14
Two days later Tonilynn drove me home to Brentwood; we watched the sun shining down on the slick roadsides of Williamson County the way you watch a dog that’s bitten you in the past. Luckily, Harmony Hill was untouched by the flood, but it felt emptier than ever, like there was something critical missing, the way it feels when you wake from a dream and only pieces of it are still floating in your mind.
A long day passed and at dusk I wandered outside like a stunned sleepwalker through the sticky heat. I thought about Bobby Lee as I strolled by the fountain, as I sat on the bench at the fishpond, and as I dragged myself back into the house close to midnight. In my mind’s eye he was a firm island, safety in the midst of choppy seas. I liked how he was so calm, so sure of who he was.
His whispered words of love were my soundtrack, my background music of hope for a future filled with fishing trips, long talks in the moonlight, nights of peace and security strung together over the years like pearls on a necklace. I craved those tingles that the gentle-firm feel of Bobby Lee’s lips on mine sent through me. I’d never felt anything like that before, had once thought it was just a figure-of-speech when people said kisses sent electrical currents through them.
Didn’t Bobby Lee make me come alive? Yet I still hadn’t uttered words of love to him in return. I still wasn’t quite sure how to have the intimacy I was pining for—this thing that made my soul ache I wanted it so!
Sleep would not come, and I turned on the bedside lamp to play around with some song ideas, but nothing would flow the way it used to, needed to. No melodies, no lyrics begged for expression. It seemed my gift had totally dried up. But, I didn’t feel unhappy. I kept telling myself it was better this way, and that I would pour my whole self into learning how to be a regular person.
Right in the midst of this realization, a beautiful, evil hope charged through me: perhaps the CMA Festival wouldn’t happen! From news coverage I’d seen of Riverfront Park and LP Field, the two main venues for shows during the festival, there was no way in this world they would be operational in time for June tenth. The park was a wasteland and the stadium looked like a swimming pool.
If anything good could come out of this flood, would it not be the cancellation of the CMA Festival? If I could contemplate anything redeeming at all, it was to be released from my final commitment to perform! I could feel this vision of the new me burning its way into my soul, crowding out the wounded diva wearing her heart on her sleeve, and it seemed the flood was like this natural delineation, this liquid line cutting between what was and what would be.
The new Jennifer Clodfelter would not have to dredge up torment and sadness for songwriting. She would never bolt awake at night, alone and shaking at the arrival of a memory.
I’d missed a couple of Sundays at Panera, and two days later when Mike called to say, “How about Panera at ten?” I smiled and said that sounded downright heavenly because not only was I feeling withdrawal pangs from my cinnamon crunch bagels I was also ready to get out of that cavernous, too-quiet house.
The next thing I knew, we were in the Great Room, sunk down in chairs across from each other beneath the lofty ceiling, enshrouded with the familiar scent of coffee brewing and fresh bread baking. A little chitchat and half a cup of coffee later, Mike leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers across his belly, and said, “Guess what? The CMA is saying they’re going to donate all the proceeds from this year’s festival to charity. Half to music education in the Metro public schools, and the other half to help victims of the flood. I mean, we’re talking 100 percent here! This is even more of a lure, can’t fail in getting folks to come out to the festival and help our great city rebuild.”
I didn’t know what to say. One hand began twisting a strand of hair at the base of my neck around and around the index finger, and the other reached up to pull my faded ball cap down past my eyebrows.
“Something to celebrate, huh?” Mike raised his cup in a toast. “Kind of bittersweet, I got to admit, but hey, it’s incredible to see the CMA’s outpouring of love and generosity. I’m not surprised, though, because I believe country music stars, and country music fans, have got the biggest hearts in this world.” He looked directly into my eyes for a long moment, and when I still didn’t respond, he prompted, “Isn’t that great, Jenny? The way we’re leading the efforts to help rebuild our beautiful city? That we’re helping hurting folks recover from this disaster?”
My thoughts were spinning so fast, all I could manage was to nod my head up and down.
“The Cumberland sure did a number on us, huh?” Mike said finally, his sandy Keith Urban hair moving as he shook his head.
Still I didn’t utter a word. From a Brentwood homeowner’s perspective, the flood had hardly affected me. There’d been some power outage, but no real water damage in my upscale suburb. I’d been lucky because the news for Nashville and Middle Tennessee was heartbreaking.
