Girl in Love(108)

It blurred into sight as she crossed the state line. She had three hours to get to Oklahoma City and rehearse for tonight’s show. But she had a stop to make first. Two, actually.

Pride is Proud of Kylie Ryans, the sign announced when she entered her hometown.

She’d heard about it, but this was the first time she’d seen it for herself. On one side was her formal senior yearbook photo. On the other was a shot of her smiling for the very first promo shots she’d ever taken when she’d signed up for Trace’s Back to My Roots tour.

It was like seeing two different girls up there. And then a quick glance in the mirror revealed a third. One she didn’t even know herself.

A brief lyric flitted through her head. Something about where you go when you don’t recognize the face in the mirror.

Home, apparently.

She rolled to a stop in front of her old house. A late-model minivan with a handicap tag was parked in the driveway. For a few minutes, she let herself remember.

Sitting on the front porch with her daddy, playing music, catching fireflies, and talking about everything under the sun. But once he was gone, that small faded white house with blue shutters had stopped being home.

She could practically see herself running out the door with nothing other than her guitar case the day Darla had thrown her out. Cringing at the painful words that had accompanied her eviction, she’d walked to work. Where she’d promptly gotten fired and hopped a bus to Nashville.

It felt like a lifetime ago. Or someone else’s life.

She placed her hand over her mouth to keep the tears from coming. She’d left that place and she’d found another home.

One with a man who might be more than even she could handle.

For reasons she couldn’t justify even to herself, she got out of the truck and approached the front door. Hopefully a stranger showing up out of the blue and saying, “Hey, I grew up here, can I come inside for five minutes,” wouldn’t creep out whoever lived here. Or at the very least, maybe they wouldn’t call the cops.

Just as she made her way up the front walk, stepping over the cracks the same way she had as a kid, the front door opened.

An attractive middle-aged Hispanic lady looked at her and gasped.

“Hi. Um, so sorry to bother you,” Kylie began.

“It’s you,” the lady said, seemingly not surprised, as if she’d expected this random confrontation for some reason. “He said you might come by some day.”

“He?”

“We’re just heading out. Isabelle has piano lessons at the church,” the woman explained as she pulled a young girl in a wheelchair out onto the porch. “But if you’d like to come back later, we’ll be home in an hour or so.”

Kylie smiled at both of them, trying to cover her confusion. “Um, gosh, no. I have to be somewhere. I just… I grew up here and I was in town so…”

“Pride is proud of Kylie Ryans,” the lady said with a wink. “Yes, we know. I’m Marlena Gutiérrez. And this is my daughter, Isabelle.”

So someone recognized her then. Well, that made one of them.

“Is that really her?”

Kylie glanced down at the girl, who looked to be around nine or ten.

“It is,” her mother confirmed.

“She’s really pretty.”

Kylie smiled at the girl. “Isabelle was it? I bet you sleep in my old bedroom.”

“I do! The kids at school didn’t believe me until he put the sign up.”

Kylie glanced at her mom for clarification. Marlena pointed to the small wooden plaque by the front door.

Childhood Home of Country Music Singer Kylie Ryans - Official Property of the A Hand Up Foundation, it read.

Below was some small print about restrictions on changes being made to the house, but the water welling in her eyes made it too blurry for her to make out.

“He’s a good man, that Mr. Corbin,” Marlena said softly. “You didn’t know?”

Do not cry in front of these people.

“Yes. He is.” Well, that answered the question of who had bought her house. She’d always wondered. And yes, she knew he was a good man, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t what the lady had meant. “And no, I didn’t know. But I’m glad this old house has so much love in it.” Kylie nodded at each of them. “It was wonderful to meet both of you. I hope y’all have as many good memories here as I do.” She turned to leave before her tears fell.

“Miss Ryans? Before you go, could you sign something for my daughter?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat once more. “Of course.”

Marlena dug an envelope and a pen from her purse. After Kylie had signed it, she thought about Trace, what he would do in this situation.