Chapter 31

Micah

Of all the ways I could have imagined starting this day, it wouldn't have been opening the bus door to find Luella dressed and ready for the day before the sun had so much as winked a hello, saying, "You up for an adventure, handsome?" And yet here I am, driving her to my hometown in a rental car to the center of Idaho's panhandle without any clue as to why I'm taking her there other than she asked me to.

The car has been quiet for some time now, but not for lack of words—rather, because of them. Despite the abruptness of my wake-up this morning, I had the presence of mind to grab Raegan's sample chapters of the memoir. Even if nothing came of them in the end, her beautiful prose deserved to be read by the person who inspired it.

Out of my peripherals, I monitor the hand Luella keeps moving between her heart and mouth as if she can't decide if she's more touched than she is speechless. She's on the third chapter now, and I know the exact moment she reaches the part about Russell's proposal to marry him in secret because her eyes start leaking faster than she can swipe them. I hand her the unused napkin from our coffee run at oh-dark-thirty and she blots, blots, blots until it's soaked and shredded. When she finally lowers the pages to her lap, it takes her a good two minutes to compose herself enough to speak.

"I didn't realize how ... how incredibly talented my daughter is," she says. "She captured the stories I've told her with such vivid detail and care. And considering how Raegan never met your mother, I swear I could feel Lynn's presence every time Raegan included her in a scene." She lifts the pages again and holds them out as if they're found treasure. "For fear of sounding vain, I wish I could keep reading."

"You should tell her that," I say, careful not to overspeak. "I feel the same way about her writing. She has a gift." She is a gift.

Luella's gaze remains on me. "You care for her."

"I do," I admit without hesitation. "She's a special person."

Luella nods, considering me. "I see a similar specialness in you, young man."

Despite the lingering heaviness in my chest from last night's encounter, I do my best to offer her a polite smile.

"Although you're not as good an actor as you think you are. Something is up with you."

I monitor the road ahead for signs of wildlife as the part of me that wants to tell her about my discovery last night wars with the part that still wants to pretend it never happened. That part loses.

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure I found my biological father last night."

Luella's sudden loss for words plays out through her big, rounded eyes, but I don't allow time for questions. Mostly because I never want his name to be an answer for anything more than a single, isolated moment in history.

"Troy Rigger."

I can feel the pained and whispered no she speaks reverberate inside my chest.

Neither of us speaks for several minutes, but unlike me, Luella seems to be sifting and sorting for clues in a mental database I have no access to. And whatever she finds has her twisting in her seat. She stares at my profile. "That night in August, after our tour bus returned back to Nashville and your mother and I fought over that stupid magazine article, she went to The Lounge."

"The bar you two worked at in Nashville?"

"That's right. Industry professionals were always there, either to impress a potential client or to hold dinner meetings with established artists. I received a call a few days later from a mutual acquaintance, informing me Lynn was seen discussing her contract with another label. But," she closes her eyes, "that other label was Troy's. She was with him that night and possibly longer. When I heard, it felt as if Lynn had just poured vinegar on a fresh wound, especially considering I'd told her to stay away from him after our split with TriplePlay. But men like Troy aren't impulsive. They're willing to stalk their prey and wait for a moment of weakness."

"You think he was after my mother for a long time—waiting for an opportunity?"

Her hesitation has me glancing over at her. "I think he was waiting for a moment to get back at Russell and me."

"He's disturbed," I say, realizing only then that our speed is almost twenty over the limit. I lift my foot and set the cruise control.

"Something I ignored for too long in the early years of our career."

As the scenery becomes more and more familiar, I decide to take the back roads. "Did you know what he was like when you signed at TriplePlay Records?"

"Not at first," she says. "But then one night after a long day of recording, he propositioned me. I told him I was interested in his friendship and didn't see him like that, thinking my explanation would resolve whatever mixed signals I must have given off without knowing. But it happened numerous times, always when Russell wasn't around. I hoped if I ignored him long enough, he would eventually lose interest in me, but it seemed to do the opposite. I made sure I was never alone with him, and I told no one, not even your mother. I was too fearful it would cost us the album we had worked so hard for. I didn't even tell Russell until after we were married in secret. As you can imagine, he was furious, and things were never the same. Russell was ready to walk then, even before we found the receipts of how Troy was cheating us financially, but I wouldn't let him. It wasn't only my career at stake, but your mother's, too. Knowing her history with her father, I wanted to protect her by keeping the details private, but really—" She cuts herself off, and it's nearly a minute before she finishes her thought. "Really I put her in harm's way."

My jaw is clenched so tight my molars vibrate. Is that what he'd done to my mother? Propositioned her in a low moment, when she was in need of comfort and a familiar face? The thought makes me want to pull off the road and retch.

"That man is not your father, Micah," Luella says with such calming conviction I'm almost convinced I missed part of her story. She touches my shoulder. "I'm not saying she was right to keep it from you, but as a mother myself, I can understand her reasons. I can also understand now why she married Frank as quickly and as quietly as she did." Luella's words root in deep. "She may have struggled to believe that she could ever receive the love of a husband, but the woman I knew would never deny her unborn child the love of a father. And she gave you one of the very best."

It's an effort not to break down while behind this wheel, and perhaps the only reason I don't is because we're less than forty miles out from our destination now and the roads are as narrow here as they are windy. But I nod my appreciation to Luella, and for the next several minutes, she allows me to reflect on the insight and perspective she's provided before she graciously moves our conversation to talk of new subjects.

We take turns asking each other questions, never once lacking for answers—that is, until I ask her the one question she's avoided since she woke me up this morning and told me she wanted to get a head start on her girls: What are we actually doing?

I know every curve and ridge of the surrounding snow-tipped mountain ranges, every river, lake, and fishable stream within a two-hundred-mile radius, every burger joint and hiking trail and ski slope. I could stock the aisle of the grocery store, and I've memorized the coffee menus of the three drive-ups we have in town. The same way I've sat in every seat at my home church. I don't need a map to follow where these roads lead, because this is my home. It's the only one I've ever known, and even after traveling across the nation, it's the only home I hope to have. And yet ... I have no idea why Luella wanted to come back.

"Just keep driving," she says. "We're almost there."

As soon as we round the bend on the narrow, two-lane highway, Luella sits up and points at the river. "There it is."

I follow her finger to the open acres of ponderosa pines and spruce trees just past the edge of town, and suddenly I know where we're headed even if I don't know why. I've been a camper and cabin leader at Camp Selkirk more times than I can count. And even though their doors of operation closed a few years back due to low funding, it hasn't kept my dad and brother and me from boating up to it from the other side of the bank to hike and fish. The significance this place has played in my faith journey is incomparable.

Perhaps Luella needs to see this part of her history again, where she and my mother first met. Perhaps that's why we're here, to finish off a road trip that began nearly fifty years ago.

So I ignore the closed entry gate at the front and drive to the open one a quarter mile around the back. I hope the Farrow sisters will do the same when they arrive. Some rules are worth breaking for the people you love. And Luella is hardly the only Farrow I've fallen for this summer.