AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can’t believe she did this,” I cry. “I just…I can’t.”
J.R. slides an arm around my shoulder. “I take back every negative thing I have ever said about her.”
I laugh at him. “She’s the best. I’ve got to call her or something. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay her for this.”
“Go call her. Amia and I are going to test out her new room.” He looks like a kid in an arcade, and I laugh silently about the types of things that adults with children get excited about. New rooms, strollers, Disney World.
I don’t wait another second. I pull my phone from my pocket, dial Kelley, and disappear outside onto the back deck. When she answers, all I can do is cry, and then I hear her laugh at me through the phone. “I take it you found the surprise.”
“I can’t believe you and Adam did this,” I say, trying to contain myself. “No one has ever done anything like this for me. It’s beautiful. It had to be expensive. Tell me how much you spent, and I’ll pay you back.”
“Shut up. It was a gift,” she says. “I’m serious. I better not get a check in the mail. And it was mostly me. Adam had nothing to do with it. He can’t even pick out a decent throw blanket.”
“You are unbelievable. I don’t even know what to say.” I stop trying to hide the fact that I’m crying, and I go into a full-blown, ugly cry, wiping my cheeks as I do.
I hear Kelley still chuckling through the phone. I begin to laugh with her, too, because Kelley has the type of laugh that is contagious. I don’t know why, but my mind goes back to the first time I saw Kelley cry. It was the night I woke up in the hospital after I tried to kill myself. That seems like it was so long ago, but it wasn’t. Not really. After everything we’ve been through together, she is still able to manage something like this for me. I owe her everything—my life, really. She saved me. Without her, who knows where everyone else would be?
“I love you, Kelley. You know that, right? After everything I’ve put you through, I love you.”
“Rach, stop crying. Okay? You’re going to make me cry, and I don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it.” I wipe my tears from my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I…I’m overwhelmed.”
“Rach, go enjoy your family. I know you’re all exhausted. Call me when you stop crying.”
I laugh. “Okay.”
“Love you,” she adds.
“Love you, too.”
I sit back in the swing, clutching my phone to my chest, and staring out across the tall green oaks with their Spanish moss. I close my eyes, and I listen to the sound of the ocean roaring in the background. I inhale the salty air, and I turn my face into the sea breeze. I relax into the swing, lay my head back, and sigh. Today is a good day.
42
“I think I’m going to get back in the studio with the band,” J.R. says to me. We’re on the back deck on the swing. The warm, summer air wraps itself around us, and the night sky is blanketed in clouds. Cicadas sing; crickets chirp; the ocean roars.
It doesn’t surprise me that J.R. wants to get back to music. The last six months have been spent with him doing the one thing he hates. Still, I didn’t expect him to want to go back so soon. We just got home; Amia is still a newborn; and I thought we would have more time together.
I don’t say anything to him. The baby monitor next to me gurgles a little, and I wait to hear Amia’s cry. Only silence follows, and I am thankful.
“You don’t want me to go back,” J.R. says in response to my silence. It’s half a question, and half a statement.
“J.R., you know that I would never tell you that you can’t make music,” I say. “We just got home. I guess I didn’t think you would want to leave again so soon.”
The studio isn’t like touring. He comes home most nights, but in some respects, it’s worse than when he’s gone for weeks at a time. When J.R. is in his creative space, writing lyrics, writing music, he’s somewhere else. Mentally. I admire that about him. I love his creativity. Still, once J.R. hits the studio, he’s gone; and sometimes, he’s away for a while.
“I don’t want to leave you or the girls; but I think I need to go,” he says, “Six months on that damn farm, my dad, Amia—I’ve got to write.”
I turn toward him in the swing. “I know.” I can’t think of anything else to say. I really want to stomp my feet and beg him not to go back yet, but that would be both selfish and childish.
“What is it, Rach?” he asks me, shifting his blue eyes to mine. He sees something else behind my eyes—something that doesn’t have anything to do with this conversation.
“I came back to you a year ago today,” I point out.
He nods his head, and then he smiles. “That was a good day.”
I roll my eyes at him. “It was a terrible day. I never want to feel that way again.”
