A couple of reviewers asked for a story about the end of Deacon and Rayna's lives and how they had had an impact on the lives of their family and friends. This is that story. Each chapter will focus on the perspective of different people in their lives. Reviews welcomed and appreciated!
Daniel walked down the hall to the den. The house seemed even quieter than usual. He'd been out to walk the dog and then picked up the paper that was thrown into the driveway. It was a crisp, cold late January day. They'd had a cold winter in Nashville that year and the snow from the week before had just melted. Chipper, their Irish setter, had bounded down this same hallway as soon as they had come in the door. He had stopped briefly to take the paper out of the plastic bag and spread it on the counter. The obituary story wasn't the lead story, but it was above the fold, not surprisingly. Whenever a country music legend died, that was the case.
When he got to the door, he stood for a moment. She sat there, facing the fire, her hand absentmindedly rubbing Chipper's head as he sat at attention next to her. She was still in her nightgown and robe, even though it was past noon. She'd pulled her hair back into a loose braid that fell down her back. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and the fist of her other hand was pressed against her mouth.
"Hey," he said softly, and she turned. Her face looked drawn and, even from where he stood, he could tell that her eyes were still red from crying. She had been mostly awake ever since Tandy's call.
She tried to smile. "Hey," she replied.
He walked over and sat down next to her and she turned to look at him. He reached for her hand, holding it loosely in his. "I thought you said Daphne was going to be here at one," he said.
She nodded and sighed. "Yeah, she is." She looked over at the clock above the fireplace mantle. "I guess I need to get dressed," she said.
He squeezed her hand. "What can I do, Maddie?" he asked. "Do you want me to come with you?"
She thought for a minute and then she shook her head. "Daisy and Lily are coming over, so you probably should be here when they get here." She took a deep breath. "I think this is something Daphne and I need to do alone. She was our mom after all."
He reached up and brushed a thumb across her cheek. "It's already in the paper," he said.
She nodded and gave him a sad smile. "I'm not surprised. Mom told me they had stock death stories for anyone who was old. They even had one for Dad, even though he wasn't so old when he died." She sighed again and then slid over to nestle in his arms. "I was ready for this, you know. I've actually been ready for this since Dad died. I knew how much she missed him. As much as I know she loved Daphne and me, she loved Dad more than anyone in the world and she was so lost without him." Daniel's arms tightened around her and she cried softly.
"How about I come find you something to wear?" Daniel whispered.
Maddie sat up. "Oh, that's okay," she said, with a little smile. She and their girls frequently teased him about mismatched clothes. She got up from the couch. "I can manage."
Daniel grinned. "I'm sure I can find something else to do."
Maddie had washed her face and put on some makeup that helped her face not look so blotchy and her eyes not so red. As she stood in her closet trying to decide what to wear, she thought about what she'd said to Daniel about being ready. The truth was, no one was ever really ready for the time or the place, even when they knew it was inevitable. Rayna should have recovered from the pneumonia she'd contracted after Christmas. She was in good health, even at eighty-two, and strong. She always had been. But Maddie knew she was tired of waiting. This was as good a reason as any for her to let go.
They had sat together at her father's grave, the year after he'd died of a heart attack at seventy-three. It was late February and there had been a cold snap the year he'd died, but a year later, it was a preview of spring. He was buried in the same plot as Virginia and Lamar Wyatt. Maddie remembered her mother remarking on the irony of that – that Lamar would have been indignant and that Deacon would have considered it sweet justice. The two of them had sat on the bench and held each other's hand as they had talked about their memories of Deacon Claybourne.
