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  Dillon was as white as a ghost. Clearly he was losing his mind. “Hearing voices is never a good sign,” he muttered to himself as he slid down his bedroom wall. His heart was racing and he wished he could believe the radio or TV was on, but unfortunately he knew they weren’t.

  “First off, you are not hearing voices. It’s just one voice. I wanted to talk to you, but it took me a while to figure out how. So I’ve spent the last two months figuring it out and then waiting for the right time to talk to you, and you know what? There is no right time for a spirit to start talking to a kid, so I just decided today was your lucky day.”

  “You’re a spirit, as in dead?” Dillon whispered.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  PLAY ON

  Marilynn Halas

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

  4 Sunflowers Media

  Publishing books that celebrate and support families since 2010.

  Connecticut.

  © 2014 4 Sunflowers Media, LLC

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Halas, Marilynn.

  Play On/ Marilynn Halas.

  ISBN 978-0-9915092-0-1

  ISBN: 0988356244 (Limited Edition)

  ISBN 13: 9780988356245

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9915092-1-8

  LCCN: 2012955565 (Limited Edition)

  LCCN: 2014933076

  Marilynn Halas

  For my husband, Stephen: in your eyes I can see our future and I know that we will always play on together.

  - mph

  July 4, 2004

  The sound of the mortar’s blast left Danny with a ringing in his ears. Only in Afghanistan one month and the experience was like nothing he had ever known before. If he’d had time, he would have thought about his horse and his family’s farm in Tennessee, but happy memories couldn’t distract him from the terror all around him. His trembling hand reached for his M-4 rifle, and he released the safety. His squad was advancing through an abandoned warehouse; at least, they thought it was abandoned. Clearly, the intel was not much good. As soon as Captain Grainger threw the flash-bang grenade he was answered by twenty rounds from an insurgent. Then an older man stepped out from the shadows and brandished something. At first, Danny thought the guy was literally throwing rocks, but then it began to glow. It glowed with a white-hot light as the man threw it at them. When it exploded Danny was almost blinded. This was no ordinary grenade.

  His Captain gave him the sign and he began to move. As he stepped over the rubble and crouched down, he saw them. The Taliban insurgents were hiding behind a low wall and Danny was coming up from behind. In their arms Danny saw a struggling little girl. He guessed she was no more than maybe five or six years old. There was no way to capture the enemy without risking the child’s life, and that was exactly what those cowards were counting on. Danny was trying to figure out what to do next and he looked around for his Captain’s orders. That was his fatal mistake.

  The first bullet caught him in the neck, just above his body armor. The spray that followed landed everywhere and brought down the last of the crumbling ceiling hanging above him. The whole thing was surreal. Danny was covered in dust and blood and debris, but he had no pain; well, almost no pain. He couldn’t feel much below his neck and his head was way too foggy to for him realize how much it hurt. There was a small part of him that could hear the shouting and exchange of gunfire happening around him, but mostly his brain was already back home.

  He was sitting on the porch strumming his old guitar and breathing in the best smells he knew. Fresh cut grass and fried chicken. He thought about his mom, he thought about his girl, and just before he closed his eyes for the last time, he thought about heaven.

  Within twenty-four hours his parents saw the military detail in dress uniforms pull up to their door. His mother was numb as they told her that her son, Private First Class Daniel Charles, had made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. On behalf of a grateful nation, they thanked her and they were gone.

  The next few weeks passed in a blur for everyone. Danny’s girlfriend started wearing black. There was a funeral with full military honors once the body was stateside again. The choir sang “Danny Boy” and there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. There were at least a dozen requests for Danny’s picture from local media and even from friends. They put his picture up at the town hall and in the church vestibule, and his old football coach dedicated the Wildcats' next season to Danny’s memory. His dad tried to remember how proud Danny had been to serve his country, and his mom prayed that no one else’s son would ever have to die to protect this nation. They were even surprised by a flurry of angry letters from so-called pacifists who wanted to blame their son for the war, saying that with no volunteers, there would be no fighting. Danny’s dad thought those letters made especially good kindling.

  That’s when time seemed to stop for the Charles family. Clint and Sara Charles closed the door to Danny’s room and never touched it, except to keep it clean. It was almost as though they thought that if they left his room the way it was, life could return to the way it was before their only son was killed. Danny’s bed was made, his curtains drawn, his guitar stood in the corner, and nothing changed for seven years.

  July 4, 2011

  “Hurry up!” Dillon’s father yelled up the stairs. Dillon used to think the yelling would stop after the divorce, but it seemed to only grow more intense.

  “Move it! The meter’s running!”

  Dillon ran down the hall and saw his mom, Maggie, pretending to be asleep on the living room couch. She winked at him and held her fingers up to her lips. He knew she didn’t want to deal with his dad when they were running late. She worked the night shift as an ER nurse and now she was finally getting a break. Dillon grabbed his bag and a warm cookie from the kitchen and headed downstairs to meet his dad.

