"Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist looking him up?" Dylan wondered.
She folded her arms over her chest. "My point is, you'll never know if you don't bother to reach out back to him. You deserve real answers about who he is and why he left you."
Dylan groaned again. "Mel, I can't deal with this bullshit. As soon as Emma's out of the woods, we'll talk about it, okay? Just not right now."
"I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do," she said quietly. "I just want … " She sighed. "Never mind. You're right. Right now it's time to focus on Emma. Speaking of, we should get going if you want to make dinnertime at the hospital."
"Thank you," he said quietly, pulling her close and pressing a hard kiss to the corner of her mouth. "For everything." He knew her heart was in the right place. Hell, she was probably right about everything she'd just said. But he'd been running from this shit for half his life, and he wasn't sure how to stop. Or even if he would ever be able to stop...if he'd be able to face his own demons. Still, it was touching that she cared so much.
"Mel..." he began, but he trailed off. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel, but he didn't have the words. He was a songwriter, a poet-yet every phrase that came to mind seemed sad and insignificant in the face of her actions. He just stood here like a jerk, staring down at her.
"I'm here because I want to be here," she said, letting him off the hook, as usual. She hugged him hard around his middle. "Because I couldn't imagine being anywhere else."
**
They ended up getting a gratuitous amount of gelato to bring back to the hospital. Dylan wasn't sure if Emma was still in her raspberry phase or not, and he wanted to get her favorite, so he decided that he'd bring her a little bit of everything.
"Do you think she'll like the grapefruit?" he asked, juggling white paper bags filled with ice cream cups as they walked down the hospital corridor.
"I think I'll like the grapefruit, and she can fight me for it if she wants it," Melody joked.
"Oh, you play dirty, Hopkins."
"I'm passionate about my frozen desserts," she said. "And I'm not ashamed."
Dylan shouldered open the door to Emma's room. "All right, Gracie, I got you pistachio even though it offends my every molecule to-"
He trailed off as he processed the scene before him. Grace sat beside Emma's bed, tears streaming down her cheeks, gently brushing the little girl's hair back from her face. Emma was asleep, seemingly oblivious to her mother's distress. A doctor and a nurse stood against the wall, somber and sad. Grace's tears turned to sobs, deep, gut-wrenching cries of agony. And it was then that Dylan realized that Emma wasn't sleeping.
The gelato hit the floor. Dylan stumbled to his sister's side, as if in a trance. His knees cracked against the hospital floor; he hadn't made the decision to kneel, he just simply couldn't stand upright anymore. A shaking hand touched his head, and strong fingers began combing through his hair. He realized Grace was trying to comfort him. It was instinctual to her. His own hand shook as he reached out to touch Emma's chest. The cold, unnatural stillness there made horror creep through his veins and settle deep in his bones.
"She just didn't wake up," Grace whispered. "She didn't … they don't think she even felt it. Her heart just … gave out."
That was the stupidest thing Dylan had ever heard in his life. She was a nine-year-old little girl-her heart wasn't supposed to ‘just stop.' She was supposed to go to birthday parties and high school and prom and college, and eventually she was supposed to marry a boy who didn't deserve her and have a beautiful family of her own. Dylan saw her entire life flash before his eyes in an instant. It was a life that would never exist, because her body had decided to just stop at the age of nine.
"We brought gelato," Dylan said dumbly. "Emma liked it, remember?"
Grace nodded, her movements awkward and shaky. "She liked it because you always brought it for her." Her hand in his hair tightened. "She loved you so much. You and the boys. I don't know what we would have done if you all hadn't been there. It made it easier, I think, after her father left. She was so sick, but she always had a fleet of dads whenever she needed them."
"I should have been here more," he whispered. The numbness of his shock was fading, and he wanted to call it back, to hold onto it, because the terrible reality that was slowly sinking into him hurt so much worse. "I should have spent more time with her. I should have … "
His sister's arms enveloped him. He forced his own arms up and wrapped them around her in return. Her slight frame was shaking, and only now, holding her so tightly that he feared she might break, did he realize how much weight she had lost over the past few years. She had been suffering the way only a mother could suffer, and what had he been doing?
Whatever body had been willing and able, that's what.
He was disgusted with himself. How had he gotten so sidetracked from the things that really mattered? Emma and Grace were his family. He should have been there. He should have taken Emma to more concerts, or agreed to babysit so Grace could have had a minute to herself. His sister had been alone for almost five years, with nothing to focus on but a sick daughter.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"I know," Grace breathed against his temple. Her arms were around him, keeping him from shaking, too. When had he started shaking? "She's out of her pain, now. She's not..." Her words trailed off in a sob. For a moment, Dylan wondered why he wasn't crying. His eyes burned, and he felt the tightness of bottled-up screams of pain in his chest, but they seemed to have lodged there, and he couldn't let them out for some reason.
He looked over Grace's shoulder, searching for Melody. She stood with the doctor, exchanging quiet words. He watched as she bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears. Even Melody, who had known Emma for a matter of hours, could summon the proper response to this terrible tragedy.
Yet here he was, empty. No tears. Emma was dead, and Dylan was still finding new ways to fail her.
**
The worst part was the paperwork. Death was the ultimate bureaucracy, even when the deceased was a nine year old girl. The doctor apologized even as he asked Grace to sign here, and here, and if she wouldn't mind, could she please authorize them to take her child's body into a dark room and burn it until there was nothing left but ash?
"I can't handle a funeral," Grace confessed as Melody drove them all home from the hospital. She would return to the hospital one last time to collect Emma's ashes the following day. "I can't listen to people who didn't love her as much as I did tell me how sorry they are. I can't thank them for their sympathy because I don't want it."
"Gracie," Dylan murmured, squeezing her hand from where he sat in the back seat of her Camry. "Don't say that. I know it's overwhelming, but you don't have to think about anything right now."
"There's nothing more depressing than a child's funeral," Grace continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "I remember thinking that once, before I had Emma, when a friend of mine lost her son. ‘What a downer.' I actually remember thinking that."
"I was there," Dylan reminded her. "I'm pretty sure I thought something worse. Knowing me, I probably said it out loud."
Grace looked lost for a minute. She sat in silence, staring off into space. "Yeah," she finally told him. "I'm sure you're right, but I can't even remember what you said."
"You don't have to remember," he told her.
"We're home," Melody announced quietly, as they pulled into Grace's driveway.
They led Grace inside, and Melody slipped the prescription the doctor had given them into Dylan's hand. The thing Grace needed most right now was sleep-the stress was often too much on a grieving parent. Dylan popped open the bottle of meds, knocked two pills into his palm, and urged Grace to take them. She didn't protest. Dylan got her into bed and pulled the covers over her body. She looked so lost, so unhappy...and there was nothing he could do to ease her pain. He felt helpless and useless.
Melody was waiting for him in the guest bedroom. She didn't say anything when he entered. He felt her gaze on him, and wondered if she felt helpless and useless, too. He figured she must. It was only natural, given the circumstances.
"If you-"
"I'm gonna take a shower," he muttered, interrupting whatever she'd been about to offer. She nodded slowly as he made a beeline for the bathroom.
**
"Dylan? Dylan!"