"You know, Maddie," Rayna said, turning to her daughter, "I never meant to live a moment without him. When I thought he might die of cancer, I wasn't sure I would be able to go on. It seemed so unfair. We finally could be together. I had finally figured out how to face down my fears and give my heart to the man I'd always loved. I thought it was all going to be taken away and I was so angry and sad. But we ended up having a lot of years together. So it all turned out okay." She wiped away a tear. "But I miss him. So much. I miss holding his hand, looking at his face, hearing him sing and play the guitar." She looked dreamily off into the distance. "That was always magic. No matter what else was going on in our lives, the music was magical." She looked down at her lap. "I miss him sitting next to me, I miss feeling his breath on my cheek. I miss his kisses." She looked at Maddie then and smiled softly. "I'm sorry."
Maddie shook her head. "No, Mom. I love hearing how you felt about him. I never felt like I heard enough. I missed so much." Her voice drifted off.
Rayna put her arm around her daughter. "I know. And most of that was my fault. I hope I was able to make up for at least some of that."
Maddie nodded. "You did." She bit her lip. "Are you just waiting to be with him now?" she asked softly.
Tears filled Rayna's eyes as she nodded. "Every day without him hurts," she whispered. "It's like it was when I sent him away, back when I found out I was pregnant with you." She wiped at her eyes. "But this time I won't see him again. He's not coming back." She choked on a sob and looked away. "I don't know if I can bear it."
Maddie felt tears in her own eyes. She knew her mom had just been waiting, all these years, to rejoin her dad. As much as she missed her father and as much as her heart hurt now, there was comfort in knowing he would have been there to meet her. She wouldn't have looked back either, Maddie knew that. He had always been her destiny and now they could be together forever.
She took a deep breath and then reached for a pair of black pants and a black and white sweater. As she pulled the sweater over her head, she stopped and looked at herself in the mirror. At fifty-five, she still looked good, younger than her years. She was still slender and fit. She continued to highlight her hair, which hid the gray. Her face was still reasonably smooth. She lifted up her sweater then, to just under her bra, and looked at the scar that was mostly faded. Twenty years after her father's liver transplant, his liver went into failure. She had given him part of hers, for a second transplant, and that had seemed to finally complete her penance for all that she had done at the age of sixteen.
He had cried in her arms the day she'd told him she was a match. It had given him and her mom almost another ten years, and they had both been beyond grateful. She had hurt him very deeply, all those years ago, and although he had gotten past it, their relationship had never fully regained the ease it had before then. But she had seen in his eyes, when he'd woken up after the surgery, that he had forgiven her completely. Like her Aunt Beverly before her, she'd given him the most precious gift he could ever receive, and that was time with her mother. It was at that moment that she had truly appreciated being the result of that love.
She felt a tear creep down her cheek and she reached up and wiped it away. She had missed her dad every single day since he'd been gone and, now that her mom was gone, it would be doubly hard. She wanted to be strong, though, for Daphne and for her girls. Her dad had always told her how strong her mom was and that she was just like her. She hoped she would be.
"Hey, babe." Daniel's voice came softly behind her and she turned. He had been her rock all these years. He'd held her while she'd cried over her dad's death. It had seemed so wrong for him to have survived the second liver transplant, only to be felled by a heart attack. There had been no time to prepare, no chance for goodbyes. One minute he'd been laughing with her mom in the kitchen and the next he was on the floor, gone. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. "Daphne's here," he said. "You ready?"
She nodded and walked towards him. He took her hand and kissed her on the cheek, then turned to walk her down the hall. Daphne was sitting on the loveseat in the den and when she heard their footsteps she got up and turned towards Maddie. Her face crumpled in tears and Maddie hurried over to her, taking her in her arms. She made a shushing noise as she rubbed her sister's back. "It's gonna be okay," she said, soothingly, using the same tone she'd always used with her daughters when they were distraught over something. She looked over at Daniel. "I don't know how long we'll be. Do you know if one of the girls is stopping to get Aunt Tandy?"
Daniel nodded. "Lily and Jack are. We'll be here when you get back."
She smiled at her husband, then turned back to her sister. She rubbed a thumb under one of Daphne's eyes. "We better get going, don't you think?" Daphne nodded. Maddie looked back and waved at Daniel. "See you later, sweetie."
