The Song

by Chris Fabry

  He was hearing a melody, but it was a little bold, a little brash, like one of those angry songs by younger artists wanting to be noticed. Look at me, I’m angry at something. That wasn’t the feel he wanted. Not the tone he wanted to project with his music.

  “Whatcha working on?” Shelby said, brushing against him and leaning over his shoulder.

  From anyone else he would have felt it an intrusion, but working as closely as they had the past few months, it was okay. It was how Shelby was—in your face. She wore everything on the surface, like the tattoos on her arms and back.

  “Just an idea for a song,” he said, turning off the device.

  “No, let me see. Maybe I can help. Some of the best songs are cowritten, you know. One person has an idea, you put two heads together, and you come up with something better. I’ll work on the chorus while you work on the verses.”

  “It usually doesn’t work that way with me.”

  “Have you ever tried?”

  “Not really.”

  “Have you ever sung ‘Turn Around Fast’?”

  “Yeah, sure. The Transom, right?”

  “Story goes that Sully, the lead singer, had a verse he was working on and Glenn Sincher asked him if he could help. Sully said no, put him off, put him off. Finally he gave it to him and Glenn finished it and the rest is history.”

  “You think that’ll happen with you?”

  “I think we’ll never know unless you let me see it. Come on, what’s it going to hurt?”

  Shelby inched around and asked Johnny Paugh, Jed’s drummer, if they could switch seats. “We’re writing a song,” she said.

  Johnny raised his eyebrows and scooted toward the back.

  “I really don’t feel right about sharing this one, Shelby. Not yet.”

  She puckered her face in a cute, pouty way, like a kid whose lollipop just fell in the sand. “Must have something to do with the marital act, then. Right?”

  How did she know that? Jed thought.

  “You’re blushing,” Shelby said, laughing too loud for the subdued flight and the time of night. She lowered her voice and leaned toward him. “Okay, far be it from me to intrude on your bedroom. Or wherever it is you two . . .”

  He almost told her about the vineyard but held back from sharing such personal information. You had to draw a line somewhere.

  “Where? The laundry room? The kitchen? Your secret’s safe with me, Jed.”

  He turned toward the window and saw his reflection. His eyes looked hollow in this light, even to himself.

  “The vineyard,” he said, turning back to her.

  “Outside? I knew Christians could be back-to-nature kind of people, but I didn’t know you’d go that far.”

  “That’s never happened before,” he said, feeling bad about revealing something so intimate. “But it was nice.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I’ve heard that’s one of the first things to go after children. You know, the desire and everything. ‘All I want to be is with you’ becomes ‘All I’ve got tonight is a headache.’ So good for you.”

  He didn’t say anything and she seemed to pick up on his silence. Finally she said, “I’ve been working on something too. It’s about this girl looking for love in all the wrong places. She gets hurt a few times. Gets angry. Tries to get even. She pours herself into her work, her art . . .”

  “How does it end?”

  Shelby leaned over the armrest. “She meets somebody really special. Somebody really different from her. And he gives her hope, even though he doesn’t know it. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “He’s off-limits. So the whole thing is . . . What’s the word?”

  “Unrequited?”

  “Yeah. Or maybe forbidden.” She smiled sheepishly.

  “Hey, don’t feel bad you couldn’t remember it. You used existential in the Rock & Roots interview. That was impressive.”

  “You read that?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “There were a couple of factual errors about my dad, but it was pretty good. Can’t complain about the publicity.”

  “Stan says even bad publicity is good.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Show me your song.”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” She winked.

  He grinned and shook his head. “Maybe some other time. But keep writing. You have real talent.”

  Shelby grabbed her purse and pulled out some lip gloss. Jed saw a prescription bottle and pointed at it. “You don’t have some serious illness you’re fighting, do you?”

  She jammed the bottle deep into her purse. “No, just the normal stuff. Sometimes I can’t sleep. Sometimes I’m too wired. These just help.”

  “You should be careful with that kind of help.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Jed. Things are under control.”

  He looked out the window at the darkness and the blinking plane lights. In the reflection he saw Shelby get up and leave. Part of him felt relieved. Part of him wanted her to stay.

  In Glasgow the next night they sounded amazing together. The whole group did, both bands, but particularly Jed and Shelby. The houses were packed with a younger audience that clapped and screamed and sang along with every song. The sound, the lighting, the nearness of the fans—it all worked and Jed fed off the electricity in the room, fed off the chemistry between Shelby and him. He couldn’t imagine them sounding better.

  But the next concert in Dublin was just that, better. And their concert in London took things to another level. At the end, as they performed their finale, “The Song,” Jed and Shelby sang, “Love is the power that heals.”

  The response rose to a crescendo and someone screamed to Jed’s left. He saw the fan break through security just before she tackled him.

  “I love you,” she shrieked as two guards grabbed her and pulled her away. “I want you, Jed! I love you! Your songs mean so much to me! Don’t let them take me away!”

  While she kept screaming over the applause, Jed looked at Shelby. She convulsed with laughter.

