The End of Forever
Chapter Four: With You In Your DreamsIt was late by the time Penelope noticed her father's eyes drooping with exhaustion. They'd sat together, perched in the chair, for hours, looking out the window, catching up, crying. It wasn't two years that she'd gotten back with her father but at least, she figured, it was something. She hated the circumstances, but was happy to have the opportunity.
Finally, Penelope pulled herself from the chair and helped Taylor to bed. He'd eaten a little bit of the soup Natalie had brought to him about an hour ago, and ever since then, he'd been losing consciousness. With his belly full, he was ready for sleep, and Penelope could tell. As much as she didn't want to part ways, she knew he needed his sleep, so she decided it was time.
With Taylor in bed, Penelope slipped out of the bedroom and back into the dark hallway. She glanced at the room that used to be her own, the one she was currently using, and it was dark, lonely, and uninviting. Ezra's room and River's room were in much of the same state. She wasn't sure if her brothers were already sleeping or if they were out -- out of the house completely, or in another part of the house. Perhaps the basement, getting their emotions out through music, banging out their heartache through the drums and tambourine, tinkering away their sadness through the guitar.
Regardless of where they were, she saw underneath the door, that Viggo's light was on, and she bit her lip in contemplation. To attempt a conversation with her youngest brother was to walk blindly into war without a weapon, but to not attempt conversation was to let the problem between them -- whatever it was -- fester until it was irresolvable.
She missed her baby brother. She missed having him close, having him look up to her. She missed the way he used to be so exuberant, so full of life. Without much further thought, Penelope made the conscious decision. One foot in front of the other, she trudged her way down the dark hallway, until she was standing in front of his door. From the other side, she could hear music playing. She strained her ears to hear what it was, but all she could make out was a steady beat that didn't even give her any ideas of what his mood was.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Penelope raised her hand and knocked on the wood that separated her from Viggo. As she listened, she heard the sound of things being moved around, a bed being shifted on, and then shuffling feet coming closer to the door. She held in her breath as she heard the lock being released and then watched the doorknob turn. Slowly, she was met with the face of her youngest brother and, as soon as her face registered in his mind, he scowled.
"Oh, it's you," he remarked. He was fast in moving the door back in place to shut his sister out, but she was faster, holding her hand out to hold it open. In a testament of willpower, Penelope and Viggo stared at each other for several long moments, each daring the other to take it one step further -- Viggo daring his sister to push her way in, Penelope daring her brother to shove her out.
Finally, Penelope pushed on the door and it opened easily. Viggo hadn't even fought it. He stepped backwards as she stepped in and closed the bedroom door closed behind her with a soft click. Viggo returned to his place in the middle of his double bed, pulling his sketch pad back into his lap and starting to move his pencil-clenching hand furiously over the top of it. Penelope could see the veins in her brother's neck as he transferred his frustration from his body to the pad in front of him.
"Viggo," she said softly, stepping forward so cautiously that she was sure she was trying to tame a wild animal of some sort. Her brother didn't look up at her, but his hand slowed, so Penelope took more steps forward until she was standing at the edge of the bed, looking down over the drawing. All over the page were dark, angry lines that had no rhyme or reason. She could see no pattern in the mix, no picture to speak of. But his head kept moving with purpose, as though he knew exactly what he was doing.
She found herself so caught up in staring at the drawing that she failed to notice his hand stop altogether. She was pulled back to the moment when he asked, "what do you want?"
She swallowed and shook her head, dislodging the unrelated thoughts from her mind. Cautiously, she took the chance of sitting on the edge of the bed. Her brother didn't kick her away, so she took that as a good sign, and started speaking. "Why…" she trailed off when his eyes met hers. Though his eyes were brown, for a few breathless moments, she could have sworn she saw the shimmering a vibrant blue -- the same vibrant blue as their father. Shaking herself from her reverie, she blinked her eyes and his eyes were back to brown. "Why are you so mad at me?"
"You honestly don't know?" He challenged her in return, and she felt some of her courage crumble into a little pile of dust in the pit of her stomach. She'd known he was mad at her, but the coldness in his voice was uncalled for, and somewhat unexpected. They were a family; they were all going through an ordeal. They should have been able to lean on each other. Penelope wanted Viggo to be able to lean on her, and she wanted to be able to lean back.
After his scathing remark, Penelope wanted to retreat back to her room with her tail between her legs, but she refrained. She stood her ground. In as confident of a sound as she could muster, she said, "I wouldn't be asking if I knew."
"Well then, the dumb bitch in you is dumber than I thought," he shot back, and Penelope gasped at the insult.
"Viggo!" She cried out, her face taut in horror. She couldn't believe her baby brother could say such a thing about her, could feel that way about her. How had she wronged him so bad that he could think so lowly of her? Softly, she spoke, trying not to let the hurt show through her voice, but it was pointless. The only girl in a family of boys or not, she'd never been good at hiding her emotions. "I'm still your sister," she reminded him.
