A/N: Hi, guys! So sorry it took this long to update this, but I was on vacation (I've got a good excuse this time, ha!).
So, this is the very first chapter with some Deyna interaction, finally! I must admit I consciously avoided writing about my beloved "The River Between Us" moment, I honestly believe that performance was so perfect and I certainly do not want to mess with perfection. Words could never do that moment justice in my opinion.
I can't possibly wait to get to episode 16 and 17 next, I'll try and update this as soon as I can, but I can't make any promises. Sorry again for the loooong wait.
My beta went above and beyond for me this time, she literally pulled an all-nighter for me and I can't possibly thank her enough, she's amazing. Thank you thank you thank you SparklingEnchantress.
Enjoy!
The dishwasher is loaded and going, the laundry folded and put away, I've hand washed the glasses and cleaned up the kitchen, even mopped the floor. There's nothing else I can do down here, so I head upstairs looking for some other chore that will make me postpone this inevitable phone call a little longer. The girls are tucked in and ready to go to sleep, I doubt they'll sleep much tonight. They are so excited to have their opry debut tomorrow, if I know them, well, they'll probably spend half the night texting back and forth with their friends talking about outfits and matching accessories, hairstyles and matching makeup looks.
Walking past Maddie's room I see a soft light seeping through the half closed door and I can hear her tuning her guitar with that new app she's downloaded on her phone. I make a mental note to buy her some new strings tomorrow, she'll probably snap a couple of them if she keeps tuning that poor old guitar every ten minutes. I head to my bedroom and sit on the bed. I can't express with words how happy it makes me to look in front of me and see those sweet faces back on this wall. I can't help but think Deacon would have never asked me to take those paintings down, he would have probably made me have a pair in each and every room. He's such a sucker for those two girls, they've both got him wrapped around their little fingers, especially the older one. A smile creeps up on my face as images of Deacon and Maddie together start dancing before my eyes. How could she ever think I hate that man? That I can't stand to be on stage with him? It is the absolute opposite and It's unbelievable that - of all people - our daughter is the only one who can't see how hard it is for us to be apart now that there is nothing standing in our way.
I look around the room in search of something to fluff, clean, dust, rearrange, but nothing seems out of place or in need of anything really. I sigh and slid my phone out of my pocket. This is it, I can't put it off any longer. I unlock the screen and scroll down my contact list until his name flashes on the screen.
I hesitate for a second.
Am I ready for this? Is this really what I want?
There is no doubt in my mind that I want Deacon to be there tomorrow. He's been with me from the very beginning, there is no one else I'd rather celebrate this milestone with, except for the girls. I tell myself nothing has to come out of this. It doesn't mean I'm ready to take that step, it doesn't mean I'm closing that gap that's been between us for far too long. It means nothing unless I want it to. But…do I want it to?
I hit "call" and fill my lungs with more air than is probably necessary.
He answers after the very first ring.
"Hey, It's me."
I told Rayna I would get back to her, that I would let her know if I'd make it to the Opry tonight.
I haven't, not yet at least. I packed my guitars and lined them up next to the front door about an hour ago and I've been staring at them since then.
Truth is I want to go. I want to be there for my daughter's Opry debut, I want to be on stage with her and Daphne and have one of those proud daddy moments I've missed over the years. I really really do.
And I want to be there for Rayna too.
It's a special night, a very special night. She's dreamed of getting inducted into the Opry since the very first night we played there back in 1990. We got a tour of the Opry House the afternoon before our performance, Rayna had been there quite a few times with her mama when she was a little girl. We walked through those hallways and rooms in complete awe, stopping to look at a picture on the wall or a name on a door. We were like two kids holding their golden tickets tight in their hands as they toured the chocolate factory. We couldn't believe our luck when Bucky called and said a spot had opened that night for the 7pm show and they needed someone to fill in. I remember Rayna stopping in front of that wall with all those shiny plaques that read the names of the lucky ones who'd had the privilege of becoming members of the opry family; she turned around and looked me in the eyes, "One day you'll read my name on this wall."
I did. It took another fifteen years, but I did. I was there the night Connie Smith came out on stage and surprised her with her Opry membership invitation. She hugged her close and looked at me from above her shoulder, I gave her a nod and clapped my hands along with the rest of the people in the room. I'll never forget that I-made-it look on her face, she was so proud of herself, but not nearly as proud as I was of her.
