A Voice Lost and Found

"I bet you think you are some kind of big fucking hero," my iPad spoke out loud to him.

He looked serious and then said, "Not really."

I hit the keys on my iPad hard and furiously. "Well you should have just let me die, you asshole. What am I going to do now?! I have nothing." I ran upstairs to my room as fast as my bruised and broken body would let me, slammed my door, and cried myself to sleep.

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I awoke in the early evening and went downstairs, there was a note from Billy stating that he had stepped out to go grocery shopping. I used that opportunity to root through the kitchen and bathrooms, including his master, looking for pills of any kind, and of course, alcohol to go with them. I found nothing and thought, what kind of musician doesn't have drugs and booze in the house?

I heard a door opening downstairs and managed to sneak back to bed. Forgetting to lock the door, Billy entered my room and tried to check on me. I pretended to be tired and wanted to keep sleeping, so he left me alone.

That night, about 2 AM, in only my nightshirt I tiptoed downstairs and into the kitchen. As quietly as possible, I opened every drawer looking for anything sharp. Nothing. The light then turned on and though I couldn't see him as my eyes tried to adjust to the light, it was Billy. He softly said, "I locked away the knives. I was hoping you wouldn't try and kill yourself as soon as you had the chance but wasn't sure."

I slumped to the kitchen floor and cried. I wasn't sure I would have had the courage to cut myself anyway, if only I had found fucking pills and booze while he was out, it could have been so easy. A coward's way out, but whatever, so I just laid on the floor and continued to cry.

Billy didn't look superhero strong, but he picked me up off the floor as if I weighed nothing. He carried me to his bedroom and laid me on one side of his bed. Oh great, he's going to rape me now. My life just keeps getting fucking worse.

He turned off the light and laid down next to me, taking me in his arms. I tried to resist but didn't have any fight left in me. He stroked my hair for a few minutes and then calmly whispered, "You'll be OK, Jenna. I promise. You have a lot of life still to live. Sleep now, baby."

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The next few days seemed to last forever. I was so seriously depressed that I became lethargic. Billy never raised his voice at me, but I didn't make it easy on him when he tried to get me to eat. I hurt all over and knew I'd throw up if I didn't eat something when I took my pain medicine, the thought of vomiting through my damaged throat made me listen to him. Sometimes.

We'd start every day with lessons in ASL. My best sign was giving him the middle finger, but I was picking it up pretty fast and tried to use whatever I learned rather than the app on the iPad. In the afternoon, Billy would sit at the grand piano that was centered in the living room and play while I stretched out on the couch and felt sorry for myself while listening. We'd watch the news and then some dumb movie in the evening. When we went to bed, he'd insist that I slept in his bed with him. Repeat.

I learned that the piano was his strongest instrument, though sometimes he would sit at the other end of the couch from me and play an acoustic guitar. Some songs I would recognize, some were even my own, others I had never heard before. He never sang with the music, but he would always smile at me while he would play one of mine. When he did play one of my songs, it was usually an obscure one that didn't chart even though I was proud, thinking they were all good enough.

In bed, he just held me. Sometimes stroking my hair before we would fall asleep. It wasn't unusual for us to wake up in one spooning position or the other, I felt his hard on pressing into me on some mornings before he woke. He did have instincts like a cat though. If I got up to go to the bathroom, he'd sit up with lightning-like reflexes to make sure I didn't go anywhere else.

A week later we were following the same routines, though we'd go for short walks in his neighborhood in the morning and then just before dark. My body still hurt but it was feeling good to get outdoors and stretch my legs instead of spending all day on his couch and all night in his bed.

He started encouraging me to play music with him. Sometimes I would sit with him at the piano and play a little or just listen. Other times I would play the guitar while he played piano. After that I'd go back into depression, it was hard to play an instrument and not sing along. I asked him why he didn't sing, and he just laughed and told me that he didn't want the property values in the neighborhood to drop if anyone heard his crackly voice. I elbowed him a few times trying to nudge him into singing but he flat out refused.

