Author's Note: I thought I was done with weird, improbable, complicated AU futurefics when I wrote "Solstice", but apparently I was nowhere close.

On that note - consider this a companion piece to "Solstice". Meaning that if you haven't read that…you'll probably want to, at least as a springboard for what's going on here.

Tons and tons of thanks to whentherightonecomesalong and barkleyandbarnes on Tumblr for reading early drafts of this.

I.

The first time I listened to the video was the first time I heard my mother's voice. I was six.

It was a familiar song – "Angel From Montgomery" – but somehow, hearing her sleek, throaty strum of the melodies made it sound new.

I hit repeat again. Then again. Eventually, I played it so many times that the notes all dissolved together, like the bluesy lilt of a lullaby.

My dad was with her that night, but he didn't sing. You can only see him in the video when the camera pans to him. When it does, he practically swallows the frame – ropey arms and a barrel chest, face all lines and angles, like coolly shutting doors. His fair hair under the signature Stetson, eyes staring at his guitar, and he bowed under the stage lights while my mother stood in the circle and howled to the ceiling.

It was the night she played the Grand Ole Opry. She was nineteen, married, barely pregnant with me. She knew it and so did my father, but they hadn't told anybody yet.

All extra details. You would never know any of that from the video. It's just my mother and the mic, my silent, strumming father off to the side, and her voice reaching all the way to the nosebleeds, the song not so much words or melodies but a feeling.

I may not have known her, but it's something I understand.

I love the way music thrums over you. It envelopes you like a wave. It takes you over completely. Some days I just zone out and wait for the music to take me over, and I want to just get lost inside the rhythm or certain chords like it's a riptide sucking me under. Or a warm, twanging skin.

My dad's like that, too. He and my mom, I think it's the only real thing they shared.

I've seen the music videos, the shaky camera phone recordings, the concert snippets. Seen the way the music overtakes him, how he becomes somebody else once he pulls out his guitar. No, not somebody else. More like…more himself. Or at least, the more "him" version of him than I've ever seen. He becomes the most real version of him that he thinks he's ever been.

I couldn't talk about that with Gunnar. It isn't the same. He isn't the same. Gunnar doesn't go someplace else when he plays; he doesn't become somebody else. Or someone else he doesn't know how to be, unless he hears the music.

II.

My ears hurt.

Mom thinks it's from swimming. Dad says it's from sinus drainage. They argue about it like it's going to cure the problem.

They agreed on something, for once – that I should stop swimming – but like that was ever gonna happen. We have regionals coming up, I need to shave seconds off my time, and I need to practice.

Besides – without me in the water with my eyes shut, slicing through the foam like a blade, the sweat and chlorine and feet and overheated pool room, Coach blasting his whistle, I don't know what to do with myself.

I need the relief of knowing I'll be in the water. Down there, I can't hear anything except me. It's like somebody poured me back in my skin. Like my arms and legs and nothing else works unless I'm in the lap lane.

But they made me stop.

If Paw Paw Glenn were here, he wouldn't let them force me to stop. He was there to watch, when neither of them were. Even when he was sick, he'd show up, wrapped in sweaters in the hot pool rooms and cheering me on.

But he's not and my ears fucking hurt and I don't care, but they still made me stop.

Since they called Coach and said I couldn't swim, I have to meet Keller after last bell. There's a rock on the sidewalk that I kick all the way down to the carpool line, closing my eyes and wishing for the foamy chlorine skin. I feel itchy without it and off-balance, like my feet are attached to the wrong legs and my back's all knotted and hunched.

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning when I got out of the shower. My ears were still hurting, and they looked weird. Like they were stuck on wrong, and didn't belong to any part of my body. My legs didn't, either, and neither did my arms. None of it looked right on me; I don't like right on me.

I need to be under again.

Keller is digging the toes of his shoes into the curb when I stand beside him, waiting for Scarlett. Since Dad moved out, she's been picking him up from school. Sometimes it's Deacon, but today Maddie's car is waiting in the carpool line when I meet him.

Keller always runs to her, but today he stares when Maddie honks the horn.

I jab him in the back of the shoulders. "Come on."

"Why is she here?"

"She's picking us up."

"Where's Scarlett?"

I lift up my hand to wave to Maddie, let her know we see her. My arm doesn't feel attached to my body. It doesn't feel like it's my arm.

"I dunno."

Maddie rolls down the window and calls for us, her words jumbled over the sound of the engines and horns and people rushing past us, backpacks and lunch boxes and shoes hitting the pavement.

Keller isn't moving, so I push him forward and get into Maddie's car. After a minute, he follows.

"Hey guys," she says. She's got music playing. She smiles. Her car smells like vanilla and lemons. "Sorry about this. Scarlett had an appointment and Gunnar said he was stuck in a meeting."

Keller doesn't say anything, just throws his backpack into the backseat and climbs in. I get in the front, trying to fold my legs into her chair. They know how to be fins in the water but not walk like legs are supposed to.

