Chapter 11

Micah

As much as I desire a follow-up conversation with Raegan after last night, I decline the offer to trail behind the Farrow ladies as they shop in strip-mall stores with names like Heavens to Betsy Boutique. I opt instead for some downtime with my mother's journals inside a coffee shop called Fixin' To Café. I thumb through several entries of her road trip, as well as multiple sketches, poems, and travel games she created throughout. It feels surreal to read her words from a time long before I ever called her mom.

Once my waitress sets a steaming bowl of grits at my table—a first for me—I switch my focus to another family member. I give the journals a rest and decide it's time to fill my dad in on my summer gig as a bus driver. As I expect, my call goes directly to his voicemail. I leave him a message along with a promise to leave another for him at our next stop. Perhaps these check-ins will make the difficult conversation we'll have after he returns a tad less painful.

Garrett is next on my list. The few texts we've exchanged since I arrived have been transactional at best, so I'm relieved to see his name flash on my screen only a minute after reaching his voicemail. In his line of work, that kind of response time is rare.

"You're where?" he asks again as the hospital intercom crackles in the background.

"Two hours past the Arkansas-Oklahoma border in a town that's three stoplights long."

"Is this when you tell me you're gonna go cow-tipping for fun?"

"Not sure the company I'm with would consider that fun." I smile, imagining Hattie dodging cow patties in her fancy footwear.

"Any discoveries of consequence to report? Or perhaps siblings I should know about?"

I assure him he's still my one and only and ask how life has been back home when an image of Raegan in her Goo Goo Cluster pj's flashes through my mind. I've seen a lot of women cry—most in a professional setting, and a few back before I had any clue what I wanted in a relationship. But thinking, even for a moment, that I could have been the cause behind the visible anguish in her eyes had been wholly unbearable.

I'd lain awake in my bunk long after she returned Adele's laptop to the charging station. But it wasn't her assumption or even her accusation I replayed. It was the empathy she extended to me, the grace. That even though she believed me guilty of hurting her family in such a blatant way, she'd been willing to look past my crime.

She'd actually offered to help me.

As a therapist, I've worked with many types of people. I've seen hurt, betrayal, trauma, and fear manifest themselves in a dozen different ways, but rarely have I seen it look like that. Like compassion. Like mercy.

Like Raegan.

I clear my throat, willing my thoughts to make a U-turn as I answer my brother's questions about the motor coach and our living arrangement on the road.

"Sounds like Southern hospitality isn't a myth, then."

Raegan's sweet smile comes to mind again. "I'd say it's pretty real."

An alarm sounds over the hospital's loudspeaker. "I've gotta run, bro, but Kacy said to tell you you're missed around here. She also wants an autographed vinyl from Luella."

I laugh. "I'll see what I can do. Give the twins a hug from me."

"Only if you promise to send pictures of any tipped cows."

A few minutes after I leave the café and hike back to the air-conditioned bus, the Farrow family climbs aboard. Raegan joins me in the cockpit, and the relief I feel at her presence is odd given how short a time I've known her. A part of me had wondered how things might change for us today—with both our secrets out in the open—but if anything, Raegan seems to have lowered her guard even more.

She glances from me to the jump seat. Or rather, to the small deposit of trust I left for her there. "Is this one of Lynn's journals?"

"I thought you might want to browse through one while we drive," I say easily, though watching her handle it with such care doubles my pulse.

With reverence, she runs her palm across the cover of the green travel journal. "Are you sure? I know what a treasure these must be to you and your family."

"I trust you, Raegan. You're welcome to read them all if you'd like to." A simple offer that's anything but simple.

I reverse out of the parking lot, and soon we're back on the interstate headed west following signs for Tulsa. Traffic is as light as the mood in the back of the bus today. All sister drama has been noticeably low today. Perhaps the shopping excursion was good for them all, most certainly for Luella. Every time I catch sight of her in my mirrors, she's smiling.

From my periphery, I watch Raegan overcome her earlier hesitation as she opens the journal and begins to read. She doesn't lift her head again for thirty minutes.

"These entries are incredible. Mama's talked about Camp Selkirk since I was young—it's where she met my daddy for the first time—but how your mom described their baptisms was ... beautiful." She shakes her head. "I love all her doodles and sketches about the places they stopped. I didn't realize Lynn was so artistic. Also, this food log and daily spending total is awesome—it's hard to believe a hamburger was ever thirty cents." She taps the penciled graph she's referencing. "There's so much detail on every page."

