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“How could you? I was a kid,” Micah said, fully realizing it had been ridiculous for him to get upset over it.
“How is your mom?” Jonah asked, stepping wide around a puddle.
“She died a few years ago.”
“Oh, Micah, I’m sorry to hear that. She was so young.”
“Yeah. Cervical cancer. It was fast.”
“That must have been difficult.”
Micah stepped over a big boulder and ducked under a thorny bush growing into the trail. “It all happened just when the band took off,” Micah said. “And I think she downplayed everything that was going on with her so that I could enjoy what was happening to me. By the time she told me, it was too late for anything to be done.”
“I remember your mom,” Jonah said. “When she was here. Everything she was trying to do was for you. To make a better life for you.”
Micah blew out a hard breath. “I know. And she did.”
Jonah clapped a hand on Micah’s back and he had to blink back tears.
The trail opened up and they stood on a little rise overlooking a lodge and a dozen cabins. A larger cabin was at their right. And another at their left.
“Wow,” Micah said. “Helen said you all lived near each other and I can totally see why. It’s beautiful.”
“My brother and father built this place with their own hands, and it’s a long dramatic story but we didn’t know each other for most of our lives. When I finally did meet my brothers and my father and got over what I thought had been done to my mother and I—all I wanted was for our families to be in each other’s lives. The Riverview Inn has been a dream.”
“Did your parents live here?”
“They did. We had some really good years here all together as a family. But Mom died at the beginning of the pandemic and Dad died a week after her.”
“Jonah,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. You know,” Jonah said. “For a guy with such a shit reputation, you’re not so bad.”
Micah stepped down onto a granite rock, heading toward the lodge, but Jonah put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“The new album, it’s about Helen, isn’t it?” Jonah asked.
Stunned, Micah turned and nearly tripped on the edge of the stone he was standing on.
“How did you know?”
“You read that article in the New York Times.”
“I did,” Micah said, the words coming out of his mouth like they were escaping. Glad to finally be out.
Jonah crossed his arms over his chest. His hands were in fists and Micah stepped back realizing Jonah was angry.
“Helen had her mother and me read her victim impact statement a million times, and some of those lines are seared into my brain. Hurting you won’t change a thing. Hurting you won’t ease my pain. Those are her words. Exactly.”
“They are,” Micah admitted. “I was…in a dark place at the beginning of the pandemic, and when I read that article, I was just inspired by how brave she was. How selfless.”
“What about White Knuckled?” Jonah asked. Another song Micah had written based on that victim statement. These white-knuckle nights are too long. It’s me and the ghosts until dawn.
Micah nodded.
“Jesus,” Jonah muttered, and the shame Micah had been rationalizing made him sick. “Have you told her?”
Micah shook his head.
“If she finds out on her own she’s going to feel betrayed. She hates pity—”
“I don’t pity her.”
“Your pity for her is all over those songs,” Jonah snapped. “The way you take her devastation and reduce it to a three-minute harmony. You plagiarized her words. You mined her pain.”
The words hit him hard. So hard he was speechless.
“I won’t hurt her.”
“You called her in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail,” Jonah said, his voice clipped but low so Bea couldn’t hear him. “You’ve got a reputation for a short temper and violence. I know the worst moment in her life is going to make you fucking rich. So, you’ll forgive me for calling bullshit on that.”
“I will pay her.”
Oh. That had been the wrong thing to say. He knew it even as it came out of his mouth.
“That…I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know it’s not fair and maybe I’m talking out my ass, but I’m her father and I won’t see her hurt anymore, Micah. You should leave her alone.” Jonah walked past him. “Wait for me, Bea,” he shouted and caught up to his granddaughter.
As far as warning conversations from fathers went, it had been extremely effective. He couldn’t argue. There was nothing to say in his own defense that didn’t sound childish. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Jo.
“Hey,” he said. “Can you send a car to get me?”
“Where?”
He gave her the address.
“Now?”
Jonah didn’t want to hurt Helen either, and leaving right now would hurt her. And he owed her truth.
