Page 104 of The Roads We Follow

When we first embarked on this road trip, I might have been inclined to believe that was true—that Raegan didn’t have the communication tools she needed to assert herself into the polarizing dynamics and circumstances of her family. But I don’t believe that now.

Because I spent an entire day reading the secret inner workings of her mind and heart.

“Yes, you do,” I speak the words with a gentle conviction that gets her attention.

As the Ferris wheel begins its descent back down, she swipes her hair back and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not up for a therapy session tonight.”

“I’m not the therapist here. You are.” I reach into my pocket, pull out my phone, and tap on the screen until a title page forThe Sisters of Birch Groveappears. “You know exactly what to do with your family. You wrote it all in your book.”

She looks from the screen to me. Twice. “That’s fiction, Micah.”

“And yet it’s real, too.” I hold up the phone, her words shinning as bright as the stars above us. “These words areinspired, Raegan. In that last scene with the sisters—after all they went through in those hard years—you wrote what living in truth is supposed to look like.” I tick them off one by one. “You spoke of establishing healthy boundaries, of open communication, of keeping short accounts, of setting honest and appropriate expectations, of having hard conversations with the hope of reconciliation.”

“The truth is already out,” she pushes back, her tone desperate, “and now we’re more fractured than ever.”

“That’s hardly the only truth you’ve been holding back.”

She flinches at my statement. “You’ve known me for two weeks.”

“Yes, but I’m an observer. The same as you.”

“Fine.” She crosses her arms. “Tell me what you think I’ve been holding back.”

I take a breath and allow her to do the same. And then, I tell her the truth she’s asked for even if she doesn’t want it. “You cower around Adele as if you have no stake or voice inside your own family. And you practically shape-shift in order to placate Hattie, and you treat your mother as if she’s a child in need of validation and guidance when it’s actually the other way around. You’ve taken on the role of peacekeeper in your family, and yet I’m thoroughly convinced that none of you actually has much peace at all. Especially you.”

She falls back against her seat, swinging our car as we rock above the shadowy outlines of bluffs and canyons. But she says nothing.

“Peace isn’t passive, Raegan. It’s proactive. The way I see it, you’ve been a passive character in your own story for far too long.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I agree, it’s not fair.” I tap my phone screen and illuminate her book in my palm again. “Because God doesn’t give us talents He doesn’t intend for us to use with Him andforHim. You reminded me of the same just three days ago in the Ruby Mountains. You’re a writer, and yet you’ve spent far more energy wishing you could hide behind a pen name than realizing that you are exactly who God intended you to be. He not only knew your name and the family you were going to be born into, but all the atypical logistics in between. And even still, He saw fit to give you a storyteller’s imagination.” I pause and wait till she meets my gaze. “Freedom and peace work in tandem. And you won’t experience either until you’re finally willing to be transparent with yourself and others.”

She turns her face away from me, but not before I catch the glint of tears on her cheeks. We remain in silence for the rest of the ride down, and by the time the attendant unlocks our safety bar and opens the door for us, the conga line has moved on.

As I walk Raegan back to Old Goldie, she tracks each location of her family members on her app. Hattie is the only one aboard the bus; the others appear to be staying in Luella’s trailer. As much as I want to shoulder her pain and ease the burden she carries, I’d be doing her no favors to remove it completely. Raegan has avoided the hard truths for so long that her only real option now is to face them head-on.

I spot the VIP tent in the middle of our lot, where I’ll likely be facing my own hard truths very soon.

“You’re not coming inside?” Raegan asks.

“Not quite yet.” I step in to brush a kiss on her cheek. “I think you and Hattie could use some privacy tonight.” I can see the protest inher eyes, but she says nothing. Perhaps she knows what I do: that some battles need to be fought alone. “Don’t wait up.”

My eyes focus on the back of my target as I cross the dusty lot to a bar that will likely remain open until the last VIP has decided to call it a night. In this case, Troy Rigger. It’s such a sad cliché that the same obnoxiously loud man I observed in this tent after the concert—the one surrounded by newbies looking for validation—is now here alone, staring into the half-drunk glass of a dirty martini.

The arrogant way he taps the bar to ask for another from the unlucky barkeep on duty speaks of a man who has rarely been told no. And given the long list of A-list artists he’s signed over the years—including Luella and my mother—he hasn’t. The fist in my gut clenches hard as I stand outside the opening, roll my shoulders back, and exhale a prayer for a kind of help I can’t even name but also know I need.

When I take the stool at the end of the short bar, I don’t make eye contact with him. Instead, I order a drink and wait. The worst thing I can do is appear desperate for his company. The only thing more promising to start up a conversation than flattery is curiosity. And seeing as he mentioned how much he enjoys the hard-to-get types, perhaps this will be my angle, too. I keep my eyes straight ahead on the plastic window, avoiding the distraction of a cell phone or small talk with the barkeep. I just sip on my gin and tonic and feel the burn all the way down to my gut.

Not thirty seconds later, Troy bites.

“First time at Watershed?” he asks.

Slowly, I slip out of my self-induced coma and look at him as if I’ve just noticed there was another human being here. “Oh, uh, yeah. You too?”

He frowns like he doesn’t quite know if he should take offense to that or not.Good. “I’ve been taking artists here every year sinceit started.” He holds out his hand to me, and I oblige him. “Troy Rigger.”

“Oh, are you a bus driver, then?” I ask without any of the irony I feel.

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