  His father had an important client in the Hamptons and they were invited out for a Fourth of July barbeque. Normally his father wouldn’t bring him on a business call, but this was different. This client had a son who played soccer in the same park as Dillon. The boys had never even met each other, but their fathers thought it was a great way to keep them busy so the men could talk. All Dillon knew was that the family summered in the Hamptons and the rest of the time this client and Dillon’s dad were neighbors on the Upper East Side. From soccer at the park to lemon pancakes at Mary Beth’s Restaurant, Dillon loved where his dad lived. Unfortunately, they weren’t going there today. Instead they were taking the train to Long Island to spend a day with his father, Ryan, pretending he had time for Dillon, and Dillon hanging out with a boy he didn’t know. Dillon put on his earphones and zoned out.

  Sometimes it was hard not to think about the way things used to be. There was a time when they all lived on the Upper East Side. Now, Dillon spent most of his time commuting there on the subway. Dillon went to the same school he had since Kindergarten, Madison Country Day. He and his friend Tom thought it was ridiculous to call anything on the Upper East Side "country." But it was still a great school, and it would feel weird to graduate after being there from Kindergarten through high school. After the divorce he and his mom moved to Morningside Heights to be closer to her job. It was okay, but it still didn’t feel much like home to him. At his mom’s place Dillon had a room the size of the walk-in closet at his dad’s. Still, that wasn’t the real problem. Dillon liked the apartment fine and he didn’t care too much about the close quart
ers. He just didn’t like the feeling that it was temporary. At fifteen, Dillon knew he would be off to college in three short years. He didn’t know what would happen after that, and he hated the thought of his mom alone in that place. There was nothing really wrong with the apartment; it just felt sad, no matter how bright Dillon and his mom painted the walls.

  An hour later the cab from the train station wound its way up a huge hill, and they could see the ocean in the distance. The house in the Hamptons didn’t have an address; it had a name. Villa Victoria was a magnificent stone-and-clapboard mansion with a four-story turret that looked out over the sea. The driveway went on for miles and Dillon had never seen so many people except, of course, at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. He was reminded about his manners and that the boy’s name was James, and then his father disappeared into the crowd of guests and was gone.

  Dillon didn’t have to wait long to find James. James was waiting for him at the top of the stairs and Dillon could hardly believe his eyes; James was not alone—he had his nanny with him and his thumb in his mouth! James was about three years old, and the closer Dillon came, the further behind his nanny the little boy hid.

  “Sorry about him,” she said. “He’s real shy and his dad wants him to start hanging out with other boys.” She looked as surprised to see Dillon as he was to see James. “I thought you boys would be a lot closer in age, but I guess you’ll just have to help me keep an eye on him. Can’t imagine you like playing with dragon trains nearly as much as he does.”

  Dillon wished he was shocked by the turn of events, but he wasn’t. This must be a big client if his dad was so desperate to keep him happy that he dragged Dillon along. Dillon sighed and smiled at the little guy.

  “You know what? I love a good game of dragon trains,” he said. About an hour later James was napping and Dillon went down to the party.

  There were about a hundred guests and at least two hundred staff members. There was every variety of passed hors d’oeuvres, from sushi to shish kabobs, but none of it felt much like Fourth of July food to Dillon. He wished he had a hot dog, but a minute later he was completely distracted. Out of nowhere a magnificent bald eagle flew over the garden. A moment later it was joined by the biggest bird Dillon had ever seen. He heard someone say something about the eagle and the condor that Michael McIntyre liked to show off at all his parties, and Dillon shook his head. He didn’t think anyone was supposed to keep a bald eagle as a pet. But then the birds were gone. That’s when he noticed the banner over the bandstand. It had an abstract drawing of the eagle on one side and the condor on the other. In the middle were the words Eagle and Condor Uniting Power With Potential. Dillon didn’t understand it, but he knew it had something to do with Mr. McIntyre’s company. Either way, Dillon had something better on his mind.

  There was a makeshift bandstand at the edge of the garden. The red, white, and blue bunting blew in the breeze and the ocean crashed over the rocks below. Dillon could see the musicians taking their places and he moved closer. The drummer wore a cowboy hat, but Dillon tried not to hold it against him. There was no doubt it was an unusual thing to see in the Hamptons, but maybe it was part of the act. A young man in blue jeans stepped up to the mike with a guitar, and the most beautiful girl Dillon had ever seen walked up beside him. The piano began a simple melody, and one by one, each musician added a layer of sound until the young woman began to sing.

  Dillon was mesmerized. The bass had his heart thumping and the drums had his toes tapping. The girl was what caught his attention, but the music carried him away. For two hours he never left the band. The twang of the steel guitar and the sweet sounds of the fiddle filled his head, and the lyrics made more sense to him than anything he ever heard on the radio. Most of his friends listened to songs about going to clubs and talking tough, and while Dillon loved the music, he couldn’t really relate to the lyrics.

  This music was different. There was a song about the thrill of learning to drive and a song about not having the nerve to talk to a girl and that was like a page right out of his life. Dillon felt more understood in that moment than ever before. The even a song about a guy who didn’t know he liked country music. Dillon made it his business to find out more.

