First, sorry this took longer than usual. I've been finishing up the fanfic challenge and work has led me on several un-fun trips lately but here is the next chapter...a little longer than usual. This chapter covers Episodes 16 & 17. Thank you all again for all your wonderful and encouraging messages.

Chapter 13

Eighty Eight

I've had my share of experiences in New York.

Daddy use to call New York a cesspool of Yankees, celebrities, public transportation, and garbage. The few times I came to New York growing up, Tandy and I did the tourist thing. . We weren't allowed to go to Central Park or Times Square. We did art galleries and museums during the day and Broadway shows at night with our babysitters. For some reason, Mama never came with us.

It wasn't until I had just turned 18 that I finally understood why New York was so special. Vince and Deacon got offered a spot in a music festival in Bryant Park. Vince's girlfriend was supposed to drive us to the Big Apple but the two of them broke up the week before our trip. So, Deacon, Vince and I ended up taking a Greyhound. It was 22 hour bus ride. At one point, I fell asleep on Vince's shoulder, Deacon got moody about it. I got mad that Deacon got mad. Then we had a stupid fight in a Shoney's parking lot in Pennsylvania. We continued to fight on the bus and then on the stoop of some random person's Chelsea duplex.

Then Deacon and I made up and mad out on the same stoop. We walked hand and hand to some friend of Vince's one-room apartment. She flirted with Deacon. I got mad. Deacon reminded me that I was the one who kept putting the brakes on things. By the end of the trip, we were together.

The next time Deacon and I were in New York it was to do a bunch of promotion and publicity for our first album. We literally didn't sleep for three days. We were busy with interviews and photo shoots and singing and getting naked as quick as we possibly could in between.

Since we've played huge arena tours in Brooklyn, intimate shows at small nightclubs, done concerts for the morning television shows, played in Central Park, got lost in Chinatown, partied the night away in the Village, danced to a jazz band at an expensive Italian restaurant, and done everything in between.

And apparently we are still having new experiences. Tonight for example, I had the experience of having my heart ripped out of my chest. That was courtesy of Deacon's new girlfriend Shannon or Sarah or whatever her name was. I was too busy hearing the word "girlfriend" echo in my head to retain her actual name. Deacon has a girlfriend. And a dog. Or a girlfriend with a dog. Or a dog that comes with a girlfriend. Deacon doesn't do pets. He doesn't do girlfriend. And now he has both.

But I'm fine with it. I tell Tandy in a squeaky loud voice when the girls go wash their hands. I tell her the same thing once the girls are in bed that night. If my loud high-pitch voice didn't convince her I was fine, I'm sure the bottle and half of wine I drank did.

Eighty Nine

I miss that smile.

I haven't see Ray happy in months. I've seen her confused, sad, angry, jealous, tired, worried, excited, and about a million other emotions. But I haven't really seen her happy. But right now she looks happy. And I understand why. Those girls of hers are amazing. Hell, the entire crew has stopped what they are doing to listen to them.

And while Maddie and Daphne are amazing and beautiful, their mama is who I'm looking at.

She looks like she's finally gotten some sleep. Her shoulders are back and straight. And even though I can only see her profile, she's smiling.

A real smile.

And I can't help but want to see her eyes. I know they're shining bright. It is the same smile she used to give me when I told her I loved her, the same smile she'd break into when I brought her daisies just because. The same smile she would give me on finishing a really good song or after we nailed a concert. I just really love that smile. I really miss that smile.

So the next time the girls sing "Ho." I sing it loudly towards her. It does the trick. She turns towards me and grins wide. Then she sings loudly back and I smile too. I have missed that smile, more than I am willing to admit to myself right now.

Ninety

I like Deacon Claybourne a lot.

He's the first guy in a really long time who gives me butterflies. He's sweet and self-deprecating. He is easy-going. He helps wash dishes and holds open doors. He has this charm; I guess it is the Southern charm I've always heard about.

He does seem to know the affect he has on women. I'm just not sure he knows the affect is having on me. The thing is, I'm 36 years old. I have had a lot of short term romances with guys, a couple of long term relationships. But this feels different. This feels like we are building something together. That is why I'm not going to let these exes create a problem that isn't there. I was a little thrown at first when the younger blonde made some sexual innuendo towards Deacon. He seemed more embarrassed about it than anything. Once I thought about it, really, she knew my name. She knew I was coming. She may have seen me as some odd sort of competition but Deacon didn't view her that way. This singer Juliette was not competition.

It is the red head that scares me. She seems uneasy around me and only around me. With everyone else she's the center of attention. According to some backstage worker named Rhonda, Deacon and Rayna were together for years.

I feel stupid that I never once thought about looking up Deacon online before. He was some big guitar player with awards and name recognition but it never occurred to me that he was famous. So then I goggled him. Deacon's Wikipedia page says they dated eleven years. It called their relationship "Tumultuous at times" and there was a whole paragraph about the awards and songs they co-wrote. There are tabloid pictures of the two of them hugging off stage and stories questioning whether their relationship led to her marriage ending. Some fans of theirs had youtube videos with pictures playing over songs as a "tribute" to them. There were videos of them singing together, some older and some clearly more recent.

But tonight Rayna Jaymes brushed off her relationship with Deacon as something that happened years ago. Her smile seemed short and didn't reach her eyes. That worries me despite everything that has happened. That worries me despite Deacon saying he wanted to spend more time in Nashville and less out on the road.

Ninety One

I told Deacon I liked Stacey.

And I told him I was happy for him. And I meant it. He hasn't been at peace for years. He hasn't been happy for years. I want him happy and at peace. And even though I walked away quickly and bit my lip to stop from crying, I meant every word.

I'm sure this is how Deacon felt during Maddie's birthday parties and when he'd see Teddy kiss me before I went up on stage for winning an award. I did mean every word I told him, honestly.

