Episode 18 – "Nobody Knows But Me"
Deacon
They'd been together for three weeks. Three of the best weeks of his life. They didn't talk much about his illness, although she had gone to his last doctor's appointment with him. She'd been really good about not pressing too much, which he knew was against her nature. She'd accepted that he still wanted to keep the news private for now, even though he knew she didn't really understand it. But he didn't want people feeling sorry for him, or looking at him differently. He just couldn't handle that.
They spent as much time together as they could. She'd let Bucky handle all but the most important things at the label, so that they could be together. She kept asking him to move in, but he wasn't sure the girls were ready for it. Maddie, mostly. She still was skittish around him and he wanted to move carefully.
Sometimes he'd spend the night, but he was always careful to get up early, before the girls were up for school. Rayna thought he was being silly, but he thought it was the right thing to do at the moment.
He kept hoping things would change with Maddie, but the longer her distance went on, the worse he felt. It hurt his heart and even Rayna couldn't make him feel better about it.
Rayna
She'd been surprised the day Deacon asked her to go with him to his doctor's appointment. They hadn't talked much about his cancer, since he'd told her. She'd sensed that it was hard for him to talk about and, seeing as how he still wasn't telling people about it, she wanted to respect his right to be private.
When she met Dr. Rand, she found it hard to believe he was old enough to be a doctor. He looked not a whole lot older than Maddie and it made her want to giggle. But he was a patient man, taking the time to answer her questions. When she sensed that Deacon was uncomfortable listening to all of that, she stopped. But later that day, she'd called to make an appointment with the doctor by herself.
Over an hour and a half after she'd walked in, she'd left feeling less confident than before. Dr. Rand explained the tumor was still growing, that every time they'd done an MRI, it was larger and, without a donor in sight, they were getting increasingly closer to the time when it would be too late even for a transplant. She had cried and he'd handed her a tissue and waited until she'd gotten control of her emotions.
He explained about living donors and she'd immediately asked him about being tested. But her blood type was A, which meant she wouldn't be a match. Because she wanted to know, in case Maddie asked at some point, she had inquired about the minimum age and had breathed a sigh of relief that their daughter was too young.
He'd encouraged her to keep Deacon's spirits up, to stay positive. He talked about how a patient's mental attitude could go a long way toward helping them, if not recover, at least prolong life. He'd already sensed that Deacon's inclination was to pull into himself and not talk about what he was feeling, or get angry, things that weren't uncommon for those dealing with cancer. But he was worried that Deacon wasn't sharing enough, building his support system, which, he'd told Rayna, would be a godsend, not only to him but to her.
When she got to her car, she sat and cried. She wanted to be strong for Deacon, but this was so much more challenging than anything they'd faced back in the days he'd been drinking. She wanted so much for him to just move in with her and the girls, so they could take advantage of all the time they had. She didn't want to believe that he wouldn't beat this, but she was terrified. She wasn't sure how she would go on without him. He'd always been there and she couldn't face the prospect that he wouldn't always be there.
When her tears finally stopped, she wiped her face and took a few deep breaths. She hoped she could be as strong as he thought she was. She knew she was going to need to be.
Maddie
She was quiet in the car with Colt, as he drove her home. The closer they got, she felt the pit in her stomach grow larger. Ever since her dad had told them he had cancer, she'd spent more and more time with Colt at his dad's ranch. It felt normal. There was laughing and fun, and for a little while she didn't have to think about her father dying. Being at home had felt sad and depressing.
She knew her parents were both trying to keep things normal, but nothing felt normal. Everything felt forced. It should have felt good, having her parents back together, but it really didn't.
She was so angry with her mom. How dare she lecture about lying, when she had told the biggest lie of all. And because of that lie, Maddie had missed thirteen years with her dad. She couldn't look at her mom. Maybe she thought this little bit of time was enough and that Maddie should be grateful for it, but she couldn't be. This hurt so, so bad.
Rayna
Maddie lying was concerning. They'd always been close and any issues they'd had usually blew over quickly. Maddie had certainly been angry with her after finding out that Deacon was her father, but she'd never really experienced her lying before. She realized that they'd been building up to this ever since Deacon had told her he had cancer. Not just the lying, but the pulling away, from both of them, not engaging, staying away from home so much. It made sense now.
The disrespect, though, had been unsettling. She didn't like it and she hoped it was just temporary. She didn't have time to deal with Maddie acting out, along with everything else she was having to juggle in her life.
She had mixed feelings about Maddie seeing Colt Wheeler. For one thing, he was Luke's son. She thought back to the day they'd caught the two of them making out at Luke's, back when she was still engaged to Luke, and that reporter was with her. That had sent her down a slippery slope, sharing private information about her relationship with Deacon that she'd never thought she would, in exchange for the reporter's silence. She'd thought that was the end of it, that with the end of the engagement that was the end of that experimentation, but apparently it was not.
