could have had at least ten more years with him? Instead, you used me as the bait to get scraps of time with the man you loved.” She wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I feel sorry for you, Mom. He might still be alive if we had been together as a family. He wouldn’t have even been on a plane if we had been in Denver with him or waiting for him at Ravenswood.” She slid the plane ticket back into the envelope.

  “You would have been on the plane with him the next day,” her mother said.

  “No. We would have been on a commercial flight out of Denver International. Uncle Jonathan said D
addy changed the plans to a charter flight after they got to Denver. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know it was because you were using me as a pawn in your pathetic life.”

  She knew what she needed to do. Half running down the short hallway to the bedrooms, she opened the door to the room she had grown up in. It was just as she’d left it when she went to college at seventeen.

  She had been running away from the guilt then. Sweet Briar College had been a perfect place for her to hide. The beautiful, sprawling campus at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains was quiet and easily missed unless one knew it was there. She had known no curious reporters would think to look for her there, and she had been right.

  She’d chosen Willowbrook for the same reason.

  Hank was right. She’d been running and hiding. It was time to stop.

  Suddenly, her mother's obsession with staying out of the media spotlight made more sense. Her mother was afraid someone would find out about the plane ticket, and then the world would know what she had done. Some nosy reporter would piece together the puzzle, and everyone would know.

  That's why she'd insisted they live almost like fugitives. Uncle Jonathan never coming to the house, always meeting her mother and Melody in out of the way places for his twice-yearly visits.

  Her mother had drilled it into her. “Don't draw attention to yourself. Don’t tell anyone your real name. Mel Harper. Remember, you’re just Mel Harper from San Diego.”

  Melody glanced around the room.

  I’m tired of being Mel Harper. I’m Melody Ravenswood, and I’m going to be Melody Travis.

  On the shelf in the small closet, she found the shoebox where she’d stashed her childhood keepsakes.

  Her mother came into the room. “What are you doing?”

  Melody spread the contents over the bedspread. “I know it’s here.” She sifted through the old photos, broken charms, and assorted ribbons. At last she found it—the key to Ravenswood.

  Her father had given it to her when she was seven or eight—she couldn’t remember which. It wasn’t important. The old skeleton key fit the lock on the front door to Ravenswood. No one used the door anymore. Sometime in the late nineteenth century, a new door on the side of the house had become the most used entrance to the manor house, but the key would still open the real front door.

  She wrapped her fist around the key and faced her mother. “I’ve already wasted too much time I could have spent with Hank. I don’t care if we have five days or fifty years together. I want to spend every minute of it with him.” She swept past her mother.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. You made your choices, and I'm making mine. I choose to be Melody Ravenswood. I choose Hank. He loves me. He’s offering me a life and a family, and I’m going to go get it and hang on to it with both fists for as long as I can.”

  She left her mother standing slack-jawed in the doorway.

  From the moment her hand closed around the key to Ravenswood, she began to formulate her plan. Her heart was light for the first time she could remember. The guilt she’d harbored for so long vanished in the light of the truth about her father’s plane crash. Her mother’s part in setting the whole thing into motion and perpetuating Melody's misery brought only pity for the woman whose choices resulted in a lifetime of bitterness and loneliness.

  Her mother would have to live with her choices, but Melody didn’t have to suffer along with her. There was something bright and shiny waiting for her—a life with Hank, and she had the key to it. All she had to do was use it.

  She had plenty of time on the flight back to the East Coast to think about what she had learned in the last few days. No one thing had led to her father’s death, but rather a series of choices and decisions shaped fate. At long last, Melody decided blame was best placed on the tragic mistake, which resulted in water leaking into the airport’s underground fuel tanks.

  She took small comfort in knowing her father's decision to leave early had surely spared the lives of his friends and fellow band members. As for her mother's part in it, she tried to hate her, but when Melody peered in her heart, she found only pity for the woman who raised her. Her mother had let jealousy, pride, and her own selfishness cheat her out of time spent with a man who had loved her.

  Hamilton Earl Ravenswood left behind a legacy of music, not the least of which was “Melody”, the song that inspired young Henry Travis Jr. to focus his life on music. A new legacy was forming from the association—a legacy and legend Melody wanted to be a part of.

  Hank had put his own stamp on the song, molded the lyrics to tell a story close to his heart. Thanks to him, the song no longer haunted her sleep. In her dreams, she heard Hank's voice singing of a love so deep and passionate it claimed her soul.

