Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thunder crackled lazily overhead as if the sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to be done with its tantrum or not.
Roxy burrowed deeper into Eleanor’s shoulder bag, her wrinkled little snout barely visible beneath the flap.
Eleanor tugged the strap tighter across her chest, shielding the dog from the sudden wind.
At least the rain had subsided to a mist.
She stood just under the lip of a canvas tent she’d ducked into on her way back from the facilities—a generous term, given she’d just relieved herself behind a well-worn patch of bushes while trying not to flash the entire festival.
And then her mind went blank, like someone had splashed water on the chalk drawing of her life.
Where was she? A few terrifying seconds of empty space filled her brain. No music. No names. No sense of the timeline. Just trees and thunder and a dog’s quiet whimper. But then Roxy yipped—sharp, confident—and the world stitched itself back together again.
Eleanor smiled softly now, watching the vitality and vividness of youth swirl in the storm.
Out in the open, barefoot dancers leaped and spun, summoning the rain, arms open like they were part of the sky itself.
Their hair clung to their necks, skirts plastered to their thighs, but none seemed to care.
They were laughing—screaming, even—as Led Zeppelin continued to thrash from the stage, the bass line rolling like thunder beneath the actual thunder.
The rain wasn’t ruining the concert, but rather joined the festivities.
She watched lovers kiss like movie stars in a finale scene, dripping with rain and not giving a damn.
Hands tangled in wet hair, shirts transparent, clutching each other as though the downpour only deepened the intimacy.
Nearby, a pair of girls lay flat in the grass, heads tilted back, arms outstretched, eyes closed, letting the rain baptize them into a rock-and-roll religion.
A ripple of a shiver wracked her body suddenly.
And Eleanor hugged Roxy close to her chest, feeling the tremble of the dog’s tiny ribs against her own bones, which ached with the cold that came with being sixty-nine and damp for too long.
That creeping chill she couldn’t seem to shake with a blanket or even a whiskey was starting to worm its way into her joints.
Still, she stayed.
Because beyond the dreamers, the dancers, and the lovers…
were people like her. The practical ones.
The ones who sought shelter beneath tents and tarps and tied scarves around their hair and shared warm, dry cigarettes under awnings.
One woman passed out foil-wrapped sandwiches and paper cups of red wine.
Someone offered to share a plastic tie-dye poncho, but Eleanor declined.
Shep had left a poncho folded in the back of the van for her, some flimsy thing he’d probably bought at a gas station next to the beef jerky. She’d said no, wanting to feel the rain a little longer. Wanting to feel—period.
One day, she wouldn’t remember the rain, let alone this concert. One day, she might not even comprehend what the word rain meant.
A group of drunk boys stumbled past, raising their beers like trophies as if holding them above their heads might keep the rain out. A girl with long braids and a flower crown giggled and tossed them a worn quilt, motioning for them to make a canopy. They cheered like they’d invented architecture.
Eleanor chuckled under her breath. Youth had a way of turning disasters into magic. And for once…she didn’t feel like she was just watching. She was part of the fairy tale.
She wasn’t Eleanor Bell, the widow from Ossining. She wasn’t even just Mama Lightning or the Dame of Rock and Roll.
She was a creature standing at the edge of something wild, waterlogged, with a dog in her arms and a memory, however fragile, stitched into her bones.
Right now, she felt less like someone’s mother or grandmother and more like a girl again.
The girl who once played her heart out on a stage in New York, who sang until her fingers bled and her soul felt clean.
The thunder cracked again, louder this time, like it had revived and the sky was giving a standing ovation.
“Not bad,” she whispered to no one in particular. “But I’ve had better sets.”
And then, just behind her, a familiar voice said, “Well, hell. I was hoping to find you.”
She turned slowly, heart leaping. But there was no one there.
In sharp contrast to the dreamers and romantics swaying under the rain, a pack of rebel concertgoers stomped through the puddles like soldiers on parade.
