The Bridge Page 4

  Driving took enough of her attention that her tears slowed. The storm drew her back, took her to the place in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she and Charlie had met. Charlie, that handsome, strapping young man with calloused hands and a tender heart. The first person Donna ever trusted.

  Her past remained as ugly as it was painful, but while she drove home, she could do nothing to stop it from replaying. Donna was the only child of drug-addicted parents, a bright girl who spent her teenage years visiting one or both of her parents in jail. Routinely, she would come home to find her mom and dad crashed on the floor, Ziploc bags of drugs and dirty needles scattered on the kitchen table.

  Sometimes Donna spent the night with a friend down the street. Mostly, she took all her heartache and sorrow out on her studies. Along the way, she developed a fierce determination to succeed, to stay away from drugs and danger and anything that would distract her from her dream. She hid the truth about her home life from everyone and easily carried a perfect 4.0 through high school, and no one was surprised when Donna was named class valedictorian or when she earned a full-ride scholarship to North Carolina State.

  Her mom overdosed on heroin three days before her graduation.

  A teacher and her husband took Donna in, and she lived with them until she headed off for college. Her dad didn’t handle the loss as well. He stayed around for a month or so and then one night went out with his friends and never came home. Police found his car wrapped around a tree the next morning. And like that, Donna was alone in the world.

  By the time Donna met Charlie, she was utterly independent. People had let her down and hurt her, so if she could rely on herself, on her academic abilities and her dreams of teaching, then she would survive. Charlie was interesting and different. He was in her freshman English composition class, and from the first day, he found a way to make her laugh. He was the only son of a local cement contractor, a man gruff and quick-tempered who expected Charlie to take over the family trade. Charlie didn’t want to spend his life leveling fresh-poured foundations and patios. His decision to study business at NC State was the most rebellious thing he had ever done, and it created a rift with his parents that remained.

  Donna remembered what Charlie’s father had told him, and the memories made her sick to her stomach. You’ll never succeed in the business world, his father had told him. You’re a Barton, and Bartons aren’t businesspeople. You’ll fail and then you’ll come crawling back to me and the cement.

  Though his father had sold the cement business fifteen years ago, Charlie was still desperate to hang on to the bookstore. If he walked away from The Bridge now, his father would be right. Donna felt fresh tears fill her eyes. The enormity of that awful prediction must have weighed heavy on Charlie’s heart.

  “Really, God? You’d let this happen to a man like Charlie?” She whispered the words, her voice broken.

  She squinted again, the moments of her past still playing in her mind. No one had ever been able to reach her like Charlie Barton had. When the semester ended, Charlie took her to the beach and walked with her along the shore. “Look out there, Donna.” He stopped and stared out at the water, a smile filling his face. “What do you see?”

  She laughed, nervous and excited and feeling more alive than ever. “Everything and nothing. I can’t see the end of it.”

  “Exactly.” He turned and faced her, touching her cheek with his fingertips. “That’s what you deserve, Donna. Everything in all the world. Without end.”

  “Is that right?” She had felt herself blush, felt the unfamiliarity of caring and wanting and longing for someone. “What if you’re the only one who thinks so?”

  His smile made her feel dizzy. A sparkle shone in his eyes, and he shrugged. “Then I guess it’ll be up to me to make sure you get what you deserve.”

  Somewhere between his sweet declaration and the walk back to the car, Donna remembered taking note of two things: the feel of the wind and sun on her shoulders and something else. Something was missing from her chest, and she realized by the time they were in his car that it was her heart.

  Because from that day on, her heart belonged always and only to Charlie Barton.

  Their wedding two years later was a simple affair in front of a justice of the peace, followed by their honeymoon, a weekend trip to a friend’s lakeside cabin. After that, they shared a small apartment, and at night when they had no money, they would sit across from each other at their small kitchen table and dream. One conversation from those days stood out—Donna could see it, hear it as if watching a movie.

  “My dad never let me read.” Charlie reached across the table and took her hands in his.

  “What?” She gave him a doubtful look. “Be serious.”

  He raised one eyebrow and tilted his head. His sad chuckle told her he wasn’t kidding. “I mean, in my early school years, he wanted me to read textbooks. Never for fun.” He ran his thumbs along the sides of her hands. “But I loved reading.”

  Donna smiled. “Me, too.”

  Charlie told her how, in middle school, he’d head to the school library instead of going outside at recess. “I fought alongside Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, and I felt the splash of water on my face as I sailed on muddy rivers with Tom Sawyer.” He laughed. “I was probably the only guy in eighth grade who cried when Beth died in Little Women.”

  Charlie’s fascination with fiction led him to check out books and sneak them home in his schoolbag. He’d hide whatever he was reading beneath his bed, and long after his dad thought he was asleep, he’d slip under the covers and read by flashlight.

  “So I was thinking,” he told her early in their marriage, “maybe I’ll open a bookstore. New and used books—so everyone has a chance to see the world through the pages of a story.”

