I felt a lump pushing against my throat.
“It’s in his blood. The showmanship and the need to entertain,” she went on. The breeze whipped her silver strands against her thin shoulders. “He was born to perform. He didn’t even know he had a voice to go with his charisma until he turned twelve, but he was always hungry for attention and to make people smile.”
“He’s got an amazing sense of humor,” I agreed. “I’ve laughed with him more than I have my entire life.”
“That’s my boy.” Janet nodded.
Just like Frank, she was full of light. Lots of it. Bright and warm.
“Will you tell me about him?” I asked. “What was he like when he was a kid?”
“Sweet. Radiant. Different.” Her breath caught and she took another sip of coffee.
I waited.
Frank had a habit of dropping very personal things on me at the most random times, as if he didn’t have any memories of those events and felt compelled to share them as soon as they resurfaced in his mind in case they disappeared again.
The picture of him in my head still missed a few pieces, and I wanted to find them. I wanted to see him whole. I wanted to see who he was beyond his years and scars.
“Billy and I couldn’t have kids,” Janet began. “We tried to conceive for so long, but the medicine wasn’t as advanced in our day.” A sad smile twisted her lips. “At some point, we gave up on the idea and decided to foster a child to see if it was something that could become a long-term arrangement. You’re not always sure if it’s going to work when you plan on taking a stranger in. I wasn’t exactly young or fit to care for a baby anymore, so we thought it would be best to find someone a little older. Preschool age. The moment I saw Frankie, I knew he was the one. The way he looked at me made me want to hug him and never let go. Please love me, his eyes had said. We didn’t look back after we brought him home with us. He was such a good, loving boy, and he made us extremely happy.”
My chest expanded from the onslaught of emotions. The world was strange. How could this woman love someone else’s child so selflessly while a man like my father couldn’t care to stick around to watch his own kids grow? A whimper gathered in my lungs and I had to bite my lip to prevent it from breaking through.
“Billy was still touring then.” Janet lowered the mug to her lap and stared at the stretch of ocean in front of us. “Sometimes he brought Frank along to help out. They developed this strange bond that occasionally made me a little jealous.” She laughed softly.
“When Frank was eighteen, he went with us to Los Angeles, where Billy’s band played a show on Sunset Strip. That’s where he met Dante, whose band was on the bill along with my husband’s. They were all green and very bad. I don’t think any of them ever made it in the music business except for Dante. That boy didn’t fit in with those guys. Even back then, he was impressive. He played like he’d been possessed by the devil himself. It’s the kind of talent that comes around once every few decades if we’re lucky. A couple of months later, after we returned to Arizona, Frank approached me and said, Mom, I want to move to Los Angeles and play music.”
Janet stopped and her gaze swept over to me. “So I gave him five hundred dollars and I let him go. The rest is history.” When she finished, there was a smile on her face. Covert but real. A smile of love and adoration that I could feel wrap around my thundering heart and whisper a soft lullaby.
“My son is very lucky,” Janet said. “With everything that happened to him after the accident…” Her voice faltered. “Not everyone has the guts to do what he’s done. Pick himself up and move on with his life. Not after the kind of pain and suffering he’s been through.”
I held the oxygen in my lungs because I was scared my breath would disturb the fine balance between us.
“The only things he never had luck with were women and dating.” She shook her head. “My Frankie never knew how to choose them. I always told him to find a nice girl and he always went for the most scandalous and most unavailable. Imagine my shock when he told me he’d met someone who wasn’t another celebrity.”
A flutter filled my stomach.
“I’m aware of your arrangement with my son”—Janet moved closer—“and I appreciate you honoring his condition. He can’t go through another round of public relationships after everything that happened between him and his ex-wife.”
At that moment, I wondered if Janet knew about Dante, but my tongue remained idle. I didn’t want to open Pandora’s box by bringing it up.
“He looks so happy when he’s with you,” she whispered. “There’s a calmness in you, child. You balance him out. That’s exactly what he needs.”
Blush hit my cheeks. “Thank you.”
We chatted for a little while longer, until another wave of exhaustion finally swept me under. I returned to the bedroom and curled up next to Frank. With my eyes closed, I listened to him breathe. I listened to every inhale and exhale carefully. I waited for a sound that would tell me he wasn’t okay, but it never came. The stress lines on his face were gone and pink colored his cheeks.
“I know you can’t hear me right now,” I mouthed as my gaze followed a stray ray of light dancing across his forehead. “But I love you.”
I wasn’t sure why I said it, but I was sure I felt it.
I’d loved him even before I knew him. I’d fallen in love with his voice and his music years ago. I
