Country: a novel Part 14

"Don't talk about Dad like that. He was great to our mother," Louise said in a fury.

"No, he wasn't," Michael reminded her. "And they almost divorced when you were a senior in high school. You know that as well as I do, so don't tell me how great he was to Mom. He was never home. He didn't want to be, and Mom ended up picking up all the slack for him, whether you want to admit it now or not." She didn't.

"I'm sure whatever it was that they fought over wasn't such a big deal, since Mom went back to him," Louise said hotly.

"She did that for us." Michael kept the pressure on her, for the truth.

"Because she loved him," Louise corrected him.

"I'm sure she did love him, but he was never there for her, or for us." He was being brutally honest with Louise, but it resolved nothing. She continued to praise their father, and crucify their mother. She didn't want to hear anything Mike had to say in her defense.

The battle raged on for the whole time Chase was in San Francisco, and eventually Stephanie stopped answering her older daughter's calls and texts. There was nothing else she could do to protect herself, and Chase. They just had to weather the storm.

On Chase's last day in San Francisco, they took a walk in the park, bought take-out sas.h.i.+mi afterward, and took it back to the hotel. They had spent a lot of time in bed all week. There was no question in either of their minds about the seriousness of the relations.h.i.+p. They just had to find a way to make it work, in both cities, and in spite of two of her kids. But she wasn't going to let Louise or Charlotte spoil it for her. She wanted to protect the relations.h.i.+p with Chase.

Stephanie was lying in Chase's arms, after they made love on their last night together, and talking quietly about when they would see each other again. She had promised to come to Nashville as soon as Charlotte went back to school, in a month. It seemed like an intolerable amount of time to both of them. And Stephanie knew she'd probably have to put up with Charlotte's a.s.saults about Chase while she was there. Stephanie was hoping to calm her down. She was usually easier than Louise.

"You can't even imagine how much I'm going to miss you," he said mournfully, as he rolled over on his side and looked at her. She kissed him then and snuggled close to him in bed. She loved feeling his warmth beside her at night, and she couldn't imagine living without him every day either. They were deeply in love.

Stephanie took Chase to the airport when he left. She walked him into the terminal and said goodbye to him right before security. She was wearing dark gla.s.ses and a hat, which felt ridiculous to her. By the time Chase left, she was convinced that she was the luckiest woman on earth, and he said the same about himself. It was a match made in heaven, with the daughters from h.e.l.l. He promised to call her as soon as he arrived in Nashville, and as always, he did. He was at home by then, and miserable as he looked around his kitchen. The woman he loved was nowhere to be seen. She was living three thousand miles away, and he had to get through the next month without her.

The day after Chase left, Charlotte flew home from Paris. She arrived from the airport angry, and stayed that way. She hardly said h.e.l.lo to her mother, when Stephanie picked her up and drove her home. From the moment she came through the door, she complained about being forced to come home, and was painful to be with. She wanted to be in Paris or Rome, or anywhere in Europe with her friends, not at home. And her mother's relations.h.i.+p with a country music star was all the provocation she needed to be angry at her all the time, and attack her whenever she could, encouraged by her older sister.

It was the middle of the afternoon, but midnight for Charlotte, flying in from Paris. But she was young and had slept on the plane, so she had plenty of energy to attack her mother. Stephanie had made her something to eat, and they were sitting at the kitchen table, when Charlotte gave her an angry look. She had been barely civil until then, even if she had hugged her mother when they met.

"So where is he?" she asked as she finished her sandwich and favorite potato chips, which Stephanie had gotten for her, and pushed her plate away. The look she gave her mother was instantly confrontational. The gloves were off.

"If you're referring to Chase," Stephanie said calmly, "he's in Nashville."

"When did he leave? I a.s.sume he was here till I came home." It was none of her business, but her mother nodded.

"He left yesterday. He has an alb.u.m to record." He was doing duets with another famous country music singer. And Stephanie acted as though her involvement with him was normal.

"Don't you feel a little ridiculous being a groupie at your age, Mom?" There was a derisive tone in her voice Stephanie didn't like. Whenever Louise called, hers was one of pure rage. Charlotte was subtler and younger, and didn't have the guts to be as rude, but she was bad enough.