“Well?” he said.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“How about ‘That’s great, Mike. I sure want to do my part to help.’ ”
“I do! But to tell you the truth, I don’t see how the festival’s going to happen.”
“Oh, it’s going to happen. Believe me, because now it’s even more vitally important to the Nashville business community.” Mike put his mug on the table with a thud. “The festival’s estimated to bring in almost thirty million dollars in revenue, money this city desperately needs. I know you know that the flood was a major hit to the economy of downtown, and officials are talking about ‘budget shortfalls’ with every breath. Say they’re looking to the festival to help. So you better believe they’re gonna make sure the cleanup is far enough along by June tenth.”
I tried to keep breathing as Mike continued. “Know what’s really hurting? The Opryland Hotel got hit so hard it’s gonna be closed indefinitely, and it brings in a fifth of Nashville’s hotel tax revenue. The other downtown hotels are already booked to near capacity for the festival, and they’re gonna have to pick up as many of those tourists as possible. Could be some bad traffic jams downtown.”
“Hm.”
“Hurt the Grand Ole Opry too. They’d booked Charley Pride for two shows during the festival, and now they’re going to have to move him. I’m thinking they’ll move him to the Ryman since it wasn’t affected by the floods, thank God.”
“That’s good,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, s’pose that’s something to be grateful for. Speaking of major hits, the Convention Center and Opry Mills Mall are hurt pretty bad. And our friends at Soundcheck are reeling like you wouldn’t believe!”
“Really?” My heart went out to the good folks I knew at Soundcheck, those who helped with my tour preproduction on such a grand scale.
“Yep. Hey, speaking of money, heard from our friend Scott Borchetta that Taylor Swift has made a significant donation to relief efforts, and she’s asking others to do the same. Now that’s a smart career move.”
I thought about Taylor Swift and her honest, uncynical face. Sure, it couldn’t hurt her image. But she really was a caring soul. I looked directly into Mike’s eyes for a long accusatory moment. “Smart career move?”
“Well, it’s sweet, too. Really sweet.”
I smiled a little. He was trying hard now.
“Hey, I’ve got the perfect idea for you, Jenny Cloud!” Mike’s eyes got huge. “What we need to do is have you rip another page out of your life and put it to music. A brand-new song expressly for the festival, something that really tugs the heartstrings the way you’re so good at. Dedicate it and every cent of the proceeds from it to flood relief! Isn’t that brilliant?”
Given the choice, I’d rather be shot. I sat there and listened to my heartbeat booming in my ears like background music that accompanied the familiar, anxious-ridden twist in my gut. What I really wanted was to jump up from my seat, push through the doors of Panera, and run and run and run. Couldn’t Mike see how hard that would be? How much it would hurt? But I didn’t want him thinking I was selfish. I tried to think of some explanation that might satisfy him.
“I hate to say it,” I said finally, “but here lately it seems I’ve contracted a terrible case of songwriter’s block. Nothing but a vast wasteland these days. I’ll just do like Taylor and give a humongous donation.”
“Aw, I bet you could do it, Jenny girl. Bet you’d be surprised if you just closed your eyes and drifted back to another one of those tough times in your childhood.”
I hated Mike’s offhanded tone, like what he suggested was not some dangerous trek through a place littered with emotional land mines. “No. It’s like I’m totally barren. I’ve never, ever been like this.”
Mike frowned. He had creases between his eyebrows from worrying over bottom lines and business strategies. Over my career. For a while the only sound was the muted conversation of several patrons a distance from us. I thought Mike was finally accepting my news, that he realized I was a big enough star that I could refuse things.
I stood up after another bit, smiled. “Thanks for the coffee, but my head hurts and I need to get home.”
“Wait a second.” Mike reached into his pocket and handed me two envelopes. “Your fan mail.”
I glanced at a plain white business envelope, my name typed in black capital letters, and a fancy pink envelope, my name in blue cursive. “Thanks.” I slipped them into my purse, breaking out in an instant sweat. Many fans wrote, most asking for an autographed picture, or to be included in my fan club, and some sent along song ideas. But occasionally there was that letter from a tortured soul who needed a friend and decided I should be the one she poured her feelings out to.
