Musical Hearts

Cole wakes up when he hears the cry room in the other room. A loud and urgent wail coming from just down the dark hall. Beside him, his wife shifts and moves to sit up, but the man mutters something along the lines of ‘I’ve got her’ while gently placing a hand on her back. The tired new mother relaxes and sinks back into the bed with a sleepy smile, and thank you while her partner sits up and pulls a shirt on before making his way to the nursery. 

A smile breaks out in his face as well when he sees his little baby in her crib, even as tired as he is. Dahlia is adorable, waving her arms and legs as she cries to express her needs. She utterly melts her fathers’ heart. Judging by how many times he and Jane had already woken up tonight, she likely needed both a fresh diaper and a bottle. 

“Hey, hey, hush there little one. Come here.” He whispers, picking her up and depositing her on the changing table while she still cries. 

It wasn’t until he laid her on the table and began to change her while he hummed a calming tune did she finally started to settle down. Cole notices this and an idea forms in his head. Pulling a lullaby from his memory, he begins to softly sing to her. 

The several months old baby becomes enchanted by the sound of her father’s voice. All fussing stops as he finishes putting a new diaper on as she listens and looks at him. Quietly letting him replace the dirty diaper with a fresh one, and being calm in his arms as he prepared a bottle for her downstairs. By the time he was sitting in the soft chair in her room and drinking her formula, little Dahlia has heard several lullabies. When he gently places her on his shoulder to sway her to sleep, he still kept singing. 

Clean, full, and tired, the little girl is perfectly content to hear several nursery rhymes sung more than once as her little eyes begin to drift closed, and her tiny breaths become even. 

This had been the first time either of them had tried singing to calm their newborn. It makes sense to Cole, her early love of music. All of his family had musical hearts and souls filled with songs. No wonder she does too. 

The man thinks back to his own mothers’ lullabies, the sweet sound of her voice that always felt as warm and comforting as his bed had. The days his fathers bad would practice- both the jazz one and his one that seemed to play any popular song that suited their fancy the day they learned it. Cole could remember sitting on the steps of the garage listening with amazement as his father and friends play the instruments with such ease. How closely he tried to watch them, hoping to see if somehow he could learn too. 

The time his whole family saved up money or a baby grand piano to put in the dining room of their new house. They were never wealthy, but that excitement they had when their mother and father returned to pick them up from school and they saw an old, beaten up piano was something he would never forget. Or the hours the four of them spend at the keys of that piano.

All the music sheets scattered over the house- of his mothers, fathers, and as they grew older, his brothers and his own. There was always floating pieces of music everywhere, and constantly someone looking at and practicing them. None of them minded the clutter, though. As it was easier to find the music they wanted to play than when they would make an effort to organize it into binders when it would always end with someone (or everyone) merely opening them up and taking out what they wanted to play or learn. 

There had always been a thrill to go to a concert, their own kind of movie night. The music holding his attention better than any story on a screen with actors and special effects. Especially when one of their parents was performing, and he could hear the music played in his home perfected. His brother Jasons were also exciting to listen too when he began to have his own, as well as performing himself whenever he could play in band or choir. 

Before then, he knew he enjoyed music. Liked listening to his it and even trying to make it himself. But once he performed in his small school orchestra for the very first time, there was no stopping the music that flowed out of him. That was a feeling he still chased today as an almost thirty-year-old.

Life had not been able to take that from him, the desire to hear and play music. Even when he couldn’t make a living off his voice, Cole still performed in a choir regularly. Would offer his performance to anyone who would hire him even with his day job as a manager of a prop house near the local community theatre. And though he couldn’t sing as he wanted too, life has blessed him with a wife who was a professional opera singer. 

He doesn’t always know how to express how lucky he is to have her. But judging by her laughter and smile when he serenades her, singing speaks her language and gets his message across to her just fine. 

The two of them had begun singing to unborn baby Dahlia as soon as they knew she was there and throughout the pregnancy. So it is no question why a few minutes of his voice has her asleep on his shoulder, the little girl was fast asleep. A feeling of pride wells in him, knowing his daughter already appreciates music and is soothed by it. It comforts him too, knowing she’ll always have music the way he does. 

As he stops singing, Cole carefully places her back into the crib and then leans down to press a soft peck on her forehead where the smattering of brown hair begins. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie. There is a lot more beautiful sound like that to hear, and if I have anything to do with it, you have a long life of hearing it ahead of you.” The father whipsters as quietly as he can so he can make the promise to her without waking her.