A shiver ran through Butch as the minister called those gathered to take their seats. Front row, Nancy sat on the center aisle, Grant at her side. Then came Randy with Butch next to him. The minister began with a prayer and a reading. Butch winced as the words selected to offer comfort were like fingernails on a chalk board.
Grant was called forward to speak about his daughter. He stood but faltered. He looked to his son. Randy rose instantly, accepted the paper from the shaking hand and stepped to face the gathering.
He cleared his throat. “These are my father’s words.” Randy took a breath as he focused on the paper in his hand. “Fawn came into the world in the backseat of my neighbor’s El Dorado. She wasn’t due for another two weeks, but Fawn had other ideas. Little did I realize that would be the theme of her life. Fawn had ideas. I always admired the way she pushed for more, for better, even as she was driving me insane. As we gather today to celebrate her life, I wanted to share what her life meant, so we could all keep a little part of her with us. I think Fawn would agree life isn’t the cards you’re dealt, it’s what you do with them. Whether you’re eight or eighty-eight, life is to be embraced, lived for the moment that is, not saved for one that may never come.”
Randy looked up from the paper, but in that instant, it was Tom’s face masked in anguish. “For myself, I’ll say I never imagined not having my sister. But as painful as today is, I’ll take it over a life in which she never existed.” Randy turned to the casket, removed a heavy bracelet that had been tucked up his sleeve and draped it over his sister’s hands. “I love you, little sister. My world isn’t the same without you.”
Butch pushed out of his seat, muttering apologies as he lurched up the aisle.
Kate brushed her hair smooth and tied it with a band at the top of her head. She put on a dress, this one a fun, flowered print. It surprised Kate that she liked wearing dresses. Her body was free to move easily in the clingy material. They made her feel pretty. She was starting to get used to that, too. Kate applied a touch of pink to her lips then stood back to survey the results. The effect was simple but, she thought, attractive. Her only adornments were the diamonds in her ears, given to her by her family as a college graduation present, and the one on her hand, given to her by the man she waited anxiously for. She worried about him but hadn’t texted, respecting that Fawn’s funeral was something she couldn’t be a part of. So she planned. She made a reservation at a high-end restaurant then routed a drive to a secluded spot she’d found on Google Earth.
A car drove up the long driveway, almost sneaking past her it rolled so quietly. Kate checked her hair one last time and ran down the stairs. She slowed down, opened the front door, and walked down the wooden stairs to the concrete drive below. Butch sat in the car, his head on the steering wheel.
Kate swore quietly and moved quickly to the driver’s door, throwing it wide.
Butch turned his head, looking at her over hands locked around the steering wheel. “This is a mistake.”
She pried his hands from the wheel and pulled his head to rest on her stomach. She stroked his hair gently. “I know. I should have gone with you. Come inside.”
She led him into the house, sat on the corner of the couch, and held her arms wide. He needed to be held, loved, and she was just the woman for the job. “Butch, come here.”
Butch shook his head. “You’re right about me. I’m not a good bet,” he said, his voice a low murmur. He closed his eyes. “I need the ring back.”
Kate sat frozen, her arms drifting in space. A moment passed. He turned away. She dropped her arms, her brain hearing but not processing the words. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m saying you were right. It’s stupid for two people who have only known each other for a few weeks to get married. It’s a pattern I keep falling into. It’s not good for me. It’s not good for you.”
She shook her head and came to her feet, forcing her voice to be stern. “You’re not getting out that easily. You started this.”
“I started this. I’m ending this.”
Kate grabbed his arm and spun him to face her. “No. We are not over.” She caught his face in her hands and kissed him.
But he didn’t kiss her back. His lips didn’t move. His eyes didn’t close. His body didn’t respond.
Kate wondered where the sound went. The room suddenly had no color. She rubbed her palm over her breaking heart. “Butch?”
“I’m sorry, Kate.” He turned back toward the window. “A cab is here to take you to an airport. I’ve arranged travel back to Nashville or Detroit. Your choice.”