I’d stopped reading my fan mail not long after “Daddy, Don’t Come Home” debuted.
On Thursday, the Cumberland River finally crested and started to recede. Parts of the city were still without power, others without water since one of the treatment plants was flooded. Every night, I watched the updates on recovery attempts, my heart still breaking from the way the Cumberland had mauled the city I loved.
One evening early that next week I sat very still on my leather couch at Harmony Hill, watching a special report. I gritted my teeth, clenched the remote, and cringed at the newscaster’s forehead creased with concern. “Torrential downpours on Saturday, May 1st, and Sunday, May 2nd, flooded the Tennessee capital of Nashville,” he began in a grave voice. “While the record rains in Nashville and Middle Tennessee have abated, life is far from back to normal for many, especially for those who’ve lost loved ones in the flooding. Or for those who’ve lost their businesses, their homes, and their possessions. It is especially hard for those without flood insurance, which accounts for the vast majority of homeowners whose homes were damaged.”
I stared at the screen as the camera panned a water-filled area full of floating trees, some two feet in diameter, ripped up whole and bobbing around like giant broccoli stalks. I was trying to wrap my mind around this image when the camera zoomed in on a portable school building that had torn loose and was floating down I-24 in the floodwaters, breaking up as it hit cars, trucks, and bridges. Next the newscast showed stretches of buckled asphalt, road surfaces with huge cracks, and a subdivision where folks were fleeing their homes because of water overflowing the banks of one of Nashville’s many creeks. Recycling bins, trash cans, and doghouses swirled in angry torrents.
There came a voiceover saying the southeast side of town had been hit the worst, and proof came as camera footage of water in all its raging power ripped pieces of buildings away like Lego blocks. Electrical lines were tossed into the water where they snapped and snarled like high-voltage whips. Fences, signs, and outbuildings floated by in the murky waters like it was the end of civilization.
For the longest time I sat there gape-mouthed because what I saw on that screen seemed merely two-dimensional, incomprehensible, until finally I absorbed the fact that these were real scenes, real lives, and not some horror movie of death and destruction. I never dreamed it could rain so much! The sad drama became even more painful as it showed rescuers guiding boats and Jet Skis over frothing waters to pluck stranded residents from homes and cars. My heart nearly stopped as the voiceover listed the names of the ten Nashvillians who’d lost their lives in the flood.
The grave report continued, “Floods caused by the record-breaking rain caught many more than the folks in Davidson County off-guard, claiming more than thirty lives in fifty counties, and shattering countless more. There is an estimated one billion dollars in damage. While waters subsided in many places after the rain relented on Sunday evening, still more flooding occurred the following Monday due to the Cumberland River rising thirteen feet above flood stage. Muddy waters poured over the Cumberland’s banks, spilling into Music City’s historic downtown streets. Let’s go to the east bank of the Cumberland and take a look at our Tennessee Titans’ stadium.”
My eyes were riveted to a clip of LP Field on the television screen. It was full of dark brown river water, bits of debris floating around the mostly submerged goalposts. Was this really LP Field, that sacred venue for the CMA Festival that held almost seventy thousand country music fans? My earlier hopefulness for the cancellation of the festival seesawed with hot prickling shame.
The camera shifted to another area hit savagely by the waters. “On Sunday night, flooding forced an evacuation of the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, an area about five miles east of downtown,” said the voiceover. “One thousand five hundred guests were moved to a local high school.” The picture switched to an interior shot of the hotel where restaurant chairs and crates of wine glasses floated by.
I was still staring incredulously at the television screen when the camera zoomed in on a final image: a life-sized statue of Elvis, missing his guitar, lying on its back in the parking lot of the Wax Museum of the Stars.
I turned off the television. Tears ran freely down my face for the way the deadly water had filled the lungs of its victims, for their bereaved families, for the way it had laid waste my beautiful city.
I had something I needed to do.
I marched across the Pedestrian Bridge, through the parking lots of LP Field, to reach the bank of the Cumberland in late afternoon light. There were none of the usual joggers with their determined faces, none of the loving couples sitting and staring moony-eyed at the water, no dog-walkers or bicyclists. The Cumberland was practically deserted in her disgraceful state. The receding water had left behind a wild stretch of mud and debris. Hands in my pockets, the folded letters clenched in my sweaty fist, I walked, listening to the mud sucking at my feet with each step. Thick coats of goo began to cling to my boots like pancake batter, growing heavier with each footfall as I picked my way downstream past trash and plant debris.