I just also meant a lot of other things that I didn't say. And now that Stacey's in the picture, they will be words I'll keep to myself. I'm really good at keeping those words to myself, I've been doing it for years now.

Ninety Two

Lamar's in the hospital.

Avery Barker is a roadie. I have a dog. I just gave Stacey a key to my house. To the house I shared with Rayna, the house I bought with Rayna. A house that Lamar tried to stop the bank from letting us buy.

So I leave a message on Ray's phone.

While we were teenagers, Ray and Lamar fought constantly. It wasn't just teenage stuff. He was a control freak. She tested every boundary he had. He was stubborn. If that's even possible, Ray was even more stubborn. Lamar hated the music industry and his daughter dropping out of high school. She was hurt he couldn't support her dreams or her work.

But it was deeper than that. Twelve year old Rayna resented her Daddy for living while her Mama died. He couldn't see she was a terrified and traumatized little girl who was trying to deal to cope. So he got colder. She got angrier. He tried to teach her lessons about life by cutting her off financially. She managed to scrape by and he hated she proved him wrong. So then he started cutting her off emotionally. Every little bump Rayna had, Lamar saw it as proof he was right about me, her career, and everything else. For years the only time we even saw Lamar was at Thanksgiving and Christmas or at brunch with Ray's aunt. They only had biting conversations back and forth.

But he's her only parent. And she loves him. Or at least feels an emotional obligation to him that has more to do with shared biology and experiences than anything. And she hates hospitals. She can't go into one without thinking about her mom; that I'm sure adds a whole other layer of complicated emotions into it.

Ninety Three

My back aches.

It's the damn chairs and the lack of sleep. It's been 40 plus hours since I've slept. The bright florescent lights of the room and the beeping of machines makes my head throb.

I try to think of something that would make me feel better or at least make my back hurt less. I think about the voicemail I left for Deacon and silently hope the show went well.

I let my mind wonder for a while and it stops on Deacon. Specifically the time that Deacon surprised me with my own private masseur.

We'd been in the middle of recording the first album and I was stressed and not sleeping or eating well. Typical me, I was just so focused on making everything perfect.

Then one night, Deacon and I stumbled into our apartment late. There was a massage table in the middle of the living room and at least a dozen candles lit throughout the room. There were scented oils and towels set up. And for two hours, me and some Swedish guy named Sven had an amazing time. Of course, Deacon stayed very close to make ensure Sven didn't see or touch anything he wasn't supposed to. Then Sven left and Deacon and I found several other uses for the left over oil and candles.

Even all the years later, I have no idea how Deacon set it up or how he was able to afford it. . God, that night was amazing. And it does make me relax a little.

Ninety Four

Ray needs me.

I could hear it in her voice. It was the breath she took between words and the way she drew out her vowels. It was a sound I hadn't heard in years, probably since one of my last hospital stays. She used to beg me to quit drinking in that voice. She used to beg me to be okay in that voice, while my stomach was being pumped. She used that voice for months after Vince died.

She needed me those times and I couldn't, correction I wasn't there for her. And I think after I hurt her and disappointed her so many times, she stopped needing me in the same way she had before. Or maybe she still needed me but she stopped showing it.

I can't help but think about my second trip to rehab. I stopped drinking on a Tuesday. Got a bed in rehab on Friday morning. I dreaded going back to rehab even after I knew I had to do it. God, I dreaded it. I dreaded the smell of rehab sweat, the never-ending group sessions, and the itchy sheets. Rehab meant I couldn't see Ray or talk to her.

During those few days between my sobriety starting and checking myself into rehab, I slept a lot. When I was awake, Rayna distracted me with sex and song writing. Then, when Ray dropped me off at rehab, she handed me a stack of letters. 56 in total. One for every morning and one for every night of my 28 days.

I clung to those letters like a life line.

They were all each at least a page. All were in her loopy cursive handwriting. They all smelled like her perfume and they were tied in groups with ribbons that smelled like her hair. All of them began with "Deacon" or "Babe". Some were practically X-rated, some were full of lyrics she had written or ideas for songs, some were full of memories of things we'd done together; others were things she wanted to do in the future. Some just told me how proud she was that I'd finally decided to go back. They all ended with the same line "I love you & I need you." She needed me to get sober. She needed me beside her every day on tour, at home, in her life.

I had those letters for years. Kept them in a box under the bed. I took those letters with me on my third and forth trips to rehab. I would read them for inspiration when I was felling uninspired while writing. Sometimes I would ask her to read one to me. I would often read them during the times Ray moved out. Typically she'd leave after one too many arrests or one too many binders. But I'd always managed to get her to come back, eventually.

But one night, she'd been at her apartment after a fight. I called her drunk as hell and she hung up on me. So, I decided to get her back. I grabbed a lighter and lit the whole damn box of letters on fire. Then I drove over to her place and told her what I'd done. I even brought over the burnt ribbon and ashes to prove it to her.

She cried angry tears in front of me. But I was too drunk to care. Later that night, when she thought I was asleep on her futon, I heard her crying quietly in the bedroom. She must have cried for over an hour. And somewhere in all of that, I got up and went into her bedroom and held her.

I apologized over and over again. And I meant it. I still regret burning those letters. She told me between her tears that the letters were stupid and it didn't matter. She didn't mean that.

But she did mean what she said in those letters, some of which I still have memorized. She needed me back then. Just like she needs me now. But now I can actually be there for her. That's why I 'm on a plane home.

Ninety Five

He came.

He came to sit with me. He came to bring me coffee. He came to listen to me ramble on and on about things that happened twenty plus years ago. He held me and hugged me. He walked up and down the tile hallway with me. And even though he's gone now, Deacon came when I needed him.