Kate stared at the back of his head, psychically willing him to turn around and tell her it was a stupid, fucked up joke.
But he didn’t turn.
She pulled the beloved ring from her finger and set it on the end table. Her sole focus became leaving as quickly as possible. In the bedroom she’d left minutes before, she scraped her toiletries into a bag. Clothes from her dresser were tossed haphazardly on top. She couldn’t look at the closet, where those pretty dresses hung. The tears were too close. She picked up her pace, knowing that in moments she would be a hot mess. In the dining area, she shoved her papers and laptop into a bag, draped her small purse across her body, and walked out the door.
She moved without seeing, down the stairs, into the waiting cab. The tears fell. She couldn’t stop them but didn’t cry out. She didn’t speak until a woman at the charter desk asked her where she was going.
“Home. I want to go home. Detroit.”
Kate had once thought you couldn’t die from emotional pain, but as she sat alone, thousands of feet above the ground, she understood you could. Life as she knew it had ended.
Hours and hours later, another cab dropped her at her office, the one she and Tom renovated themselves. In the dark of night, she let herself in, walked along the restored black and white tiles, and up the stairs. She ran up one final flight and out the door to the roof. She ran in a circle, wanting to escape the pain clawing at her heart. She stopped in the middle, dropping her head back and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Her legs failed and Kate collapsed to the rough roof, her throat burning as she cried out. On her side, with her knees pressed to her chest, Kate willed the night to take her.
Twelve hours did nothing to ease Butch’s pain. Neither did the bottle of Jack he found in a cabinet and a guitar he kept on hand. It didn’t help any more than telling himself over and over that he did the right thing for her. He paced the open floor of his cabin, guitar strapped to his body, fingers working the neck, but nothing except noise came out.
The shrill ring of the phone was a welcomed interruption.
Butch looked at the screen, for a second hoping it was Kate calling to cuss him out after seeing through his facade. But it wasn’t.
“Clyde, you’d better not be drunk dialing me.” Butch kept his voice light to keep all of the dark thoughts at bay. Hyde. His parents. His friends. Kate. At least he knew she was fine. She should be back in Detroit by now. Asleep in her own bed. Safe and sound.
“Clyde, after the night we’ve had, getting a good drunk on sounds like a great idea.” Jeb sounded as exhausted as Butch felt. “We’ve had a fire. We lost the barn.”
Butch held his breath. “Are you hurt? Mom, Dad, Tom?”
“The fire didn’t hurt anything but the barn.”
Butch kicked at a cabinet door. “What happened?”
“The girls Tom and I picked up at the bar were coming over for dinner. Tom set the grill up. I saw him do it. It wasn’t close enough to the barn to be a problem. We were in the kitchen. Tom scrubbed vegetables for the grill to go with the steaks. I went upstairs to get some candles for the table. I’ll tell you, Butch, I’ve never seen anything like it. The room was purple when the blue paint lit up with the red light from the fire. I raced downstairs. We got the tractor and some stuff out. It went up so fast. There was nothing to do but protect the house.”
“How bad?”
“It’s gone. Completely gone.”
Butch’s gut clenched, and bile rose in his throat. Whatever was going on, he’d done the right thing, chasing Katie away. He was right, no matter how wrong it felt. “All right. I’ll be home tomorrow.”
“Just you?”
“Kate and I broke up. She’s home in Michigan. Tell Tom, if he doesn’t already know.”
“Yeah. I will. Shit, Butch. Shit. I’m sorry, man.”
Kate stood in the late nineteenth-century building she and Tom had renovated with the help of their family. RILEY ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS was proudly displayed over the archway that led to the front door.
The place stood empty, except for Kate. Not unusual for a Saturday. Three floor-to-ceiling windows provided her second-floor office with intimate exposure to the hustle of the street below. Kate stood at a window in a thick sweater that did nothing to stop the chill that ran continuously through her.