  She no longer cared if the media circus followed them to the ends of the earth. It was a price she was willing to pay to be with the man she loved. She wanted to be with him on the road, at the farm, or Ravenswood. Their children would have the best of all the different worlds their family would live in. It was a glimpse of Heaven, and she wanted it.

  Sunny met her at the airport in Philadelphia. She had booked rooms in her name at the hotel where the band was staying, so no one would know Melody was there until she wanted them to.

  “I need to find a good jeweler. Do you know any in Philadelphia?” she asked.

  Sunny put her considerable contacts into action, and before long, they were at a recommended jeweler. Melody interrogated him before she was convinced to part with the key to Ravenswood. Assured the job would be complete and delivered to her in less than twenty-four hours, she returned to the hotel to work on the next part of her plan.

  The band arrived by bus a few hours later. She called Jonathan’s suite and asked him to come to hers. A few minutes later, Miriam engulfed her in a warm, motherly hug then passed her to Jonathan for more of the same.

  “How are you dear?” Miriam asked. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. Better than fine actually, but I need your help.” She filled them in on her plan.

  She had to ask, “How is Hank?”

  “He’s holding up, I guess,” Miriam answered.

  “He’s been writing a lot of music on the bus,” Jonathan added. “At least, I think he has. He sits at his computer surrounded by a bunch of newfangled electronic stuff and barely acknowledges our existence. I’ll be glad when he finds out you’re here. Maybe he’ll be more social again.”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Jonathan. I didn’t want to hurt him and I promise to spend the rest of my life making it up to him.”

  He hugged her tight. “I think you’re headed in the right direction. He’s going to be so surprised. I can’t wait to see the expression on his face.”

  “You’ll talk to the rest of the band for me?”

  “Consider it done,” Jonathan said.

  “Make sure they don’t breathe a word to Hank. I want it to be a surprise.”

  “I promise, luv. The man won’t know a thing until you’re ready for him to.”

  “You’ve heard Hank’s first version of ‘Melody’ haven’t you?”

  He nodded. “Once.”

  “Good.” She pinched his sleeve and tugged him over to the suite’s grand piano. She pulled him onto the bench beside her. “I think I remember it, but it has to be perfect.”

  Jonathan helped her through a few measures she wasn’t sure of and listened while she played it through on her own.

  “Excellent! You’re as scary as your father with that play it by ear thing, but Hank isn’t going to know what hit him.”

  “Tomorrow night then?”

  “Everything will be ready,” Jonathan promised.

  Miriam hugged her before she and Jonathan returned to their suite. “I’m so happy for you and Hank. I’ve known him all his life, and I think you’re everything he’s been waiting for.”

  “Thank you, Miriam. I hope I can live up to his expectations.”

  Miriam ca
me by the next morning to see how Melody was doing.

  “Listen to this,” Melody said. She played the song through for Miriam. When she was through, she asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s beautiful,” Miriam said. “I can’t believe you have such a natural talent. It must be wonderful to have such a gift.”

  “I haven’t thought of it as a gift. My first thought when I discovered I could play by ear was horror. I felt like a freak of nature. But I find it’s a great stress reducer. Over the last few months, playing has helped me get past the insomnia I’ve struggled with since Daddy died.

  When I was at Ravenswood, I would go to the music room in the evening and play Hank’s version of ‘Melody’ over and over. Eventually, I was able to sleep.”

  “It’s certainly a gift. A gift from your father to help you cope.”

  She hadn’t considered her ability in that light. “Thank you, Miriam. I like your view of the situation. Maybe it is a gift from Daddy to help me get through life. I sure hope so because I’m relying on it to get myself a husband and a family.”

  Jonathan arrived in time to overhear her last comment. “Oh, I have no doubt this stunt of yours is going to get you what you want.” He crossed the room to place a soft kiss on Miriam’s temple. “If Hank doesn’t fall at your feet tonight, I’ll beat him with his own sticks.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Jonathan. I’ll hold you to that.”

  “It won’t be necessary. He’ll be a blithering fool the moment he sees you.”

  Chapter Forty

  Hank went through the final concert at Madison Square Garden like a zombie. He had lied to Melody—again. He’d told her he could go on without her.

  Yeah, right.

  Just the thought of continuing on without her was enough to bring him to his knees. Even though she wasn’t in the arena to hear it, “Melody” came from the depth of his soul and wrenched his gut into a tight knot of pain.

  He choked down a few bites of each meal with Rick standing over him like a trainer with his prizefighter. Each day with no word from Melody brought him a day closer to being alone for the rest of his life, and he had no one to blame but himself. Forcing her to confront her demons on his schedule and choose them or a life with him had to be the stupidest thing he had ever done.