Chapter 116: The Stairway to Heaven

The next day at noon, Freya knocked on her door again. Yvette knew what was about to happen, and a sudden pang of heartache struck her. Yunalette thought they were friends, but in truth, they had been like mother and daughter.

"I'm sorry, Yunalette. This is for your own good," Yvette thought as she stepped out of the room.

The world suddenly seemed unreal; the sunlight revealed the faint outline of a stairway to heaven. Yet, when her gaze drifted into the distance, everything appeared unchanged.

From afar, she saw Yunalette—the little girl was crying and throwing a tantrum. Yvette’s heart was in turmoil. She didn’t know how to persuade her; after all, she was still just a child. How could she understand compromises and choices beyond love?

She moved closer and closer to Yunalette, but the words she had prepared vanished the moment she saw the tears streaming down the girl’s face.

Before she could reach her, Yunalette suddenly stopped resisting. Silently, she followed the man who looked like a butler out of the room. Yvette’s heart felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted, yet at the same time, it was hollow, as if something precious was lost.

Lady Asgar’s donation arrived in her account as promised, and she handed the money over to Warren.

Yvette stood in the corridor, watching her son asleep in the hospital room, but her thoughts were with Yunalette.

She had always been like this—never able to accomplish anything, neither a proper mother nor a devoted nun.

If she had been a good mother, she wouldn’t have lost her Lucas. If she had been a good nun, she wouldn’t have met Yunalette that night, wouldn’t have treated her like her own child, and then witnessed her departure.

Outside the grand villa, the melodious fountain splashed into the wide reservoir, and marble sculptures imported from Rome gazed upon the attic where everything had unfolded.

“Little angel, why do you look like you’ve just cried? Don’t you like it here?”

Asgar Adams looked tenderly at the silent little girl. She still remembered the scene when she first saw her at the orphanage, standing in the back row of the choir, singing while observing the visitors with lively eyes. It was then she decided to adopt the child.

The butler beside her explained, “Madam, perhaps she’s not used to leaving the orphanage. She cried loudly when she left, but stopped as soon as she saw Sister Yvette standing in the distance.”

A dazzling entrance, deft technique, and a rhythm that strikes the soul—this is perhaps how people view a drummer sitting center stage. But who can hear the fleeting moment it takes for the drumsticks to rise and fall?

From the first time he picked up the sticks to his final performance, nearly half the life of every prodigious drummer is spent holding those sticks.

Warren opened his eyes but didn’t immediately get up. He stretched out his hand, savoring the vivid memory of the powerful, perfect strikes from his dream—each rhythm like a note beating within his heart.

He switched on the light, dressed, and climbed down from the bed. Guided by the faint glow, he found the basement stairs. This was his home, simply because it was all he could afford.

He hadn’t always lived here. Before picking up the drumsticks, he had a decent, respectable job and an ordinary family. He went to work in the morning and came home at night with bread. Though his marriage was far from harmonious, at least he had a home.

But that peaceful life shattered after one concert, a company event where he first heard a jazz band. The drummer was no virtuoso, yet he opened a new world to Warren. Technique, speed, power—everything aesthetic in drumming was revealed to him.

He never recovered from that rhythmic onslaught, or perhaps, from that day on, he never truly woke up.

An uncontrollable passion for the instrument took hold. At home, he obsessed over classic drum solos. That night he stayed awake, and by dawn he had resolved to become a world-class drummer.

He had once lived like any ordinary man: going to school, graduating, finding work, marrying, having a child. He had dreams but they faded away. But when the drums entered his life, everything changed.

He quit his job and plunged into the bass drum, exhausting every method to learn and master the craft. Tirelessly, overnight, he became a devout disciple of the drums.

As a father, he gradually abandoned his responsibilities. His world contained nothing but drumsticks and sheet music. The consequence was his wife choosing to divorce him. He gained custody of his son but left the boy with his mother.

Since then, he took a half-hour subway ride daily from the cheap suburbs to the music studio, rehearsing with the band. He severed all sources of income but held no regrets—the sound of drums was powerful and resolute in his world.

Yet, his diligence and passion could not mask his lack of innate talent. He was told more than once that he lacked the essential quality of a great drummer: the ability to command the rhythm of the entire stage.

He became obsessed with chasing that elusive feeling, arriving earliest and leaving last from the drum room.

Repetition. Repetition. Endless repetition. Every strike shook the sweat from his hands. The skin of his palms was calloused to the point he barely felt anything. Countless hours of practice engraved the movements deep in his muscles.

Finally, he stood at the threshold—one step more and he would become a professional drummer. He often imagined himself on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall, recognized by the world, reclaiming what he had once abandoned with newfound grace.

But in the end, his music was never accepted. He auditioned repeatedly for jazz bands but was never the one handed the sticks.

