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“Wandering child of the Earth
Do you know just how much you’re worth?”
---
Emily looked down at the baby that had just been placed in her arms, at his tiny hands and the tuft of brown hair on his head, his eyes clenched shut. She held him close to her chest, entire body filled with so much love for this small creature, this child she'd recently given birth to. He was a blessing, a miracle that she had just about given up on ever happening. The dawn of something that she had hardly dared to hope for. He was perfect. He was hers.
And his name was Luke.
---
“You have walked this path since your birth
You were destined for more.”
---
Mitch was dancing around the kitchen, Luke held in his arms. Her husband was making silly faces to entertain the toddler, crooning lyrics into his ear, and Luke was babbling along joyfully. Crossing her arms, Emily leaned against the door frame, simply watching the boys in her life bond. There was a ball of warmth and light in the center of her chest, and her heart felt like it could burst.
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but not because she was sad. No, in fact, Emily was pretty sure she had never been this happy.
Swiping her fingers under her eyes to catch the tears before they could fall, Emily walked into the room. She turned up the radio and then hugged Mitch, sandwiching Luke between them, and together the three of them swayed to the music.
---
“There are those who'll tell you you're wrong
They will try to to silence your song
But right here is where you belong
So don't search anymore.”
---
On the first day of kindergarten, Luke would not let go of her leg. He held on with all the strength of his four years, and any time anyone tried to pry him off, he would just start to scream. Eventually he grew tired, and they were able to get him to let go. He still cried though, and Emily could have sworn her heart was breaking as she walked away.
On his second day of kindergarten, Emily was prepared for the same situation as the time before. It looked like that was how it was going to go, too, because Luke was clutching tightly to her pant leg as they walked into the room. When she started trying to loosen his grip, she could see him gearing up to scream.
It was then that another parent walked in. At first Emily thought he was going to drop off something for one of the students already there, because he didn’t seem to have a child with him, but then Luke was letting go of her pants and running out the door behind him. Before she could start to panic, he reappeared, hand in hand with a little blond boy who must’ve been the man’s son.
Luke beamed up at her, waving their clasped hands in the air. “Mom, this is Alex! He’s my best friend!”
Emily covered her mouth for a moment and then tucked her hair behind her ear, chuckling a little. “It’s very nice to meet you, Alex.” Turning to Luke, she raised her eyebrows a bit. “See you at pick-up?”
Luke just nodded as quick as he could and ran off, pulling Alex behind him.
---
“You are the dawn of a new day that's waking
A masterpiece still in the making
The blue in an ocean of grey.”
---
In the third grade, Emily bought Luke an acoustic guitar. He’d been not-so-slyly asking to play an instrument since Alex’s family had gotten him a set of drums over the summer, and after a few weeks of his puppy-dog eyes on full force, Mitch and her had signed him up for some guitar lessons. He’d fallen in love instantly, and even though the lessons were only once a week, he would talk about them for days afterwards. His enthusiasm didn’t wane as the months went on, only seeming to grow, so Luke’s Christmas present that year was a guitar of his choice and an extra hour of lessons a week.
He brought that guitar with him everywhere, even school, and started having more play dates at Alex’s house so they could play their instruments together. She loved it, loved hearing him make music, loved seeing him care so much about something. Everyone needed a hobby, and music was a wonderful one to have.
---
“You are right where you need to be
Poised to inspire and to succeed
You'll look back and you'll realize one day.”
---
As the years went by, Luke spent less and less time with his parents. Gone were the days of kitchen dance parties and of hearing all about his day. When she asked him a question, she practically had to drag the answers out of him. All he seemed to want to do was play his guitar in his room, or hang out with Alex and Bobby.
Emily had known it was coming, had known that her miracle baby would grow up into a miraculous boy, and that preteens weren’t ones to spend their free time with their parents, but it still hurt to see it happen. Still hurt to see him pull away, to change and grow, all out of her line of sight. How could she have gone from counting his baby teeth to only knowing he’d grown when his pants were noticeably inches short?
How had the years flown by so quickly?