Their cigarettes drooped, half-smoked and waterlogged, clinging to lips with defiance.
They shouted over the storm, “Who needs the sun when we’ve got this?
” as they splashed recklessly, letting thick mud cake the bottoms of their bell-bottoms like badges of honor.
Onstage, one of the bands had refused to yield to the downpour.
They played on, guitars slick with rain, curls plastered to their foreheads, amps hissing with the threat of shorting out.
Eleanor cringed. All that water soaking the instruments, a sin if ever there was one.
But the music was beautiful in its ruin.
The distortion added texture, like a memory half remembered but still deeply felt.
There was something unfiltered in how the sound rattled through the sodden air.
Imperfect. Honest. Settling into her chest like an old tune she hummed under her breath when no one else listened.
And then she saw her.
A face in the crowd so familiar it struck like lightning, a branching of memories spreading like a wild oak before her eyes.
At first, Eleanor thought she was hallucinating.
One of those disorienting flashbacks her doctor had warned her about was a memory bleeding into the present.
The face looked so much like her own—strong chin, wide-set eyes, and that unmistakable Bell scowl.
She blinked hard, hoping that might adjust her focus.
But in the misty view of tents, that familiar face suddenly reminded her of the circus.
Eleanor sank into the memory, which flickered back to a long-ago summer night at Madison Square Garden when the skies had opened above the great striped tent.
The air had smelled of popcorn and elephant sweat, the heavy scent of damp tent canvas and crushed peanuts thick as shag carpet.
The ringmaster had cracked his whip through the thunder like a bolt of sound itself, but Eleanor had had eyes only for the trapeze girls—swanlike and sequined, bodies glistening, muscles taut and graceful as they sliced through the air with musical precision. What would it be like to fly?
The cymbals crashed onstage, jolting her back into the now.
And that’s when she realized the face wasn’t a memory.
Leanne.
As she marched through the storm-washed field like she had a mission carved in her spine, her wet hair clung to her face, and her eyes locked onto Eleanor like a heat-seeking missile. Determined. Intent. Unafraid.
A breath caught in Eleanor’s throat, equal parts awe and dread.
My girl.
She hadn’t seen her daughter like that in decades. Not as a housewife, a mother, or even a dutiful daughter, but as a woman. Fierce. Unraveling. Finding something, maybe even herself, in the rain.
And she was coming straight for her.
No! Absolutely not. She wasn’t going back home. Not today. Not yet.
Seattle was next. Then Woodstock. Woodstock, for God’s sake. Eleanor was going to end this mad little joyride there with flower crowns and feedback loops, maybe even a stage dive if the spirit moved her and not a moment sooner.
Eleanor spun on her heel, boots squelching in the mud, the hem of her blouse plastered to her back. Behind her, a voice rang out through the storm—shrill, urgent, familiar.
“Mom! Eleanor!”
She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. Not even for a heartbeat. Especially not for a heartbeat.
Her heart galloped against her ribs, as she ducked and weaved through a line of wet bodies, darting past a shirtless man screaming something about peace and pudding.
“Ellie, where ya headed?” Shep’s drawl cut through the clamor like a lighthouse through fog. Eleanor zeroed in on it, veering toward his voice, her relief practically visible in her shoulders as she ducked into the tent—her sanctuary from motherhood and the monsoon.
“I got a little lost.” She smoothed her rain-drenched curls and offered him a sheepish smile. Her cheeks ached from trying to make it look effortless. If he noticed the tremor in her hands, he didn’t say a word.
“Lost?” he chuckled. “Looked like you were outrunning the devil himself.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I got good news and better news.” Shep tugged off his sopping wet bandanna and wrung it out. “Good news is that reporter is back and wants to interview you for a bigger piece. Megan thinks it’s a brilliant idea.”
“Oh, does she now?”
“Better news is…I told the reporter to come back after the set. Figured you’d want to keep your mystery intact before blowing their minds with that voice.”
Eleanor let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Smart man. And here I thought you only kept me around for my charm.”
