He knows this one is going to be the hardest. It's why he saved it for last.
All three of them just sit there in the truck staring at the tiny strip mall that houses the Bluebird Café for god knows how long until Daphne finally speaks.
"This is where you met Mom," she says in a small voice.
"Yeah," Deacon clears his throat. "Yeah it is. This is….where it all started. I guess she probably told you the story a bunch of times."
Sometimes it feels to him like it was just yesterday, even though it's been 28 years. Maybe they only got 10 months with the rings on their fingers and the ink on the marriage license, but in all reality him and Rayna were a part of each other's lives in some capacity for almost three decades. And that, he thinks, is something to be proud of. It's more than a lot of people get. It's a life that is damn good.
Maddie reaches for her sister's hand and squeezes it hard, and the tears are already running down her face. "Will you tell it to us again anyway?"
It's a struggle to find the right place to begin, to put into words how much one little place like this could change the course of everything. Even these sweet beautiful girls sitting next to him might not be here if he'd been as much as five minutes earlier or later than night.
So Deacon tells them the story again of the night him and Rayna met, closing his eyes and reliving it in his mind. "Well I was playing an open mic here with my friend Vince and when we were finished, we were getting ready to leave but I forgot something in the backroom," he said, shaking his head as he remembered. "I went back to get it and when I came back out your mama was just getting up to the mic to sing. And I just…couldn't look away. She was sixteen. And she just had this…presence around her when she sang."
"You ready?" Vince socked him on the arm. He had his guitar case slung over his shoulder. "Come on, the night is young. I got drinkin' to do and girls to pick up at Tootsie's."
"You go on without me," Deacon said absently as he leaned against the bar, not taking his eyes off the red-head that had just walked up the microphone. Well this should be interesting, he thought. She was gorgeous, alright. And young. She'd grabbed the attention of every person in the room just by walking in the door. But could she sing?
Vince followed exactly where his gaze was directed, and smirked. "Yeah right Mr. One and Done. She'll never fall for your lines, she's smarter than that. You can tell."
"Yeah, whatever," Deacon muttered. "Just get on out of here and I'll catch up with you later."
Vince shook his head and disappeared into the crowd, and once again Deacon turned his attention to the front of the room.
"Hey y'all," she said brightly. "Well I'm Rayna Jaymes and this is…well, I guess this is my first attempt at this, so be easy on me."
A titter ran through the crowd, but you could feel it. He could feel it. There was an energy in the air that you were in the presence of something great.
She opened her mouth and started to sing an old Patsy Cline song, and he was gone. Absolutely lost to everything else around him except her. Every note seeped into his skin to the point where he could feel it tingle in his toes, his fingertips, literally in his blood.
He had to work for a second just to make his brain function enough to ask the bartender for a pen and a napkin.
By the time Rayna Jaymes finished her song, he'd finished one too.
"That's when you wrote A Life That's Good?"
"Yep. I didn't sing it to her for a long time, though. Saved it for our first anniversary."
Yeah, Vince had been right about that "one and done" thing in a way. Because as soon as Rayna walked into his life, there was never anyone else that really mattered. She'd grabbed hold of his soul from the first note he'd ever heard her sing, and never let go.
"When she started singing that night… that was it, you know," Deacon says, forcing a sad smile despite the tears gathering in his eyes. "She was so pretty… but your mama, she wasn't just pretty. When she sang, it was like….the whole world stopped to listen. I fell in love with her the second I saw her." Just one second. And it had changed his entire world.
"Do you think she was your soul mate?" Daphne whispers next to him.
"I don't think it. I know."
And Deacon realizes suddenly that the safety of the numbness that he's been holding onto for the last three weeks, with all he's done today with the girls has finally melted away. He's been trying to be strong for them just like he promised her, trying to hold it all in, but it hurts so bad, almost worse than it has at all up to this point, to face the stabbing reality that Rayna is really and truly gone. Some part of him inside is so completely broken that he feels like he's been ripped into tiny pieces and stitched back together with all the pieces inside out. Suddenly it's hard to breathe, and he rolls down the window in the truck to let some air in, but that doesn't help either. The pain is in his chest, in his soul, suffocating him as he tries to hold it all in.
