Page 80 of The Roads We Follow

She laughs as if I’m trying to be modest. “Hardly. I was so sucked in. I didn’t even realize until halfway through the first chapter how little I knew about Nonnie’s early days in Idaho at that camp. Are you helping her write her memoir or something?” Her tone is innocent as she lifts one of the open journals on the desk. “I thought these old journals must be Nonnie’s at first, but the handwriting is too different to be hers.” She twists back. “Who’s Lynn?”

An unexpected protectiveness rises in me at the thought of Lynn’s journals being out in the open for anyone to read. I should have been more careful. I’ve grown as attached to her raw and honest reflections as I have to her son. “Those are private, Chey. All of that is.”

She sets the journal down and backs away. Her cheeks bloom pink, and instantly I feel like my title of favorite auntie should be revoked.

“Oh gosh,” she says. “I’m sorry. How rude of me, I should have asked you before I read something on your laptop, it’s just I’ve always read your books, and I was excited and—”

“No, no.” I exhale a shaky breath and set my coffee mug down. “It’s okay.”

Cheyenne and I have always been close. Of course she thought it was okay; she’s been my unofficial beta reader for years. How was she supposed to know I’d be hiding a secret from literally everyone in my life outside of Micah and Chip?

“I was just surprised,” I admit with a sigh.

Her uncertainty at my cryptic response is humbling, and I do my best to reassure her with a hug. Thankfully, she doesn’t hesitate when she presses her clean curls to my shoulder. I don’t know how she got my hair—yet another genetic mystery in the Farrow tree—but it’s just one more connection to bond us.

“I really am sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have assumed it was okay.”

When she pulls back, I study her, asking a silent question I already know the answer to.Can I trust you?Yes, I can.

“I’m writing something I haven’t told anyone in our family about yet, but it’s something I hope will help protect them from a true invasion of privacy in the future.”

Her eyes grow round, and I nod toward the bed and then reclaim my coffee. She props her Martin against the desk, and together we settle onto the mattress, the way we used to when she was a preteen and I was visiting home for a weekend from college. It’s strange to think that once upon a time this was her mother and me, just reversed. I can so easily picture Adele, coming into my room and asking if I needed any extra help with my math workbook. I was forever needing extra help with my math. But magically, when Adele explained fractions to me, I understood them. After I worked a few problems on my own, she’d reward me with a watermelon-flavored sucker, the kind with bubble gum inside. She’d eat one, too, and whoever could blow the biggest bubble at the end would get to choose the day’s reward activity. If I won, I chose the bookstore with the biggest selection of children’s books in the city, and if she won, she always chose some elaborate baking endeavor I was in no way qualified to assist with. I was probably the only fifth grader who knew how to make the perfect crème brûlée. The memory pricks me with bittersweet nostalgia, and for a moment I wish for nothing more than to go back to when things were less ... like how they are now.

I stare into Cheyenne’s dark brown eyes and fill her in on everything that’s happened with the tell-all up to this point, including my diversion tactic. Her shock is short-lived as indignation quickly takes the lead. The flash of injustice in her eyes is her mother’s. “I’ve never wanted to hate someone more than Uncle Peter.”

“I know.” I grab her hand. “But hate speaks to what’s inourheart more than his. That’s something I have to remember, too.”

She nods solemnly.

“You can’t tell anyone about this, Chey. Not even Allie. I still need to get Nonnie’s approval before I submit anything to Chip, and I can’t do that until I have a few chapters in hand to show her. And I need them to be right.”

Cheyenne ponders this. “What’s not right about what you have now?”

I shrug and rub my forehead. “I’m not sure yet.”

“May I?” Cheyenne gestures toward the desk and I nod, thinking she’s going to read through my first draft again for critique. Instead, she picks up the open journal beside it, and I realize I never answered her earlier question.

“Those old travel journals belonged to Lynn Hershel before she became Lynn Davenport. She was Nonnie’s original music partner and childhood best friend before the two went their separate ways in the early ’90s. She was around long before Nonnie became Luella Farrow as the world knows her now.” I pause, careful not to reveal more than what’s mine to share. “She’s also Micah’s mother. She passed away a few months ago.”

Her eyes snap to mine. “Micah as inyourMicah?”

“Cheyenne,” I chide.

“Sorry, but it’s obvious he thinks you’re like the best thing ever.”

Her words create a spark I don’t want to stamp out.

She flips through the journal, her interest seeming to grow with each page. “I always thought Nonnie and Papa met in Nashville.”

“No, they actually met in Idaho at a summer camp the girls worked at when they were your age. Papa was on a national scouting trip when he heard Nonnie sing at a little chapel, then invited the girls to come to Nashville to meet with his label. Nonnie’s loyalty and love for Lynn, for music, and for Papa were once an inseparable trio.”

The mug stills and hovers in front of my lips as I hear those words repeat in my mind for a second and then third time.

“Auntie Rae?” Cheyenne asks, dipping her gaze to meet mine.

“I think I know what I need to add,” I say on the back end of a whisper.

She peers at me quizzically.

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