"Did you get done with the TV stuff?" I ask, buckling my seatbelt.

Maddie shrugs. "We packed it in early. Told them I had more important stuff to do."

"Was it fun?"

She makes a face.

"Fun isn't the word I'd use," Maddie replies, hunting for her sunglasses in the console among crumpled gum wrappers and plastic CD cases.

"Still. Being on TV is kinda cool."

"Trust me, kiddo," she says, rolling her eyes, "it's overrated."

Maddie looks at Keller in the rearview.

"You guys wanna stop for food?" she asks. "I'm starved."

Keller doesn't answer. Maddie adjusts the mirror, watching him glare out the window, and sighs. Then she adjusts her sunglasses and looks at me.

"You hungry, Finn?"

We pull out of the carpool line and onto the main road. There's a Taquerita there, and a Donut World, and a smoothie place. All of which will have too many people from school.

"Can we go to Beyond Bagels?" It's across town. Less chance we'd run into anybody.

It's out of the way, but Maddie doesn't say anything, just turns and starts heading in the opposite direction.

"What about Beyond Bagels?" she asks Keller, still quiet in the backseat.

He hunches into himself.

"Kel?"

"I don't care," he mumbles.

He might be crying, but if he is I will seriously punch him in the face. With the arm that doesn't feel like my arm.

Maddie sighs again.

"Okay," she says, trying to sound like she's happy. "Bagels it is."

There's a CD in the stereo. I turn it up. Scarlett and Deacon haven't been listening to the radio, either, whenever we're in the car, ever since we heard that reporter talking about Mom and Dad.

Beyond Bagels is almost empty, but still we take a table in the back. The cashier obviously recognizes Maddie, because she does a double-take and smiles extra-wide when she hands her the coffee she ordered, but she doesn't ask for her autograph or a photo or anything.

That's Nashville. You can look, but don't touch. Unless you're my mom. Or those reporters.

Maddie glances at her coffee, turning the cup in her hands, a small smile on her face.

"That cashier knew you," I tell her.

She nods. "Look what she wrote on my drink."

I peer at it. Under her name, MADDIE, the cashier wrote YOU ARE WONDERFUL! and then drew a little heart.

My mom never got hearts next to her name on coffees, that's for sure. But I don't tell Maddie that.

Keller is sitting at the table already, picking the sprinkles off the cookie he ordered. He's got his headphones on, and I can hear the music blaring as he tunes us out. Dad would have a cow if he knew Keller was being rude to Maddie, but since Dad moved out he doesn't know what we do.

"He looks pretty upset," she tells me, as we watch him from the counter.

I shrug. "He's been quiet."

Maddie puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes.

"What about you?" she asks.

I don't want to look at her, so I focus on grabbing napkins.

"Look," she tells me. "You know everything they're saying is bullshit, right? They're tabloids. That's what they do. They lie about everything to sell papers."

She shakes her head. "I mean, if I listened to every single thing wrote about my parents, I would've gone crazy a long time ago. You just have to ignore them, Finn, okay? And Keller, too."

"Yeah, but the stuff they're saying –"

"Is all made up so they can sell magazines," Maddie said firmly. "Okay? You have to stop listening to it. Both of you."

"But it is weird, right? That they're in the same house again?" I rip more napkins out. "I thought divorced people moved out."

Maddie looks so sad, I have to look away.

"Not always," she says. "My mom and dad lived together for a while after they separated. They traded off time at the house until Daphne and I could get used to it."

"And how long did that take?"

She doesn't answer, so I sit down at the table next to Keller. He's still picking sprinkles off.

"Why'd you get that cookie if you weren't gonna eat it?"

"I am eating it."

"No you're not. You're taking it apart."

He glares at me. "Fuck you."

"Hey," Maddie warns, as she sits down next to us. "Don't say that."

Keller scowls.

"Whatever," he says. "Our mom doesn't care."

"Shut up," I tell him.

"Okay," Maddie cuts in, slapping her hands down on the table. "Here's the deal. We finish up here, I drop you –" she nods to Keller – "at your buddy's, then drive this one to Gunnar's. Your dad'll take you guys home. Clear?"

Dad will take us home. Like it's something we're all used to by now. Like today's not the first time we've seen him since he left the house.

Keller slouches in his seat. He looks so much like Dad that it's like looking at a younger version of him. When Dad used to hug Keller, it was like he was hugging himself – smaller, skinnier, light-eyed and angry, wanting to be told it was going to be all right.

He didn't hug me much, but we're not the huggy-type family, anyway.

"Did it work?" I ask her.

Maddie blinks. "What?"

"Did it work. Your mom and dad living apart. Was it easier?"

Maddie's face falls, and it looks like she might cry for a minute and I can't take it anymore.

"It's always hard, Finny," she says.

III.

"Can you hand me the mayonnaise?"

Avery sticks his head in the fridge.

"Why do you have two different types?" he asks.

