Page 43 of Born for Starlight

"Can I ask something about tonight?" he said.

"You may."

"There seemed to be a lot going on with the Averys.”

“That’s not a question.”

“I’m assuming there is a story there. Can you share?”

It was the way he asked. Knowing that it probably wasn’t my story to tell, and being respectful of that. That’s what made me decide to tell him.

"They could do one of those old after-school TV movies about the dysfunction about the Averys. Do you remember those?”

“Not really.”

“They’d tell about really shitty circumstances, and things to watch out for. Anyway. Both of their parents are in prison.”

I waited for a reaction. He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “That didn’t happen til they were older. Instead, when they were young, it was up to Drake, Evie, and Trenda to protect the younger ones from their dad because their mom didn’t give a shit. It was their love and sacrifice that made it possible for those girls to become the women they are today." I turned my wineglass by the stem.

"Sounds like a hard road."

"Yeah. But there are so many happy endings." I smiled, even though I was having a hard time swallowing.

“It seemed that way.”

I looked at his face, those eyes that seemed so dark and mysterious in the lamplight, and decided to ask for his background. "You know my story. Everybody knows my story, it's been in magazines. What about yours?"

He was quiet for a second. I thought he was going to put up a wall, but it wasn’t that. He was deciding where to start.

"My mother's name was Elena," he said. "She was from El Paso. Mexican-American, big family, the kind where Sunday dinner is forty people.” With those few words he began to relax. “She met my father when she was nineteen, at a show his band played. They got married fast, and she had me when she was twenty-one. She spoke Spanish to me from the day I was born, so I would fit inside her family anytime we went back, even when we were a thousand miles from them.” He shook his head. “She did her best for the next few years to keep my life normal while we toured with Dad, even though normal wasn’t a blip on anyone’s radar.” He turned the water glass once on his knee. "She died when I was twelve. Brain aneurysm. No warning. She was there in the morning and gone by dinner."

"Matthew." I squeezed his arm.

He nodded, accepting my comfort.

"It was a long time ago, Angelica." He said it the way that told me it might be a long time ago in years, but emotionally he was still raw. "It was one of the few times she and I weren’t on the tour bus. Instead, we were in El Paso at my abuela’s when it happened. One moment she was standing there in the kitchen cutting vegetables, the next moment she was gone. My father was three states away, mid-show, when they reached him. The promoters and the band pushed him to finish the set before he flew home. And he did. He's never forgiven himself for it. For the longest time, neither did I.”

He looked over at me. "I took her name when I enlisted. Grainger is hers. It felt like taking her with me. Plus, I didn’t want anyone connecting my name to him.”

“What is it?”

"My father is Jimmy Ray Calloway."

I sat straight up. Wine nearly went everywhere.

"Shut up!"

He gave me a half grin, as if he was expecting my reaction.

"Rebel Sons? THE Rebel Sons? Matthew, I have their albums. Actual vinyl. I drove down Pacific Coast Highway singing 'Whiskey Crown' at the top of my lungs more times than I will ever admit to another human being.”

"That's my father."

I had to shake myself out of fandom, so I could concentrate on him. He told me how after his mother died he went back on the tour bus without her, and how resentful he was. I understood about that life. I’d lived a version of it since I was twenty, but I’d made the decision to live it, he hadn’t. I had four protective older brothers, two parents, a grandmother, and a passel of other siblings behind me. He'd been dropped into it as a motherless twelve-year-old.

The fangirl left the building. I set my glass down.

"You hated it," I said.