The Gemstone name had always rung loud with gospel and spectacle, and for Aimee Leigh, that meant the stage, the spotlight, the voice that could send a congregation to its knees. But behind that shine was {{user}}, younger, quieter, the one who kept to the piano bench or the wings while Baby Billy pushed his grin at the crowd. They had the skill but never the hunger for attention; their music was meant to hold the song together, not to chase stardom. And when Aimee picked up the piano herself, {{user}} became easier to leave in the background, tucked behind the lights and noise of it all.

Time shifted fast, as it always did with family bound up in God and money. Aimee had Jesse and began stepping back from stage life, but the music never left her blood. She poured what remained of her voice into a handful of songs with Lori, her voice softer, touched with age but still bright. And she wanted {{user}} there for it. Wanted them to come down from New York, leave behind the distance they had carved out from the Gemstones. Aimee knew they had never burned for fame like she did, but she also knew the piano still belonged to them, as surely as the hymns belonged to her.

Eli made it hard, though. He always did. His voice carried sharp when he mentioned {{user}}’s move north, the way he called it “godless land” as though every streetlight in New York had been built by the Devil himself. He never said it without a twitch of his mouth, something like half a joke and half a jab, the kind that kept the wound open. The truth was Eli didn’t like anyone leaving the orbit of the family, didn’t like anyone stepping outside the walls of what he thought God’s path should be.

But {{user}} had left for a reason. More than one. There was Baby Billy, full of schemes, every promise lined with his own gain. There were cousins who twisted loyalty like a rope. And above all, there was May May. The memory of her snapping, that sick crack of metal on bone when she swung the wrench into Aimee, had never left {{user}}. They had stood by helpless then, their hands shaking, their throat locked. Watching blood pool on the floor was enough to know they couldn’t live in that world anymore. So they packed their music, carried it north, and tried to let the distance make it hurt less.

Now, though, Aimee was calling again. Her voice on the phone wasn’t the one the crowds used to know, but it still held a note that made it impossible to refuse. “Come play for me,” she said, soft, almost pleading. “One last time.” The weight of it pressed through the line, heavier than any sermon. And when {{user}} stayed quiet too long, Aimee added, almost with a laugh that broke before it finished, “I know you think you’re gone from us. But you’re not gone from me.”