Gunnar slices a tomato in half, then into quarters. He tries to keep the slices thin – Gracie would only eat the sandwich if the slices were thin, and he doesn't need to waste good produce.

"The Duke's is for cooking," he says, brushing aside the unused bit of tomatoes. "The other stuff is for the kids' lunches. So we don't run out."

Avery looks up at him, mayonnaise in hand and a smirk on his face.

"You're a regular Mr. Southern Cuisine," he tells him. "You should have your own show."

Gunnar makes a face. "I just like this mayo, okay? It's sweet. The generic crap is too dry."

"It's mayonnaise!" Avery says. "It can't be dry. It's all goopy."

Gunnar swipes the jar out of his hands. "It tastes like cardboard."

Avery makes a face.

"Mayonnaise is gross on principle," he replies.

He takes a seat at the kitchen table, grabbing his guitar from the case.

"I was working a little on the bridge," he says as Gunnar pulls out the cold cuts Scarlett bought. "I think we should re-work that last verse, too."

"You want me to make something for the boys?" he asks. He slices the ham-and-cheese down the middle, sliding it into a Ziploc. Gracie's lunch for tomorrow. "We have enough bread."

Avery shakes his head. "I'll fix something when I get back."

Gunnar tries not to notice that Avery doesn't say "get back home."

They had been trying to keep things out of the tabloids for as long as possible – for their sake and the boys' – but Avery hadn't told Gunnar much about it, either. And if he talked to Scarlett, she wasn't telling Gunnar anything.

"You sure?" he asks. "Scarlett just went shopping today."

Gunnar knew how Finn liked his sandwiches cut, how much mustard – NOT mayo – and turkey – NOT ham – he liked put between those two slices of bread. He'd known Keller since the day he was born, but Keller didn't share a crib with his niece.

Avery is quiet, and Gunnar wonders if he's heard him. But when he looks up from the counter, he sees Avery watching him, his face pale.

"Don't do that," he says wearily.

Gunnar looks at him. "Do what?"

Avery sighs.

"Look," he says, "can we please just…finish this? I gotta fly out in the morning, and I have to be up at four so Emily can drive me to the airport, and I really, really need to finish this stupid demo because I needed it done two weeks ago, and I won't have time to do it when I get back because Juliette's got her thing at the Opry –"

"You're still going to that?" Gunnar asks.

Avery stares at him.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I'm still going. Of course I'm going."

They stare at the floor for a long moment.

He did promise Avery that they'd work this song out before he had to leave tomorrow. And he needs the distraction, after that spot on TMZ. Not to mention the paparazzi that will be waiting for him.

"You know," Gunnar tells Avery, "we do have a guest room. You could stay here tonight."

Avery runs a hand through his hair.

"I can't do that," he says quietly.

"It's not a problem. Scarlett already suggested it."

"It's not that," Avery replies. "I'll just stay where I am. Easier to leave tomorrow."

He goes back to his guitar.

After a moment, he murmurs, "Stay close to the boys."

Gunnar slides the sandwich into a Ziploc, brushes the scraps aside. After a moment, he grabs two slices of bread and some of the honey ham, because he helped Avery move into the guest house last weekend and he doesn't think there's any food in the place. Not that he blames him – with the headlines in the check-out line lately, it's been hard to quiet Clay whenever they go into Kroger and the boy starts pointing at Auntie Juliette's picture on the front page.

"Hey," Avery asks, finally, "Did you ever hear back from Will?"

Gunnar knows he's only being polite, asking about Will. He's never been a fan of the way he swoops in and out of Maia's life, but after that TMZ spot, the only alternative is talking about something nobody wants to discuss.

Gunnar shakes his head. "I've been texting him all day. He didn't say anything about the ceremony."

From the table, Avery sighs. "Well, maybe he was going to."

"He didn't say anything to Maia, either. She had to hear it from Nate." He sighs. "Who apparently, never told Will he invited her."

"Maybe he was going to tell her." He shakes the barrel of the guitar, rattling a pick that got stuck in its hollow wooden belly. "Maybe he was just waiting for the right time."

Gunnar shook his head. "The right time for what? To tell me he's gay? Sorry, he's about fifteen years too late on that."

He runs his hands over the countertop. Avery has little to no patience when it comes to Will. The way he made promises and broke her heart; like he broke her mom's years ago.

He'd changed Maia's diapers, babysat when Layla had to work. Put her down for naps beside Finn in the same narrow crib, in his and Juliette's old apartment. When they buried Layla, he sang a hymn at the funeral.

"You know, I was there the first time he got married. I didn't want to be there, I should have stopped it, but I didn't. Even though I knew it was wrong." He shakes his head. "But I stood by him."

He turns around and looks at Avery, who is staring out the kitchen window. "Why doesn't he think I would stick by him now?"

Avery sighs. "Man, it's probably not about you."

"I know it's not," Gunnar says.

"Well, you're acting like it is!" Avery throws his hands up. "Look, if he wanted you to be there, he would have said something. So maybe he doesn't want you there. Maybe he just wants it to be the two of them."

