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  She could tell the story about waking up afraid, when he had walked with her up the hill to see the sunrise. The farm cat had followed, slinking back and forth between their legs, and Cassidy had marveled at the realization that the cat had its own rich life before she awoke each morning. Ken had held her hand as they hiked. When they’d reached the old strip mine, he’d removed his coat and spread it out on the grass for them to sit. They didn’t say a word, just watched as the sun brought the farm to life, first the garden, then the house, and finally the path through the trees. When dawn had reached them, Ken stood and took Cassidy’s hand, and together they walked back toward home, the chickens rustling awake, the goats standing sentry to the new day, the smell of oatmeal meeting them with Paloma at the door. That night at bedtime, Ken asked Cassidy if she’d saved a piece of their walk to keep with her as she slept. She nodded and told him she wouldn’t be afraid. “There are things to be afraid of, sweet pea,” he’d said. “But the dark ain’t one of them.”

  Cassidy wiped a tear from her lower eyelash. She couldn’t tell that story without it sounding cheap and contrived. Crying here would feel as fake as her cam show emotions. And besides, Paloma would probably comment on her use of the word ain’t.

  Cousin Henry spoke next. “We went hunting once, Ken, Granddaddy, and I. We begged and begged and finally he took us.” He laughed softly. “Ken shot a squirrel and burst into tears.”

  The group laughed, as if they deserved moments of levity, as if Ken would have wanted them to laugh because of his zest for life or some shit. But he was fucking dead. There was nothing funny. Cassidy clenched her teeth until her molars ached. “Grandaddy was so nice about it,” Henry went on. “Just put a hand on Ken’s shoulder and said ‘Let’s go in.’ We never went hunting again.”

  Cassidy only knew him as a dad. She didn’t know him as a coworker or a husband or a cousin or a friend. She would never know most of the whole, big person. But, she comforted herself, none of the people here knew the most important parts.

  “Ken always liked jamming to this one,” said Ross, a friend of Ken’s and Paloma’s, with a curly red beard and playful eyes. He bent to open a case by his feet, a peeling Grateful Dead bear sticker on its top, took out a guitar, and strummed a few chords. Other people brought out instruments—a mandolin, a banjo, a fiddle, several more guitars. Ross started singing and others joined in, slow and quiet. Cassidy wondered how she hadn’t noticed the cases until people started clunking open their gold latches and unzipping gig bags.

  “Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” Ken’s friends crooned. Cassidy didn’t know the song or where to look. She thought about her dance shows, when the men would request songs she hadn’t heard. INXS, Depeche Mode. She’d close her eyes and pretend to be really into them anyway. She couldn’t do that here, with Noeli and Simon watching.

  The song ended and the mandolin player started another, fingerpicking a familiar melody, and the banjo player broke into a fast clawhammer: bum-diddy, bum-diddy, bum-diddy, bum-diddy. The others joined until the forest filled with the twangy old-time music and slowly, something inside of Cassidy began to shift. Her heart swelled and she felt held. These people knew her through her dad, even if only a part of her. She felt carried by their voices, as if they lifted her up over the branches to see the scene from above, enveloped in their love for her father. She closed her eyes and relaxed her jaw.

  “I’ll fly away, oh glory,” the words rang out, people’s collective accents piercing the chilly air, vowels hitting palates before escaping, wrapped snugly in y’s and r’s. Cassidy could imagine they were in the West Virginia of one hundred years ago, the voices belonging to folks in suspenders and gunnysack dresses. The words rose up in her and she fought them, held them down. She couldn’t sing. These were the parents of the (notably absent) classmates who’d linked arms and swung around to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” at the school dances where she and Simon had stood in the corner. This was the epitome of the state she had been dying to leave since she was ten.

  A moment later, though, she was singing. The words came from somewhere deep within and emerged to join the rising and swelling around her, like an old gospel sing, like a barn raising, like a tent revival, like all kinds of things she’d pushed down and tried to forget. The bare branches of the maple tree swayed above them, providing quiet accompaniment. She was vaguely aware of Noeli beside her, and she tried not to think about the look of shock that was inevitably on her friend’s face.

