KELLI BOUNDED DOWN THE STAIRS FRIDAY, READY FOR A FUN night out with her brothers and sisters-in-law. After dinner they’d catch a movie, and if they still had energy she’d pitch a stop at Ted Drewes for frozen custard, a St. Louis favorite she hadn’t had in a long while. Being able to spend time with family like this was a new treat, but she looked forward to it for another reason as well—to get her mind off the mental roller coaster it had been riding all week.
She looked down at her constant companion. Reese had already fashioned new headquarters in her room, complete with a blanket the dog had dragged upstairs and lodged in a corner, along with a collection of toys. And now she’d started letting Kelli know when she wanted a walk. She’d just dropped her leash at Kelli’s feet.
“Didn’t Cedric walk you when he got home? And I know I walked you this morning.” Kelli rubbed her behind the ears. “I think I’m spoiling you.”
Cyd and Cedric were upstairs getting ready. They had thirty minutes before they needed to meet Stephanie and Lindell at the restaurant. Plus those eyes looked so pitiful.
“Okay, girl, come on. I’ll give you a quick trip around the block.”
Kelli attached her leash and led Reese out the back door and down the driveway. A downpour earlier in the afternoon had ushered in a nice cool summer breeze. Kelli breathed it in as they trekked down the sidewalk and tried to breathe out everything on her mind.
The week had started on a high. She loved the experience of recording the song, even learning how to use the computer keyboard and other instruments in GarageBand on the Mac. Laying down her own music and lyrics and hearing them back gave her a thrill she hadn’t expected, permission to bask for a moment, to accept that God might very well be about to bless her with a deep desire of her heart.
The excitement increased after they’d sent the mp3 late Sunday to Monica’s assistant. Monica replied herself the next morning, excited to receive it, saying she’d already forwarded it to the production team. She added—with a yellow smiley face—that she’d be calling her team within the hour to get feedback and told Kelli to expect an update soon.
The rest of Monday and all day Tuesday, Kelli’s imagination soared. Maybe she’d get to go to the studio to watch Monica record the song. And maybe, just maybe, she’d get to sing some background vocals. She’d never dreamed of being a singer—so many did it better—but Monica’s comment about her voice had encouraged her. She caught herself singing the background melody to the song as she went about her day.
When no word came by Wednesday evening, Kelli began to back away. It didn’t take three full days to listen to a four-minute recording. They didn’t like it. They’d moved on . . . and neglected to let her know.
On Thursday she focused her energy where it should’ve been the last two weeks—on finding a job. She reviewed her folder of information on public relations firms and corporate marketing departments in the St. Louis area and perused their websites. She would target those who were hiring first, hopeful that Cedric could get her in the door with a few of them.
Miles had helped focus her too, e-mailing a Dallas Morning News article that profiled a local PR firm and its successful launches of different brands. Felt good to get her head back in the game, remember why she’d gone to graduate school. She didn’t need to be up in the clouds thinking about music again. She needed to find a position and start working.
But Stephanie had called to give her a pep talk that morning. “We haven’t heard anything, and I know you’re thinking the worst, but there could be a million reasons for the delay, none having to do with you or the song. Don’t forget—Monica loves it!”
Kelli smiled at a dog walker coming her way and moved Reese to her other side, fearing the Great Dane might come at her. But little Reese was the one who caused the beef, growling and straining to get at the other dog.
“Reese, no,” Kelli said, using both hands to pull her back.
The man smiled, tightened the leash, and moved his dog onward.
Kelli rounded the bend back to their street. All day she’d teetered between the clouds and the ground, not sure which to cling to, praying for an answer. But tonight she just wanted off. She didn’t even want to talk about it. She just wanted to enjoy the company of her fam—
Was that Stephanie and Lindell’s car?
Kelli watched as the car pulled up in front of the house and Stephanie and Lindell got out.
“Hey, guys!” Kelli called. “Decided to meet here instead of the restaurant?”
They glanced at her, then at one another.