It hadn't taken as long as they'd thought, since Rayna had planned most of what she wanted when she had made all the arrangements for Deacon's funeral. Maddie and Daphne sat in a pew about halfway back, in the church Rayna had attended. It had been the church of her childhood, although until Deacon died, she hadn't attended often. But once he had died, she started attending more regularly. It had helped her feel closer to him, she had told Maddie. She'd had a really hard time imagining how it must have felt, for her mother to have lost the love of her life. She wondered if it would feel the same for her if Daniel died first. But that wasn't something she really wanted to dwell on.
"Have you thought about what you want to say?" Daphne asked, interrupting the solitude.
Maddie shrugged her shoulders and then looked at her sister. "Not really. Have you?" she asked.
Daphne sighed. "I wrote down a few things. How silly Mom was sometimes. How she took us on the road with her. And the night we got to make our Opry debut."
Maddie smiled. "That was a great night, wasn't it? It was so cool when Dad showed up to play on stage with us."
Daphne smiled. "That was the same night they got back together," she said.
Maddie nodded, her smile fading just a little. "Yeah, it was." She still remembered going from the highest high to the lowest low, in the space of just minutes, when her dad told them he had cancer. Although she hadn't realized at the time, that had seemed to set off the period of turmoil that had ultimately led to her emancipation. Not my finest hour. She sat up a bit and took a deep breath. "Juliette wants to speak."
Daphne nodded. "Aunt Tandy does too. And Scarlett."
They sat quietly for several minutes, lost in thought. Maddie remembered they had had Deacon's service here as well. She remembered thinking it was probably more than he would have wanted. In spite of his success, and the fact that he was married to a country music legend, he was always more comfortable being on the sidelines, not calling a lot of attention to himself. But there were so many people who wanted to pay their respects and her mom had thought this place would work.
Those had been dark days, for all of them. Maddie closed her eyes and thought back to the call she'd gotten in the middle of a cold winter afternoon.
When her phone rang, she picked it up and saw that it was her mom. She smiled as she answered. "Hey, Mom," she said. At first there was no response and then she heard what sounded like crying. She felt anxiety rush through her. "Mom? Mom? Is that you?"
After another moment, where she could hear her mom's gasping breath, finally Rayna said, "Oh, Maddie, your father's gone." Then she broke down into sobs.
Maddie felt her chest constrict and she felt sick to her stomach. "What?" she croaked. "I don't understand. Mom, where are you?"
There was more sobbing. "At the hospital." Maddie could hardly understand her, but her eyes were burning with tears and her head hurt.
"What happened?" she whispered.
She could hear Rayna take a few deep breaths and clear her throat. "It was all so sudden," she said finally. "We were talking and then he…he just collapsed." She breathed in and out. "They said it was a heart attack."
Maddie was shaking and tears were rolling down her face at this point. "Oh, my God," she cried out. "And he…he died?" She could hear her voice rise to almost a shriek on the last word.
Rayna was crying again. "Yes," she said, choking on sobs. "Please come, Maddie. I don't know if I can do this."
Maddie remembered rushing out of the house and driving to the hospital, tears streaming down her face. She had found her mother, completely distraught, sitting in a private waiting room. They had clung to each other, but Maddie remembered feeling more like the mother than the child, as she saw her mom break down almost completely, unable to speak or stop shaking.
Maddie felt Daphne take her hand and she turned towards her sister. She realized tears were streaming down her face and she watched Daphne's face crumble with tears of her own. "I wasn't ready," Daphne cried. "I wasn't ready for her to go."
Maddie reached for her sister and hugged her close. For a moment she was taken back to when they were young, when Daphne looked to her to be the strong older sister. These days the age difference didn't feel the same and they considered each other best friends. But right now, as Daphne sobbed in her arms, she knew she needed to be the big sister again and help the family get through this devastating loss.