The first was to open the mail Ian had sent me over in Ireland. I didn’t know how it had arrived so quickly. He must’ve paid a mint.
But when I pulled out the seemingly old-fashioned tape recorder—that somehow had a Bluetooth connection I could hook up in my rental car, whom I was now calling Silver Bullet of Despair after our multiple trips together—and slipped in the cassette tape he’d included, I understood why he’d paid extra.
His and Kellan’s voices soared from the tinny speakers. The sound quality of the machine wasn’t the best, but it didn’t matter. The combination of Ian’s rafter-raising voice with Kellan’s grittier one was an oddly interesting juxtaposition. And their song was bloody good too, even if I was already finding ways I would arrange it differently.
I grabbed my phone to jot some things down as I listened half a dozen times. Strings sooner, rather than starting with the piano. The piano coming in on the bridge. Adding a touch of broken glass sound effects to the very end, when the man with the crushed spirit was walking away.
In the song, Ian was basically the more hopeful half of the guy who had just endured a failed romance. Kellan was the voice in the back of his head saying not to bother. Why try when everything always turns out the same anyway in the end?
It could’ve been a chaotic mess yet the result so far was a kind of crazy poetry.
My hands tingled as I typed out the last of my first impressions and sent them over to Ian. I added a line at the end to make him laugh.
A tape recorder? Really? It’s not the 80s anymore. Also, I think Anthony Robbins has taken over your psyche.
It made me laugh, which was saying a lot since I’d just spent weeks with my family, more time than I had in years. Yet my mood was surprisingly buoyant.
I’d made some mistakes. Pushed people away unnecessarily. Not unlike the pessimistic bloke in Kellan and Ian’s song. Except today I was drowning out the negative voice in the back of my head.
Mostly.
At least until I took a deep breath and played Ivy’s voicemail. Make that two voicemails. She’d left them three days apart and I hadn’t replied or even nutted up enough to listen to them.
I was now.
Finally.
They said variations of the same thing. I need to talk to you. It’s really important. In person would be best, but I know you’re booked. So…call me.
I drove away from the rental place and hopped on the Interstate almost without noticing the signs. This trip was already becoming familiar. Good thing, because I scarcely heard the instructions from the GPS or the whistles on my phone that signaled Ian’s texts.
My entire focus was Ivy.
I wish I could’ve said my first worry was illness or a death in the family or some other catastrophic condition. That concern was in there too, but it was beneath the gut punch that she’d found someone else.
Maybe she hadn’t. Two messages and that was it. No texts, and I’d checked.
Of course I hadn’t texted her again after mine had gone unanswered.
Until she’d called…
Gripping the wheel, I squinted into the sun and blew out a long, slow breath. It was the middle of June. No threat of snow now. Instead, the heat index was climbing higher by the minute, and I was sweating through my short-sleeved button down. Humidity was a bitch.
Unless I was sweating for other reasons. And not even ones like having to meet her older brother.
Before, that had seemed problematic. I’d jus
t chosen to focus on that rather than the content of her voicemails. I knew full well I might not want to hear what she had to say.
I could call. That would be easier. Less traumatic. For her, I mean. I was a strong, tough guy. It wasn’t as if her news would destroy me. I was just worried because I couldn’t get a refund on the white gold bracelet I’d bought for her.
Right.
And if she’d contacted me because of something serious going on in her life—sickness in her family or job woes or God knows what else—most likely, she wouldn’t want to hear from me now. I hadn’t been there for her when she needed me.
I was a bastard. More concerned about myself than her possible tragedies.
Now I would own up to what I’d done. And what I hadn’t.