by Jen Gilroy
“If I’d known you were sick, I’d have come to see you.” He found a third stone, smaller still, and balanced it on top of the other two. “From what Annie said, I know you didn’t want that, but I’d have liked to have been there for you. Like you were there for Mom and me when she got sick and you lived with us for a few months.” Before then, Jake had dropped in and out of their lives, a mostly phantom presence, apart from a jean jacket hanging on a hook in his mom’s closet and a framed picture she kept on her dresser.
“Remember when you came to visit Mom and me for Christmas the year it snowed? We made the biggest snowman I’d ever seen. It was bigger than me.” His mom and Jake had laughed, and Seth had laughed, too. It was one of the rare times in his childhood when he’d been happy and untroubled and felt completely loved—as light in himself as the snowflakes that dusted his mom’s dark hair and melted in Jake’s beard.
“I missed you after you left.” His grandparents had been elderly and remote, and there were no cousins or aunts and uncles to visit at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“I can’t be around for you, little buddy. I hope you’ll understand why when you’re older, but if you ever need my help, I’ll be there.” Those last words Jake had whispered in his ear had blurred with time and, until now, Seth had almost forgotten them. He stared at the heaped dirt. He should have brought flowers. Or from what he remembered about Jake, maybe a bottle of Jack Daniel’s finest Tennessee whiskey, except that would shock the good people of Irish Falls.
“How are you two getting on?” Annie’s voice came from behind him.
Seth swung around and stumbled to his feet. “Two?”
“You and Jake.” She inclined her head to the grave. “I’m sure he can hear you. I chat with my dad and Nana Gerry all the time.”
“They can’t answer back.” Seth had never thought much about the afterlife. Only that people disappeared. If not through death, like his mom and grandparents, then they left for some other reason, like his ex-wife and now his son. His stomach knotted.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t still in my heart. Jake is too, along with Tara’s husband. He’s with his family over by that big butternut tree.” Her voice quivered.
Seth looked where she indicated. “I’m sorry.” His throat got tight. “That’s rough.”
Annie’s chin jerked. “Adam was in the marines. We all went to high school together. He was killed on active duty in the Middle East eighteen months ago. Tara’s had a hard time. She came back here after . . .” She paused and cleared her throat. “She doesn’t like to talk about him. I wouldn’t have said anything, but since you’re coming to dinner, I thought you should know.” She stared at the mass of dirt.
“Thanks for telling me.” Seth swallowed and moved to stand beside her. “I get why you come here. You have a lot of loved ones in this place.”
She hunched her shoulders. “Too many, but it’s peaceful. It’s also a good place to think. I’ve solved lots of problems sitting on that bench.” She inclined her head toward a wooden bench beneath another tree. “Jake wasn’t a church-going man, but he said he felt closer to God here than anywhere else.” She bent to pick up several twigs and gave Seth a tentative smile. “Since he didn’t have any family we knew about, we put him in our family plot.”
“He’d have liked that.” Seth’s eyes burned, and a heavy lump of loss lodged beneath his breastbone. If only his mom could have been laid to rest in a tranquil place like this, instead of beneath a marble family monument in a cemetery where the graves were laid out in precise manicured rows and rigid class distinctions were maintained in death as they had been in life.
“This cemetery is pretty much an extension of Irish Falls. If you can describe a burying ground as friendly, this one is.” Her smile slipped and, as she fashioned the twigs together with a few bits of dead grass, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“What are you doing?” He tilted his head to take a closer look.
“Making a guitar.” She balanced the twigs against the stones he’d piled up. “The snow we got yesterday melted, but it looks like you’ve made Jake a snowman. It’s not complete without a guitar.” She added a fragment of a brown leaf for the strap.
“How did you guess?” He forced a laugh, because the moment—and her unexpected understanding—was too intimate.
“I saw how you looked at Jake’s Gibson.” Her mouth curved into a sweet smile. “You should bring it on your next visit here and sing to him. You have a great voice for radio, and my brother . . . he said . . .” She stopped, and her cheeks went pink.
“Brendan caught me singing along to some tunes before the show today.” He grinned at her, the tension broken. “I thought I was alone in the studio at five this morning, but when he brought me coffee and a donut, we got talking.”
“He said you were good enough for a recording contract.” Annie grinned back. “I should warn you, he mentioned it when there were half a dozen people in the bakery, including the priest from St. Patrick’s and a couple of Baptists. Don’t be surprised if all the clergy in town ask you to join their choirs.”
Seth raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Nope.” Laughter edged Annie’s voice. “Men who can sing are thin on the ground here.”
“I haven’t sung in a church choir since I was twelve.” Seth gave her a wry smile. “Back then, ditching choir was one of the few ways I had to defy my grandmother.”
“She mustn’t have been anything like Nana Gerry.” Annie gave the stone snowman a gentle pat and got to her feet. “I wanted to sing in the choir because she did. I was happy to be around her.”
