Page 57 of Falls From Grace
“Greta.” She shook her head. “If it’s great, it’s great. Let’s just use the raw vocals, because I am through with this song.”
Two days later, they’d recorded what they’d come to do, and Savannah was due to fly back to Vermont. She felt sick at the thought. The plan had been for Noah and Brynn to fly back with her, for the three of them to re-enter their close, intimate world of songwriting to finish up the album. Now she was facing the trip - and the writing - alone.
She thought about delaying it - giving herself a day or two’s grace to gather herself - but the solitude called to her. Her Nashville home was still full of people - the band weren’t heading out for another day or two - and Savannah felt like she couldn’t stand literally another moment being surrounded by humans. In the end, she, Tucker and Lane headed back first thing the next morning.
They’d been lucky to make it in at all. The runway and the roads had been plowed, but several feet of snow surrounded them. Lane’s eyes were enormous as they surveyed the immense walls of white everywhere, the snowcapped forest, the house looking like something out of a winter fairytale.
“Tucker!” they enthused as the car pulled up at the front door. “We can build a snowman! We can figure out how to do - what are they called - snow angels?”
Savannah bit her lip hard. Would the whole time they were in Vermont feel like this? Just one Brynn-related memory socking her in the guts after another?
Inside the living room was the ten-foot blue spruce they’d decorated together, Brynn holding Tucker on her shoulders so he could shove ornaments precariously into the higher branches. Beside the tree and the piled presents was a large new gift - one that Savannah had arranged after seeing Brynn writing songs on Noah’s guitar - a beautiful acoustic in its own case.
“Can you please… get rid of that?” she asked a confused Lucille, who’d only just had the damn thing wrapped. The housekeeper nodded a little curtly, then took Lane to go and see their rooms.
Savannah sank down onto the couch by the fire, finally almost alone. Tucker climbed up and nestled himself into her lap, clearly tired and disoriented. She cuddled him close and let his soft chatter and the hypnotic pull of the fire lull her into a little bit of warmth. This was her home, her haven. She’d lick her wounds and recoup. Her album depended on it.
The following day, she gritted her teeth and walked down into the band room. Her chest seized. Every instrument, every piece of furniture, every viewpoint - the air itself - felt infused with the three of them. The low three-legged stool Noah always picked to work from, despite the comfy couches. The sofa Brynn had watched them perform from, where they’d been tucked close to each other as they wrote. The piano in the corner, coming alive under Brynn’s fingertips. Sadness overwhelmed her.
She sat down on the other stool and picked up her acoustic guitar. She stared hopelessly at the floor. Her writing had been ferociously blocked until Noah and Brynn came along. And now, three songs from finishing her solo album, she was alone and far from feeling her best. Anger grew within her, replacing the sadness. The shame at being a dupe all over again, at being just a dumb rich symbol to Noah and Brynn instead of a real person. She squeezed the neck of her guitar tightly and began to strum.
Less than a week later, it was Christmas. Savannah sent her staff home to their families, Luis having left behind a beautiful spread. Her band were all with their own loved ones and Rosalie was always married to her job at this time of year. So it was just Savannah, Tucker and Lane around the tree on Christmas morning. She made her absolute best effort to make it a warm, sweet experience for the two young people in the room. There was Christmas music playing, hot chocolate and croissants for breakfast, a pile of gifts to unwrap and Savannah was doing a stellar impression of a human with an intact heart.
Tucker was more excited by the wrapping than any of the actual gifts they contained, chanting “present present present” as he shredded the paper with glee. Of course, the only present he really got excited over was the one Brynn had left for him: a little construction set complete with yellow hardhat. Hat wobbling over his eye, he shouted “bang bang” with glee, smashing the little hammer against the couch arm. Savannah withheld her sigh and celebrated his joy with him.
Lane looked straight up surprised when Savannah gave them their own small stack of gifts to open, but the truth was that even though they’d been in her employ for just a few weeks, they were already indispensable.
“Jeez, Santa, thank you,” they said to Savannah, running their fingers over the high quality headphones they’d opened last and clasped to their chest with a grin. “I wasn’t sure what to get my boss who has literally everything, so-” they handed over a small flat gift. Savannah, touched, opened it to find a soft, brown, leather-bound notebook, the spine tooled with an intricate design that when she looked closer read Savannah’s Songs.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” They shrugged. “It took me until yesterday to finish. It would have been easier if your name was shorter, to be honest.”
“You made this?” Savannah ran her fingers along the spine. “You’re talented,” she said. Lane made a face, their cheeks pink.
“Oh, you know, random shit I learned at the center.” It was the first mention Lane had made about where they’d found each other. Savannah smiled at them. “What’s that one?” They pointed for distraction at a small, brown-paper-wrapped gift half hidden behind the tree.
Savannah picked it up with a frown. The gift was heavy, with a tiny gift tag: To Savannah, from Brynn. Her stomach dropped. Lane saw her face.
“Ohhh,” they said. “Pretty sure I can guess who that’s from. Are you going to open it?” they asked when she didn’t put it down.
Savannah wasn’t sure what motivated her to do it, especially with an interested audience, but she pulled the paper off to find a plain cardboard box. Inside the box was more brown paper stuffing, protecting something delicate. She reached in and pulled out the strangest contraption she’d ever seen.
It was a small glass globe set on a brass base, housing an array of burnished brass instruments, with multiple dials and what at first looked like analogue clock faces. She looked closer. Hydro, read one, Celsius/Fahrenheit read another. It was an antique weather device, with a thermometer, barometer and something labeled a hygrometer. It was strange and beautiful and she wanted to spend hours understanding how it worked.
“Damnit.” Her vision went hazy. Lane tactfully turned to Tucker and gave him unneeded help assembling his tool box. Brynn had gotten her a perfect gift: unique and meaningful, not only tailored perfectly to Savannah, but to them. She remembered the conversation at the window, their bodies close, watching the frozen rain, Brynn’s tease about Savannah’s weather facts, but even more importantly her response to Savannah’s revelations about her childhood, the vulnerability as she’d shared her own life back. That day had been - for Savannah anyway - the moment she had first started to fall into what could have, one day, been love.
Now, looking down at the soft glow of the brass, she wondered if it had been the same for Brynn. The gift felt like a message, perfectly clear only to the two people who’d been in the room that morning: remember that time when we first started to truly see each other? Brynn had lied about something critical, but Savannah knew she hadn’t lied about her feelings for her.
“Are you going to forgive her?” Lane was inspecting her face and looking hopeful.
Savannah blanched. She’d never said a word to Lane about what had happened between her and Brynn. Unfortunately, Savannah had apparently been so damn transparent they’d been able to read the situation like a book. Her first instinct was to snap that it wasn’t their business, but, after all, it was Christmas and Lane was spending it with her.
“It’s not a matter of forgiveness,” she said instead, carefully putting down the weather station. “It’s that we’re over for a good reason, and that reason isn’t going to go away.”
“Man,” Lane said reflectively. “That really sucks.”
“Yeah,” Savannah agreed, flatly. “It really does.”