Two months later we were back at the Opry, this time her entire family had come out to celebrate this incredible career milestone. Teddy was there, the girls were there, her sister Tandy, even big old Lamar had come to show his love and support for his daughter. I stood back, hung out with the Opry house band guys and Rayna's band, and watched from afar as Rayna juggled to get ready with two little kids on her hands, one of which was busying herself with a little more than just her mommy's hands. I stood behind her on stage when she collected her Opry Member Award from Little Jimmy Dickens' hands, but watched from afar when she drilled her plaque into that infamous wall, when she hugged her daughter and husband backstage and left hand in hand with him. I watched it all from a safe distance. I didn't get to tell her how proud of her I was that night or that I'd never been happier in my entire life, I didn't get to kiss her or hug her or even just high five her. All I got to do was go back home, pick my guitar up and play and write until my fingers bled and my eyes dried.
She had her Opry membership award and her beautiful family, all I had then was a five-year-sober chip and a new song, Sideshow.
That's part of the reason why I'm sitting here instead of Rayna's dressing room right now. I get to congratulate her tonight. Tonight I can walk up to her and take her in my arms and whisper in her ear that I am proud of her and I've never been happier in my entire life. I get to put one arm around her and one arm around our daughter backstage and walk away hand in hand with her. I am free - in theory - to do it, I could do all those things and I want to, but I can't. I can't because I probably have less than six months to live and I can't possibly open that door without spilling this secret. I don't think I'm ready to tell her the truth, I don't know if I'll ever be. How do you tell the love of your life that you're about to die? How can I look her in the eyes and pretend we can finally get that happy ending we've been pining for for all these years? How can I lie to her? I used to be good at that once, but I'm about two bottles of Jack short tonight. I don't know if I can look at her on that stage and not completely lose it at the thought this will probably be the last time I'll see her perform there. She'll know something is wrong, she'll figure it out before the curtain call.
Maybe this will be the last time I see Rayna play the Opry, maybe I won't live to see my daughter's name on that wall. And that sucks. But when I'm on my death bed these are the moments I want to remember, maybe these will be the last memories we'll make together and I'll make damn sure they are the best.
"Fuck this."
I grab my keys and get up, the show must go on.
I watch as my girls squeal and throw their arms around him tight. I can't help the smile that settles on my face. He's here.
He smiles back at me and says, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
I can feel my cheeks squeezing my eyes to a tiny fissure, as my lips curve into a happy smile. I feel tingly all over, God he looks good. I must be looking like a damn fool at this point, but I don't care. My heart is beating so fast, I can hear it in my ears.
Disentangling himself from my daughter's firm grasps, Deacon sets his guitar down and takes his coat off. A couple more guitars are carried in by a young boy and I watch as he extends his hand to him to shake his in sign of thanks. This is one of the many things I love about this man, he's never gotten too big for his britches. He's one of the most acclaimed guitar players in the business and still he rubs shoulders with roadies and cracks a joke with craft service guys.
Daphne starts talking about the song they're going to perform tonight, their school music project and the built in recording studio their school now has. Maddie checks her makeup in the mirror one more time and then asks if she can borrow my lip gloss. I distractedly say yes, my eyes still fixed on Deacon. I watch him as he carefully listens to Daphne blabbering about everything and nothing at all, he smiles and nods and laughs at her antics.
"Mom shouldn't you start getting ready too?" Comes Maddie's voice from behind me.
"Yes. Yes, I should," I say quickly, but then again, as I turn back to take one more look at him, I've never felt more ready in my life.
I feel a cold hand slip in my palm and lean fingers squeezing my hand tightly. I know who this hand belongs to the second it comes in contact with mine, her hands always dead cold before a show.
I look down at our now interlocked hands and then turn my head around to look at her. Her hand starts getting warmer as I squeeze it back and lift it up with mine. All of a sudden I can't hear Vince speaking on stage, I can't hear the audience cheering and clapping, I can't see the people around us, all I can do is feel. It's a shock to the system and at the same time the sweetest welcome home a man could ask for.
I feel her eyes on me, they tell a story we wrote together many moons ago, I feel my body begging to get closer to her, I feel the warmth of her half smile on my lips and I realize I would literally do anything for this girl.
"Come sing with me," she says.
It's a plea and a challenge. I stand there almost paralyzed by her request. Do I join her? Do I stand back? My now empty hand is itching to grab a guitar, I can feel adrenaline pumping through me with every passing second.
"He's been with me from the very beginning…in one way or another," her small laugh hits my undoing.
I signal for my guitar and step into the spotlight.
Tonight, and maybe for tonight only, I don't have to be in her sideshow.