What had been a pleasant stretch was transformed into a dirty wasteland the grayish brown of a rat’s hide. I stumbled on a smooth stone the size of a muffin, threw it back into the river where it hit with a small glugging sound. It was going to require a ton of money and a lot of work to be ready for a music festival by June tenth.
All of a sudden I felt compelled to touch the river. I went sideways like a crab down the slick slope of the bank, squatted and trilled my fingertips in the water. As I did, my mind went zipping backward to my pilgrimages, those days I’d come here looking for renewal. I tried with all my might to recapture just one moment, desperate to feel that sense of sanctuary.
But it was like looking for a toothpick in a haystack where everything comes up a limp piece of straw. What was the Cumberland that I’d looked up to her so? Worshiped her in a sense? I’d once thought there couldn’t be any more serene, restorative place in the world.
Who was I kidding to think she could save me? She sure wasn’t the mother she’d claimed to be. Water that looked relatively safe on the surface moved quickly and dangerously below. I thought about her deception. How she rose up, abandoning her banks, exchanging her broad slow curves for a raging brown torrent that gouged paths of destruction, drowning everything for miles.
“You ain’t no saint!” I yelled, feeling like a protester for a worthy cause as I raised up tall, planted my boots firmly, stretched my neck, and aimed a mouthful of saliva into the Cumberland. I stood awhile, watching the foamy patch of spit on the surface of the water move slowly downstream, wondering, Did that make me feel any better?
Walking downstream again, I heard a bullfrog’s bass notes of “jug-o-rum,” which brought to mind fishing with Bobby Lee, and then I recalled how frustrated he’d been when he couldn’t join the groups stepping in to help after the flood. Not everyone is the center of her own universe, Jennifer. With a pang of guilt I reached into my pocket and pulled the letters out.
Tucking a trembling finger into the edge of the pink envelope’s flap, I unsealed it and pulled out a piece of stationery printed with a butterfly border, and jam-packed with the handwriting of someone who put little curls on their capital letters and dotted their i’s with hearts.
Dear Jenny Cloud,
I want to thank you for your song “Daddy, Don’t Come Home.” I’m indebted to you, and I thank God for giving you the gift to sing. I’m going to try to put into words how much your song means to me, how God used it to help me feel like I could finally express myself. I, too, had, well, have actually, a father who is troubled and needs help. But I couldn’t find the strength to tell anybody what he was doing to me. I think part of my problem was I didn’t feel like I really mattered. One time I even tried to kill myself. Most of the time I was just scared to death. But I got strong through listening to your hit song! I looked at you, and I said, ‘If Jenny Cloud can be bold, I can too!’
So, I told my counselor at school about my father, and she stepped in and got me professional help. My life is much better now! For the first time, I’m happy and sleep through the night. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Love, Victoria
This was a victory song if I’d ever heard one! Something in me toyed with writing her back so we could exult together. I searched the envelope—no return address. I slit open the other letter before I lost my nerve. It was formal black lines of type, several words smeared.
Dear Jenny,
I don’t go around telling this because I’m afraid if people found out about it they’d think I caused it, asked for it, you know? But I didn’t, and I know you’ll understand and won’t be disgusted because it sounds like your father wasn’t the hottest on the planet either. I’m glad you had the guts to call him on his meanness and drunkenness!
My mother passed away when I was six, and my father is a perverted type of person who started messing around with me when I was eight. I’m fifteen now and it makes me absolutely sick that I endured it so long, but I was so scared and it wasn’t until I heard you singing about being brave, and then your interview on the radio, which happened to be on this night last year when I was at the end of my rope, and it felt like this voice was saying to me, ‘Haley, there’s your answer.’ I decided right then that it was time to do something about it. I went to my preacher.
Well, my father had to go get help somewhere far away, and I went to live with my aunt on my mother’s side who’s really sweet. She even looks like my mother! Well, it sure feels good to tell you how much you’ve helped me! Thank you for listening, and keep on singing your beautiful songs!
