Chapter 25 #2
Yes, I killed the bastard. I prevented him from seeking medical attention, and I watched him die over the course of several days.
It was far and away the most vile thing I’ve ever done and will ever do, and if hell is real then I’ll gladly suffer for eternity knowing I saved my daughters so they could have a better life.
Only Amber and Tracy know what I did, and I vowed they would be the only ones to know.
It doesn’t matter that Jonah, a man I’m learning to trust, just smiled and told me it was okay if I killed him.
It doesn’t matter if I grow to trust him more than anyone else in this world, I will never admit it to him.
I won’t put that stress on someone else.
This is the kind of thing I take to my grave.
My eyes meet Jonah’s and I breathe. “Being free of him,” I say, “is the greatest gift, but it doesn’t mean I’m not haunted. I don’t trust easily, Jonah.”
“I know.”
“I swore off all relationships after him, and I especially don’t allow men in. Not in my home. Not in my heart.”
“I get it. You’re protecting yourself.”
“And my girls.”
“Did he ever hurt them?”
“No. He was close many times, but I always intervened.”
“But they saw how he treated you,” he hedges. “How he spoke to you?” I nod just once. “Then good riddance to that fff—”
The way he cuts himself off his own rage in order to stop cussing brings a smile to my face. “Just say it. You know you wanna.”
“That fucker!”
King pops his head up in concern in the aftermath of Jonah’s outburst and trails after him as he paces the living room.
Hands on his hips, he weaves between furniture as his breathing picks up.
A pink flush grows on his neck and spreads to his face.
“Were the police never involved before then? Did you have anyone in your corner?”
“I called the cops on him only once. He was let off with a warning, and said if I ever tried that again he would take the girls away from me.” That’s completely true.
I’m finding the hard truth is easier to spill to him than I thought it would be, but it doesn't mean I’ll reveal I killed my husband on purpose.
“You think he would have taken your daughters from you?”
I shrug. “He made me believe my parents and sister were the enemy. He took me away from them. Why wouldn’t I believe he could do it again?”
Jonah finally sits back down. “Was he like this before you got married?”
“No. He knew me since I was a little girl. Greg was my parents’ music producer.”
“What?” he exclaims. “How much older was he than you?”
“Fifteen years. He never made a physical move on me until I was in college, but by then he had laid the groundwork. I was completely in love with him. We got married after I graduated from undergrad. He put me through my master's and doctoral programs... supported me the whole way.
“Things started going downhill when the record label fired him. He convinced me my family was to blame, and he filed a restraining order against them. And when I told him I’d like to perform again, he convinced me that I was never truly talented, but rather I was an embarrassment.”
“There’s no fucking way,” Jonah growls, and he’s up once again, this time charging out of the room.
Just when I’m about to get off the couch to find him, he rushes back into the room with a mandolin and a guitar in hand.
“There’s no way you’re not talented. I’ve watched the videos of your live performances with your parents. ”
“You have?”
He sets his guitar down and tunes the mandolin. “What do you wanna do first? Play or sing?”
Panic bubbles up in my chest. “No. I can’t. I haven’t done either in over a decade.”
“So be terrible,” he shrugs. “It’s just me. No one has to know how rusty you are.”
“I’m not just rusty, Jonah. I... I...”
“You said he convinced you your family was the enemy, and you know now they were not. Then you said he convinced you that you had no talent. That means deep down, you know that was a lie. You know he manipulated you. The Grand Ole Opry doesn’t allow amateurs, Renée.”
The wind is knocked right out of me when his words register. He’s right. I know he is and yet the idea of trying again after so long—after being degraded the way I was—it’s impossible.
“Music is in your blood.” He draws out each word, his eyes locked on mine.
“Well if that were true, then Amber would have some musical ability, but she can’t keep a beat.”
I expect an eyeroll as a response, or maybe a quirk in his mouth, but there’s nothing funny in the way he’s watching me.