"I'm not a groupie. We're dating." It was honest. She was hiding nothing from her.

"You're sleeping with him," Charlotte accused her, with the self-righteousness of youth. Stephanie didn't comment. "And in my father's bed, I suppose." Stephanie was instantly angry at her comment, but didn't show it.

"It's none of your business, Charlotte, but we stayed at a hotel." It was a small town, and she would have found out anyway. Someone always knew someone who saw something who...she preferred to tell her herself.

It would have been infinitely worse if they had stayed at Stephanie's home, no matter which bedroom they slept in. She was glad they hadn't, and he had been wise enough to stay at a hotel. It was better for her too, not just her children. "That's disgusting. Aren't you afraid of what people will think of you? My father's been dead for about five minutes."

"Dad died six months ago, Char. And you can't predict what will happen in life, or who will come along. I wasn't going to date at all until I met him. And my dating Chase doesn't mean I didn't love your father. I loved him a lot when he was alive. But he's gone now, which is sad for all of us. And now this happened. And six months is respectable. Some people don't wait that long."

"Decent people wait a year," Charlotte informed her.

"Some people wait a year, some don't. I waited five months. And you wouldn't feel any better about this if we'd waited another six months. Why exactly are you so angry, Charlotte?"

"You're being disrespectful of our father," Charlotte said with fury. "And look who he is and what he looks like. He's a hillbilly, Mom!" Chase was a lot of things, but not that. He was a very sophisticated, intelligent, successful, incredible-looking man. Just different from their father, with his long hair, tattoos, and torn jeans.

"He's just different from Daddy, Charlotte. And he's a very cool guy. You'll like him."

"No, I won't," she said with a stubborn look. "And I hear Michael is dating his illegitimate daughter or something. What did you do? Double-date?"

"He came up from Atlanta with Amanda for a concert Chase invited them to. And Sandy is his ward. Her parents died. She's two years younger than you are, and an amazing girl. And you never liked Amanda, so don't act all holier than thou about her," Stephanie warned her. Charlotte hadn't spoken to Michael, she had heard it all from Louise.

"I think you and your sister are being incredibly disrespectful of me, and a man you don't even know. I understand how sad you are about losing your father, and so am I. But I have a right to live too, and this is what I'm doing, whether you and Louise like it or not. And your father would probably be doing the same thing-dating someone." After all, he did it while he was alive, she thought to herself but didn't say to her daughter. "You wouldn't like that either."

"I doubt that, and he wouldn't be dating some rock star with tattoos."

"You never know." Stephanie smiled at her. "Love takes you by surprise sometimes." But Charlotte looked even more upset by what she said.

"Are you telling me you love him?" She made it sound like her mother had admitted to a crime, and Stephanie faced her calmly and looked her in the eye.

"Yes, I am." She never lowered her gaze, as Charlotte got up from the table, left the kitchen, and stomped upstairs to her room. Stephanie kept busy with some projects at her desk, paying bills, and she was startled when Charlotte burst into the room.

"What the h.e.l.l did you do to the living room? I just went to look for something, and I saw it. It looks awful." It didn't look awful. It looked different. Things had changed. A lot had changed, including her mother, which was the biggest and most threatening change of all. And the biggest change was that Stephanie was happy, which came as a shock to her kids since Chase was part of it.

"I moved some things around," Stephanie said quietly. "I'm sorry you don't like it." She didn't offer to move it back, and wasn't going to. Charlotte stormed out of the room again then, and Stephanie heard cras.h.i.+ng noises a few minutes later and ran down the stairs to see what had happened. Charlotte had tried to move the furniture in the living room, had knocked over a small table, and a large vase had crashed to the floor and broken. She was on her knees sobbing in a pool of water with the flowers all around her.

"Oh my G.o.d, what happened?" Stephanie asked as she ran to help her, and cut her foot on a piece of broken gla.s.s. Charlotte couldn't stop sobbing, and just knelt there with a desperate look.