  With eyes still closed, tears streamed down Cassidy’s cheeks. She lifted her lids and looked around at the blurred faces. It didn’t seem sad, suddenly, this culmination of Cassidy’s father’s life. It felt joyful and moving and like part of something that stretched as far back as time and would go on as long as people went on—a gathering, as people had always gathered and would always gather in places like this, where there were still woods to gather and sing in, honoring the joys and sorrows of human-hood.

  For the first time in a decade and a half, Cassidy considered the possibility that some things about West Virginia might be good. Even though she’d reluctantly agreed with her mom about how stifling this place was, the possibility that she might be able to understand what her dad had seen in it made endorphins bloom in her belly.

  The song transitioned into “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” and Cassidy sang along to that, too, really going for it now, belting it out regardless of pitch, feeling the vibration of her voice blending with the others, the same deep buzz filling her body as the time she had chanted aum for a strip-yoga show. The song wound down and “Rock of Ages” began. Somehow Cassidy knew that this was it—this must have been the hymn her dad, Grandma Jane, and her great-grandma had sung to Granddaddy when he was dying.

  She didn’t know the words, so she hummed along, rocking back and forth, letting it consume her. As if it had been rehearsed, people began to break away from the circle and walk slowly back up the hill. The musicians played and walked and Cassidy hummed. She marched slowly, falling in place toward the back of the procession. It was holy, what had just happened, and she knew it. They all knew it. Everyone had felt the shift—when they’d created something bigger than all of them. Just like Grandma Jane had said. Cassidy didn’t know what it was, but it was something. She’d been wrong. She’d been selfish and shortsighted. There were parts of her that fit here, no matter how out of place she’d felt. There was something in her blood.

  And then, interrupting her rhapsody, Noeli nudged her again. “How’d you like that hoedown?” she whispered.

  Cassidy had never felt so much as slightly annoyed at Noeli, but she suddenly felt physically violent. She clenched her fists. Cassidy stomped ahead, ashamed. Noeli was right. It was all stupid and she’d been stupid to get wrapped up in it, to let her grief delude her into thinking any of it had mattered.

  “Cass!” Noeli called out, jogging to catch up. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have joked.” Cassidy stared straight ahead at the friends and family gathering on and around the porch.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “I thought you hated this place.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to.”

  Noeli took a deep breath and sighed. “Fair.”

  “It’s fine. I need to say bye to people.”

  The goodbyes were quiet and intimate, much less awkward than the hellos. Cassidy received hug after hug and earnest commands to take care of herself as Paloma’s homemade spoon wind chimes clanged gently from the beams. When folks said Ken would be proud of her, their words felt genuine and moving. She tried to suppress her guilt. She tried to believe them, but what would he be proud of, exactly?

  “I love you,” Grandma Jane said as she held Cassidy tightly.

  After a long embrace, Cassidy finally stepped back. “I love you too.”

  Cousin Henry led Grandma Jane down the porch steps to his car, and finally only Palo
ma, Noeli, and Simon remained with Cassidy on the now cold porch. The spoons swayed silently, without touching.

  Paloma lifted a watering can from the wooden planks and moved from plant to plant, watering each one gingerly. Without a word she rubbed Cassidy’s back briefly before going inside, the screen door slamming behind her. Cassidy, Simon, and Noeli were silent.

  “I’m kind of worn-out,” Noeli said after a moment. “Think I’m gonna go chill for a bit.”

  “Cool,” Cassidy said, and Noeli followed Paloma inside.

  “Hey, Cass,” Simon said. His blond hair stuck out in all directions like he’d slept on it.

  “Hey, Simon.” They hadn’t spoken in months.

  “Do you want to grab a drink or something?” It was very Simon to offer a normal, comforting activity.

  “Yeah.” This was what she needed. A drink with Simon would be grounding. “Let me tell my friend.”

