CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Aimee

Three hours later, I was sitting next to a hospital bed, staring at my mother who had been admitted with pneumonia. She’d been found passed out on the ground outside a performing arts center in the morning, and ended up being taken to the ER.

When Corbin and I arrived, we learned she’d been transferred to ICU. Corbin kept silent, as if letting me work out my worries and fears in my head. He’d sat in the hospital room with me until my mom had started to show signs of waking, then he’d kissed my cheek and said he’d be in the hall if I needed him. I knew he wanted to give me privacy because of what I’d told him about my relationship with my mom and the fact I hadn’t seen her in almost six months. It was sweet of him and I didn’t feel alone. His silent presence instead gave me strength.

“Mom,” I said when she finally blinked her eyes open. She was sitting up on the bed, with those oxygen tubes in her nose—a nasal cannula, if I remembered correctly—but at least she was lucid and awake. She was so thin, far thinner than I’d seen her six months ago or so at Christmas. Curled up there in her gown and under all the blankets with tons of leads and tubes coming off of her, she seemed so tiny and frail. It was as if we’d switched roles more than we ever had before, as if I was coming to a small child’s bedside.

“Mom?” I asked, sitting down beside her, taking her hand in mine. “What happened?”

She coughed and when she spoke, her voice was a wheeze. “It was that dumbass Dale. He’s with The Nightshots. Country-rock band, with a few hits on Billboard back in the day. He promised me he’d be with me forever. Then he went and found someone younger. Prettier.” Tears formed in her eyes and she turned her face away from me. Between deep coughs and slow breaths using the oxygen tubes, she shared the rest of her story.

Apparently she’d had a fling with some drummer in a B-level band for a couple of months, but when he’d tired of her, he’d given her a bus ticket back to Pontmaison, which she’d promptly exchanged for a front-row ticket to his next concert. When his band had finished the concert, he’d grabbed a twenty-something bleached blonde and told my mom to beat it. My mother had ended up crying herself to sleep in the wet grass outside his van.

Sighing, I held her frail, bony hand as tightly as I dared. “It’s okay now.”

She sighed and glanced at me. “No, baby, it’s not okay. And I’m gonna do something about this…this obsession of mine. You know, chasin’ after men who remind me of your daddy.”

I frowned. Mom hadn’t ever acknowledged her pattern of chasing after musicians was an obsession before. Wasn’t the first step in overcoming a problem identifying that you actually had a problem? “You will?” I asked, cautious optimism creeping into my voice.

“I want to, baby,” she said. “When I came to in the hospital, it was…I didn’t see a light or some fiery pit, but it’s like some people say? You know? About how their whole life flashed before their eyes. I had me a moment like that. I thought about all the things I can’t undo, and I thought about you.”

“Mom, I know you’re struggling.” Granted she’d been struggling for over twenty-two years and left me to fend for myself for most of it, but she was trying. I had to support her in that. “It’s okay.”

“No it ain’t,” she said, wheezing again as she sat up a little. “I care about you, and I done you wrong. I…I should have told you about your father years ago.”

“I already know. He was some rocker you met at a concert. You never knew his name. He got you pregnant, and you never saw him again.”

“You don’t know. Your birth father wasn’t some random guy I hooked up with one night.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Baby, your father is Grandy Love.”

I gasped, shock hitting my midsection and radiating outward, down my arms and legs, making me feel weak at the knees. “Grandy Love, as in the lead singer for The Lovewilds? But that’s…they’re…he’s…” I sputtered to a stop. The Lovewilds were a hit band since the early eighties, still churning out record after record, still performing worldwide in sold-out concerts. They were big. Huge, really. Everyone knew them.

And the man who’d given me life was their lead singer?

And my mother had always known?

“You knew who my father was this whole time and you kept it from me?”

“I didn’t know who he was at first. That part’s true, honest.” She coughed violently and started to turn grey. I waited as she breathed in through her nose, sucking up the oxygen until she got her color back.

“So how’d it happen?” I asked.

“I was seventeen, following around another band. I had a fake ID and looked years older than I was. I met Grandy at a bar outside Nashville, listening to the music comin’ through the window of the bar. He told me his name was Grant. We started talkin’, then dancin’, then…” She coughed and I waited until she could catch her breath and finish. “I spent three weeks with that man. He thought I was a twenty-one-year-old from Tulsa, Oklahoma, ’cause that’s what my ID said. I thought he was some roadie. I swear I didn’t know who he was at first. Then, when I got pregnant…”

“He dumped you because of me,” I said, and now my throat was so dry that it was almost hard to keep carrying on.