"I can't remember how it was," she kept saying over and over. She had tried to move everything back, and couldn't get it the way it was before, because she'd never really noticed. She just knew it was different now. "You changed everything!" she screamed at her mother hysterically, as Stephanie bent down next to her and tried to put her arms around her, and Charlotte pulled away. "Don't touch me! I hate you!" She sounded five years old as she said it, and there were tears in Stephanie's eyes. This was all so hard. Charlotte ran out of the room then and left the mess. She didn't see that her mother's foot was bleeding-she was too distraught to be aware of anything but herself. Stephanie heard the door of Charlotte's room slam, and cleaned up the mess herself. She felt suddenly guilty for the things she had moved around. But she had needed to do it for herself. Her children weren't at home anymore. She lived there every day.

She threw away the pieces of the broken vase, put the flowers in another one, cleaned up the water, put the furniture back in order, and bandaged her bleeding foot. The cut wasn't deep, it was just superficial. Charlotte didn't come out of her room for several hours. It had been a tough first day home so far.

Stephanie talked to Chase quietly from her room later that night and then called Jean. She couldn't call Alyson anymore, she was too upset that Stephanie was involved with Chase, so she would be no help about the kids, or support for Stephanie. Alyson had told Jean she thought it was shocking, since Bill had only been gone for five months. And what was she doing with a man like that? She needed to go out with someone like Bill or Brad or Fred, one of them, not some rock star.

"Why not?" Jean asked her bluntly. "You think Brad is so great, well, good for you. Fred sure isn't. And Steph was unhappy with Bill for the last ten years. She looked like her soul was dead. Now she's alive. Is that really what you want for her now? To be miserable again. Because I sure as h.e.l.l don't. The best thing that could happen to her was to meet a real guy who loves her, and she has. That's good enough for me. And I don't give a d.a.m.n what he looks like, where he comes from, or how many tattoos he has. And if you love her as a friend and want her to be happy, that should be good enough for you too, and her kids. At least they have an excuse to b.i.t.c.h for a while, Bill was their father. As her friends, we have no excuse to beat her up. How can you be so narrow-minded, just because he works in the music industry and has long hair and tattoos? Who cares? I'd go for him in a hot minute, and maybe you would too if you weren't married to Saint Brad."

Alyson had been deeply offended by what Jean said and hadn't spoken to her or Stephanie since, in about a week. Stephanie was letting her cool off and mellow out a bit, but Alyson really didn't understand the broader world, or men who weren't traditional or professionals and looked like Brad. She thought the whole world should be like them. And Brad and Alyson were fiercely loyal to Bill. Brad had told Alyson that he didn't approve of what Stephanie was doing either. He thought it was disrespectful to the memory of Bill for her to be dating so soon, and he thought her dating Chase was in terrible taste. His narrow-minded views dictated Alyson's, since she parroted everything he thought and said. She was the "perfect" wife, as Stephanie had been. But Steph couldn't do it anymore, and didn't want to. She had far more respect for Jean, who always said what she thought, whether Fred or other people liked it or not. Stephanie's friends.h.i.+p with Alyson had just taken a heavy hit. But Jean was still there, rooting for her, an outspoken voice of reason, well aware of the compromises and courage it took to get through life.

Stephanie told her about the incident of the broken vase in the living room, and how sad she was about it when she saw how distraught Charlotte was. "Maybe I should have waited a while to start moving things around, but it was so depressing. It looked like Bill was going to come home any minute. It felt like Groundhog Day. Nothing changed, except he never showed up."

"You can't live in a tomb, Steph. You did the right thing. And the simple fact is you live here and the kids don't. They want to breeze through here when they feel like it, pick up clean laundry and some cash, and find everything the same, particularly you, chained to the wall in your bedroom, waiting for them, even if they only show up for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Well, guess what, life doesn't work that way. Particularly for you, with Bill gone. You have every reason to change things and move on and get a life for yourself. You didn't have one with Bill. You had his life and theirs, and yours as their slave. Now you're free. Use it. My girls aren't much better about changing anything around here. The drapes in their old bedrooms were in shreds, so I replaced them last year. The girls had a fit when they came home for Christmas. And they're twenty-eight and twenty-nine years old, for chrissake, and who cares what color the drapes are? They hadn't been home in two years, since I go to Chicago to see them. But when they saw the drapes, they demanded I put the old ones back immediately!" Stephanie felt better as she listened. She always did with Jean. She was so reasonable and practical, and took s.h.i.+t from no one.