Gunnar rinses his hands under the faucet.

More like he doesn't want me to watch him marry a dude, he thinks.

Gunnar never thought it was a coincidence – as soon as Nate came into the picture, Will's visits became less and less. Maia knew about her dad – she'd known as soon as he and Scarlett thought she could understand what it meant – but that didn't mean he wanted to act like she knew.

He was reminded of the time Will bailed on her eighth grade graduation. Gunnar took a photo of her in her dress, holding her certificate. He hesitated a moment before captioning it "wish you were here".

He didn't hear from Will all day, but Nate texted her that morning with "CONGRATS, KIDDO! You're graduated! Like a cylinder! Except…not cylindrical!"

Leave it to Nate to use a word like "cylindrical" in a text message. And with the correct use of punctuation.

Will sure knew how to pick 'em.

But Maia still had a father, even if he wasn't around, and whenever he came and went Maia seemed to light up, and Will, too. And it seemed, in the early days, like she loved him more desperately than Gunnar, because he was always either just arriving or just leaving, and the stolen little pockets of time when he'd show up on their doorstep gave her something Gunnar knew he and Scarlett couldn't.

"Can I go to Atlanta next weekend?"

Maia had sprung the question on him at breakfast this morning.

Gunnar was rinsing Clay's bowl under the sink, guiding soggy Cocoa Puffs down the disposer. His hand stopped under the faucet, and he looked up at Maia, who was watching him like she was challenging him to something.

"Where did this come from?" he asked.

Maia didn't blink. "So it's a no?"

"I didn't say that," Gunnar said. "I'm just wondering where it's coming from."

Maia shrugged. "Nowhere."

"So what's the problem?" Gunnar asked.

"Nothing's the problem!" she snapped.

Scarlett walked into the room with Clay's backpack in hand.

"What's with the shouting?" she asked.

Maia stared into her cereal.

"Dad and Nate are having a thing," she mumbled, "and I want to go."

"A thing," Scarlett repeated, catching Gunnar's eye. He shrugged back. "What kind of thing?"

Maia poked at her bowl, like she was stabbing something there.

"I don't know," she said. "Like a ceremony-thing."

After a moment, she added, "They're exchanging vows."

Scarlett and Gunnar stared at each other, eyebrows raised.

"I didn't know about that," he said finally.

"I just heard like, yesterday," Maia said. "He texted me."

"Who? Your dad?"

Maia was still staring determinedly into her bowl of soggy cereal. "Yeah."

He and Scarlett looked at each other for a long moment.

"We'll talk to Will about it," she said finally.

Maia finally looked up, glaring at them.

"My dad said I could go!" she said. "He wants me there. What's there to talk about?"

Scarlett narrowed her eyes.

"I said we'd talk about it," she said, her voice clipped. "And then we'll give you an answer."

Maia gripped the table edge.

"Why can't you tell me now?" Her voice was raised, picking up higher and higher with every note.

"Watch your tone," Gunnar said sharply.

From the living room, Gracie was yelling, "Dad! Where's my backpack!" Clay told her to shut up and turned his cartoon up louder, and Gracie yelled at him to turn it down.

Scarlett rubbed a hand over her face.

"Look," she said. "We will talk about this later. All right?"

She didn't answer before snatching Gracie's lunch out of the fridge and repeating, "All right."

Then she turned and walked away before Maia could say anything else, shouting "everybody better have your shoes on or else you're goin' to school barefoot!"

Gunnar and Maia exchanged glances. Her face was red, mouth tilted down in a scowl that reminded him of Will. His "fuck you, you can't make me" face.

"She didn't say no," Gunnar reminded her.

Maia gripped the tabletop. "She didn't say yes."

Then she grabbed her backpack, rushing out the door to the car before he could say anything else.

Gunnar remembered how small she'd been when he first saw her. Scrawny and red and plucked-looking, the smallest, softest, warmest living thing he'd ever held. She was too tiny to be from Will, or even Layla; he couldn't imagine her being from that big baby belly of hers, planetary and firm. She looked too small to be alive, except he could feel her heart beating right into his hands.

Then her frailness grew into the bold toddler who walked at nine months, marched at ten; she never hobbled or toddled or any of those cutesy words people used to describe babies when they could careen back and forth on sturdy little legs. She moved like a character in a comic book; she never did anything without an exclamation point. WHAM! FLING! WHOOSH! SLAM!

Gunnar remembered Luke Wheeler, laughing as Maia darted around backstage.

"Hoo." He grinned. "That baby's on a mission."

She stumbled into Gunnar, who picked her up. Then she glared at Luke, twirling her pacifier in her mouth suspiciously, the ends of her blonde curls wrapping around the rubber mouthpiece. Gunnar wanted to pop it out of her mouth and pull the damp, long hairs off of it, but Maia would throw a full-scale meltdown if he tried, so he just tried not to think about it.

