The Present

“I don’t think I can do this,” I murmured to my best friend, Eli Renard. I’d echoed the same sentiment to him many years ago when we were just teenagers. But this time my apprehension didn’t revolve around singing in front of a crowd filled with strangers. This time I faced a sanctuary overflowing with family and friends. Although they were people who loved and cared for me, I still couldn’t bear the thought of facing them. Feeling their eyes boring into my skin through my newly purchased black dress—my widow’s weeds as it were. While most of their gazes would echo their sympathy and pity, there would be others who inwardly wouldn’t be so kind. How is she able to bear it? Why, if I’d just lost my husband, I would be locked away in the insane asylum.

If only it were that easy. If only I could have bottled all the sadness, rage, and devastation that had been coursing through me into a nervous breakdown. God knows I wanted to curl up and die. I didn’t know how to put one foot in front of the other without the man I’d loved beside me.

Jack Wallace was the sun of my world—everything revolved around him both personally and professionally. He’d been the knight who’d swooped in to give me a life I’d only dared to dream of. Before Jack, I’d been just Emersyn—a girl with a voice and stage presence but no purpose or direction. With him, I’d become part of a duet—a girl with a partner both on and off stage.

In the music world, I’d been a nobody before Jack—just another Belmont music graduate waiting tables on Music Row. While he’d established himself as a prolific and successful songwriter in Nashville, he’d never recorded any of the songs he penned. During interviews, he was always asked why he never formed a band. With a knowing smile, he would glance over at me. “I was waiting for my songbird.”

For five years, two hundred and thirty-two days, and twelve hours, I was Jack’s songbird. But my voice had been silenced when a pounding at the door woke me from a dead sleep. Flying high among the clouds, his wings had been clipped, and his star had fallen to the earth.

And I was alone.

Panic once again twisted its way through my chest, and I fought to breathe. When my wild eyes darted around the room for an escape, Eli pulled me to him, enveloping me into his caring, compassionate embrace. “Easy now, Sonny. Take a deep breath.”

At his words, I once again had a flashback of that day so many years ago when we had stood together on the somewhat rickety, thrown-together stage at the Selena tribute. His strength, as well as his belief in me, had gotten me through that day.

To many, Eli came across as being light-hearted and lacking seriousness, but he had a depth to him that most people never imagined. He had parlayed part of that depth into a very successful music career. His country-rock band, Jacob’s Ladder, played to sold out arenas and racked up numerous awards.

But greater than all the professional accolades was the person within. He doles heaps of love and compassion to his friends, family, and anyone who might need it. Eli is a man who wouldn’t stop at just giving you the shirt or coat off his back. After meeting the immediate physical need, he would ensure that he was there emotionally as well. Although he always rolled his eyes when I said it, he would have had made a really great minister.

Even when life tried to sever our bond by taking our lives in completely different directions, Eli remained a constant in my life. We maintained our friendship through late night phone calls, funny birthday cards, and the occasional meetup. While I had countless girlfriends who I gossiped with while drinking wine, none of them came close to the level of intimacy I felt with Eli.

At the first word of Jack’s death, he had commandeered a private plane belonging to his brother-in-law’s band to arrive at my side within a few hours. While at the hospital, I refused to talk to anyone but Jack’s and my parents, but I saw Eli. When I exasperated everyone else with my refusal to eat or drink, he had climbed in bed with me and spoon-fed me soup. Through my almost catatonic state of grief, he had talked and joked with me about the past. His was the first face I remembered when I finally broke through my grief.

That had been a week ago. In some ways it felt like just yesterday, and in others, it felt like an eternity. Thankfully, Jacob’s Ladder had been off the road, so Eli was able to stay with me.

Eli’s breath fanned against my cheek. “While you might not feel like you can do this, I know you can.”

I shook my head furiously against his chest. “No. I can’t. Not this.”

“You’re stronger than anyone I know. You always have been.”

“Even steel has its breaking point,” I countered.

Eli paused his hand in running comforting circles over my back. Taking me by the shoulders, he pushed me back to where he could look me in the eye. “If there was any way I could take this pain from you, I would. Part of me wants to give in to your wild thoughts and take you away from all of this. For us to just bypass the funeral and run away. To climb into my car and drive somewhere that no one knows us.”

