The Achilles Heel Read Online Free Page A

would ever feel the same. I dreaded walking
     back into it.

KESSLER
    A s daylight broke free from the murk of night, our jet made a smooth landing at the
     Nashville International Airport at dawn the next morning. The three of us looked like
     hammered shit. We drank everything that wasn’t nailed down, and I think Wade won the
     wrestling match we started on the dance floor, but couldn’t be sure because that’s
     when I blacked out. Thank God Hope’s mother, Mama D, was waiting for us with the car
     when we arrived. As we rolled our bags towards our ride home, her face changed from
     happiness to disbelief, with her hands planted firmly on her wide-set hips.
    “Good God almighty,” she said, slapping her leg. “You three look useless as tits on
     a boar!”
    “Pipe down, woman!” said Wade, rather annoyed. “Just drive the damn car until I tell
     you to pull over so I can puke.”
    “Well, well. Looks like Mr. High Cotton can’t hold his liquor in his old age,” cackled
     Mama D. “And you, young lady, I taught you better than this. You look like you got
     mowed down by the John Deere.”
    “Well, maybe I did. I don’t remember a damn thing from last night, and might still
     be drunk. Please stop yellin’, mama,” Hope whispered.
    “Oh, my baby, Kessler!” Mama D cried, as she grabbed me and squeezed my waist so hard
     I almost shit my pants. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked, while feeling my forehead
     for a temperature. “Now, you come on over, and I’ll fix you a big breakfast and a
     little hair of the dog to get you feelin’ right side up again.”
    “Thanks, Mama D. I sure do appreciate that, and you know how much I love your cooking,
     especially those cheesy grits, but the only thing I can think about right now is sleep,”
     I apologized.
    “I’ll take breakfast,” whined Wade.
    “Only thing you’re gonna take is a shower, Wade Rutledge, ‘cause you smell bad enough
     to knock a dog off a gut wagon,” preached Mama D.
    There was a moment of silence and then we all busted up laughing.
    Alice Deanna Kroy, (aka Mama D) spent all her life growing up in Lynchburg, TN‌—‌a
     southern Tennessee town with a ton of southern Tennessee sayings, about five thousand
     people and one traffic light. Over the years, some notable celebrities have called
     Lynchburg home: Davy Crockett, Little Richard and the great Johnny Majors (head coach
     of the Tennessee Volunteers 1977-1992) but no one more famous than Mr. Jack Daniel.
     The Jack Daniel’s Distillery has called Lynchburg home since 1956. Even though it
     resides in a dry county and the residents can’t purchase this Tennessee whiskey in
     restaurants or stores, the distillery does sell commemorative bottles to enjoy at
     home, and I had more than my share last night.
    Although I don’t always understand Mama D’s Tennessee sayings, I do know that anything
     she does for someone comes from love. She’s a short, round woman; looks like an apple
     on a stick, with curly gray hair styled like a football helmet. She has her own rules
     of how she thinks life should run, and isn’t afraid to put her two cents worth of
     advice in your piggy bank. Her heart is pure as gold, and she has mothered me from
     our first meeting over twenty years ago. I don’t always take her advice, which I should,
     but she never holds it against me or steers me in the wrong direction. After Hope’s
     daddy passed and right before their youngest son Kroy was born, Mama D moved in with
     Wade and Hope to help with the kids and the house since Wade is on tour six months
     out of the year. She’s always cooking up something delicious, which is why I’m always
     eating at their house, and she usually makes enough food for twice the amount of people
     that are eating. She’s the quintessential Southern Mama.
    We headed down I-65 South to Franklin, a suburb of Nashville, with the windows rolled
     down in a vain attempt to dry ourselves out and to also keep