Kelli frowned a little as she came closer. “Y’all look funny. What’s up?”
“Why don’t we go inside,” Lindell said.
Kelli walked in and unhooked the leash as Cyd and Cedric came down the stairs. She noticed the four of them eyeing one another.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Kelli said. “You two knew Steph and Lindell were coming here?”
A big smile eased onto Cedric’s face. “I guess we can go ahead—”
“Wait,” Stephanie cut in. “Cyd and Cedric don’t know this either. I sent Monica an e-mail today, asking for an update. I got a reply from her assistant only a few minutes ago.” She pulled out her phone, pulled up the message, and passed it to Kelli.
Kelli’s hand shook as she took it. The message was two lines.
Our team liked the song but decided to go another direction.
We apologize for not getting word to you sooner. Best, Laura
Decided to go another direction . . . decided to go another direction . . . Kelli forced her eyes away from the words and passed the phone back.
“Let me see that,” Cyd said. She and Cedric read it together.
Kelli picked up her purse from the chair by the door and slung it over her shoulder. “Ready?”
Cedric eyed the others before responding. “Kelli,” he said, “we’ve got something for you. That’s why we’d already planned for Lindell and Stephanie to come here first.”
Kelli stared at them. Please don’t let it be music related. She simply wanted to pretend that none of this had happened and get back to life as usual. Maybe they got her a MacBook, and she could use it for her job. “What is it?” she asked.
Cedric and Lindell slipped back out the front door, Cyd and Stephanie following. She heard a trunk slam. The women returned first, with Cyd holding the door for the guys. Lindell walked in with a big black stand and set it in front of her, then Cedric brought in a keyboard and placed it on the stand.
Kelli walked away from it. “We have to take it back.”
“I told them you’d say that,” Lindell said, “but so what if Monica’s camp turned down the song? They affirmed you as a songwriter by giving it consideration.”
“This is our way of tangibly saying we support you,” Cedric said. “We want you to have what you need to create fantastic music. You might have several more rejections before you hit—but you’ve got to keep plugging. Don’t give up.”
Cyd nodded. “Monica’s just one recording artist. I know God will open a door for you. I just know He will.”
“No, He won’t, and it’s okay.” Kelli inhaled, trying to keep it together. “God’s just making clear what I already knew. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. I’m done with music.”
Cedric touched her shoulder. “Kel, it’s one rejection. Don’t let that stop you from—”
“That’s not what’s stopping me.”
They’d never understand—or leave her alone—unless she made it plain. She took a big breath, making eye contact with each of them.
“It’s me. All me. Okay? I’m the one who messed up God’s call on my life. Everything changed when I . . .” Her voice gave out on her. She looked down, mustered strength. “When I had the abortion.”
The tears came halfway up the stairs, and they came like a flood. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been clinging to the clouds, to the only dream, the only heartfelt passion she’d ever known, clinging to the faint hope that maybe God did have plans for her music, maybe He would give her a second chance.
It was a long fall from those clouds.
She collapsed on her bed, watching as Reese eased slowly into the room, as if aware something was wrong. She jumped onto the bed, nuzzling Kelli’s chin. Kelli wrapped her arms around the dog and cried into her fur.
The stairs creaked under several sets of footsteps. All these years she’d kept her secret. What would her brothers say? What would Cyd and Stephanie think of her? She felt the bed sink as bodies joined her and Reese. Cedric sat closest, took her hand. For the longest time, the only sounds were Kelli’s sniffles.
Cedric cleared his throat. “Kel, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were dealing with this.” He kept silent for several seconds. “You said everything changed. Was this in college? Grad school?”
“End of high school.”
Lindell said it. “Brian?”
Kelli nodded into the fur.
“Dear God . . .” Lindell muttered. “You were so young. Was Mom there for you?”
“I never told her,” Kelli mumbled.
“What about Brian?” Cedric asked.
“He wasn’t there either,” she said amid more tears. “He wasn’t with me at the clinic, and he wasn’t there for me afterward.”
