Disclaimer: I own nothing from Nashville.

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Prologue

I'd never, ever thrown a fit like the one I chose to throw on my mother's wedding day.

I'd chucked one of my shoes at the wall. It had left a dark mark on the paint. I was now staring at that mark from my place on the floor, where I had crumpled a few minutes before, which was the moment my mom had evidently decided it best to clear her friends and Aunt Tandy out of the room. I had then commenced to sobbing into the fluffy dress I hated, hated, hated, the kind of dress that a flower girl was apparently supposed to wear. Mom's dress – now that was pretty. I'd gone with her when she'd picked it out. But I hated it, too, in this moment. In this moment, white looked bad on her. In this moment, on this day, I hated white.

Mom was on a couch, hands in her lap, watching me. I remember she looked sad. I remember I didn't want to make her sad, not really. She'd been smiling a few minutes before and I'd preferred that. But when a girl wants her daddy, she wants her daddy, and I had to let Mom know, because she was the only one who could get me to him. So I slapped my hands on the floor, tilted my head up, felt the hot tears run down my face. I sobbed and coughed.

"I want Daddy!"

"Shiloh," Mom said, her voice loud enough for me to hear but not quite a yell, "What do you think your daddy would say if he saw you throwin' a fit like this?"

I knew exactly what. He would have told me to hush in that voice I found so scary, the voice Mom had never managed to copy. But right then, I really didn't care. I would have been fine with Dad being mad at me, in all honesty. I just wanted him, and I wanted him now.

"I want Daddy . . ." I cried. "Not Teddy . . ."

Mom straightened her dress and held her arms out to me. "Come here, baby." Her voice had gone softer. Her eyes were wet, too. But God, I was mad. So I ignored her.

"Honey, please."

But no.

That was when her phone rang. It was on the couch beside her, and she took it up, looked at the screen. It made her sigh. She reached to touch her face but stopped, then looked back at me and held the phone up. "Guess who?" she said, and I sniffled. "It's Daddy. I asked him to call when he could."

I stopped crying. She held the phone out to me. "Why don't you talk to him?"

But I was already scrambling over. My hand grabbed for the phone so fast it fell, but I snagged it from the floor as quickly as I could, flipped it open. "Hello?" I said, sounding pathetic, I'm sure.

"Hey, baby girl."

It was the first time I'd heard his voice in weeks. It made me cry harder. It was supposed to make me feel better, but it only made my cry harder. I didn't want him any less, though. "Daddy, where are you?"

"I'm still in the hospital, honey."

"You gettin' better?"

"Yeah, I'm gettin' better."

"I . . . I wanna, I wanna see you."

"I know, Shi, I wanna see you, too. But look, you should be having a good day today. . ." He cleared his throat. Over the phone, it mostly just sounded like static. "Your mama's gettin' married. Weddings are supposed to be fun."

"It's not."

"Why not?"

I told him the story, turning my back to Mom as I did. I told him how the night before Papaw had come over, how he had told me that, after today, Teddy would be my new daddy, but the fact was, I didn't want Teddy to be my daddy, I already had one, and I thought he was great, thank you very much, only I didn't sound quite so sure of myself sobbing all of this into the phone.

"Darlin', you listen to me," Dad said when I'd finished, or at least when I was crying too much to go on. "I'm always gonna be your daddy, no matter who your mom marries, okay? I promise, nothing's gonna change 'tween you and me. And your mama seems to think Teddy's a pretty good guy. You think that?"

"Y-Yeah . . ."

"Then don't worry. This is a good thing. And your mama really wants you to be a part of it, so I need you to be my good girl for her, okay?"

He could talk me into anything, when I was that age. So of course I said okay, wiping off my tears, and I meant it. I would, in fact, go on to be the perfect little flower girl, smiling in all the pictures, kissing Teddy on the cheek.

"I miss you, baby," Dad said. His voice didn't sound much like his voice at this point. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Give your mama back the phone."

So I gave her back the phone. She said a few words. I don't remember what they were – I just remember the single tear that slid down her face when she said bye and hung up. And I remember watching her later, as Teddy put the ring on her finger, and trying to find the streak that tear must have left. But somewhere between the makeup and the white smile and the joy of the wedding, it had been lost.

What I didn't understand then, at the ripe old age of five, was that my mother is an expert at covering things up. She can slap on a smile and some rhinestones and go on with the show, no matter how much shit has hit the fan.

I've never decided if I admire or resent her for this.