CHAPTER 3 - TWELVE DAYS BEFORE THE STORM

 

June Sparrow had a full day ahead of her. First, she needed to make deliveries to the local restaurants. After that she was headed to the farmers market to work a booth. They sold lettuce, sweet corn, broccoli, and strawberries. It wasn’t her favorite thing to do. Especially now that she had become the talk of the town. But she didn’t let that stop her. Honestly, she was tired of it all, the rumors, the stares, the lies…She was better than all of that.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Tom.

“You need help, don’t you?”

She put the boxes down on the table. “You don’t have to.”

He unfolded a chair for her and set it up beside him. “I know. Look, I’m bored, and this gives me something to do. Plus, I like spending time with you.”

“You’d be the only one.” 

He smiles and pats the chair for her to sit down.

The market was getting more crowded by the minute. Which was good in a way. It took her mind off of things at least for a short time. That was until Lilly showed up. Lilly used to be June’s best friend until Nick stepped into the picture. During that time, she became jealous and resented June. For what, she didn’t know. June never felt as though she had changed for Nick. She had always been tough like her daddy and sweet like her momma.

“Hi Tom,” Lilly said and then swiveled her head toward June and raised her eyebrows. “Surprised to see you here.”

“I don’t know why,” June said. “I’ve been here two times a week for the last year.”

“Figured you wouldn’t feel up to something like this.”

“Well, you figured wrong,” June said. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Sure, you are.” Lilly looked at Tom. “Guess you haven’t told her, have you?”

“Told me what?”

Lilly kept her eyes fixed on Tom.

He shook his head. “You can’t just leave things alone…can you, Lilly?”

“Someone better talk!” June demanded.  

“June, I was going to tell you.” Tom lowered his voice. “I was waiting until we were alone.”

June felt her pulse racing. Whatever it was. She couldn’t let them see her crumble. In her mind she was a wall. And anyone who dared to pass would be penalized. Lilly dug into her purse and pulled out a flyer and handed it to June. She plummeted. Everything she thought about her husband was a lie. How could he?

Tom snatched it from her hands and balled it up.

“How long have they been together?” June asked.

Tom squinted. “They’ve been playing together for about seven months at Jim’s bar. Their band is called Dare Dreamers.” His voice was weak and unsure of how much he should reveal. He could see June’s heart breaking before his eyes and that was the last thing he wanted.

“Who is she?” June asked. “The girl in the picture.”

“Her name is Alice,” Lilly answered. “She sings and plays the piano just like you.”  

June teared up. “Like me?”

“Definitely not like you, June,” Tom said. “You’re one of a kind.”

“Anyways, I thought you should know.” Lilly gave Tom a dirty look. “I’d want to know.”

June gazed into the distance. Past the people, the noise. Letting it all sink in. “Yeah, okay…thanks.” Her heart sank even further when she thought about Melody. It was one thing to go behind her back but his own child. She thought he was better than that. She jabbed her fingernails into her knees and rocked back and forth. Knowing people would stare but it didn’t matter. This was her life—not theirs.

Tom wrapped his arms around her shoulder and helped her to stand. “Come on…lets get out of here.”

She followed. Her head was spinning with so many terrible thoughts. How could he break his promise? And for what?

Tom drove her to Harpeth River. They walked a short trail and rested on a boulder next to the water. The murky river moved slow, and you could see the heat rising. Tree limbs dangled from above. Tom kept a gaze upon June. Watching to make sure she wasn’t completely shattered. But she was. Nothing Tom could say would make anything better. He knew that. But June was his friend and that meant he couldn’t let her deal with this alone. Goodness knows she had a lot to deal with already. He was certain she didn’t deserve any of it.

They sat in silence for a long time. He waited for her to speak first.

Her tears fell to the ground. “He never…”

Tom listened as her lips trembled. Watching her search for the right words to say. Knowing that none of it made any sense.

“He never…told me…that he didn’t love me anymore.” She squinched her face in pain. “It’s like one day he woke up and said to himself, I’m done.” She put her hand in a fist and hit the rock beneath her.

“Don’t do that,” he said and took her hand in his.

“It hurts so much, Tom.”

“I know it does.”

“What the hell am I going to do?” She shifted her eyes back and forth, searching. “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to that stupid gig tomorrow night and I’m going to look him in the face and demand an explanation. At the very least, he can give me that! Hand me that pamphlet.”

“I’m going with you,” he said.

She opened the paper and looked at the picture once more. “Suit yourself.”

CHAPTER 2 - THIRTEEN DAYS BEFORE THE STORM

 

CHAPTER 2

June turned the porch light off at two in the morning and went upstairs. She lay in her bed fully dressed, staring at the ceiling, listening to every creaking sound the old farmhouse made. Hopeful, she wanted to be. It was a mistake to return. She wiped that thought from her mind, knowing it was her duty. Her parents needed her, and she needed them. This was her home. Always had been.

She rolled over and reached for him in the darkness. Nothing. It was empty, cold. She rolled back over and stared at the ceiling for hours and though it was dark, the full moon outside her window shone bright enough to see shadows as they moved with the rhythmic tick of the ceiling fan. She’d spent half her life in this room, writing songs and singing. There was a time when she wanted every minute of her day. It wasn’t like that now. All she wanted was sleep but even that never came. She closed her eyes, but all she could picture in her mind was Nick in a bar talking to some young girl, using the same tactics that he had used on her long ago.

Stop.

If she allowed herself to give in to the self-reprimanded pain, she might never return to her former self, and Melody needed her.

