Free A Plain Love Song by Kelly Irvin

quizzical look as if someone had asked him a question that stumped him. “That’s just crazy talk.”
    Captain’s head popped up and his ears flopped as if he heard something in his master’s voice that concerned him. He growled low and soft and laid his head back on his paws. Jackson leaned down and patted his head, his hand sliding along the dog’s back with a gentle, calming touch. Adah had to tear her gaze from his hand.
    “We don’t like to draw attention to ourselves. Playing an instrument would be like saying, Hey, look at me. I’m special .” That’s the way Daed had explained it to her when she was a little girl and wanted to learn to tap dance like her Englisch friend Tammy. “We sing hymns at church, all together, and we sing at school every day. We have music, just not how you do.”
    Jackson frowned as if he was turning the information over in his head, studying it really hard. “A cappella?”
    “Aca-what?”
    “Singing without instruments. It’s called a cappella. No wonder you have such a gorgeous voice. You’ve developed a good ear. You have to hit the notes with no musical accompaniment. Nice.”
    “I never thought about it. The hymns don’t have high notes. They’re slow, very slow, almost like chanting.”
    He plucked a few more notes, first low, then high. “I’m planning to play music for a living.” He glanced at the door as if checking to see if anyone were there. “That’s our secret, okay?”
    A secret. Just like she had to keep her songwriting a secret from her parents, Jackson didn’t want his parents to know he wanted to make music for a living. Why would they care? Was it against their religion too? “How do you do that? Make a living playing music around here?”
    “You don’t. Have you ever heard of Branson?” He lingered on the name as if it tasted sweet on his tongue. “Branson, Missouri?”
    “I’ve heard of it.” She tried to recall what she knew from listening to her Englisch friends talk at the parties she’d attended out in the open fields on farms far from her daed’s. “People go there to see shows.”
    “Musical shows. Country music shows.” His face shone with excitement as if he could see himself there already. “Soon as I can, I’m going there to audition. I want to try to play some shows.”
    He made it sound easy. That ugly snake of envy that had plagued Adah before slithered through her again, this time wrapping itself around her heart and squeezing. She wanted to go to Branson. She wanted to see the shows. She wanted to hear the music. She wanted to play the music. “When are you going? What do your parents think of this plan?”
    “It’ll all come to a head soon.” His mouth turned down in a tight frown as he tapped his pencil against the paper in a one-two beat. “They don’t know it, but I got so involved in making music in Columbia, I didn’t really go to class much. I didn’t do so hot on my finals. I was already on academic probation. I’m not planning to go back.”
    “You haven’t told your parents?”
    “Nope.”
    “What happens when they find out?”
    “Things will blow up. They’ll yell about the wasted money, but it wasn’t their money. They’ll get over it.”
    “Because it wasn’t their money?”
    “Part of it I raised by selling my 4H steers at auction each year. Part of it came from a trust fund my Gramps left me. They’re not out a dime.”
    The Englisch kids were allowed to keep the money from the sale of livestock. Adah couldn’t imagine. Her family needed the money tofeed and clothe themselves and buy basic necessities. “It doesn’t seem like it’s about the money. They’re your parents. Won’t they want you at home with them?”
    “I’m twenty-one. Sure, Pop wanted me to study agribusiness and come back here to farm with him, but my brother can do it. It’s not my thing. Pop will get over it.”
    Then he wasn’t like Daed. Her father wouldn’t get over something like that. Not ever. Not