“Well, that and the fringe jacket,” he teased, wagging his brows.
“You are such a rascal.” She slapped his arm, light but fond.
He grinned. “Want Megan to let the kid know you’re game?”
“Sure. I’ll talk to him. But no one else.
He’s not to bring any of his friends.” She was skeptical that the request came the same instant she’d seen her daughter.
“Until then, let’s keep one of your starry-eyed groupies on sentry duty.
If anyone comes looking, especially female, wet, and angry, tell her I’m meditating. Or levitating. Or dead.”
“You got it, Mama Lightning.” Shep gave a mock salute, and she was grateful he didn’t ask her to elaborate.
Eleanor eased down onto the makeshift lounger they’d built from cots, a bean bag, and what looked suspiciously like a drum case. The vinyl squeaked beneath her, and Roxy crawled onto her lap, snorting like a little piglet.
She was safe. For now. But her eyes kept flicking to the tent flap.
What if Leanne knew where to look? What if she saw the stage, saw Shep, saw everything? Her earlier fears of Leanne calling the police resurfaced.
What burned wasn’t the fear of being found but the idea that her daughter might show up with judgment tucked into every crease of her face.
Like Eleanor hadn’t earned this joy. Like she was selfish for choosing this fleeting escape, this music, this reckless, wonderful little rebellion over casseroles and crossword puzzles.
Shep watched her, his own eyes narrowing with quiet curiosity.
“What’s got you frowning?” he asked gently. “Besides the rain.”
Eleanor leaned back, stroking Roxy’s tufted patch of hair on her head. “Just wondering how many more times I get to feel like this before someone tells me I shouldn’t.”
Shep cocked his head, studying her for a full beat. “That sounded pretty loaded. Want to talk about it?”
The rocker had a talent—not just for creating rhythm or changing chords but for reading people like lyrics. Probably because, while most of the band rode a wave of bourbon and weed haze, he was clear-eyed and stone sober, tuning in to the frequencies others missed.
Eleanor glanced through the sliver of space in the tent flap, the rain still falling in gauzy sheets across the field. “I could’ve sworn I saw my daughter out there,” she murmured, more to herself than to Shep.
The words sounded absurd leaving her mouth.
Leanne, knee-deep in mud, soaked to the bone, dancing at a rock concert in Atlanta?
And the woman had been in bell-bottoms. Denim!
Eleanor nearly laughed. Her prim, pearls-and-pleated-skirt-wearing daughter wouldn’t be caught dead without an umbrella, let alone barefoot in a storm.
“No.” Eleanor shook her head and brushed a wet curl from her temple. “No, that couldn’t have been her. Just my mind playing tricks.”
“She into music like you?” Shep asked, his voice gentle.
Eleanor scoffed, the sound dry as old paper. “Not at all. Leanne’s…rigid.”
The word tasted sharp, too sharp. Like she was cutting into something that shouldn’t be sliced so carelessly.
She looked down at Roxy, curled into a tight comma on her lap, and guilt bloomed in her chest like a bruise.
“She was raised to be proper,” Eleanor added, quieter now. “Respectable. Clean edges. Good posture. Crisp linens and measured words. Even as a teenager she was the girl who wore gloves to church and never missed a thank-you note.”
The kind of girl Eleanor had worked hard to raise.
The kind of woman Eleanor had once promised herself she’d never become and then had done exactly that.
She sighed, a sound dragged up from somewhere deep, like dust from an attic box.
“That’s on me. I clipped her wings before she even knew she had them.
” If Leanne had learned to repress her dreams early, to do the practical thing, then she wouldn’t have turned out like Eleanor, longing for what she couldn’t have.
Getting a taste of freedom for it only to be torn away. How wrong she’d been.
Shep didn’t say anything. Just sat beside her, drumming one thumb softly against his knee, like he was keeping time with the part of the story she hadn’t told yet.
And maybe that was why she liked him.
He let her talk when she wanted to, and didn’t push when she didn’t.