He'd tried not to think of a lot of things, back then. Like the kinds of things Luke had said about Will, back when it all happened. Or how, after Maia was born, Zoey and Will couldn't be in the same room as each other without things getting too awkward for words. Or how, when old ladies would see him and Scarlett with Maia, walking in the park on a Sunday or going downtown or eating breakfast with Maddie and Deacon, they would always coo over Maia's blonde curls and big blue eyes, clucking their tongues at her while telling Gunnar what a beautiful family he had.

And they'd felt like a family, a real one. Back then. Scarlett's ring on his finger, and the first thing he did when they got custody of Maia was trade in the truck for a four-door, with a baby seat in the back. Plus, with her fair hair and wide eyes, Maia did look a lot like Scarlett, and it was – easier? more convenient? safer? – to let those old biddies believe that they all belonged to each other.

They already felt like it, even if a judge had yet to rule it on paper.

Then it was official a few years later, before they had Gracie or Clay. Before their ACM award, before the Grand Ole Opry, before they could afford a place like this in Brentwood. The judge's ruling made Maia theirs, and they contended with Will showing up in the middle of the night like a phantom, appearing and disappearing in the shadows.

It had made Scarlett furious. Gunnar, too, but he couldn't bring himself to ban Will from their house. It wasn't right, she argued, for them to confuse Maia like this; to leave the door open for Will to break her heart over and over again. Letting him just drop in and out like this was going to only leave open wounds, ones that they wouldn't be able to gloss over when she was old enough to start asking questions about her father.

He didn't want to fight with her about this. Gunnar knew how close she'd been to Layla, towards the end. And she wasn't the only one. Zoey was there when Maia was born, and at Deacon's after the funeral she stood on the back porch in her black dress, crying and cursing and wiping her damp, red eyes with fistfuls of tissues. Deacon had paid for the funeral expenses himself. Rayna had pulled some strings with her ex-husband, who had found him and Scarlett a top-notch family court lawyer that they never would have been able to afford without the influence of the major of Nashville.

For the most part, he'd tried to stay quiet, just focus on Maia. And writing, and Scarlett, and music. But no matter how tired he was at the end of the day, every time he closed his eyes he saw Layla's face on her wedding day, when Will promised he'd be a good and decent husband.

IV.

When Gunnar and Scarlett first bought this house, they only had enough room for me and Gracie. Clay wasn't born yet and wouldn't be for a few more years, so it was only the two of us duking it out for who got the bigger room. Which seems stupid now, because they're basically the same size, and anyway, rooms always look smaller without furniture. But that's the kind of thing that matters when you're nine, and six.

I remember, Finn and I plugged his iPod speakers into the wall and set them on the bare white floor. We turned it up and let the music echo through the room, and laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling. It felt too quiet, even with the volume turned up, because everything was empty. It made me feel weirdly empty, too, like the music was going through me the same way it went through the vacant bedroom.

Finn closed his eyes and tilted his face towards the ceiling. I got this feeling that if I didn't grab his hand, I'd float away. It made my stomach feel scooped out.

When Clay was born and they needed another bedroom, they cleared out the room at the end of the hallway, the one that used to be filled with Gunnar's recording stuff. His guitars, his old piano, extra mics and speakers, his drum set and the mandolin he'd had since he was my age. It was all boxed up and relegated to the office downstairs, the desk and chairs moved around to make room when there wasn't much to begin with. Every trace of music was swept away to make room for a new crib and changing table, and painting the walls blue.

I helped paint them. Gracie kept complaining about the smell, so Gunnar and I finished it ourselves. On one corner, I traced my hand and ran my brush over it, the shape still visible in the drying paint.

"You know," Gunnar told me back then, "your dad and I painted a whole house together once."

Then he grimaced. "He painted longhorns on the wall."

"Classy," I told him.

"Yep," Gunnar said.

I stared at my handprint on the wall. If I could paint my father's palm over mine, it would completely swallow me whole.

Nate hasn't texted me back since this morning, when I told him what Scarlett said. Dad didn't answer me at all – what else is new – but if I can get Nate on my side, then Dad can't really say no.

I should just go up there myself. Gate-crash the whole thing. What's my dad going to do then – send me all the way back to Nashville?

Finn has his ear buds in, his book open to the page of math problems he's supposed to be doing but isn't.

"So Avery's at home now?" I ask.

He doesn't answer, so I pull one of the buds out of his ears and ask again.

Finn shrugs. "He's in the guest house."

"Well, that's good. I mean, it is, right?"

He shrugs again. "I dunno. I think it's just because Mom's going on tour soon and it's easier for Dad to drive us everywhere instead of always asking Gunnar and Scarlett."

"How's Keller dealing?"

"I dunno. He doesn't ask questions. He stays at his friend's a lot, so he's not around."

Then he closes his book, and flicks through his iPod. We've been home almost an hour, and he's only done one problem.

Finn will do anything to avoid math. Not me. It's like a conversation that always has a resolution. Numbers can go back and forth, sometimes be letters and sometimes be imaginary and sometimes be not real numbers at all, but no matter what there's always an answer to be reached. It's what always makes sense – there's always an answer, and it's always the same, and there's no room for interpretation.

