The Singers Heart

‘I’m so sorry for your loss Mrs Hewitt,’ the young doctor looked at the floor, you could tell this was all new to him, giving people this kind of news was never going to be easy. That was the first night I dreamt of you, not that I realised the significance then nor for a while after that.

I had to keep living, that’s what everyone told me, but how can you keep going when your best friend, soul mate, hell even partner in crime is gone just like that. We had no warning, he wasn’t ill he was just driving home from work one day and then he was gone. Everyone rallied round to start with, friends helped with the kids so I could have some head space, but I didn’t want head space I just wanted my husband back. We’d been together since school, married for thirteen years and best friends for longer then I could remember, we never talked about life without each other it just didn’t even enter the atmosphere. But here I was a widow with two children to raise and absolutely no idea how to do this.

I remember waking that first morning without him, the dream still in my head clear as day, you know that time when you are still half asleep before the dream disappears and you can’t remember it at all, I recalled the boy in it, so familiar I almost thought you were Luke, but like all dreams it faded and my day continued on in a haze of not knowing what I was doing. My life was lived on autopilot then and to a certain extent still is now I suppose, but there was always this ever pressing feeling like it wasn’t complete. The kids coped better then I did or maybe they just adjusted to me being mum and dad for them, either way they suddenly grew up a lot quicker then we would have liked, but they couldn’t help me I was lost.

You kept coming to me in my dreams, I’d notice you out the corner of my eye, you were younger then though but it was seven years ago now, it took me a while to realise you weren’t Luke, you’d never quite be there you see always seeming to be on the peripheral edge, not quite in focus. Sleep was my escape, I was at peace there, I could hear him sing, but it was never quite the same, there was always something slightly off. I could never play his music once he had gone, it hurt too much, that was all that Luke lived for in the beginning, he sang constantly to nobody, he had a gentle voice but no confidence, I tried for years to get him to sing to people. It was only when our daughter was born that he found something, he would sing to her anywhere, no matter who was watching or where we were he sang. Someone heard him and before we knew what had happened he was playing for other people, nothing huge wasn’t one of those movie moments but it was enough. His voice filled the house, his words, his songs and just him. He became larger then life and loved every second of it.

Lily and Alex were the same, their love for everything about music was overwhelming, the house was always full of it, it was five years four months and three days since Luke had left us, I had come home from work early for the first time in months. Alex was cooking and Lily was doing her homework, I froze as soon as I walked through the door, my heart breaking as the voice flowed through me from her room. I barely made it upstairs without crying and into her room, ‘Mum, you made me jump, you ok?’ Lily looked up startled as I burst through the door, the music dulled and I was able to breath again. ‘Please don’t play his music Lily, pop head phones in if you want to listen to his songs,’ it was an unwritten rule in this house, I just couldn’t not yet and maybe not ever. She looked at me confused, ‘Mum this isn’t dad’s music, its a guy called Tom Reed, similar aren’t they, maybe that’s why I like him,’ she handed me the leaflet and I just stared at it. Walking out of her room still staring at it, I didn’t hear her behind me asking for it back, it was you, you were there on the paper staring up at me, those blue eyes piercing through mine. I had seen you before, so many times, where had I seen you?

As I sat there on the bed with the paper in hand, of course I knew you those eyes which had haunted my dreams for five years were now in front of me. That night you were there agian, no corporal vision this time though you were clear as day, and as you took the seat in the bar guitar in hand I felt a hand hold mine, the warmth he emitted was indescribable, ‘not bad is he’ Luke’s words filled my ears making way only for the music. ‘Looking from the window above, its like a story of love, can you hear me?’ My heart skipped a beat, it was our song, and your voice, so soft so much like his, I looked to my side and he was gone, that was the one and only time he ever visited my dreams, you’d think that the life we had shared he would have always been there in this world and the next, but it was like there was no need for him to be, he had shown me you and I had heard you.