"So did you change the drapes back?"

"Of course not. I'd thrown them away. But even if I hadn't, I wouldn't. You have to move forward in life. You can't sit in the same place, unless you want to, that's a choice too. But you can't sit there because someone else says you have to, because your moving forward makes them uncomfortable. This is good for your kids, Steph. It tells them that no matter how much you loved someone, you have to move on. They do too. They can't expect you to sit there and be buried alive with him. That would be really scary. And I'd be worried about you. They're going to have to suck it up sooner or later."

"Well, the girls sure aren't ready to do that. It nearly broke my heart when I saw Charlotte sobbing in the living room, trying to move everything back. She was crying because she couldn't remember how it used to be."

"That's my point. And pretty soon the new way will seem normal. And so will Chase if they ever give him a chance. So when am I going to meet him?" She understood perfectly that she hadn't so far. They needed time alone together.

"The next time he's out here, I promise. He wants me to come to Nashville when Charlotte goes back to school." She sounded worried about it.

"And?" Jean could hear the hesitation in her friend's voice. Stephanie was honest about it.

"Here, we're kind of suspended between two worlds. We have nothing to do except be with each other, and we had a great time in L.A. But in Nashville he has a life, an empire to run, alb.u.ms to record, rehearsals, concerts, a thousand things to do every day. He takes me with him, but I fit into his life, it's not our life. I did that with Bill, and I don't want to do it again. I'm scared to lose me. I become no one except some kind of appendage in other people's lives."

"You're going to have that with any busy guy with a big career. Maybe Bill was particularly self-centered that everything had to be his way and about him, and Chase sounds like he makes a real effort to include you, for now at least. But he has a career, a big world, a huge, successful business. If I still cared and wanted a real life with Fred, I'd have to follow him around. Let's face it, he wouldn't be coming to Botox shots and the hairdresser with me. Sometimes you just have to accept that one person has a bigger life, and you have to go with it. Bill never paid attention to you, so you got lost in the shuffle. I don't get the feeling Chase would do that, from everything you've said."

"Maybe not." Stephanie was pensive. She was thinking a lot about it, and what she had to contribute to their life, and Jean had a point about his career and her having to adapt to him. "He said I could handle PR for him if I come to Nashville."

"So?"

"That's just a made-up job, like helping him write lyrics. He's doing fine without me."

"Then get a real job in Nashville. But wherever you are, if you're with a big successful guy, you're going to have to accommodate his career. It won't work otherwise. The same would be true if you had a busier career than his. The secret is to find someone who is reasonable about it, not like Bill, who never paid attention to you or cared what you thought as long as you did what he wanted, or Brad, who expects Alyson to be some kind of drone. I think reasonable is the operative word here. Fred was pretty good about it, until he started s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g every bimbo in town. He'd be a decent husband if he could keep his pants on. Maybe that's why I stick around. I actually used to like him. It's not just about the money." Stephanie always suspected that was true, although there was so much bitterness and distance between them now that they really didn't have a marriage, and neither of them made any effort to bridge the gap. Their roles had been set in stone for years. He chased women, and she spent money. But they were both good people. Stephanie was sad for them that things had turned out as they had. And Jean had made the valid point that she would have to adapt to any man's career, since she didn't have one of her own. Her career had been Bill and their kids. She just didn't want to trade it in now and have her career be Chase. She had to have an ident.i.ty of her own. She was getting there, but the cake wasn't baked yet. She was still in the oven. And it was a shaky time for her to be making big life changes. She didn't want to do anything prematurely. They had waited to sleep together and that had felt right. Now she needed time to adjust to the rest. But Chase wasn't pus.h.i.+ng. He just missed her. And she missed him.

After Charlotte's outburst in the living room on the first day, she looked up all her friends and was hardly home after that. She was out all day, went to her friends' homes almost every night. She went to Tahoe for a weekend, went camping for two days in Yosemite, and Stephanie almost never saw her. She flew through the house, and they never had a meal together. Stephanie finally caught five minutes with her in the kitchen when she was waiting to be picked up to go to a concert at the Oakland Coliseum.