  From across the lawn Michael McIntyre watched Dillon. He knew there were years between his son and Ryan’s, but he needed to get Dillon here. He had to find out whether it had started yet. If Dillon had already made the contact that would change everything. A moment later and the bird handler walked by with the eagle.

  “Where’s my condor?” Michael wanted to know.

  “I’m sorry Mr. McIntyre, the condor broke its wing when the wind shifted and it hit your sea wall. I’m on my way now to free it.”

  Michael’s stare was as cold as ice. “Don’t free it, shoot it. A condor with a broken wing is of no use to me.”

  “Sir,. . . I think I can fix the wing. It will heal. The bird is young and . . .”

  Michael didn’t wait to listen to the trainer’s pleas. “A trainer who can’t follow orders is also of no use to me. Clear?” The trainer nodded and walked away.

  July 5, 2011

  The next day Dillon went over to his dad’s place. His buddy Tom was planning to meet him there, and Dillon wanted to check something out before Tom arrived. The doorman tipped his hat, and Dillon just smiled. He missed his old building and it was always nice to be back. The mahogany elevator doors closed behind him and soon he was on his way to the twenty-first floor. The lobby was like an old English library on some estate in Surrey. Persian rugs and fresh roses filled the space, and only Marco, the doorman, ever smiled. The twenty-first floor was different. There were only two apartments on this floor, as opposed to six on all the others. When the doors opened, it was a total transformation from the traditional elegance in the lobby to the sleek, modern energy of a life lived above it all. Black marble and chrome covered the floor and walls, and Venetian glass mirrors stood ready for a final check before the residents ventured out into the city. The door was stainless steel, and when Dillon swiped his fob over the sensor, a cool automated voice offered the regular greeting, “Welcome home, Dillon.”

  Dillon called out to his dad as he walked down the hall, but he would have been shocked if Ryan had answered. Dillon knew his dad would be out running for at least another hour, and that was one more reason to miss this place: privacy. Privacy was in short supply over at his mom’s.

  Dillon grabbed his laptop and plopped onto his black platform bed. He searched for country radio stations and was shocked to discover that New York City barely even had one. He searched online for country music only to discover he didn’t have a clue what he was looking for.

  “What are you doing?”

  Dillon jumped at the sound of Tom’s voice.

  “I ran into your dad in the lobby. He’s in the shower, by the way.” Tom made himself at home as he always did. Dillon closed the laptop. He was embarrassed, but he didn’t know why.

  “Nothing, I’m just looking for a song I heard.”

  Tom grabbed the laptop and laughed out loud.

  “Country music stations? Seriously? Why?”

  Now Dillon laughed. “Shut up. You ready to go?” A minute later and they were on the street heading for the skate park.

  That night Dillon asked his dad about the client who had a country band flown in to play for the party.

  “Michael McIntyre is a real player," said Ryan. "He’s a corporate raider who grew up in Nashville.” Ryan could see that Dillon was already lost. “He buys companies and sells off the parts. He has a real gift. It’s almost like he knows the future. He can pick up a company just before it discovers the next big thing. Then he sells off all the parts he doesn’t need and develops the best. The guy’s a genius.”

  Dillon’s dad might have gone on, but Dillon’s eyes were starting to glaze over. Just then, Dillon heard something that brought him right back to the conversation.

  “Anyway, I’m going to Nashville next week to close
a real estate deal for Mr. McIntyre.”

  Dillon heard himself asking the question before his brain had a chance to tell his mouth to shut up.

  “Dad, can I come?”

  From the minute he said it, all he could think about was how bored he would be in a strange city, wandering around while his dad was too busy to hang out with him, but it was too late now. He didn’t know why, but he knew he needed to get to Nashville. It was like the music was calling him, or some fantasy about spending time with his dad, or something. Dillon couldn’t explain it, but he felt like there was a part of him that he needed to bring home.

  July 14, 2011

  The flood of May 2010 took a toll on Middle Tennessee. The Grand Ole Opry was under four feet of water, the Bridgestone Arena and L. P. Field were all but washed out, and the Cumberland River swelled up and over its banks and flooded countless homes and farms. More than a year later, most things were either restored or under construction, but the Charles family farm was still struggling. The river had always been a source of cool breezes and catfish, but now Clint Charles looked at it with nothing but contempt. It flooded his fields, which he understood was just a force of nature. It flooded his home, which he accepted as a risk his great-granddaddy had assumed when he built the house. What he could not accept, what was nothing short of a personal insult, was the fact that when the waters uprooted the old live oak, it fell onto the back porch and took out Danny’s room.

  The roof was torn off and there were leaves and branches all over Danny’s broken bed. The glass littered the floor, and Danny’s prized guitar was all scratched up with two popped strings. The last time Clint had been in Danny’s room, it was immaculate: nothing out of place and furniture so polished that it all but glared at him. Now it was destroyed, a fitting monument to the life he and Sara were living. Ruins. Clint picked up the guitar and sighed. He knew where to take it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to part with it.