[Thank you for the reviews.]
68.
Jaylynn leaned up against the door. Somehow, in all the commotion, she had backed herself into a corner that was isolated from everyone else. For the last seven and a half hours, she had stood somewhere around there, excusing herself only to use the bathroom or to get another cup of coffee from the cafeteria.
All around her, people had come and gone. Roger's mother and stepfather (her grandparents) had arrived at four-thirty in the morning from Scarsdale with Roger's younger brother, forty-one year old Joey. Even though they were now in their mid-seventies, Sandra and Jerry had arrived even before any other of Roger's siblings had. Roger's fifty-year-old brother Jimmy and his wife Kim had driven in from Trenton, without their four grown children. Although Roger's once close relationship with his forty-seven year old sister Lindsey had diminished over the years, she and her twenty-three year old daughter Marissa had flown in from Miami and had arrived at the hospital around six. The only member of Roger's family absent was Heather, the youngest Davis child. At thirty-nine, she and her brother had never been on good terms since high school, and she hadn't seen Roger in over twenty years and had never met Jaylynn or Mimi. She was living in Italy with her husband and two children.
Jackie, Hannah, and Nicole were due to arrive sometime in the early evening. Mark had just left to pick up Harvey, Maureen, and their daughter, sixteen-year-old Audrey, from the airport.
Luke had gotten to the hospital about fifteen minutes beforehand. Jaylynn had seen him come in and greet everyone, but she kept out of view. She didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Instead, she disappeared into her father's room.
Roger had been moved to a private room early that morning, around three. Since then, the hospital staff had been trying to do their best to accommodate visiting hours, but it was near impossible, seeing as so many relatives and friends had shown up. Members of Roger's band, people that he had worked with through the years…it was overwhelming.
The room was dim, and the television had been muted. Various machines were beeping and whirring, and Roger appeared to be sleeping. An IV was set on a slow drip, and Jaylynn had to carefully move around it before sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"Dad?"
He opened his eyes slowly, lifting his left arm off of the bed in somewhat of a greeting. The doctors had told her that he would be drowsy from the medication they had been giving him and not to expect too much from him conversation wise. "Hey."
"Everyone's outside. It's crazy."
"I know."
"How do you feel?"
"Not so good. How about you?"
"Okay."
He coughed and motioned to a corner of the room. "Can you do something for me?"
Jaylynn nodded, tucking a stand of hair behind her ear. "Anything."
"Can you…bring me my guitar?"
She stared at him, not quite sure if she heard him right. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I want to play you something. I don't think I ever have, not since you were two years old, and I want to play you something."
"Okay," she agreed. She didn't even know who had brought Roger's guitar to the hospital room as she carefully lifted the beloved Fender out of its case. Jaylynn gripped it tightly and brought it to him, watching as Roger propped himself up.
"Can you get one of the guitar picks too?"
Jaylynn nodded and returned just as quickly. She watched carefully as Roger tuned the guitar somewhat and strummed a few chords, his fingers and the strings synchronizing as one. "People said you were always very good. They said that you were somewhat famous, had a band, on a record label, used to play underground shows."
"People talk," he smirked. "Always will. I published a few songs. My band put out a few CDs. I've been invited to the Grammys. People always talk."
"Is that why there's so many people outside?"
He nodded. "Could be. I'm on my deathbed. It makes a good headline. 'Ex-musician Davis sings daughter one song before he goes'. Catchy."
Jaylynn smiled. At least he still had a sense of humor. "What are you going to play?"
"I used to sing—your mother used to sing a lullaby to you when you were little. I'm trying to remember the words. You want to sit? Lay? Whatever?"
"Sure." Jaylynn lay down on her side and propped up on her elbow, watching as Roger started to play the opening chords and began to sing.
She watched, almost mesmerized. Roger was very good. He had a talent that not many people had. No wonder so many people had come to say their goodbyes.
Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me
He never looked over at her as he continued playing on, but Jaylynn didn't want him to. The tears had started down her face now. Maybe if she had tried to find him a little sooner, maybe if she had asked more questions. Maybe she would have gotten to know her father a little better. Jaylynn thought it would be easier, saying goodbye to someone she barely knew. But it wasn't. It wasn't at all.
"That was—"
Roger shook his head. "Don't say anything." He handed her his Fender and she placed it back in its case. "I want you to keep it. Maybe one day you can learn to play it."
"Thanks."
