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It’s thirty minutes to showtime and I’m the only one backstage. I saw a glimpse of Daniel and Carter heading out into the pit a little bit ago to get set up, but no sign of Walker or the rest of Whisper Me Nothings.
I get a zing of excitement when I think about watching them perform tonight and seeing Walker out there onstage and not just in a recording studio.
About to slip my headphones on to get focused for the show, I feel my phone buzzing in my pants pocket. Thought I left this in the greenroom already.
Pulling it out, I see the name Beth bright and flashing across the screen.
What the hell…
I give it another few vibrates, debating if I want to answer or not. A war rages inside me, to answer or not to answer, part of me wanting to hear my sister’s voice and the other part dreading it, and at the last moment, I make a split-second decision and hit accept.
“Hello?” I hate how quiet my voice sounds.
“Scarlett! I’m…happy you answered,” Beth says, surprise evident in her tone, but she doesn’t necessarily sound relieved by the notion.
“Are you?”
“Yes, sorry.” She sighs. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Good to hear yours too, sis,” I admit. I haven’t seen her since her wedding, but we kept in touch for a bit after, trying to build some sort of adult relationship outside of the confines of our parents’ house. But those check-ins stalled almost two years ago and I have no one to blame but myself.
“I know you have a show tonight, so I’ll make this quick. I wanted to call to invite you home for Ruth’s baptism.”
My stomach hits the floor.
“Now before you say no, it’s not for a few months yet as Christopher’s mother has been going through chemo treatments and we want her to be present as well. Ruth will almost be one year old at that point, but it’s worth it to wait to be able to have her there. And I saw on your social media page that some additional dates were added to the tour you’re on, and the show in Charlotte lines up perfectly with her baptism so I was thinking you could hopefully drive home for the day, before you have to get back.”
I don’t correct her that it’s not my home anymore. And I don’t ask her when the hell she joined social media. Wonder what her fellow congregation members think about that one.
Beth rattles on with more details, explaining her perfectly cultivated plan that pulls the noose tighter and tighter the more loopholes she closes. By the time she finishes telling me the ideal timeline she has laid out that would not only allow me to attend my niece’s baptism at the church that never once felt like a safe space to me but also a dinner with our parents, my knees feel ready to buckle and my eyes dry as sandpaper.
“Scarlett?” Beth asks in that soft, sickening sweet voice that she was trained to have. The same voice my mother possesses.
I shake my head, gears turning, trying to find a way out.
“I’d have to check with Vik to see if I can get away. They have me pretty busy with interviews or studio time during the days and we don’t usually have much downtime in one city to be able to take an entire day trip.”
She doesn’t need to know that I’m actually staring down almost a week off once we fly out tomorrow to meet back up with the buses. It’s not a lie. But I also don’t actually know if Vik has anything else on the calendar yet for that day. But Beth doesn’t need to know that.
“Of course,” she says. “Check with your management and then let me know as soon as you’re able to.”
I’ll beg Vik to find something to keep my schedule busy.
“But promise me you’ll try.” Her voice changes, taking on a seriousness I didn’t know she was capable of. “She’s your niece. And you didn’t even come for the birth.”
A sharp pain slices through my chest at that, regret clogging my throat. But there was no way I could’ve gone back there then. I was too fragile, too early on in my sobriety.
I love my sister, I truly do. When my parents and our community looked down upon me, iced me out when I refused to sit down, shut up, and pray, Beth never did. She also never stood up for me, but I knew she was conflicted, and unlike everyone else, I’d never ask her to pick sides.
She wanted the life we were born to grow into, the happy wife and sweet mother, content to follow her husband's lead and raise godly children. I would never try to take that away from her, or stain her in their eyes because of her support for me.
Although I would be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt me that she never stepped in when our father would spend hours lecturing me, berating me until I broke down into tears of frustration and hurt, not only at him and everything he was trying to force me to be, but also angry at myself. Why couldn’t I just believe everything he said? Why was it so hard for me to be subservient and docile, like my mother and sister and the other women around me?
But that’s just not who Beth is. It probably didn’t even cross her mind to try to defend me, and in doing so, challenge our father. That’s not what women were taught to do in the community we were raised in.
“I’m truly sorry I missed that. And that I haven’t met her yet,” I say honestly, voice cracking and tears beginning to burn at the back of my eyes that I will to go away. “Look, Beth, I’ve gotta go. But I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees, satisfied that I didn’t immediately refuse and hang up.
