Page 78 of The Roads We Follow

She takes a cleansing breath as she rocks back. “As you know, that summer was especially stressful, not only because Russell was caught in the red tape of the American embassy, but also because we’d used our life savings as collateral for booking that first international tour, seeing as our label was too new to secure a loan. Your mom had written a few songs to record for our new album, and the sound was raw and emotive and like nothing we’d ever created before. Russell and Dorian were excited to promote it.”

“But that album never happened,” I supply.

“No, it didn’t.”

Luella picks up her iced tea from a glass side table and takes a sip. “I used to say two bad fights is what ended us, but as I’ve reflected and prayed and read your mother’s journal entries, it’s just as you said: a slow decline of poor communication and unmet expectations. The fights simply revealed what was already broken.” She turns her glass and watches the ice cubes collide. “The first argument happened the morning after we pulled Old Goldie into Nashville. Ending a tour is always chaotic, and that one was no exception. Everybody was exhausted as we unloaded—our band, our crew, my girls, Lynn, and myself. The tension in the bus had been high, but I figured it would sort itself out once everyone was back home on a regular schedule again. But that next morning, just as I’d set thephone down after talking with Russell at the embassy, Lynn stormed into my kitchen soaked from head to toe from the rain, gripping a magazine. She demanded I tell her what Russell and I were really up to with her. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I remember having to tell my girls to stay upstairs while the two of us went out on the patio in the storm. I’d never seen her so enraged. She accused me of going behind her back with Russell and trying to steal her songs while slowly edging her out. The suggestion was so ludicrous to me I laughed, but then she threw the magazine at my feet. She told me someone had alerted her to an article inCountry Americamagazine. In it was a statement supposedly quoted by Russell alluding to some big changes with our upcoming album, changes that would make Lynn little more than a backup vocalist instead of an equal partner in our band.” Luella shakes her head. “It’s what your mom feared most, and it was right there, printed in black-and-white. Even our picture looked distorted, me in the front, her pushed off to the side. I swore to her I knew nothing about it and that there was no way Russell would ever say anything of the sort—he loved her like family. But she refused to believe me, and why wouldn’t she? I was the wife of the man she’d accused of breaking the foundation of our friendship.”

Luella takes a deep breath and seems to center herself again. “I told her I would get ahold of Dorian and figure out how this botched quote made it into such a reputable magazine in the first place and get it retracted.”

Dorian’s name strikes a match in my gut, and it’s an effort in self-control not to cut in with more burning questions that need answers, but I take a breath and coach myself to wait. “I’m guessing the retraction wasn’t as easy as you thought,” I conclude.

“No,” she says. “Three days later, I heard a rumor from a reliable source that Lynn was seen at a bar downtown we used to frequent with an old associate of ours, discussing the legalities of breaking her contract with Farrow Music so she could go out on her own—as a solo act. I’d never felt so betrayed.”

“Wait, you’re saying my mom wanted to break her contract with you to secure a new one?” My brows furrow at this. “That doesn’t seem right. She became a music teacher at a private elementary school in her hometown the year after I was born. I never knew her to have any ambition toward fame. She wouldn’t even join the church choir.”

“Yes, but remember: you have the gift of hindsight now. Back then this was fresh, and I was fueled by stress and betrayal—two dangerous factors. When I went to her house to confront her on the rumor, she was gone and nobody seemed to know where she’d went or with whom. My anger grew by the day, and with Russell still detained, the entire world felt like it was crashing down around me. The idea of her leaving us high and dry with no explanation enraged me. Then one day, about a month later, I saw the tabloids in the supermarket. The front page was a picture exposing Lynn and Franklin’s secret Las Vegas wedding.”

The match strike catches on fire as I contemplate the dates she’s referring to now, knowing that sometime between their initial fight and my mother’s Vegas wedding was a conception date with a man that wasn’t her husband.

I’m just about to say this when Luella hits me with “I told her for years that Frank would be a man who would treat her right, a man nothing like her own father. But she was adamant she’d never marry, so to realize she’d married him without even telling me they were involved was ... extremely difficult. We’d kept so many secrets for each other. For heaven’s sake, she was the only person I’d trusted with my own secret marriage to Russell, and yet she hadn’t confided any of this to me.”

“Is that what your second fight was about then?” I ask. “Their wedding?”

“You know as well as I do that a fight is never really about the subject we claim it to be.”

“Very true,” I say.

“When your mom finally showed up in Nashville in a large movingvan with her new husband, I was ready for her. There are few things I regret more than the ugly words we exchanged that day. I threatened to sue her for breach of contract, while she threw all our lyric books off the shelves and told me she was done. She wanted nothing more to do with anything we’d created together. At one point, your dad stepped between us and pleaded for us to stop and consider our history instead of throwing away twenty years of friendship. But our pride proved stronger than our loyalty. By the time we settled out of court, Lynn agreed to sign over all her rights to our songs—even the ones she wrote under our shared name. She also signed over any and all royalties those songs might accrue in the future.” Luella lifts her head. “We signed a no-contact agreement with our lawyers, and that was it. Our songs were the first and last connection we shared.”

“Until you sent the award to their home last spring.”

Her nod is solemn. “Yes.”

For several minutes, the only sound on the patio is the whir of the overhead fan.

“I’m sorry, Luella,” I say. “I know you had to file for bankruptcy to cover the cost of that canceled tour and that Russell had to start the label from the ground up again. My mom was wrong to leave you like that.”

“We were both wrong.” Her voice is watery and thick. “And it cost us both dearly. I would pay back the money we lost on that tour twenty times over if it meant getting to have Lynn in my life these past thirty years. To have stayed close with Franklin and been able to watch their two sons grow up.”

As her last words stab into my subconscious, I lean forward and stake my elbows on my knees. This is going to be harder than I thought. For a moment, I can’t decide if Luella being able to provide the answer I need will hurt more or less than her not being able to. In theory, I know how I should feel. But theories are often proven wrong because people aren’t theories.

“Luella, I wish there was an easier way to say this, but part ofwhy I agreed to drive the bus for you this summer is because ... I’m searching for my biological father.”

There’s a long pause followed by a look of denial and then, “But Franklin—”

I shake my head. “Is my dad in all the ways that matter, but we don’t share blood. My brother ran the paternity test at the hospital himself, twice. Just to be sure.”

“I don’t ... I don’t understand. When? Who?”

I lift my head and meet her stunned gaze. “By all my calculations, I would have been conceived sometime by the end of the tour and before their wedding date in Vegas. I know this is a lot to take in. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me. I’m—I’m the one who’s sorry. You just found this out?” Her eyes soften and leak at my confirmation with a sympathy that shreds through the top layer of my composure. “You were hoping I might know who? Oh, sweet boy.” She shakes her head several times. “I wish I could give you that.” She covers her mouth then, her eyes growing round. “You’re saying she was pregnant with you the day we fought at her house?” I give her a moment to process these events again through the lens of this new filter. I’ve had weeks to think on it, yet it still feels like a foreign object being shoved into my brain.

I scrub a hand down my face as a sticky breeze causes a sheen of sweat to dot my brow. Luella’s skin appears flushed, as well. “I do have a working hypothesis that it could be Dorian Zuckerman.”

“Dorian?” Luella’s protective pushback is stronger than I anticipated. “No, it’s not him.”

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