Nashville 1 - Ready to Reach (11 page)

My stomach drops, and I’m not sure I want to hear the rest of this. But I wait, unable to tell him that.

“Someone my dad knew called and said he’d just heard we were missing our dog. He had seen a yellow Lab at the pound when he and his family went down to adopt a puppy.”

I want to say something. I can’t because it feels like my voice is locked up inside me.

“My mom and dad and I jumped in the car and drove to the pound as fast as we could. Mom showed a woman at the front desk Lucy’s picture, and just the look on her face made me run out of the place.”

“Oh, Holden.”

“We’d been calling for days, and they said she wasn’t there.”

I hear the bitterness behind the words, and I can barely bring myself to ask, “Did they--”

“The woman said they’d held her for the required period of time, but when the kennels became full--”

I reach up and touch my fingers to his lips. Tears run down my face, and I’m not surprised to see that the same is true for Holden. I lean in and kiss each of them away, my heart feeling as if it has splintered into a thousand pieces.

We sit silent for what feels like a long time, me absorbing, Holden reliving, I guess.

And then he finally says, “When I think about someone leading her to some room and taking her life while she’s wondering where we are. . .while we’re looking for her--”

A sob rises up out of me, this image of Lucy more than I can manage right now. Sorrow for her and renewed fear for Hank Junior swallow me.

Holden pulls me closer, and while I know I should be comforting him, he’s the one comforting me. “So that’s why I want to wait here with you,” he says.

I’ve barely known Holden for any time at all. It feels like I’ve known him forever.

WE’RE QUIET FOR the next hour or so, arms locked around one another, like we both need this mutual infusion of empathy and understanding.

The truck’s digital clock says 4:07 when Holden reaches beneath the seat and pulls out a notebook. I sit up and watch him remove a pencil from the spiral binding.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Just a thought for a lyric.”

He writes a line on the blank page.

So I got a few things I need to say

He’s still for a bit before writing:

Never thought my life would turn out this way

His pencil is quiet again. This time several minutes pass before he writes down:

Do you ever think about the choice you made

And what those who loved her have had to pay

Then he adds:

Chorus

What you took from me

You can’t give back

I wait for the next line, trying to guess what it might be. Several minutes pass before he writes:

You took the sun

You took the stars

You took the ground beneath my feet

The words are out before I realize I’ve said them. “You even took the air I breathe.”

Holden looks at me and nods. He writes it down.

You even took the air I breathe

And then adds:

Everything, that’s what you took from me

“For Lucy,” I say.

“I don’t know what else it will end up being. I never do at this point.”

The sun has started to lighten the horizon behind the pound building. I feel a settling sense of peace that it’s all gonna be okay. That very soon, I’ll have Hank Junior back, that his fate will be different from Lucy’s. Holden’s sweet Lucy.

Sitting here with him as he writes on his rumpled pad, I have no way of knowing that in a few months, one of Nashville’s most well-known artists will hear Thomas singing Holden’s song, the one he started in this truck with me, at a club downtown. Or that in a year and a half, that same artist, whose wife was killed by a drunk driver, will release it, and the song will hit number one.

Looking at him now, the intensity on his good-looking face, my heart feels like it’s becoming aware for the very first time of what it was made to feel. It’s both terrifying and wonderful all at once.

He has a girlfriend. I know this, but my heart isn’t listening. Just like it hasn’t listened to all the reasons why turning my dreams over to Nashville might not have been the safest route for me to take.

Some things, our hearts don’t let us have a say in. For me, music is one. And right here, right now, I believe Holden Ashford might be the other.

Someone once said every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. The trick then has to be letting go of the safe, the known and reaching out for what we can’t yet see.

I’m ready to reach.

I really am.