  Donna had been delighted at the idea, impressed with her larger-than-life husband and his grand dreams. His heart had always been bigger than the ocean she’d looked across on that long-ago day. Opening a bookstore had never been about making a fortune or finding the quickest way to success. He simply wanted other people to experience what he had experienced. The feel of ocean water on their feet as they salvaged a shipwreck next to Robinson Crusoe.

  Neither of them expected Donna to get pregnant six months into their marriage. They had school to finish and the bookstore to build after that. Even then, Charlie was undaunted.

  “God’s unexpected blessing,” he would say. “He must have mighty plans for this little one.”

  Donna blinked back the memory. What happened next was the hardest part, the piece of their past that Donna rarely allowed to surface. Her pregnancy was healthy, nothing out of the ordinary until she went into labor. She had no idea why it had happened or why hers was the one pregnancy in tens of thousands that ended the way it did. There were no warnings, no signs that an emergency was at hand.

  One morning a week from her due date, she woke up bleeding.

  Charlie rushed her to the hospital, but Donna was already in and out of consciousness. Losing a lot of blood . . . DIC . . . placenta previa . . . coagulation . . . Unfamiliar words and terms were thrown around by the doctor and nursing staff as they worked in a panic around her. The last thing she saw before she passed out was Charlie, his wide eyes and pale face as someone asked him to leave the room.

  Then there was nothing but darkness.

  When Donna woke up, she felt like she’d been run over. Charlie was at her side, tears in his eyes. A hundred questions screamed through her mind, but she didn’t need to ask any of them. The pain in her sweet husband’s face told her all the sad answers without him saying a word. Eventually, when he could talk, he looked her straight in the eyes and gave her the truth. The baby was dead, a little girl.

  That wasn’t all. Donna’s bleeding had been so bad that the doctor had performed a hysterectomy to save her life. So Donna’s chances to ever get pregnant again were dead, too.

  In time her body healed, but her heart, her soul, never would have recovere
d without Charlie. If he questioned God for allowing their loss, he never said so. He clipped their daughter’s tiny obituary from the newspaper and placed it with her hospital bracelet and her death certificate in a small metal box. Proof that she had existed. Other than his tears on that first day, he remained solid, convincing her day by day that he loved her unconditionally. Never mind the babies she could never give him. He loved her.

  Completely and wholeheartedly.

  Donna wiped her eyes again and pulled into their driveway. The gravel was slick, covered with a layer of snow. She hoped Charlie was behind her, that he hadn’t stayed at the store looking for answers that weren’t there. As she parked the car and made her way into the house through the driving snow, she felt the familiar fear again. Dear God . . . don’t let anything happen to him . . . I’ve never seen him like this . . .

  She made herself a cup of tea and took the seat by the window so she could watch for him. Again the memories returned. It was Charlie’s idea that they leave North Carolina and start life over again in Franklin. He had heard from one of his professors that investors were eyeing the small town south of Nashville and that the place was expected to become a retreat for Music City’s elite and a destination for tourists.

  “The perfect place for our bookstore.” Charlie’s enthusiasm was contagious, and at the end of the semester, one of his professors connected him with a friend in Nashville who had a room for rent. Charlie was relentless in pursuit of his dream.

  They lived in a garage apartment behind the friend’s house, and Charlie worked three jobs while attending school so he could save money for the bookstore. Two years after graduation, Donna took a job teaching at Franklin Elementary School, and Charlie leased space for the store.

  He called it The Bridge because that was how he felt about books. They connected the past and the present, the present and the future. Books brought people together and gave them a path to worlds they wouldn’t otherwise experience.

  There was another reason, too.

  The bookstore wasn’t only Charlie’s dream. It was the way to move from the pain of the past to the promise of tomorrow. Forever there would be the tragic and disappointing life before opening the store and the hopeful, fulfilling life after. The store wasn’t only called The Bridge.

  It was the bridge.

  From the beginning, Charlie was too generous to make much of a profit. A college kid would come in looking for a classic and end up being a dollar or two short. “Don’t worry about it. Someday someone will need a favor from you.” Charlie would wink at him and tuck the book in a bag. “Be ready for that moment.”

  When illness struck the owner of a neighboring pastry business, Charlie gathered up a week’s worth of receipts, took the cash to the little shop, and laid it on the counter. “We have to stick together. Community’s more important than making a killing.”

  Donna remembered the woman who owned the pastry shop telling her about Charlie’s statement. Donna had laughed out loud. “Sweet Charlie.” Her heart swelled at her husband’s kindness. “He would give it all away long before there was any danger of making a killing.”

  That stayed true year after year, decade after decade, while the people of Franklin and tourists who passed through found respite and adventure, hope and direction at The Bridge. Through it all, Charlie never questioned God about the losses of the past, about her parents’ drug addiction, or his father’s decision to cut him out of the family.

  Or about the loss of their little girl.

  Even when the flood took every book in the store, Donna didn’t see Charlie waver, didn’t see him fear for the future. Not until today, when hope of opening again was finally and fully dead. Donna sipped her tea and prayed, begging God on behalf of her husband. Instead of feeling peace and certainty, the more Donna cried out to God, the more she became filled with a sense of dread. If The Bridge closed, then the predictions of Charlie’s father would come true. No matter what good Charlie had done at The Bridge, he would be left with the one lie big enough to destroy him.

