Chapter 13 #2
“Isn’t part of becoming successful that we can start doing what we want? You told me money is freedom. So if we got the money, why can’t we have the freedom?”
He exhaled as if I was a petulant child. “Money gives you the freedom to not go hungry or have to work yourself to the bone for nothing. But to get that money, we have to do a job. We won’t have money for long if we go around half-cocked, doing the job however we want.”
I knew what he was doing. He was appealing to that fear in me, the one that worried at any moment it would all get snatched away, and I’d end up back in the holler, poor and forgotten, or worse.
It was true that he knew what people wanted to hear. He’d shown that in the way my star had risen steadily over the last few years. I had the fame I’d always dreamed of. People recognized me on the street now, and they all lined up to listen to me sing.
But the lyrics weren’t my words. It felt like I was wearing Clayton’s skin, singing with his throat, feeling with his heart when I was out there on that stage. None of it was my own.
I scowled at the floor, afraid of what I might say next. As angry as I could get, he was like a father to me, and I’d only defy him so much before I backed down. I still thought I’d be nothing without him.
He softened at my submission and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Next album. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”
He said this every time.
We finished recording that evening, and then Hess and I took off in her Mustang for a remote cabin in the mountains.
It was my first weekend off in months. I worked constantly, but when I got a few days off, Hess and I would always rent this one cabin and walk around naked and make love in the kitchen.
It was far enough from the holler to be safe, but close enough that I could spend time among my trees, shielded from the rest of the world.
That morning, with Hess still asleep, I went out for a walk in the woods while the light was still coming up. I finally felt free, like my time was my own, and I could live in my true sound.
When the sun hit a certain point, the birds chanted all at once, raising their calls like a choir. My steps through the thick leaves added a rhythm, and the insect buzz added dimension. I became possessed by the music, breathless in the pure, early-morning chill.
But as the sun climbed higher and came into its power, I knew I’d have to go back. Hess would be worried something’d happened to me out here. She didn’t trust the woods like I did—to her, they only held mystery and monsters. She didn’t know where the true dangers waited.
When I got back, she was in a yellow apron frying bacon in the kitchen.
I leaned over and kissed her neck, careful not to disturb her concentration.
She looked up at me, and I saw relief in her face.
She wouldn’t say anything, but she’d been holding her breath since she woke and saw me gone. Something in my chest tightened.
After breakfast, we sat in the living room and I practiced the new songs for the upcoming tour.
It was the same mix of stuff I’d done for every album—two classic covers, one original about how much I loved my man, and another that warned my man that if he stepped too far out of line, there would be hell to pay, which in this case was “The Last Time.”
There was something foolish about the defiance in the song, like a child rebelling against her father. What used to feel daring now felt cheap and silly. I thought back to my time in the woods and the breathless inspiration. The wild cat thrashed in my chest.
I stopped playing and thought about smashing the guitar against the hearth.
Hess gently took the instrument out of my hands and suggested we take a break and hike to a little meadow.
Nature was its usual balm as we walked through the trees.
In the meadow, she laid out a blanket and lazily trailed her fingers over my blouse-covered nipples until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
We shed our clothes and made love in the stark sunshine.
Our sensations were spotlit, made external by the light. Hess tasted like lemonade.
Afterward, we lay back in the soft plants and inhaled the mix of our citrus and the green of the wildflowers.
“What if we bought this place? Just for us?” Hess asked casually.
“With what money?”
Hess sat up on her forearms. “Lou, you have money in the bank. You could buy a little cabin in the woods.”
Hess’s family had cut her off a year prior.
They’d been trying to set her up for years with eligible Nashville bachelors, and she finally told them she had no interest in getting married.
She had this heap of money she was entitled to, but she’d only get it once she’d gotten hitched.
Until then, it would just sit in a vault somewhere, collecting dust. She now relied on me and Clayton for whatever she needed.
“I don’t even know how to get to it.” The truth was Clayton controlled all of that; I had no idea how much I had in my own name. Anything I needed, he bought.
When I’d first started making royalties, he said he’d handle it for me, so I wouldn’t go off and spend it like some of the people he knew who came from nothing. That way, when I needed it, it would be there.
“So you don’t like the idea.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I’d like us to have a place where we can go and be a real couple. Not just Clayton’s house, with him always around, making all the decisions. A place where we can do whatever we want.”
“That does sound nice.”
“And maybe we can adopt a few children. Clayton would legally be their father, but we’d raise them ourselves and he wouldn’t have to do anything. I could live at the cabin with the children while you were touring, and when you were off, you could be with us.”
I could tell this idea had been percolating inside of her for a while. She didn’t come up with wild, impulsive plans like I did. She really wanted this.
She smiled and continued, “I have this vision, of you and me sitting on the porch in rocking chairs, listening to the kids playing in the house and watching the sun go down.”
I gave her a half smile. “I didn’t know you wanted a family so badly.”
“I just think it would be fun to teach them what we know and have something to love and care for. After a while, you get bored of just taking care of your own needs.”
Back then, I had no interest in taking care of children.
I’d done it as a child myself. My aunt had so many kids that when a new one came along, the older ones were expected to feed them and wipe their butts and make sure they didn’t cry too hard when my uncle was hungover.
I knew how much time it took and how tired and hollowed you could feel while doing it.
I only had ten years left, and I didn’t want to spend it spooning slop into a baby’s mouth.
I also wasn’t keen on getting tied to one place and always feeling the pull back, as if my work was something taking me away from my real life. I wanted to live in the moment, to truly feel free. Or as free as you could be in this world.
I looked at Hess lying on her stomach, her naked butt gleaming in the sun. With each year, she’d become even more goddess-like, and at twenty-three, she could not have been more beautiful or self-possessed. I loved her more now than I ever had.
What I’m saying is: I’d have given her whatever she wanted if that was all that was at stake.
But she was imagining a future that couldn’t be.
She saw us growing old together on a porch in the woods with a pile of kids to love like we hadn’t been loved.
This would only ever be a fantasy. I’d be gone before it’d barely started, leaving her all alone after she’d spent her best years building a life around me. I couldn’t do that to her.
“It’s a lovely dream, but what about when I’m gone? Are you gonna raise them all by yourself?”
Her brow furrowed and she smiled slightly, as if I’d told a strange joke. “And where are you going, exactly?”
“Hess, I’ll be dead in ten years.”
The furrow deepened, and she sat up. “What are you talking about?”
My throat felt thick, and I sensed the first stirrings of anger. “You know perfectly well. I told you, I’m gonna die when I’m 33.”
Her face smoothed, and I swear she almost laughed. “Oh, darling. Do you really believe in that curse?” She reached out and stroked my head like a child. “Baby, that’s nothing but superstition.”
My heart dropped. She didn’t think it was real. Maybe she’d never thought it was real. All this time, I thought I was truly being seen, and she was just humoring me. The betrayal stung like a chestful of buckshot.
How could I explain it to her now? She hadn’t grown up in the country, communing with the land and its spirits. She couldn’t know the strangeness that lurked there.
“Just think about it, okay?” she said, lying back down in the grass.
I nodded, afraid of what I might say if I spoke. I listened to the screech of the insects in the grass, and I heard the words ten years whispering through their sound.
Ten years.
Ten years left.
I felt the wild cat clawing at my chest again, desperate to get out.
It was time to set it free.
And I had no idea how.