he gave me after school. I loved my guitar and I loved my dad. It was his guitar, given to him by his dad when he was a kid, and now he had given it to me.
He had showed me where to place my fingers on the frets and how to strum a basic chord progression.
“Okay, the first chord you’re going to learn is the C major chord open. Put your ring finger on the fifth string, third fret,” my dad explained as he took my hand and placed it in position on the neck of the guitar. “Then put your middle finger on the fourth string, second fret,” he continued, once again finagling my fingers to the right spot. “Lastly, put your pointer finger on the second string, first fret.”
He moved his hands away from mine as soon as they were exactly where he wanted them, stood back, and smiled down at me.
“Now, strum down from the fifth string twice, slowly.”
I could never forget the look on his face when I strummed the guitar those first few times. Within a half hour, I could play every note without having to look down and make sure my fingers were in the right spots. His face lit up with the biggest smile I had ever seen, and he immediately started teaching me how to read music and play songs.
We'd spend hours down there together every single day, and I couldn’t think of anything else I would rather do than spend time with him. Plus, it made Mom mad and that was okay with me. Mom didn’t like anything that made me happy, but Dad said I should just ignore her.
“Layla Page! You are supposed to be working on your speech for my charity event at the children’s hospital!” my mom yelled angrily down to me. Her order was drowned out by the sound of my dad’s footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Oh, leave her be, Eve. That event is weeks away, and all she has to do is talk about her two-day stay with them last year when we thought she had pneumonia,” my dad yelled up the stairs to her as he walked off the bottom step and gave me a wink. I immediately stopped worrying about how irritated she would be when we finally surfaced from the studio in a few hours now that my dad was there. I had a surprise for him, and I was too excited to care about my mom yelling at him, complaining he spends all his free time with me and never pays attention to her.
“There’s my beautiful girl! How was school today?” Dad asked as he rushed over to my side and placed a kiss on top of my head.
“It was boring. But I got an A on my spelling test.”
My dad laughed and pulled up a chair next to me, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Never tell anyone I told you this, hummingbird, but school never stops being boring,” he said with a smile. “Now, show me what you’ve been practicing.”
I tried to hide my excitement, but it showed all over my face with a smile that stretched from ear-to-ear and my eyes dancing with anticipation. I could barely sit still.
“Well, I got tired of playing Leaving on a Jet Plane. I know you said it’s good for beginners because it only uses three chords, but that song sucks and it’s depressing,” I told him honestly as I positioned my fingers on the right frets and concentrated on what I was about to do.
“Well, alright then, show me what you learned!” my dad told me with another laugh.
I immediately closed my eyes and began strumming the first couple of notes to the song I’d secretly been teaching myself every day after school. One of my dad’s favorites. I always forgot where I was when I played. I forgot who was in the room with me and couldn’t hear people talking or anyone making noise. I forgot about everything but the music and how it made me feel—like I was free.
I finished the song a few minutes later and opened my eyes to find my dad staring at me with his mouth open and tears in his own eyes.
“You just played Wonderful Tonight flawlessly,” he whispered.
“I know,” I told him nonchalantly with a shrug of my shoulders as I looked back down at the guitar and fiddled with the strings.
“That was amazing, honey. I don’t even know grown men who have been in