THERE IS AN odd sense of quiet in the RV today. Usually, I can’t get through my shower without one of my brothers banging on the door, but today I was even able to get dressed in the tiny bathroom without protest. Most mornings, my brothers and I argue over who does which chores, but today Jacob did the dishes without being asked, and Dylan made coffee while I wiped down the foldout kitchenette. And ordinarily, my mom has to ask us a million times to turn off the TV and get started on our homework, but today we all set up camp in our regular places and hunkered down. The Barrett Family Band in Winnie as usual… except that Winnie, who was supposed to be on her way to Knoxville, hasn’t moved an inch… and except that the leader of our band is still at the Great American Music offices talking to a talent scout who is interested in us and could possibly change our lives. Other than that, it’s just your average Wednesday.

“I can’t concentrate,” Jacob says, exasperated. He throws his pen up in the air and puffs out his cheeks. “I can’t! What the heck’s a derivative and who on God’s green earth cares?”

“Seriously, Mom,” I complain, looking down at my calculus homework. “Have you ever needed to use a graphing calculator in your entire life?”

“Just for homework—” my mom says over the clicking of her knitting needles.

“Exactly,” I interrupt.

“Which I did, as will you two,” she finishes.

Jacob and I look at each other and roll our eyes. “It’s been two hours,” he says. “What in the world have they been talking about for two hours?”

“I’m with them,” Dylan pipes up, closing his laptop and standing to stretch. “One minute, you’re sitting outside your RV eating English muffins. The next minute, your dad makes a phone call that could change your life. Kind of hard to care about homework.”

“You’re right.” Mom sighs, setting down her needles. “You’re right. Y’all want to play Hold ’Em?”

“Ha!” Dylan says, pointing at her and smiling. “You’re nervous, too!”

My mom smiles mischievously. “Nah, I just like beating my kids at poker.”

But before she gets that chance, Winnie’s door opens, and my dad appears in the stairwell. We all scramble out of the booth and charge him like a bull in a bad mood.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” my dad hollers, his arms up as we practically push him back out of Winnie.

“What’d they say?” Dylan asks, stomping down the steps.

“Did we get a deal?” Jacob asks, right behind him.

I follow and Mom is on my heels.

“Tell us everything,” I pant. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”

Outside, our group has to move over for a trucker who’s getting into his big rig, and I realize that right here in the parking lot of the Travel Centers of America truck stop, our lives could change forever. I laugh out loud, so giddy at all of this possibility. Traffic rumbles past us on the highway and the smells of diesel and gasoline fill my nose, but the summer sun is shining down brightly and the sky is clear. It’s a beautiful day for good news.

“Well,” my dad says, running his hands through his hair, looking down, and toeing a crack in the pavement. Then the semi driver fires up his engine, interrupting him. Dad can’t be heard over that, especially with his weak voice, so we watch as the dude situates himself behind the wheel, checks his mirrors, and slowly pulls out. I lean against Winnie, watching the annoyance on Dylan’s face, the frustration on Jacob’s, and the almost childlike anticipation on my mother’s. I can’t see my own expression, but I’m sure it’s one of joy. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling. Everything was so perfect last night, like it was destined, like everything we’ve gone through over the past seven years has led to this very moment right off I-24. I just have a feeling.

“Okay, okay, what’d he say?” Dylan demands once the truck has moved on.

“Well, Mr. Strong is certainly interested—”

“Yeah, we know that,” Dylan interrupts. “But what’d he say? Did we get a deal?”

“Let him talk,” Jacob says.

“Well,” my dad responds, “they didn’t offer us a deal.”

And then we all go silent. I hear a little girl at the gas pump begging her dad for a quarter for the gum-ball machine inside. I hear a flock of birds calling out to one another as they swoop by overhead in their perfect V. And I hear a car horn honking angrily at someone down the road. But from the Barrett family, there is nothing but silence as we let his words sink in.

“We didn’t get a deal?” I finally ask quietly. I’m confused. Why did Randall Strong insist on the phone that my dad come to his office right away?