Maddie's too young for this. Except that she hadn't been a whole lot older than Maddie when she'd first met Deacon. And she was living with him by the time she was eighteen. So it was hard for her to totally deny her daughter the chance to have her first romance. She just wished it wasn't Colt.
She thought about how to tell Deacon about it. He was so protective of Maddie that she felt sure he'd hate it. Plus the fact that it was Luke Wheeler's son. She was glad, though, that they would be dealing with this together. Just like they would all the other trials and tribulations of having a teenaged daughter. It felt good knowing they would share all this together now. For the rest of their lives.
Deacon
He wished he'd never told anyone about his cancer. He wished he'd just done what he'd thought about in the beginning – leave Nashville and live out whatever time he had left somewhere else. Somewhere he wasn't faced with leaving behind the people he loved, or having to tell people he was sick and watch them pity him. Someplace far away, where he wouldn't be a burden. Except, when he was honest with himself, he knew he would never have truly been able to do that.
It weighed on him. All the time. It was worse than when he drank. At least then, he knew that at some point, he'd get over the hangover, he'd wash off the stink, and he'd be sober. At least for a while. But there was no finality to it, in those days, not really. He knew he had a lot of life to still live. Now he didn't.
This weighed on everyone else too. Scarlett, who'd blamed him for a bad date when she spent the entire time talking about him and his cancer. Rayna, who was trying so hard to keep his spirits up and who pretended it wasn't happening and that they had all the time in the world. Maddie, who couldn't look at him or talk to him. Even Daphne, who, although she tried to stay upbeat, was taking on too much for a little girl.
He couldn't write. He'd spent a lifetime writing songs about Rayna. First they were happy songs, full of love and hope, then they were desperate songs, filled with promises he'd do better. After she'd married Teddy, they were songs of longing and pain or songs about how she'd done him wrong or let him down. Lonely songs. It had become his stock in trade. Only now, the darkness and the sadness were too raw and too close to the surface for him to put the words to paper.
He had no idea why he'd thought he could help Juliette write a song. To be fair, he didn't know what she was looking for when she'd asked him to help. It seemed like a way to get outside of himself for a while. But he'd ended up walking out on her and then he'd walked out on Rayna too.
He was sitting at his house, in the dark, not sure what to do next. He remembered Rayna's words at the cabin. I don't understand why you choose to step away when things get tough. I've been watching you do it your whole life. Please don't do that now. He felt the tears in his eyes. He was doing it again. He was walking away when things got tough, instead of standing up and fighting. He'd told Rayna he'd fight. He'd told the girls he would fight. Yet here he was, sitting all alone in a dark house, feeling sorry for himself and sorry he'd let anyone in.
Then he heard the vibrating of his phone. He reached over and picked it up and saw that it was a text from Rayna. Layla's opening tonight at the Bridgestone and I need to be there. Can you check on Maddie? She's home alone. He sat and looked at the text, then rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. He took a deep breath and then responded back. Headed over there now.
Rayna
She didn't really want to leave Maddie at home by herself. She wished Deacon hadn't left in such a snit. She needed him to be there, if not for her, for their daughter. Things hadn't improved with respect to Maddie's attitude and, now that she knew Maddie and Colt were supposed to go to the Jade St. John concert, she was apprehensive about leaving her. So she was relieved that Deacon agreed to go to the house, that regardless of where things stood for them, he was still focused on being Maddie's dad.
She'd also known she couldn't keep asking Bucky forever to take over for her. Highway 65 was her label and she needed to be around to support her artists. She'd confided in Bucky about Deacon's condition, just so he knew what was going on behind the scenes. As she had expected, he was immediately supportive as well as discreet. Tonight, though, she needed to support her newest, and arguably most fragile, artist, on her biggest stage. She had no idea how Layla had managed to snag a spot as an opener for the pop princess, but she needed to be there to support her.
As she drove towards the Bridgestone, her thoughts went back to Deacon. His walking out had reminded her so much of their early days. His gut reaction, whenever he was faced with a challenge, was to walk away. She knew he didn't trust himself, that his family history had scarred him badly, and he did that to protect both himself and others around him. But as time went on, it became a habit, no matter how big or small the challenge. She'd never really been able to break him of it and he'd continued it, even after their relationship had ended. But she thought the night at the cabin had been a breakthrough, and he'd continued to step up, at least with her and the girls. Until this.