It was that year, in the seventh grade, that Luke first shared a song with her. It had a simple melody and lyrics about finding solace in music, and she had heard him playing it before he ever played it for her, humming it at dinner and trying out lyrics in his room at night. She was still so proud of him, Alex, and Bobby when they invited her over to watch them perform it together, though. Luke might have been pulling away from her, but he was saying all he needed to in song.
She would listen to the music he made, and find her own solace in the words he could sing but not say.
---
“In your eyes there is doubt
As you try to figure it out
But that's not what life is about
So have faith, there's a way.”
---
Reggie joined the band in freshman year. Him and Luke had been paired up during ice breakers in English class, and had immediately hit it off once they’d realised they both played instruments. Or at least, that’s what Emily thought had happened. Luke had spat out the story quite quickly before asking if Reggie could come over after school tomorrow and then heading up to his room.
At dinner the next day, Emily watched the way her son acted with Reggie. He was more animated than she’d seen him in a while, even when talking to Alex about music. Maybe it was that Reggie was new, and thus Luke could impress him with the things that Alex already knew, but it seemed… more than that.
When Reggie laughed at a joke Luke made, Luke’s cheeks had flushed bright red and he’d grinned wider than Emily had ever seen without a guitar in his hand. She shared a look with Mitch, her son oblivious to the silent conversation. He only had eyes for the boy in front of him.
Emily wondered if Luke even knew that he had a crush. Either way, Reggie being over for dinner meant that Luke was engaging in conversation. She didn’t really care too much about why, she was just happy to hear him talk, to listen to her son ramble on and on. She hadn’t heard it in a while, and neither had Mitch. Her little boy was growing up and carving his own path, and she might have been missing out on a lot of it right now, but she couldn’t wait to watch him grow into a young man.
---
“Though the world may try to define you
It can't take the light that's inside you
So don't you dare try to hide
Let your fears fade away.”
---
When Emily caught Luke and Alex making out, she was, to say the least, surprised. She had knocked on his door to let the boys know that dinner was ready, but she had gotten no response. Assuming they’d fallen asleep or were too absorbed in their homework (she remembered eleventh grade, and how boring english class was) Emily had just… opened the door. And there were Luke and Alex, laying on the bed.
They hadn’t noticed that she’d poked her head in, so she quickly and quietly shut the door and then knocked again, loud as she could. “Boys, it’s dinner.”
Muffled by the door between them, Luke let her know they would be down in a minute.
Emily headed back down stairs, still a bit frozen with shock. She walked over to Mitch, placing a hand on his shoulder and going up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “You’ll never guess what I just saw.”
He turned around and wrapped her in a hug, holding her tight. “And what would that be?”
She waited a moment, relaxing into his embrace and soaking in the feeling of safety that his arms provided before blurting it out. “I saw Alex and Luke kissing.”
Mitch pulled away, looking at her with wide eyes. She just smiled, laughing a little at his expression, and kissed him on the nose. “I guess we had the wrong boys coupled together, huh?”
“Huh- that’s. Wow. Really?”
Emily laughed again, finally pulling away from the hug and heading to her place at the table. When the boys came down, she could see Mitch’s eyes flicking between them as if he was searching for something that would give it away. She knew Luke though, knew that he wouldn’t leave any clues. He’d probably never tell them about whatever it was he had with Alex, because that wasn’t who he was. He didn’t talk to them, really, unless it was about music. And then there was the added element of coming out as gay, and how telling them would also tell them Alex was gay. There were a lot of reasons why he would never tell them, and Emily understood that.
That didn’t mean that she didn’t like knowing, though, or that she didn’t wish that Luke would tell them. Emily loved him, so much. She would always love him. She just wished that she could know him a bit better, that he would let her in and open up.
Maybe when he was older, once he got out of his teens.
---
“You are the dawn of a new day that's waking
A masterpiece still in the making
The blue in an ocean of grey.”
---
Sunset Curve was getting big. They had started booking actual gigs, not just book clubs and parking lots, and Luke was over the moon. Emily loved to see him happy, she did, but she didn’t understand why he couldn’t just go to school . It was six hours a day, five days a week, and then homework. It wasn’t all that much time, and it still left ages for him to focus on music. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t do both. They’d been fighting about it for weeks now, his skipping school for music. The fights never went anywhere, just left them both angry, but neither of them were able to see where the other was coming from.