“He left you to deal with it alone?” There was anger in Cedric’s voice.
“That’s why I have nothing to say to him.”
Cedric stood, letting out a heavy sigh, and walked a few feet away.
“Sweetie,” Cyd said, “is that why he wanted to talk with you at the conference?”
Kelli nodded again. “He asked me to forgive him.”
Cedric sat back down, shaking his head. “I was ready to pick up the phone and go off on him and then . . .” He paused, emotion building in his voice. “Then God pulled me up. Reminded me that I did the same thing to somebody else’s sister.”
Kelli lifted a little, looked into his eyes.
“Cyd knows I’ve repented of a lot of things, and that was one of them,” he continued. “I was in my early twenties. And unlike Brian, I’ve never gone back and asked forgiveness. I’ve got big respect for that.”
“Kelli,” Stephanie said, “I’m finally understanding the rift between you and Brian, but I’m not getting the music part. Why did everything change with the music?”
Kelli wasn’t sure how to explain it. “I used to write all the time. Melodies and lyrics would come to me in school, at the dentist’s office, wherever, and I’d keep my pad with me to get it down.”
That time was hard to imagine now. It had been so long since she and God flowed like that.
“After I got pregnant, one night I was freaking out, crying half the night, wondering what I would do. And a song came to me. It was so clear I got up, turned the light on, and wrote down the words. I knew God was speaking to me, letting me know I didn’t have to be afraid. He would be there. He would help me. He would love me and the baby through it.”
Stephanie gasped. “The wedding song? ‘I Will Love You’?”
Kelli nodded. “I made up my mind. I had to keep the baby. And I couldn’t wait to share it all with Brian the next day. But he’d made up his mind the night before too. Before I could say anything, he told me I could do what I wanted, but he was still leaving for college. He said not to expect him to be there. We argued. We broke up. And the peace I’d gotten the night before was gone.”
Kelli started shaking with the remembrance. How could she have allowed fear to override her clear sense of what was right? It took her a few moments to gather herself, her mind lodged in that one space in time.
“I remember the song playing in my head the morning I woke up after . . . afterward.” She always found it hard to say. “It was haunting me, accusing me. God had spoken to me through a song to keep my baby, and I didn’t listen. He hasn’t given me another song since. And obviously He’s not going to use anything I’ve already written.”
“Kelli, back up a minute,” Cyd said. “You heard the song playing in your head the morning after the abortion? You thought it was haunting you, but it strikes me totally differently. Sounds like God was saying ‘I will love you’ even through this.”
A chill danced up Kelli’s arms. She’d never thought of it that way.
“The story about that song is deep,” Cedric said. “I heard you playing it when I stopped by the house, but of course I didn’t know what was behind it. I just knew it was beautiful.”
“That was me drowning my sorrows at the piano the night we broke up. If I’d known you’d come in, I would’ve clammed up.”
“If you ask me, I was meant to hear it,” Cedric said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known to ask you to sing it at our wedding.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot. That’s what jump-started this whole music thing again, and look where it got me.”
Stephanie looked miserable. “I’m the one who pushed you on the music, and I’m so sorry. I thought you just didn’t believe in yourself. I should’ve left it alone.”
“I can go you one better,” Kelli said. “I should’ve stayed in Austin, where I wasn’t thinking about music, didn’t have to deal with the past, and definitely didn’t have to deal with Brian.”
“I don’t know about all this woulda-coulda-shoulda stuff,” Cyd said. “I think you’re right where you need to be, and all this happened for a reason. Maybe it’s time to deal with these things. Might bring healing.”
“More like pain,” Kelli said.
Cyd smiled sympathetically. “Pain is part of healing. Let God bring you through. You never know what’s on the other side.”
Kelli’s brow wrinkled. Did she need healing? She’d always felt she’d moved on as best she could, functioned well, gotten her degrees. But then, until these last couple of weeks, she hadn’t realized that the pain was still there, still intense, until it was resurrected. Was it even possible to get to the other side of it? Was it possible to fully heal?