When Amalia was gone, Sadie surveyed the auditorium. Crew members and tech bustled to and fro. No one was paying attention to her yet. She played a few bars of the song she had written for Max, then started to sing it with her eyes closed. When she opened her eyes, she didn’t find the face she was looking for.
Instead, her mother was sitting in the front row.
Sadie jumped up. “Mom! What are you doing here? I thought you were coming later?”
She raced to her mom to hug her—the way she hadn’t allowed herself to for so many years. She hadn’t realized how much she needed her mom until she showed up.
“You often leave things unsaid—you got that from me.” Lynn smiled. “But that doesn’t mean the people who care about you most don’t know exactly what you need. Now, as Gran would say, go on up there and make us proud,” she said.
It was almost enough to bolster her and get her back up onthat stage to rehearse. But the spotlights had been turned on and were shining down on the empty stool where Max was supposed to sit. “I don’t think he’s coming tonight, Mom. I don’t think my dream of singing at the Grand Ole Opry is going to come true after all.”
“Look around you, Sadie. Where are you right now?”
“At the Grand Ole Opry.”
“And what is that, up there on the stage?”
“A piano. Where are you going with this, Mom?”
“Who is that piano for? Is it for Johnny King? Because I don’t think Johnny King actually knows how to play a piano. He can barely play a ukulele.”
Sadie couldn’t help but laugh. It was true. Johnny had persona and stage presence to spare, but his technical musical talents left something to be desired—which was probably why he was such a showboat. It was a distraction tactic.
“So, if you go up on that stage right now, and you play me your song, what does that mean?” Lynn asked Sadie. “What it means is that you, Sadie Jane Hunter, will have officially performed for an audience at the Grand Ole Opry. Isn’t that right? Take it from me, life doesn’t always play out the way you imagine it will. But that doesn’t mean that what you do instead isn’t worth anything.”
Sadie glanced at the stage, at the piano up there waiting forher, then back at her mom. Could she really be happy with nothing but a rehearsal up on that hallowed stage?
“Sadie, I think it’s time for you to start being proud of yourself.Now, get up there and do your thing. Don’t let anyone—not Cruz, not Johnny, not even Max—take this moment awayfrom you. It doesn’t matter if it’s not how you imagined it. What matters is that it’s happening. It’s real. You just have to work with what you have.”
“You sound like Gran,” Sadie said.
Lynn smiled. “Since she’s been gone, I’ve noticed that more and more. Like she’s with me—the way she promised she always would be.”
“She promised me that, too,” Sadie said softly. Then she and her mother looked around the huge room, and Sadie knew they both felt the same thing. It was hard to fully understand but it was there no less: the presence of a loved one they both needed very much.
“Off you go, Sadie. Make her proud.”
Sadie went back up on the stage and sat down in front of the piano again.
She closed her eyes and she started to sing her song for Max again. But she also sang it for her mom. Maybe thiswasall she was going to get, a chance to perform for her mom at the Grand Ole Opry. But it suddenly felt like enough.
Halfway through the song, Sadie felt something. A shift in the air, like an electrical current. It made all the hairs on her arms stand on end.
All at once, she smelled cologne and cinnamon gum. She opened her eyes.
Max.
He was standing in front of her, his head tilted to one side, the way she knew he looked when he was really listening. There was so much to say, but it was all in her song—so she gazed into his eyes and kept right on singing.“I loved you since the day we met. It was just I didn’t know it yet. In this perfectworld of me and you, baby, please won’t you make my dreams of Christmas love come true?”
Max joined her on the piano bench. He had his guitar with him and started to strum it. He wasn’t playing along with her song, not quite. He was weaving a different song into hers, she realized, a song all his own and yet somehow it fit into hers perfectly. As Sadie sang and played she made space for him in her music the way she should have made space for him in her life.“Baby, you’re hot chocolate running through my veins,”he sang.“You’re a runaway Christmas sleigh ride and I just can’t hold the reins. Come on back, come to me, make my yuletide dreams come true—because, my love, the best Christmas gift is you.”
She felt breathless and elated when it was over—not just her song, buttheirsong.
“We did it,” she whispered. “We wrote a song.”
Max leaned his guitar against the bench and reached for her. “We sure did, sweetheart.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, then looked up at him. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ve been an absolute fool, not able to see past my own damn nose. I know you would never, ever have something going on with Cruz, and I swear, if that man comes near you again, I will—”
“It’s okay, Max. I’m going to handle Cruz. Amalia and Bobbi are going to help me. It might not be easy, and I may need your help in the future.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “Not by getting angry,” she said with a sad smile. “Just by being there for me as I try to deal with the fallout of this. Just by never, ever letting me blame myself.”