“You were lucky.” Seth straightened too. Would things have turned out differently for him if he’d had a Nana Gerry in his life? Or a big loving family like the Quinns? “My mom died when I was seven. My dad was never in the picture, so Mom’s parents took me in. Although they gave me everything I needed, they weren’t what you’d call warm.” His body went cold, together with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Private school and Key West vacations hadn’t compensated for the loss of what was most important of all—unconditional love.
The tenderness in Annie’s eyes almost undid him, then her warm hand reached out to clasp his. “It sounds like you’ve had a bunch of losses in your life, too.”
“Yeah.” Seth shook the dirt off his boots as the imprint of her hand seared his soul. Annie meant well, but he couldn’t let her or anyone else into the guarded fortress of his heart. “It looks like it’s going to rain again.” He gestured to the gun-metal gray sky.
“Like you said in the weather report.” Annie dropped his hand and turned away. “April showers and all.” Her tone was distant. “A guy in the next town does monument work. I can give you his number if you want to talk to him about a stone for Jake.”
“That would be good.” Seth glanced at the dirt mound again.
He’d been rude to this woman who’d been nothing but kind to him, and Jake wouldn’t have liked that. His mom would have called him on it, too. “I never talk about when I was a kid, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“It’s okay.” Annie’s voice softened. “Seeing Jake’s grave must be hard. We all have stuff we never talk about—stuff we don’t want to think about, either.”
His ex-wife had called it baggage, and he pictured it as a big old trunk he dragged around behind him but never opened. And in the past six weeks, that trunk had gotten even heavier. “Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat. “We should head back to town.”
“Of course.” Annie moved beside him, along the path to where they’d left the truck. “Half the town called the bakery earlier. After hearing your show this morning, they want you to stay.”
Seth’s insides quivered. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t write songs like he used to, and he
didn’t have anything else to do, but Annie didn’t know that. He sucked in a harsh breath. “I’ve decided I don’t want to sell the station, at least not right now.” He pulled open the truck’s passenger door for her, and Dolly bounced over to them, her tail in propeller mode.
“You’re staying for six months?” Her clear blue gaze met his, and the expression in her eyes was like a punch to his gut. Somehow, she’d found out what had happened in LA.
“Yeah.” And right now, six months seemed like an eternity. “I don’t want Jake’s business to fail.” Seth worked moisture into his dry mouth.
She exhaled. “That’s good news. I guess.” She didn’t look at him as she slid into the truck.
He closed the door before walking around to the driver’s side to get in. “I . . .” He shifted behind the wheel. “Thanks.”
“For what?” She clicked her seatbelt into place then rubbed at her hands.
“For not . . .” He stared at the raindrops that dotted the windshield and sweat trickled between his shoulder blades.
“Even though Irish Falls is a small town and people talk, your business is your business.” Her voice was gentle. “You’re a part of this community now, and we look out for our own. Jake was well-liked so, because of that, a lot of people here have your back. You’re not only part of my family, you’re part of the town family, too.”
Family. Although the word brought a familiar pain, mixed with it was a new warmth. “I don’t know what to say.” His tense muscles relaxed, and his body seemed lighter than it had for weeks.
Annie gave him a cheeky grin, and there was a sudden flutter in Seth’s chest. “You don’t have to say anything, but not knowing what to say must be real hard for someone who’ll be talking on the radio from now on.”
“You have a smart mouth, you know that?” A mouth he’d like to get better acquainted with. The hairs on the back of his neck raised as he fumbled with the key to start the truck.
“Takes one to know one. I listened to your show this morning, remember?” Annie teased him back. “Are you going to drive us back to town? If you haven’t noticed, city guy, there’s a lot of rain in those clouds, and the road by this cemetery borders a creek prone to spring flooding.” She looped an arm around Dolly, and her gorgeous hair fluffed out around her face.
“City guy?” His fingers tingled as he put the truck in gear, flipped on the wipers, and backed out the grassy path to the main road—if a gravel track bordered by a split-rail fence and woods could be called such.
“You’re a city guy, in a city truck, but you’re Jake’s nephew, so that gives you brownie points.” Her musical laugh pealed out and made him laugh, too. “When you come for dinner on Sunday, bring Jake’s Gibson.”
“Why?” Seth kept his eyes on the road, where water had already begun to puddle.
“I already guessed you play.” She flicked on the radio, and Dean Brody’s voice singing “Time” swirled around them. “And my mom likes music.”
Rain pattered against the windows, and the small cab cocooned them from the rest of the world. He maneuvered around a pothole. “I’m not a professional, but playing helps me unwind. I have a guitar of my own back at the apartment.”
“I like music too.” She paused, and her breath hitched. “Music is something Jake and I had in common. I don’t share music with my sisters.” Her voice was tentative. Like she’d told him something important she maybe didn’t share easily.
“Having something for yourself is important.” Music had saved his soul a lot of times and maybe it was still saving it. “I’d be honored to play Jake’s guitar for you and your family.”
Dolly thumped her tail against Seth’s thigh, and he took one hand away from the wheel to scratch her velvety ears.
When he’d come to Irish Falls, he’d expected to be gone in a few days. Instead, in those few days, the place, its people and, most of all, the woman beside him, had given him comfort and a sense of security he hadn’t anticipated or thought he’d ever need.