  Jed shook the event off and waved at the audience before going backstage. Stan was elated. The band was stoked. Shelby was on some cloud enjoying the response. But Jed felt an emptiness and a hunger he couldn’t explain and that no amount of adoring fans could fill.

  He decided that what he needed was a good night’s sleep and then he would get back to performing. He tried to convince himself that would take away the questions and the ache inside.

  CHAPTER 32

  ROSE AND RAY ARRIVED at the vineyard before noon to eat lunch with her dad. They brought a picnic basket filled with Ray’s favorites. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, carrot and celery sticks with peanut butter, honey and peanut butter and crackers. Ray was definitely partial to peanut butter and she would have loved to give him as much as he wanted, but for some reason the smell of the crunchy stuff turned her stomach these days. That hadn’t happened since . . . well, for a long time.

  As she drove, Ray nodded off and she turned the radio on low. One of Jed’s songs came on and she smiled. He’d come a long way from being the only act at their festival. And it seemed like there was no stopping him or slowing him down.

  He understood about her dad; she really believed he did. But he still had the hurt look on his face when he drove away, like she should be coming with him to Europe. She decided she could either live feeling guilty or she could live fully, and she chose the latter.

  She knocked on the screen door when she got to the house and called for her dad. There was no sound inside. Ray ran to the tire swing in the front yard, the same one her mother had watched her on until the day she died.

  “Daddy?” The screen door creaked when she opened it and she set the basket of food down, then peeked into his office, half-expecting him to be slumped over his desk in that big chair, but he wasn’t there. She looked closely at the floor, where all the animal
s prowled.

  “Daddy?”

  She walked through the kitchen and looked out the back window, thinking he might be in the barn, but she saw no movement except wind in the trees.

  She found him in the living room, in his favorite chair with an afghan tossed haphazardly over his legs. He was still and lifeless and she didn’t want to touch him because she knew his skin would feel cold. Just before she lost it and burst out crying, his eyes opened and he looked at her as if he was expecting someone else.

  “Rose?”

  She smiled, wiping away a tear. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  “I heard something but figured it was the wind.” He struggled to get up. “Where’s Ray?”

  “He’s outside on the swing. Stay where you are. You look tired.”

  “Just came in for a little nap after my chores.” He sat up and put three fingers to his chest and winced, then burped. His breathing seemed labored like he was trying to pull air out of a deflated tire.

  “How do you feel, Daddy?”

  “With my fingers. How do you feel?”

  She gave him a glare.

  “I’ve seen better days. But better days are ahead, too.” He scooted to the edge of the chair and sighed. “I had a dream. Just as clear as a bell.”

  “What was it?”

  “Your mama was sitting there at the window. Looking out at Ray. Telling me what I ought to do like she always did.”

  “She cared more about you than you did.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  Ray came bursting through the door and found them in the living room. Her dad enveloped the ball of energy and brought him onto his lap.

  “We’re going to have a picnic!” Ray said.

  “A picnic? That sounds like a great idea.”

  “You hungry, Paw Paw?”

  “I was born hungry,” he said, laughing. Then he coughed and wheezed a little and Rose sent Ray to wash his hands.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Rose said.

  “You worry too much. Relax, okay?”

  They took the basket to the picnic table outside and Ray served his grandfather all the food he enjoyed. Her dad told Ray a story about saving Rose’s life from a snake she found near the pumpkin patch one year.

  “Was it big enough to eat her?” Ray said.

  “Big enough to bite her little toe, but that’s about it. It was a garter snake. Just out minding his own business and here came Rose.”

  “I thought I was going to die,” she said.

  “But the fearless father came to the rescue!” He held up his celery stick like it was a sword.

  “Did you kill it, Paw Paw?”

  “No, you don’t want to kill something so good for your garden. I pulled Rose out of the way and let Mr. Garter Snake slither off.”

  “I would have killed it for you, Mama,” Ray said.

  Rose laughed and they talked more about old times. Ray ran back to the swing with a sandwich in his hand and honey on his cheeks. There was a time when she couldn’t stand having his face dirty, but now she let it go. He’d get clean eventually.

  “Is Jed playing tonight?”

  Rose nodded. “London.”

  “Any part of you wish you were over there? Sightseeing? Spending time together?”

  “That day will come,” she said.

  “I hope you didn’t stay around here because of me.”

  “I stayed around here because this is where we live, Dad. The road is no place to try and raise a rambunctious child like that.”

  “It does help to have a big backyard, don’t it?” he said, grinning. Then he turned serious. “I just don’t want you two to grow apart. To stay apart for too long.”

  “Now who’s the worrywart?” she said, packing things away. “Things are good, Dad. Not perfect, but good.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Because I’d like to tell you about something I’ve decided.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I redid my will the other day.”

  “Dad.”

  “No, let me tell you. I’d let it go for a long time. Your mother was still in it.” He smiled and looked at the house.

  “What are you thinking?” Rose said.

