by Chris Fabry
Backstage, things were no better. Jed threw a chair in her dressing room and gave a primal scream.
“You think you’re better than me?” Shelby screamed, following him. “You think she’s better than me?” She hit Jed and pushed him back.
“What was that?” Stan shouted, entering the dressing room.
Shelby couldn’t take it any longer. “You broke it! You broke it!” She was all over Jed now and Stan tried to intervene.
“Get off him,” Stan yelled, grabbing Shelby’s arm and pulling her away.
“Get off me!” Shelby yelled, gritting her teeth and hitting Stan with a fist to the face that connected with a sickening crunch. Stan went down in a heap, a hand over his nose.
“Stop!” Jed yelled, grabbing Shelby and trying to subdue her.
“No!” she wailed when Jed had hold of her. “I’m going to tell her! Let me go! I’m going to tell her!”
Jed let her back away, his eyes on fire now. He pushed Shelby against one of the posts in the dressing room, her head banging against it, the emotion and drugs and fatigue boiling. He shouted into her face with anger Shelby didn’t know was there. “Are you threatening me? You don’t threaten me.”
Then Shelby’s bandmates were on him and Shelby slumped to the floor, crying, totally undone. They let Jed go and he bent over, hands on his knees, panting.
When things had calmed, she looked at him—mascara running, tears coursing, but she didn’t care. “I love you,” she moaned.
He dropped to the floor across from her and stared at her. She imagined this was not what he expected to hear, but there it was.
“I love you,” she said again. And as she crawled to him, the people in the room seemed in utter shock.
Stan’s cell rang and he spoke with someone quickly. When he hung up, he said, “Look, I don’t care what you do. I don’t care who you do it with. But when you bring your problems onstage, they become my problems. My very expensive problems! Now if you can’t keep your baggage off the stage, I will. Shelby, you are done! Done!”
His phone rang again and he stepped into the hall.
Jed put his hands over his face.
Shelby tried to get closer. “Jed, please. We can work this out.”
He got up and looked at one of the guys. “I need to get home.”
“Jed, please.”
He stopped and looked down at her. “I’m sorry about your fiddle. I’ll get you a new one.”
“I don’t want another violin. I want you.”
But just like that, he was gone.
CHAPTER 43
ROSE AWOKE in her childhood home to the sound of a car in the driveway and the front door closing. An intruder was her first thought. She picked up the phone to dial 911, then thought better of it. She turned on the light and saw the marriage book she’d been reading. She was actually going through it a second time, looking at places she’d underlined about lovingly setting limits in a marriage.
She expected to see Jed at the top of the stairs, disheveled and falling into bed, but he never showed up. After a few moments she went downstairs and found him slumped on the couch, already asleep. She took her dad’s old afghan and put it over him. Jed didn’t move, so she went back up to bed.
When Jed had left for the European tour, she found herself drawn back to the vineyard. After her father passed, it gave her comfort to be here, and she and Ray had moved in. The longer Jed was away, the more consolation she felt at waking up in the old house with all the memories.
Ray found Jed the next morning and jumped on him. Jed laughed and tickled him, then sat up. His eyes were red like he’d been up all night.
“I thought you guys were headed to Nashville for the show,” Rose said.
“We are. I just needed to get back here, you know?”
He went upstairs while she made him breakfast, but she found him asleep on the bed and he stayed there until the afternoon.
“Is Daddy going to eat dinner or breakfast?” Ray said to her.
“We’ll eat together,” she said. “He can have his dinner and call it whatever he wants.”
They sat in the sunroom, one of her mother’s favorite places in the house, and ate around a small table. Rose had fixed a healthy meal but Jed seemed preoccupied. His face was sunken and his color was sallow.
“Looks like it’s going to rain,” Rose said. “We need it.”
Jed’s phone chimed and he checked it.
“Can I play with your phone?” Ray said.
“We don’t play with gadgets or phones at the table, Ray,” she said. “You know that.”
Jed put the phone in his pocket and immediately it chimed again. Then again.
“I was hoping to take Ray to your Nashville show; would that be all right?” she said. When he didn’t answer, she dipped her head and tried to get his attention. “Jed?”
He looked at her like she was interrupting major surgery. “Yes. That would be fine.”
His tone was off. He was touchy but she decided not to tiptoe, not to play nice. She had every right to ask questions. “Why is Shelby off the tour?”
He sat back and stared at her. He hadn’t touched his food and it seemed he didn’t want to touch the question either.
“I read that she was off the tour,” Rose said.
“She punched Stan in the face.”
“Good for her,” she said, studying his reaction. He wasn’t liking this line of questioning, but she thought she deserved an answer. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said quickly. “Look, I don’t want to talk about work right now.”
And with that, every suspicion she had, everything that Denise had said, everything Pastor Bingham and Melanie brought up, sent the red flags flapping in her mind and it was more than she could take. His hollow cheeks, red and sunken eyes, and the way he reacted when she brought up Shelby told her there was more here than just Shelby flying off the handle after a concert.
Rose gathered her plate and soup bowl and hurried into the kitchen. Jed followed.
