Words not written on sheet music
After the funeral service, a farewell party was held at Michael Blair’s residence. The house, usually bustling with music and laughter, was now filled with the overwhelming scent of lilies and hushed voices. The huge living room and terrace were packed with people; his brothers and their families, his closest friends, and the band members who had shared every minute of their tour with them over the years.
Bobby, as the eldest of his siblings, had to be a pillar for everyone, but at some point he felt out of breath. Constant condolences and laments made the pain almost physical. Wanting to escape all the noise for a moment, he slipped out of the living room and headed deeper into the house.
Intuitively, he directed his steps into the home recording studio, where the brothers often spent nights working on subsequent songs that were later sung by the whole world. There was a soothing silence in the room, interrupted only by the quiet purring of equipment. Bobby sat on the leather sofa where each of them fell asleep so often.
He breathed deeply and closed his eyelids, trying to recall a vision from not so long ago, when all three of them were sitting in this very studio, debating the titles that should appeared on their last album. And then he felt that unpleasant lump in his throat, and his eyes filled with tears once again today. He shook his head, trying to shoo away the sadness that was tearing him apart. Then, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, dark-skinned diary. On the day his brother died, while packing his things into a bag, he found it hidden under the pillow of his hospital bed. Ivonne, in hysterics and under the care of doctors, didn’t even notice.
Bobby was turning a small notebook in his hands. Why didn’t he give it back? This question rang in his ears from the moment he slipped the diary into his pocket in the hospital.
He looked at the photo standing on the soundboard - Michael and Ivonne, smiling, at their wedding renewal ceremony just two years ago. It was the love, that ballads are written about. Ivonne was his rock. Years ago, when Michael drowned demons in a bottle, she was the only one who wouldn’t let him drown. She stuck with him when he was a non-drinking alcoholic fighting for every sober day, and it was thanks to her, that the Blair brothers were able to return to the stage in the first place. For Bobby, their marriage was a symbol of victory over darkness.
That’s why, what he discovered in the hospital when he found the diary, hurt even more. He only opened it for a second, convinced, that it contained unfinished lyrics from Michael’s songs. When he did, his eyes fell on the name “Anne”. The letters were drawn with a passion and pain that Bobby hadn’t seen in his brother in years. Reading a few out-of-context sentences about “desire” and “impossible love”, Bobby felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He couldn’t give it to Ivonne. Giving her that diary would be an act of cruelty. Not after she sacrificed half her life to save Michael from himself. This truth would kill her. It would destroy her last memory of her husband, who for the second time, during the renewal of his oath, promised her fidelity to the grave.
Bobby, however, didn’t want to protect only Ivonne. He wanted to protect Michael. He wanted to understand what had caused his brother, who had always been so composed, to suddenly lose ground. He felt, that Michael owed this last fraternal favor - he preferred to know his brother’s secret himself so that he could bury it with him if necessary. He needed to find out, what the other woman was like, and what she did, that she stole Michael Blair’s heart.
- Forgive me, Ivonne. - he thought, clenching his fingers on the cover. He took a deep breath, lit a small light by the mixing desk, and opened the front page where Michael described the evening at Madison Square Garden.