I pinched my eyes shut. “I’d give anything to do that,” I whispered.

“But we can’t.”

My eyes popped open to see Eli staring forlornly at me. Although I knew the answer, I still pleaded, “But why not?”

“Because today isn’t about how you or I feel. It’s about Jack.”

Eli was right. Regardless of the crippling fear and torment I found myself in, today wasn’t about me. It was about honoring Jack’s memory. I would have walked across a field of fiery coals to ensure that Jack received the funeral he deserved. While I might’ve entertained moments of grief-fueled selfishness, I would never let it define today.

“Yes, you’re right,” I acknowledged. I leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for making me see the light.”

“You really didn’t need me to do that. The farthest you would have gotten would have been to your car. You would have never really left.”

“I appreciate you believing in me so much.”

A compassionate smile curved on his lips. “I always have, and I always will.” His hand came to brush against my cheek. “Through the good times and the bad.”

“My ride or die Eli,” I mused.

“Damn straight.”

As I stared into Eli’s eyes, I had a brief respite from my grief. For a moment, I focused only on some of the happiest times of my childhood, if not my life. But it was only fleeting, and once again, the choking pain gripped my chest. “It’d be one thing if I just had to get through the service. But speaking in front of everyone…” I shuddered.

“Just imagine that you’re on stage at a show.”

“That’s going to be kinda hard to do without my fiddle or guitar.”

“Well, it’s the only suitable advice I can give you for the moment. Normally, I would tell someone who was nervous about public speaking to loosen up by imagining the audience naked. But I’m pretty sure that would be completely inappropriate at the moment.”

I laughed at the absurdity of his statement. “Yeah, I don’t think that is going to work this time.” Glancing down at the index cards in my hand, I shook my head. “Nothing I’m going to say will be enough. Jack was the one with the words, not me.”

“Fancy words and phrases really don’t mean shit. I’m sure you spoke from the heart.”

Thrusting out the cards to him, I said, “See for yourself.”

While Eli glanced at the eulogy, we were interrupted by the funeral director. “Mrs. Wallace, we’re almost ready to start. But first, I’d like to check the details just to make sure everything flows smoothly and correctly.”

“Um, okay.” I tried as best I could to give him my full attention as he read from a bulleted list on his iPad.

Once I confirmed everything was correct, he nodded. “Good. Now if you’ll come with me, I’ll get you in place at the front of the line, and we’ll start the procession into the sanctuary.”

When I turned to Eli, he handed my cards back. “It’s beautiful.”

“You’d say that even if it were a steaming pile of crap,” I countered.

He grinned. “Nah, if I thought it was crap, I would have ripped up the cards, forcing you to truly speak from the heart. But you don’t need that.” He leaned in to give me a hug. “You’ve got this, Sonny.”

Squeezing him tight, I replied, “You don’t know how much I want to believe that.”

“Well, you better believe it. I mean, when was the last time I was wrong about something?”

I gave a bark of a laugh as I pulled away from Eli. “In your ego-inflated world, I would wager never.”

“Hey, you can’t fault me for telling the truth.”

When the funeral director impatiently cleared his throat, I said, “You’re coming back to the house after the burial, right?”

“I’m here for you today and tomorrow and as long as you need me.”

Overwhelmed by his compassion, I could merely nod. I then followed the funeral director through the crowd to where Jack’s parents and brother stood. Although Jack’s loss united us in grief, we had each loved him in a different way. Our separate mourning somewhat isolated us from being of comfort to each other. I had lost a husband of five years, but Jack’s parents and brother had lost their son of thirty-five years and a brother of thirty-three years. The wall between us was why I was grateful my mother came to my side and slipped a comforting arm around my waist.

It was with her physical strength and Eli’s words of comfort that I found myself able to put one foot in front of the other. As I made my way down the carpeted hallway toward the sanctuary, images flickered in my mind of Jack’s and my time together. The first night we’d met when I waited on him at the restaurant where I was working. Our first date when he’d taken me on a backstage tour of the Grand Old Opry. The night he’d proposed at the Bluebird Café.

