Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

IN YEARS PAST, CHRISTMAS WAS A blur of activity. Everybody wanted Mama’s holiday specials at the Glory Bee. I loved seeing newcomers do a double take when a tiny Asian woman, just shy of five feet, would emerge from the kitchen in her apron, making sure they were loving her Southern cooking. She made fruit cake that actually tasted good, cinnamon spice loaves, and of course, her famous mint apple cider. We made more money in December alone than any other quarter. We nearly made more money on Christmas morning than the rest of December. While other kids were tearing into their presents, Mama, Aunt Ruthie, and I were prepping for Glory Bee Christmas breakfast. Most years, I even managed to recruit San, but this Christmas he’s spending with his grandmother who just retired to Florida.

You wouldn’t believe how many folks don’t want to cook breakfast on Christmas morning. They much preferred Mama’s hot biscuits and homemade preserves to anything they could do themselves. We were always up by four that morning prepping, open for business from eight to noon, and home opening our own gifts by two. A strange Christmas, a working Christmas, but I never minded. The money we made that morning didn’t just pay for Christmas gifts. It paid for dance and singing lessons. For cheering and gymnastics fees. For new tap and ballet shoes. Mama never held with me having a job because she knew how demanding my schedule was, but I worked for her.

Inevitably, I’d have Christmas dance recitals, parades, holiday singing competitions. Mama never complained. She just juggled all her responsibilities at the diner, made sure I got where I needed to be, and that she was there when I needed her presence and support.

Christmas was a time of traditions, hard work, and gratitude. Mama never wanted me to take the little we had for granted. She made sure each Christmas Eve Glory Falls’s homeless or those in need had a hot meal. They’d crowd the basement of Glory Falls Baptist Church, and we would serve. Even though Mama is gone, that tradition remains.

And if I never see another dollop of mashed potatoes it will be too soon. I’m not sure if Glory Falls’s homeless population has tripled in the few months since I moved to L.A., or if I’m feeling Mama’s absence that acutely, but I can’t keep up with this crowd. Aunt Ruthie and I have been plating for the last thirty minutes. I first learned about the miracle of the fish and the loaves in a Sunday school classroom upstairs. It feels like we have our very own miracle meal going on, because I swear we didn’t make this much food. It’s multiplying faster than we can scoop it into the sections of the rectangular Styrofoam plates.

“Kai, honey, can you serve plates out there for a little bit?” Aunt Ruthie swipes a sleeve over her perspiring forehead. “I think Lila could use some help.”

“Sure thing.” I tighten the ties of the apron around my waist and adjust the hair net Aunt Ruthie insists I wear. I think more just to privately laugh at me than for sanitary reasons.

I grab a tray of plates, almost buckling under the weight of the food, and walk into the basement’s fellowship hall. Some church members are upstairs preparing for the service we’ll have in about an hour. Others are serving food out here or helping Aunt Ruthie in the kitchen like I was. Some are giving out coats from the winter wear drive Mama started years ago. I love seeing that program live beyond her. Christmas has always been all hands on deck for those less fortunate. That’s a legacy from Mama, and Grammy before her.

“Let me take that for you, Kai.” Mr. McClausky, one of Pops’s oldest friends, relieves me of the heavy tray. “Sure is good to see you back.”

“It’s good to be back, Mr. M.” I lift a couple of plates from the tray and hand them down to people waiting for food.

“How’s it going out in Los Angeles?” Mr. McClausky follows behind me with the tray, and I keep passing plates down to people and adding a smile.

“Pretty good.” I grin up at him over my shoulder. “Can’t complain.”

“You meet any superstars out there?” Mr. McClausky gives me a peekaboo grin, showing off the space where a tooth used to be.

“One or two.” I can’t help but think of Rhyson and wonder what he’s doing right now. Maybe I’ll sneak in a text if we finish the service before it’s too late to see how things went with his parents.