Your # 1 Fan, Haley
My hands were shaking as I stuffed both letters back into my pocket. Another flash of that night appeared on the screen of my mind. I heard my father’s drunken laughter, the catcalls of his friends, felt the hot flush on my chest as I gyrated topless, praying that any minute my mother would come out and save me from the shame. I saw myself later that night, the realization that my mother was incapable of standing up to my father, that we were utterly dependent on a man who was not only a drunk but also a depraved man in a multitude of ways.
It was not unlike turning on the television and finding that the place you ran to for security had no resistance beneath a couple days of hard rain.
A blanket of deep, black despair wrapped around me, growing heavier with each heartbeat as I trudged along toward the boat ramp, wondering, Where would I go for my sanctuary now? My peace?
I passed a huge tree branch, like driftwood on the banks, and I heard Tonilynn’s words circling in my consciousness: “Speak up for those who’re afraid to, or don’t know how. Your autobiographical songs can be somebody else’s therapy. Wouldn’t helping some young girl be reason enough to keep braving the heartbreak?”
For an instant, I decided Tonilynn had written the letters, as some sneaky tactic, but just as quickly knew that was ridiculous. She wasn’t that type. I was relieved when she picked up her phone after the second ring. “Tonilynn?”
“Hi, hon! How are you?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“It’s just the reception out here.”
“Where are you?”
“At the river.”
After a weighted pause, I heard Tonilynn say, “Seriously?” and the tone of her voice told me she was concerned. I felt bad for adding this on top of Aunt Gomer’s passing, but I didn’t need to be alone. I told Tonilynn about watching the flood report, how I’d spit in the Cumberland, and that I was standing on the LP Field side, on the boat ramp, feeling panicky. “Don’t move a muscle,” she said. “I’m on my way!”
I didn’t say a word of protest about having to wait two hours, and it’s odd, but it sure didn’t seem like that long until here she came slipping and sliding in her pink boots. Out of breath, Tonilynn reached out and pulled me to my feet, wrapped her arms around me, and held me close, one hand patting my muddy backside in a little flurry. “How’s my girl?”
“Um . . . hurting,” I answered, because something in my chest region was pulsing so bad I thought I might be having a heart attack. But the pressure of Tonilynn’s hug made it go away enough so I could get a good breath. “Better now,” I added, and Tonilynn drew back, holding my shoulders. There were bags beneath her eyes, her lipstick was smudged in one corner, but her blonde hair was teased up tall and firm, perfect as ever, and her smile was glorious.
“Tell Tonilynn what you’re thinking.”
I shrugged.
“C’mon now, try to put it into words. What do you need?” she asked, her been-there-done-that-and-survived-it aura really strong.
I didn’t know what I needed. I needed her to keep holding me, to worry about me, to promise me I wouldn’t ever be alone again.
“You watched a show on the flood?” she encouraged.
“Mm-hm.”
“Awful, isn’t it? Pure heartbreaking.” With a final squeeze, Tonilynn released me, and I stood there, feeling like a small child, inhaling her honeysuckle perfume. “Jennifer,” she continued in a firmer voice, “you know it’s best to talk about things. Can you tell Tonilynn what you’re feeling right now?”
I looked across at downtown’s skyline, scene of the crime. Well, part of the scene. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I thought about the unimaginable destruction. People who’d drowned, the devastated faces of their loved ones, folks fleeing their homes while their possessions were swept away. “Tonilynn?” My voice sounded shaky even to my own ears. “Some people are calling the flood an ‘act of God,’ and some are calling it a ‘natural disaster.’ What do you think?”
From the corner of my eye I saw Tonilynn flinch, then shut her eyes to murmur something. Finally she drew herself up tall and said, “I believe it was both.”
I made a sound like ‘Hmph!’ in my throat. She’d never be able to vindicate God after the devastation I’d seen.
“Look, Jennifer, God allowed the flood, but he’s sad about all the hurting folks and the homes that got ruined. He’s sad about our broken-down city.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
I must’ve been frowning because Tonilynn bent her head sideways to have a good look at me. “I know, I know.” She laughed. “Sometimes I could literally wring Eve’s neck for eating that apple. Ruined our perfect existence! Just think of our life on earth as this sort of in-between time, like when you put something on layaway, and you know it’s gonna be yours eventually, and so you dream of it, and it makes your heart happy to do that, but you don’t actually have it in your possession yet.
