Bassline

Syl smiled as she entered the beach house. The rumble of the bass guitar welcomed her home, and the house keeper Rita came to greet her in the front hall. Not for the first time, she had to remind herself that this was still her brother's house, though he had been kind enough to let her and the kids stay as long as they needed.

That's what family was for after all.

But that sentiment never stopped her from feeling like she was imposing. She made a mental note to start looking for a place for her and the kids, maybe when preparations for the new tour coming up were done. Not an easy task with the city's current strict zoning laws.

Rita would miss the kids though, Syl realized as they walked together down the hallway. The house keeper joyfully recounted the children's antics for the day; how Cabot had gotten peanut butter in Jet's hair, and Aniela's excitement at the purchase of some new tack for the horses. The thump of the bass followed them like a movie soundtrack.

The scent of something savoury washed over her like an ocean wave as they entered the kitchen. With a proud smile, Rita announced that dinner would be ready soon.

Syl nodded and went to get the kids.

Jake and Valentine were easy enough to find; she followed her ears and tracked the bassline to the living room. They were sitting on the couch by the giant picture window (really just a huge piece of glass that would have been a wall in any other house) that framed the sea and sunset outside.

Valentine looked up and smiled, never missing a beat as her fingers thumped the strings. Syl caught the reggae bounce in an otherwise distinctly rock-style bass riff, and smiled back. Her father would have been proud.

Jake smiled along with them, "Val's awesome, isn't she?"

"Definitely," Syl agreed, chuckling. "And it looks like you're hogging her talent all to yourself."

"Hey, it's not my fault she won't join a band!" The boy protested in his defense. Still chuckling, Syl ruffled his hair to let him know she was just kidding.

"Nothing's come up," Val explained, shrugging nonchalantly while her fingers continued to slide along the strings, as if controlled by a subconscious part of her brain. "But then I really haven't been looking lately."

Syl knew why and gave a worried frown, but said nothing. Val would figure out what to do in her own time.

"Is Aniela out at the stables again?" It wasn't really an question.

"Yeah, Cab and Jet went with her," Jake added, grinning. "They wanted to try teach football to Pedro again."

Val chuckled and her bass music shifted slightly from a little less rock to a little more reggae. Pedro was the pony their father had reluctantly bought for them the first time they had spent Christmas at the beach house.

"Well, you're gonna have to be referee then, Jake, and tell them the game is over. Rita's almost ready with dinner."

"Okay!" He hopped off the couch, and dutifully ran off to play the authority figure to his younger brothers.

"Get your sister too! And don't forget to make sure they wash up!" Syl called after him, but wasn't sure he heard.

She glanced over at Val. The girl stopped playing and lay her bass guitar on the couch, trying not to chuckle at her aunt's worried look. "I have a bad feelling they're all going to show up at dinner smelling like horse."

Going On...

The room felt strange despite its familiarity. She'd never been in this specific room before, but she recognized the layout and equipment set-up. Four solid, sturdy walls for acoustics and sound-proofing. Sparse furnishings as not to dampen the sound. A basic multi-track recorder, not as advanced as one in a recording studio, but good enough for decent quality playback. A small collection of various musical instruments for those who wanted to experiment or just couldn't bring their own. Mid-sized speakers in every corner. Mic. Music stand. Plain wooden stool.

She knew the room; she'd been in a thousand rooms just like it. But those rooms felt like they belonged to a thousand other lives.

She opened the guitar case at her feet. Light flashed off the black gloss finish of the hollow, wooden body within, as she reached in to lift the guitar out like a friend who had fallen down. She had still played over the last few years, but not in the same capacity she once did. There were the occasional family get-togethers, the requests from Jake for a song, the quiet nights on the deck of the beach house plucking an accompaniment to the rhythmn of the waves.

How long had it been? Over twenty years since she had walked out of that Toronto music shop with a brand-new shiny black acoustic guitar? Back when the world was an adventure she couldn't wait to begin, when she wanted to sing to the world and hear it sing back.

The stages, spotlights and roaring crowds felt like a dream now.

That was a different world and a different life.

Settling herself onto the stool, she flipped open the battered folder on the music stand. Years expressed in notes and staves on the page looked back at her, waiting to be sung. The song she co-wrote with Faith's father peeked out behind lyrics dedicated to the memory of her first love. Beside them, an incomplete melody for her late fiancé begged for a bridge and final verse, while the corners of a silly parody penned by her deceased band mate curled around it as if attempting an embrace. The music seemed to hold its breath, waiting for permission to exhale.