There was an answer, and problems could always be solved. That's why they were there. It's absolute.

"Here." I hand him my worksheet, the one we did a few weeks ago. It's the same set of problems Finn has now, except since we're the honors class we did the problems weeks ago and already received our grades back. It's one of those stupid things I love about our school – either they really don't believe we cheat, or just want less to grade.

"Just copy those," I tell him, "but change the numbers."

Finn rolls his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Fisher doesn't check them. Once I used the same worksheet for two weeks and she didn't notice. She's, like, three million years old."

That doesn't mean I want to get busted.

"Just change the numbers, okay?" I tell him.

Finn makes a face, but takes the worksheet and starts copying.

I took Finn's class last year like the rest of the advanced math students, with Coach Pitts. He's the coach of the basketball team, but athletes avoid his class because he doesn't bullshit or give them higher grades just so they can play – he flunks everybody equally and doesn't take any shit.

All last year, I thought Pitts hated me. He barked out my last name whenever I had to answer a question, scribbled my grade at the top red corner with red ink that made an A look imposing, like it wasn't as good as you thought it was. And then at the end of last year, Pitts signed my recommendation for honors pre-calculus. He wrote "solid worker. Motivated" in the same strict handwriting he scribbled my grades in, that made the words not seem like a compliment.

Now he teaches AP Anatomy & Physiology for junior year, and this one class called Concepts & Theory, which is for seniors in upper level math. I have to pull a 95 average all three years in every math class before I can qualify to take Pitts' senior class, and so far I have it. I'll keep it, too, because I'm getting into that class.

Technically I still have all the old homework assignments from his class. I could give them to Finn, let him copy the answers. I keep all my old homework, and the binders, in my closet. I could let him have all those, but sometimes, it's nice to take them out, look through them. Just to see.

I'm capable.

Gunnar doesn't get it. He tries, but he didn't go to college; he didn't even finish high school. Scarlett went to Ole Miss for a while, but didn't finish. Neither of them really get school, not like I need to. Gunnar keeps trying to tell me that it's not the end of the world if I get a B, that they know I'm smart and grades don't really matter, and I know what he means but he doesn't know.

Sometimes, I get so fed up with him that I just want to turn and tell him: my mom got into Harvard.

"There aren't any numbers here," Finn mutters, fiddling with the pen cap. "It's just letters."

"It's slope," I tell him.

"The fuck is slope?" He scowls. "They should just rename math class 'what the fuck is that' and no one would know the difference.

I roll my eyes.

Finn stares at the sheet for a second, then pushes it aside.

"This is all such bullshit!" He groans. "There aren't even any numbers in this problem, and the answer is still a number! What the fuck!"

I'm about to roll my eyes again, but there are footsteps up the stairs, and then Avery's standing there, frowning at us.

"You can stop the cussing," he tells Finn.

Finn glares back at his dad, but doesn't say anything.

"We were doing homework," I offer. I don't like it when Avery gets mad. Gunnar I can handle, but Avery makes you feel like he's going to peel you open with the look in his eyes.

"Well, do it without the cussing," Avery replies, but he doesn't look at me – he's still staring right at Finn.

Finn looks away, and Avery walks back down the hall. It's so quiet, I think I can hear my stomach dropping as his footsteps fade on the stairs.

"Come on," I say, when Finn's being too quiet. "Just do the worksheet."

"Or what?" he says. He doesn't look at me, but his hands are so sweaty that the edges of the paper are crinkling, curling into each other. "It'll get cold if I don't finish it?"

I look at the door, like Avery might still be standing there, even though I can hear him and Gunnar downstairs talking like they don't want to be overheard. Finn puts his ear buds back in and crumples up the worksheet, pushing it off my bed.

"What fucking ever," he mutters, and lays back on the covers, closing his eyes.

He's not going to listen, so I take the worksheet from him and fill it out myself. I change a few numbers around and make the answers look wrong, so Fisher suddenly won't question Finn's leap in math ability, but in a few minutes I've finished the whole thing and slide it back into his notebook.

Nate's the only one who gets it. The school thing. He gets why I need to get good grades, why I need Pitts' Theory class so badly. He went to Columbia and got a masters from Princeton, and he's the only person in my whole life who knows what it means, that my mom got into Harvard.

Like Finn, he gets me.

V.

She doesn't want to go home, so she and Maddie are finishing their song at the lakehouse.

"Why didn't Star Towns ever ask you to do a spot?" Maddie asks, kicking off her shoes. One of Finn's hoodies is draped over the back of the couch, and she stuffs it under her head as a pillow.

Juliette rolls her eyes. Because Juliette Barnes' Star Towns would have been three things: her empty rented mansions, her full liquor cabinet, and her full bed.

"They found other ways to put me on TV," she answers drily. "Avery did an episode for it, though. A long time ago."