“We sure do miss you around here.” Mr. McClausky hands the now-empty tray over to me. “And your mother. She was a fine woman for sure, and this town hasn’t been the same since she passed.”

“Thank you.” I drop my eyes to my soft-soled boots that split the difference between fashion and comfort.

“Your daddy . . .” Mr. McClausky pauses, an uncharacteristically uncertain look on his face.

“What about him?” My voice usually weakens to nothing or goes stony when I speak of my father. There’s no middle ground. I’ve wasted enough weakness on him, so stony it is. Mr. McClausky must hear the hard shift because his face softens with something close to pity.

“He was a fool.” Mr. McClausky pats my shoulder. “How he could leave a precious little thing like you and a woman like your mama, I’ll never understand.”

He’s asking a question that has tortured me since the day Daddy missed my recital. I avoid the sympathy in his eyes and look around at the people enjoying a hot meal on Christmas Eve.

“I always knew he wasn’t the one though.” Mr. McClausky tucks his words into a conspiratorial whisper, making me lean in to find them.

“Wasn’t the one?” I frown, finally looking at him again in case his face yields more insight. “What do you mean?”

“Before he retired, I told your grandfather Jim wasn’t the one to take over Glory Falls Baptist. I said he wasn’t the one for your mama neither.” Mr. McClausky gives a firm nod of his balding head. “But he didn’t listen to me. Twenty-five years of friendship, and he chose that one time not to listen. Well, and your mama loved that man something fierce, so it seemed like it was meant to be.

“Why wasn’t he the one?”

There are questions that stay with us our whole lives. Seeking, searching for the answers, is what drives us on and forward. If we ever found the answers, we might stop moving. If we ever found the answers, it might feel like losing a friend who has spurred us on every step of the way. All my questions about my father are like that, but I have to know.

“First time I met your daddy, he ate past full.”

“What does that mean? Ate past full?”

“I watched that man eat himself almost sick that night. Your mama had a spread like nothing I’d ever seen.” Mr. McClausky licks his lips like he can still taste that meal. “Like she emptied the pantry trying to cook her way into that man’s heart. He was just about sick, but do you know what he did?”

I shake my head because I gave up long ago trying to figure out anything about my father.

“He heaped more on his plate and kept on eating.”

“That’s why you knew he wasn’t the one?” I give a sharp, little laugh. “People overeat all the time, Mr. McClausky.”

“You didn’t see him. It was something about the way he just wasn’t ever . . .” He twists his lips, searching for the word. “Satisfied. He wasn’t ever satisfied. No matter how good a thing was, no matter how much he got, he couldn’t be satisfied. It wasn’t just food either. I saw it more than once. Underneath it all, he was a man of excess. You can’t hide something like that forever. His appetites ruled him, and nothing was ever enough.”

Nothing was ever enough.

Certainly not a backwoods Baptist church with only a handful of members and a small hundred-year-old parish house to live in. Certainly not his little wife, who devoted everything she had to a modest home and a family. Certainly not his daughter, always nipping at his heels, doing pirouettes, and begging for attention. Was it that nothing was never enough, or when it came down to it, was it just that we weren’t?

“William McClausky!” Aunt Ruthie yells from the kitchen doorway with her hands on her ample hips. “You been standing still long enough for moss to grow under them feet. Get back in this kitchen and grab another tray.”

Mr. McClausky pushes his brows up his shiny, bald pate, his face longsuffering.

“Duty calls, and her name is Ruthie.”

He ambles off toward the kitchen, and I start counting the number of people who still need plates. About halfway across the room, I become aware of someone standing a bit too close at my back. I turn abruptly and nearly stumble face-first into a broad chest. I look up, but can’t see the man’s face because his head is lowered, and a hood flops down to obscure my view.

Mama taught me to be kind, but not stupid. She used to serve the homeless with a small knife strapped to her thigh under her demure dress. She’s the one who gave me my box cutter. I go to step around the human roadblock looming over me, but he catches my wrist.