She adjusted the mic, sliding her fingers onto the familiar frets of the guitar, and took her own deep breath.

No matter what happened, no matter who lived and who died, life kept going on.

Strumming a simple chord progression, she began to sing a random melody.

Time to go on with life.

Slipping Away

She held his hand tightly as he slipped into unconsciousness one last time. After watching him fight his illness for so long, the doctors had finally come to the conclusion that there was nothing left that they could do.

Sylvia was of the opinion that they never did enough, but she kept that to herself.

Pressing his fingers against her lips in a gentle kiss, she tried to shrug off the feeling that life was cheating her again. It didn't seem fair. Everything good in life always seemed to slip away.

She ran the fingertips of her other hand softly along his cheek. Feeling the prick of his beard, she remembered how it tickled when they kissed. He looked at peace lying there, and recalling the words he had said to her before finally closing his eyes, she was certain he was.

His calm acceptance of the inevitable infuriated her. How he could simply let everything go and not fight this tooth and nail until the bitter end, she couldn't understand.

But she couldn't voice that now. It didn't matter. He made the choice to embrace the coming darkness. He had made his peace.

She had no right to take that away from.

As she tightly held his hand, she felt the warmth she knew and loved slip away.

Additions to the Family

Melodi was nothing short of awesome. The girl had been through so much, too much for someone her age, in one short week, and she still managed to make the proper arrangements for Malaki's two orphaned brothers.

Syl wrapped her arm around her niece's shoulder as they waited at the airport and kissed her forehead in appreciation. "Thank you for taking care of all this for me. If there's anything you need," she gently patted Mellie's swelling center, "don't be afraid to ask, okay?" She smiled at her reassuringly. "Everything is going to be alright."

The two little boys, only 3 and 4, emerged from the Arrivals gate with a scarecrow-like laywer. He looked extremely perturbed and only the older of the two boys held his hand reluctantly, as if he somehow realized the unpleasant neccesity of staying with the cold, gaunt grown-up. His brother, though only a year younger, didn't understand and tightly held the older boy's other hand, rather than the crooked fingers of the lawyer.

When they approached, Syl crouched down to greet the boys, much to the annoyance of the lawyer, who wanted to get the formalities over with and be on his way. She ignored his ugly glare.

"Hi, my name is Sylvia," she greeted the boys with a friendly smile. "I'll be taking care of you two from now on, just like your dad wanted. Will that be alright with you guys?"

The lawyer sneered at the question. The two orphaned boys had no choice and he found pretending that they did a disgusting display of compassion. He would have said as much, but a quick glare from Mellie kept him silent. Instead, he let go of the boy's hand and after rummaging through his briefcase, thrust the custody papers at Syl for her to sign so he could leave.

Once the scarecrow of a lawyer had left with the paperwork, Syl turned back to the boys and held out her hand. "Com'on, boys. Let's go home."

Under The Watch Of An Angel

Syl insisted they walk back to the hotel after his show, and typical of his easy-going, laid-back manner, he humoured her with a smile and complied. She couldn't help smiling herself at this, knowing he'd prefer a limo or at least a cab. But he put up with her every little quirk and laughed off every minor (and not so minor) discomfort she put him through; he wasn't about to make a fuss about something as simple as a walk now.

She led their leisurely late-night stroll through downtown Mexico City. She knew the streets, though not as well as her extended family did. Her mother grew up here before moving to Canada to make a new life for herself.

That was a concept Syl couldn't understand for the longest time: To leave your family and friends and everything you had ever known to start all over in some strange, distant place so far removed from where you began. She had often wondered what would lead someone to make such a drastic change in their life.

It wasn't until she had to do it herself, that she finally understood. It was about freedom, even if the oppression you were escaping from was just in your head.

When her friends started following her to Rio though, she began to wonder if it really had been just in her head the entire time.

Holding Jon's hand, she laughed as she ran across a street at a roundabout, dodging a car as she tugged her boyfriend along behind her. When they reached the safety of the sidewalk, she grinned up at him mischievously while they took a moment to catch their breath.

Then she looked up, and pointed to indicate to Jon to do the same.

An 'angel', with her gilded skin glowing from the spotlights positioned on the ground, was watching them from the top of a monumental column in the center of the roundabout. "El Ángel de la Independencia," she explained, as she turned to see the awe on Jon's face. "Pretty cool, eh?"

He turned to her, but before he could reply, she leaned up and kissed him, long and passionately.