  “She wouldn’t want to go?” Simon asked, and Cassidy was suddenly aware of his accent, his gruff way of walking, the fact that he’d never even wanted to leave. She tensed at the idea of what Noeli might say about him later if they all went out.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll go ask.”

  Cassidy went inside and found Noeli cross-legged on the couch, flipping through Ken’s CD binder.

  “I’m gonna go get a drink with Simon,” she said.

  “Can I change first?” Noeli asked. “I need to get out of this dress.”

  “You relax. Take some time for yourself.” It was a line Cassidy used on fans all the time—a way of telling them she needed space without giving them the space to call her a bitch. She knew they felt entitled to her time, and she prided herself on outsmarting them. Noeli was smarter. She looked hurt. Cassidy knew better than to let someone else’s hurt feelings manipulate her though. “I won’t be gone too late,” she said, and went back out to the porch.

  “Let’s go.” She grabbed Simon by the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

  Cassidy

  “Where to?” Simon asked once they were seated in his rusty red Ford pickup, lovingly nicknamed the Porsche in high school. It had been ancient when he’d gotten it at sixteen and Cassidy could hardly believe it was still running all these years later.

  “Allburghers?” Cassidy asked. The restaurant and bar had been their go-to on school breaks. It was the only decent place she knew of to hang out, with its truffle oil fries and craft beers.

  “It’s closed,” Simon said.

  “Permanently?”

  Simon nodded and started the engine, letting the Porsche warm up. “Yeah, I think the new Buffalo Wild Wings put it out of business.”

  “Ew,” Cassidy said. “That sucks. People would really rather go to a chain?”

  Simon nodded again. “Yup. It’s the new hot hang.”

  Cassidy looked up at the rising moon, obscured by the bare branches of the trees that lined the pond, and considered the other options. There was another bar on Main Street, but she’d never been there. It seemed too trashy, even for Buckhannon, always getting shut down for serving underage kids and reopening a few months later with a new name. The best was Club Chemistry, the name hand-painted on a sign outside along with beakers and test tubes.

  “Club Chemistry?” she asked.

  “It got some big grant!” Simon said. “I mean, Club Chemistry didn’t. Some guy did for the building. They’re going to renovate it and turn it into an opera house again.”

  “Whoa!”

  “Yeah!” Simon thought for a second. “We could go to Ledbetters.” The bar, where they’d gone for Cassidy’s twenty-first birthday, was known for its two-for-one bottle rocket shots and corner stage where fortysomethings did karaoke to Metallica.

  “Even better,” Cassidy said, really in the mood for some Buckhannon culture. “Let’s do the K Lounge.”

  “Klounge!” Simon cheered, putting the Porsche into drive. He navigated down the driveway, onto Shumaker Road, and then left onto Route 20 for the five-mile drive into town.

  Entering the Kanawha Lounge felt illicit. In a small screening area set back from the street, they rang a doorbell. An old man who had been there since Cassidy had first visited the place as a child, when they had turned all the lights on and used the large dance floor for a 4-H sock hop, looked them over through a peephole and buzzed them in. Stepping over the thin weathered doormat and into a large dark room, they were overcome by years of cigarette smoke that had accumulated with no ventilation. On the left were the bathrooms and a small rectangular gambling room that was somehow even seedier than the broader establishment. On the right was a U-shaped wooden bar, surprisingly normal if provincial. This part of the room looked like a typical dive with its neon Budweiser sign, a dark mirror, and a sad assortment of patrons. The Kanawha Lounge was a former movie theater, and some said a porno theater, but the theater area had been converted to a dance floor and stage, complete with shady booths along the back side walls and a disco ball that revolved lonesomely. The booths were so shrouded in dark and smoke that they were barely visible, but they were of no use for the everyday purposes of the Kanawha Lounge. Its visitors were content to sit close to the alcohol, or if they were particularly energetic, to play billiards on the other side of the bar. The patrons of the gambling room rarely left, sitting for hours in front of video poker, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  “Beer?” Simon asked, and Cassidy nodded. He leaned against the bar and the bartender sauntered over, then reached under the bar to retrieve two cold bottles of Yuengling. He set them in front of Simon and opened them with a nod, then turned back to his conversation with the regulars. He knew who paid his bills.