It takes another twenty minutes before I am finally free to walk off stage. There's only one thing on my mind as I move through the crowd backstage, greeting people and answering questions dismissively. I desperately search for that familiar pair of blue eyes above people's heads, as I nod and smile profusely at new and old friends on my way to my dressing room. My heart beats a little bit faster with every step I take. I walk into the room but find it empty. His guitars are gone, his jacket is gone, for all intents and purposes it looks like he left.
I turn to Maddie and ask her if she saw where he went, but she seems as confused as I am right now. I take another look around and see no trace of him. I feel like a little panicked kid who's lost her mommy at Wal-Mart.
Where is he?
I grab my phone and call him right away. Maybe he's still in the parking lot, or he just needed some fresh air, or maybe he's just loading his truck and will be back in a minute. Yes, I'm sure he's around here somewhere. I count the rings as I hold the phone close to my ear, after the fifth ring I finally hear his voice, I smile but it's short lived as I immediately realize it's just a recorded message.
Hi, you've reached Deacon. Please leave a message.
"Hey, It's me. Where did you go? Call me when you get this? Okay, bye."
The girls and I stop to get some frozen yogurt at Cece's Sweets on the way home. Daphne said we needed to celebrate their Opry debut and apparently it ain't a real celebration if it doesn't cost you about five hundred calories a bite. I silently thank God she's too young to know how perfectly celebratory tequila can be. I wonder if they have a tequila flavored yogurt here as we make our way into the shop.
I look on as my younger one dumps half the toppings the store offers on top of her yogurt, it's like watching gummy bears and sour worms fighting for supremacy over that expanse of white chocolate mousse, Reese's puffs and Malt balls expertly used to fend the other off. Maddie makes a disgusted face when her sister starts her assault on the delicious concoction, five minutes later her spoon too is climbing its way up to the top of that mountain of sugar.
The girls are chatting up a storm, suggesting Instagram hashtags to one another as they proceed to post pictures of their treats online. I haven't touched my dessert yet, it is slowly turning into a pool of melted pink lemonade sorbet yogurt upon which faded M&M's and colored sprinkles float aimlessly. It's a sad scene, but it's probably not nearly as sad as the puppy-in-the-window look I am sporting right now, gazing out the multicolored glass window, hopelessly waiting for Deacon to miraculously appear down this street.
The car ride home is unusually quiet, Daphne is fast asleep in the backseat, Maddie is on her phone texting away. If her smile is anything to go by, Colt is probably on the receiving end. My mind travels back in time, to my teenage years, when texting, facetiming and snapchatting weren't a thing, hell even cellphones weren't a thing back then. I remember all too well the hours spent waiting by the phone, intensely staring at it like it would make it ring faster. Deacon used to make Beverly call to the house so that Theresa, our Governess, wouldn't suspect a thing, and then put him on the phone as soon as the call was passed through to my room. We didn't have to come up with such silly tricks for long though, my dad kicked me out of the house about six months later. Still, I remember how fast my stomach would fill up with butterflies at the sound of his voice whenever he called, how different and somehow sweeter he sounded coming through the receiver, how insanely happy I was after we'd hung up. I jerk the car to a stop before the light turns red and grab my phone.
Hi, you've reached Deacon. Please leave a message.
I sigh and put the phone back down. Fuck technology.
Half an hour later Daphne and Maddie are both in bed and I'm two glasses into my freshly opened bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. It's been a long day, an intense exciting and emotionally long day, I deserve the company of this sweet old friend. It's close to midnight and Deacon has yet to call me back. I check my phone once again, no missed calls, no texts, nothing. It's like he's vanished into thin air. I shoot him the fourth text of the night, asking him where he is. I don't know what makes me hope that this one too won't go unanswered just like the previous three. I close my eyes and take another sip of my wine, struggling to keep grim thoughts at bay. I reach for the phone again and punch in his house number for the second time in the past ten minutes.
Hi, It's Deacon and Scarlett. You know what to do.
"Deacon? Are you there? Please, if you're home, pick up the phone? Please."
I reckon I sound desperate and lonely, and - make no mistake - I am. I try his cellphone for what feels like the hundredth time and am greeted by that damn machine once again. He's not home. It's midnight and he's not home. AA meetings usually don't last past 11pm, if that, there's only so many places he could be at this hour of the night.
I know what is about to happen, I can feel it coming.
My heart starts pounding in my chest, my stomach twists into a knot and suddenly my breath comes out in small puffs. I know this feeling all too well, I've lived with it for many years. Thoughts start gathering into my head like rows of dark clouds threatening to make it pour at any moment. I look around and I don't recognize my surroundings, all of a sudden I can hear again the echo of voices long silenced. Pure and utter panic assaults me.
