It’s been three months, three weeks, and six days since my world turned upside down. I don’t remember much of my time in the basement of Hummingbird Records, and I guess that’s a good thing for now. The doctors and my shrink have all told me that it’s my brain’s way of trying to protect me and that, in time, I will most likely start to slowly remember everything when I’m ready. From the bits and pieces I do remember, and what I’ve been told by the police, the lawyers, the media, and my entire management team, I know enough to keep me wide awake most nights.
When I woke up in the hospital two days after Hummingbird Records burned to the ground, I had a concussion, a fractured cheek bone, a dislocated shoulder, a small fracture in my clavicle, bleeding in the muscle tissue of my thigh from the kick I sustained, and a depressed skull fracture. Due to my blood disorder, that skull fracture quickly turned into bleeding on my brain that required emergency surgery. I woke up to a room full of people: my band, my agent, my lawyer, and June; I had never felt more alone in my life. My eyes searched the room for the one person I had hoped would be there, but I never found him. Later that night while I lay in bed thinking about everything I’d lost, June quietly walked in the room, climbed into bed with me, and held me while I cried. Everything changed that day. My heart was broken by each and every person in my life, and I wasn't sure if it would ever fully heal.
For a few short hours, I had a brother. A brother who I always thought of as my best friend, the one person I trusted and thought I could always lean on. He let jealousy and hatred cloud his judgment and allowed a man obsessed with revenge to corrupt him even further. In the end, from what I've been told, he tried to make up for his sins by killing the man who hurt me and then taking his own life right next to me. I'm thankful that is part of that day I can’t remember. I don’t know if I ever want that memory to surface. He turned on me and tainted every good memory I ever had of him, and that’s not something I can ever forget. But he was still my friend. He was still my brother, and he died trying to make amends with me.
Apparently, my mother had admitted to hiring Billy to tamper with the brakes on my father’s car. She claims my father was the love of her life, and she’s regretted the decision every single day since then, but who knows. Just like her son, she was filled with jealousy. She knew my father never really loved her. She was never the love of his life. That role belonged to June. Something that still amazes me when I think about it, but deep down I think I always knew. My father and June were high school and college sweethearts. After graduation, June went on a backpacking trip across Europe. Time and distance got the better of them and they broke up. A few years later, my father started Hummingbird Records and met my mother. Not long into their relationship, June came back to town and opened up The Red Door Saloon, and my father found it impossible to stay away from her. Right when he was getting ready to break it off with my mother and spend the rest of his life loving June, my mother told him she was pregnant with me.
She had always known about June, always known my father’s heart belonged to someone else, and after a while she just couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted him out of her life, but she didn’t want to lose the money and social status, so she hired Billy, her one-time lover.
Under Tennessee law, her actions would have gotten her charged with solicitation of first degree murder, which is a class B felony and punishable by no less than eight and no more than thirty years in prison. Fortunately for her, the statute of limitations for class B felonies in Tennessee is eight years. She was one year past the expiration date when she confessed, so she never went to prison. I haven’t spoken to her once since I got out of the hospital.