Robert's Melody

“Robert?” I gargled the word, filtered through fluids puddling in the back of my throat. I couldn’t move. Unable to turn my head towards the person shifting nearby—their ankles popping as they shuffled around—the clinking of ice in a glass.

Not Robert, though. He’s been gone for…

The room’s sounds and stale scents of hospital sterility began to fade below a fog of dim realities. I rose back into the workings of my mind, like an ascending plane after a failed attempt to land. A nosedive into lucidity, leaving me desperate and clinging to the images of a memory.

Below was pain, sickness, fear, and death.

Above…

God, please let me stay here. Away from bed sores, catheters, and morphine. Here ... with him.

#

I had spotted the guy before Margorie cantered over to me from the bar, her eyes wide. She skipped like a schoolgirl at recess, nearly barreling me over in tipsy haste. “Melody. Oh my God!” Her words came out in a squeal over the din of bustling students and blaring music.

“Calm down,” I said, smiling but embarrassed at the scene. Nothing to see here, folks. Just another drunk blonde at a college bar. I raised my eyebrows. “Find yourself a mark?”

“Oh, my God. He’s perfect. He’s...” She turned to look over her shoulder at the broad-chested frat boy, still leaning against the bar-top, beer in hand. “Just come on.” She grabbed my hands and began tugging me across the room.

I resisted, ripping from her grip. “Stop it, Margo. I don’t want-”

“You do want. You just don’t know it yet. He asked to meet you!”

“I mean, I appreciate it, but I just broke up with Pa-”

“Paul can go to hell for what he did to you,” she slurred. “And this guy could send him there if he wanted. Would you look at those arms?! He plays football.”

“Fine. He’s cute, I guess. I don’t like meeting guys in bars, though. It’s so…”

Margorie rolled her eyes. “Because meeting them at church worked out so well for you? Right?” She licked her thumb and wiped a presumed blemish from my face like a mother cleaning food off of her child before church. “Let’s just go. You can thank me later.”

“Whatever,” I said, smirking. “But I’m doing this for you. I’ll tell you now, it won’t work.”

Margorie squealed again, scrunching her head down between her shoulders, and baring her teeth in a strange grin as if staring into the sun.

I plastered on my smile and we made our way across the hardwood floors, sticky with beer, sweat, and… God knows what else.

Don’t fall for this guy, Melody. Don’t get hurt again. Don’t-

“Robert!” Margorie said, interrupting my self-taught seminar on prudence. “Oh my God, this is my friend we were talking about. This is Melody.”

Robert cocked his head and smiled—all dimples, cleft chin, deep blue eyes, and a thick wave of neatly combed, dark brown hair. Handsome.

My skin flushed hot with an unexpected excitement. Get it together!

“Melody. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” he said.

Cheesy. “Thanks.” I shuffled my feet nervously but remained otherwise neutral. “So… You go to school here?”

“Yeah … I don’t want to bore you with me, though. Let me get you a beer, and we can talk about you.” Robert motioned for the bartender, who winked knowingly and slid a lager that stopped just short of the half empty glass in his hand.

Cheesier. “Oh, no. Thank you, really, but I don’t drink. Besides, I’m her designated driver. It was nice to meet you, Robert, but it’s actually a little late, and-”

“Let’s at least exchange numbers. I’ll take you out sometime. We can just grab a bite-”

“Sorry, Rob. I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t date guys who drink. I’m afraid we don’t have much in common.”

“Actually, we have three things in common. One: I don’t drink.” Without breaking eye contact, Robert thrust his arm out, sliding his glass over the edge of the bar where it spilled and shattered on the floor. “I just quit… Two: I, too, do not date guys who drink, so we can mark that one off the list.”

The laughter exploded through my chest and out my mouth like a goose who’d been holding in a fit of honks.

Maybe Margo’s right about this one.

#

The rhythmic rattling of labored breath stopped momentarily, then burst out with a cough like gravel in a blender. Something hot and wet dribbled down my cheek, and I lay helpless to do anything about it.

“Oh, goodness, Miss Melody,” said a woman’s voice, echoing in the gray, sightless fog surrounding me. “We got a little spit up, don’t we?”

A warm, damp cloth wiped across my cheek and down into the crevices of my neck.

Bile… So it’s happening. My body’s finally breaking down. I moaned, forcing what little energy I had remaining to alert someone of the radiating pain.

“Here you are, Miss Melody.”

Something touched my lips, and the bitter liquid of that numbingly sweet medicine gathered under my tongue. My breathing leveled out. The burning in my bones began to cool.

The woman’s voice came back. “Hope that makes it better. I sure wish you could see what all these nice folks have brought you. You must be very loved. Very loved, indeed. Someone brought you flowers just this morning. Daisies. They sure are pretty. Just like you…”

Daisies… The words faded as the morphine lulled me back above the clouds.

#

“The football stadium?” I asked as Robert parked the car.