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Kay came by and dropped the van off. Apparently, Billy paid for the work on it with a fistful of cash. Kay tried to show him the receipts but he waved her off. Billy looked at me when he took the car keys and then put them in his pocket, obviously still not trusting me. Smart move I suppose, I might have driven myself right off a cliff.

I didn't get off the couch when Kay approached me but she bent down, moving a strand of hair from my face to behind my ear, and then gave me an awkward hug.

She said, "God, I'm so glad you survived that. I don't believe it though. It was the most frightening thing I ever witnessed. Billy was on top of it first and was already pulling you out when we got to the wreckage. You were naked and covered in so much blood and not breathing. I thought you were dead. When he got you breathin' again, and we were racing down the highway in the van, I didn't think you were gonna make it. I prayed for you all the way to the hospital, but it was Billy. He was your angel."

Billy must have sensed I was about to start into a typical episode of sobbing, he thankfully pulled her away from me and changed the subject. "Kay, she needs rest, she's been through the wringer." Kay agreed, looking anxious from reliving what she had witnessed, and then her face turned sympathetic. I learned years later that she continued to have nightmares over the whole thing.

Billy said to her, "Hey, Kay. We're going to need a drummer for a few tracks here in a month or two. You interested?"

She nodded, still a little upset before Billy walked her out to the driveway where her friend who followed her over was waiting for her.

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I had been there a few weeks when he broke our routine. He asked me to go with him for a drive and then he drove us into Los Angeles to the children's hospital. With his guitar case in one hand, he held my hand with his other while we went up to the fourth floor.

He played songs for some of the kids that had assembled and had them sing along. At one point, he led me into a private room with a little girl in bed, looking very sickly. I got a little nauseous, remembering me in that position less than a month ago, but this kid was tiny, frail looking, and her head completely bald. At the first sight of Billy, she put a smile on her little face. Billy played three songs for her, ending with Itsy Bitsy Spider that he played on guitar while I did the pantomime of the spider with my fingers. Her parents were in the room watching, struggling to hold themselves together. At one point, the little girl's mother mouthed, "thank you," to me.

Before we left the room, the little girl, who's name I learned was Emily, made an effort to lift her arms and gave Billy a hug. I got the same treatment. With all the crying I had been regularly doing since my accident, I valiantly held my tears in. Until we left the room, out of sight. I unloaded a torrent.

On the drive home - wait, is that how I was thinking of his house now? Home? - Billy said, "I talked to one of the nurses, Emily doesn't have much longer. She's fought it for a year now, and it has been a tough one, on her and her parents, but there's nothing they can do now. So sad. She's only 12." Wow, she looked half that age.

It was what Billy didn't say that was his strongest message. While I've spent weeks moping and swimming in a sea of self-pity, there are people out there that have it worse. I thought about Emily, then her parents, these people were really suffering, and all I had lost was my voice. Then, for the first time since the accident, I really thought about my red headed lover and the driver from the RV. Their loved ones would never see them again, and I hadn't given that much of a passing thought before. What a fucking bitch I am. Billy's sister was right about me all along.

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The sudden awakening of empathy in my mind put me in another funk as I examined my life. As an only child, with Mom dying in a car accident, and my heavy-smoker father dying of lung cancer while I was away at college, not even telling me he was sick, I was left completely alone. Nobody cared for me, so I really didn't care for anybody else. I became the focused, hardened bitch I am today when I was still in my early 20's.

Before the accident, I hadn't cried since Daddy died. Now it seems that's all I did was cry.

Then I thought about Billy. How many times had he saved my life? Stayed glued to my side in the hospital, housed me, fed me, dressed me, how could I dislike someone like that? He behaved like he was my friend, my very best friend actually, even with all the ways I shit all over him. There has to be something wrong with this guy. I promised his niece I would be nice to him, now I vowed to myself to keep that promise.

All of my boyfriends had been assholes. None of them ever understood that I couldn't ever love them as much as I loved my music, and once they figured that out, the asshole in them would come to the surface. At some point I just stopped trying. I would get laid when I felt I needed it, and then cast them away. One of the unexpected highlights of touring with Sarah Strange was that I had my pick of handsome men, and the occasional beautiful woman, where we could fuck like rabbits but without any attachments whatsoever. Nothing to get between me and my music.