“Your rhythm is loose but has a unique charm. However, it’s not perfect. Your timing and tone control fall short of our standards. Sorry, Mr. Warren.”

Again and again, every band turned him away. After breaking his drumsticks for the third time in the practice room, he left.

He became a temporary drummer for third-rate bands in bars, spending every day immersed in percussion.

His meager earnings confined him to a dark, gloomy basement, but he never gave up. To afford new drumheads, he collected church charity meals for three months. To secure performance opportunities, he arrived at the manager’s apartment a day early, enduring cold nights just to be the first to meet him.

He had slept in public restrooms and been thrown out of bars during shows. He had done almost everything—except one thing: give up.

He told himself repeatedly that one day he would become Buddy Rich, the greatest drummer of all.

But London’s streets were full of men like him—fallen artists living in their own worlds, too narrow to contain anything else.

If not for that phone call, Warren might have wandered alone in his world until either fame or death found him.

“Lucas is ill. He wants to see his father,” Sophie Adams said, finding Warren seated at the drums. If not for the familiar look in his eyes, identical to when he left years ago, she could hardly believe this gaunt man with messy hair was her son.

“How old is he?” Warren fell silent for a moment, then asked his mother, whom he hadn’t seen in years.

“Nine.”

Warren left his drums at the bar and followed his mother to see his son.

“Dad, long time no see,” Lucas said from his hospital bed, his face pale but his eyes immediately recognizing the man who entered.

“You’ve grown a lot,” Warren said, studying the son who now seemed somewhat unfamiliar, yet whose face faintly mirrored his own.

“Dad, you’ve changed a lot too. I almost didn’t recognize you.” Lucas coughed a few times; his voice was weak.

A long, heavy silence followed before Warren softly spoke, “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Dad. I know you had more important things to do.” Lucas smiled, pure and unblemished.

“Sorry I wasn’t a good father. I didn’t choose you,” Warren turned his head away, unwilling to meet those eyes so much like his own. The pain they held pierced his heart.

“Was it your dream, Dad? Did you go to pursue your dream?” Lucas asked.

“Yes.” Warren didn’t know how the word escaped his lips. He looked toward the window; the sky outside the hospital was overcast, as if rain was coming.

“You don’t need to apologize, Dad. Our teacher said that when someone pursues their dream, they will always lose something. But she also said no one who loses anything should ever be mocked.” Lucas paused, then continued.

“Dad, am I the thing you lost?”

Warren was silent. He found he had no courage to raise his head. He had always thought himself brave, but now he realized he was only a coward, fleeing his responsibilities.

Warren stepped out of the room and spoke with the doctor.

“How is his condition?”

“It’s serious, but fortunately we caught it early. A surgery should resolve most issues.”

“How much will the surgery cost?”

“This operation is complex. I recommend a private hospital. The price won’t be cheap.”

“How much should I prepare?”

“At least two hundred thousand pounds, sir.”

Warren left the hospital as raindrops began to fall, quickly soaking the ground. Without an umbrella, he walked step by step toward the station. While waiting for the bus, he made a call.

“Brook, this is Warren, Warren Griffin. If I remember correctly, you said before you really like my drumming…”

After selling his drums, the bus arrived. He boarded and then dialed a number his mother had given him upon leaving the hospital.

“Yvette.”

Three days later, Warren watched the numbers in his bank account finally reach the target. He thought he should feel joy, but unexpectedly, he felt nothing.

He had signed the surgery consent form, and the private hospital had deducted the first installment. There was still money left to cover a possible second operation.

He watched Lucas being wheeled into surgery. Before the anesthesia, he considered comforting his son, but just one look into Lucas’s eyes told him it was unnecessary. Lucas Griffin needed no such consolation.

A wave of sadness surged within Warren. There was no fear in Lucas’s eyes. Having endured life without parents, he naturally did not fear this.

Hours later, Warren stood outside the viewing window, watching Lucas resting after surgery. The doctor, now out of scrubs, found him.

“The surgery was successful, but he’ll need to stay here for some time. We need to monitor for postoperative complications and aftereffects.”

“Understood.”

Warren left the hospital again, still feeling nothing. He wanted to do something but found nowhere to go. Since leaving home, his life had revolved solely around the drums; beyond that, his heart was empty.

He sat on a park bench, his gaze fixed on the calluses of his right hand, bewildered and lost like a twenty-year-old staring into an uncertain future.

When one doubts the past and cannot envision the future, they inevitably seek distractions to numb their mind. Warren was no different. Aside from those cramped, dim practice rooms, the bar was the place he frequented most.

This time, however, he was no longer a performer but an audience member.

The band in the bar played Eminem’s “Without Me.” Warren sat by the bar, ordered a Newcastle beer, and watched the foamy liquid poured into a clear glass. He took it but didn’t drink, instead listening intently to the lively performance, his eyes fixed on the chubby boy playing drums in the corner of the stage.