Bend in the Road

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-4873-8

  eISBN 978-1-64700-071-4

  Text © 2021 Sara Biren

  Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura

  Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  To my parents—thank you for always believing in me.

  Mom, you are the strongest woman I know.

  Dad, I miss you every day.

  Chapter One

  GABE

  Welcome to Stone & Wool Farm.

  The sign hangs from a stone pillar at the main entrance to the farm. Tall, sprawling pines hug one side of the long driveway. Cones of light from lampposts on the opposite side scatter across the gravel, some of them dim, some out altogether. Frank’s pickup bumps along ruts in the long road to the main house.

  “Place looks better in the daylight,” he says.

  Frank hasn’t talked much since he met me at the baggage claim at Minneapolis–St. Paul International a couple of hours ago. A gruff, “You hanging in there all right, kid?” along with a tight, bone-crushing hug. A few comments like, “No fancy limo, then, huh?” and “You hungry? I could go for a burger myself.”

  I’ve always liked that my uncle Frank is a man of few words. A man who recognizes that you don’t have to fill every moment of silence with meaningless conversation. This whole ride up from the airport, he didn’t ask about the album or my very recent ex, Marley, or even Chris. He’s smart, too. Knows how to read a room. Or the passenger seat of a pickup truck, as it were.

  We continue down the gravel road until Frank turns in to the driveway at Gran’s, a big white house with a wraparound porch and stone columns. The porch lights are on, as though someone knew I was coming.

  “I asked you to keep this to yourself,” I say, my words hard and cold. My pulse races and I can feel that familiar weight of dread settling in, a brick low in my gut.

  “I told Laurel,” he says. “That’s it. I had to make sure the place was livable, Gabe. She won’t call the paparazzi, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t give a fuck about the paparazzi.” It’s not exactly true, but I’m running out of fucks to give.

  “I didn’t tell your dad, either, so you don’t need to worry about that.” He sighs.

  “Laurel will if she hasn’t already. It’s her job.”

  “I asked her not to. Come on, kid, give me a little credit.”

  He’s right. I know I can trust Frank. That’s why I called him in the first place. I take a deep breath, try to break up that brick of dread. I’ll need to talk to Chris at some point while I work my way out of this mess. But I’m not ready yet.

  “Thanks,” I murmur. “Bet you never expected so much drama when you married into this family.”

  He shrugs and turns off the ignition. “It’s not so bad. Besides, a little drama is worth it for the free concert tickets and backstage passes, am I right? Let’s do this. I’m beat, and those cows won’t milk themselves in the morning.”

  I probably should have gotten a car instead of calling a guy who’s up every day before dawn to milk cows and whatever the hell else he does. Busts his butt to keep a farm and a family above water. Helps with this farm, too. But I called him, and he dropped everything and drove two and a half hours one way to meet my sorry, incognito ass at the airport so I could pretend to be nobody special, getting picked up at MSP by a regular guy with a beard wearing a Minnesota Wild ball cap and a rust-orange Carhartt jacket.

  Truth is, I’m not pretending. I’m nobody special after all.

  Leaves crunch beneath my feet as we walk up the driveway and sidewalk to the porch, the paint grayed and chipping. I tighten my hold on my guitar, swing the duffel bag onto one shoulder, and grab the wooden railing, which wobbles under my grip. My memories of this place are few and far between and, to be honest, hazy. After Gran died—five, six years ago now?—so did our main reason to come back. Chris spends a few weeks here every summer, a couple of days here and there, but otherwise the farmhouse sits empty. Empty and exactly the way Gran left it when she died. Laurel runs the farm. She asks Chris every now and then if he wants her to clean out the closets or pack up Gran’s belongings. He’ll say something like, “That’s my problem, not yours. I’ll worry about it when the time comes.” I asked him once, not long after Gran died, if he planned to sell someday since he wasn’t there much, anyway. He shrugged and said, “We’ll see.”

  Frank holds out the key ring. “Take good care of the place.” When I wait a beat longer than I should to reply, he says, “You sure about this? You know you’re always welcome at our house.”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I shake my head and grab the key ring.

  “So, there’s one for the round barn. Big barn. Garage, but don’t get any ideas about the Mustang. Laurel and Chris are the only ones with keys.” He skims over this like it’s not a big deal, but I wouldn’t mind getting behind the wheel of Chris’s vintage Mustang. “Coupla other sheds. You’ll figure it out.”

  I shrug. No reason to figure out any of it. It’s not like I’m going to be here more than a few days. “Which one is for the house?”

  He takes the keys back and flips through them, stops at one in the middle, gold with a broad, square head. “Look here,” he says, placing his calloused thumb on the surface. “This one’s old.”

  I take the key back and hold it close. An engraving, worn almost completely off: Stone & Wool Farm 7-20-1964.

  “Your grandparents’ wedding day. Your great-grandpa gave them the farm as a wedding gift and moved to the cabin on Halcyon Lake the next day. The place has been in the family since 1907, but it’s a lot older than that.”

