Page 27 of The Roads We Follow

“Our next tour. Gage said our list needs a good breakup song, something that will spark the tears.”

Raegan’s hand flexes several times before she speaks. “Is there a story behind those lyrics?”

“Nah, it’s just fiction,” he provides. “Which is why I thought you could write it better than me. I’m hoping to have it finished by the end of week. That is, if you think you might have some time to spare?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks, Rae Rae. I ... it’s not the same back home without you.” A thick pause. “I miss you. I hope you’ve been thinking about what I asked you last time we talked. I know I have.”

“I have, too.” Her fist squeezes closed and holds so long her knuckles blanch white. “Tell the band I say hello.”

“Will do. Talk to you later.”

I watch her lower the phone and exhale several times with her back still to me. I manage to turn away before she heads in my direction. I don’t bother pretending to be busy as there’s nothing to occupy myself with other than my phone, and that’s a bad habit I don’t need to pick up again given the challenge I extend to my students to plan mental breaks from screens. Or rather, a challenge I used to extend to my past students. Back when I had a stable career path.

“Sorry about that, that was...” My eyes meet hers, waiting for her answer. “My ex, Tav.”

Raegan has an ex-boyfriend. And by the sounds of it, that relationship status is either brand-new or questionable at the moment. A wave of disappointment swoops in at the revelation. It takes me a second to find my bearings, and when I do, all I can come up with is “So he’s a musician?”

“He’s actually the lead singer in a band that signed with Farrow Music a few years ago. He’s been working on his songwriting.”

Sounds like you’re working on his songwriting, is what I don’t say. “Country music?”

“More of a hybrid of new country with a bit of pop, too. They’rean eclectic sound. I’m proud of him,” she says with an added edge to her voice. “He’s wanted this for a long time. He’s on a short break from his tour right now, at home in Nashville.”

“And you’re here,” I fill in the blank, stating the obvious.

“Yes,” she says on an exhale. “I’m here.”

I study her face as a million new questions compile in the silence that passes between us, but there’s only so much a near-stranger can ask without risking a complete shutdown. And truthfully, Raegan having a complicated relationship with an ex who is obviously still connected to her is probably for the best. I don’t need any added complications right now. I need to read my mother’s journals and utilize the time I have with Luella to figure out who my biological father is. That’s why I’m here. Nothing more.

“We should probably head back to the bus. I have a few hours of drive time left before we get to our stop tonight.”

“You’re probably right,” she affirms with a nod. “It’s been a long day.”

When we exit the jet, I will myself to make it across the entire tarmac without breaking into a sweat. I last four seconds.

Our darkened tour bus is tucked in for the night just two hours past the Arkansas state line in a private RV park owned by a famous friend Luella didn’t bother to name and I didn’t bother to ask. Between the jet lag, the drive time, and all the extra variables that come with life on the road with four adult women I’ve known for less than twelve hours ... I’m spent.

Now, in the privacy of my bunk, I’m closer in proximity to each of the Farrow sisters than I ever would have imagined I’d be, but the one directly across from me has been quiet for most of the evening. Raegan spent the last leg of our drive head down in her notebook, writing sentences at lightning speed only to cross them out seconds later.

More than once, I wanted to ask to read whatever she was busy working on.

And more than once, I wanted to banish myself to a dark corner so I could regroup and focus on the real reason I’m here.

With my blackout curtain completely closed, I prop myself up on my side and immediately regret the move. My shoulder scrapes the bottom of the hard wooden bunk bed above me where Adele is sleeping with a white-noise machine that could wake the dead. Speaking of, if I ever wanted to know what the inside of a coffin is like, my present reality can’t be too far off. My dad never mentioned the sleeping arrangements when he spoke of his glory days as a tour bus driver before he married my mom. How did he do this? He’s a full three inches taller than my six-foot-two frame and thicker around the middle, although I suppose he wasn’t nearly as bulky in his late twenties. A lot of things were different back then.

I set my flashlight on my phone to the brightest level and illuminate my coffin before reaching for the box Luella gave me earlier. Once I remove the lid, I stare at the half dozen or so journals of varying sizes inside. The moment feels almost as surreal as it did when I found a few treasured photographs and postcards in my mom’s music office after she passed.

Not for the first time, I wonder why my mother never requested her journals back from Luella. She had to have known where she’d left them all these years. Why would she trust a woman she hadn’t spoken to in nearly thirty years with such personal possessions? And what all had my mother told her oldest friend in those intermittent hours of lucidness only days before she crossed into heaven?

I run my thumb along the spines of the journals and then order them by the dates listed on the inside covers. Some span a year, while others span several years. It’s clear my mother wasn’t a daily journal keeper, but a situational one.

As I crack open the oldest journal in the pile, dated May 1975 with an earthy green canvas cover and a worn yellow peace sign on the front, there’s a charcoal drawing of a building I’d recognizeanywhere on the very first page: the old chapel at Camp Selkirk, near my hometown in north Idaho. It looks exactly the same today as it did fifty years ago, as does the mountain range behind it and the river flowing just below it. My mother’s first month of entries as a Camp Selkirk employee are fairly limited in details, other than to describe her daily tasks doing grounds maintenance work at the summer job Chickee made her get once she turned eighteen. It’s clear this job was not my mother’s first choice but equally clear that Chickee’s hopes for her to “meet friends” and “get a life outside of playing my guitar in my bedroom” were top priority. I flip through several pages of sketches of flowers, trees, and plenty of peace signs in various styles, and I smile at the number of times Mom mentions how much she dislikes keeping this journal for Chickee when it would be far easier for her to simply “ride back home and tell you the events of the day in less time than it takes to come upwith these dumb words.”

Though it was rare for my mom to open up about her life before she had Garrett and me, her stories about Chickee were always a highlight. From what I can remember, after Chickee rescued my mother at the age of fourteen from her father’s house, armed with nothing more than her walking cane and a hardback Bible, her degenerative illness eventually took away her mobility. But from the way my mom always told it, Chickee refused to allow her illness to limit her mind or her faith, and she certainly didn’t allow it to limit my mom. She was a woman of prayer with hundreds of prayer rocks lining her garden to show for it.

I yawn, about ready to give in to the heavy call of sleep, when I see an entry that features far more exclamation marks than all the others I’ve read combined ... as well as a name I recognize.

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