“Give me a minute to call the hospital and see how Jane is doing, then I’ll be right back. After a quick call and an assurance from the nurses that Jane was doing okay and still asleep, I turned my attention back to the woman in my bed.
"Let's throw on some music," I said. "I always like to listen to music in the morning."
"Sure thing."
I went over to my CD collection, which I browsed through for a while. I grinned as I spotted a record that I thought would be ideal.
"Hey, I'm gonna play a song for you," I said to her, smiling cheekily.
"Alright," she replied, smiling curiously.
I took the CD out of its case and popped it into the stereo, and then skipped to the track I wanted. I hit “play” and started nodding my head as the opening guitar riff started coming out of the speakers.
"Recognize it?" I asked as Alice Cooper's “Poison” started playing.
"Yeah... I know it very well," she said, and a strange look came over her face – a look I hadn't been expecting at all. It was like a kind of veiled sadness. It seemed, for whatever reason, that this song was bringing back some bad memories.
"I can change it if you don't like it," I said cautiously. "I just thought that everyone liked this song."
"No, no, it's a great song," she said. "It's just that it reminds me of my dad."
"Oh, I see," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't…"
"No, how could you have known? No, look, let's listen to this and enjoy it. It brings back good memories of him, and I'm really lucky to have had such a great dad."
"How uh, how long has he been gone?" I asked, sitting down on the bed next to her and wrapping a sympathetic arm around her.
"It's been around four years now. He had an aneurysm; it was quick and painless for him, thankfully. I didn't have to see him suffer or slowly deteriorate and waste away or anything so I guess I should be grateful for that."
"I suppose out of all the ways, that's a pretty good way to go, as long as it doesn't happen when you're young."
"He was 67 when it happened."
"It's a decent age," I remarked. "Many don't make it that far."
"Yeah. Well, he was my only parent growing up. My mom died in a car accident when I was two, so I don't remember her at all."
"And he never remarried?" I asked.
"No, never. Stayed single for the rest of his life. He truly loved my mother; said no other woman could possibly take her place."
"He sounds like a really great guy," I remarked.
"Believe me, he was. And all this 70’s and 80’s rock and metal stuff, that was totally his thing. I grew up with that music playing in the house all the time."
I chuckled. "There are definitely worse soundtracks to grow up with."
She laughed, and it was good to see a smile on her face.
"There sure are. You know, he was an exceptionally talented guitarist."
"Was he, huh?"
"Oh, he was, believe me. We had a room in the house that was his, well I guess these days they'd call it a 'man cave.' But yeah, he had this big Marshall stack amplifier in there, a Gibson Les Paul, and a huge rack of effects pedals. He would sometimes sit in there for hours on end, just playing. And he could play all of the well-known guitar solos note for note, seriously."
"Wow. I was gonna say that I can play a little, but that's just strumming chords. It'd take me years to learn to play even a simple solo. Did he play in a band?"
"He did when he was young, but after my mom died and he had to take care of me by himself, he just didn't have the time for it anymore."