In frustration, Viggo threw the sketch pad from his lap to the other end of the bed. The pencil went with it and skidded off of the mattress, onto the floor. He shook his head at his sister, his eyes narrowing into tiny, accusing slits. "You left," he declared, his voice even colder than it had been when it had taken her breath away. "You left and you didn't come back."
"I'm back now," she tried, not knowing what else to say. Guilt piled up in her stomach like a ton of bricks. She knew he was right; she could understand where he was coming from. But the fact of the matter was that she was back, she was trying to fix things between them, and he wasn't giving her anything to go with.
"Only because Dad's dying," he accused, and the words came out so bluntly and so cold that Penelope's chest tightened and she had to fight back more tears that she didn't even know where still in her. She was sure she'd cried them all out before, sitting with her father over looking the backyard. "You shouldn't even be here," he said. "There's nothing you can do to save him. You can't give him, or any of us that time back."
"I know that!" She cried out, suddenly defensive. She stood from the bed and started pacing, scratching at her arms to busy her idle hands. Her eyes and her nose burned with pending tears that she refused to let fall. She refused to let Viggo see how deeply he'd gotten to her. "I know I made some bad decisions, I shouldn't have stayed away so long, should have visited more. I should have--"
"And you know what the worst part of it is?" Viggo asked, cutting his sister off in mid-sentence. Penelope stopped pacing, stopped scratching her arm, and stared down at her brother, waiting for the verdict. She couldn't even imagine what was going to come out of his mouth next. "That as soon as Dad dies, you'll probably go right back there, won't you? Right back to Tony. You're just waiting for this all to be over so you can get back to your perfect little life in California."
Penelope bit her bottom lip and shook her head slowly. She hadn't even considered what would happen afterwards, but the swimming sensation that suddenly took over her head told her that her little brother was probably closer to the truth than she cared to admit.
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For hours, Penelope stared up at the black ceiling in her bedroom, replaying the argument with Viggo over and over in her head, trying to make sense of it. He was mad at her for leaving, that much she'd gotten from it. He was mad that she was going to go back to Los Angeles as soon as their father died. That was the thought that was most unsettling to her.
How could Viggo even assume that?
Penelope had never even considered what would happen after. All she could concentrate on was her family, was spending time with those she cared about and needed most, about making peace and saying goodbye to her father, about trying to help hold her family together as things quickly started falling apart. Tony had barely crossed her mind in an entire week. Despite the fact that he was still calling and sending her texts, she'd done little more than delete them all as soon as they popped up onto her screen. She'd had more important, pressing matters to deal with. She wasn't sure where Viggo had come up with his assumption, but she hated how it felt like maybe he was right. Maybe her heart was headed back to Los Angeles. Maybe her heart was still there.
But no. Her heart was in her mother's strength, in her father's courage. Her heart was in the stability of her brothers and the comfort of them all. Her heart was in that house, in the one she'd grown up in. The one she'd spent most of her nights dreaming of Los Angeles in. But that dream was over, wasn't it? She'd let the dream escape through her fingers like sand, only leaving the dust of a cold, hard reality to rest in her palm.
Los Angeles was more than a pipedream, but a dream that had never amounted to much, had never lived up to her expectations. And what did she really have to go back to, anyway? A rundown apartment, an exhausted job at a diner, fights and nights up late and cash hidden in a tampon box? She had nothing to go back to Los Angeles to, and everything to stay in Tulsa for.
It was only then did she realize the finality of her decision. She wouldn't be going back to Los Angeles. She wasn't in love with Tony; she never had been. Before, she'd been mourning the loss of her escape money, but she was coming to realize that it had done exactly what it was meant to do. It had helped her to escape, back to a place where family meant everything, where troubles were faced together, as a united front. She didn't want Los Angeles any more than Los Angeles had ever wanted her.
With that decision in mind, Penelope sat up in bed and gathered her courage and wits before dialing Tony's number. He picked up after two rings, breathless and pissed. She could tell just by his breathing that he was not happy with her, but she couldn't let his mood deter her from what she had to say.
"Where the fuck--"
"Tony," she said, quickly cutting him off before he could jump into a rant. "I'm not coming back."
"You're what?" He snapped, his voice low and growling. Penelope pushed back any nigglings of fear she had inside of her. He was a thousand miles away, he couldn't hurt her. He couldn't get to her even if he'd tried to find her. She was safe, home free.
"I'm not coming back. That's-- that's all. I just thought you should know."
"Fucking Penelope--!"
With a softly whispered voice, Penelope ended things for good. "It's over," she said, and then closed her phone. Before he could call her right back to vie for answers, she turned the phone off. She didn't need an earful of hostility, and she knew that Tony wasn't one to just let things slide. He wouldn't stop yelling at her until he was sure he'd made his point, and Penny didn't see herself as having that much time to waste. If she was learning anything at all, it was that time was precious and sacred, something to be grateful for and never take for granted.
