Page 177 of Playing By Ear

“What? No.” He drew away and looked at her tear-stained face. “You and Auntie Norma were brilliant. I never felt neglected.”

“But when Ritchie—” She shifted her feet, lashes fluttering to hold back more tears. “When Ritchie left us, I should have taken one look at you and known something was wrong. Wronger than Ritchie being banished.”

“So you didn’t know.” Thank God. He wouldn’t be able to look at Rosemary if she’d been complicit.

“Your dad fed me the same story as you and Bel. I always wondered, though.” She wrapped her arms around herself as though cold. “Maybe I didn’t want to believe. I could’ve asked Raymond or Pete or Norma.”

Right. Of course the uncles and Martin’s closest advisor would know. Everyone in the organization knew the truth that Martin’s daughter and youngest sister had remained willfully ignorant of.

Rosemary opened the jotter and showed him her updates from that morning and the previous night. “I should nip over to the practice for a wee while, but I’ll be back.”

“Thanks.” He hugged his aunt again. “Give all the sick pups and kitties scritchies for me.”

When she had left, Jamie steeled himself, then climbed the stairs.

Layla was on the bed with her sleeping master. Her tail thumped once at the sight of Jamie, then her eyes closed again.

Wendy still sat in her unlatched case in the corner of his dad’s room. Jamie picked up the guitar carefully to avoid waking Martin. He would practice downstairs, taking the baby monitor in case his father called out.

As Jamie was stepping out of the room, Martin’s voice rasped from the bed.

He stopped. “What do you need, Dad?” The reflex question.

“C’mere.”

Jamie set down the guitar and went to sit in the chair closest to Martin, whose eyes were still closed. “All right? Is it the pain?”

“Nah,” he said, barely audible. “Gotta know something.”

“Fire away.” Jamie instantly regretted his choice of words. “What is it?”

“Been thinking all night. Wondering. Why you’re here now. You knew about Ritchie, and still you…” Martin paused to catch his breath. “Why’d you come back?”

If only Jamie knew. “Cos I’m a big softie. Obviously.”

His father shook his head, eyes still shut.

“Originally I came back for Belinda’s sake.”

Martin’s nod was barely perceptible. “Then what?”

“Then I stayed for the family. I couldn’t let them down.”

Another micro-nod. “Who you here for now?”

A fair question. “I think now I’m here for me.”

His father opened his eyes to tiny slits, as though he lacked the strength to move his lids farther apart. “You done everything right, son.”

Jamie thought of the times he’d dropped his dad on the floor while shifting him to the bedside commode, and the times he’d missed dispensing meds by an hour or more, and the times he’d lost his head over some small frustration. “I’ve not done everything right. Not even most things.”

“Eh.” Martin folded in his lips, which were shiny with the medicated balm his sister had applied. “More than I deserved.”

Who the fuck are you, and what did you do with my father? This was more sincerity than Jamie could take. “Can I fetch you anything? Adjust the bed? Remove the nine-stone dog from your leg?”

Martin sighed, the once-formidable giant seeming to shrink to a mere wisp beneath the covers. “Just play,” he said finally. “It’s the only thing besides those pills that makes my mind stop twisting.”

Jamie’s heart lurched, and for a moment he couldn’t speak, much less sing.