  “The joke your mother used to tell about the little boy in Sunday school. Teacher at the country church asked the kids who wanted to go to heaven and everybody raised their hands except little Johnny. ‘Johnny, don’t you want to go to heaven?’ Little Johnny nodded and said, ‘I do. I just thought you were gettin’ up a load to go now.’”

  Rose laughed, remembering the stories and jokes around the kitchen table when she was young. Family and friends just stopping by without calling.

  “Anyway, I updated the will to reflect things as they are now. And I made you the executor.”

  She let the news sink in.

  “It means you decide what happens to the house and the land and the vineyard.”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Your brothers are going to want to sell the place as fast as they can. I want you to do what’s right with it.”

  “Daddy, that’s not going to be easy, especially with how headstrong—”

  “I know they’re stubborn. They take after your mother.” His eyes twinkled. “But you care about this place. If you and Jed want to move here and keep the place up, you can sell some of the bottomland and let the boys split that. If you don’t want to live here, you’ll sell it to the right person who will take care of it. This is not gonna happen anytime soon, mind you. I’m just making preparations.”

  She felt sad at first, and angry in a way, that her dad would bring up such a morbid thing at a picnic. But at least he was finally talking and not waiting until it was too late. Her mom had been sick and they’d known the end was coming, but still they had no idea what she wanted to be buried in or what songs she wanted at the funeral. It was because her dad had hung on to the stubborn belief that she would miraculously get better. She would beat cancer and everything would keep going like it always did. Her father had always seemed strong to her, like he could handle anything, but looking back, she could see how scared he was and what that fear did to him.

  After lunch her dad took another nap. He said he just wasn’t feeling right. Rose took Ray to show him off to some old friends in town and it was in Wilkerson’s Grocery (which had become Kroger, but she’d known it as Wilkerson’s since she was little) that she ran into Eddie in frozen foods. The irony was not lost on her. She hadn’t seen him since the harvest festival episode with Jed, more than six years ago. He was wearing a gray uniform and unpacking frozen dinners, and when he saw her, his face both lit up and fell.

  “Hey, Rosie,” Eddie said. “This your little guy?” He leaned down and touched Ray’s cheek with his gloved hand.

  “This is Ray.”

  “Ray,” Eddie said as if he would try to remember it. “How old are you, buddy?”

  “Four,” Ray said, then buried his face in Rose’s skirt.

  Eddie stood and looked Rose up and down. “You know, a lot of women get married, have a kid or two, and just let themselves go. You must work out.”

  “I spend most of my time chasing him,” she said. “That’s good exercise.”

  “How’s Jed?”

  “He’s doing well. The tour is in Europe right now.”

  “I’ve heard. Him and Shelby Bale are tearin’ it up.”

  “How about you, Eddie?” she said, turning the tide toward him.

  “I’m okay. Just working at this job until I can find something in my sweet spot. Temporary, you know.”

  “Sure. And did things work out with Kristen?”

  His face contorted in thought. “Kristen? Oh no, that didn’t work. I’m just waitin’ for the right one to come along. Again.”

  She blushed and Ray tugged on her skirt. “Mama, can we go?”

  “We’d better get going,” she said. “My dad will be expecting us.”

  “Listen, b
efore you go. What happened between us. I kick myself for treatin’ you how I did.”

  “I appreciate you saying that, Eddie.”

  “And if there’s ever a way to make it up to you . . .”

  “Mama, let’s go.”

  “We’ll let you get back to your job. It was nice seeing you, Eddie.”

  “Nice seeing you, too, Rosie.”

  She didn’t look back at him as they checked out, but she could feel him looking at her, wondering, What if?

  Rose made an early dinner for the three of them before her dad gave Ray a refresher on checkers. Ray seemed to like “jump your own man” the best, and her dad took it easy on him. After they had eaten, they skipped rocks on the pond, then cut back through the vineyard. Her dad took the gloves out of his pocket when he saw a patch of weeds he didn’t like. He found a hoe and went to work while Ray pulled a fruit cocktail bowl from his back pocket.

  “We just had dinner,” Rose said.

  “I know, but I’m hungry.”

  She opened it for him and he took a drink, then pointed at the chapel.

  “Daddy’s going to finish that when he gets back, right?”

  “That’s what he says,” Rose said.

  “Can we move there?”

  “No, that’s a chapel. It’s like a church. It’s where your dad and I were married.”

  “Cool.” Ray took another slurp and then laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Rose said.

  “Paw Paw. Look at him. He’s pretending.”

  Rose looked back and saw her father pitch forward into the vines, grasping for something to hold on to. Then he fell backward to the ground, his face ashen.

  Rose rushed to him and fell to her knees beside him. “Daddy!”

  She felt for a pulse and thought of doing chest compressions, but her father’s eyes were open and fixed and there was no breath in him. She glanced back at Ray where he stood, openmouthed, watching as she screamed and wept.

  Her cell phone. Where did she put her cell phone? It was back at the house. She ran, then turned back to grab Ray and he spilled his fruit cocktail and began to cry. Rose ran, crying too and trying to carry him, but he was getting bigger.