When the funeral director opened the sanctuary doors, the sickeningly-sweet smell of the floral arrangements filled my nose. A thunderous pounding filled the room as everyone rose from their seats. Refusing to look at anyone, I kept my chin tucked to my chest as I made my way down the aisle.

Once I took my seat, my gaze fell on the mahogany casket at the front of the altar. For the last few days, I couldn’t process that Jack could possibly be inside the casket. Although I’d been assured the only injury Jack had sustained was a broken neck, I still couldn’t bring myself to view his body. I wanted to remember him the way he had looked when he’d kissed me goodbye before leaving for the airport to be the copilot of his friend’s single engine plane.

But not viewing Jack’s body led me to cling to a ridiculous idea that he would somehow show up with a smile and tell me the police had been wrong. That sweet, escapist thought was dashed to pieces when I finally asked for the lid to be opened this morning. It seemed as if the remaining pieces of my broken heart disintegrated into dust at the sight of his cold, lifeless form.

A blanket of beautiful red roses covered the top. It reminded me of our last Valentine’s Day. When I’d come up the stairs of our tour bus, I’d found dozens upon dozens of red roses decorating every available space. We’d ended up making love on the petals that littered the bed.

My father’s voice cut through my pain-filled haze. “On behalf of both Jack’s family and ours, we want to thank you all for coming to celebrate the life of Jack Wallace. For my wife and me, Jack was more than just a famous face or our daughter’s employer. He was our son-in-law. He was the man we hoped would be the father of our grandchildren, and the one our daughter would grow old with—”

The sentiments of what never would be caused me to lose it. Doubling over at the waist, I sobbed unabashedly. My mother’s arm came around me, but it did little to comfort me. Nothing could comfort me except waking up to find all of this had just been a horrible nightmare.

As I slowly came back to myself, I used the embroidered handkerchief my mother had given me to wipe my eyes. At the strumming of a guitar, I raised my head. Eli, along with Gabe and Abby, had taken the stage. Although there were numerous acts I could have asked to perform, Jacob’s Ladder was the only one that felt right. One of Jack’s favorite artists from his childhood was Vince Gill. It seemed only right to have Go Rest High on that Mountain performed.

“I know your life on earth was troubled,” Eli began.

I’d been a ten-year-old girl the first time I heard Eli Renard sing. Even then I’d been touched by the beautiful timbre of his voice. Puberty had lowered his range, enhancing what was already so good. I once thought I could listen to him sing for days on end. But in this moment, I wanted to plug my fingers in my ears and drown him out. The lyrics coupled with his voice fanned the fires of my suffering. I heaved a sigh of relief when the song was over.

My father stood up once again. “And now Emersyn would like to say a few words about her husband.” Walking to the end of the pulpit, he held out his hand for me. Taking a deep breath, I rose off the bench.

While my knees knocked together from fear, I gritted my teeth and pushed myself forward. It seemed like I walked a mile, rather than a few feet, to get to my father. After slipping my hand into his, he helped climb up into the pulpit.

When I placed the eulogy cards on the lectern, I gasped. On the very first card, a smiling sun had been doodled into the right-hand corner. Jerking my head up, I locked eyes with Eli. After nodding his head, he winked.

Once again, I was whisked away from the present and spirted into the past. It was the day I first met Eli and his siblings. Since their family was being introduced to the ministry as well as all the kids in the youth group, our parents had stuck annoying name tags on us.

After leaning in to peer at my nametag, Eli promptly pronounced my name as Emersine. “Uh, it’s actually pronounced Emerson. It’s just spelled weird.”

“Okay, Sonny,” he had replied.

“Excuse me?”

He then motioned to my neon T-shirt with the giant sun wearing a pair of black sunglasses. “You look like the sun to me, but since you spell your name funny, it’ll be S-o-n-n-y, not S-u-n-n-y.”

Not only had it been the beginning of my nickname, but it was also the start of our friendship. With a renewed strength, I drew my shoulders back and stared out into the crowd. Although Eli had agreed that I’d spoken from the heart in what I’d written, I decided to abandon the cards. Instead, I pictured Jack sitting in the audience. And then I said to him everything that he deserved to hear.