Page 12 of First Moon

“Are you a lone wolf?”

“I don’t think so. My band’s family. I have a little sister, Luci, who I’m close with. She’s a pediatrician. Runs a clinic for low-income kids outside of Nashville and can barely make her rent, but won’t let me help. My mom’s still back in the Pacific Northwest where I’m from. When I started making money, I bought her a little house on the Oregon coast. That’s where she wanted to be, even though I tried to talk her into Nashville. She can’t take the humidity out here.”

“Is it true that you and Rhett grew up together?”

“Yeah, that’s right. He lived two trailers down from us. Father was a drunk, so my mom took care of him most of the time too.”

“What about your dad?”

“He left when I was eight. Took off with some girl on the back of his motorcycle. Never came back.

“That must have been hard,” I said.

“It was, yeah. But I had Mom, Luci, and Rhett. We looked out for one another. You know he’s the one who entered me into the singing competition, right?”

“Sure, that’s country music lore.”

“Rhett believed in me more than I believed in myself. He and Luci had to listen to all my first attempts at songwriting, God bless ‘em. When we graduated high school, Rhett went off to college and got a degree in business. When I won the competition, he started working with me. The man’s a shark. A strategic shark. My career is because of Rhett and Madeleine.”

“And because you’re talented and hard-working,” I said. “If you weren’t, no matter what they did, you wouldn’t be where you are today.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that’s true.”

“Imposter syndrome,” I said. “If it can get you, then the rest of us are doomed.”

“Most of the time I’m okay. But there are nights, when I’m here alone with just Oscar, I start thinking about all the things that could go wrong. How many people I’d let down.”

“Do you feel like you have to take care of everyone?” I asked. “The band? Your mom and Luci?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Do you ever feel tired?”

“Sometimes. Scared too. Like what if it all just ends? Poof.”

“That’s unlikely. I assume you’ve got some money in savings?”

“Without a doubt. But I mean the music. An album flops. Songs stop charting. Pretty soon I’m a has-been playing country fairs. And all these folks who rely on me? I’ll have let them down.”

“You don’t have to take care of the whole world.”

“But I have to take care of my whole world,” Jack said.

“I’m sorry you feel that burden.”

“What about you?” Jack asked. “Who are you taking care of?”

“No one. My mama and daddy won’t take any help from me,” I said. “My best friend’s Madeleine, so you know how that works. I’m the youngest of four—three older brothers—but they’re all independent. Taking anything from their younger sister would be sacrilege. They still think of me as a baby.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Mama was afraid I’d never learn to walk because one of them was always carrying me around. Then, when school was hard for me, Beau used to write my papers and Waylon spent hours with me on math. But it didn’t matter. I still couldn’t get through school.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you I have a secret. It’s a doozy.”

“Yeah? Lay it on me.”