I encourage Raegan to turn the page and look closely at the sketch of a bridge surrounded by giant redwood trees. Hidden into the grooves of each tree trunk is a treasure you can't see without rotating the journal. As soon as she does, she gasps. "No way. Are these the lyrics for ‘Crossing Bridges'?"

I nod, having made that revelation only a few hours ago myself.

"I wish each page came with a key, like on a map," I say. "Sometimes there's so much stuff between the entries that I'm not sure I'm comprehending what's most important. At times, it's like the art is acting as another language."

"I suppose that's exactly what it is." She holds it up. "A creative's love language."

"Well, that particular gene must have skipped me entirely, because my eyes are exhausted after about three or four pages."

Raegan turns abruptly in her seat and reaches for her messenger bag resting against the back of mine. After a minute, she pulls out a notebook I've seen her write in multiple times since the day we left. She opens it up and holds it out so I can see it without having to take my eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds. She flips to a page and then to another one.

I laugh.

And so does she.

Raegan's journal keeping, though not the same as my mother's, is full of flourishes and scribbles and brainstorming webs with arrows that connect content from one page to another like an insane game of hopscotch.

"Are you offering to be my key, Raegan?" I amend half-jokingly.

Her smile holds. "I'm offering to help you however I can. I'd want to know the truth, too, if I were you."

"I appreciate that," I say as she begins to close her notebook. "Wait. What's that?" I reach a hand out to stop hers, only the brush of her skin beneath mine makes it difficult to move it away. The page reveals multiple bubbles filled with random words interconnected with lines.

"It's a plotting web," she says without her usual inflection.

"For your fiction book?"

"Yes, for Birch Grove." There's a touch of dejection in her voice when she answers. "This is how I work a scene when I'm stuck. Sometimes it's easier to dump everything in my brain at once onto paper."

"Is Birch Grove your title?"

"No, it's the name of the mountain town where the story is set. The title is actually The Sisters of Birch Grove."

"I like that," I say, changing lanes. "Is that what you were working on yesterday before dinner?"

"No, there's not much for me to work on—as far as my fiction goes, I mean." I don't like the defeat I hear in her voice when she says this, and I'm tempted to press her on it. But before I can voice another question, she says, "I was just messing around with some lyric ideas."

"For Tav?" I ask, though I already know. I couldn't help but overhear their video call after dinner last night when I took out the trash. He must have mentioned those lyrics five times over the course of me walking to and from the camp dumpster. If I was in analyzing mode, I'd say their relationship pulls heavily in one direction. But I'm not in analyzing mode. Technically, I shouldn't even be in therapist mode.

She studies the page filled with strike-through phrases. "I haven't been able to come up with a good chorus hook yet."

I slide my sunglasses on. The cloud cover is gone, and the sun's rays are intense today. When Raegan does the same, I can't help the disappointment I feel at the loss of those brown eyes peering back at me.

"How long have you been his cowriter?"

Instantly, her hands begin to fidget atop the notebook, and I'm confident I know her answer before she speaks it. "Technically, I'm not a cowriter. I just help where I can."

More like he just uses her where he can and then takes the credit for her work. His type is easy to pick out in a crowd. A high-achiever who's hyper-fixated on his own success, even at the expense of those closest to him. I can't picture Raegan with a guy like that. Or maybe I just don't want to picture it. She deserves better.

I glance in the rearview and take note of the various locations and distraction levels of our fellow passengers before broaching an equally sensitive topic, one I've been waiting to ask since she crawled into her bunk with Adele's laptop. "Did you find anything helpful during your search last night?"

Unlike the other subjects we've discussed, this one causes her to take a deep breath. "Not what I was hoping for."

Raegan hasn't told me who she suspects the author of the tell-all to be, but there's no question she has someone in mind. Whether or not she'll confide in me is up to her. I won't press her on that.

I flip the turn indicator, change lanes, and turn off at the next exit in search of a gas station before we risk having to push Old Goldie through an abandoned town. I was hoping she could wait on a fill-up until Tulsa since our food selections would be better there, but I have a feeling it's now or never.