  The lie that somehow Charlie Barton had failed.

  C HA P T E R F O U R

  Music had changed, that was the problem.

  Ryan Kelly was a guitar player, and players always had work in Nashville. Now, though, a glut of musicians and too many lesser-known acts had dropped the price for a day’s work. Ryan wasn’t sure he could still make a living at it.

  He silenced his alarm clock, stepped out of bed in his Nashville apartment, and raked his hand through his messy dark hair. How had things changed so fast? A month ago he was touring with a group that used to be the nation’s hottest country duo. Now he was unemployed and ready to head back to Carthage, Mississippi.

  The past five years were little more than a blur. After graduation from Belmont, he was hired to play with an unknown country act. The pair wound up winning big at the Country Music Awards a year later, and Ryan was set: the lead guitarist for an act that had toured as many as two hundred days a year over the last five years.

  But music was a fickle master, and three straight records without a hit were more than the label could take. When the group got dropped over the summer, the lead singer asked Ryan to stay with them through the end of the touring season. Now it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and he’d been home a full week without any idea of what was coming next.

  He stood and walked to his bedroom window. Crazy snowstorm wouldn’t let up. It made him wonder if he was really in Nashville, or maybe some other city, ready to hit the stage. As if all of the past week had been a terrible dream.

  He narrowed his eyes against the blinding white outside. Where do You want me, God? What am I supposed to do next? He stared at his alarm clock. Seven in the morning. All his life he’d set an alarm—something his father had taught him. “Successful people get up first thing in the morning.” His hardworking dad lived out the truth, teaching in the Carthage school system for going on three decades. “Don’t get in the habit of sleeping late.”

  Ryan leaned back against the windowsill. His room was clean, laundry caught up, and every inch of the house dusted and tidied. Getting things in order was the way he always spent the first few days after a tour. This time was different, his alarm only one more reminder of the reality: He had no next tour to prepare for, nothing ahead but the days.

  Ryan breathed in deep. How strange that the changes in music hadn’t touched him until now.

  “It’s a new world,” his booking agent had told him. The man was a twenty-year veteran in country music. “Players are making a fifth of what they once did. The money’s in songwriting and studio work.”

  “Bands still need guitarists.” Ryan hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d assumed for the last six months that when the tour ran out, he’d come home, make a few phone calls, and hook up with a new band.

  “It’s not that simple.” His agent sighed. “The successful acts make their players part of the group. Otherwise it’s petty cash for a night’s play. Even studio work is different. More competitive than I’ve seen it. A lot of producers use computerized instruments.”

  In the dozens of phone calls he’d made over the last week, Ryan had learned of just one job opening. Studio work for one of the labels, a job coming up the first week of December. His agent said the studio expected more than a hundred players to show up and vie for the job. Ryan breathed in deep and headed toward his bathroom.

  There was one other option.

  His father had told him about it last night. The music teacher position at Carthage High was opening up at the end of the semester—six months earlier than expected. “It’s a good job,” his dad told him, “safe, secure.”

  He thanked his father, but when he hung up, he could only think about the reason he’d gone after his dream of playing guitar professionally in the first place, the reason that, after graduation, he hadn’t been able to go back to Kristen and her father’s farm and the two acres set aside for them. The reason he had stayed in Nashville
nearly a year after graduation, taking odd jobs until he got his shot.

  Because even now he could hear her voice encouraging him, pushing him. The voice of Molly Allen. The girl he hadn’t been able to forget no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many years.

  He showered and dressed in worn dark jeans and an off-white thermal. Like every day, today offered another chance. He could go to the label and talk to one of the execs, see if he’d missed something—a new band or one of the regulars looking for a replacement. He could be part of a group, right? Throughout his morning routine, while he combed his hair and brushed his teeth, while he made the decision about heading down to the label’s office, Ryan thought about her.

  About Molly.

  Where was she after all these years? Still in San Francisco, married to the guy her parents had chosen for her? Ryan had heard that from someone, and the truth hurt. Not because she’d gone back home or because she’d never fallen for him despite their friendship. But because she’d broken her promise.

  The promise to never settle.

  Ryan scrambled four eggs and dished them onto a plate. As he did, his eyes fell on the bookcase just off the dining room. The book had been there for the past seven years, but today it might as well have had a neon sign over it. His copy of Jane Eyre. He looked at it for a long time before he pushed his plate back, stood, and crossed the room. When he reached the bookcase, he stared at it, unable to fight the way the physical presence of the book took him back.

  Molly had bought a copy for each of them one of the last times they were together. “We won’t be here to read it off the shelf,” Molly had told him. “So we both need a copy.”

  By then their good-bye loomed, and her voice was tinged with tears. Somehow she had believed that if they each had a copy of Jane Eyre, they would keep the connection they’d found at The Bridge. He pulled the book from the shelf and held it carefully, as if it were the most priceless heirloom. His copy was used, one of the earlier editions. Molly had special-ordered it through Charlie once she knew for sure she was leaving.