Page 1 of Sing with Me

Chapter One

Diehl Brooks woke up to the flapping of wings where the sun shone into his bedroom through the open French doors. Thin white curtains fluttered on both doors leading to the balcony, beyond which he could see clear blue skies above St. Simon’s Island and hear the constant waves of the Atlantic Ocean. It had been music to his ears since his childhood summer days with his three siblings, back when Parker had been alive and their youngest sister, Zoe, had been a scrawny thing. And as for his middle sister, Brinley, she was always Brinley.

To this day, Brinley cared for the rest of the family more than they cared for themselves. Diehl hadn’t planned on taking a sabbatical until Brinley stepped in. Being the level-headed sister that she was, Brinley saw Diehl’s soul and knew he needed a time out. Dad agreed, and they made Diehl stay home. Only Diehl couldn’t stay home. He had to work. So Dad decided to come out of his semi-retirement and run Brooks Investments for the entire summer—right out of Diehl’s Atlanta office.

Dad said he had to save the company.

From his own son?

Diehl closed his eyes to hear the ocean again, a balm of Gilead for the pain in his soul. If he could just hear the ocean, it would smooth out the wrinkles from the one year of woes he had undergone, for which he could blame no one but himself.

And Isobel.

He could always blame his dead wife.

The crashing of the waves on the sands of the Georgia coast always put him at ease, beckoning sleep to come again. Sleep, sweet sleep.

To sleep away his sorrow…

Flap! Flap!

What on earth?

Diehl’s eyes popped open again.

There, circling the fan above him was a lone sparrow. A little brown bird with nowhere to go.

“That way, little one!” Diehl pointed to the French doors beyond his Californian king-sized bed and the oak floor. “Go back to your family.”

And for good measure, he added, “Out there.”

Not in here, where there were wounds in his heart at the perpetual roil of crisis after crisis in his life, as though God was trying to get his attention.

God, whom Diehl had ignored for years.

What had God done for him? Could anyone tell him? Where was God when Isobel drove her car over the cliff on the Amalfi Coast between Sorrento and Positano? Why hadn’t God prevented Isobel’s 800-horsepower Pagani Huayra BC Roadster from hitting the rails and going airborne?

Better yet, why hadn’t God stopped her from speeding on the winding road on a rainy day?

God could have done all that and more.

Sometimes Diehl wondered why he had married the same woman twice when they couldn’t get along since day one? Their first marriage somehow lasted nine years. Their four-year divorce lasted longer than their second marriage to each other.

Six months after their second wedding, Isobel was dead.

Could God have prevented them from being divorced from each other in the first place? He could have kept the family together from the beginning for the sake of their two children, Elisa and Ethan. After all, wasn’t God pro family?

Well, to be honest, Diehl knew that Isobel always had a wandering heart. Diehl couldn’t keep her in the house, even though it had been her own decision to give up a high-paying corporate job to stay at home with the kids so she wouldn’t miss Elisa’s first words and Ethan’s first walk.

She had made the decision herself to stop working.

Low maintenance, she was not, although Diehl hadn’t cared that she had spent millions renovating their twelve-bedroom family home near the Chattahoochee River in the ritzy Buckhead part of Atlanta just so they could have grand Christmas parties with friends Diehl didn’t know they had.

As long as it had made Isobel happy.

He had to make her happy. He had no choice. After all, she had threatened to take the kids to Italy and never return.

Perhaps he should have let her.

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