Missing [ST]

Seventy Three

Dream On, the song that had been started fifteen years ago in a personalised black notebook, was finally complete.

Steven finished it the day he returned from Lake Sunapee because he spent the remainder of the daylight hours locked in the studio at the end of his parent's garden, ignoring everything and everyone, until the inspiration had burned out.

His fingers hit the keys over and over, humming the vocal part until he was convinced it worked, and the only break from playing the haunting melody was when he jotted down the missing lyrics and the grand finale that had puzzled him for so long.

After two hours, Steven stopped, piano stool creaking, back aching, and thinking that he should have been a lot more satisfied staring at the potential big hit in front of him. If it weren't for the knock at the door, he might have stayed there all night wondering if it was good enough after all.

Darkness shrouding the outside, Steven stood, clicked his back, and unlocked the door. He may have been tired, but seeing his daughter dressed in her pyjamas and fighting to be put down from his own mother's arms, gave him that bit of extra energy.

"Daddy!"

"Hi gorgeous girl, I'm home early!"

Steven hoisted Liv up, cradling her into his side. She smelled all clean when he kissed and nibbled her cheek, pretending to eat her skin, and hearing her protesting squeals put an instant smile to his face.

"Do you want to hear a song I've been working on?" Steven asked his daughter, before his home arrival the same evening he had left, was ridiculed. "Maybe Nona will too if we ask her nicely."

He tried to distract himself carrying Liv to the piano and making sure she was comfortably sitting on his lap, but the truth was, nothing could ever prepare him to hear what he didn't want to hear.

He was a guilty man, and he wasn't getting away with it.

"She found out, didn't she?"

Reluctantly, Steven looked towards his mother standing in the doorway lit up by the glow of the outside light. The open door kept a cool draft to counteract the heating, another chill shivering down his spine.

"You knew?"

Susan gave him stern eyes.

"I'm your mother. Of course I knew."

"Then why...why didn't you say something?"

"You're an adult, Steven. A father. I thought you would have come to your senses when you were with Leah."

Ridden with shame, Steven felt his chest tighten.

"That's what Joe said," he mumbled, turning back to the piano.

Struck into a deep thought, he let Liv play with his left hand by placing his fingers onto the keys. She pressed a few odd notes herself, and it wasn't the first time she had expressed an interest in music.

"Go to rehab. Please. Don't kill your career before you've even started it," Susan said, pulling the door closed behind her.

She walked over, but was visibly relaxing from her strict demands.

"I promise I will." With his mother's gentle hands cradling his face, Steven tilted his head back. "And I'll start looking for a place of my own too, when I've got a bit more money."

A lingering kiss was placed on top of his head.

"I love you, Stevie. You know I'll always be proud of you, and for you to be happy and healthy is all we want."

Having such a close relationship with his parents was something Steven had always tried to maintain. Even when he rebelled at school and took all the wrong turns after being warned about them, he never forgot where he came from.