“Let me by, buddy, or this could get ugly.” I lay a beam of steel in the warning words.

“Pep, it’s me.”

I stop tugging at my wrist and squat a little so I can see under the hood.

“Rhyson?”

He gives a little nod, but doesn’t answer. His expressive mouth, the dramatic slope of his cheekbones, the sharp jaw line covered in the lightest layer of scruff, come into view under the hood.

I pull him out into the hall and around the corner to a deserted classroom. It may be Glory Falls, Georgia, population next to nothing, but they have cable now. And Internet. They are as connected to the world as anywhere else, which means many of them will know Rhyson. I feel protective of him. I don’t want him poked and prodded, bugged and bothered for autographs and pictures. For him to be here, something must have gone horribly wrong at his parents’ house. The last thing I want is for him to leap from that frying pan into this fire.

As soon as we’re in the classroom, I close the door behind me and lean against it. He shoves back the hood, and his dark hair predictably flops forward. He slides his hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt.

“Surprise,” he says softly, his mouth slightly creasing to the right.

“What are you doing here, Rhyson?”

I don’t want him to think I’m upset that he’s come, so I soften the question, reaching up to push his hair back. At least that’s what I tell myself. It has nothing to do with the fact that he smells so freaking good and looks even better, tall and broad and strong, and did I mention tall?

“Is it okay?” An uncertain frown takes over his face.

“Of course.” I step closer. “I just . . . what happened at home?”

“That place is not home.” Bitterness flavors his words, calcifies his expression. “Those people . . . it was all a setup, Pep. Just like I thought. They didn’t care about meeting Emmy, or the fact that Grady wants to make things right with them, or even about Bristol. I’m not being conceited when I say it was ultimately about me and weaseling their way back into my career.”

“What happened?” Hurt on his behalf cracks through my words.

“Can we talk about it later?” A smirk lightens the heavy line of his full lips. “I’m loving the hair net, by the way.”

Horror. That is the only word to describe how I feel when my hands encounter the meshed netting confining my hair. This man has seen me with guacamole on my face. With sweaty armpits and smelling like day-old hamburger grease. Without a scrap of makeup. And now, we can add the most unflattering hair accessory known to womankind to the reasons he should not want me. Should not still be looking at me like he would sop me up with a biscuit if he had gravy.

I rip the net off my hair, shoving it into the front pocket of the apron that covers me almost neck to ankle. This may be the single most unflattering moment of my life, and it’s witnessed by the man I’m more attracted to than any other living creature on earth.

Typical.

“How did you get here?” Let’s just move beyond the hair net and maybe he’ll forget. That wicked glint in his eye tells me that’s wishful thinking, but I have to try to regain some dignity.

“Mostly by plane.”

“Funny. No, I mean how did you find me?”

“A man of my means, my wealth, my resources? You don’t think I could find one small woman if I applied all that to the search?”

“You called San and asked for the address, huh?”

“That’s exactly what I did, yes.”

My head flops forward onto his chest. His wide, sensitive hands span my waist and draw me in, inch by inch, until I’m pressed against him. We shake with laughter together. His amusement vibrates into my chest, and I know mine echoes back to him. Is it even that funny? Or are we just happy to be together on Christmas Eve, regardless of what familial explosion united us?

I think that’s it.

CHRISTMAS COULD COME AND GO, AND I’d be fine standing here all night with my girl’s arms wrapped around me and mine wrapped around her. Yeah, that’s how I think of her. As my girl, even though she won’t admit it yet. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and I’ve got her now. She’s in my possession, so she’s mine. Her head is tucked under my chin. My fingers rest on the sweet curve of her hips. If I shifted my hands down just a few inches, I’d be cupping that round, tight ass. But I’ll keep being good for a little while longer.

Not much longer though.