“We’re in an in-between time down here, an imperfect time that isn’t going to go on forever. Our perfect eternity is on layaway in Heaven.”
I frowned.
“It’s hard; you don’t have to tell me!” Tonilynn shook her head. “First, the Fall, or whatever you want to call it when Lucifer decided he wouldn’t serve, and now us having to live in the fallen world, the so-called Human Condition! I just take comfort in the fact that God’s still sitting on his throne, and it ain’t gonna be like this forever! I know there’s a life for us yet unseen, which is gonna be so wonderful we can’t even imagine it.”
I felt a smirk come on my face, an expression of unbelief I didn’t manage to cover quick enough.
“He hasn’t abandoned us, hon! If you’re his, you’re on layaway, and eventually he’s coming back for you, and everything’s gonna be perfect.”
“That’s so comforting.”
“I didn’t mean to sound flippant, hon. I’m not downplaying the hard stuff in this world. Life’s crazy sometimes! Even for believers. Especially for believers! But the thing is, we don’t have to travel the path of life alone. I have good days and bad ones, but none of my days are ever alone. Jennifer, I want you to learn to let the Lord be your strength too! I promise he’ll help when you take refuge in him. When the devil lets loose his evilness and the going gets rough, God Almighty will hold your hand! Sometimes he’ll even carry you over the rough, scary places! It’s not easy. I’m not saying that. But it helps if you keep the perspective that even in the dark times, he’s there, and nothing can separate you from his love.”
“Not even a flood that sweeps a bunch of folks into an early grave?” This burst out of me like a sneeze.
“It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around some stuff too.” Tonilynn lowered her voice. “Satan wanted the flood because he loves showing off ‘the hand of death.’ He loves to see people weeping, loves chaos and distress. And God, in his sovereignty, allowed it. We just have to remember God came down here once already, when he sent Jesus, and he’s coming back to claim his own. Meantime, we’re caught in that in-between layaway time of what is and what’s gonna be. In this life there’s gonna be pain and suffering, but we’re not abandoned! God permits those things, Jennifer. Some he even uses to draw us to him, or to mold us into his image better. But I can guarantee you, he’s got his eye on his own, and he’s coming back for us. In the end, for all time, everything’s gonna be all right.”
Tonilynn touched my arm gently. “Let me baptize you, Jennifer. You need the Holy Ghost inside. Then you’ll be able to look forward to the time when all our tears’ll be wiped away forever!”
I shook my head.
“Oh, hon, can’t you feel it?” she pled, holding her hands upward and pulling them apart in an expansive gesture. “Can’t you feel God Almighty calling you to be his?”
I wasn’t sure if I could. I wasn’t sure I could buy all that about us living in this layaway time, about God permitting the evil, knowing our hurts, and still caring. But, that said, part of me couldn’t help loving Tonilynn’s explanation of the eventual happily ever after. Plus, I often felt alone, and I liked thinking that might become a thing of the past. She touched my cheek when I didn’t answer, and I squinched my eyes shut tight and tried to feel it the way she did, and somewhere inside me, I thought she might be right.
Maybe.
Not so long ago I’d taken a lot of dark things personally—the evil seemed directed straight at poor Jennifer Anne Clodfelter. But it came to me now that I no longer thought that way with the intensity I once had. Now I toyed with an idea I thought of as the “Big Picture.” We humans weren’t necessarily the stars of our own biographical movies but bit players in the larger story.
I wondered when it was I’d changed. Was it just getting older? The other morning I’d looked at my face in the mirror and it definitely had more lines and wrinkles. What shocked me, though, was that my eyes were carbon copies of my mother’s, and instead of contempt, I’d felt compassion. Part of me realized all too well why my mother stuck her head in the sand about things she felt she had no control over. Hadn’t I done that exact thing?
After all, we were both poor, pitiful, limited humans. We couldn’t make sense of everything. We could hardly keep up with our own life, much less other people’s. This life could get crazy sometimes, like water running through our fingers, everything dripping and splashing and moving away so fast. And that was only here on Earth! I gazed upward. There were whole other galaxies beyond our puny planet, places we might never know, and certainly over which a human had no control. I was a drop of water in a vast ocean.
