Every Other Weekend

Drove out of Mercy Hollow with my whole life in the bedRented a place off Highway 12 with two rooms and one bedMade yours up with dinosaur sheets, a lamp, and a baseball gloveThen I sat there on that mattress in a room that wasn't loved

Six years old with your nose to the glassWavin' at me Sunday night when that county line went past

Every other weekend, I'd count down the daysDrive that whole stretch of 12 just to see your faceMissed a lot of bedtimes, missed a lot of scraped kneesBut every other weekend, you were every day to me

Learned to braid your sister's hair off a video on my phoneLearned that leavin' Sunday hurts a whole lot worse than bein' aloneThen the teenage years came hard and you didn't want to comeI'd sit in the truck outside that house, and I never blamed you, son

Town talks in Mercy Hollow, and the talk was never kindBut I kept my mouth shut about your momma, every single time

Every other weekend, I'd count down the daysDrive that whole stretch of 12 just to see your faceMissed a lot of bedtimes, missed a lot of scraped kneesBut every other weekend, you were every day to me

Then last Sunday there was gravel crunchin' out front of my placeTwenty-four years old with a truck of your own and your momma's eyes in your faceYou said, "Dad, I get it now, I know what you gave up"Handed me a cup of coffee, said, "Let's go catch somethin' up at the cut"And I thanked God right there in my driveway with my hands still shakin' badFor every mile I drove on 12, and every year I got to be your dad

Now every other weekend's turned to anytime you callMe and you on the tailgate watchin' summer turn to fallI never got the whole thing, son, just the pieces I could keepBut every other weekend, you were every day to me

Every day to meEvery single day