Music City (15 page)

Derek nodded, “Please!”

“When Momma was pregnant with Vani,
she and Daddy were talking, and somehow it came out that Momma had always wanted to live on a farm with pigs, cows, horses, chickens, the whole package. She wanted to grow a big garden and make jam, can tomatoes and green beans. So, shortly after Vani was born, Daddy bought her a farm.”

Derek laughed, “Of course he did.”

Tracy continued, “When we were little, we spent a lot of time there when we weren’t on the road. Momma and Daddy did a lot of the restoration themselves; they had a hand in just about everything there and we actually lived there full-time while the house we live in now was being built. I think it was relaxing for them. They both loved being there, we all did… well, until Daddy died. After that, I think it was too painful for Momma, so mostly we stay here in town.”

Derek nodded, “That’s completely understandable.”

Tracy agreed, “We have a couple that live in a house on the back forty as caretakers and they do a good job running everything. Donna was our tutor for years. Jerry traveled a lot with his job, so Donna traveled with us while Momma was on the road. She always said it was the perfect job for her. They were avid gardeners, and both grew up on a farm. When Jerry retired, Momma asked if they would be interested in moving to the farm full time and running it for us, so they did. It’s worked out well. Every year Donna and Jerry put out a huge vegetable garden, Donna cans just about everything she can get her hands on and Jerry hauls a lot of stuff to town for us.”

“That does sound like a good situation for both of your families,” Derek commented.

Tracy laughed, “Most definitely, all summer long, at least two or three days a week, Jerry or Donna or both of them bring stuff from the garden for us. Momma has always loved black raspberries. She will eat them plain, put them in pies, even make cookies with them, but her favorite is black raspberry jam. You can’t buy black raspberries in the store, my Daddy found out, so after he bought the farm, he put out about a few acres of black raspberry bushes. He and Momma used to take us up there when they were ripe and we’d pick and pick and pick ‘til our fingers were bleeding and we were covered in scratches and raspberry juice.”

Derek smiled at Tracy, who was obviously enjoying the retelling of the memory from his childhood. “Sounds like you have some amazing memories from the farm.”

Tracy nodded, “Yes, I do. We all do, but we don’t pick raspberries anymore, that would just be too hard on all of us, so when the black raspberries get ripe, Jerry picks them and brings tons of them to us so Momma can make her jam, her cookies, the cakes, whatever her heart desires. The rest of them Donna makes a lot of jam with too, but mostly she freezes them, so Momma can have them year round.”

“Sounds like a special place.” Derek smiled.

“It is.” Tracy smiled. “We still go up there at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that’s about it. Even though it’s only about twenty miles away, down by Franklin, it feels like a million miles. You’ll see.”

Derek was confused. “I’m going too?” He asked.

Tracy nodded, “I think you’ve been made an honorary member of the family.” He laughed. “Besides, you don’t want to miss this, do you? Come on, you can ride with me.”

The drive was pleasant. Tracy turned off the main highway onto a side country road. They traveled down it for probably three or four miles, then Tracy turned onto another back country road, this one narrower than the first. Finally, after several miles traveled on the narrow road, he turned into a gravel driveway that was practically hidden between trees. Derek wondered how far back this house was.

The trees finally gave way to tall corn growing on either side of the drive. It seemed as though they were driving right through the middle of a cornfield, but Derek could see the top of a barn off to the right, in the distance. He took out his phone and sent Alex a text, “Be careful or you’ll miss the driveway.”

When Derek saw the house, he agreed that this would be much less of a shock to Dorothy than the Shepard mansion in town. Although this house was still very nice
and very large, it wasn’t as intimidating. It had the look of an old rambling farmhouse that had had additions built on either side of it over the years and a porch that wrapped all the way around and tied everything together.

