Page 71 of Dirty Rock

“I need you to put me in touch with someone who can help me buy a house.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Ma?” I called out.

“Down here!”

I made my way into the country kitchen I’d grown up in. The ceilings that had once felt so high now seemed incredibly low. The claustrophobia was real.

I left my big bag full of stuff at the bottom of the stairs before I went in to see her. She spun around with a smile on her face. It was a smile I’d grown up with. One that spoke of love, and maybe a little secret she hadn’t dared to share. The secret that Caleb wasn’t my real father, and there’d been another man out there who was, technically, the donor of my DNA. I’d been around fifteen when I’d first asked her why Caleb was often cold to me, even though his love was genuine. I’d asked her why I didn’t look or act like him. Why I felt as though something was off, and why I felt so desperately, deep down in my bones, that there was something… missing.

It was then that she’d broken down and told me the truth after years of holding her secret close to her chest. Ma had gotten pregnant to a man who didn’t love her the way she’d loved him, and in order to survive, she had to let him go.

I’d barely reacted as she confessed. I’d simply stared right through her, a little gutted that the truth was, in fact, what it was, and also relieved that I hadn’t been imagining it. She’d asked me to promise not to try and track my biological father down, and I’d stuck to that promise until…

Well, until I hadn’t.

Ever since she’d spilled the truth, Ma looked at me as though she was disappointed with herself. Like she thought I saw her differently than I actually did. Even now, as she stood there eleven years after revealing the truth, her face was somewhat unsure.

It fucking killed me.

Her eyes drifted over my clothes—the jacket on my back, boots on my feet, and the beanie on my head—before she locked her eyes on mine and wiped her hands on her apron.

“You’re leaving again,” she said quietly.

“I have to.”

“Is it me?”

“Never,” I whispered, scowling lightly. “I never leave because of you.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she pursed her lips and set her jaw tight as she looked down at the floor. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, her voice a slight croak to it before she looked up at me again. “But I miss you so much, Rhett. So, so much. Sometimes I get this pain in my chest from wishing you were here.”

“I know.” I did know. I understood how it hurt to miss someone you couldn’t force to be by your side.

“Tell me… tell me what I could do differently to make you want to be here.”

I moved at once, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of her and hold her arms. I bent at the knee and met her at eye-level. “Don’t hate this life I have. It’s everything it is because of you. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve written songs about you?”

She scowled, and her tears were struggling to stay where they were.

“Whenever I’m on the road, and whenever I’m feeling a little lost, I pick up a pen, find the nearest thing I can—paper, a napkin, a wall, damn… I’ve written on a toilet door before—and I’ve written a line or twenty about you. You, Ma. Not some girl with big tits—”

“Rhett,” she gasped, but the twitch of her lips made me go on.

“Not some woman with sparkly eyes. Not the Hollywood Hills. Not the nice cars we get to ride in. Not the stage or even the fans. I’ve looked out of many a hotel window, and I’ve written songs about you, and do you want to know what nearly all of them say?”

“What?” she whispered.

“Thank you.”

Ma blinked up at me with wide eyes and a ghost of a young woman who once would have shone like Julia did now. Her face was kind and homely. She was made for this life right here in her kitchen, safe from the big bad wolves of the world and the lights that were too bright for her sensitive eyes. She belonged away from the traffic, the hustle and bustle of the city, and the endless need for idle chatter. She belonged with the love of her life, Caleb, and his allotment. She belonged in routine, peace, and one single glass of Pinot Grigio on a Saturday night while watching The Voice where she would swoon over Tom Jones.

“We’re so different, you and I,” I told her. “And all I can ever think to say is thank you for letting us be who we are, and for still loving me like you do. Thank you for letting your rebel son go out there and live. Thank you for buying me my first guitar, my first karaoke machine. Thank you for bringing me up with The Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, and all those strong women who knew how to sing. Thank you for showering me in good music. Thank you for loving me so much, you stay here a little heartbroken, so I can go out there and feel full.”

Ma reached up to cup my cheeks. “If you could feel the love I have for you…”

“I feel it.”

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