  I never met my great-grandfather or my grandfather, who died when I was a baby. “Thanks for the family history lesson.” I can’t help the undercurrent of sarcasm. I’m tired and need to sit my ass down again before I collapse, and what difference does any of it make, anyway? The farm’s past means nothing to my present.

  He ignores me. “Last chance,” he says.

  “For what?” I know exactly for what.

  “Gabe, come on. You’re seventeen years old. You’re still a kid. You shouldn’t be alone right now. Come to our place and hang out with Ted. Janie would love to have you over. She’ll feed you, make all your favorites.”

  My favorites? Even I don’t know what my favorites are anymore, although I do remember from short visits and summer weekends at the cabin that my aunt Janie is an amazing cook.

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but I need some time to myself. To figure shit out, you know?”

  He nods. “I get it. How long are you planning to stay?”

  “A few days. Week at the most.”

  �
��I’ll call you in the morning, kid,” Frank says. “Come over for supper tomorrow night. Ted will pick you up.”

  “Sounds good.”

  For long seconds, he looks at me, nodding. “You sure you’re OK, then? Janie thinks—”

  I cut him off. “I’m good. I swear.”

  Obviously, he’s seen the pictures. There might even be video. Fuck. I blow out a heavy breath.

  “Right. Call if you need anything.”

  Frank leaves me standing on the porch, the bright light of the LEDs in the sconces a direct contrast to the chipped paint and loose railing. For what feels like endless minutes, I stand there and will myself to go in. What other option do I have? Frank’s gone, his taillights long faded into the darkness of the farm. I shiver. It’s cold here in northern Minnesota, even though it’s only mid-September. Temps were in the high seventies when I left LA this afternoon. I’m glad I thought to bring a jacket, although it’s buried at the bottom of my duffel and I’m sure it won’t be warm enough for this level of cold.

  I tell myself again: Go inside. Still, I stand at the door, paralyzed by uncertainty and my own disappointment, until I hear a howl in the not-so-far distance. Like in the woods at the edge of the property, maybe a hundred yards away. Wolves? Coyotes? I have no idea, but I’d rather not find out.

  I unlock the door, not sure what to expect when I step into this other world, this farmhouse I hardly remember. I take my first steps into the hall, barely illuminated from a light that’s been turned on in the kitchen at the back of the house. I reach for the banister of the staircase to steady myself and toe off my Vans.

  I’m not expecting to be hit with a memory so visceral, so absolute; it’s like Gran’s standing in front of me, wiping her hands on a green plaid dish towel, chiding Chris for being late and holding her arms open to me.

  “Who is this boy?” she cried. “That can’t be my Gabey. You’ve gotten so tall! Come into the kitchen. The cinnamon rolls are ready for the maple icing, and you can help me.”

  This house, somehow, still smells like it did that day, cinnamon rolls and pecans and maple syrup. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven. We were here for Gran’s birthday. Late that night, I heard Gran and Chris arguing. You need help, Christopher. Leave Gabe with me. I hardly get to see him. He needs his family. You both do.

  I think about Gran’s funeral, the last time I was here. The day she died, Chris called from the road to tell me the news. I remember how I handed the phone back to my tutor, Persephone, wiped tears and snot onto my sleeve. Chris and Elise were still together. Elise was shooting on location somewhere overseas but came back for the funeral. She swept in, tall and too thin and probably high, and consumed all the air in the little white church by the river. She wore a sleek black dress and mile-high heels, a fancy black hat with feathers, and a short veil that sat at an angle over her glossy platinum blonde hair. Back then, I thought she looked beautiful, glamorous, so important and special, my movie star mother. Perfect. What did I know? I was a stupid kid who thought the world revolved around me and my famous family. Now, as I stand at the threshold of a history of hard work and hardships, the memory of her that day feels ridiculous, pretentious.

  I pull the front door closed behind me and turn the dead-bolt against the darkness and the tremulous howls. I set my duffel and guitar on the hardwood floor. The house is warm, a hiss of air moving through the registers. I should sleep in one of the bedrooms upstairs, but suddenly I’m so exhausted and wrecked that the thought of climbing those steps seems like an insurmountable task. Fuck it. I take a leak in the tiny bathroom next to the kitchen and wash my hands. There’s a fresh towel and a brand-new bottle of hand soap that smells like pine needles. I drink a glass of water from the kitchen tap and then crash on the living room sofa, pulling a handmade afghan over me.

  But as tired as I am, as long as this day has been, sleep doesn’t come. When I was with Frank, driving through the lively, bright night of the Twin Cities and then the quiet, deep black of northern Minnesota (“Help me watch for deer,” he said, and I did, even though I wasn’t sure what to watch for), I could focus on my surroundings. I took in what little of the scenery I could distinguish in the headlights’ beams. I didn’t have to think about Marley or the money. The album. That goddamn brick of dread.