Huge old oaks surrounded the farmhouse; a tire swing swung gently in the breeze from a massive oak limb. There was a two-story classically red barn about
a hundred yards to the right of the house, a medium-sized clapboard horse stable and a few other smaller barns about two hundred yards to the left of the house, situated behind a small orchard. Gravel drives zigzagged between each set of the barns and Derek assumed that they also connected to other areas of the property.

Derek was saddened for a moment as he realized this was the type of place he had hoped to find since he was a child. The kind of place he had always wanted to raise children in. When he saw the large pond off behind the barn, his voice caught as he asked Tracy if there were fish stocked.

Tracy laughed, “It’s loaded with fish, Daddy had it stocked regularly—fishing was one of his favorite things to do when we were out here. Jerry is quite the fisherman as well.”

Shelly met them on the porch—she
was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of sneakers that had obviously built for comfort and little else. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and looked completely relaxed. “Have you heard from Alex?” she asked.

Derek shook his head, “No, but don’t worry, he’ll find it okay. Shelly, this place is great!”

She smiled, “Yes, it is, isn’t it? We had big plans for this place.”  She said with a hint of sadness in her voice, “We always hoped to live here most of the year, especially after we had more children. Now, I’ll have to be content with the hope that Vani or Tracy will want to live here and raise their family here one day.”

Just then they heard a car coming down the long gravel lane. Tracy squinted as he looked in the direction of the driveway, “I’m sure that’s Alex.
Derek, you wanna go see if the poles are still out in the barn?”

Derek nodded, “Sounds great to me.”

Shelly called after them, “We’ll be eating at six.”

Dorothy gazed in awe at the farm making its appearance as they slowly made their way down the long drive. She had expected the home of someone famous to be a big mansion, not a farmhouse. No doubt, this was one of the biggest farmhouses she had ever seen, but it looked normal enough. Maybe this lady would be easier to talk to than she had first thought. The man who picked her up was very nice, but not very talkative on the drive out here. She supposed he was just doing his job. She was relieved to see Ms. Shepard standing in the yard wearing Jeans and a t-shirt just as she had said. She was such a pretty lady. Dorothy, for the life of her, couldn’t imagine anyone thinking she was Shelly Shepard! That man with the camera must need to get his eyes checked. The car came to a stop, and the Shepard lady was standing on her side of the car waiting for her to get out.

Shelly noticed that Dorothy looked scared, so she brightened her smile, and when she got out of Alex’s SUV, she reached out her hand to her, “Dorothy, thank you so much for coming, I’m so glad to have you here. Would you like to take a walk around, or would you rather go in the house and sit?” Shelly asked.

Dorothy considered for a moment, “It’s a real pretty day, I think I’d like to walk.”

Shelly looked back at Alex, “Vani is in the house, and Tracy and Derek are in the barn looking for fishing poles, make yourself at home, Alex.”

Shelly and Dorothy walked toward the orchard and the barns where the animals were kept on the opposite side of the house from the hay barn.

Dorothy cleared her throat, “Ms. Shepard, I swear I didn’t know what my Billy Joe was up to. I’m real sorry about it. I only took about half of your money
to bring with me, but I’ve got it here with me, minus the hotel and pizza and my bus ticket, you can have it back, and as soon as I find a job, I’ll pay you back the rest.”

Shelly stopped and turned to look at Dorothy, “Dorothy, first of all, please call me Shelly. I don’t want your money, that isn’t why I invited you here.”

Dorothy was surprised, “It’s not?” she asked, confused.

Shelly shook her head, “No, the money was a gift, to help you. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to repay it. No, I invited you here because I wanted to spend some time with you, to talk with you. Why did you come to Nashville?”

Dorothy shrugged, “I don’t rightly know, it just sounded good. You came here and you done fine for yourself, I guess I hoped I could do all right for myself here too. If you did it and weren’t nothing more than a child, I figgered I’d be okay as an adult.”

Shelly hung her head, “So you knew I was lying when I said my mother died in childbirth?  You knew I was your sister, and you didn’t say anything?”

Dorothy shrugged, “I knew, don’t tell me how, but I knew.”  She patted her chest, “In here, I knew that you were my sister.” 

