Chapter 1 - The Sound That Stopped the Lakehouse
The first crack was sharp enough to cut through every conversation in the room.
The second one stopped my breathing.
I was on the deck of my parents’ Kentucky lakehouse, tuning my 1975 Gibson Hummingbird, when the sound came from inside. It was not loud in the way a crash is loud. It was worse than that.
Clean.
Final.
Wrong.
I ran into the living room and saw my nine-year-old nephew Tyler standing in front of the stone fireplace with both hands wrapped around the neck of my guitar.
The body had been smashed against the stone.
The spruce top was split straight down the middle.
The bridge was ripped loose.
The strings hung in a useless, tangled mess.
Tyler looked at me.
Then he laughed.
“It broke,” he said. “Your guitar was fake.”
For one full second, nobody moved.
My brother-in-law Derek stood in the doorway with a coffee mug in his hand, his face pale.
I stepped forward carefully.
“Tyler,” I said, keeping my voice low, “why would you do that?”
Tyler lifted his chin.
“Dad said real Gibsons are strong. He said yours was probably cheap.”
Derek lowered the mug.
“Tyler.”
Too late.
I turned toward him.
“You told him to test if it was real?”
Derek tried to smile.
“I didn’t tell him to break anything.”
But Tyler frowned.
“You said Uncle Marcus wastes money on fake stuff. You said if it was real, it wouldn’t snap.”
And there it was.
Not an accident.
May you like
A lesson.
Just not the one Derek thought he was teaching.