“I know. I said dinner. Don’t worry, though. Just wanted to show you one of my favorite places before we eat.” He walked around to the passenger side and opened my door.

“It looks dark in there. Is anyone else here?”

“You always this worried?” Robert smiled and put a hand on my cheek. “Look at me. It’s fine. Trust me.”

I stepped out of the car and took his hand.

We walked down a pathway lined with white and gold flowers, leading to the towering stadium that had been shrouded in the dark. Only the moonlight reflected shadows across the grass and concrete. The air was crisp but not cold. I couldn’t tell if the gooseflesh on my arms had sprouted from the breeze or the anticipation.

“Whoa, there,” said Robert, startling me as he stopped just before the entrance.

“What?”

“Look. You stepped on it.” Robert bent down and plucked a single daisy by the roots from a disheveled crack in the sidewalk. He picked it up and held it in front of his face, seeming to study the small plant. “This, Melody, is you.”

“The flower? What-?”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s broken,” I replied, flatly.

“Aren’t we all?” He gingerly put the flower in his pocket and continued to walk.

“You’re so, so strange.”

Robert cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t we all?”

We made it between the mammoth concrete pillars, and to a three-foot wall overlooking the field—only a black pit below us in the dark.

Robert heaved himself over and planted his feet on the other side. “Your hand, me lady?” He reached his towards me—palm up.

I pursed my lips and shook my head, but took it, anyway. After my footing found a hold on the descending grassy hill, we stumbled our way to the bottom, together. One last fence separated us from the field.

“That’s the tunnel we run out of at the beginning of each game,” Robert said, pointing to two parallel concrete slabs that jutted out beneath the stadium seats. “Hold on. Stay here.” He ran to the metal bar fence, bolted over it, and then disappeared over and between the entrance to the tunnel.

“Robert? This isn’t funny… Robert?!”

After a minute that seemed like ten, a clunking noise, like a large car door slamming shut, echoed through the stadium and I let out a quick scream.

Lights flickered on around the base of the stadium, illuminating the field with a dim glow.

“Come on,” Robert shouted from below. “It’s easy. Just that one fence, then you’ll see the rest of the way down.”

Oh, dear God, what am I doing? I tossed my heels over the obstacle and climbed to the other side. “Okay, but this is not a normal date, just so you know!”

That’s when I saw it. Sitting in the center of the field was a basket. Robert had already begun walking towards it.

I clambered down to the turf, high heels in hand, and jogged to catch up with him.

“Those are the maintenance lights. They’re on a timer,” Robert said without looking back. “We’ve only got about ten minutes. Come on.”

We arrived at the picnic basket sitting on the center of the fifty-yard line.

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing with one arm.

I did.

He sat next to me. “I wanted to talk about the third thing.”

“What are you going on about now?”

“The third thing we have in common.” Robert reached into the basket and pulled out a bottle of merlot, two glasses, and a corkscrew.

“I said, I don’t drink. Come on, Ro-”

“I know. I guess we’re both about to be liars, too. I told you I quit drinking.” He smirked. “That’s not the thing we have in common, though.” He popped the cork and poured wine in each glass. “I’ve been hurt before, Melody. Like, rip-your-heart-out, stomp-it-to-the-ground bad.” He pulled the smashed daisy from his pocket and studied it again. “Like I said… This is you. You’re beautiful and fragile and perfect. But somebody came along and stepped on you. They crushed you. Made you hesitant, untrusting and… well, you said it—broken.”

A tear pooled and streamed down my cheek, but I said nothing.

“I’m broken, too. Can we just be … broken together? We can learn to trust and be ourselves and live. And I can make you a promise right now. I will never step on your heart. You can be my Melody. The song I’ll always sing… better than any Patsy Cline or Bob Dylan could ever dream up. What do you say?”

I wiped tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. “I say, let’s have a drink.”

We raised our glasses and sipped wine as the lights on the field clunked themselves off.

Robert cupped a hand behind my head, and we kissed under a blanket of stars on the fifty-yard line.

That one kiss led to twenty-three years of marriage, three kids, four homes, and one terminal illness that would steal him from me. The strong arms I’d first glimpsed so many years before had diminished. His voice, once booming with laughter, had been stifled out to a painful whisper. My one and only love had gone…

For his sickness, I was there.

For mine, only his memory.

#

My body heaved and fought its natural decline with fits of seizing breaths.

Hands of loved ones touched me, and their voices tried to sooth through tears of letting go. The departure seemed so violent and heartbreaking, but my pain had left me. I’m okay, now.

When the heaving finally subsided, I let out one last breath—there was silence.

Then…

“Melody?”

I stood up on the turf, just outside the tunnel.

“Robert? Robert?!” I ran to him—the man waiting on me.

He spread his arms wide, standing just ahead on the fifty-yard line, a bottle of red wine in his hand, a daisy in the other. “Oh, Melody.” His powerful arms wrapped around me tight. “I never left you.”

He held the perfectly healthy flower out to me, tears in his eyes. “See? We’re no longer broken.”