“Rose, what?” he said.
She ran the disposal and ignored him, the bile rising, the questions coming in a flurry, all leading to a place she didn’t want to go but couldn’t help going. She shut off the disposal.
“Do you not want me here?” he said.
She turned to face him. “You’re not here. We have to say your name five times before you even answer. Something is wrong.”
“All right, I’m just tired,” he said, all puppy-dog eyes and defensive. Like he could just apologize and make everything better.
She studied his face. “Why aren’t you singing my song?”
Jed looked away, then at the floor. Anywhere but at her.
Something broke inside Rose and that deep, crushing feeling came in a wave. She fought the emotion to get the words out, to get him to respond to one more question running around her mind. “Do you not love me anymore?”
“Rose,” he said, dismissing her words. “Of course I do. Why would you ask me that?”
Like she was the bad person for bringing up the question. Like this whole thing was her fault. No. There was something wrong. And there had been for a long time. She wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t because she was pregnant or had too much on her hands with Ray and the vineyard and . . .
“Sing it,” she said. “I want you to sing it right now.”
He kept his distance, standing partially blocked by the overhead cabinet. “Rose, that song’s special to me. All right? It holds a special place. And I’m just tired of being demanded to sing it like some sort of performance monkey—”
“What is that?” she said, interrupting. Ray’s voice came from the sunroom, sounding as if he was talking with someone.
She hurried back and found Ray at the table, a tattooed woman sitting next to him in Jed’s chair.
“Shelby?” Rose said. She had a knot in her stomach as soon as she saw her, and her motherly instinct kicked in. Get Ray away from her, it said. Now.
“Hey, Jed,” Shelby said, smiling, looking past Rose.
Rose reached for Ray’s hand and took him from the table.
“What are you doing here?” Jed said.
Shelby was chewing gum, her face plastered with makeup. She smelled like cigarettes and looked like a scorned woman to Rose.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Shelby said to Jed.
Everything made sense now. Rose was looking at the mushroom cloud of his actions and seeing the fallout. The look Shelby gave Jed. His defensive posture. The two of them together backstage in Cincinnati. How he didn’t want Rose in Amsterdam. The tattoo. Everything fit. And everything was falling apart right there in this place where they should have been eating and talking and connecting.
“I’m having dinner with my family,” Jed said. “What do you want?”
“Okay,” Shelby said, standing. She wobbled a little. “Can you just tell Stan to bring me back?”
“Shelby, don’t come to my house—”
“What?” she interrupted. “Are you done with me? Is that it?” She looked at Jed with not an ounce of shame. It was a threat, a calling out. She took a drink from Jed’s wineglass.
Rose asked Ray to go back in the house and wait. Dutifully he obeyed and bounded away.
“Because of me?” Shelby said to Rose. And then she laughed and leaned on the table. It was the laugh of someone who’d had too much to drink or smoke or too many pills. “Honey, he’s the druggie. He’s the one that takes all my—”
“Get out,” Rose said, calm and even, looking her in the eyes.
Shelby laughed again and flicked her lighter. “Seriously, dinner on the porch. How cute.” She let the screen door slam and stumbled down the stairs.
Rose stared at the table, her resolve firm. Now that she knew, now that her worst fears were confirmed, there was no going back. There was no way not to know. She had to draw a line.
“You too,” she said firmly, her heart breaking into a million pieces as she said it. “Get out.”
“Rose?” Jed said, his voice high and pleading.
“Get out!” she screamed.
He paused and looked at her, then walked out the door and followed Shelby to her car.
Rose went back in the house to make sure Ray was okay.
“Where’s Daddy going?”
“I don’t know, buddy.”
“Why did you yell at him?”
She looked him in the eyes. “Sometimes mommies have to stand up and do some hard things. Sometimes they have to say things loud enough so others can hear them.”
The look on his little face was more than she could bear. She hugged him and glanced out the window in time to see Jed in the front seat of Shelby’s car, downing a handful of pills. She knew she needed help and that there was only one place she could go.
“Can you stay here for a little bit?” she said to Ray.
Ray nodded and she ran for the back door.
CHAPTER 44
JED COULDN’T BELIEVE Shelby had shown up at the house and he certainly couldn’t believe Rose had kicked him out. He pulled Shelby out of the driver’s seat, where she clearly didn’t belong, and hopped into her Mini Cooper. The seat was way too close but he didn’t care. He needed some relief from the pain, the racing heart, the shallow breath—it was all back again. He found a bottle of pills, popped the cap and swallowed some dry, then put the car in reverse and backed in a U but hit something on the driveway. He got out and looked at Ray’s Big Wheel his grandfather had given him, busted beyond repair. He closed the door and ran inside the house.
Ray was sitting, playing one of his games. “Ray, where’s your mom?”
Ray pointed to the back door.
Jed walked toward it and heard the voice of his son behind him.
“Are you leaving, Daddy?”
He turned and looked at his son and for a split second thought of his own father and the family he had left behind. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just smiled and walked out the door.