What a fucking waste.

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One evening Billy and I were sitting on his patio having a beer and looking out and over the hillside. I was no longer taking the pain killer, not wanting a powerful addition to take over. We did add cracking a few beers together to our daily routine.

He caught me looking at him and he asked, "What?"

I signed back a response with an earlier asked question as best as I could, where I didn't know the gesture, I spelled it out with my hands. "Why have you been so nice to me?"

As he had been doing for weeks, he signed back to me slowly and spoke the words as he signed them, "You needed a friend. I know you lost everything you had as well as your dreams. I know you don't have any friends or family. I just want you to be able to take one day at a time without having to worry about anything else."

I started tearing up again, one ran down my cheek as I asked, "What am I going to do?"

Billy leaned over towards me, wiped the tear away and then cupped my cheek with his hand. Forgoing the sign language, he looked me in the eyes and said in his typically gentle fashion, "First, you are going to heal. Both your body and your mind. Look, you almost went all day without crying. When you can go the whole day without tears, and I start seeing that pretty smile of yours more often, I have a job for you. If you want. I think you're going to like it."

He let go of my cheek and leaned back into his own chair, giving me a supportive smile. I sniffled, tried my best to smile back, and signed, "Thank you," wondering what Billy had in mind. We had a couple more beers without communicating and then went up to bed.

I woke up in the morning before Billy, that was not unusual. Instead of waking and finding us spooning, his chest against my back, his arm around me, this morning we were reversed. Typically I would wake and not stir as to not wake him, just snuggle into his chest and arms. It gave me comfort while I spent the time thinking about my hopeless future. Instead, this morning my breasts were touching his back with only my tee shirt between each other's skin, his butt against my pelvis, my hand on his chest, and I got a devilish thought. Knowing that at this time of the morning he would have a total erection, I know because I had felt it pushed into the small of my back for many mornings, I lowered my hand and entered his boxers. Sure enough, I found his penis as expected. I put my hand around it, soft to the touch, but hard as a rock, and started to stroke it.

He began to stir, and I stroked him with longer, faster, and more forceful motions. He groaned and pushed his back further into my breasts. What I had started out to be just a tease was now a full-blown fire, making me so horny that I wanted him in me as soon as possible. Then he fully woke and realized what was going on. He removed my hand from his boxers, flipped over with shock and confusion on his face, then leaped out of bed, his boxers fully tented.

He mumbled something like, "I'll go make us some coffee." Then he practically ran from the room. That I was fully ready to jump Billy's bones left me confused myself, but I was more disappointed than anything else. I couldn't even bring myself to use my fingers and get off on my own, so I just got up out of bed.

Shit.

Wearing only a tee shirt, one of his that I went to bed with last night, I joined him in the kitchen. He was still wearing only his boxers. He saw me and just shook his head. He spoke without signing, "I don't know what that was all about, but you are down on your luck right now, trying to pull yourself out of it, I promised you that I would not take advantage of you."

I signed back, "What if I was taking advantage of you?"

He spoke/signed in reply, "I think you have some lingering effects from your concussion."

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I was reading a magazine on the couch in the living room when Billy's niece bounded into the room and wrapped me up in a hug. She was followed by her mother who didn't look happy but at least she didn't mouth "bitch" to me for a change. I had been warned that they were coming over, so I wasn't surprised by their visit.

Billy and Sally went into the kitchen to "talk" privately, leaving me with Jessica who went into a rapid-fire stream of sentences about her friends at school, her favorite kinds of horses, and how cute her dog is at home. She really was a cute kid, it was fun trying to follow her train of thought that changed direction without any notice, no subject seemingly related.

At one point she looked over her shoulder at the kitchen and then back at me. She asked in a low voice, "Have you been nice?" I smiled and nodded my head. She gave me a face splitting, toothy smile (some of them missing), and then went back to one or another random story.

