"Talia?" Happy called from the doorway, a blue party hat on his head. Talia didn't move an inch, so he stepped inside and gave Rouge a pet as he passed her on the floor. He grabbed Talia by the shoulder and gently shook her. "Wake up, babygirl."
"Yeah?"
"Get up, we gotta go."
"Dad...it's Saturday. I don't get up before noon on weekends." She yawned. "Let me sleep in for my birthday."
Smirking, he urged, "Let's go, Talia."
With a groan, she sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. "Where are we going?"
"You'll know when we get there."
Once Talia was ready, Happy drove them about 15 minutes from the Wahewah Reservation and cruised into the east district where most of the houses in the area were boarded up, waiting to be demolished or sold. He parked in front of a navy ranch-style home and Talia looked like she was trying to remember where she was.
"Dad…"
"Just walk." He told her as they entered the home. "You know where we are?"
"This is...I used to…" She smiled as she looked around and placed everything, from where the TV was and all the way to her room. It was dusty, but seemingly untouched as the day they left it, the last time she was in the house with her bio parents.
Talia was looking at some drawings she had tapped to the walls in her room when Happy called her from the master bedroom. When she found him, he was holding a rosewood guitar with a heart-shaped sound hole and Talia's eyes lit up like exploding fireworks.
"Oh my...that's her guitar. She made this from scratch and she'd play it for me all the time." She said as he handed her the instrument.
"C'mon, we got somewhere else to go."
They got back into her car and drove a half-hour to Fresno where Happy parked outside of Beth Israel Cemetery. Talia had her mother's guitar on her back as he led her down a path to a certain headstone. There was a bouquet of wilted flowers on Julianna's grave and Happy wondered who could've placed him there, but was pulled from his thoughts when Talia gasped in awe.
"Mom…" Talia beamed in disbelief before she took the guitar off her back, presenting it to the headstone marked Julianna Blaire Langdon. "Mom, look. It's your guitar. We found it."
Talia sat cross-legged on the grass in front of the gravestone and began plucking the strings of the guitar, tuning it by ear. Once the instrument was tuned, she began strumming a song and it only took Happy a second of listening to realize which one it was. He sat next to her in the grass and listened to the intro of Redemtion Song by Bob Marley.
"Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
from the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation, triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs"
Talia strummed the next verse and he heard her sniffle, but she was smiling as she stared at the tombstone. She stopped for a second to wipe her eyes, then she continued with the song.
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Whoa, have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time
How long shall they kill our prophets,
while we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing
these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
All I ever had
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom"
Happy continued listening as she strummed the ending of the song and when she was done, Talia set the guitar before the headstone and leaned forward to wrap her arms around it, hugging the slab of stone.
"Thank you, Dad." She said to Happy as she detached from the headstone. She hugged him and he kissed her on the head. "I feel like there was a part of me that was missing and now, I found it."
"I went a little earlier, just to make sure our visit wouldn't be a bust. I found a box, just like your Box of Life." From behind him, Happy pulled out said box and handed it to Talia, watching her eyes light up with happiness. "It's full of pictures and some songs your Mom wrote. And she made a dreamcatcher."
"No way." Talia was in awe as she dangled the red and blue dreamcatcher on her finger. "Dad, I've been channeling into my Mom for all these years and I didn't even know it."
"She's always been with you, Tal."