There’s an uncharacteristically serious man standing in front of me, and the gravity of what he’s asking for settles heavy in my chest. Not because he wants something from me—but because he sees something for me.
“I’m not asking you to play for me,” he says quietly, as if he can hear the old voices clawing their way back in.
“Or for anyone else. I just hate the idea that you stopped because someone convinced you of a lie.” His jaw tightens, then softens.
“If you never touch it again, if you never sing again, that’s your choice.
I just want you to know it is your choice. ”
My choice.
It’s my choice.
Why have I never framed it like that for myself? Why have I let this wound that Greg created fester?
All at once, a dam opens and a flood of power surges through me. Instead of drowning in shame—exactly where Greg always wanted me—I’m swept into a current of encouragement and possibility.
Before1 I lose my courage, the mandolin is in my hands, the strap flung over my shoulder. The weight and feel is both familiar and a sharp reminder that I haven’t held one in more than ten years. Jonah hands me a pick, grabs his guitar, and sits in the arm chair across from me.
The first strum of eight perfectly tuned open strings has me standing.
It’s my turn to pace the room now, reacquainting myself with the instrument that was once like another limb.
Jonah gives me the space to find the first familiar tune, and when I realize what song it is, I close my eyes in anguish.
I think of my daughters as faint muscle memory guides my unpracticed, uncalloused fingers, and the notes to “Top of the World” by The Chicks flash behind my eyes.
My girls needed me.
I should have had them out of his chokehold, his aggression, his aloofness sooner. The cycle needed to be broken. But Lo’s silence is a daily reminder that it wasn’t broken soon enough.
All I can do now is be better for them and be the mother they need and depend on. I can show them a life of love and growth and hope—the kind of life that was impossible before.
But am I truly allowing them the space to spread their wings when I’ve been so closed off to music and song?
I saw the way Delta bloomed when she sang “Blackbird” with Jonah in his studio the night of the storm.
I saw the way Lo couldn’t take her eyes off them.
I saw the same wonder and yearning reflected in her eyes.
Sometimes I hear Delta sing softly to her sister in their bedroom late at night. They hide it from me.
They hide.
I can’t let them hide anymore.
I cannot hide anymore.
The mellow strum of an acoustic guitar begins to fill in the gaps of my tune—though it’s much more than a tune now. I’m surprised I remember most of it, but even more surprised at how natural it is. It’s like the song has been living at my fingertips this whole time.
And how does he know this song? Or did he just listen to me fumble my way through it a few times and figure out where I needed support?
“Do you know this song?” I ask over the music.
He shakes his head, but he doesn’t look away from me and doesn't stop playing.
“It’s by The Chicks,” I say.
A few more bars pass between us and again he doesn’t look away. He’s reading me, studying my hands, following my lead.
“Do you know the lyrics?” Hope shines in his eyes in the way he asks, but it’s not hope that I know the words, it’s hope that I’ll take the bait.
Like the song itself, the words start out low and slow, each line like a memory unspooling the life I lived. Words of regret and distance told through the eyes of a careless and neglectful husband while shining light on the ones he hurts. Of love that never stood a chance.
I think of the years spent making excuses for Greg and the ache that settled in when the laughter left.
When my voice cracks on a line about pride, Jonah just nods, his fingers steady and sure, like he understands that breaking is just another part of this song.
There is no need to start over. We move forward.
By the second chorus, I give up trying to sound good.
The lyrics are too real, the music too life-breathing.
The mandolin hums beneath my fingertips and my heart pounds with every downstroke of his guitar.
We’re in an enormous living room of an eight-thousand-square-foot estate, yet the room feels small and warm, like we’ve stepped into the song itself.
I told him about how Greg treated me, but here in this song together, it’s like I’ve flayed myself open to show him what I could not say.
I close my eyes as the words of regret and loneliness pour out of me. For a moment, it’s not about being a mother or a woman reborn. It’s only me, stripped down to my truth, singing beside someone who doesn’t need me to be anything else.