He did, but he didn't like to really talk about it. "The Dark Times", he'd call it, when he'd had a deal and a song on the radio and a sugar mama – which is officially Juliette's favorite part of that story, for the record.

Maddie sighs. "Did they want him to talk about my parents the whole time?"

"No." Juliette kicks her heels off into the corner, and then nearly trips over a pile of Keller's hockey pads. "Shit! Didn't I tell him to pick that up?"

She throws the pads at the wall, where they thump dully back to the ground.

Maddie is watching her with a creased forehead, and Juliette makes herself chill out.

"That was after," she tells her. "Avery didn't start working for Highway 65 until after I had Finn. The Star Towns thing was before we met."

Maddie is still watching her, like she has been for the past few weeks now. It's the same look Deacon gives her, whenever he takes the boys to school.

"The producers are driving me insane," Maddie says after the pauses get too long, and Juliette is grateful. Neither of them really want to talk about the stupid show, but it's better than talking about anything else. "All they did was ask me stuff about my mom and Deacon. And Harrison. Like everybody in this city doesn't already know everything there is to know. And all everybody's interested in is asking 'are they the next Deacon and Rayna'?"

She rolls her eyes when she asks the question, making air quotes with a scowl.

"It's just to sell the show," Juliette says. She sticks her head in the empty fridge like something edible might appear. "They have to play up to that."

"And what, I'm not allowed to be my own artist?"

Juliette shuts the refrigerator door and smiles grimly. "Not with parents like yours, Kiddo."

Maddie blows out a breath.

"You got any vodka?" she asks, sounding defeated.

Juliette peers in the cabinet under the sink. "Whiskey."

"Fine with me."

Juliette can't say she's surprised about any of this. From the time she met Maddie at age twelve, she knew this was the kind of girl to whom Big Things Happened, even without her pedigree of country music royalty.

But still. She wasn't her mother. And she both wanted to be like her and distance herself from her in equal measures, which wasn't something the world granted her.

Like now, with the whole Star Towns issue. They'd spent the day before at Deacon's house, with Scarlett and Clay. They'd shot some B-roll of Scarlett playing the banjo, Deacon on the piano, Maddie on her guitar – the three Claybournes, singing in a round. They'd interviewed both Scarlett and Deacon about growing up with their musical legacy, about what it meant for Maddie to have that kind of pedigree and the opportunities awarded to her. They staged some scenes of Maddie and Deacon writing a song together, of Scarlett and Maddie harmonizing on an old Carter family staple. They showed old footage of Maddie as a teenager, her first time performing at the Grand Ole Opry with Deacon and Rayna at the age of sixteen, and singing at the White House a few years after later at the inauguration ceremony, at the request of the new President and First Lady. There were so many moments, so many highlights that began when she was so young.

"Then everybody wants to talk about Harrison," Maddie continues. "And how we're supposed to be just like my parents. Except that's stupid, because Harrison's nothing like Deacon."

She rolls her eyes. "That's why I'm with him! Who says I want to be with some guy who reminds me of my father, anyway!

Juliette watches Maddie put her hands over her face, pressing her forehead.

"I'm with Harrison," she says, her voice scratchy, "because he's Harrison."

Juliette stares out the window, and thinks that Harrison – quiet, pale, tongue-tied Harrison, who called her "Ms. Barnes" for a whole year until Juliette finally told him to cut the "Miss" crap and call her Juliette, already – was about as far from Deacon as any girl could get.

"Can I stay here for the night?" Maddie asks. "I don't feel like driving."

"Sure you don't want Deacon to pick you up?"

Maddie snorts. "No. He'll just want to talk about it. And I'm so sick of talking about it." She shakes her head. "I just wanna get drunk, and it's not like I can do that in front of him."

She pours the glasses, hands Maddie the less-full one. Then she drapes herself across the futon, which overlooks the calm, clear water. The same water where she and Deacon wrote "Undermine" a million years ago, but she's never told Maddie that particular story and doesn't plan on it.

Who knew that only a few short years after she and Deacon wrote their song, she'd actually fulfill what she'd told him. Build a house by the water, on Tammy Wynette's land. Have her own place to go, to hide. To write and play and create.

Back then, it felt like a reward. And it had been, to see that dream realized. Because so many were finally coming true. The album Juliette released the year after Finn was born – her first record with Highway 65 – launched her right where she'd always wanted to be, at the top of the country charts. It earned her a CMA for Album of the Year, a GRAMMY nomination for Album of the Year in any genre. It drew comparisons to Rayna's first album, in terms of female historical releases. The biggest song off the record, "Has Anybody Ever Told You", was reviewed and spoken about in the same breath as "Rose-Colored Glasses" and "Stand By Your Man".

Suddenly, the people who burned her albums and called her a slut were changing their tunes. It proved that after cheating scandals and renouncing God and having an illegitimate child, she could stand among the greats and feel like it was all right to do so. Like she finally had a right to belong.