I put my magazine down on the coffee table in front of the couch, picking up one of Billy's paperweights that I found the magazine under in the first place. I couldn't explain it, Billy's taste in art was so well refined and the decorating made the place look like it came out of Architectural Digest, but it was almost spoiled by all these kitschy paperweights all over the house that were cheap knockoffs of awards trophies. I asked him about it one time, "Did you get these from ebay or something?" He replied with a laugh, "Yeah, something like that."

After putting the magazine under the paperweight, I inadvertently knocked it over the stack of magazines and onto the floor. Jessica gasped and shrieked, "We aren't supposed to touch those!" Her eyes were so wide they looked like they didn't fit her face anymore.

Billy popped his head out from the kitchen. "What's wrong, Jessie?"

Jessica replied back, panic in her voice, "Your trophy fell on the floor, Uncle Billy."

He smiled and in a reassuring voice said, "Pshh, you know I don't care about those things," and then he turned back into the kitchen.

I picked the thing up and showed Jessica that nothing was wrong with it. She looked a lot more relaxed but said, "You shouldn't touch those. Mom would be so mad if anything happened to them." Then the child changed the subject, wanting to know all about my injuries and if I was getting better. She looked happy at the news that I was feeling a lot better, so we turned on some cartoons.

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I had lunch with Billy and his family, they all had sandwiches while I had soft fruits and vegetables, plus some powdered chicken soup from an envelope. My diet was fewer pure liquids and getting a little more solid. The doctor that Billy had brought me to earlier in the week thought that in a few weeks, I'd be back to eating normal food altogether. We ate without communicating, it isn't easy to use your hands to eat and sign at the same time.

I got plenty of stink eye from Sally, but she was a lot more cordial this time around. After they left, Billy and I slipped back into our routine. We played music until nearly dusk, and I was now really enjoying that time together. We were playing in sync with one another, and I thought we sounded great, like naturals. We took a walk around the neighborhood, and then finished the evening with a few beers out on the patio. Overall, it was a really nice day.

Before bed, Billy gave me a big hug and with his lips touching my ear, said, "I was so happy for you today, I think you've really turned a corner. You are officially out from under the microscope." He broke the hug and put his hand under my chin, lifting my face to his with solid eye contact. "Your face is so pretty when you smile, it was wonderful to see you smile so much today." Our faces were so close together, a million things went through my head and then I decided I was going to kiss him but he turned at that instant and went towards his room for bed.

I followed him but he stopped me at his door and said, "Oh, honey. You don't have to sleep in my bed anymore. You can have your privacy back in the guest room." To hell with that, I brushed by him and went into the master bathroom to brush my teeth and have a pee before bed.

I returned to the bedroom naked. His eyes went wide as I signed to him, "Your turn."

After he had finished with his bathroom ablutions, I was in bed, deciding to pass on wearing one of his tee shirts this time. I made a show of reaching into his nightstand drawer and pulling out a condom that I knew was in there and placed it on the nightstand within reach. He shook his head at me, so I signed back, "Just in case. You never know."

He said sternly, "There'll be none of that. Two months ago, you didn't even like me." I just smiled at him, and he turned out the light. I managed to give him a kiss on the cheek as he got in bed and rolled over away from me, clutching the sheets like they would be a cage door between us.

I woke first in the morning and put into action the plan I formulated before I drifted off to sleep. I carefully slid down the bed and pulled the sheets off of us as I did so. His boxers had a single snap that held the fly closed. I undid that and was able to pull up on the waistband which allowed his erection to pop free. He wasn't huge, but it was a nice size and I took him into my mouth. I started slow and then started to work his shaft with my lips and tongue, alternatingly sucking and licking, making as much sloppy, moist contact as I could, working his lower shaft and balls with my hand. His erection got even harder and he started to rouse.

He finally realized what was going on and said, "Hey!" He then tried to stop me but I had positioned myself lower, difficult to reach and I pinned his legs. I put more effort into working his erection with my mouth and he finally gave up trying to stop me with a groan.