He's gone on a bender. You shouldn't have asked him to sing with you. You pushed it too far.
He wasn't ready for this. He's gonna hurt himself. You ruined it all. Maddie is never going to forgive either one of you now.
He left you. He chose the bottle over you. Again.
I put the glass down and grip the counter tightly gasping for air. I lean my weight on it and work on controlling my breathing. I feel like I'm choking, it's like the air won't get past my throat and to my lungs. I tell myself that I am obviously painting the worst case scenario here. He's not gone. He didn't leave me, he wouldn't do that now. There is no reason to panic like this. This isn't the '93 Ohio State Fair again, he didn't bail on me. He wouldn't do that to me. We have Maddie now. Deacon's changed, he's a different man.
Despite my best efforts to calm myself down, I feel warm tears welling up before my eyes and realize I don't have the strength to fight them back.
I cry because I don't know what else to do. I cry because I want to cry. It hurts to have to live again with the fear that he'll start drinking and fuck it all up. I've been there so many times, I've gotten my hopes up and then watched them crash and burn. I've let him hurt me so many times, so many, and yet I don't know how to stop this cycle. I'm so angry at myself right now, what was I thinking? What made me think that he would actually commit to me and to our family? He has always made me promises he couldn't keep, what made me think that he would keep his word this time?
I try again.
Hi, you've reached Deacon. Please leave a message.
I start sobbing. It grows louder and louder with every breath I can't catch. This hurts, and it hurts just as much as it did the first time he ever left. I'm not sure I can do this.
I wake up with a jolt. I curse under my breath as I try to straighten up my back, the stiffness in my neck and left shoulder sends a wave of pain right down my spine. I take my surroundings in, yes I've definitely fallen asleep at the kitchen counter.
I reach for my phone, there's a couple texts from Bucky, a bunch of new emails I probably won't get to until Monday, and still nothing from Deacon. I take the bottle of wine and empty what's left of it into the sink, then I head upstairs.
As I walk past the mirror in the hallway I take a look at myself. My not-so-waterproof-after-all mascara has left sticky black lines down my cheeks, my blue eyeliner is all smudged below my waterline and my eyes are red and puffy. That one layer of foundation I applied earlier has now settled into thick lines on the sides of my mouth and between my brows, making my wrinkles look abysmally broader and deeper. I look old. And I look tired. And most of all I look just as hopeless as that twenty-one year old who had to play an entire set acapella at the Ohio State Fair in '93.
Hi, you've reached Deacon. Please leave a message.
"Hey, me again. Listen, I don't know where you are or what you're doing right now, but I'm worried here and I just need to know you're okay. It's alright if you don't feel ready to talk yet or whatever, just let me know you're okay. Please."
I put the phone down on my nightstand and lie down in bed. I don't bother to take the bedspread, or my boots for that matter, off. I'll be on the road in a couple of hours anyway. I lied, I know exactly where he is. I just hoped he wouldn't need to hide from me at this point in our lives.
I really thought we had it all figured out this time. Sure there's a shit ton of stuff we need to talk about and discuss in details, but I thought we'd finally gotten there. For some stupid reason, I convinced myself that we reached that place where there's no turning back and running away, where there are no empty bottles and empty marriages to hide behind. I really thought we'd get it right this time.
I was a fool for believing he would ever truly change. An addict doesn't stop being an addict just because his breath doesn't smell like cheap booze and his wallet no longer serves as a pill case. I've heard this over and over again at Al-Anon meetings through the years. Just because alcohol is no longer part of his coping mechanism it doesn't mean his coping mechanism has changed, you're just detracting the life threatening factor out of the equation. Those demons may not be on Deacon's back anymore, but they'll always follow him around like a shadow and influence his choices. He's hiding out again now, just like he did when he found out about Maddie's paternity or when he found out about Whatshername and Teddy's tryst. That's all he knows how to do, that's how he copes.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he's not ready to be a husband and a father like he said. Maybe those wounds haven't healed properly yet and we just sprinkled some salt on it with our little old song tonight. Maybe...maybe...maybe. I'm sick and tired of maybes and what ifs. I want to try and say I failed, I want to fight and lose this time, I don't want to run.
I am done running.
I'm not that scared twenty-one year old anymore. I don't need Deacon in my life like I used to, I've learned to go on without him, I could do it again if I had to. I just don't want to.
I don't want to live without him. It's as simple and as complicated as that.
Hi, you've reached Deacon. Please leave a message.
TBC