“No. I never got a chance to tell him about you. I was going to, but when I went to the hotel room where we’d been holed up, he was gone. That’s when I found out who he really was. I was shocked. So very shocked.”

I knew the feeling. “So what did you do?”

“What could I do? I was dead broke and pregnant, so I came back to Pontmaison and had you. But I couldn’t help myself. I was deeply in love with him. So I kept track of his tour schedule, and a year later, when he was close enough to Pontmaison, I took off to find him again. I guess I thought if he knew about the baby we could be a family.”

“Did you find him?” I racked my brain, trying to recall any tabloid stories I might have read about the man, but came up blank. I knew his name, knew his music, but nothing else about the man.

Her downcast eyes said it all. “He’d gotten married,” she said. “He had a wife who’d just had a baby girl. I wasn’t about to destroy someone’s family. I came home to Pontmaison without a daddy for you, and instead with a broken heart. It’s never healed.”

Compassion built, then surged through me. She’d been what, seventeen when she fell in love with him? A child, really. Squeezing her hand tighter, I kissed her forehead, ignoring the fact I had a sister out there somewhere and a father who knew nothing of me. They meant nothing to me. But my mother…as much as she’d done me wrong, I still loved her. And she’d always loved me. “Momma, you don’t have to worry yourself anymore about this. It’s been over twenty years. I get it.”

“No, you don’t because I am sorry. It crushed me to lose him. He was the love of my life, and then he was gone. I didn’t cope the right way, just kept trying to ease the pain by chasing after other musicians, trying to replicate what I once had with him. Love hurts. It chews you up and spits you out with no remorse.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said, then regretted my harsh words.

She made a face. “It’s true, baby. Love makes you do dumb things. I should know. I left you too many times to count because of love. Messed up your life somethin’ awful. I never should have done that.”

“Maybe not,” I said. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive her for acting like a child my entire life, but I was willing to try. “But maybe we can start over. Where are you living now? What are you doing for work?”

“Nowhere, and nothing. But when I’m released, I’m gonna come back to Pontmaison. See if my older brother will let me work at Evangeline’s. I’m actually a really good waitress.”

“Mom—”

“Look, I love you and I didn’t do right by you. It’s time I was a better person for you, and for myself, too,” she said, easing back down onto the covers. “I’m gonna be better, baby. I won’t make you a false promise, but I will say I think I’ve finally grown up.”

I smiled at her. She’d made promises before, but this time did feel different. She’d never mentioned anything about my father before, never been so honest. Even as I stood and left her dozing, I hoped she could get through all of this and promised myself I’d do everything in my power to be by her side.

Corbin smiled up at me when I walked into the hallway and saw him sitting in a chair a few feet away. Close in case I’d needed him. His brown eyes were like pools of dark chocolate that I wanted to lose myself in forever. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer him. How did you tell someone you’d just discovered your father was a famous rock star, and that he didn’t even know about you? Telling Corbin about my past was something I’d have to do, but not now. Not in the middle of a hospital, surrounded by nurses and hospital staff, half of whom kept ogling Corbin. I mean, the guy was attractive, yes, but did people really think it was okay to stare?

I realized Corbin was waiting for my answer. “I’ll be okay,” I demurred.

“What about your mom? Will she be fine?”

I nodded. “She needs to rest and lots of antibiotics, but she’ll be okay. She’s resting now, and I’d like to come back to see her tomorrow but after that.” I shrugged, still unable to believe how things were turning out. “She’s coming home to Pontmaison, actually. Wants to work at Evangeline’s.”

Corbin’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s a good thing, right? It will take some of the load off you if you don’t have to keep pinch hitting for Beth every time she gets sick.”

I found it sweet that he already knew the pulse of Pontmaison. For a moment, I allowed myself to picture what it would be like if he didn’t leave at the end of the summer. I could see the two of us renovating the upstairs unit over the bakery. Corbin could have the back bedroom as his office and could write all his music there. I’d get up early and bake, then we’d close shop at five and crawl all over each other. He’d leave town every once in a while if any of his musician friends needed him, like that friend of his, Jason, had up in Chicago. And when he’d return home to me, I’d have his favorite huckleberry pie waiting.

“We’ll see,” I said quietly.

“I’m glad,” he said, leaning down and kissing the top of my head. “Now, let’s get you back to Miss Cecily’s. I believe we had plans to stay naked in bed all day, right?”

I entwined my fingers with his and giggled. The tension from learning about my birth father eased from my body, replaced with something warm and delicious that flooded my veins. “That we do.”