As we pull into the station, my gaze catches on the pair of giant Sasquatches standing guard on either side of the mini-mart doors like the two archangels guarding the entrance to the garden of Eden. I put the bus in park and release the air brakes. Luella grabs her new favorite hat—the one she purchased yesterday with the fake auburn ponytail hanging out the back—and tucks her real hair inside it. Paired with her oversize sunglasses, she looks like an entirely different person.

Within thirty seconds, all my passengers have vacated the bus and made their way to the mini-mart. As soon as I round the side of the rig, pop open the gas cap, and insert the nozzle, I regret not asking Raegan to pick up my favorite energy drink before I die from heatstroke.

"I think it's Cheater Peter."

I rotate in the direction of the familiar voice behind me and hike a curious eyebrow. "That's an unfortunate name."

"But a fitting one. Peter is Hattie's ex."

"The one in Greece?"

"There's only one." When she steps into the pocket of shade between pumps, I don't hesitate to join her. Our proximity is closer than two casual friends who met less than a week ago should be, but it's easily justifiable seeing as this conversation needs to remain private. I keep the mini-mart in my periphery.

"Hattie and Peter were married for ten years and have two kids together—as you know by now. Aiden and Annabelle. He had an affair with a woman half his age who was also Farrow Music's top-producing popstar at the time."

"I think I remember reading something about that. What was that—a year ago?" As much as I try to avoid the clickbait news articles that pop up in my morning news feed, Luella's name has always held more intrigue than other celebrity gossip.

"Almost eighteen months ago now. Adele discovered their affair at the office and it was ... horrible. For everyone involved." Raegan shudders at whatever memory she's reliving. "There's been so much drama since then, but ultimately, when Adele fired Peter, Francesca broke her contract and pulled her entire catalogue from the label. Peter was the head of the legal department, and Adele claims he altered Francesca's contract right before the news of the affair leaked so that her legal consequences for exiting the label's contract prematurely would be minimal. Honestly, I don't know all the details, but I do know that after Peter filed for wrongful termination, we didn't see Adele for months. She basically lived at the office, and Hattie was..." Raegan shakes her head, and this time she glances down at her feet. "I stayed with her for a while, helped with the kids, cooked meals, checked homework and made school lunches, and was her emotional support during the divorce and custody trial. Not to mention the go-between for her and Adele, as well."

I scan the tension lines in her face. "That all sounds very difficult."

"It was."

"And you think he might also be the one behind this?"

She tips her head back to rest against the concrete structure, and I snap my eyes away from the smooth skin of her neck to the mini-mart windows behind her where I can clearly see Luella and her two daughters walking the snack aisles inside. "For Hattie's sake, I really, really don't want it to be him. But he checks all the boxes. He knows so much about our family history—he married into it. There were dates and details and retellings of events in those early sample chapters my editor friend sent over that only Mama's closest circle would know." I watch as she tugs on her bottom lip and slowly meets my eyes. "That's why I thought maybe your mom could have been..."

"I get it." I reach out and squeeze her shoulder before she can apologize. "I would have thought the same thing if the situation were reversed. The circumstantial evidence was pretty condemning."

"I'm wondering if Peter might have been siphoning information from the employee Adele just let go for confidentiality issues. The woman worked with Peter directly for years, but I couldn't find anything more than her name and past position. I was hoping to find something concrete to confirm my theory, but Adele's emails on the subject were pretty cryptic."

"Do you think he was paying this woman for information he could use in the book?"

"Possibly. I don't know. The synopsis I read promised an outline of the poor business decisions Farrow Music Productions made from the beginning, and how the label was founded on fraud." She grips her head with both hands. "He would so do something like that."

From the corner of my eye, I glimpse my other three passengers lining up at the register inside the building and know this conversation will need to wrap up in a matter of minutes.

"Why not tell your family about this?" I ask. "I'm sure Adele would—"

"No." She shakes her head. "I can't do that. Not yet. Hattie is in too fragile a place with her kids gone right now—they're literally with Peter for goodness' sake. And Adele is so stressed about Mama's appearance at this festival going perfectly that something like this could completely derail everything she's been working toward at the label." She lowers her voice. "Chip, my editor friend, warned me that even if I could find out who the author behind this is, they're still in contract with the publisher. If it's Peter, then I have no chance of negotiating with him."

"The way you did with me."

She holds my gaze. "Nothing in me wanted it to be you, Micah."

Her admission causes the space between us to shrink, and I'm not sure if it's because I've taken a step toward her or if she's taken one closer to me. Either way, I'm close enough to smell the berry scent of her shampoo and see the luminous shimmer of whatever pixie dust she brushed atop her cheekbones this morning. I like it. I like her.