And it's not like Avery's life was stalling, either. After Deacon's "Alive At The Bluebird" EP swept a ton of big-buzz nominations at award ceremonies, Rayna asked him to produce her live album at the Ryman the following year. It was supposed to make up for the fact Highway 65 had no main act other than Rayna, since Scarlett left the label and Juliette was too pregnant to handle a major tour. The album, called American Live! was a live concert special with Deacon singing their old hits, along with Maddie and Daphne and a handful of up-and-coming artists from Highway 65 making guest appearances.

He got a lot of publicity for the album, which became a huge success. It went platinum, was nominated for two GRAMMYs, and officially put Avery on the map as a producer – enough for Rayna to ask him to work on more albums for Highway 65, to which he agreed. He not only produced Juliette's first album on the label, but Deacon's, which was also a four-starred, CMA-nominated, award-winning success. And for a while, it seemed like his phone never stopped ringing. He'd proposed to Juliette not long after the GRAMMY nomination, and everything, it seemed, was clicking into place.

So they got married. Built this house. Made music. Another dream come to life.

It had made so much sense, at the time. Like things were allowed to go this way.

She closes her eyes.

"You hungry?" she asks Maddie. She kicks her legs back over the futon and marches to the kitchen, looking through the empty fridge again. She can't sit still, not now.

"Anything but pizza," Maddie replies.

Juliette refills both their glasses, then fishes around in the drawer where they kept take-out menus for nearly every restaurant in the city that delivered. She digs through the pile for the one to Hunan Hut when she comes across a half-eaten package of Twizzlers.

Keller's the only one that likes these things, though why he hid them in this drawer is beyond Juliette. She stares at the package for a moment, then rips off one of the long straws, bites the edges off, and sticks it in her glass.

"Did you talk to Finn at all?"

Maddie busies herself tuning her guitar that doesn't need tuning.

"I did," she says, after a moment. She looks at Juliette. "He didn't say much."

"You know how he's taking this?"

Maddie shrugs. "He asked how it felt when my parents split."

"I hope you left out the part where you ran away from home and had me pick you up at a gas station in the middle of the night."

"I just told him it was hard." She takes an experimental strum of her strings. "Like I said, he really didn't say much."

She takes a bite of the Twizzler straw, chewing on the too-sweet licorice taste. It always surprises Juliette that she hates licorice, even though she's known it for years. Yet somehow, she can never remember that before she takes a bite, and the result always ends up the same – surprised and disappointed. Like a memory you can't stop poking, even if it hurts.

Finn is always her stoic one. Keller's like Avery –shit at hiding what he feels, and wants the whole world to know it – but Finn never gives any of himself away.

"I don't know how he's handling anything," she says, and twirls the end of the candy between her fingers.

Keller's hockey pads are in the corner, still slumped on the floor. They smell like sweat and dirty ice, the inside of a locker room. She ought to wash them, but then figures she ought to wait for Emily's help. If she tries to use the washer, she might end up burning the house down.

Avery always took care of that stuff, anyway.

"You want sweet and sour chicken, right?"

Maddie's voice sounds very far away. "What?"

"Sweet and sour chicken? That's what you usually get."

"Oh, right. Yeah. And a side of brown rice."

Maddie nods, already dialing the number, when she frowns at her phone.

"What?" Juliette asks.

Maddie shakes her head.

"Nothing," she says. "Just Harrison."

"Go on," Juliette says, waving her hand. "Go and answer it. I'll order the food."

"No, it's not a problem." Maddie presses IGNORE, and keeps dialing the number for the Chinese place. "I'll talk to him later."

Juliette rests her hands on her hips.

"Looks like Deacon's not the only person you're avoiding," she says.

Maddie raises her eyebrows at her, but before she can say anything the restaurant picks up, and she turns away from Juliette to order their dinner.

Juliette takes another bite of the Twizzlers, wincing at the taste. It coated her tongue, sticking to her teeth. When she was pregnant with Keller, she'd craved anything salty, but with Finn she could barely eat without getting sick. She hardly gained weight, even after nine months.

She used to believe she was doomed to fail him. Her dark-eyed oldest. The first time she saw Finn on the ultrasound, it felt like someone knocked the planet out from under her. She hadn't even started getting morning sickness, or taken a home pregnancy test. It would mean telling Glenn, Emily. Avery. It would make it too real – the disappointment, the disgust, the guilt. Bitter as the licorice.

Only a handful of people knew, even now. Avery. Rayna. Deacon. Glenn and Emily. And she supposed Gunnar knew, which meant Scarlett probably did as well, but neither of them had ever said a word about it in fifteen years, so she couldn't really be sure.

Maddie didn't know, and Juliette had no plans to tell her. The girl had enough daddy issues of her own to sort through without needing to deal with Juliette and Finn's, and she didn't think Maddie would be too sympathetic to the decisions Juliette had made for her son.

But not all fathers were Deacon. Not all secrets were meant to be shared.

Rayna liked to lecture about putting the past behind her, but she had Deacon. She was one to talk.