You'd Be Mine(59)

It was then that I saw my dad. I don’t know which was worse: she clearly fought harder, but his death was so violent. He was slumped forward on his desk, blood splattered in a giant burst on the wall and window behind him, pooled underneath his handsome, whiskered face. His silver revolver still clutched in his hand. His eyes were squeezed shut as though he didn’t want to see what his fingers were about to do.

Their deaths were later classified as a double suicide. My dad paid for the heroin that killed my mom. It was his welcome-home gift for her. When he’d found her overdosed and laid out in his den, he’d shot himself in the mouth.

My parents loved each other. Madly. And somewhere inside of me, I hope they loved me, too. They sort of seemed to, in a distant, farther-down-the-line-kind of way. But Cora loved Robbie and she loved her music, and she was a slave to her drugs.

And Robbie loved Cora. Full stop.

I’ve wondered at times, when I really want to torture myself, why my dad didn’t even consider living for me. He had to know I would be the one to find him. Find them. What kind of person does that to their child?

Even worse, what if he hadn’t thought of me at all?

I never sing my parents’ songs. I never talk about them in interviews, and I never, ever visit their graves. Yet I follow in their footsteps every single time I pick up my guitar and step onstage.

Every time I close my eyes and allow myself to dream of Jefferson.

Am I just completing the circle? I knew I was going to agree to this tour the second I opened the screen door at my grandparents’ and saw Clay Coolidge on my porch.

I knew I was going to fall for him the second I overheard his soft, tortured singing in his trailer.

I knew I would never love anyone half as much as him the moment he asked me—pleaded with me—to call him by his real name.

And I know as long as I live, I will never, ever forget the image of him lying on the floor, pale, bleeding, and still as the grave. I’ve done everything I can to delay when I will have to close my eyes tonight, because for the first time in years, it won’t be my parents’ dead bodies I see behind my lids.

It will be his.





24



Clay


thursday, august 1

michigan

Those first few days in Michigan are some of the darkest of my life. I don’t remember waking up or the plane ride or anything about the morning after my dance with pills. We arrive at Annie’s grandparents’ farm, and I’m ushered into a tiny guest room on the second floor at the end of a hallway. The curtains are drawn shut, and I don’t bother to remedy that. I slump onto the bed and stay there, under heavy covers despite it being summer.

Food arrives at regular intervals during the day, but it makes my stomach turn and I don’t bother to touch it. In another life, I know I’m being selfish, but I can’t force myself to care.

No one comes to see me. It seems I’ve finally driven everyone away.

If nothing else, this should make me happy, but of course it doesn’t.

On the third night, I leave my room. It’s after midnight, and the house is dark. I plan to go outside but instead find myself standing at a closed door next to the kitchen. I don’t remember seeing it before. The door opens easily, revealing a moonlit library. Three walls are covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There’s a modest piano in the center and a wall of windows bisected by a window seat. On the piano rests three dozen bouquets of roses. Their fragrance is heady, and I don’t need to pluck the card out to see who they’re from.

But I do anyway.

These aren’t half as lovely as you. Got a sneak preview of your new song and can’t help but wonder where you’ve been all my life. You’re bigger than Nashville. California is waiting!—Roy



A smug grin quirks at the corner of my mouth. “Too bad she hates roses, Roy,” I whisper into the dark.

In the far corner, I find an old desk. It looks largely unused. Resting on top is an old bottle of something brown and a set of decorative glasses. My mouth waters, and I round the desk, itching for a drink. But before I can crack the bottle open, I’m distracted by a grouping of picture frames that adorn the desk’s polished surface. The first is of Annie and her grandparents. It’s recent; she’s in a graduation cap and gown, and her curls are long. Another frame shows a preteen Annie and Kacey, sunburned arms flung around each other’s shoulders as they stand together on a shoreline. A third photograph shows Annie and her parents. Cora and Robbie could be timeless, but Annie is barely a toddler. The three of them are sitting on a porch swing. Annie’s feet dangle in the air between her parents’ legs.

The final photo is older still. Cora Rosewood looks to be the same age Annie is now. Maybe eighteen. She’s clear-eyed and hamming it up for the camera. She looks airy and happy. Her guitar rests in her lap, a natural extension of her limbs. Across from her sits Robbie Mathers. She faces the camera, but he’s facing her. His entire body cued in her direction, like she’s his sun and it’s all he can do to orbit her.

This is the Cora and Robbie the world didn’t see. They were famous for their lusty love—all jealous rages and reckless abandon. But this almost looks tender. Sweet. Innocent. Before the drugs and rock and roll.

My gut twists, and suddenly, a drink is the very last thing in the world I want. That I’ll ever want. Because I know the ending to this story. I’ve seen the fallout. I never met Robbie and Cora, of course, but I know Annie. I watched her fall to pieces after our first show, trembling and spiraling when Trina tried to tie our names together.