Page 36 of Hauling Ashe

“Grandfather asked me to come home and marry her.”

“Where were you?” Mae asks, and I pick at the spread beside me.

“I was in California.” The band was on its way. We’d had a few hits, although our second album wasn’t selling like the first. We needed something that made us unique. Made us different. Although, I didn’t want to sell out and become something I wasn’t. I’d already tried that.

“And you went home, to Chicago.”

I shrug, mimicking my new friend. “I married her.” Simpler said than our marriage was in reality. I hadn’t done it for money. I did it for Grandfather. Her father was a potential investor in Ashford’s, and they needed the capital to continue to grow, to continue their worldwide expansion. My father had been key in acquisitions and development of properties. Upon his death, Grandfather panicked. His son, a chief business developer, was gone, and he’d impregnated the daughter of a major investor as well as a long-standing family friend.

Field Stevens would not have appreciated the infidelity his friend committed with his precious daughter. It was bad enough he thought I’d slept with his princess out of wedlock. He never put together the fact I was in California while she was in Chicago, but we stuck to the story that I’d slept with her in my grief around the time of my parents’ funeral service. Her father was none the wiser when Jude was born too early to match up with the timing.

“And you gave up a dream to be a father.”

“Something like that,” I state, staring down at the black screen of my phone.

“What else could it be?”

There was so much more to the story. How I’d always admired my grandfather. He believed in me, and I trusted that faith. He thought I could be someone special in the music industry. When he asked me to come home, I misunderstood it as a temporary setback, not a permanent end.

“What was your dream?” Mae asks.

I close my eyes a second before opening to meet her eyes. She’s only asking for the truth. She won’t even recognize who I am if I share the details with her.

“I was in a band. We were on our way.” I lift a hand, mocking myself as I wave it like the upward trajectory on a graph.

Mae perches on an elbow, facing me. “You were a rock star?”

“Something like that,” I say again, scoffing as star might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but we were definitely rising, up-and-coming according to the charts. We had a decent mix, a distinct sound, but one that wasn’t unique enough.

“That makes sense,” Mae suddenly says, dipping her eyes to my naked chest and the medal I wear.

“What makes sense?”

“You have the whole rock star vibe going on here.” She waves a hand up and down at my upper body and I chuckle. Mae isn’t starstruck, but she’s ogling me, and heat creeps over my skin. Her appraisal is a nice sensation. She isn’t looking at me because she knew, she’s looking at me because she didn’t.

“So, you quit the band,” she clarifies.

“I quit the band.” I struggle to control the wobble in my voice.

Instantly, I remember saying the damning words to Lawson and Denton, both of whom stared at me in shock. In some dingy recording studio, when we could not have splurged for a nicer one, I spilled the news. Our second album wasn’t selling. We’d agreed to merge with Lawson’s sister and hire on a young drummer named Hank Paige. Everything was happening so fast, but we hadn’t had a single practice together as the new group.

I quit.

They didn’t need the details. It was too complicated to explain. In hindsight, I was only twenty-three. I recall the pressure in my chest and the lump in my throat like it was yesterday. Saying the words nearly broke me. I never expected music to leave me, but it did. I swore I’d never quit anything again. Not my marriage. Not fatherhood. Not future business endeavors.

“When did your wife die?” Mae asks, interrupting the memory.

“Three years ago.”

Mae remains quiet another second, and I expect her next question to be, how?

Instead, she simply says, “I’m sorry that happened to you.” She hesitates and her eyes roam down my body. If ever I thought Mae might hug me, this is the moment. I almost see her struggle. She wants to reach for me. Or maybe I just want her to pull me into her. Strangely, I want her comfort.

“There’s still time to mend the relationship with your son,” she says next, as if I haven’t mentioned the band or the details of Jude’s birth.

“Your boys will come around, too.” Isn’t that how this conversation started? Mae only wanted reassurance her boys will grow out of a phase, and I’d exposed more than she asked for. My father certainly hoped I’d grow out of the phase that he believed music was for me. His wish was granted, only he’d gone about destroying that dream in ways I’d never anticipated.

Mae waves a hand and pffts. “They’re just assholes.”