I woke the next morning, and something had clicked, all those years wondering, I now knew who you were but why did I know you, why were you so familiar. I called the hospital, I had to know, ‘I’m sorry Mrs Hewitt, the records are sealed its patient confidentiality, I can’t divulge those details to you’, I hung up there was no point pushing, so instead I needed to find you. Overnight I had been given a purpose, and now I needed it to be confirmed. I spent the day looking up where you were singing, you’d moved up a bit from pub stools, I found a concert not to far away that still had spaces. So I booked myself and Lily tickets, Adam was way to cool to come to something like that with us, but I did offer to get him separate tickets if he wanted to go, but he opted for a night in with mates and pizza.

That was the first of your shows I went to see, but I couldn’t get close enough to get you to notice, or maybe you did and just thought I was an insane middle aged fan of yours and needed to be avoided. Every time you played close enough that I could get there I booked a ticket, you were there in my dreams nearly every night now, your voice playing sometimes softly and others I was right next to you, I felt like I knew you. There were times when I was the only person in the dream that you would sing to, but you never sung our song again. This is the fifth show of yours that I’ve been to, I knew it had to happen, we had to meet, so after the last song I made my way out to the back to watch you coming off stage. ‘Tom, Tom Reed’ I yelled but the barriers were there, I looked at the security guard his back to me, so I jumped straight over the top, ‘Tom please,’ but you just kept going, the guard was almost on me as I was pushing my way towards you, ‘Thomas James Reed,’ I yelled holding my breath. ‘Then you stopped and turned staring at me,’ I looked up into the eyes that had been an ever presence in my dreams for the last seven years and the voice that had haunted my heart.

Tom sat opposite me, he hadn’t said a word the whole time I had been speaking, but he was there and somehow he knew me too.

He just smiled when I stopped, ‘its been seven years, eight months, two weeks and three days since I first met you,’ he spoke softly.

He recounted how he had been a sporty child, growing up playing football loving being outside and generally one of the lads, he had become ill when he was fifteen, his heart was failing from a congenital disease that had been there since birth. He went from playing sports for his school and county to not being able to climb a set of stairs, ‘by the time the transplant became available I was nearly gone, I had been in hospital for months, your husband saved my life.’ His face had suddenly softened, ‘there is nothing I can say to help with your loss, the first night I dreamt of you was right after my transplant, you stood by the window of a record shop looking at a poster of Luke, I'm weird and remember and record my dreams. It was an old shop, folksy almost, but there you stood your back to me.' I smiled and nodded I had had that dream to, 'that was the third time I saw you I think, I just caught your reflection in the window but by the time I had turned you were gone.'

We recounted the stories of the dreams we had shared, never interacting but always aware of each other none the less. 'It was like the light had gone out on sports, I just wasn't interested in them anymore, I became some what of a loner, realising that my friends and I had nothing in common anymore. I turned to music about six months after, I had always like music but my taste had completely changed as well, it was now much more accoustic, softer music.' He started to recount, 'I was searching through old music,' he said with a grimace, 'I came upon Only You, I started to sing it and it was like I had woken up all over again.' I laughed, that was exactly how Luke had described singing once, like waking up all over again without really realising you'd been asleep.

'That night did you dream about the pub?' he asked tentitively, I nodded slowly, 'that was the first time I really sung it, does it count if it was in a dream?' I laughed and nodded, of course it counted, it counted to us, 'that guy that stood next to you, it was Luke wasn't it? I've never sung that song in public you know, something about it felt to personal' My eyes must have given away the answer as they filled with tears, 'yes, it was the first and only time he ever came to me in a dream, and you should sing it, your voice is perfect for it.'

'I had hoped so much you'd find me, it's feel so surreal but I feel like we've known each other forever, does that make sense,' and I looked at this young boy his words meaning more then he'd ever know. I now knew why Luke had never come to me more in my dream world, he had never needed to, there was still a piece of him here and although my Luke was gone, the fact that Tom lived meant so very much. I stood and hugged him, 'but Tom, part of you has known me forever and I have known part of you as well'.

As we walked away together back towards the stage, you'd be forgiven for thinking we were mother and son, the carefree chat between two people who's lives were so intertwined I don't think I could begin to explain it to someone, the depth of knowing of each other was indescribable. I watched him walk back up on stage and for a split second could see Luke sitting in the front row smiling at me.

'This song is for a friend, one I've only just met and yet have known for years.

Looking from the window above,

It's like a story of love,

Can you hear me.'