But even his daughter’s intimate position with her boyfriend didn’t penetrate Mike’s attention to what was happening across the room from Reesee and Fin.
His eyes took it in and his chest tightened as he saw, sitting across from each other, Dusty perched on the arm of the couch, No opposite her on the arm of an armchair, his acoustic guitar on his thigh, his hands moving but his grinning face was turned to Dusty.
She was smiling back at him while singing.
Mike felt electricity prickle his skin as he moved to the double doors and leaned against the jamb to listen.
No had that guitar for years. It was the first one Mike bought for him. He got it when he was twelve, he started playing it immediately and not then or since had he had a single lesson. He just took to it. Mike didn’t understand it but the same happened the year after when Mike bought him the set of drums he’d been asking for. They set them up and No started banging immediately. Within minutes it sounded less like banging and more like music. He’d never had a lesson with those either. He just had it in him, it was his way. As with Reesee, their talent was natural.
And the same was true with Dusty.
He’d heard her sing, not recently but when she was younger he heard it all the time. Though he’d never heard her sing a song like she was singing now.
K’s Choice, “Not an Addict”.
It was an intense, seriously f**king fantastic song and Dusty’s pure voice made it sweeter.
What it was not was a happy song.
She always used to sing happy songs. He remembered once walking into the farmhouse decades ago and hearing her singing Katrina and The Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”, swinging her ass and singing loud as she washed the inside windows. It was a gray day, thundercloud hanging low, storms that would eventually come but at that moment were only threatening the sky outside.
The minute he’d walked inside, Mike remembered, hearing her voice singing that song, the world brightened.
But even though he knew the subject matter wasn’t something she had experience with, the song she was singing right then sounded like it was made for her.
Mike watched his woman and his son having their moment, eyes locked, mouths curved and everyone had melted away. It was just them, his strumming, her voice, in their element. As the song progressed, No’s guitar became more powerful and Dusty’s voice increased in depth, volume and they were both gently swaying their torsos simultaneously to a beat they felt internally seeing as they didn’t have drums.
All eyes in the room were glued to them. Even Rivera and Jerra’s kids were motionless and mesmerized.
As was Mike.
And it hit him then, something he’d known for twenty-five years about Dusty but something he only understood right at that moment about the three people most important in his life. Dusty’s voice, her pottery, her drawings, her writing. His son’s drums, guitar, keyboards. His daughter’s writing. He was surrounded by people who were extraordinarily gifted. Everything they did was beyond the pale. His life was touched all around with genius.
And Mike knew what he was seeing and how it made him feel was burning itself on his brain forever. Because in that moment, watching and listening, he was profoundly moved that God had seen fit to gift him, an ordinary man, an Indiana boy through and through, with these people in his life.
And he understood then what he never did. Why he called Dusty “Angel”. Because with her gifts given to her straight from God, that was precisely what she was.
The phone rang but the only one who moved was Fin. He got up and silently walked out of the room, catching Mike’s eyes and giving him a chin lift as he went to the table in the hall that had a cordless phone in a charger.
Mike looked from Fin back into the living room. No’s hand was a blur as he strummed the repeating chords to the end of the song then laid his hand against the strings, halting the music and he smiled huge at Mike’s woman.
“Sing it again, Auntie Dusty!” Adriana, Jerra and Rivera’s six year old little girl shrieked, clapping her hands.
Dusty started, Adriana’s voice reminding her there were people around and she turned her head to the little girl and smiled at her. Then her eyes tipped up, caught on Mike, he watched her face get soft and her smile got bigger.
Yes, God had been generous to Mike Haines.
“How about Soundgarden?” Reesee called out, “Dusty, do you know ‘Fell on Black Days’?”
Instantly No started the opening chords of the song Rees was talking about. Dusty looked to Rees as Mike felt something intangible but foreboding coming from beside him and he looked to his left. He saw Fin moving down the hall toward the kitchen, phone to his ear and something about Fin’s posture made Mike’s eyes narrow on his back. He couldn’t see anything particular but he could feel it.
“I can give it a go,” Dusty answered Rees and Mike looked back into the room.
Then she “gave it a go”. Rees’s choice was excellent. Simple, disconsolate words, No’s guitar and Dusty’s pure, sweet voice making a phenomenal song even better.
But this time, that something he felt from Fin nagging at Mike, when they were in the second verse, Mike tore his eyes off Dusty and No and looked down the hall. He saw nothing then Fin paced across the kitchen doorway, one fist to his hip, the phone to his other ear, neck bent, eyes to the ground. He was in profile and Mike couldn’t catch his expression but he did note Fin’s jaw was hard. Then Mike watched Fin pace out of sight.
Even without being able to see Fin’s expression, his movements, posture and hard jaw made Mike push away from the jamb and move down the hall toward the kitchen.
He got into the room to see Fin standing at an angle to the kitchen table, his back to Mike, his head up, his eyes across the room and he heard Fin say in a low, rumbling, pissed off voice, “Dad’s dead. Ma’s practically dead. And now, you are totally dead.”
Then he beeped off the phone, turned on his foot and spied Mike.
Mike braced at the look of sheer fury on the boy’s face.
“Fin –” he started low but Fin moved.
Swiftly, Fin’s long legs took him through the kitchen, past Mike and down the hall.
Mike followed just as swiftly. But even so, he was too late. After seeing that look on his face, Mike should have caught Fin in the kitchen. Unfortunately he didn’t and when Fin hit the living room, his fury unleashed.
“You’ve lost your f**kin’ mind!” he roared, No stopped playing, Dusty stopped singing and all eyes went to Fin but Fin’s eyes were locked on Rhonda.