But, to be fair, everything had changed. Back in the old days, they were just fighting his addiction demons. Of course, they'd seemed massive and nearly insurmountable – and they were – but this, him facing his own mortality, was something else entirely. The stakes were higher, the uncertainty was greater, the chance for pain and loss infinitely larger. He was still internalizing, but when faced with possible death, she supposed it was harder to deal with, harder to articulate.
She knew he was afraid – actually terrified – of dying. She could feel the tension and stress in his body, the tightness of his muscles, could see the strain on his face and around his eyes. She wanted nothing more than to soothe him, to wipe all of that away, but she knew they were starting to run out of options. Deacon had finally told her about Beverly's refusal to continue the testing protocol, even though she was an initial match, and she could sense his resignation.
She prayed silently that somehow, something would turn this all around. That they wouldn't run out of time. She had felt so confident, and still did, but it was starting to fray slightly around the edges.
Maddie
The only person she talked to about her dad's cancer was Colt. He'd been great, promising her he wouldn't tell anyone else, even his dad. She couldn't talk to her dad about it. She still could hardly look at him. She knew it was a secret, that he wouldn't tell anyone else, and that was confusing. It was hard not to act like nothing was wrong, that she hadn't gotten both the best news and the worst news of her life in the space of five minutes.
She could tell Colt about being afraid her dad would die. She could tell him how worried she was that he would start to act sick, even though he didn't now. She'd told him there hadn't been enough time for them to do the things that dads and daughters should do together. But then they'd do something else, like listen to music, or ride horses, or sit by the pool and that's where she could laugh and smile and have fun, for a little while. The stuff she couldn't do at home.
She hated being in her house. There was such incredible sadness there, all the time. It had been worth the secrecy or the lies or whatever it was, just to not have to face that.
Deacon
He didn't want to make Maddie sad. He hadn't ever intended to do that. He would never be comfortable just telling other people what was happening to him, but he realized now he needed to let in the people close to him. He didn't want people feeling sorry for him, and he was pretty sure that would probably still happen, but he was also tired of thinking about being sick all the time. He guessed that if it was out in the open, eventually he could live his life out in the open, instead of under the covers.
He wasn't embarrassed to be sick – he was mostly angry and a little bitter about it – but he could see where Maddie might have thought so. He also realized that he'd pushed Rayna away, the one thing he didn't want to do again. He wasn't used to putting himself out there like that, but he guessed he needed to.
It felt strange to be talking to Maddie about a boyfriend. His daughter. He hadn't been around for the other milestones in her life, but he was sure getting tested now. He wished she chosen someone other than Luke Wheeler's son, but he guessed since he and Rayna were on the other side of that now, maybe he could afford to be at least a little charitable about it.
He also needed to talk to Rayna about her suggestion that he move in. He thought maybe he was ready for that now.
Rayna
When she turned and saw him approach the backstage area, she felt the same tingles she'd always felt when she was near him. She couldn't help but smile, because there he was, the love of her life. Finally after all this time, they could be together, with no secrets between them, no person standing in their way. She could forget about his cancer, about the uncertainty of the future, when she looked at him and he looked at her. Nothing else mattered but that they were together again.
Let's go home, she said, when he told her he was tired. Home. It was wherever they were together, but she also felt like it was the place where they were together. She needed him with her and she felt like he needed to be with her too. And the girls. It was time to be a family, to experience those mundane moments together that built a life, to work through the challenges of raising up their girls.
He wasn't running away from her anymore, he was running to her. It was time.
Maddie
She was sure he didn't just come over every morning. In fact, she knew it. She'd woken up early one morning, just a few days earlier, to the sound of tires on gravel. When she'd gotten up and looked out the window, she was sure it was his truck, driving out through the gate. After all, who else could it be? She'd looked at the clock beside her bed and it said just after 5 AM. Then he was there before 7:30, before she and Daphne had to leave for school, acting like he'd just come over. She'd hidden a smile while she got yogurt out of the fridge.
Now that things were out in the open, about her and Colt, about her dad's cancer, it wasn't so tense. She'd decided she was ready for him to be around all the time, needed him to be, actually. So she'd tried to be casual, just throwing it out there that maybe he should move in.
But something in the way they looked at each other made her think it had already been discussed.
Deacon
Maddie had thrown it out there. Why don't you just move in? Daphne had seconded the notion. Rayna had given him that look that said 'I'm right again'.
It was a Saturday, filled with family activity, and there wasn't time to talk about it again until late that night, after the girls had gone to bed, and he and Rayna had settled into her bed. She was nestled up against him, her head on his shoulder. He had his arms around her.
"So, you're gonna move in, right?" she asked, looking up at him with a mischievous smile.
He had grinned and laughed a little. "Yeah, I'm gonna move in," he said.
