Then I noticed a wall covered with photographs, concert posters, and newspaper clippings.
One picture showed Dad twenty years younger, holding his guitar high beneath bright stage lights.
Another captured a crowd reaching toward the stage.
I examined a newspaper clipping.
“Local Rock Band Packs Riverside Theater for Third Consecutive Weekend.”
I read it twice.
My father had performed before packed audiences. People had paid to watch him.
Yet he’d never told me.
“Why did you hide all this?” I murmured.
I approached the instruments.
Electric guitars, a keyboard, and professional recording equipment filled the room. I recognized an audio interface that once cost more than three months of my wages.
Then I spotted something beside the keyboard.
A battered black guitar with a tiny silver star sticker near its neck.
My guitar.
I’d purchased it secondhand at sixteen and played almost daily until my arguments with Dad became unbearable.
It eventually disappeared while I was clearing my room, and I’d assumed I’d accidentally thrown it away.
But here it stood, fitted with fresh strings.
I picked it up and examined it.
Someone had even repaired the crack near the bridge.
My throat tightened.
For the first time, I wondered whether Dad had built this studio for someone other than himself.
For me.
But why? And why had he seemed to hate music?
I carefully returned the guitar to its stand.
Beside the mixing desk lay a small flash drive.
I picked it up. A piece of tape bore two words in Dad’s handwriting:
“Our Band.”
I plugged it into a nearby computer and found one video.
I clicked “Play.”
The screen flickered, revealing grainy footage of four young men rehearsing in a cramped garage.
There was Dad, his hair past his shoulders, playing guitar with a cigarette tucked behind his ear.
“Come on, Frank!” he shouted at the drummer. “My grandma can keep a better beat than that!”
“Then invite her to join the band!”
Everyone burst into laughter.
The footage shifted between performances, backstage clips, and hilarious rehearsal moments.
In one scene, Dad attempted to leap from a speaker but landed on his backside.
In another, the bassist knocked over a tray of drinks.
I laughed until tears filled my eyes.
I’d never known this version of Dad. He was energetic, hilarious, and outspoken, nothing like the silent man I’d eaten breakfast with.
Then the video abruptly stopped.
The screen went dark.
Seconds later, Dad appeared.
Not the young musician from the footage, but the man we’d buried that morning.
He sat in the same studio, his face gaunt and most of his hair gone from cancer.
“Hey, son.”
My breath caught.
He looked at his hands before speaking again.
“I’ve never been good at this stuff. Talking about feelings. You know that better than anybody.”
He tried to smile.
“First thing I want to say is… I’m sorry.”
I gripped the desk.
“I spent so much time worrying about making sure you had a decent life that I forgot something pretty important. Life’s supposed to make you happy, too. Not just pay the bills.”
He shook his head.
“When your mom died, I got scared. I thought if I worked hard enough, kept a roof over our heads, and made sure you learned to stand on your own two feet, I’d be doing my job.”
He paused.
“Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to be your dad.”
