“A singer?” Mrs. Haltom said. “Have I heard of her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Her name’s Sunny Brown.”

“Sunny Brown?” She grimaced, as if the words tasted sour in her mouth.

I was silent. I’d never thought about the name; she was just Aunt Sunny.

“Has she recorded anything?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. She sings at . . . a bar.”

“I’m sure she’s very good,” Mrs. Haltom said. “She was probably the best singer in her little town and came to Nashville thinking she was going to be a big star one day. This town is full of Sunny Browns, you know. None of them imagines that the peak of their career will be singing for tips in some shitty bar.”

Perhaps Mrs. Haltom had heard Sunny singing in the airport back before her husband bought them their own plane. I did not ask her.

“Is your mother a singer too?” she asked.

“No.”

“What about your father? What does he do?”

I recited the amended version of my father’s demise and my mother’s struggles as a young single mom getting by with the help of a kindhearted cousin.

“Sounds like a good story for a country song,” Mrs. Haltom said, her tone mercilessly dry. “Maybe Sunny Brown should write it. It might be her ticket to the top.”

Mrs. Haltom’s face darkened. She looked me over, glancing up and down, examining me the way you might a painting you suspected might be counterfeit.

“Empty your pockets,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s not every day that I catch someone snooping around in my bedroom.”

I glanced at the door.

“Pull them out,” she said. “I want to see the lining.”

Head bowed, I pulled out the cotton pocket liners, lamely trying to palm the picture of Vanessa.

“Give me that,” she said.

I picked up the picture and handed it to her.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“In Jamie’s room,” I said. “On the floor. I just picked it up to give it back to him.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

I stuffed my pockets back in and kept my hands there. I looked at the door again. I wanted to run, not just from the room, but out the door and down the driveway and onto Belle Meade Boulevard to Harding Pike and all the way across the river.

“Not a very flattering picture,” she said.

She held it out to me.

“Here,” she said. “You can have it.”

I kept my hands in my pockets.

“Go ahead, take it,” she said. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her. Run along, now, Romeo.”