Just contemplating all this made me feel very small and tired and scared. I decided it might be a relief to just place it all in some huge sovereign hands. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the Cumberland was a created thing, sprung from the mind of a mighty being. Someone who, in my finite state and limited understanding, I couldn’t fathom, who had us all—rivers and people and land and sky—in his great big hand. Ready to yield, I plunged my own hands into my pockets and turned to Tonilynn.
Then my fingers felt those letters and a searing pain ripped through my heart, fresh blood spurted from where the scab had been recently ripped away. “I can’t forgive my father for . . .” I don’t know why I thought I could say the words when I couldn’t even get a breath.
Tonilynn tilted her head, narrowed her eyes. “Hold on. I’ve got something, well, somebody I need to tend to.” I knew what was going to happen before she turned her back to me, put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. Her blonde confection of hair caught the last rays of dying sun, looking for all the world like the tip of a giant lit match. “Get behind us, Satan! I command you, in Jesus’ name to pack up your bag of lies and go! You want to keep Jennifer down, you snake. You just want her ineffective for the kingdom of God.” Her fiery head bobbed with every syllable. “Well, I’m telling your sorry self right now that she’s gonna use it for good. Anyway, you know you’ve already been defeated when the Lord kicked you out of heaven. So, go back to hell!”
Tonilynn stamped one pink boot and turned back to me, her face with this well-that’s-all-taken-care-of expression. She fanned away a bug that was exploring her hair. “Okay, hon, just close your eyes and mentally lay that anger toward your father at the feet of Jesus, and tell him you need some supernatural help to forgive the man, and then be ready to receive an incredible sense of release and peace.”
I could hardly look Tonilynn in the eye as I said what came into my heart then. “If I forgive my father, then God’ll forgive me for killing Mr. Anglin. Right?”
“You really need some peace about that, don’t you?” Tonilynn asked softly.
“Yeah.”
“Well, Jesus paid it All with a capital A. He crossed out the debt for every single sin. If you think you killed Mr. Anglin, then confess it to the Lord, and he’ll forgive you, and set you free.”
My hands were trembling as I placed the palms together beneath my chin and murmured, “Forgive me Lord, for ending Mr. Anglin’s life too early.” Then I stood, picturing Jesus dying as he gazed out upon humanity, his heart literally breaking as he bore all the ugliness, the agony of every person’s sin on his tender flesh. It was beautiful to think that maybe all the dark things in my life weren’t a waste, weren’t just meaningless suffering. That they could be recycled into good for helping other souls.
“As far as fathers go, hon,” Tonilynn said, putting her arm around my shoulder after I opened my eyes, “the Lord’s the best. He won’t ever let you down.”
Was there anything I craved more than a father with great big, strong arms? Like those pictures of Atlas holding the ball of earth on his shoulders. Something in me knew trust was the key, the key that would open the iron doors that had held me captive in a cell of fear and anger and bitterness, that would open the doors to peace and freedom. I just had to trust there was a sovereign God, that all that came to creation, from man or nature, was permitted by him, and that if I looked beyond my circumstances, beyond my pain, I’d see there was a purpose to it all.
Was I ready to take that step, to trust and let it all go? I stared at my mud-caked boots sunk in the riverbank.
Tonilynn called my name, and I looked up. She was inching toward the river, beckoning dramatically for me to follow, like John the Baptist. I reached for her hand, and we eased down the boat ramp into the Cumberland. The water was cold, and we stopped when it was to our hipbones. My feet felt the fierce current at the bottom. Tonilynn stood to my side. She put one hand on my shoulder and one across my lower back. “Jennifer Anne Clodfelter,” she said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” and dipped me backward and under so quick I barely had time to close my mouth.
I emerged from the water to a cheer from Tonilynn. “You’re a whole new creature now! The old things have been washed away!”
I stood blinking fat drops of water from my lashes, my past floating away downstream behind me and leaving a girl who’d never despised her spineless mother or wished death on her depraved father or thoughtlessly caused the death of someone she loved, who’d never shut her ears to souls crying out for help. I felt a shift inside, something like an earthquake of my body’s cells, this tremendous sense of release, and I knew, without question, a dark veil had lifted.
I was free, my life stretching out indescribably sweet and hopeful before me.