She moves in closer and stiffens. Does she feel how hard I am? How her scent, her softness, and her breath at my neck, all affect me? And I’m in a church, for God’s sake. Is that blasphemous? I have no idea how this church thing works, but I can’t check an erection at the door. Sorry.

The door behind us opens so quickly I jump back like a guilty choir boy. The woman standing there is tall and imposing. No one thing about her is attractive, but something about the way her ordinary features cooperate on her face is pleasant and compelling. Her hands seem stuck to her hips and her light blue eyes are glued to Kai.

“Kai Anne, I’ve been looking for you well nigh ten minutes, young lady.” One broad, work-roughened hand gestures back out toward the hall. “All them folks gotta eat before service, and you’re in here—”

Her eyes snap to me, and back to Kai, and then back to me. She blinks three times, her eyes stretching owlishly.

“Rhyson Gray!” Her hands fly to her cheeks, and she starts gushing like a teenager. “Oh my gosh! Rhyson Gray is in our church basement. I can’t . . . well, as I live and breathe. You know Rhyson Gray, Kai Anne?”

Kai’s mouth hangs open and she closes her eyes briefly before looking back to the woman at the door.

“Aunt Ruthie, I—”

“You didn’t tell Aunt Ruthie about me?” I cut her off.

I know it’s ridiculous, but it irritates me that she hasn’t told the most important person left in her life about us. Whatever “us” is, the people who matter most to me know that Kai matters a lot.

“Rhyson, I—”

“You’re dating Rhyson Gray?” Aunt Ruthie’s face goes from fangirl to fuming in a millisecond. “How could you not tell me that?”

“Of course we’re not dating.” Kai catches me looking at her like she just stuck a pin in my eye. “I mean . . .”

“Of course we’re not dating?” This is the wrong time to press the issue, but hearing her make it sound so farfetched infuriates me.

“You know what I mean, Rhys.” Kai swallows, her discomfort evident, and shifts from one foot to the other. “Could we not do this now?”

I’ve already ruined one Christmas dinner, no need to piss on another.

“Right. Sorry.” I step forward and extend my hand to Aunt Ruthie. “I’m Rhyson, which I guess you know. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I love your music,” Aunt Ruthie says unnecessarily since I gathered that. “Not just the new stuff. I heard you play once in Boston when you were only thirteen.”

That’s unexpected. Aunt Ruthie’s shaking up my stereotypes about the cultural inclinations of Glory Fall’s citizens.

“Aunt Ruthie, we can talk about music later,” Kai interrupts. “Is it almost time for the service? I haven’t seen any sign of Ms. Hargrove, and she and I need to rehearse at least a little.”

“Rehearse?” I ask. “Are you singing tonight?”

Kai’s eyes widen and her jaw goes slack.

“Ugh. I am. Maybe you could stay in the basement?”

Kai never sings around me. She’s kept her voice under lock and key since the day I corrected her breathing and encouraged compression exercises. It’d be great to hear if she’s taken my advice.

“The hell I am.”

Aunt Ruthie clears her throat in a way I should probably find significant.

“You’re in the Lord’s house, young man.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Aunt Ruthie. I mean . . . the heck I am.”

“You might be singing a capella anyway, Kai.” Aunt Ruthie’s expression is rueful. “Ms. Hargrove’s son had an asthma attack, and she’s rushed him to the hospital.”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear that.” Kai frowns and then after a moment, shrugs. “Well, it won’t be the first time I’ve sung without music.”

“What song is it?” I ask. “Maybe I could help?”

Kai’s already shaking her head, but she’s not fast enough. Aunt Ruthie bounces on her toes and claps her hands.

“What a treat, Kai. To hear you and Rhyson sing together.”

“He didn’t say sing, Aunt Ruthie.” Kai looks up at me, her expression guarded. “He may not even know the song, and I—”

“What’s the song? Is it a carol?” I ask. “I know most of those.”

