Lyrics of a Small Town by Abbi Glines

Forty-One

When the door to Signed Sips opened and Drake walked in, my stomach immediately knotted up. Seeing someone connected to Saul, other than Rio, was not easy. I had managed to get through the week after my face-off with my mother. I was still crying nightly in the shower mostly so that Rio wouldn’t hear me. I missed Saul and I hated that I did.

“Hey,” I said to him, wishing someone other than me was out front to wait on him.

“Henley,” he said with a crooked grin. “Just the girl I wanted to see.”

That did not make me feel better. “Oh, okay,” I replied, trying to smile but failing miserably at it.

“Don’t look so damn thrilled,” he teased.

“I’ll try not to,” I replied, wishing he’d say what he had to say and leave.

“Look, this isn’t my place and Rio told me to stay out of it but hell, I’m the one living with this shit. Rio put his fist in Saul’s face then packed up and left. Now it’s me and Saul and I’m telling you, I don’t think I can take much more.”

Rio had hit Saul? I assumed they had words, but I didn’t think he had hit him.

“Henley, he is a fucking psycho right now. Whatever you did, you wrecked the guy. I can’t even breathe hard in the house. He loses his shit over everything. Do you know how many things he’s broken? If I have to sweep up anymore glass, I am going to fucking scream. Unless you want another roommate, I need you to talk to Saul. Work this out, whatever it is.”

I shook my head. “I can’t,” I whispered.

Drake sighed. “Why? You love him, don’t you? Y’all were all over each other then BAM it’s done. I mean what the hell could have happened that was so bad?”

He didn’t know and I couldn’t tell him. It was all back. The deep ache that made daily living hard. All the progress I had made was gone. Hearing Saul’s name and knowing he’s not okay either should have felt better but it didn’t.

“Please, Drake. Just go,” I pleaded. “I can’t talk about this.”

He studied me with a confused frown, but he finally nodded his head. “Fine. I’ll go. But whatever happened know he’s falling apart. Day by day.”

I turned and ran to the back then. I couldn’t hear anymore. Pushing the kitchen door opened, I rushed inside just in time for the first sob to break free from my chest. Grabbing the side of the sink, I held on as it all exploded again. The top that I had managed to loosely hold it down with was gone.

“Henley,” Hillya called out and then she was there beside me. I turned toward her and she held me as I clung to her and cried. She didn’t ask me why. She just held me.

I heard Emily return from the store and ask what was wrong. “Go work the front,” Hillya told her. “She’ll be okay.”

I used all my strength to pull myself together and wiped my face with the back of my hand. Hillya handed me a clean paper towel and I took it and dried up then blew my nose.

“Go home,” she told me. “I mean it. You need time, Henley.”

I simply nodded.

She squeezed my arm. “Can you drive or do I need to call Rio?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I’m fine. I promise.”

She let my arm go. She didn’t promise it will all be better soon and I was glad. I didn’t think I could hear that right now.

I didn’t go back to work the next day either. Hillya called and told me she didn’t want to see me back there for the rest of the week. She said I was welcome at her house any time but not to return to the shop. I knew she was concerned but staying home was not going to be a distraction.

Gran had a box of photos sitting in her room beside an album that looked unused. I had noticed it when I first arrived and the thought of Gran buying the album and how she had never gotten the chance to use it. She wouldn’t be returning to finish that job. Going into her room, I picked up the box and the album and went to the living room to work on it. The photos weren’t old. They were pictures from her life over recent years. I could tell by the one on top of her and Betty posing behind a table at what looked like a yard sale.

I found myself enjoying the images from her life and seeing how happy she had been here. Even after Granddad’s death, she had continued to live and find purpose. I slid another photo of her at what appeared to be the same yard sale into the album and realized it was something the church had held.

The pictures were mostly of church events and there was one with her and Wanda sitting in a garden with glasses of iced tea. She must have been visiting Wanda that day. I saw Lily’s face in the next picture and my chest constricted. It hurt to look at a reminder. Any reminder. I started to put the box away and stopped when I noticed something odd. Lily’s stomach.

I reached for the photo and picked it up. This wasn’t Lily as a young woman but how she looked now, except her stomach was large and round. Lily was very pregnant. She was sitting in her penthouse, smiling at the camera with her feet propped up on the white sofa that sat in her living area. I stared at it confused.

I turned the photo over because Gran often dated her pictures when she had them printed. There was a note on the back instead of a date. “For Keerly,” it said simply. Keerly?

I turned the picture back over and looked at it again, searching for something to make sense of that. Then I checked in the box for another photo. Something else of Lily or possibly Keerly. Understanding was starting to click… and what I thought this meant… but if that were true… then oh my god. My heart began to race as I dug in the box, looking through the pictures. Then I saw it.

I grabbed the photo and stood up as I looked down at the image in my hand. Covering my mouth on a cry, I shook my head as realization was dumped on me like a bucket of ice water. This could not be it. If it was then… oh God.

I turned the photo over slowly, afraid of the words but hopeful at the same time.

“For Keerly – April 15, 2018” were written clearly and I stood there putting it together. Every moment. Every single detail. It seemed impossible, but here it was.

The picture was Lily in a hospital bed, looking exhausted and sweaty. In her arms is a baby wrapped in a pink and white blanket. A little girl born three years ago. To Lily.

“Oh my god,” I whispered aloud.

“Gran, why didn’t you explain this to me?” I asked the empty room.

Sitting back down, I went through every picture in the box. There were six more with “For Keerly” on the back of them. I sat them all aside. Three were of Lily in different stages of pregnancy. One was of Isla and her husband holding the baby while Lily sat there in the hospital bed smiling up at them. Then the last one was of Saul holding the pink bundle in his arms. His younger face smiling at the camera.