Gretchen snorted. “No. Neither of those.” The woman took a deep breath and scooted her drink aside so she could prop her elbows on the table. “In order to explain about Trace, I have to tell you some things about me that are really none of your business. So once I do, you feel free to let them slip right out of your memory. Got it?”
Kylie nodded.
She watched as the other woman took a deep breath. “Okay. So I have a son.”
Kylie’s hands gripped the table. Her entire world began to tilt dangerously to one side. “Oh,” she whispered.
“Not with Trace. Christ almighty, why does everyone assume that?” Gretchen shook her head. “Anyways. Once upon a time, I was very young and naïve. I met a traveling musician who promised to help me get out of my backwater hometown in South Carolina. He turned out to be a dirtbag who left me pregnant and broke.”
Kylie’s mouth was dry, and she wished she’d ordered water or straight vodka instead of coffee. “Um, I’m sorry to hear that?”
“Sure, that’s an acceptable response.” Gretchen continued. “Anyways, I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I couldn’t even make decent decisions for myself. So my mom agreed to raise my son so I could pursue the one thing I loved.”
“Music,” Kylie offered softly, thinking they had that in common.
“No,” Gretchen said evenly. “Partying. Clubs, musicians, DJs, whatever. I was never like you and Trace. Music was never my be-all and end-all. I was a complete mess with no real ambition.”
Or maybe not.
“Classy.”
“Yeah, well. I was eighteen and stupid. And then I stumbled into a band one of my loser boyfriends was in with Trace. Even in my stupidity, I knew a decent guy when I saw one. So I tried to ditch my boyfriend and hook up with him, and you can imagine how well that ended.”
Kylie tried not to make her internal cringing obvious. She must not have succeeded because Gretchen actually appeared sympathetic for a moment.
“Relax. It was one time, and we were both too drunk to remember. But it was enough to get me kicked out of the band. So I went home.”
Where you should’ve stayed, Kylie thought but didn’t say out loud.
“And my mom and Daniel—that’s my son—had this bond. I felt like this giant third wheel that was just in the way. So I came back to Nashville and threw everything I had into music. I gambled on it, hoping my tiny bit of talent and originality would be enough.”
Her mouth turned down in a way that actually made Kylie feel sorry for her.
“I just wanted to be someone my son could be proud of, you know?”
The tears gathering in Gretchen’s eyes struck a chord in Kylie’s compassion center.
“As someone with two dead parents who would give it all up in a heartbeat to have them back, I can honestly say, I bet your son doesn’t care if you’re a musician or famous or whatever. My mom was a secretary and my daddy worked in a factory. I don’t remember my mom, but I thought my daddy was the most amazing person in the whole wide world. All your son probably cares about is that you’re there, that you’re his mom.”
Gretchen nodded and a few tears leaked from her eyes. She wiped them as quickly as they’d fallen. “Yeah. Working on that. Anyways, I didn’t ask you here to throw me a pity party. My mistakes are mine and I own them.”
“So why did you ask me here?” Kylie sucked in a breath and held it.
“Because I want you to know what’s going on with Trace. I think he needs you. And while the old me couldn’t really give a shit, the new me, the me who really does want to see him happy, doesn’t want to get in the way of that.”
“So…”
“So I’m going to tell you something I shouldn’t. Something Trace said during a group session in rehab that stuck with me.”
Kylie didn’t interrupt to mention that Gretchen had said that he’d kept her secrets but now she was revealing his. Because whatever she was about to tell her seemed important. And dammit, she wanted to know.
“We had this exercise we were supposed to do—describe our happy place—the one place where we were never tempted to drink.” Gretchen offered Kylie a small smile. “We were supposed to describe it in vivid detail for the group so that if any one of us was tempted we could help each other by reminding them of that place, that place where they felt true happiness, felt complete without the need to abuse any substances.”
“Okay.” Kylie’s brows dipped as she tried to figure out how this was relevant.
“For most of us, it was a place from our childhood. Not for Trace.”