“What else did your mom show you?”
He liked that she wasn’t afraid to ask him questions about his mother. It was pretty much impossible for him to talk with any of his siblings about his mom, when they were all still too deep in the pain of losing her. And as for his father, Michael? Any hint of Lisa Morrison in a conversation and he went to pieces. Drew hadn’t realized just how much he wanted to talk to someone about his mom until this moment.
Not just someone. Ashley.
“We traveled all over the country in that RV. We went to the Grand Canyon. We saw the world’s biggest redwoods in Humboldt County. We explored the canyons in Carlsbad. And each of us put a foot and a hand in the four corners where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. In fact, right outside of the Four Corners Monument is where my mom bought me my first guitar—from a guy selling a bunch of random stuff on the side of the highway.” He smiled, remembering that day. He’d been tired of being stuck inside with his little sisters hanging all over him and his brothers knocking around on him. And his mother had known exactly what he needed to feel better. “It only had five strings and one broke pretty quickly, but it was still the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.”
“What happened to that guitar? Do you still have it?”
“I wish.” He shook his head. “My brother Justin dropped it out of a tree a few years later.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I had it coming,” Drew admitted. “I’d narced on him at school for doing something wrong that had been my idea in the first place. He was just dumb enough to go along with me. Anyway, I ended up buying my first real guitar after that, a Martin that I mowed approximately a million lawns to afford. I still have that guitar. I actually played it—”
“On your last album.” She bit her lip when he looked at her in surprise. “I kind of have a thing about liner notes. I read them so many times that I end up memorizing them.”
“I do the same thing.” Now she was the one looking at him in surprise. “You want to find out more about what inspired the artist, right? And it feels like there must be clues in the liner notes.”
“It’s good to know I’m not the only person crazy enough to think that.”
“It’s why I always buy the physical album in addition to the digital. I know I can read the liner notes online, but I like being able to flip through the pages.”
“No wonder your liner notes are so great. I loved the way you basically put together a big photo album for the last release. Each picture really felt like the song it went with.” She shook her head. “I know that must sound weird—to say that a picture can feel like a song.”
“If you ask me, everything can feel like a song.” Especially this moment, when it was just the two of them surrounded by red rocks and brilliantly colored sand and the bright blue sky. “One of the biggest questions I’ve gotten since putting out that album is why I put all those random pictures in the liner notes. The label wanted it to be just pictures of me, and they weren’t particularly happy when I came in with pictures they couldn’t understand. I ended up bending on some of them, and some other things on the album, too, which still really bugs me whenever I look at it or listen to it.” He stopped, realizing that it sounded like he was complaining about all his good fortune. “Chief Records has done great things for me, but sometimes it feels like they just want me to paint with primary colors.”
“If that’s what they’re trying to get you to do, they’re wrong.” He’d never heard her sound so firm. So strong. “You should paint with whatever colors you want to use and never let anyone tell you otherwise. If you want to use only primaries, awesome. If you want to create brand-new colors that no one has ever seen before, then you should do it. No matter what anyone else says.”
He’d never told anyone what his mother had said in the letter she’d written to him before she died, not even his siblings or his father. The letter she’d left for him to read that he kept with him always. It had already been a huge step for him to play “One More Time” last night, but now he found himself telling Ashley, “My mom wrote all of us a letter to read. After.” He suddenly couldn’t talk and walk at the same time. “It’s in my pocket.”
Ashley didn’t say anything, simply stood with him beneath the blazing sun and waited for him to say what he needed to.
“I wasn’t the easiest kid. I liked causing trouble more than any of my brothers or sisters. My teachers always said it was because I wanted to be in the spotlight.”
Ashley laughed softly. “No wonder you’re so comfortable in it.”