Page 67 of Torch Songs

He pulled out his phone and texted Agnes.Hey, angel—you guys in for the night?

Yeah, Guthrie. Why? You need us to cook dinner?

What a sweetheart.No, sweet pea. You guys settle in. If it’s okay, I’ll head on up to Sac from here. I’m good for it.”

Sure. We’ll miss you but stay safe.

And with that, she signed off, and Guthrie was good to go.

He didn’t text Tad, though. Something about the spur of the moment thing, the decision to just up and fly free—he liked that. He didn’t feel obligated. Nobody expected him, so if the truck broke down or he was forced to pull off at a rest stop and nap in the back, he wouldn’t be putting them out. He could just… drive up. Hopefully make Tad happy, but not be beholden to anybody.

He didn’t want to look into that feeling at any depth. The simultaneous desire to be near Tad, near his cozy little apartment, his gruff, fragile sister, his kindness—and bossiness—and insistence on making Guthrie a part of his family, coupled with his… his what?

What was he afraid of?

For the first time in a long time he heard his father’s voice in his head.

People like us don’t get no happy ever after, son. People like you got nothing to do but burn in hell.

Ugh. God, he’d spent years trying to flush that conversation. Longer than that trying to flush his entire childhood. The music he could keep, but everything else—the being on the road, the being subject to his father’s moods, the loneliness—that shit he wanted to pretend hadn’t happened. Until Tad had started probing over the phone the night before.

So was that it? Guthrie was keeping his distance from Tad because he was afraid his father was right?

Wow. For a grown-assed man, that was a really childish jump in logic, wasn’t it?

Still, after a stop for coffee and a moment of choosing his Spotify playlist designed to keep him awake, he shook off his internal analysis and concentrated on getting to his destination. It didn’t matter what the destination was tohim,only that he got there in one piece, right?

Still, his mind wandered, fretting around words, around music, and at one point, he hit pause on the playlist and started singing his own stuff out loud. He’d composed music before—he knew the process—and had even performed a couple of his songs at gigs, depending on the band’s preferences, but he’d never felt a real…driveto do so. Until now.

An hour and a half later he pulled into Tad’s apartment complex and found a parking spot right in front of Tad’s building, which was something of a miracle. Instead of getting out immediately, he pulled out his phone and started making notes, writing down his lyrics with chord progressions and such, wanting to keep that song in his head, because for that ride home, that song had beenhim, all the things in his heart that he never let out, and it felt like this was a way to do it.

He wasn’t sure when he set his phone down, satisfied, and leaned his head against the side window, but that’s where he was when a sharp rap on the glass woke him up.

“Guthrie!”

He startled, arms going wide out like a baby’s as he tried to orient himself to time and place.

“Wha? April?”

“Jesus, Guthrie, what’re you doing out here?”

“Was gonna come in in a sec,” he told her, because thathadbeen the plan.

“But what are youdoinghere?” she asked. “You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. Tad called you and got no answer, so he checked your location.”

Guthrie grunted. “Didn’t know he could do that,” he said, still disoriented. “Good to know. Yeah, I decided to come up tonight instead. Shut off the engine, took a breath… guess I fell asleep.”

She let out a helpless little laugh. “Well, come inside. My brother’s losing his mind!”

“Let me get my gear.”

“I’ll get your guitar,” she said, “and you get everything else. Did you bring any clothes?”

He had, oddly enough, brought his knapsack out of habit. “Knapsack’s next to the guitar,” he told her and got out, leaving her to it.

She went into the house first, carrying the guitar case and the knapsack, and he followed with the two cases and equipment bag of the drum set in his arms. April set everything down in a corner of the little-used dining room and then took his stuff from him in time for Tad to launch himself into Guthrie’s arms.

“Wherewereyou?” he asked, and Guthrie found himself being held so hard it should have hurt, but didn’t.

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