“It’s ‘O, Holy Night,’” Aunt Ruthie interjects. “You’d sound amazing on it together. It was her mama’s favorite carol, and Kai’s sung it every year since she was eleven.”

“I’m in.” I take in Kai’s slightly shell-shocked expression. I think she’s still stuck back there somewhere with Ms. Hargrove, but Aunt Ruthie and I have moved forward with our plan. “Got an acoustic guitar somewhere around here?”

“Huh?” Kai fixes vacant eyes on the floor. “Um . . . yeah. Upstairs.”

“When are we on?” I direct the question to Aunt Ruthie since Kai still seems to be wrapping her head around us singing together.

“In about twenty minutes.” Aunt Ruthie grins at me and claps again.

“I thought you needed my help in the kitchen, Aunt Ruthie.” Kai sounds like that might be preferable to rehearsing with me.

“Oh, we can spare you, honey, for this,” Aunt Ruthie assures her.

I’m getting excited. Me and Kai singing together at the church she grew up in? Singing her mother’s favorite carol? This could save Christmas.

THIS COULD RUIN CHRISTMAS.

Me singing with Rhyson Gray? I mean, yes, he’s my Rhyson who rides dune buggies and watches Sex and the City marathons and throws French fries at me, but lest we forget . . . he’s still Rhyson Gray. His voice . . . I can’t even really articulate what his voice and the words he wrote meant to me when I was stuck here in Glory Falls those last years. “Lost” became my anthem in the mornings, my lullaby at night, my lifeline anytime I was sinking. To sing with Rhyson could be the most terrifying and possibly most blissful experience of my life. To sing Mama’s favorite carol with him on Christmas Eve?

I don’t know if I’m ready for that. If my heart is ready for that.

Rhyson glances up at me, sitting on the stool, acoustic guitar resting on his knee.

“What key?”

“What what?”

Could I speak intelligibly? Nope.

“What key do you wanna sing it in?” He frowns, dark hair dragging over his eyes. “You okay?”

“Um. . . . yeah, sure.” No. “B flat?”

He nods, sliding the capo down the neck of the guitar.

“How about you start and I’ll listen the first time through.” He begins strumming the melody that always brought Mama to tears. “I’ll come in later. I’m thinking if I just harmonize on the chorus, it’ll have more impact. Especially at ‘fall on your knees.’”

It was the chorus that always got Mama, and hearing him play, it’s what will probably get me too.

“I’m not sure about this.” I press my palm to my stomach, afraid I won’t be able to breathe normally, much less the way I should to sing.

Rhyson’s fingers never pause, moving with agility over the strings of the guitar. His gift, his greatness as a musician, goes deeper than skill. This old guitar, barely in tune, responds to his touch like he found some hiding place where it was keeping this beautiful sound just for him. It’s like he gives some of himself to each instrument until it speaks for him, saying things Rhyson may never voice. He might be guarded in public or in conversation, but not with his music. He strips every barrier away that would separate him from the listener. I’ve heard people say this musician or that one pours their heart into the music. It’s more than that with Rhyson. I think what he gives it is his soul.

“Any day now, Pep. I’m going grey here.”

I realize he’s run through the first verse a few times waiting for me to start.

“I-it’s hard with you here.” The admission comes out stilted.

“It’d be hard for me to accompany you and not be here. Even I’m not that good.” Rhyson’s fingers never stop, almost absently plucking at the haunting melody, but his eyes hold still with mine. “Why’s it hard?”

“Because you’re . . . well, you’re . . . I’m . . .”

He’ll think I’m ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.

“There’s a reason you haven’t heard me sing much.” I shove my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “I’m afraid you won’t . . .”

I hate this. It only highlights the inequities I always try to ignore.

“Afraid I won’t what?”

“You won’t like it. You won’t like my voice. My singing. Maybe I am just a dancer who sings. I’ve been working on my compressions, and I think I’m getting better and improving my tone and stretching my range, but—”

“You’re not just a dancer who sings, Pep. Don’t be nervous. I’ve heard you sing.”

