Page 103 of The Maverick
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Clayton."
I hung up.
I stood there for another minute. The harbor moved in its slow, dark way. The container ship had made its progress and was smaller now, further out, its lights growing distant.
I thought about what he'd said.
You're the most talented person in our whole family by a long shot.
It wasn't the choir teacher's yearbook. It wasn't Tommy'syou play like someone who's been in school your whole life. It was Clayton, who had been the one voice I'd been hearing wrong for years, finally saying the thing he'd left out the first time. Finally completing the sentence.
It didn't fix everything.
But it was something.
It was a locked door opening, just a crack, just enough to let a little light through.
I took the long way home.
Because the night had become something I wasn't ready to step out of yet. The crying had cleared something, the way crying cleared things when you let it rather than fought it, and I walked through the lit streets of the historic district with my coat buttoned and my guitar on my back and my face probably a mess. I didn't care.
I passed a restaurant still doing late service, couples at candlelit tables behind glass. I passed a man walking a small dog who looked up at me with the dog's incurious eyes. I passed a gas lantern flickering in the wind on a wrought iron post and stopped and looked at it for a moment for no reason.
I got out my phone.
I opened Tommy's text.
I looked at it for a long moment.
Three dots appeared. Then they disappeared. Then they appeared again, which was the texting equivalent of a man choosing his words carefully, and Tommy was not a man who usually chose his words carefully because he didn't need to.
Finally:I'm sorry, sweetheart. Are you home?
Walking, I typed back.I'm okay. Are you okay? You went quiet.
A longer pause than usual.
I’m at Dominion Hall. Something came up here. Something big. I can't get into it right now.
I stood under the gas lantern and read that twice. The tone of it was different. Something underneath. Something with weight that he was carrying alone in whatever room he was in.
Okay, I typed.Go do what you need to do. I'm fine.
I meant it, mostly. I was standing under a gas lantern in the historic district with a cleared-out chest and my brother'sapology still warm in my ear, and I was going to be fine. Tonight had been a bad night. Bad nights ended.
Three dots again.
Then:Rebecca Lynn. Come here. I need you.
I read it once.
I read it again.
I need youwas not something Tommy Dane said lightly. I understood that already, the way you understood certain things about a person after only days because the days had been dense and honest. He'd saidI love youbefore he'd saidI need you, and somehow, the second one landed harder.
What's the address? I typed.