"Did you want to…stay for a little while? I know it sounds stupid, but I don't want to…go alone."
Jaylynn nodded. "Okay." She rested her head against his shoulder and felt his left arm rest loosely against her hip. "Thank you."
"For?"
"Everything."
"I don't think I have a right to say this, but I love you, Jaylynn."
"You have every right. You're my father."
"I wasn't around."
"You are now."
"Not for long," he smirked. "But thanks for trying to make me feel better."
"Well you were around for what counted."
"I'm glad." He shut his eyes, and in those final moments, Jaylynn saw a smile form on his lips. "Just don't name any of your future children after me. I hated my name."
"I think I can promise that."
He nodded, on the edge of sleep. "This is your city, Jaylynn."
Roger died several minutes later, peacefully in his sleep. He was forty-six years old, and had lived a life nothing short of what doctors called 'a miracle'.
Jaylynn perched on the edge of the hospital bench, taking a long drag of her cigarette. She watched the smoke mist away gently in the sunshine, almost if it had somewhere vaguely important to go.
"I didn't know you were a smoker."
She turned around and watched as Luke approached her, having just exited the emergency room revolving doors. "Nervous habit."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Jaylynn laughed and flicked the ashes off the end of the cigarette. "About my smoking habits?"
"No. You know what I mean."
"No, not really."
"I'm not going to be around for the funeral," he explained, running a hand through his blonde hair. "I have to fly out in two days for a tournament."
"Neither will I."
"You can't, or you won't stay?"
She reclipped her medium length curly hair and shrugged. "Don't want to."
"You're going back to college?"
"Yeah. I guess so. Spring break was over a week and a half ago." Jaylynn dropped her cigarette on the sidewalk and crushed it out. "Do you think he did everything he wanted to do? Fulfilled his life, or whatever?"
Luke shrugged. "I guess we'll never know. But yeah, I think he did. He got to see you. I think that's the happiest I ever saw him, those few weeks, getting to know you all over again. It was almost like he was living through you."
"He gave me his guitar," she smiled. "What the hell am I going to do with a guitar?"
"Learn to play it?" Luke laughed. "Maybe. Sell it. You'd get a lot of money for it, that's for sure."
"I probably won't ever see you again," Jaylynn added. "Liverpool's not exactly driving distance."
"I'll visit."
"I won't get my hopes up," she smiled sadly.
"I'll miss you," Luke added in an attempt to stop her from walking away.
She turned around and threw her head back, staring up at the sky. "You don't even know me!"
"I know enough from our conversations. I know that you're scared, and you feel alone. That you're afraid of commitment and smoke when you feel you have no way out. I know that you used to take dance and that your eyes sparkle when you laugh. When you're angry, you have the fucking worst temper possible, even worse than mine or Roger's put together. You want to go away and forget that you never even met him, but you can't. You're not as good of an actress as you may think."
Jaylynn laughed and dropped her arms down to her sides. "Really? You think you know me so well? Consider yourself lucky that you had a father and a mother who cared about you growing up. Because I had neither."
"You forget that my mother took off and I barely saw her once a year."
"My mother died when I was barely three years old!" she shouted at him. "Do you really want to stand outside here and compare how shitty our whole lives have been?"
"No, but I want you to know that I think you're beautiful, and that you don't have to be alone anymore. Because I won't let you run away like you're about to without a fight."
She stared at him and watched as he walked closer to her. "Are you crazy, or something?"
"Maybe a little bit. If you're going to turn me down, you can at least let a guy know," Luke smirked at her. "I can go back to England knowing where I stand."
"I'm tired of running away."
"With me you won't have to run. I understand. I get it, because I've lived through it too."
Jaylynn rested her head against Luke's chest, closing her eyes as he kissed her forehead softly. "Thank you." She lifted her head up slowly and their lips met, and for the first time in all of her nineteen years, Jaylynn felt the love that she had been missing all along—in Roger, Luke, Mark, and Mimi.
"He'll always been there, Jay. He's not missing any longer."
Lyrics borrowed/credited to Billy Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)".
That was the final long chapter of Before You Wake. The epilogue will be posted shortly, by the weekend.
Well, it's been a hell of a long journey, but I won't do my goodbyes and thank yous just yet. I'll save that for the final author's note in the epilogue. =]
Reviews, as always, are appreciated, and remember, we have one more short chapter/epilogue to go.
3, Mari