He made his living writing hit songs, but somewhere along the way, he’d gotten caught up in the glitz and glamour and forgotten about the people with hopes and dreams and sorrows who listened to those songs—the kind who also listened to Jake’s show.
The condo he’d moved into when Dylan left for college was a place to sleep, not a home. With a couple of phone calls—one to the property management company, the other to the woman who cleaned for him—he’d arranged for the place to be checked every forty-eight hours and the clothes and a few other things he needed boxed and shipped to him here.
He hadn’t come to Jake’s grave to figure out the meaning of life. But maybe this visit, along with doing the show this morning, had helped him figure out who he used to be. A guy who didn’t want to disappoint himself or Jake, either. And a guy who wouldn’t ever let his son slip away.
~ ~ ~
On Sunday evening, Annie took the rinsed plates from Seth and slid them into the dishwasher in her mom’s kitchen. She hadn’t wanted to like him. Everything about him—from his boots, to his truck, to his polished smile and easy patter—reminded her of the man she didn’t want to be reminded of. But the more time she spent with Seth, the more things she found to like about him. And the more everything she thought she knew about herself and what she wanted got turned upside down and inside out.
He respected her mom and stepdad. He got along well with her brother and sisters, and he’d joined the regular before-dinner card game with Hannah and her niece and nephews as though he’d done it for years. He’d bowed his head for the blessing before the Sunday meal, and he’d admired the collection of beer steins that were the pride of her stepdad’s heart.
Then there was how he’d talked to Hannah. Seth’s casual comments about the music business had made her daughter’s eyes widen and meant more than anything Annie could have said about why Hannah needed to stick with school.
Seth dried his hands on a towel. “It’s been a long time since I had a home-cooked Sunday dinner. I didn’t know people still had Sunday dinners with roast chicken and apple pie and all.”
“In Irish Falls they do.” Annie turned on the dishwasher and moved away from him. This whole setup was too cozy and domestic. And it wasn’t accidental that after Brendan, Holly, and the boys left, Tara made everybody else go into the living room to play more cards, leaving she and Seth alone in the kitchen to finish cleaning up.
“Your family’s welcoming. I like them.” Seth’s voice had that mellow intimate note that wrapped around her heart and squeezed it tight.
“They like you, too,” Annie said as she stared out the kitchen window into the backyard at the treehouse her dad had made in the big maple for her and her sisters. The heavy rain had barely let up in two days. Water pooled at the base of the tree and ran down the driveway in an ever-growing stream. “What you said to Hannah was great. She doesn’t listen to me, but maybe she’ll listen to you.”
“Since when did teenagers ever listen to their parents?” Seth gave her a wry smile. “You’re right to be worried, though. The music business is tough. Among other things, staying in school will give Hannah discipline. You need that so you don’t throw in the towel the first time things don’t go your way.”
Annie stiffened. Had she thrown in the towel all those years ago? No, back then she hadn’t had a choice. She was pregnant, and Todd hadn’t wanted the baby. Except, I let fear shape my choices ever since, and I never tried again with music. There was that little inner voice again, louder and more insistent. Could part of changing her life involve doing something with her music too?
“Mom’s counting on you giving us some music tonight.” She pasted on a bright smile. “She misses Jake’s music almost as much as she misses him.”
“I’m afraid she’ll be disappointed.” Seth stood back to let Annie go through the kitche
n door first. “I’m an amateur compared to him.” He picked up the guitar case from where he’d left it in the hall and ran his fingers over the worn leather. “I’ll do my best, though.”
Half an hour later, Seth set the guitar down, and Annie pressed a hand to her chest. He wasn’t an amateur any more than Jake had been. He might only be playing to her family, but he was a consummate entertainer with a voice to match. He’d even gotten Duncan to clap along, and her stepdad didn’t have a musical bone in his body.
“Hearing you play all those old songs is such a treat.” Her mom’s cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes glowed. “It takes me back to my high school days and when my kids were small, too. When we could get a sitter, my first husband and I used to go dancing on Saturday nights at the Black Duck. Mick was such a good dancer.”
“That’s so romantic,” Hannah said. From where she sat cross-legged on the floor with Rowan’s boy and girl, Hannah clasped her hands together. “These days, guys don’t know how to dance. All they do is shuffle around and call it dancing.”
Duncan grunted and flicked a button on his recliner.
“It is romantic,” Annie said. What was wrong with Duncan? He’d been a widower before he’d married her mom and spoke about his late wife with the same warmth and fondness as her mom spoke about Annie’s dad.
“Of course, I can’t dance anymore, not with my hip.” Her mom’s expression was sad.
“You will soon.” Annie made herself sound encouraging. “The doctor said you’re doing great and healing like a woman of fifty.”
“Except, I’m not a woman of fifty.” Her mom glanced at Duncan again and bit her lip.
“Anytime you want me to play for you, let me know.” Seth got to his feet. “It keeps me in practice. But next time, the rest of you have to join in. I’d like to hear you sing, Hannah. You too, Annie. You mentioned you used to sing with your church choir.”