Page 10 of The Roads We Follow

“This is Lynn and Frank Davenport’s oldest son, Micah.” I hate how the introduction leaves a strange residue on my tongue.

“Oh dear, is Frank ... I mean, please tell me he isn’t—”

“He’s in Alaska for most of the summer, ma’am. Deep-sea fishing.”

“Oh goodness sakes, that’s a relief. You had me worried for a minute.” She seems to switch mental gears. “You and your brother have been in my nightly prayers. How are you doing, darlin’?”

It’s been months since I heard a maternal voice dote over me, and for a moment, the knot of grief wedged in my throat won’t allow me to answer. When I do, it’s far more honest than I intend. “I’m ... doing the best I can, thank you.”

“You’re a school counselor, correct?”

Technically, I’m an unemployed therapist for the school district, but for the sake of brevity, I simply say, “Yes, ma’am, for the past five years.”

“That sounds like commendable work.”

Commendableis not one of the labels I’d give myself at the moment.

“What can I do for you, Micah?”

“I’ve been taking care of my parents’ house while my dad’s been away—trying to lessen the stress load on him by sorting through some of her things before he returns. I heard the message you left and was hoping to inquire after what you found of my mother’s.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Luella says with a touch of nostalgia. “I used to tease your mother about all the things she used to collect when we were young. She was forever hanging on to scraps of paper and pressed flowers when we were on the road. Once she scolded me for nearly tossing out the gum package we purchased in some tiny town in Oklahoma. Like everything else, she wanted to save it for Chickee.”

My mind flashes back to the picture my mother kept of her grandmother—Chickee, as she called her—on her nightstand. The woman had died long before I was born, but Mom had grieved her absence until her own last breath. Chickee had taken on the impossible role of trying to make up for my mother’s two neglectful, abusive parents. She’d been the one to give my mother a home, the same home I’m standing in now. As well as a family. And I suppose, in a way, she’s partially responsible for giving Garrett and me the same.

“They had a special relationship,” I state with care before realizing Luella would have known that. She would have known Chickee, too. I’m hopeful she knows far more than that.

Luella clears her throat. “I recently had an old tour bus remodeled. It was in storage for quite a while. When the crew demoed the bunk room, they uncovered a stack of travel journals that belonged to your mother. She always documented our travels for Chickee—started with our first cross-country trip from Idaho to Nashville. I figured your family would appreciate having them.”

I work to connect the hemispheres in my brain until I can recallthe detail I’m searching for. “Would this bus you restored be the one called ... Goldie?”

Luella gasps. “You know about Old Goldie?”

I know a lot more than that.“The last tour you took with my mother was in 1994 aboard that bus, correct?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. Goodness, I ... I didn’t realize she spoke about those days much with anyone but your father.”

Truthfully, she hadn’t spoken much about them, which is why I’ve been conducting my own research since Garrett first noted the discrepancy within our family blood types. I wove a loose timeline of events through commentary online and stories about an old band that broke up just as they were about to strike gold. Yet lurking underneath it all was a story problem needing to be solved, one circling a secret conception that dates back to the summer of ’94. The same summer Luella and Lynn went their separate ways after an unknown scandal did them in. The same summer Frank the bus driver eloped with a woman who had actively sworn off ever becoming a wife or a mother.

“Are you headed out on a tour soon?” I ask the question casually, as if I’m seated across from a student and not speaking to a three-time CMA Award–winning artist.

“Not a full tour; it’s a three-day country music festival not too far away from your neck of the woods. I’m headlining the Watershed Festival at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington. It will likely be my last time performing for a live audience, and I’ve always dreamed of playing there again.” She says this with a confidence that surprises me. But with a hit single that’s still making waves, it’s hard to imagine her stepping off the stage anytime soon. Of course, I never would have imagined her sending the award she won for Song of the Year to my mother nearly five decades after they cowrote it, either—information I only learned after the ornate box was delivered and opened.

Not too long after Luella sent it, she had stood on my parents’ doorstep.

“But before that,” she continues, undeterred by my mental twistsand turns, “I’m taking my girls on a special road trip. I’m planning to stop in many of the same places I stopped with your mother when we first left Idaho in the ’70s.” She sighs. “Time is a strange thing. I can still remember the smell of our old Lima Bean VW Bus. Of course, those were the days before we could even dream of affording something like Goldie. We loved Old Goldie—that gold pin stripe down the center of her all-black body. She was the prettiest thing we ever laid eyes on.” She chuckles then. “I recall your father staring at your mother as if he thought the same about her.” Her chuckle is softer this time. “Franklin was smitten with Lynn years before she gave in to his charm.” There’s something sobering in her tone. “Your dad may have driven us around the countryside, but he was so much more than a bus driver to us. My Russell used to say Frank was the glue that held the lot of us together. What I wouldn’t give to have him with me and my girls this summer.”

And just like that, my mind hits a series of speed bumps, slowing down my thoughts long enough to glimpse a detour sign up ahead. With all the times I’ve been on the open road with my father, sharing the wheel and the drive time after he retired from the school district and took on contract tours whenever he “needed to gain some fresh perspective,” I know the value of a good driver.And I can picture exactly what Luella means about my father being the glue. She isn’t wrong. He was the one who inspired me to go into psychology.

“I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing that,” I reply. “I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

Unlike the stereotype, I didn’t become a licensed therapist because of a messed-up home life when I was a child, or because of some need to right the wrongs of a past generation. I became a therapist because my parents loved hard, fought fair, and modeled the healthy boundaries and communication skills they attributed to their faith in God. At least, that’s what I’d grown up believing, anyway. Now I can’t decide what’s worse: believing the wrong narrative about my childhood or being blindsided by a backstory I never saw coming.

I’m not my father’s son.

“I’d really like to get those journals from you, Luella.”

“Of course, darlin’. Just let me know where you’d like me to send—”

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