"Do you want to get a manicure together tomorrow?" Stephanie asked her pleasantly. Charlotte had been home for a week, and Stephanie wanted to spend at least a little time with her.

"I can't. I'm going to Sonoma. Heather's parents have a new house there."

"What about the next day?"

"I don't have time, Mom." She had kept a wall up between them. Officially, it was about Chase, but partially it was her age, and she was still mourning her father. And she blamed her mother for everything on the planet, mostly because she was alive and Bill wasn't. "I want to see my friends while everybody's still home. This is our last summer. Next year after we graduate, everyone will be working, and n.o.body will come home, and I probably won't either." Stephanie wanted to say "What about me?" but she didn't. Charlotte was driving the point home that she wanted to spend her time with her friends, not with her mother.

Two days later she was looking for something in a drawer when Charlotte walked into her bedroom.

"Do you know where my tennis racket went?" Charlotte asked her, looking annoyed. She had discovered that her mother had moved the contents of the closets around too, and she didn't like it, even though it seemed to work better. And she'd noticed that some of her father's things were gone, like the old sports equipment he no longer used, and a set of barbells that had been rusting in the garage for years.

"I moved all our sports stuff to the bas.e.m.e.nt closets," Stephanie said over her shoulder as Charlotte wandered toward her father's dressing room with a sad look. Stephanie didn't say a word as she watched her, and Charlotte opened a door and saw that the closet was empty. One by one she pulled them all open, and saw her mother's winter coats in one, some evening gowns in another. But her father's clothes were gone. She turned to her mother with a look of horror.

"What did you do?" she asked in a choked voice. "Where are Daddy's clothes?" She acted as though her mother had committed a sacrilege, and Stephanie's face was as pale as her daughter's when she answered.

"I gave them away, Char. I had to. I couldn't live with them staring at me in the face every day. I have to live here." Her daughter said not a word, she turned on her heel and strode out of the room, and a moment later Stephanie heard the front door slam, and the car Charlotte was using drive away. It didn't matter what Stephanie did anymore, she was always wrong. Any sign of life or change or even healing on Stephanie's part was treated as a crime. There was no question in her mind now. They wanted to bury her with him. And as long as she refused to lie in the grave with him, they would hate her.

She talked to Dr. Zeller about it the next time she saw her, and they agreed that to some degree it was normal. Still, her children appeared to be carrying it to an extreme degree, and Chase was such an easy target for their anger at their mother.

"Whatever I do is wrong," Stephanie said unhappily with tears running down her cheeks. "It's not like I've forgotten their father. I haven't. I loved him. But he's gone, and the truth is for at least the last ten years, we had a lousy marriage."

"Then why do you feel so guilty about moving on?" her therapist challenged her, and Stephanie thought about it.

"Maybe because they're so angry at me."

"Or because you think you don't deserve a better life?" Stephanie thought about it for a long time, and then nodded, and blew her nose.

"He never cared about what I thought, or what I wanted. He never asked me. Nothing I said ever made a difference. And now the kids treat me the same way. They don't care that I love Chase and he loves me and he's a great guy. I'm just supposed to sit here and pretend I'm still married to their father. Well, I don't want to be. I did it. It's over. But they won't let it be."

"Some of that is normal behavior on their part. Most young people really don't care how their parents feel. Parents are a vehicle to meet their needs. And some of their anger over their father's death is normal too. But he set a bad example in how he treated you, and you're trying to change that. It's also normal that they don't like that. Change is hard. But you can't let it stop you from leading your life. You have a right to a new relations.h.i.+p, and if it's the one you want, you have a right to move forward. They'll adjust in time, despite the stridency of their accusations now. You have to seize opportunities as they come along. You can't let them stop you." Stephanie nodded, and then told her about her concerns about Chase's life in Nashville.

"He has a huge career. I don't know how I'd fit in. Or if I'd lose my ident.i.ty the way I did with Bill. Chase is larger than life."