"Dad," Maddie says, teary-eyed, reaching over to touch his shoulder as she watches him try with everything he has to keep it together. "You said it's okay if we cry. It's okay for you too."
His eyes meet both of theirs, and once the tears start falling, it's like a floodgate has been opened. He pulls Maddie in, and with Daphne between them, he can finally let it all go. It's the first time it's really happened. There's been so much time in the public eye the last few weeks, everyone's eyes on not just him but the girls as well. How are you holding up? They all ask. We're doing fine, he keeps saying. What they expect him to say, he has no idea.
It finally feels real. She's gone. And it hurts like hell.
"I miss her so much," he weeps brokenly as he lays his head on the steering wheel.
"We know, Dad. Us to."
Their hands on his back are a bittersweet comfort, and it's several minutes before his sobs subside. He raises his head and looks at the girls next to him. Their expressions are sad, but their sweet hugs and "I love you"s make the tears fall a little slower.
"I love you too. Both of you. You know that, right? You have to know that."
"We know, don't worry," Maddie gives a little laugh.
Everything good and sweet and right about Rayna that she has left behind she has put into them. They are her greatest legacy, better than any song she's ever sang. They ARE her final song.
"Listen," Deacon says, swiping at his eyes. "I don't know how we get through this. But we're gonna be okay. I promise you that. Maybe not right away. Maybe not even a year from now. But we'll be okay as long we stick together."
Both of the girls nod their heads.
In front of the Bluebird, people are starting to line up for the first show of the night.
"Should we go in?" Daphne asks tentatively.
"It's up to you."
"I don't think I'm ready." Maddie whispers. "But soon."
Exhausted, Daphne leans her head on her sister's shoulder. "I think I just want to go home. But I hate being there without Mom."
Deacon kisses the tops of their heads, and then starts the truck again. "I think I have a better idea."
Instead of going home to the big too-quiet house, they drive away from the city and head for the cabin.
This is the first time the girls have been here. Him and Rayna been meaning to bring them up for months, and time just got away. Maybe in a few weeks when we have some free time… maybe next summer….
"It's beautiful up here," Maddie says, tracing her finger over the ancient pictures of him and Ray onstage that line the walls in the hallway. "Mom always said you bought the cabin as a present for her."
"I did," Deacon confirms. "When she got nominated for her first CMA award."
It's hard not the miss the Eternity sign over the door that Rayna had put up all those years ago. It has such a deeper meaning now.
"I like it," Daphne says as she thumbs through the pile of records on the end table. "It's nice and quiet up here. Can I go pick my room?"
"Have at it. We can come any time you want."
He'd bought the cabin so they could spend the rest of their lives here together. And now, he will gladly share it and all the memories attached to it with their daughters.
After getting the girls settled in for the night, Deacon sits on the top step of the wide back porch, eyes closed, taking in the sound of the crickets chirping and the frogs , the quiet but steady rush of the river waving against the shoreline, with a guitar in his hand. He needs this. The peace AND the guitar.
He can almost hear Rayna's voice. Don't you ever say you're done with music. It's too much a part of you.
It's the first time he's picked it up in three weeks, since the night at the hospital when he sung her to sleep. His fingers don't want to work at first, his hands shake, his voice is raw from the breakdown earlier. But the words from an old song slip out tentative at first, and then stronger.
Sometimes, it feels like I'm so far away
Like everything I love has lost its place
When life gets the best of me
I just close my eyes and see
Fireflies dancing in the yard
under the blanket of stars
The sound of that rusty string guitar
Playing songs we know
And all that I have to do
is think one little thought of you
And I'm back home,
I'm right back home
He can almost picture her sitting on the top step next to him.
We're all a lot stronger than you give us credit for, Deacon. Including you.
And he thinks of that sign again. How long is eternity? Just one second. Sometimes a second can change everything. Bring a person in your life for 28 years that became the center of your universe, your soulmate, your other half. Take that person away just as quickly, leaving you suddenly facing half a lifetime on your own.