Emily had gotten a call yesterday that Luke had skipped so many of his last period classes that unless he attended every single one of them for the rest of the term, he would automatically fail the class. They had fought about it last night, Luke not understanding why the careers class was so important when he was skipping it to work on his career. She had screamed that his music wasn’t a career, and Luke had shut down and stalked silently up the stairs to his room. An hour ago she had gotten a call, saying that he hadn’t been in his last period class.
She waited in the living room, in the chair by the christmas tree, until he came home. Mitch was working an evening shift that day, and wouldn’t be home until close to one. Emily had thought that Luke would be home well before then, so when she sat down at five she figured she wouldn’t be waiting that long.
She ended up waiting so long that she fell asleep.
When Luke came in, it was nearing midnight. He’d tried to be stealthy but the creak of the door had woken Emily up, and when he turned on the lamp to hang up his coat, she had stood.
They had screamed. Oh, how they’d screamed. Neither one of them listening to the other as they hurled words back and forth, the fight following them around the house. Emily hadn’t even realised what was happening until they returned to the living room, Luke grabbing his guitar from the door, a bag already slung over his back.
“When you’re living under my roof, you’ll follow my rules! This is not up for debate, Luke!”
He grabbed one of his sweaters off the back of a chair and turned to the door. “Then I guess I don’t live under your roof anymore, mom .”
She froze, the blood draining from her face, and all the fight left her in an instant. Regaining her wits, she ran after him. She was too late, though. Luke was on his bike already, flying down the road. She screamed after him, begging him to stop. He just kept going, not even looking back.
It was then that Mitch drove up. He parked the car and got out, walking over to Emily where she stood sobbing on the end of their driveway. She tried to explain between the sobs, voice nearly unintelligible through all the tears. He must have understood at least somewhat, because he took her into his arms and cradled her to his chest, not saying anything.
---
“You are right where you need to be
Poised to inspire and to succeed
You'll look back and you'll realize one day.”
---
Christmas without Luke was awful. New Year’s without him was worse. By Easter, the ache in Emily’s chest was ever present. Every day that went by killed her a little bit more. They put up missing posters in May, after Luke had fully dropped out of school and when Alex, Reggie, and Bobby stopped popping by to pick things up and let them know that their son was okay. Emily thought that nothing could hurt more than that, more than the fact that her son was missing, and she was the reason he had run.
When the fourth of July came and went, the fear that she had lost her son forever started to consume her. She did little other than knit, sitting in the chair that she’d sat in on that fateful night and hoping against hope that her son would walk through the door. She would give anything, she would give everything , to go back and do that night over again. To not just talk, but to listen. She would give it all, for a chance to have her son back. She would give it all.
---
On July 22nd, 1995, Emily Patterson broke.
---
They buried them together, Luke, Alex, and Reggie. Side by side, like they had always been in life.
---
The guilt was overwhelming, overshadowed only by the pain. Both became constants in Emily’s life, never a day where her heart didn’t feel like it was breaking all over again. She found what little comfort she could in Mitch, the only constant in her life that wasn’t bad. The guilt clouded her mind, though. She didn’t feel worthy of his comfort, when she was the reason their son had run. When she was the reason that Luke was-
So she pulled away. She retreated into her head, a shell of herself, of who she used to be. She spent her days remembering, remembering to forget. To pretend that Luke was just at school, or with the band. That he would be back that night. She spent her days pretending that everything was fine.
And she spent her nights breaking, again and again, when her fantasies proved to be just that. When he didn’t come back home. When she was forced to remember, forced to concede that her son, her miraculous, musical baby boy, was-
Emily broke, over and over, until she couldn’t break anymore.
Until there was nothing of her left to break.
---
Therapy helped. Mitch had started going in the middle of August, but Emily hadn’t been there, been present enough in her head to accept any offer of help. When she ended up in the hospital though, malnourished and dehydrated despite her husband’s best efforts to help in the face of his own torment, she hadn’t had a choice any longer.
