The Calling ( 8 ) : A beautiful melody drifts on the air from somewhere far away. The vocals are in a language you don't quite recognize, but feel somehow familiar to you. Something about the song calls to you, but no matter where you go, the song seems to sound the same distance away. The longer it goes on, the more emotional the song becomes--and the more emotional you become. Something about the song is possessive and consuming, like it's all you can think of. Something resonates in you as the song crescendos, and the feeling is at its strongest--be they good, bad, anything, but suddenly the song fades, and there's only an emptiness inside of you. The feeling of loss is strong, and can leave someone feeling emotionally numb. Someone out there was calling to you, and you couldn't find them.
A soft, lilting melody crept in through the open balcony door.
It broke the relative silence of the room—Lulu was quietly snoozing in her bed while Mel was curled up with her sketchbook. It caught her attention immediately, and she glanced toward the apparent source of it. It wasn't like the last time, so she wasn't about to get up and chase it down to the front of her apartment again, but the longer she listened the more she settled back into those same emotions it pulled out of her then.
Loss and grief. Longing and loneliness.
She closed her eyes and let the melody sink into her.
Those same memories came as well. Flashes of a childhood with a family she never got the chance to really know. Vague voices that were probably her parents. The sound of children laughing. The feeling of being tossed in the air and safely caught again. The warmth of being pulled into someone's arms. Fragments of a life that she had but couldn't fully remember.
Mel never let herself linger too long on these thoughts, though it was mostly out of fear of getting stuck with questions she may not ever find answers for. When they came—and they did, every once in a while—she allowed herself just a few seconds with them. Maybe out of respect for her birth parents, since it was the only thing she had of them. Or maybe because she didn't want to truly forget about them, even if the memories weren't at all clear, or even really whole.
But right then, for whatever reason, she couldn't bring herself to just let them slip by. Her chest wrenched a dozen times over as she sat there, tears slowly welling and eventually trailing down her cheeks. She took a shaky breath, lips trembling as she sat with her thoughts.
As she let the questions form.
As she let the longing of wanting to know finally take hold.
She felt Lulu nose her way onto her lap, decidedly plopping herself onto the sketchbook and nuzzling against Mel's stomach once she got settled. Mel opened her eyes and gave her pup a small, very watery smile, and reached up to run her free hand—Lulu was lying on the other one—through her fur.
"Thanks, girl," she whispered, taking what comfort she could in that moment. Her eyes caught briefly on the little ice cream charm Lulu sniffed out the day before. She pinned it to her pup's collar as a prize after cleaning it off. Remembering her pup's excitement about the whole thing steadied her just a little bit more.
The melody had gone by then, and so had the memories, but the questions remained.
What happened to them? Where were they? Were they still alive? Did they remember her? And would they...
Her hand stilled as the question fully formed in her mind. She hesitated at the thought of it, swallowing the suddenly very solid lump in her throat. She considered the question for a long moment and almost regretted finally giving in to these thoughts, these...memories, if that's what they really were. If she wasn't just imagining it, if her mind wasn't just filling in some blanks.
Lulu shifted in her spot, moving so she could nuzzle into Mel's hand as if demanding that she continue petting her. The gesture was familiar, and Mel couldn't help but smile and give in to the quiet little demand. As she did, she cleared her throat and, after a moment's consideration, asked the question out loud.
"Would they want to meet me?"
The question itself scared her, never mind the answer to it, but asking out loud seemed to almost...cheer her up a little bit. Like it somehow bolstered what little confidence she had in the answer to that question being "yes" if she ever found it. It was the first time, after all, that she let herself ask any questions about any of it.
And that was simply because from the moment that she learned the truth she realized that she was the luckiest person in the world.
She grew up in a loving home. Her parents chose her and raised her as one of their own. Her brothers accepted her from day one. The idea of hurting them, even now, was unbearable. And each time those memories surface she could never bring herself to even want to ask because it somehow felt like she was being selfish. Ungrateful.
Lulu let out a huff and shifted her lap.
Mel let out an amused huff of her own as she scratched behind one of the pup's ears.
Maybe it was okay for her to want to ask now, though.
Even if the answers wouldn't be worth it. Even if she never found them.
Because no answer would ever change the fact that she loved her family. She knew that, and she knew they did, too.
So...maybe now it was okay.
Maybe now she could ask the first question.
Maybe now she could take that first step.
850 (gdocs)