"You can't lose your ident.i.ty unless you give it up. No one can take it from you," she reminded her. "And I don't think you'd do that again. Bill and Chase also sound like very different people. Bill was much more autocratic with you, and sounds pretty inconsiderate and indifferent. Chase is always trying to find ways to include you." What she said was true, and as always, gave Stephanie food for thought when she left her office.

But in spite of what the shrink had said, Stephanie had another big fight with Charlotte that night, because Stephanie wanted to sell Bill's car. No one used it, or ever would. Seeing it every day depressed her, but having it in the garage rea.s.sured Charlotte. It was part of the fantasy that her father was still there and would come back to drive it.

"I won't sell it now," Stephanie finally agreed after a two-hour battle that led back to the closets and Chase and even the rusty weights she'd gotten rid of. "But we have to sooner or later. It's just going to sit there." And she didn't think keeping it was healthy for her, or the kids. He wasn't coming back, for the car or anything else. They had to face it. But they weren't ready, and she was. She was willing to defer selling the car for a while, but not forever. It was a minor victory for Charlotte. They were all fighting to crawl back into the womb of life with their father. And Stephanie wanted to cut the cord. Their needs were different and a constant cause of conflict now.

Charlotte agreed to have dinner with her mother a few days before she left. Stephanie tried to pick a place she'd like. Charlotte wanted the days after that to spend with her friends. And by the time Stephanie drove her to the airport on the day she left, Stephanie felt as though they'd hardly seen each other. It had been a tough summer, full of change and arguments between them. Louise was barely speaking to her, and still angry whenever Stephanie called her. She preferred to send her texts.

Charlotte had opted to stay in the dorms again at NYU, although she had debated about getting an apartment with friends. But her best friends were still in the dorms, so she decided to stay there too. It was exciting to be going back for senior year, and Stephanie was happy for her, and sad that they had spent so little time together, but she knew it couldn't be any different. Charlotte wouldn't let it.

Stephanie hugged her before she went through security, and Charlotte turned back once to wave and smiled at her mother. And much to Stephanie's amazement, she shouted "Love you, Mom!" They were the only kind words Stephanie had heard from her all month. She wondered if what they were going through was just a process, and their way of mourning Bill. Maybe they had to be angry at their mother to get through it. For just an instant, Charlotte looked like the little girl she had been, and then she was gone, and Stephanie drove back to the city. And it was peaceful and calm when she got back to the house. No doors were slamming, no one was shouting or angry at her. No one was staring at her accusingly and telling her what a monster she was, what bad taste she had, or how terrible she looked in a dress or a pair of shorts. It was blissfully peaceful, which made her sad. She had never been happy to see any of her children leave before, and this time she was. The house just wasn't big enough for them both.

Chase called her an hour later. "Is she gone?"

"I came back an hour ago, and I hate to say it, it's a relief." Thinking about it, she was dreading Thanksgiving and Christmas, when she and Louise would both be home, constantly angry and accusing her of something. "Who ever said having kids was easy?" she said with a rueful smile, as she sat down in her kitchen, enjoying the peace and silence. It was no longer lonely, it was a vast improvement over the tension of the past month.

"How soon can you get your gorgeous a.s.s down here?" He couldn't wait to see her, and the following weekend was Labor Day weekend. He was playing a concert in Memphis and wanted her to come with him. "And I want you to stay as long as you can this time. You don't have to rush back." And she realized it was lucky she hadn't found a job yet, or she couldn't have gone at all. Maybe Jean was right, and the less busy person had to accommodate the busier one. It made sense. "Can you come tomorrow?" She smiled at how anxious he was to see her. She couldn't wait to see him too, but she was tired and discouraged after her month with Charlotte and her constant accusations and attacks. It had been incredibly stressful. She felt like she'd lost both her daughters as well as Bill.

"Give me a day to get organized here. How about if I come the day after tomorrow, on Tuesday?"

"Fantastic. I'll book the ticket." She had to fly to Atlanta on Delta and change planes, and he apologized that there was no first cla.s.s, only business.

"I don't care. You can have them throw me in with the luggage. I'll be there," she said, smiling. For the month of her daughter's abuse, it had been hard to keep the joyful feeling in their relations.h.i.+p, but Chase hadn't missed a beat, and he was waiting for her now, with a voice filled with excitement.

