"Hey there," Deacon said, as their writer friend came in with her own coffee as usual and a box of donuts. "Rayna isn't here, she must have forgotten to tell you. She had to volunteer at Maddie's school this morning, so she'll be back in a few hours."

"Oh, no problem," Lucy said cheerfully, setting the donuts on the counter. "I'll just follow you around then til she gets back."

He looked a little disturbed by this fact, having done his part pretty well the last few times Lucy had appeared to make himself scarce. That fact had not been lost on Rayna one bit.

I bet Ray did this on purpose.

"Uh….okay."

"You tell me about where you came from," she said without a moment's pause, watching him fix up his coffee the way he liked it. "You must have had a childhood somewhere here or there."

He shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the counter. "Oh, you know, I just kind of…dropped out of the sky one day with a guitar strapped to my back. Landed right in the middle of lower Broad."

"Like hell you did," Lucy grumbled. "Boy, getting anything out of the two of you is like trying to squeeze water out of a rock."

He laughed. "Well no offense," he said. "But this is Rayna's business, all this writing stuff. What does where I come from got to do with any of it?"

"Nothing," she said without hesitation. "Right now I'm just being a nosy old lady. How did you end up here? In Nashville."

He shrugged. "Same way everyone did I guess. I followed the music."…

#######################################

The first time he came to Nashville, he was 10 years old.

He remembered the day because his mother came home from work in the middle of the afternoon while the sun was still shining. She never did that.

For a moment he was scared to death she got fired. What would they do then, when his father got done drinking up all his weekly paycheck and there was no more money? He was old enough to know what no money meant. No money, no rent, no food.

Her eyes looked kind of funny, like all shiny and misty.

"Come on," she said to him and his sister. "Get in the car. We're going away for a few days."

So they simply got in the beat up old car and drove away. The laundry was still on the line and his dog was barking in the front yard. He wondered if she'd just gone cotton-pickin crazy or something.

She worked as a waitress all day. He always got stuck with his sister, who was two years old and was supposed to "watch" him. He didn't think he needed to be "watched", so he'd wander around on his bike, looking for neighbors who wanted a lawn mowed or weeds pulled, and be lucky if he got a sandwich or a dollar to hide away. Beverly would be always looking for him, yanking him home by the ear to help her finish the chores before their mother got home. Their mother was too tired to do anything by the time she got home except make dinner and go to bed, so they had to do the rest.

She always looked tired. He hated that that was the thing he remembered most about her. She looked always as if life had defeated her.

His father worked in the tire factory and rarely was home before dark.

That was fine with them. He had a bad temper and a taste for the bottle. And if things weren't exactly the way he wanted them, he showed it. With his fists or his belt.

"Where we going?" Deacon asked from the backseat. "We shoulda brought Max. He'll be lonely."

His mama looked almost happy. He had never seen her look like that.

"You never mind that old dirty dog," she said. "He'll be fine. It's just for a few days. Bev, baby, look in my purse there and see what you find."

In the front seat, his sister unzipped the leather satchel, and pulled out an envelope. In it was the most money he had ever seen in his entire life.

A regular customer had left her a 500.00 tip that day. Caroline had thought it was a joke, but no sir, the manager said that money was rightfully hers and she better not let that jackass of a husband she had know it existed. Buy her kids what they need, and take them somewhere nice.

She'd always wanted to get out of the small town they lived in and see the big city.

It was probably the only impulsive thing Caroline Claybourne had ever done in her life, and there would be consequences later.

But Deacon would never forget the look on her face that day.

It sure as hell beat the one on the day when he was 16 as she laid in that coffin.

They drove into town when the sun was just going down. His mother got a room at a cheap motel and then then three of them just wandered. He'd never been to a big city before. Too many people all pushing and shoving for his liking, but he didn't even mind that all too much, because the music was what hooked him. It seemed like you could hear or see someone playing on every corner.

"They're all trying to make it big," his mama said. "That's why people come here."

He wondered why she'd wanted to come. She wasn't a singer or anything. She was just a waitress.

But he thought she kinda looked like she wanted to stay forever.

The last day, they went to a big park. It was like a big green circle dropped in the middle of the city, with buildings all around it. It felt to him like they were at the center of the world.

His mother said it was the Fourth of July. He didn't even know it was July already. The days seemed so long, that sometimes he couldn't remember where one ended and another started. The park was crammed with people all dressed up in red, white, and blue, and there was a big stage thing set up right smack dab in the middle.

He wondered who was gonna play. Maybe it would be some famous person, like all those guys who played on the radio on saturday nights at the Opry. He liked listening to them play their guitars.

He was disappointed when a bunch of codgey-looking men in suits came onstage instead. Behind them this beautiful lady came out in a long dress that looked like an American flag and sang the national anthem. Beverly dragged them through the crowd and right up to the front to watch the lady sing.

"Wow, she's amazing," his sister said. "I'm gonna do that some day."

"You aint never gonna do that," he scoffed. "The only singing you're gonna do is when mama drags us to church on Sundays."

"Sure I am." Beverly said. "I'll sing it even better than her too."

There was a little kid in front of him, a girl in a poofy- looking dress watching the fancy lady sing. She was about half as big as him, but didn't seem a lick bothered by that fact. She spun around and put her hands on her hips.

"You shouldn't ever tell someone they can't do something," she spouted. "And that's my mama singin that song. Nobody's ever gonna sing better than her."

"Aw, you're just a girl," he muttered. "Girls can't do nothing."

That little thing, she actually kicked him in the shin with her pointy white shoe.

"Ow!" He yelled. "What'd you do that for?"

Caroline called out then, and Beverly dragged him away from the stage, but when he looked back that little kid was still there with her sister. Watching their mama sing with the biggest smile on her face he'd ever seen, already forgotten about him.

Those four days in Nashville stayed with him for a long time. He had the itch after that. It never left him. He'd lay in bed and night and close his eyes when his parents were arguing and let his mind drift off to standing outside on those sidewalks, the music floating out, imagining the sound of those guitars carrying him away.

The next time he went back he was 17. Got on a bus with a guitar in his hand, a duffel bag on his shoulder, and 200 bucks in his pocket and never looked back. He didn't have anything to look back for.

##########################################

Now, Lucy- also known as the great Roger Marten- was sitting there laughing at him in great big guffaws. "Do I have to ask if that little girl had red hair?"

"Well come on now, you know she did."

"If that ain't the damnest thing I've ever heard. She really kicked you in the shins?"

Deacon grinned. "Boy, she was a sassy thing, even back then. Some things never change."

"Go figure, the things you remember. The world ain't as big as people think it is," Lucy remarked.

He shook his head. "You know, all those years and Ray and I never figured out until probably six months ago that we'd met when we were kids. Gotta mean something, don't it?"

"Sure it does," Lucy said with the wizened look of someone who had been around far more years. "It means you did something right. And the universe likes you."

Deacon looked over as Rayna breezed through the kitchen door just then, calling her apologies for being late as she dropped her purse on the counter and went for a bottle of water, grumbling on about trying to help uninterested teenagers. Her face was flushed and her hair was rumpled and he kind of hoped this old lady was about to leave so he could show her how glad he was to see her properly.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "I sure as hell must be doing something right."