He climbed the knoll above the pond toward the monument to his inability to finish—the chapel. One side was drywalled, the windows in. The roof was on. But the other side was exposed studs.
He stepped into the chapel, the place where they had vowed to love and honor and cherish and protect and whatever else he promised. His failure flooded like water through a broken dam. Good thing the pills were starting to kick in.
Rose was facedown on the floor at the front, her head on her arm. She wasn’t moving, but she was talking to herself. Or maybe she was praying.
“Rose,” he said, walking toward her. “Rose?”
She pushed herself up, holding her stomach, and a wave of guilt washed over him. He hadn’t meant to put her through this. It was just something that happened. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. That’s what he wanted to say, what he wanted to believe.
He reached out to touch her and as quick as a cat, she turned and slapped him hard on the face.
“You were with her!” she screamed, the pain leaking through every pore of her body, her voice a volcano of emotion. “While I was here carrying our child.”
“You think this is what I wanted?” he yelled, matching her intensity.
“Yes! Yes, because it’s what you did.”
“I wanted you! But you made me beg. Girls out there are begging me and I have to beg my wife.”
“Don’t blame this on me, Jed. You did this! Don’t blame this on me!”
“I did this,” he said, his voice calming as he looked at her, wanting to hurt her. “And I’m glad I did this. I’m glad I didn’t have to jump through fifteen thousand hoops or build a chapel, Rose, to do it.” He was feeling more sure of himself now. The words were coming more freely and her face was showing the pain of them and that somehow made him feel good. “She wants me,” he said cockily. “Me!”
“Because she doesn’t know you, Jed,” Rose said, breaking down.
“She does!”
“No, she doesn’t!”
“She does,” he screamed, stamping his foot.
“No, you think she does. She thinks she does. She thinks she matters to you. I used to think that.”
“Yeah, Rose. You thought you mattered so much you could treat me however you wanted and not pay. Do you remember that?”
“How dare I. How dare I ask to be treated like an actual human being before I give it up. How cruel, right?”
“You told me over and over again that you didn’t want me.”
“I never said that.”
“You did!” Jed made a fist and swung it through the air near her. “And now that somebody actually wants me, now you want to act like a wife. It’s a little late.”
“You didn’t want a wife. You wanted a whore. Someone to just lay there, no questions asked. It’s true, Jed. It clearly is because that’s what showed up at our house today.”
“You don’t even know her!”
The look on Rose’s face was incredulous. “Right. She’s the wife you always wanted. She’s going to raise your children?” Her eyes searched his soul. “She’s going to grow old with you?” She took a breath and the pain turned to anger. “Then, even then, with her sleazy, saggy tattoos, that skank will always be in the mood, right? You’re a fool, Jed. You are such a fool!”
“You’re right,” he yelled. “I am a fool. You’re right.”
He picked up a two-by-four and smashed a window, the shards of glass shattering on the floor. He swung again and again, smashing the glass and wood all the way to the frame with all the violence pent up in his heart.
Then he walked back to Rose, the board still in his hand, his heart beating wildly, ready for one last verbal swing. “I’m a fool because I married you. But I’m done.”
He tossed the wood in the corner and walked away, down the hill and back to the car, where Shelby sat, passed out. Jed looked at the front window of the house and saw Ray there, staring at his Big Wheel. He wanted to tell him he would
get him another one. He wanted to tell him he’d always be there for him. But he was done with promises.
He got in the car and drove away.
CHAPTER 45
SHELBY WOKE UP and looked at the empty bourbon bottles and the trash strewn about her Nashville home. Styrofoam and cardboard boxes on the coffee table.
It felt so good to have Jed back, and she made sure they had enough substances to keep the party going. Endless shots and lines of cocaine and uppers and downers and oxy this and that. Endless runs for Chinese food. They paused long enough for him to play Nashville, but the concert was a bust. Jed was so strung out he came off angry, and when the crowd chanted for “The Song,” Jed threw his banjo into the crowd and told them to sing it themselves.
That didn’t go over well with Stan, but Shelby didn’t care. She had what she wanted. They were together. And they would be together forever. All of this pain and partying would lead to some great songs. And someday the whole Rose chapter would be just a forgotten melody.
She looked outside and couldn’t tell if it was morning or afternoon. Jed wasn’t on the couch with her and she needed to go to the bathroom bad, so she stumbled toward it and saw Jed’s legs sticking out beside the bathtub. He was propped up against it, next to the shower, clawing at the tattoo on his wrist.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “Jed, stop! Stop, stop, stop—what are you doing?”
“I want it off,” he said, his voice slurred. He was digging deep into the flesh and it turned her stomach.
“Stop!” she yelled again and again, but he wouldn’t listen, kept going back to the bloody wound.
As Shelby wrapped a towel around the wrist to stanch the bleeding, she saw the empty bottle of pills beside him.
“Did you flush them?” she said, hoping he’d say yes.
Jed’s eyes were closed now, his lips motionless and a little blue.
“No, no, no! What did you do? Jed! Please.”
She began to cry and tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy. Just deadweight. “Listen to me! Jed? You have to stay awake!” She slapped him. “Jed? Talk to me!”