What You Took From Me

By Holden Ashford

So I gotta a few things I need to say

Cause I never thought my life would turn out this way

Do you ever think about the choice you made

And what those who loved her have had to pay

Chorus

What you took from me you can’t give back

You took the sun

You took the stars

You took the ground beneath my feet

Man, you even took the air I breathe

Everything, that’s what you took from me

The roses she planted still bloom each spring

Now and then I sit in our old front porch swing

I look for her in places we used to go

They say the heart forgets but it just ain’t so

Chorus

What you took from me you can’t give back

You took the sun

You took the stars

You took the ground beneath my feet

Man, you even took the air I breathe

Everything, that’s what you took from me

Somewhere in all of this

Forgiveness has its place

But if you’d know then how this would feel

Would you have skipped that last drink

Never taken the wheel

Chorus

What you took from me you can’t give back

You took the sun

You took the stars

You took the ground beneath my feet

Man, you even took the air I breathe

Everything, that’s what you took from me

Oh, you even took the air I breathe

Everything, that’s what you took from me

Up There

By Holden Ashford

The day we brought you home I was so darn proud

Flew a hot air balloon over our house

Showered flower blooms in a rainbow from the sky

Honey, that sure made your Mama cry

When you were five we took you to the county fair

Rode the carousel with the wind in your hair

Now at seven you’re askin’ what’s it like in Heaven

I’ve been thinkin’ real hard about your question

It’ll be like this up there

Little girls don’t have a care

Rain’s nothin’ more than butterfly kisses

Pain’s somethin’ that a pony ride always fixes

Cold watermelon every single day

Big parks where kids can run and play

Old oak trees throwin’ summer shade

It’ll be like that up there

You can’t hold sunshine in walls this cold and grey

I’ve been prayin’ about that night and day

They say you’re just waitin’ on me to let you go

But, honey, I’ve gotta make sure you know

It’ll be like this up there

Little girls don’t have a care

Rain’s nothin’ more than butterfly kisses

Pain’s somethin’ that a pony ride always fixes

Cold watermelon every single day

Big parks where kids can run and play

Old oak trees throwin’ summer shade

It’ll be like that up there

I open the window like you asked me to

Let that soft breeze drift on through

Honey, don’t you worry I’m gonna hold your hand

And I’ll be right beside you till it all begins

It’ll be like this up there

Little girls don’t have a care

Rain’s nothin’ more than butterfly kisses

Pain’s somethin’ that a pony ride always fixes

Cold watermelon every single day

Big parks where kids can run and play

Old oak trees throwin’ summer shade

It’ll be like that up there

It’ll be like that up there

It’ll be like that up there

N
EXT
:

N
ASHVILLE
: P
ART
T
WO

H
AMMER AND A
S
ONG

A N
OVELLA

Inglath Cooper

An Excerpt from Truths and Roses

Inglath Cooper

New Orleans, Louisiana

The ball flew out of the quarterback’s hands, whistling down the length of the Superdome field like a missile. A missile aimed at Will Kincaid.

From his spot on the fifteen-yard line, he narrowed his gaze, willing the oncoming ball to land in his waiting hands. Nothing existed except this moment. There were no fans lunging to their feet, no vendors hawking popcorn and Cokes in the stands, no TV cameras zooming in on him. Just the knowledge that within his reach hung the brass ring.

The moment he’d waited for all his life. The Super Bowl. A single chance in which to make his mark in history. He could taste the victory, feel its reassuring caress through the sweat and grime that covered his face. His. It was his. Before his eyes flashed an image of his father’s face—

“You’ll make me proud out there, son. Never given me reason to be ashamed yet. I know you won’t start tonight.”

Winning. Nothing else mattered. Determination roared up from deep inside him. He launched himself at the ball, reaching, reaching....

It landed solidly in his grasp, and he catapulted forward. A hand grabbed for his shoulder, missed and snatched again. He ran, flat out, every self-doubt that had ever plagued him pushing him down that field. But just as Will’s feet crossed the line, the safety tackled him, taking him down, slamming him into the unforgiving turf. His right knee twisted and took the full impact of his weight.

The resounding crack echoed in his ears.

He lay there, not moving while thousands of fans roared their support, hero worship for a young man who, at twenty-nine, had reached the top of the ladder he’d chosen to climb. Nausea rose inside him, swift enough to draw a groan from his midsection. Then the blackness overtook him, and everything else faded against the backdrop of his father’s unreadable frown.

Hannah Jacobs had long been aware that most of the people in Lake Perdue considered her a mystery. They thought it odd that a young woman would go months without showing her face at a public function. Odd that she seemed content to work in a small - town library week after week, month after month, year after year, when most of her peers had moved away to make their fortunes.

They didn’t know that the old brick building with its slate roof and musty memories of the flood of ’64 suited her. It no longer mattered that she’d once entertained other dreams. The library had become her solace. Her refuge. Books did not question or judge. They made safe companions.