Seeing the sun starting to peak up over the horizon and bathe the yard in shadows of colors, Penelope knew she wasn't about to get any more sleep any time soon. The rest of the house was resting peacefully in their beds, but she was wide awake. She knew she had to get her mind off of things, and she knew laying in bed, staring at the ceiling wasn't going to do it. It hadn't exactly done it all those hours she'd just spent doing it, playing over her conversation with Viggo, and with her father, and with Tony. All of her mistakes played out before her with the shadows of the night and, as the sun began to rise, it was time to wash them away. She was done with Tony, done with California, done with anything that stole time with her family away from her.
Penelope pulled herself from bed with a new song in her heart. A song that dreamed a different dream, of family and home and all things familiar and comfortable. She dressed quickly and trod downstairs quietly so as not to disturb her sleeping family. She was headed to the kitchen to start brewing a pot of coffee -- something she knew her father would appreciate when he woke up because he'd always loved the first cup of hot coffee in the morning -- and maybe find something to fill her empty belly. She hadn't thought about food much in the past few days, and she'd only eaten a little of her own soup that her mother had brought in for her the night before, trading her focus on getting her father to eat, instead. She was used to only having a little to eat -- having very little money in Los Angeles for things like rent and toiletries, let alone food -- but her body seemed to be able to sense being home. It was starting to rumble as her footfalls came to the living room.
It was in the living room that she stopped in her tracks. The curtains were open, the early morning sun just starting to illuminate the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the memories in the back of Penny's mind. But it was the piano -- the well used baby grand sitting off to the side -- that held all of her attention. The light from outside shone all across the surface and, without a person in the bench, it looked empty, lonely, forgotten. She wondered how long it had been since there were fingers dancing over the ivory keys, how long it had been since its song had livened up the house the way it had so many times when Penelope was growing up.
She knew that many of her father's songs had been penned in that exact place and, with the sun wafting in and casting shapes of dancing light across the top, she could see why. It was breathtaking, the way a perfectly crafted piece of art was perfect, flaws and all.
For the time being, Penelope's rumbling stomach was forgotten, her heartache dismissed. Her feet moved to the bench in front of the piano without permission, simply carrying her right to the place where she could feel the biggest void. The seat was cool beneath her, the keys soft and smooth under her fingers. Carefully, she caressed them like one would caress a baby, with so much care and love it was nearly tangible in the air around her.
Before she could stop herself, she felt her fingers twitching over the keys, and then they were pressing down, hitting all of the notes of the only song that felt natural to play. It was a natural progression, a few notes here, and a couple there, and before she knew it, she was playing the first few chords to the most heartbreaking, home-hitting song she knew. For several minutes she played the intro over and over, until she found the courage within herself to start singing along.
"If I'm gone when you wake up, please don't cry," she sang, her voice strong and confident as it smoothed over the words that she'd heard her father sing hundreds of times, on stage and in private. It was one of his most personal songs, the one he'd always sing when he was feeling sad. Penny was feeling sad, but okay. Scared, but not terrified of the world coming to an end.
"And if I'm gone when you wake up, it's not goodbye. Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress. Remember me, remember me, ‘cause I'll be with you in your dreams." Penelope paused long enough to suck in a deep breath and close her eyes.
Much like she'd seen with her brothers the first day she'd been back, Penelope channeled all of her emotions -- fear, regret, hope, love, love -- into the music dancing in her ears, the words waltzing on her tongue. This wasn't her father's song, it wasn't her song. It was their song; their family's song, passed down from one generation to another. Had her father ever imagined, she wondered, when he was writing it about a grandmother that Penelope would never meet, that he would ever be the one his family had to say goodbye to?
He'd been so young. How could he have ever imagined the song would still hold so much weight, so many emotions, so many years later?
Penelope continued to sing, pouring her heart out into the words and the melody, the meaning and the hope that the song brought to her. In a way, she was letting go but, in a way, she was holding on, too. To the memories, and the feelings, and all of the things her father had instilled within her.
"I don't want you to cry and weep," Penelope didn't falter in her singing as she felt a body take the empty place on the bench beside her. Crowded in together, she could sense him, smell him, feel him. Her father had always been a beacon of hope, a symbol of comfort. She didn't feel sad, or scared, or lonely, or lost when he was there next to her and, as his cracked voice joined in with her, she knew it was his way of telling her that everything would still be okay.
"I want you to go on living your life. I'm not sleeping an endless sleep, ‘cause in your heart, you'll have all of our good times."
Together, they finished the song, two voices and a multitude of emotions conjoining into one. The fact that he was singing, possibly for the very last time, sitting on a bench in the living room with his daughter, meant the world to her. She knew that it was about more than the song, more than the lyrics and the melody and the gesture. Without a doubt, she knew that it was his way of telling her that he wasn't scared and she shouldn't be either.
And she wasn't.