Darby Swank's entire life changed when her Aunt Bea was brutally murdered one summer in their rural Saskatchewan community.
Following her gripping debut Friendly Fire, Lisa Guenther skillfully picks up Darby's story a few weeks after the dramatic finale. Building her life anew, Darby makes new and lasting friendships and connections with recently found family members, including her charismatic cousin Brynny, a young woman leading an exciting and inclusive church in rural Alberta. Darby begins to make a name for herself on the Canadian music scene. Landing a sought after gig with an established Toronto band, Darby is thrust into the life of a working musician on the road. Still haunted by the violence hidden in her past, Darby must find a way to live at least partially in the public eye, as her music career takes off, and her Aunt Bea's art and story become more and more well known.
Guenther's second novel is a pressing account of a life wrecked by trauma, and rebuilt brick by brick with joy, love, and friendship. Guenther asks important questions of privacy, safety, and the vulnerability of artists in the public eye, while meditating on the importance of art and community.
Chapter 1
The sound of traffic on Edmonton's Stony Plain Road is almost soothing, like listening to surf on the shore. I dig my spoon into the top of my Blizzard, mine a huge chunk of ice cream laced with Reese's Pieces. Slowly suck the mess off my spoon.
For a moment, I'm just here, sitting at a hard plastic booth at Dairy Queen, letting the ice cream dissolve in my mouth, crunching the candy with my molars. Just a girl enjoying a frozen treat on an early September day. Not Darby Swank, crime victim, niece to a murderer, daughter to a coward. Survivor of the news cycle. My classmates at Grant MacEwan College have been tactful but distant, not asking about the black eye that lingered the first few days of class. Well, most of them have been distant. One girl, Ruby, immediately asked if I was okay, and it was all I could do not to start crying.
It could be worse. At first I worried my voice might have been damaged permanently, ending my singing career before it even began. However, the hoarseness faded quickly with vocal rest.
And so I am lucky. I am counting my blessings. But I am not okay.
I stare blankly across the street at the orange rectangular building where I'm supposed to be unleashing my musical creativity.
Once I had a well of music I could tap into, a source for my own songwriting. I could lower my bucket and haul up a new song. That well sustained me through so much in my life: my mom's shitty behaviour and then her early death from cancer, bullies at school, my own shitty cheating on my nice boyfriend, Luke.
But since my uncle tried to throttle me a few weeks ago, the well has been dry, as they say. Or maybe it's been filled in, with rocks and chunks of concrete. Beyond repair.
It starts to rain hard outside, and the setting sun infuses the rain with gold. Stony Plain Road sounds even more like an ocean, with the traffic whooshing through the puddles. I'm not in Livelong anymore. Far from the lakes and the forest I know so well.Everything is okay right now, I tell myself. Uncle Will is in custody right now, no threat to me. I try to practise being present, as my new therapist suggested. Notice the solid floor beneath my feet, the hard seat of the booth I'm sitting in. The clean, cool plastic table I'm resting my arms on. I want to lay my head down, press my cheek against the smooth surface.
I linger in the Dairy Queen, licking the last bit of the Blizzard from the spoon and thinking about what I need to do next. I feel exhausted, so tired I don't even want to drive back to my shitty basement suite. At the same time I feel like a skinned cat somehow walking around in the world, sensitive to every breeze or temperature change. Vulnerable.
The bell above the door rings, and two girls walk in. They're both short with delicate facial features that would make them ideal for roles as fairies or waifs if they were actors. Both beautiful, in a slightly odd way, with green eyes that are set a little too wide apart and small noses that are a bit sharp. They are nearly identical, but the taller one has a golden tinge to her hair. It takes me a moment before I recognize the slightly shorter one as my classmate, Ruby, the one who asked me if I was okay on the first day of class.
I have to walk by them to get to the parking lot anyway, so I stop and say hi.
"Hey, Darby. This is my little sister, Amber."
Amber smiles widely, revealing sharp, pointed eye teeth. She gives me an outsized wave. "Hi!"
Amber turns back to the menu. "I don't know what I want." She sighs dramatically, then pouts, as though she is preparing for future disappointments.
Ruby turns back to me. "Whatcha doing? Wanna hang out? I was hoping to practise vocal phrasing with you. You're such a natural at it."