When the last note fades, neither of us can move, and there’s something almost holy in the silence and the way we lock in on each other. My hands are trembling, but I smile through the tears.
Why did I keep myself closed off for so long?
I blink and Jonah’s up, wrapping me in his arms. I don’t push him away. I welcome him. “Renée! I knew you still had it in you.”
“I didn’t know,” I cry into his big, warm chest.
“It’s okay,” he soothes, his fingers pressing into my back like a massage. “Let it all out.”
Neither one of us cares that I’m painting his T-shirt in my tears, or that we haphazardly discarded our instruments in a rush to hold each other.
I made no room for my own joy—no room for forgiveness.
I pull my face away just enough to look at him.
“I want music,” I say in an exhale. The admission alone shakes the very foundation I thought I reinforced with rules of steel.
“I want music in my life again. I don’t want to be afraid of it anymore. ”
“Okay then.” Mesmerizing pools of blue scan every inch of my face, like he’s wondering how many freckles I have or what they could possibly taste like. He brushes away the hair from my face, curling it behind my ear, before a gentle finger traces my jaw. I melt like ice. “May I be a part of that?”
“It would mean so much to me if you were.”
That boyish grin appears once again because he knows I’m doing the impossible and opening the door to my heart. He knows he means something to me.
I fist his shirt and marvel how his chest rises and falls under my hand. My eyes flutter from the bunched white cotton to the column of his throat, to his cerulean eyes, and finally land on his parted lips.
I need those lips. Because I need him.
Our kiss is like no other. It’s long and languid, like neither of us have plans or lives outside this perfect moment. Like hunger for food is a thing of the past because we could sustain ourselves—thrive—on only this kiss.
Passion erupts when our mouths part. His curious tongue searches, but it’s not too much. It dances with mine and against my lips. A great kiss is never about how much tongue there is, it’s about how you use it—and this man knows how to use it.
Jonah is eager by nature and it manifests itself so deliciously in the way he grips me, breathes into me, and presses his full lips into mine in an effort to become one.
I’m unsure how long we stand there making out, but when my neck begins to hurt from craning it, I reluctantly pull away and lower to the heels of my feet.
His eyes are still closed, and the way he tries to inch his lips closer—searching for mine once more—has me silently giggling.
His eyes finally open, glazed and lovelier than I’ve ever seen.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Ohhh, you sweet thing,” he says with a little unhinged sparkle in his voice, before taking my mouth in a quick, desperate kiss. My toes curl. “I’m gonna want a lot more where that came from. Please, please tell me we’ll do that some more.”
I pat his chest. “We will... if you can be good for me.”
“I’ll be the best.”
I take another kiss and relish in the way he relaxes. I’m so fucking high on this man. “I have to go now,” I whisper against his lips.
“No,” he whines. “Just move in here. Right now.” He peppers me with more kisses and I laugh. “Bring the girls. Bring your sister.”
Minutes later when my giggles fade away and our lips detach, he tells me to use his music studio whenever I want, and he gives me his door code before I can stop him. This man is too trusting, but I would be lying if I said his offer didn’t give me butterflies and fill my head with hope.
Separating from Jonah proves to be too difficult after we move to his front porch to say goodnight. Our “last kiss” turns into several, and when my skin starts to pebble from the evening chill, Jonah decides it will be safest to wrap me in one of his blankets and walk me back to my house.
“There are dangerous coyotes in these parts,” he tells me gravely on our walk. “Better stay close to me.”
I hum and lean a little closer. Never mind that I haven’t seen a coyote the entire time I’ve lived here.
All the lights are off inside the house except the one we keep on over the stove. I pop my head in and double check to make sure no one’s around before giving him one last goodnight kiss.
When I float off to bed, his words replay. “I’ll be the best.”
Teetering on the edge of sleep, I suddenly jolt. Goddammit! I didn’t ask how he has so much money.
1. Top of the World by The Chicks