“I sang like a few notes for a breathing exercise. You haven’t really heard me sing.” I study my shoes. “What if you don’t like it? If you think I’m no good?”

“I’d tell you.” Rhyson stops playing, leans the guitar against the stool, and crosses over to me, forcing my eyes to meet his with a gentle finger under my chin. “I’ve heard enough to know you have a beautiful tone, a disciplined instrument, and a trained voice. That’s more than I can say for half the people on the charts right now. Is there room to improve? There always is. As professionals, we’re always growing. So keep growing.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I don’t do that.” His eyes hold mine as he shakes his head definitively. “Not with music. Certainly not with you. Is that why you haven’t sung for me?”

“That, and well, I just kind of wanted to put our music in a box that we leave alone and separate from our . . . our friendship for now.”

The contact of his finger under my chin doesn’t seem to be enough, so I wrap my hand around his broad wrist.

“Rhys, there are so many things that could screw up our friendship. I don’t want music to be one of them.”

His thumb caresses my jaw and emotion smolders his eyes to pewter.

“Nothing will screw up our . . . friendship.” His smile promises things that make my heartbeat stutter. “If anything, sharing our music will only add to what we have. You know how important music is to me, right?”

I nod because, obviously.

“And you know how important you are to me, right?”

I don’t nod. I don’t breathe. The warmth in his eyes slows the blood down until I’m sure it’s merely crawling through my veins. Everything in my body pauses, waiting for his next words. He leans closer, both hands cupping my face, our eyes still connected by this sweet, fiery thread.

“I was almost glad to have an excuse to get out of my parents’ house today.” Rhyson is so close that his breath begs entrance at my lips. “It was hard to leave you on Christmas Eve. This is where I wanted to be.”

He drops a hand to touch the Pepper nameplate necklace he gave me for Christmas, something in his eyes, in his fingers, laying claim.

“You are where I wanted to be.” His hand slips beneath my hair to stroke the sensitive skin of my neck. “That’s how important you are to me.”

The door swinging open behind us shatters this fragile moment. I turn to see Aunt Ruthie at the door.

“It’s time.” She waves her hand out to the hall. “Come on.”

“Already?” I squeak, my heart dropping several floors down to my feet. “But we didn’t get to really rehearse or anything.”

“You’ve sung this song a thousand times, Kai Anne.” Aunt Ruthie opens the door wider. “You could sing your ABCs and these people would love it. They love you and have missed you. Now get that li’l butt in gear.”

“Yeah, Kai Anne.” Rhyson’s smile teases me. He’s loving this. “Get that li’l butt in gear.”

I narrow my eyes at him, warning of retribution later. It’s not the congregation I’m worried about. They remember when I couldn’t sing worth a hill of beans. I grew up in front of them. Many of them helped Mama raise me in some ways after Daddy left. It’s not them. It’s him.

Rhyson grabs the acoustic and walks past me into the hall, giving me one last smile over his shoulder.

“You’ll be fine. Come on.”

And once we’re on the small stage, surrounded by the familiar faces I’ve missed so much, seated in the pews that gave me splinters growing up, I am kind of fine. Nerves still flutter in my belly, and my breath still comes shallow and faster than it should, but as I take the stool next to Rhyson’s, I think I’ll be fine. I grab one of the two mics set up for us.

“How y’all doing tonight?”

The hundred or so people gathered clap and grin and hoot and holler at me. Or maybe it’s for the rock star beside me.

“As you can see,” a small smile settles on my lips, and I spare Rhyson a quick glance, only his eyes are fixed on me like the crowd isn’t even there, “I have a friend with me tonight. Some of you may know him.”

Rhyson smiles and waves when the crowd gets louder, a few of the younger ones screaming his name. He’s been so open. I don’t want to see that guard drop and block all of that.