  Simon handed Cassidy a green bottle and they clinked their drinks in a quick cheers. Cassidy prowled for a spot, eventually selecting two seats on the far side by the pool table. Not wanting to talk about her dad or address the awkward fact that she and her best friend had been abysmal about staying in touch, she introduced herself to the other man next to her.

  “Cassidy,” she said, unmoving, not wanting to go so far as to touch his hand.

  The man, whose stringy gray hair was kept out of his face by an American flag bandanna, did not say his name. Instead he slurred a question. “Do you like the Eagles?” His eye contact was slightly off, veering somewhere to the right of Cassidy’s face.

  “I guess so?”

  “The Eagles ROCK,” a guy who looked to be in his late twenties with a bad goatee and a khaki Carhartt hat chimed in, egging him on.

  “But do you really like the Eagles? Do you appreciate their full musical offerings?”

  “Hell yeah, dude!” Bad Goatee Guy said.

  The man stumbled away in the direction of the jukebox.

  “Cassidy?” Bad Goatee Guy said now.

  “Yeah?” Cassidy had no idea who he was.

  “I knew I seen you! It’s me! Michael McCoy!”

  “Oh, hey,” she said, feigning recognition.

  “I always think about you and ninth-grade English.”

  “Oh yeah,” she mumbled, amazed that this man could be her age. He looked so old with his creased forehead and scruffy chin, his dirty work bibs. She tried to picture him in her freshman English class and could not imagine what he could have looked like as a fourteen-year-old.

  “Man, I knew you was goin’ somewhere even then. What’ve you been up to?”

  “I’m out in California. What about you?” she asked.

  “I heard you was out there.” He nodded. “Good for you! I’m just doing construction. Nothing too exciting, but it’s a good job.” She suddenly realized who he was. Michael McCoy was the kid who had sat behind her and quietly scrawled dyke on her backpack in green Sharpie. She hadn’t realized it until the end of the period, when she was packing her things up to move to pre-calc, and Michael had already bolted from the room, laughing
. When she tried to complain to Mr. Jack, he had shrugged and said, “I didn’t see it happen. Your word against his.” Cassidy had scribbled over the word in black, but she could still see it when she looked closely, until her mom agreed to buy her a new backpack the next year.

  The Eagles fan returned as “Lyin’ Eyes” began to blare.

  “Wait a minute,” Michael said now. “Did I hear your dad died?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Cassidy said. This was the last person she wanted sympathy from.

  “I’m real sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Your daddy died?” Eagles Man asked.

  “Yeah,” Cassidy said, looking to Simon for help.

  “Our loved ones never really go nowhere,” the man said. “I want you to know that.”

  Oh good, he was going to talk about Jesus.

  “Your daddy will be here in you with everything you do, pretty lady. Now how ’bout a dance?”

  “N—”

  “Of course she wants to dance,” Simon cut in, nudging Cassidy off her stool with a gentle pat on the back. Cassidy glared at him, not really mad. She did want to be distracted.

  The Eagles fan held her at arm’s length, middle-school dance style, and Cassidy was grateful. She wanted to be disgusted by him, wanted to laugh at him. Instead she noticed how kind he was being to her. He was no grosser than many of the men she took her clothes off for online, and many of them were far ruder.

  “I know it’s hard, honey. It’ll get easier,” he said, and she smiled. “Our parents love us in a way we spend our whole lives trying to re-create. You married?”

  “No,” Cassidy said.

  “Good. My wife’s a bitch. She’s in Virginia.” His breath reached her now, sweetly alcoholic.

  “Ah.” Cassidy nodded, looking to Simon. There it was. She was done now. Simon grinned and tipped his beer.

  “Dang, this song is fuckin’ genius. You like the Eagles?”