"So, I was thinking, ya know, on what you asked me about a while ago," she said as she playfully tugged on a dread. "I love you, but..." She paused and looked away as she slipped a hand into her pocket, "...I don't know if I want to be your wife." Turning back, she bit her lip at the look of disappointment in Jon's face.

"I do know one thing though," she said as she leaned into him again. Her lips met his again in another passionate kiss, as she pulled something out of her pocket and slipped it into his hand.

She smiled as he looked down at the golden ring in his palm.

"I do know I want you to be my husband," she grinned, teasingly.

Esperenza Design

Sylvia led Beth down a pedestrian-only stretch of Via della Spigga in the fashion district of Milan, watching her friend stare in awe at all the designer clothes displayed in the windows as they passed. Her friend's expression was priceless, like that of one of the kids on Christmas morning.

When they arrived at a little haut couture boutique called "Esperenza Design", Sylvia grinned proudly and opened the door for Beth, then laughed when she heard her friend gasp and followed her inside.

At first glance, it appeared as if the shop had very little stock. Most of the dresses in the boutique were on mannequins, only a few hung on hangers along the wall. But it only took an observer with a discerning eye to realize each dress was a one-of-a-kind original. No two were alike, and none were like anything found in any other shop anywhere in the world, like the works of a master painter hanging in an exclusive art gallery.

Syl approached a sales girl dressing a new mannequin for a window display and exchanged a few words, before the girl nodded and waved them towards a door at the back of the shop. Smiling, Syl thanked her and led Beth to her mother's work room.

Esperenza sputtered some Spanish, dropping some of the pins she held in her mouth at the sight of her daughter coming through the door. Turning away from her current project, a white wedding dress loosely draped over a dress-form mannequin, she welcomed them with a smile so bright it was almost blinding.

"Sylvia! Where have you been? You don't visit enough, niña!" Quickly taking the remaining pins out of her mouth and stabbing them into a pin cushion on a nearby work bench, she came over and hugged her girl long and hard, before turning to Beth. "And you must be la niña who's stolen Neil's heart that I've heard so much about. Ah, muy guapa!" She hugged Beth as warmly as she had hugged her own daughter. "But then I wouldn't expect anything less from that heartbreaker."

"Moooom," Sylvia hissed under her breath, "You're being embarrassing."

Esperenza waved her hand with a hearty laugh, "Nonsense, chica! I don't embarrass you enough! If you visited more often, then the embarrassment would be stretched out much thinner and it wouldn't be so painful. Now, ven, ven!" She grinned, as she ushered them back into the front of the store. "I bet there are many dresses you want to see before you have to go!"

Smoke and Fire

She heard the frantic screaming through the smoke. "Ma! Ma! Where are you?"

Choking on the black air, she coughed before answering back. "Right here, love," she calmly called through haze and confusion.

Someone somewhere opened a door or window as a cool breeze swept into the club and lifted some of the smokey curtain. As visibility in the room slowly improved, she looked through the crowd to find her daughter. "Faith?"

"Right here, Ma," the girl called behind her, sounding out of breath. Turning around, Syl was surprised to find Faith lugging in an old, dented fire extinguisher with her. "I got it from the bus," she explained, then looked around confused. "Where's the fire?"

Syl pointed to a group of people relaxing by the bar. A brand, new extinguisher sat on the bartop beside them. "One of the bands who played before us stuck around, and they already put it out. They seemed pretty prepared, so I guess they're used to having things like this happen."

Faith nodded, then looked over her mother, worry creeping into her expression. "Are you okay, Ma? How do you feel? You didn't breath in too much smoke, did you?"

Grinning, the woman shook her head. "I'm fine, love. Geez, you sound like me when I'm about to have a panic attack."

"Ma! You were right next to the fire!"

Syl laughed, "Actually, your Uncle Gareth was right next to the fire." She pointed to her bandmate who stood to one side, trying to wipe the soot from his clothes. A scorched violin lay at his feet. "I was lucky enough to be on the other side of the stage when he dropped his instrument."

Putting down the old fire extinguisher, Faith sighed in relief then looked over again at the band that had saved the club. One in particular she stared at for a long time. "Hey, Ma. Do we know them? Or at least one of them, anyway."

Syl glanced over and shook her head. "No, love, we don't. Why do you ask?" she said as she turned her attention to Gareth to see if he was all right.

"Nothing." She threw one last look at the other band, before picking up the fire extinguisher and following her mother. "I thought one of them looked familiar. I guess I was wrong."