By force of habit, I searched the front desk for Roy. How many times we’d sat back there, the two of us holding each other up in a world where we were both running from our past. We’d been like wounded orphans, scrabbling to make sense of our losses, to numb them; him with food and me with dreams of fame.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” An Alan Jackson look-alike glanced up from the computer.
“Is room 316 available for the night?”
“Hmmm . . . room 316,” he said, running his finger down the screen. “Looks like . . . you’re in luck! How’d you like to pay for this?”
I swallowed. It was hard to believe that, looking the way I did, I could convince the man I had any money at all, much less enough to buy and sell the hotel ten times over. But I could not for the life of me remember where I’d put my purse. It wasn’t in the Lexus. I raked my wet hair off my face and said, “Listen, I’m Jenny Cloud, and if you’ll let me take the room on my word, I promise I’ll come back with cash tomorrow.”
He looked at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed, then nodded. “Well I’ll be! You are her! We need to put you in a luxury suite, get you a private hot tub! Some flowers and chocolate! You deserve—”
“No, no. Please. Thank you, though. Really, all I want is room 316. It’s got special meaning.”
“Well, okay. Wow, man. I cannot believe this, but yeah, you go right ahead, Miss Cloud. It’s on the house. But first, can I please get an autograph? My girlfriend’s a huge fan of yours. You can’t possibly know what your music means to her. Her name’s Polly Finley.”
“Of course,” I said, ripping a sheet of Best Western paper from a pad, grabbing a ballpoint pen, and scribbling, ‘For Polly, God Bless, Jenny Cloud.’ I gave it to him and held out my hand for the key card, turning quickly to the elevator.
When I got the door to my room open, I literally fell inside and flung myself face-down across the bed. “Oh, God,” I breathed, half-prayer, half-astonishment. When my heart slowed, I raised my head and looked around. Nothing had changed. The two queen beds, the long chest of drawers, the television set like a big charcoal eye, and through the door, my own private bathroom. I knew if I went inside, I’d find tiny bottles of shampoo and lotion smelling of flowers and stacks of plush towels. I saw myself, frenziedly inhaling all the luxury, dreaming of making it in Music City. A few years ago. A lifetime ago. I remembered how naive that girl was, thinking she could dance across the ground where those things that had formed her were buried like land mines.
I lay for a while on my bed, imagining all the bones I’d buried resurrected and doing a line dance, exulting in their new life. There would be an even greater depth to my music now.
My heart was knocking around like tennis shoes in a dryer as I sat up, leaned against the headboard and reached my hand into the drawer of the nightstand. Just where I knew it would be, I found a pen and paper to let the music call me home. “You’ve really gotta help me write this one, Father,” I prayed, feeling those words shoot like an arrow up to God’s sanctuary.
I never heard the Creator of the Universe talking directly to me, but I felt the skin on the back of my neck rising and unexplained chill bumps on my arms in affirmation that this was a supernatural conversation as I heard not an audible voice, but words in my spirit saying, Okay, daughter. I know it was hard, because even though you couldn’t see me, I was right there, permitting that even as it broke my heart. Now I want you to open your heart, and let it all out into a song. Remember, you’ve made it through the storm, you’re safely on the shore, where you can help those souls still struggling in the eye of their own storm. Help them find strength and hope and peace.
I finished at four a.m., the verses of “When the Music Calls Me Home” spread across the bed. It was one of those songs that sprang to life pretty much from the time I got the title. The chorus especially just sort of wrote itself. I did work a bit on the verses, moving them around to get them in the right order. Though I didn’t have my Washburn, the melody for the chorus was like taking dictation from a master composer, and once I’d written that down, I began humming a couple of different rhythms for the verses. I decided on the key of D major, the vocals spanning one octave, with a sort of twangful sound. I thought it might be nice to have a violin solo at the completion of the break.
When at last I turned out the lamp, I held the song to my heart, almost weeping from relief. At the start of my intensive night of songwriting, my heart ached for that young girl I was, writing about the shame she’d endured. But, as I continued, all the hurt and rage and bitterness dissolved into the lyrics, and I was flooded with a sweet and comforting sense of peace.
Tonilynn was right. Freud was right. Webster was right. God was right.
It was cathartic.