Hours of the night drifted by when she heard her daughter’s pain from the other room. It seeped through the walls with every cry. She wanted to get up and go to her and tell her everything was going to be alright. But she couldn’t because her insides were telling her it wasn’t okay. As she listened, her tears trickled down her cheeks and onto the sheets. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that when she opened them, everything would be as it should. She wished that the house would feel like the home she remembered. She would wake up and her husband would be beside her, resting. She had all these dreams of how it was supposed to be. Instead, her dreams had turned into nightmares and opening her eyes didn’t help. It was another night of pain for all of them, really. Where separation was the new norm and togetherness was a rope that had been frayed in the windy storm of life.

 

 

Henry Waters woke up when he heard Melody crying across the hall. He threw the covers off and hurried into the hallway. When he opened the door, she was curled up around her pillow.

“Melody…” He whispered.

She rolled over on her back and looked up at him. Her eyelids swollen, cheeks red, and strains of her long brown hair were wet and stuck to her face.

“I’m guessing…you can’t sleep,” he said.

She shook her head.

He glanced over at the alarm clock that was beside her bed. It was close to five in the morning. “Do you want blueberry pancakes? It was your mommy’s favorite when she was a little girl.”

She blinked a couple of times.

He reached for her small hand and helped her up.

The house was dark as they made their way downstairs. Hand and hand they walked into the kitchen. He flicked the light on.

Melody crawled onto the barstool and crossed her legs at her ankle.

He noticed her watching him as he reached for the frying pan and ingredients out of the cupboards. He tried to hide the fact that his hands were trembling.  

“He’ll come back, right?”

He dropped the frying pan on the linoleum floor, almost hitting his foot. Slowly, he came around the bar, slumped down on the barstool next to her.  

She bit her quivering lower lip as she peered into his eyes.

“Sometimes grownups walk away to think about things.” He was tired, so tired. He wanted to tell her she was his moon and stars, his everything. But he thought about how she would remember him, and how hurt she would be after he was gone. “I love you.”

“Grandpa, can you make my pancake into a smiley face?”

He nodded and briefly remembered that he was talking to an eight-year-old. He slid off the stool and lit the gas stove. After washing the pan, he poured the pancake batter in. Blueberries rolled onto the floor as they fell out of his grip. He made a few before he got it to look like a smiley face.

“Mommy doesn’t love me anymore either.”

He winced and placed the plate in front of Melody and grabbed a fork from the drawer and handed it to her. Carefully, he sat beside her. “Your mommy loves you, very much. She just needs some time, just like you do when you get mad. Time to remember the good times and sort through the bad ones and remember who she is, who she really is.”

 

 

June heard voices coming from the kitchen. Nick’s home, she thought. It was late, but she would forgive him. They would work this thing out, whatever this was. She headed downstairs and sat on the lower step and listened. It was the sweet sound of her daughter’s voice. Oh, how she missed that sound.

“Does that mean that soon Grandma can move back in with us?”

“Your grandma and I are like syrup and pancakes. When we’re apart, she’s just a sassy syrup and I’m a flat pancake but really—were made for each other. And your mama is like sauerkraut and your daddy’s a hotdog. Without your mama, he’s just a little w—”

June walked in and interrupted. “All right, that’s enough…Aren’t you supposed to be getting dressed for your doctor’s appointment?”

“Can I go with you, Grandpa?”

“No, you need to stay here and listen to your grandma. I mean it now. Don’t you leave her sight. Goodness knows, she can’t afford anymore gray hairs on that head of hers.”

June poured herself an orange juice and sat on the other side of Melody at the bar. “Good morning, sweet girl.”

Melody looked away.

“Really?”

Melody dropped her fork onto the plate and scooted herself off the stool.

June grabbed her pajama sleeve. “Please…”

Without looking at her mamma, Melody pulled herself away from her grip and rushed upstairs.

June’s hand lingered in the air.

A part of her wanted to go after her but she didn’t. Instead, she stood and poured a full glass of orange juice down the kitchen sink drain. She stared out the window. The sky was auburn, and the sun rose slightly above the gable of the horse barn. A soft blanket of fog laid gently on top of the damp grass and peeked out from the Hackberry trees. Everything seemed so pretty. It was a shame that she was unable to enjoy it. 

Slowly, her father arose from his stool. He was unsteady on his feet. June reached out for his arm to keep him upright.

He leaned in and kissed her on her cheek. “She’ll come around.”

June let out a low, tired sigh. “I sure hope so. I miss her.” She waited for him to say something else, but she saw how tired he was. He moved slowly, very slowly as he walked out of the room. His breath sounded ragged, as if he was tortured with pain each time he exhaled.

June stayed in the kitchen alone. Her mind drifted off to the last conversation that Nick and she had. She remembered pacing back and forth for hours down the hallway and suddenly the front door swung open. It was around midnight when Nick walked in as he had done the previous nights. Melody was already in bed. June wondered where he’d been all day and assumed the worst. When she’d ask, he gave her the same response every time. What do you think I do all day? he’d said with a blank empty stare.

Her emotions couldn’t be concealed anymore. She’d had to ask, what happened to you? To us?

I don’t belong here, he’d said.

 We’re your family. Of course, you belong here. All you ever do is think about yourself! We need you here…I need you here…I can’t do this without you.

Their heated conversation shook the walls. She pushed. It didn’t take much. She felt he already had one foot outside the door. She wished he would come back to her. Remember their love like it used to be. But instead, he did the unthinkable. He grabbed his car keys and just like that, he was gone.

Melody had watched it all from the top of the stairs. She’d followed him out the front door barefooted, wearing her white nightgown. Screaming, don’t go, Daddy! But Nick never slowed, nor did he look back. If he had, he would’ve seen his daughter’s face as she curdled in pain.

June leaned against the kitchen sink with her head bowed. It was too much to think about. She wanted to believe that things were going to change but the hard road she’d been traveling was a long one and she wasn’t able to see another way around it. She tried to picture her life without him and for the life of her she couldn’t. She didn’t know who she was without him.