The phone rang just in time to prevent Samantha from answering. She got up and ambled into the kitchen to give Taylor privacy. “I’d love some tea,” Taylor called after her, before she picked up the telephone.
The male voice was unmistakable, but he identified himself, just in case. “Taylor, Jeremy.”
It might be relatively early, but she was tired, and she wondered if he knew it. Jeremy wasn’t a bully, but he was a master at figuring out how to get what he wanted. He called that talent the ability to size up a situation, something that had helped him wedge open the door of the country music scene. It hadn’t helped him enough to make him a star, but his band, the Black Balsam Drifters, was now opening for big-name acts, and the songs he wrote and sang were being heard by significant players in the business.
“It’s been a long day,” she said, hoping honesty would throw him off his game. “I just got home, and I’m beat. Can we make this short?”
“Maddie and I had a nice talk.”
“Sam told me.”
“How is Sam?”
“Waiting in the kitchen while we finish this,” she said.
“Maddie said she had a whopper of a seizure this afternoon.”
“That’s how she said it?”
“She described how she was feeling at the moment, and I guessed the rest. Maybe I’m wrong?”
“No.” She sighed. “She’d been doing really well. I hoped the new meds…” Her voice trailed off.
“How bad was it?”
“Bad enough.”
“You called the doctor?”
“No, I sent her out to play in traffic.” She could have kicked herself the moment the words came out of her mouth. “I’m sorry. It really has been a long day.”
“What did he say?”
Jeremy was almost always rational, and he rarely engaged in sniping. Usually she was at least polite. She attempted to continue that tradition.
“He told me to keep an eye on her and bring her in on Monday. If anything significant comes of the visit, I’ll let you know, I promise.”
“Taylor, I know this is a bad time to bring this up. You’ve made it clear you’re whupped. But I think we can do better than Dr. Hilliard. I know you like him—”
“Like him? Before Dr. Hilliard, Maddie was just a name on a chart. Half the time I don’t think the doctor of the moment even read her case history. If I have a problem, he calls me back. He’s doing everything he can to get the medication adjusted, so we don’t have more events like the one we had at dinnertime.”
“But it’s not working.”
“This is not a sinus infection. If epilepsy were simple to treat, I could go to the drugstore and grab something over the counter.”
The silence went on so long, she began to wonder if they had been disconnected. Then he spoke.
“Not the right time for this. And it’s not a criticism, Taylor. But I worry. You’re right there, you can watch and make decisions based on what you see. I don’t have that…”
“What? Luxury? Is that what you were going to say? You think it’s a luxury to be right here watching her go through this?”
“I don’t have that information,” he said. “I need more time with her.”
“You know where we live. You send her support check to this address every month.”
“I want her to come to Nashville this summer.”
This time the silence was on Taylor’s end. “Did I hear that right?” she asked at last. “You want her to come to Nashville? And then what? You get a gig out of town, drag her along and stow her backstage? Or what, she stays at your apartment with a babysitter who doesn’t know jack about how to help her if she needs it?”
“None of the above. Look, there’s no casual way to tell you this. I’m engaged. Her name’s Willow, and she was our promoter on the last tour. She loves kids. I want her to get to know Maddie before we get married.”
Taylor took a moment to recover. “Well, that’s completely out of the blue. Does Maddie know?”
“Willow and I have been together awhile, but I didn’t see any point in telling Maddie if it wasn’t going to work out.”
“Thanks for that.”
“I do think about what’s good for her.”
“Why don’t you just bring Willow to Asheville to meet Maddie?”
“I don’t want her to meet Maddie. I want her to spend time with Maddie. Real time, two weeks at the beginning of summer. And Maddie’s been asking to come to Nashville. Willow has a little house with some land outside the city, and it’s a great place for a kid, so we’ll stay there. The band’s going to hunker down and put together our next CD, so there’s no chance we’ll be out on the road. I want to introduce them here, where there’s no pressure from anybody else.”
“Nobody here’s going to pressure you, Jeremy. But I think it would be better if you introduce the two of them where Maddie feels comfortable and safe. Her doctor’s here.”
“She needs to be here with me, without you,” he said pointedly. “She needs to be away from Asheville to give Willow a real chance. We have good doctors in Nashville, and I’ll get copies of her records. Our custody agreement allows for this.”
There was no threat in his tone, but the threat was in the words. Custody agreement. Papers they had signed. Choices they had made when they were still teenagers.
“We have time to talk this over,” she said at last.
“We have time to make the arrangements,” he countered. “I’m not going to change my mind. I didn’t mention it to Maddie, because I wanted to warn you first, but I will tell her the next time we talk.”
Warn, not consult. She heard the difference.
“Anything else?” she asked. “New and better bombshells?”
He spoke slowly and with surprising feeling, as if he had rehearsed what came next. “We’ve done surprisingly well through all this, you and me and the kiddo. Not the best start, not the best circumstances, but we’ve muddled through and grown up along the way. I know you’ve had the major burden, while I got to go out into the world and live my dreams. But it’s time for me to take some of the day-to-day stuff on my shoulders, and time for you to have a little flexibility and freedom. This isn’t going to be a one-time thing, Taylor. It’s the beginning of a new phase for all of us. Let’s make it work for Maddie, okay?”
“I always want what’s best for her.”
“Then we’re on the same page.” He said good-night and hung up.
Taylor stared at the wall until Samantha came back in, carrying two bright red mugs of tea.
As she handed a mug to Taylor, peppermint and chamomile scented the air. “It can’t be that bad.”
Taylor told her just how bad it was.
Samantha flopped down on the sofa beside her. “Well, what do you know about that?”
“Very little, as a matter of fact. He hasn’t given me a single hint this was coming.”
“The two of you never talk about anything personal. Why should he?”
“Because he’s giving my daughter a stepmother. Doesn’t that seem like something he’d mention?”
Samantha