"I've missed you, Stevie. I can't wait to see you."

"Me too," she said, smiling. And for the first time in a month, she didn't feel guilty. She couldn't wait to hold him and kiss him and love him, and he felt that way too. And she knew that she had earned it.

She called Jean and told her she was leaving in two days. She left a message for her therapist, canceling her appointment and told her why, that she was going to Nashville. And she told the shelter she would be gone for a while and would let them know when she was back. And she didn't call Alyson, because she didn't want to listen to her accusations either, about what she felt Stephanie owed Bill and shouldn't be doing. And she went upstairs to pack. She was about to do what Chase said was his big philosophy of life. She was going to seize the moment and the day that life was offering her. Carpe diem!

Chapter 22.

When Stephanie landed at the Nashville International Airport, Chase was waiting for her as soon as she left the gate area, and he swept her off her feet and spun her around so hard she was dizzy. People watching them smiled even before they realized who he was. And they stood kissing, as people walked around them.

"OhmyG.o.d! I'm so happy to see you!" he said, with an arm around her waist as she beamed. She was just as happy to see him, and felt as though she hadn't seen him in years, instead of just a month while Charlotte was home. And even his dogs welcomed her when they got to the car. He put her two suitcases in the trunk, and stood holding her again for a long moment as they kissed. And then they got in the car to go home. She could hardly wait to be back at his house. He had ordered two huge flower arrangements for her, and there was a bottle of champagne chilling in the kitchen. He couldn't do enough for her.

He played some of the new songs he'd written when they wandered into the studio, and she loved them. And as they sipped the champagne, Sandy bounded into the kitchen and threw her arms around Stevie. It was exactly the opposite of what she was experiencing with her daughters. All the girls did was accuse and criticize her right now. Sandy was thrilled to see her, and Stephanie gave her a huge hug and kissed her on the cheek, and then looked at her in a conspiratorial, motherly way. A lot had happened since she'd last seen her.

"So how are things going with Michael?" According to him, things had never been better, and Sandy seemed that way too. She was shy and momentarily embarra.s.sed when she answered.

"He's so good to me, not like Bobby Joe, or any of the others. He takes real good care of me, Stevie. He's so respectful, and we're so happy together." Stephanie was happy to hear it. Sandy deserved it. She was young, but she was a woman, and she had lived a lot for her age, on the road with her father, and now with Chase, dealing with her own career, its demands and discipline, and learning the ropes of the music business. There was a lot of pressure on her, and she was a sweet person. And it was easy for Stephanie to see why Michael loved her. They were some of the same reasons why she loved Chase-they were real, decent, honest, hard-working, bright, good people. There was a real dignity and integrity to them, a kind of natural n.o.bility that she had come to have a deep respect for, and Michael had discovered too. Stephanie was happy that Michael and Sandy had found each other and had had the wisdom and courage to grab what they'd been offered. And when she saw her son that weekend, the happiness she saw in his eyes confirmed it. He had grown into his manhood over the summer, and she loved the way he treated Sandy. It was obvious how in love they were, just like her and Chase. There was nothing but good vibes around them, not like the tension and manipulations Stephanie had always sensed with Amanda. He tried to come up every weekend, and Stephanie was thrilled to see him, as a bonus for her.

Stephanie and Chase had had a busy week in Nashville before they got on the jet he had chartered to go to Memphis, just as he had when they went to Graceland. The others were going on the bus, but Chase wanted to get there more quickly. He had a dozen deals hanging fire at the moment, and he wanted some time alone with Stevie. He talked to her about what he was doing, and asked for her advice. Although she'd never had reason to use it professionally, he found she had a good head for business and a commonsense, pragmatic way of a.n.a.lyzing things, and she was creative about coming up with alternate solutions he hadn't thought of. They complemented each other well, and she was fascinated by his career. There was no aspect of his life he didn't share with her, in sharp contrast to Bill, who had never told her what he was doing and acted as though she wouldn't understand if he talked to her about work. He always implied that the only thing she could do was take care of kids, and he had other people to talk to about his work.