  Now, in my dead grandmother’s living room—under an afghan she crocheted decades ago, vintage photographs of family members I don’t recognize on the wall above me—everything comes rushing back. All of it. Marley crashing the strangers’ wedding reception on the beach, drunk and shouting. The staring, open-mouthed guests. The paparazzi who arrived out of nowhere as they always do. The restaurant manager standing with his hands outstretched, not sure if he should touch Marley or not. A bouncer who finally carried her over his shoulder while she beat on his back with her fists, to the lot where I’d parked her dad’s Bentley. I pulled the key fob out of my pocket and clicked unlock, but she wouldn’t get in the car, screamed that she didn’t want to go anywhere with me ever again.

  Horrible things shot from her mouth like arrows.

  I hate you. You think you’re so much better than the rest of us. You think you’re so above it all. But your album is shit, Gabe. You’re shit. We’re done. You’ll never come back from this without me. And you want to know something else? I never loved you. I never wanted to be with you. It was all fake, all of it.

  The bouncer tossed her in the back seat, and somehow I locked the vehicle, hoping she was too wasted to figure out how to unlock it. She pounded on the window, screaming, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t open the door to simply get in and drive away. I crouched down against the driver’s door, gasping for air, my head in my hands, sharp steel flames slicing my lungs.

  Get in the car. All I had to do was get in the car and I would be able to breathe again.

  I never loved you. I never wanted to be with you. It was fake, all of it.

  How could I have been so stupid to not know she was with me for the publicity?

  Two days. She’d waited a whole two days to dump me after I’d given her the money she’d begged for. She wouldn’t quit, not even after I said I was broke, that the money from the first album was gone. She wouldn’t quit when I told her I couldn’t ask Chris for the money. I couldn’t ask him for anything.

  “Please, Gabe,” she sobbed. “I’m in trouble. Don’t let me down. I need you. You’re the only person who can help me.”

  Her hands were shaking, so I clasped them between mine to still them. “Hey,” I said, “whatever it is, we’ll fix it.” She looked up at me then, her warm brown eyes so lost, distraught, and I was filled with a wave of devotion for her. My oldest friend, my star, my Marley.

  I didn’t want to know why she needed it, but I did what I had to do to get her that fucking money.

  Now, I take in a few gasping breaths and push away the swirling sick in my gut when I think about the money and her meltdown; close my eyes against the raw footage in my mind, the clip that’s played on repeat for nearly twenty-four hours.

  It’s after nine o’clock in LA now. I’ve avoided social media and the tabloids and the bloggers who’ve followed and speculated about my relationship with Marley Green for two years like we were the royal family or something. I ignored calls from Chris and my manager and that sleazebag from the record label. As soon as I got on the plane, I powered off my phone, and I haven’t turned it back on.

  We had a deal, me and Marley, both of us the product of rock stars and Hollywood royalty. We’d always have each other’s backs, protect each other from the backstabbers. I trusted her. I have feelings for her, despite all the back-and-forth Hollywood drama and attention that she craved. I never said the words, but I felt something, a softness for only her. When the drugs became more than the occasional party favor, I defended her, I lied for her. I stole for her.

  I held up my end of the bargain. Guess somewhere along the way, she let go of hers.

  I had to get away from LA, a place
I knew, a place where I thought I knew who I was. A place where I’d worked to make a name for myself, where I tried so fucking hard to be more than Chris Hudson and Elise Benson-Beckett’s son or Marley Green’s on-again, off-again rock star boyfriend.

  Tonight, I’m none of those things. I’m alone, I’m broke, I’m fooled.

  And here, in this farmhouse in northern Minnesota that feels both familiar and unknown, I’m something else I’ve never been: I’m in hiding.

  Chapter Two

  JUNIPER

  This is my favorite time of day, my favorite time of year, my absolute favorite place: a calm, cool morning at the park reserve overlook. I came up here early for the sunrise, a swash of pink and orange and deep blue, watercolors spilled across the sky. This hike always energizes me, my muscles warm and loose. Nothing has yet tarnished the day, and in this crisp, smoky autumn air, I feel as though nothing could.

  Life slows down for us on the farm in the fall, the world quiets, and we prepare for the stillness of winter. This time every year, I feel content and at peace. Everything is moving at the right pace. That’s what I feel today as I look out over the fast-moving river, across the water to where the farmland meets the shoreline.

  We had a good summer. We’re good, Mom and me. We’ve got this.

  I glance at my watch. It’s nearly nine, time to go. Mom’s waiting for my help in the big barn. Leaves crunch beneath my feet as I follow the trail down the hill and around the southern side of the park reserve, where the river takes a gentle curve to the west and meets the Hudson property.

  Our house, the red house, stands guard, closest to the main road, an early-seventies rambler with redwood siding. At one time, the place belonged to an old hippie beekeeper and his wife, an artist. When they moved to New Mexico to be closer to family, Chris bought it. He’s always called it the Beehive. My parents had been running the family farm for him for a couple of years at that point, living in a rental in town, and it made more sense for them to live on the farm, he said. I was born three years later, and it’s the only home I’ve ever known.