Therapy helped, helped to fix some of her broken pieces. Helped to see that she hadn’t ki-
That it wasn't because of her that Luke was de-
Therapy helped her to see that it wasn’t her fault, at least not all of it. It helped her get back to Mitch, and get back to herself. Emily would never be the woman she had been, but she didn’t have to be the woman she was becoming, either.
Nothing, though, could have helped her through October.
They got a cake, chocolate with chocolate frosting. They stuck a candle in the middle and lit it, staring at each other across the table with tears streaming down their faces. Together, they blew it out. Emily gripped Mitch’s hand like it was the only thing keeping her on Earth. Maybe it was.
Therapy helped, but nothing could help them through celebrating the birthday of a boy who hadn’t lived to be eighteen.
---
“You are the dawn of a new day that's waking
A masterpiece still in the making
The blue in an ocean of grey.”
---
Years went by, and Emily grew around her pain. It would always be there, and so would the guilt, but slowly she learned to live with it. She started donating to music charities, to fundraisers for instruments in schools and for underprivileged children. She volunteered at the performances held by the studio where Luke used to do lessons, told his story to kids like he had been, so in love with music that it was clear they were destined to make it.
For the first year, she had kept in contact with Bobby. He was all that was left of Sunset Curve, all that was left of her son’s goals in life. He had been their friend, their brother, and the grief he felt was something that Emily understood. He had faded away soon after, though. Disappeared much like Luke had done when he’d run away. When Emily had practically kicked him out.
Every year on his birthday, her and Mitch would buy his favourite cake and light a candle, blowing it out together. Making the same wish every time.
Christmases never went back to what they had been, the holiday only dredging up painful memories.
And on July 22nd, Mitch and Emily both took the day off whatever they were doing. They would stay at home, together, and listen to the Sunset Curve demo that Bobby had given them, and then they would visit the graves and talk to their boy and his boys about the world and their lives. They were always crying when they got home to make Luke's favourite meal for dinner, but there was something comforting in the idea that Luke might be listening.
They’d had seventeen years with their baby, with their Luke, and for twenty-five years the Patterson’s learned how to live when the person that they’d lived for couldn’t. But not even a lifetime could change the fact that Emily would trade all she had for just one more day with her son, for just one more moment.
---
“It’s… a song about a girl named Emily?”
Her heart dropped out of her chest, grief stabbing her anew. She looked up at Mitch, tears forming in her eyes. “… I’m Emily”
The girl, Julie, handed the paper to her. “Then I think your son may have written this song for you.”
As she looked down at the lyrics on the sheet in front of her, she couldn’t contain her tears. The title was underlined, pushed deep into the paper. “Unsaid Emily.” It felt like she was back in 1995, a police officer knocking on her door. Luke’s handwriting was just shy of illegible, words scribbled out and replaced all over the page, but it was so clearly his . Before he’d died, Luke had written her a song.
And in it was everything that she wished she could have said to him. She could almost hear him singing it, echoes of his voice in her ears. “ If I could take us back, if I could just do that… And write in every empty space, the words I love you in replace, then maybe time would not erase me… ”
He hadn’t hated her, when he’d died. He hadn’t been torn from this world resenting her. He had forgiven her, at least in part.
He had loved her still.
She thought back to the first time she’d held him, her little boy just a few minutes old. To the small tuft of brown hair on his head, and how his eyes were screwed tightly shut as she’d cradled him to her chest. How so very tiny he was.
And how much she’d loved him, from that very first second.
Luke was a name of origins, of dawn. Of death. But it was also a name of resurrection. Luke may have died, but he lived on every day in her memory, and in his writing. His music was an extension of him, a little piece of himself that he put into every song.
She would never stop grieving for him, could never stop grieving for him, but she could keep his memory alive. Luke wanted to change the world with his music, to connect with other people. Emily had been trying to give that opportunity to others, to share the thing that had brought her son so much joy. To connect with him in whatever way she could, to make up for all the years she hadn’t tried enough, all the years she had lost.
Julie had just given her a priceless gift, by giving her this song.
Julie had given her another moment with her son.
---
“You are right where you need to be
Poised to inspire and to succeed
Soon you'll finally find your own way…”