Only later would I find out what was to happen to my sisters: V, Bebe, Cassie, and Martha. Because at that exact moment, coming through the crowd was Dad.
He looked like hell warmed over—his eyes bloodshot, his skin pale, his hair greasy and unwashed. He held a twisted copy of American Times in his hand.
“Good article?” I joked, hoping to lighten the moment.
Dad didn’t smile. He just shook his head. “I couldn’t bear to read the whole thing,” he said in a choked voice. “I couldn’t bear to know what I’d done to you.”
I felt a flash of anger, but unlike when he’d come in for his surprise visit, this time the anger was mixed with sympathy. “Don’t you think it’s time to stop doing that?” I asked.
Dad held his face in his hands. “Stop doing what, honey?” he asked wearily.
“Hiding from the truth.”
He looked up at me and shook his head again, but his expression gave him away. It was that same mask of exhaustion, sadness, and fear he’d worn for a year straight as Mom had slipped away from us. Seeing Dad fall apart had always melted any anger I felt toward him, and looking at him so lost right now, part of me wanted to shield him from any more pain. But that wasn’t doing either of us any favors. I took a deep breath and continued. “You’re scared because you lost Mom, and you’re scared that you’ll lose me,” I said. My voice started to break. “You’re scared I’m going to end up crazy too. And that’s why you sent me away.”
Dad just kept shaking his head. “No, honey. I didn’t send you away because of that. I sent you to the wrong place, but it was for the right reason.”
“Don’t you dare!” I cried. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Don’t you dare lie to yourself anymore. I love you and I always will, but I won’t allow you to do this to us anymore. You sent me away because you think I’m damaged goods. Well, I’m not damaged goods. I’m her daughter. I’m Mom’s daughter. And I loved her, and I lost her too.”
Dad just stared at me. Then he pulled me into a hug. I could feel him shaking, and suddenly I was calm. It was weird because as he cried, my fear, anger, and sadness fell away. When Dad regained his composure, he held me at arm’s length, looking at me as though he were meeting someone for the first time. He brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes and smiled. “When did my little girl become so wise?” he asked.
I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in years. “Come on, there’s some people I want you to meet,” I said. I motioned toward the Sisters and was about to turn in their direction when I saw something—or someone—out of the corner of my eye. I did a double take. The sun was glaring down now, and my eyes were kind of misty, so I figured it was an optical illusion. Either that or my wishful brain playing tricks on me. Except then the optical illusion started talking too. It was calling my name. “Brit,” it called. “Brit Hemphill.”
“Jed.” I tried to shout, but it came out a whisper.
Jed seemed to hear me anyway, because he was striding toward me now, his gaze focused on me like a laser beam. Dad, still holding my hand, looked at me and then at Jed. He seemed baffled for a second, and then his expression changed to one of recognition as he sized up the situation. For a moment, he looked worried and strained again, but I squeezed his hand and smiled at him, letting him know everything was going to be okay. That I was okay. Dad held on to my hand for a moment longer, squeezing back. And then he let go.
I ran to Jed, ran so fast that everything else seemed to blur around me. I flung myself into his arms and kissed him. Then I nuzzled my head into his neck as he planted kisses me all over my face. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of my Sisters cheering, applauding like it was the end of a really great movie. It was then that I understood that the ordeal of the last few years was finally over—and that something else was about to begin.
Five Months Later…..
Eight cities, eleven days, thirteen hundred miles, ten motel rooms, and twenty-seven Burrito Supremes later, I should have been ready to sleep for a month at the end of my first Clod tour, but in truth, I’d never felt more exhilarated. I loved playing live, and I was having a total blast test-driving my new songs—short, fast tracks with titles like “The Cinder Pile,” and “Clayton’s Soul Is a Black Hole”—not to mention spending every waking and sleeping hour with Jed. Being on the road made me feel like life’s possibilities were endless. I felt free.
Which is kind of funny considering how recently I’d been anything but free. Part of me still can’t believe I was allowed to go on tour. When I asked Dad if I could spend winter break on tour, I’d expected a knee-jerk no. But he listened, and then he admitted that his fears about my being in Clod were based on his own experience. He knows what lengths seventeen-year-old girls will go to just to meet the band. So I had to remind him that I’m not some groupie; I am the band.
A week later, Dad came to his first Clod show. Backstage afterward, I caught him staring at me—and not with his usual sad-scared look, either. In its place was this dreamy expression I recognized from times when I’d done something to make him proud. The next morning he told me I could go on tour—provided, among other things, I called him every day to check in. Our tour conversations were much better than our Red Rock calls were. Dad asked about the details of every show, and he even told me stories from when he was a roadie, a part of his life he hadn’t mentioned in years.
Mom. Well, she’s a different story. I went to see her and Grandma a few weeks after I left Red Rock, and she was, frankly, a mess. When she wasn’t rambling on about radio signals being beamed in through her cavity fillings, she was staring into space. She didn’t seem to know who I was, either. I paid her a second visit the day we played in Spokane. Jed insisted on coming along. Thankfully, there were no paranoid rants this time. Mom was sort of quiet and childlike; she smiled and even held my hand. After we left, part of me wanted to ask Jed if he was scared I might end up like my mom. But later at the show, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall and finally realized that maybe the only way to answer that question was to stop asking it.
It probably sounds like a plot for some cinematic moment of musical closure, but the last stop on Clod’s tour was Cafenomica, and not because of me. The cafe’s booker had been after us for an encore ever since our gig in March. It was as if the entire under-twenty-five population of St. George came out to hear us play our second Cafenomica show. Beth and Ansley were there, jumping around like crazy. We rocked the place so hard that the windows vibrated.
The next day the rest of the band drove back to Oregon, and Ansley and Beth drove me out to Red Rock. I don’t know why I wanted to see it again. For closure? To stare down my monsters once and for all? But when I stood in what had been the quarry, with tumbleweeds and cinder blocks all around me, all I felt was…..over it. The place held no power over me anymore.
I thought about the rest of the Sisters. It was like we’d all slain our dragons. Martha, now a healthy size 14, had taught her parents to accept her as is and was planning on competing in a plus-size beauty contest. Cassie started a g*y-straight-bi alliance at her school (though she still claimed to be undecided on where she fell in that spectrum). And cynical, why-settle-for-a-boyfriend Bebe had fallen head over heels in love with some guy at her new co-ed boarding school. Even V, who’d barricaded herself in a Utah hellhole just to feel safe, was planning on traveling around the world solo. V liked to joke that we were the brochure girls now. Except Red Rock hadn’t helped us. We’d helped us.
Ansley and Beth dropped me at the bus station, where I caught a sputtering Greyhound to Grand Canyon Village. As I walked down the path toward our agreed-upon meeting point, I got lost in the view: layer upon layer of brown, red, and pink-hued cliffs leading down the gaping canyon to the jade ribbon of the Colorado River. It beat anything I’d seen in pictures, and I felt goose bumps tickle my arms. It was then that I spotted them at one of the lookouts, silhouetted by the afternoon sun: Amazonian V, surveying the grounds as if she owned the place. Stylish Bebe, leaning up against the rail like she was on a photo shoot. Smiling Cassie, pointing out something down in the canyon. And wide-eyed Martha, camera in hand, taking in all the sights. I paused for a second to watch my Sisters there on the precipice. And then I joined them.