Kendra Kendrick was my future. I knew it as sure as I knew that I’d been born to play guitar, write songs, and sing my ass off. She would understand why I had to go, and would have encouraged me, if I’d had the time to talk to her first. I sat there playing my guitar on the flight that would take me out of her life for a little while. I just hoped that she knew I’d be right back on another one once the ink was dry on the contracts.
“How’s the writing coming, son?”
“Flyin’ Away,” I said to my new manager. He didn’t seem convinced until I started playing him the song that I’d been toying with since I was swept up and away from Kendra. It started off with a smooth, easy melody and I could see the doubt on his face since I was just signed to become the next best thing in rock-n-roll. I grinned just before the melody dropped off and the chorus picked up with a single line as I made Betty Lou sing right along with me as I wailed out the rest. Betty Lou was my guitar, and the reason I’d been signed. I could make her sing notes in such a way that people could have sworn a person was behind the sound instead of a guitar. It was a specialty of mine taught to me by the uncle that had left Betty Lou in my lap as a young, impressionable eight-year-old. That particular uncle hadn’t stuck around too long, but he was there just long enough to give me the gift of music. That’s all I needed.
Ten years later, this chance was all I needed, and once we got these tracks down, I’d be able to go back for Kendra so we could live out that happily ever after that we’d been dreaming about. Her family said I was from the wrong side of the tracks according to her family, but I was going to do right by my woman. This was my chance. It was also the only way I’d ever be able to prove that I was enough for her.
At least that’s what I thought at the time, which I guess, is why they say hindsight is a bitch. Turns out, it was all a colossal fucking mistake.
1 – A Son
19 years later
My mom was gone, and I was still trying to wrap my head around that when I got back to my hometown near Atlanta, Georgia. What the hell was I supposed to do with this news? It wasn’t like she was ever the super supportive motherly type. She made sure I lived through my childhood and not much else. Still, I felt the need to come back and see to everything myself. It wasn’t even that it was expected of me. I’d managed to keep my mother out of the limelight once my career took off. That happened only by paying her off so that she would stay in the shadows and keep my pathetic life story from gaining any unwanted attention. Most of the people in my life knew about the relationship we had, so no one truly expected me to be here to bury her. Still, I strived to be a better person.
My manager was one of those snakes who was more a cautionary tale of how not to live one’s life. He was no better than the barely present mother I’d had and was pissed that any time was shaved off my schedule to see the last piece of my family on this Earth. That was the reason I was here. Ultimately, I needed to prove to myself that life hadn’t tainted me so much that my humanity was gone down the drain along with everyone else’s.
Fuck.
My stomach twisted just knowing that this was the town where my heart had been broken, the love of my life lost, and now the town where I was about to bury my mother. I wondered if I’d see her, if she had a family now, if she was happy. Maybe she would hate me. I left her messages, but she moved on so quickly from me that it didn’t seem like those messages would have mattered whether she got them or not. For years, I had debated on whether or not it was a good idea to try to contact her again. I even went so far as to hire a private investigator. Couldn’t ever bring