“Not exactly,” my dad says, hands in his pockets. Finally he looks up at my mother. They exchange a look that says my dad has more to say but wants to run it by her first. She nods.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Dylan says, blocking the door to Winnie as my parents move toward it. “You can’t leave us all morning and go into the offices of the biggest label in country music and then come back and say it was nothing. I want to know what happened.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Jacob adds.

“I need to talk to your mother,” my dad replies sternly.

“Okay, look,” Dylan says, sighing heavily. “I get that you guys like to make family decisions in private. I understand that. And I respect that. But this isn’t really a family decision; it concerns the Barrett Family Band. And we may be your kids, but we’re also band members. And we deserve to know about anything concerning our group.”

“He’s right,” Jacob says.

I nod, too. We have a right to know.

My dad sighs loudly, his face weary. I know he’s got a bad cold, and I know he’s tired. I’m sure he’d like nothing more than to go rest, but we want answers. What was so important that they brought him down to Music Row on such short notice if they weren’t going to offer us a deal?

My dad opens the door to Winnie and sits on the bottom step. We all circle around him, trying not to hover but not willing to let him escape yet either. “That’s just it,” my dad says, looking up at us. “This isn’t about the group. They don’t want to sign the Barrett Family Band.” He pauses. “They want Bird.”

I gasp and step back, feeling like maybe I didn’t hear him right.

“Bird?” Dylan asks, confused. “What do you mean? Just Bird? Like, just her?”

My dad nods, then looks up at me. “Strong said GAM is looking to add fresh young female talent to their roster. He loved her singing and, of course, her fiddle playing. And he said she has natural stage presence, even if she could use a little work leading a band.” My dad grins wryly.

I feel my face and neck flush. I am floored. They only want me?

“What does this mean for the Barrett Family Band?” Dylan asks, his voice a tad panicky. “I put off college for this.”

I look over at Dylan and feel kind of sick to my stomach. If I were to sign with GAM solo, what would that mean for him? For Jacob? For my parents? We got into music as a family. We need it—as a family.

When Caleb died, we all sank into a pit of grief. My mom quit her job and took to bed. I remember bringing her my Madeline books and snuggling in, but she didn’t read them with the same enthusiasm as before, and usually, I ended up reading to her. She was desperate with guilt, beating herself up for not having kept a closer eye on us that afternoon. We all carried guilt, even us kids who were still so young. Dylan felt like he should’ve been watching Caleb and me by the pond, Jacob felt like it was his fault for distracting Dylan with his new dirt bike, and I still feel like I should’ve screamed for help sooner. I didn’t understand that my little brother was drowning. I thought he would swim, or float, or splash around. By the time I hollered for anybody, it was too late.

When we finally started family therapy with our pastor, it felt like a last-ditch effort to keep the family together. But Brother James was super friendly, and he kept reminding us that this accident was just that—an accident, nobody’s fault, and that always made me feel better. I liked being able to talk about Caleb. I liked talking to an adult whose hugs weren’t so tight and whose laugh wasn’t forced. And when he suggested that we get a hobby, find something that we could all do together, my dad mentioned his glory days playing in a string band in college, and Brother James jumped on it. He asked if playing music sounded like fun to the rest of us, and, well, it did.

So the next day, my dad dragged his old banjo down from the attic and brought home a bunch of well-used instruments from a music store in town. Dylan chose a steel-stringed acoustic guitar. Jacob wanted to play drums, but my dad told him that the bass was the way bluegrass groups kept beat, so he chose that. My mom quietly picked up the mandolin and clutched it to her chest, which left the fiddle for me.

That night, we said a prayer for Caleb and then strummed and plucked and basically abused our new toys. My dad picked out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” over and over and over again, showing Dylan how to move his hands and place his fingers, but it was clear right away that we’d need real lessons. The neighbors probably wanted to call the cops, but somehow that awful sound unlocked something inside my mom. When I looked over at her, still hugging her new instrument and rocking from side to side, she smiled at me for the first time in months.