Shelly was embarrassed, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Dorothy shrugged again, “Weren’t my place to say anything, and I wasn’t about to let Billy Joe know he was right about anything.” She laughed as she looked at Shelly.  “You’re the one good thing I remember from my childhood, I weren’t about to go and ruin it for you.  I guess I felt like for once, I could protect you instead of the other way around.”

Shelly was speechless. 

“Oh my!” Dorothy screamed as she suddenly took off running towards the barn lot. Shelly could hear her saying something, but couldn’t quite make it out. When Shelly caught up with her, she was kneeling down, hugging and petting a red goat.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing?” Dorothy was saying to the goat as Shelly caught up with her. Dorothy looked up at Shelly and in her face Shelly saw the countenance of a child.

“Oh Miz Shepard, you got goats! This here girl is a Golden Guernsey, and they come all the way from an island by England. They is supposed to be prized for their milk. Their milk is high in butter fat, you see and that makes for real good cheese, real good cheese indeed.”

Dorothy stood up, as something else caught her eye, “Why, look yonder, you got Buff
Orpingtons and Barred Rock chickens too! Why them Orpingtons is a great meat bird and lays the nicest brown eggs. I always wanted to get me some Buff Orpingtons, but they never did carry them down to the feed store when I got my chicks every year. I think they are so pretty with their blonde feathers. They is s’pose to have a real good disposition too.”

Shelly was baffled, she didn’t know much about goats or chickens other than
Jerry and Donna made sure she had plenty of eggs at the house and Donna made goat cheese for her on a regular basis that was absolutely delicious. She heard Dorothy fawning over something else and looked over to see her headed into the horse barn. Shelly followed.

Dorothy was stroking the muzzle of one of the horses in the barn. Again, Shelly was struck by how excited and childlike she seemed to be, “Do you like horses Dorothy?” she asked.

Dorothy was grinning from ear to ear, “Why this here is a Tennessee Walker, beautiful horse Miz Shepard, why you just got yourself a real heaven on earth here. Yes, that is what you got.”

“Dorothy,
please
, call me Shelly.” She said.

Dorothy didn’t seem to hear her as she had moved on to another horse in another stall. She was telling Shelly how smart horses were, and she was off to another stall. Shelly just followed along as Dorothy went through the barn, and then into the Dairy barn to admire the Holstein
milk cows, then into the hog barn to exclaim over the Duroc pigs, knowing each of them by their names, which was more knowledge than Shelly had about them.

Dorothy told Shelly that Columbus brought Durocs to this country on his second voyage. She talked about their red color and their droopy ears. Shelly was amazed at the amount of information Dorothy held in her brain about all of the animals. When she finally had settled on a bench in the farm lot, holding a Golden chicken in one arm, and petting one of the goats with her free hand, Shelly asked her, “How do you know so much about the animals Dorothy?”

Dorothy looked at Shelly, “Well, when Momma got in trouble at the hospital, the state came in and said she weren’t fit to be a momma no more. Not that she was fit before that, but I got sent to live with Momma’s cousin Francine and her husband, Murry. They lived on a farm, and I had to help with the farm chores, but I loved every minute of it.”

She was grinning from ear to ear like a schoolgirl, Shelly noted, Shelly was happy to see it. As she watched Dorothy she noticed that when Dorothy was smiling, she looked so much younger. She needed to smile more.

Dorothy continued, “Francine and Murry, they had three boys, and they was big into 4-H and then Future Farmers of America. I weren’t allowed to be in 4-H or nothin’, but I didn’t care. I got to go to the fair with them ever’ year and help with the animals. When my chores got done at the fair, ‘stead of going back to the camper, I’d just wander around all the animal barns. Whenever I’d hear something about an animal, somehow it would stick. I weren’t much good for learnin’ in school, but when it comes to animals, seems like I cain’t ferget nothin’ I ever heard. Ain’t that funny.”