In the week she’d been back, she’d slept here every night. She’d gone to the home she shared with Tom for clothes and moved into the small apartment on the third floor of the building. Tom’s house was one of her favorite places, but without him there, memories made the space too small.
Kate found that work cleared her mind. When she worked, she didn’t spend every moment wondering if Butch thought of her. Designing the new space for a not-for-profit gallery meant the tears stopped flowing enough for her to see. Her hands didn’t tremble when she prepared a proposal for a multi-use complex in Cleveland. Her breath came in and went out without a hitch while she reviewed material specifications.
Kate had simplified her life. Wake. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
The phone rang. Eight-thirty Eastern. Right on time.
“Hey, Tom.”
“How ya feeling today, Katie?”
“Kate. My name is Kate.”
Silence stretched. “The weather has been great. Everyone is working overtime, and we’ve nearly made up the time we’ve lost.” More silence. “It’s been a week. A solid week with no accidents, incidents, or fires. Jeb can’t explain it, but everyone is starting to relax and get back to normal.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s time for you to come back. As much as I hate to admit this out loud, you are better at managing the field work. We need you. I have a house for us, a cottage. It’s quiet with plenty of space.”
“I miss it, the everyday hustle.” Office life didn’t suit Kate. The quiet diplomacy of it gave her too much time to think. She liked being on the ground, where hours mattered and decisions needed to be made now. But could she return to Butch’s home town? She picked up a photo from her desk. It pictured Butch and a woman in a red dress. They sat at a table, their heads together in conspiracy. She wanted more than his attention; he wore his little boy smile. The corner date was before they had been engaged but after he’d declared them “exclusive.”
Kate set the picture down. “I don’t think I can see him, Tom. Not yet.”
“You don’t have to,” Tom said quickly. “He doesn’t come around, and his tour starts soon. He’ll be miles away for months.”
Tom had been careful with the subject of Butch. Kate knew Tom had moved out of Butch’s house into a cabin Jeb found for him. He, Jeb, and Butch had become friends in their own right, and it saddened Kate that Tom walked away from that because of her. She didn’t expect him to. She just didn’t want to be a part of it. Maybe in ten years they’d look back at this and laugh. Butch would be re-married, and she’d have her name on the most interesting buildings on the continent. They would survive. They would move on.
“All right. I’ll come.”
Butch sat on the piano bench, his guitar cradled in his lap, playing the lineup for his tour. His fingers played the notes but the sound wasn’t right. He played them over and over but heard nothing but flat, deadened tones. He’d written the songs. If anyone should know how to play them, he should.
Butch’s head snapped up at the slam of a screen door. This was hard enough without interruptions.
Trudy’s heels clipped across the floor. “You will never guess who I saw at the grocery.”
Butch dropped his head down, looking at his fingers and threatening retribution if they didn’t get in the game.
Paper rustled from the couch where Jeb sat, reading the Sunday edition. “Was it Elvis?”
“No, Mr. Smartypants. It was that Kate Riley. I hoped we’d seen the last of her troublemaking ways.” Her clinking heels faded into the kitchen.
Butch turned slowly, looking at his brother. His heart pumped in double time. “Did you know she was back?”
“I knew Tom was going to ask her to come back.” Jeb dropped the paper on his lap.
God, the house felt empty. Could he live alone again? “How about you? Are you staying or going back to the apartment?”
“I’m staying. I’ve gotten used to seeing your face.”
Butch released the breath he held. “Likewise. I’m going to go out for a while.”
Jeb stood. “It’s not too late, Butch. You can get her back.”
Butch couldn’t look Jeb in the eye. He thought to explain how he couldn’t live with the thought of Kate in a casket, his hands closing the lid. He couldn’t live with what it would do to Tom, to lose his sister the way Randy had. Butch would have to be a selfish bastard to keep Kate, knowing what stalked him. He couldn’t do it to her, he wouldn’t do it to her. But in the end, he just walked past his brother.