I stuff my hands into the pockets of my shorts to keep from touching her without invitation. "Would it help to talk through the other suspects you've considered?"

Her face drops. "I wrote out a list of every long-term staff member we've had at the house, along with Mama's closest friends, but none of them make much sense. They've either signed Adele's ironclad nondisclosure agreement or wouldn't know the specific details I read in those early sample chapters."

"What about Tav?" I regret the question as soon as it's out.

"Tav is not the author."

I school my expression to keep it in check. "Why not? You told me he's been a friend of yours for a long time. I'm guessing he would have been given similar access to your family as Hattie's ex."

"Cheater Peter and Tav are not the same. And please don't try to therapist me into telling you why."

"Therapist you?" I laugh.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't, actually. In case you've forgotten, I'm still unemployed."

"Ha, right. I'm pretty sure the once-a-therapist-always-a-therapist slogan applies to you." She narrows her eyes. "You know, at first I couldn't figure out why I kept sharing so much with a person I just met, but I know now. And I know about your tricks." She crosses her arms over her chest and doubles down. "Tav is not a suspect. Sure, I might have questioned that a few months ago, but his motivations are different now."

"In what way?"

She hikes her eyebrow in an I'm-on-to-you way.

"Listen." I hold up my palms. "I'm just trying to make sure no rock is left unturned here. If you tell me you're confident he's not the one behind this, then I'll support his removal from your proverbial suspect list."

Her gaze drops to her blue-painted toenails. "You guessed right the other day at the bathhouse. Tav wants me to give us another chance."

Despite myself, I feel my competitive edge surge. A full five seconds go by before I'm chill enough to ask, "And what do you want?"

"To stay friends, which is why I haven't given him an answer yet."

"But you're working on his lyrics."

She bristles at my flat tone. "As I told you before, I've been helping Tav with songwriting for ages. It doesn't mean anything."

"To you or to him?"

She opens her mouth, and then her lips twist as she points at my chest. "Ah, see? There you go again with your therapist tricks." She tips her head to the side. "How about this: I'll answer more questions about my ex when you're ready to tell me the story behind how you came to be unemployed. Deal?"

"Deal." I can't help but smile at her cheekiness. "Don't look now, but your mom and sisters are headed our way."

A gate lowers over her expression then, and I don't have to wonder where her mind has gone. The tell-all. "Are you sure you shouldn't at least pull your mom aside and tell her about—"

"No." The warning in her eyes and the fear in her tone cause me to stand down.

I nod. Understood. I also understand something else in that moment: Raegan's pattern for delaying conflict.

"I'm gonna grab a few snacks from inside." She hitches her thumb toward the mini-mart. "You want me to get that energy drink you like? The purple one?" Her hair blows off her shoulder as she steps into the sunshine, and for what feels like the hundredth time today, I'm struck by her beauty.

Before she can take another step away, I reach for her wrist and gently tug her to a stop. Her look of surprise quickens my pulse as I imagine what I'd do in this moment if she were mine. But instead, I simply say, "I never want you to feel tricked by me. Not ever. You only share what you feel safe enough to share with me and nothing more. Deal?"

She blinks twice, then swallows. "Deal."

I release her wrist, and it takes several seconds before she moves again.

Ten minutes later, once everyone has settled into their seats with their carefully selected road-trip goods, Raegan climbs in beside me and sets my favorite energy drink in the cup holder. I thank her and then note the small plastic bag on her lap as she buckles up.

As soon as I twist the key in the ignition and check my mirrors, she's cupping something between her palms. "I have something for you. Wanna guess?"

I make a show of examining every angle of her hold. "If it's hush money, you should know I only accept crisp hundreds."

She rolls her eyes. "Try again."

"Unless you've hidden a pearl inside that hand clamshell, I'm out of guesses."

She opens her palms, and inside is a white wrapper with the words Goo Goo Cluster stamped on top. Her favorite candy.

"Now you can see for yourself how amazing they are," she says.

"You're pretty confident about this."

"What can I say, I have high standards when it comes to my chocolate."

On my first bite, I confirm she isn't wrong. This might be the best treat to ever come out of a gas-station convenience store. On my second bite, I ask her where I can find a matching pair of Goo Goo Cluster pajamas.