“I have a favor to ask of you, family.” I smile, meeting as many eyes as I can. “Most of you know who Rhyson is, and I know it’s exciting to have him with us.”

I look at him, and my grin kind of falls apart when our eyes meet. Even though every look we exchange telegraphs it, I try to hide how much he means to me so everyone won’t see it.

“I’m as excited as anyone to have him here.” I look back to the crowd, firming my lips like I saw Mama do when she meant business. “But I’m asking you to put the phones away. He’s celebrating Christmas with us and is singing my mama’s favorite Christmas carol with me. I’m gonna ask that you don’t record it. Don’t put it on YouTube or make a Vine out of it. Don’t Instagram it. Just let it be.”

I soften the severe line of my mouth with a smile.

“Can you do that for me, family?”

The congregation cheers, answering with a chorus of “yes” and nods.

“Well, all right then.”

Emotion drenches every part of me as I approach Mama’s favorite moment of the holidays. She said she felt closer to God on this night, during this song, than any other time of the year. And tonight, as Rhyson strums the opening notes, I feel closer to her.

I close my eyes and forget that one of the biggest rock stars on the planet is accompanying me. I’ve sung this song so many times, I don’t even have to think about the words. I just breathe and they come out.

“O, holy night, the stars are brightly shining.”

The lyrics, older than this church, older than all of us, older than this town, immediately take my heart into their grip, reminding me of how they always affected my mother. I sink into the lyrics of the first verse. As the words, the holy sentiments, penetrate my heart and settle on my soul, tears gather behind my closed eyes. I hold on to the notes, even though emotion blisters my throat. We come to the chorus, and just like he said he would, Rhyson adds a husky harmony to my voice on the plane above his.

These notes, these lyrics, these moments feel holy. Pure. Clean. Our voices twine around each other, meshing and separating, blending, bowing, and rising up, up, up until it’s too much. There’s no holding the tears back. The way our voices wrap around one another, joy and sorrow do the same. I feel sorrow that Mama is not here to witness this. That this year, this moment, this life goes on without her. But I feel joy that I am alive. I’m here. I can offer this up to the world the way she always wanted me to. And joy that I will see her again.

That climactic note of the song, the word “divine,” reaches up to the rafters. Rhyson drops away and allows my voice to soar on that note alone, piercing the absolute silence that blankets the room.

And it is perfect. Tonight, together, we are perfect.

The last note drifts away, and I open my eyes to see cheeks as wet as mine all around the room. For a few moments, there is no applause. A collective reverence hangs over the crowd until the clapping begins. I look over at Rhyson, and when our eyes connect, the rest of the room falls away. It’s just us. Even in a roomful of people, it’s just us. I recognize that look on his face. That’s how I felt that first day in Grady’s music room. Rhyson’s music caressed my heart and shook my soul. And even if he never says it, the look on his face tells me this song arrested him that way. And like me, he, will never forget what we just shared on this stage.

Pastor Charles’s arm around my shoulder pulls me back into the moment with the congregation. He took over pastoring when Daddy left, and has been the kind of pastor Glory Falls deserved. The kind Pops would have been proud of. He takes the mic from my tight fist and starts speaking.

“Glory Falls, it’s good to have Kai home, ain’t it?”

I smile back at all the familiar faces. I was so glad to get out of this town, so ready to get away from the disappointment and the pain this place held, I almost forgot how much I loved the people.

“As most of you know,” Pastor Charles continues. “Kai’s mama, Mai Lin, passed away a few months ago.”

The hurt squeezes my heart, but somehow not as tightly. Its grip is less brutal. Is this what healing feels like? I share a small smile with Rhyson, acknowledging only to myself what a huge part he has played in the process.

“Lin was a rock for this church and for this community.” Pastor Charles swallows emotion, blinking away tears. “I’ll never forget how welcome she made me and my family feel when we moved here to lead Glory Falls Baptist.”