Trudy stepped out of the kitchen in a sunshine yellow dress and a white apron. “How do pork chops sound for dinner, Butchy?”
This was not his life. “I’m not hungry.”
She stomped an indignant foot. “That’s all you have to say? After I went grocery shopping for you?”
Butch took out his wallet, pulled a few bills and shoved them at Trudy. “From now on, don’t.” He took his hat from the hook, snagged his keys from the table, and looked at Jeb. “Don’t wait up for me.”
Walking out had been the easy part. Where to now? It didn’t matter. One place was as good as the next. Butch drove without purpose or destination. He drove to escape the stone cold prison he lived in. After two hours, he stopped for a drink. Hat low on his head, he sat at a bar and nursed a beer, staring at a television showing an infomercial for a hair remover.
The bartender didn’t pay much attention when he served Butch. He set the bottle and retreated to the end where his buddy lingered. The early-week night didn’t pull the crowds in, so the bartender passed the time talking. The pair stared at Butch, then the bartender slowly worked his way closer. “Need another beer?”
Butch shook his head.
“Anyone ever told you, you look a lot like Butch McCormick?”
What the hell, Butch thought. If he couldn’t be happy, maybe he could make someone else’s night. It would be his good deed of the fucking day. Maybe if he did enough good deeds, he’d get out of hell.
Butch pushed his hat back with his thumb and smiled. “My mama says I look like my daddy. Pleased to meet you.”
“Good to meet you, Mr. McCormick.”
“Butch.”
“Butch. This is Larry…and Mary Ann. Y’all come meet Butch McCormick.”
The locals of this bar weren’t so different from his own. Good people who didn’t need to know about his bullshit. With them, he could forget about the bullshit.
“I saw you in concert two years ago,” Mary Ann said. “You put on the best show. Would you sign something? For my mother?”
Butch took a cocktail napkin and borrowed a pen. “Who do I make it out to?”
Then came the pictures and the selfies and the spots burned into his eyes from the flashes.
The women gathered around him, near enough to touch. Competing perfume collided with latent beer and invaded his head. Eyes. Everywhere eyes looked at him. The room spun. Too many hands. Too many smiles. And still more eyes measured him up like he was a trophy. A trophy-man slut.
Butch needed some space. At the far end, an empty stage sat in the dark. “Does that piano work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How about a quick tune?” The entire bar—bartender and all—followed Butch to the corner. He ran his fingers up the keys. “A bit out of tune, but I’m betting we do just fine.”
Butch played three songs from the concert lineup. He picked two he could do in his sleep and the one that had been giving him trouble. In front of a crowd, with the thrill of the performance in his veins, it played just fine. He’d given these good people a little something tonight, and they’d given him something back.
Butch pushed to his feet. “Y’all have a real nice place here. I appreciate your hospitality.” Butch handed five times the cost of the beer to the bartender. “I have to be getting back.”
“Are you sure? Butch?” The offer wore a white blouse and no bra.
Trophy-man slut.
“I am.”
Butch dragged his body into his house an hour after Jeb left for work. In his bedroom, the closet door sat open. Her clothes were gone. The drawers she used sat starkly empty. The scent of strawberries he cursed each night had faded.
Left alone with himself, he couldn’t stand it.
Butch ran to his studio and packed up his guitars. He’d go to Nashville. He’d go to Steel Strings or…or to the practice studio. Somebody always hung around with extra time on their hands.
Ten hours later hadn’t changed the story…except Butch was too tired to care about the empty house.
“Where have you been?” Trudy stood in the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips. She was June Cleaver reincarnated, down to the flip of her hair.
“Working. What are you doing here, Trudy?” Butch was past dealing with other people’s needs. Tonight, he just wanted to sleep, alone, without the dreams and regrets.
“Making you dinner. I made a nice meatloaf—”
“You have to stop this, Trudy.” Butch’s head pounded. The few hours of sleep in his truck had long worn off, his patience gone, too. “We are not playing house.”
Lost in Tennessee Page 32