We actually picked up music pretty fast, and after a few years, the Barrett Family Band was more than a back-porch way to pass the time. I won a fiddling competition, and Dylan brought the house down at our school talent show. My dad signed us up for a local festival and then another show, and before we knew it we were playing at least once a month.

I never will forget the day we came home from school and my parents asked us how we would feel about taking our band on the road. Dylan wasn’t happy about quitting basketball or leaving his friends behind, but after a week of thinking about it, he agreed with the rest of us that it would certainly be a wild adventure. And the next thing you know, the house was traded in for an RV and the Barrett Family Band was on tour.

I shake my head. It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road for seven years—and that it’s been ten since Caleb’s death.

Looking at my family now, outside this noisy truck stop and this mobile home of ours, I feel my heart lurch.

“I won’t do it,” I say. “I want what’s best for the band. Really. I won’t do it.”

“Oh, Bird,” my mom says, reaching over and squeezing my hand. “What’s good for one of us is good for all of us.”

“This really is no small thing,” my dad says. “I told Strong that we’d have to talk about this opportunity before diving right in, but we should all feel very excited for Bird. Just as we would for any of us if the situation were different.”

Dylan looks over at me and then lets out a big breath, long and slow, almost as if he’s been holding it since Dad left this morning. He shakes his head, snapping out of something, and gives me a small smile. “No, they’re right. You should do it.”

“Really?” I ask, hating the squeaky tone in my voice. My throat is tight, and I’m so tense that my fingernails are cutting into the palms of my hands. On the one hand, I would feel totally passed over if the roles were reversed and I can’t stand the disappointment on my brothers’ faces, but at the same time, I feel chosen, special, excited. This is my chance to make music of my own—on my own—but it feels wrong to leave my family behind.

“Totally. You should do it, Bird,” Jacob echoes hollowly. “Congratulations.” He walks over to me and drapes a long skinny arm around my shoulders. “Just don’t forget the little people,” he says. I smile up at him, thankful to have brothers who love me and are happy for my success even if they’d rather be sharing it with me. And then I realize I’ve fallen right into his trap: He hooks his arm around my neck and gives me a freaking noogie.

“Get off me, you moron!” I yell, wrestling free. Everybody laughs as I smooth my hair back into place, and although the noogie seemed maybe a tad aggressive, I guess it’s better than him hating me forever.

“Well, nobody’s doing anything right away,” my dad says, slapping his legs and standing up. “The Barrett Family Band’s got a show to play in Knoxville tonight.”

“Yeah, just try not to get discovered again, Bird,” Dylan teases as he walks past me.

“Ha-ha,” I say dryly.

But as my family files past me into the RV, I stay put. I look around, letting his words sink in. I think I might still be in a state of mild shock. Here, in the corner of this truck-stop parking lot, I got a break. Last night, I was discovered. Before I can stop myself, my mind flashes forward to sold-out concerts and music videos and CDs in Walmart with my picture on the front. I think about the money I’ll make and how I’ll be able to buy my parents a house and my brothers fancy cars. My body buzzes with the kind of energy that sends rockets into space, but in case my brothers are watching, I keep my feet on the ground and take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I heard everything my father said, but still, it doesn’t feel real.

I see a shiny black stone near the cracked pavement my dad was kicking around, and without thinking, I pick it up. This really happened. Right here in this parking lot, I got a break. I slip the small stone into my jeans pocket, rubbing its one sharp edge with my thumb, almost like pinching myself. I never want to forget the way I feel right at this very moment, right in this very place.

And then it’s back to reality. “Who’s ready for lunch?” my mom asks as I climb on board the Winnebago.

“I am,” I say, as if my whole life hasn’t just taken a wild turn.

I take shotgun, fighting like crazy not to ask my dad a thousand questions. I want to know everything—what the offices were like and what they talked about and when we’ll get started with GAM. But there’s no privacy on the road, and our wheels are already rolling. So, smiling like a lunatic, I kick back in the passenger seat and thumb the little black rock in my pocket as the highway opens up in front of us, full of possibility.