I believe everything, all of it, happened for a reason so we could be right here in this place and time.
He thinks of the two half-grown girls sleeping inside, and how it's going to take every ounce of his being to make sure they get raised up right the way their mama would want.
He tries not to think of the album they never finished. That'll come in time.
Instead, he just sings.
The rivers between us
are deep
And dark as the secrets
we keep
Stand on the shores
Time running by at our feet
Oh the rivers between us are deep
Our love is like the moon
Rising to fast
Fading too soon
This night will soon be gone
Help me hold on…..
With a heavy-hearted sigh, his voice trails off, and he put his head down on his guitar, a couple fresh tears on his face that he quickly swipes away. Shakily he rises to his feet and turns to go into the house, but something out of the corner of his eye sparkles in a glint of moonlight a few feet away.
He sucks in a breath as he picks up the tiny silver band, lodged in a crack between a pillar and the wooden deck.
"Now how the hell did that get out here?"
Memories come flooding back fast and furious, to the last time they'd been up to the cabin together last fall.
"Ray, not that I'm not enjoying the view, but…what in the world are you doing?" He laughed one morning when he came out of the bedroom after a shower, shirt unbuttoned and combing his fingers through his wet hair and she was on her hands and knees peering under the sofa, in nothing but a pair of pink panties and one of his old tshirts. The cushions were all up-ended, and the throw pillows were on the floor. Rayna looked up guiltily, and blew the hair back from her eyes.
"I lost my ring," she fretted. "I took them both off and set them on the end table last night and now the silver one is missing."
"Aw, sweetheart, I'm sure it's here somewhere, but it's alright. That thing was so old anyway, I don't know why you still wear it."
Rayna rose up from her knees, and cocked her hand on her hip, causing the shirt to ride up dangerously. "Why? Because it's important! Because it's from the first time you asked me to marry you, and I wanted to save it for the girls, and…"
She looked so distressed now, that he saw tears welling up and he pulled her into his arms. "Don't worry. It'll show up."
"This is your fault, you know," she said, informing him as she slid her arms into his unbuttoned shirt and around his waist, pinching him on the backside to make a point.
"Mine!" He exclaimed with a laugh, reaching his thumb up to rub her cheek. "Why is it my fault?"
"You know exactly why. Because you distracted me when I was trying to read my Highway 65 contracts and we ended up naked on the couch!"
Deacon smirked and pulled her in a little tighter. "Funny but all that yelling you were doing didn't sound much like complaining."
Her face slid into a knowing smile. "You know, I actually think I was wrong. I might have left that ring in the bedroom." She said, stealing a quick kiss and then taking his hand and pulling him back towards the hallway.
"Oh you think so?" he smirked.
"You better come help me look."
"Don't worry baby, I'll help you out, alright."
Funny how they haven't been up here in months, and through the snow and winter weather, there's that damn ring she loved so much, plain as day in the last place it should be, like a sign from her that she's still here.
Deacon rolls it between his thumb and his index finger, examining it carefully. This ring has been through hell and back over the last 25 or so years since he'd first given it to her. It's scuffed and scratched and tarnished, been thrown away and lost, but it has always come back. And the engraving on the inside is still easy to read. Eternity.
I love that ring, Deacon. I know it's old but it's like us, you know? It survived.
He folds it into his hand and holds it over his heart, and not for the first time today he feels her presence so deeply, almost like her hand is right there on his arm saying I've seen you get knocked down before babe. You always come back stronger than before. You're going to survive this too.
He wonders if he'll always feel her this strongly, or if it will fade as time passes and it hurts a little less.
"I love you, Ray," he says outloud. "I think I'm gonna need a little help keeping an eye on these girls, if you're willing."
He can almost feel her mischievous grin, her laughter soak into him, just like it did that first night at the Bluebird 28 years ago. The smile that crosses his face is real for the first time in three weeks as he picks up the guitar and heads for the door.
She's right. Somehow he's going to survive this. He's going to raise their daughters. He's going to keep the music they started alive. Rayna truly has given him a life that is good.
It's time to put one foot in front of the other and get back to living it.
This is the end of this one, thanks for reading and your reviews!