Chapter Twenty-Nine
How could a person just vanish into thin air?
Leanne shoved past a gaggle of sunburned teenagers, weaving through canvas tents and clumps of muddy concertgoers, heart hammering like the kick drum echoing from the stage.
She was wetter than a river, her hair plastered to her scalp, her sensible sandals ruined, and her patience stretched thin as the straps of her bra.
But she knew what she’d seen. A silver-streaked bun bobbing through the crowd, a face she’d never forget, and at her side? A naked rat dog with a gem-studded leather collar.
Roxy. Dressed like a rocker poodle.
That was her mother.
Only now, she was gone.
Leanne reached a looped-off section behind one of the bigger tents, guarded by two wiry young men who looked like they’d walked off the Beatles album cover. One had a handlebar mustache and the other wore mirrored sunglasses and had an easy, relaxed smile despite the rain.
“Excuse me.” Leanne wiped rain off her brow and squared her shoulders. “I think my mother’s back there. Mind if I take a peek?”
The men exchanged a look, then burst out laughing like she’d just delivered the best punch line of the night.
“That’s a new one,” said Mustache, elbowing his buddy. “Usually it’s a girlfriend, or ‘I left my tambourine back there,’ not Mom.”
“I’m serious.” Leanne’s voice was clipped, the same tone she used when she’d wanted Nora to clean her bedroom. “She’s with the band.”
“Wait a sec…” said Sunglasses, his smirk widening. “You talkin’ about Mama Lightning?”
Leanne shuffled back a step. Mama Lightning? As if this situation couldn’t get any weirder, they’d been yanking her chain, pretending her request was silly. “Yes. My mother.”
“You don’t look much like her.” Sunglasses gave her a once-over that made her want to snatch off his shades and make him say it to her face.
The observation landed like a stone in her chest. No one had ever told her that before. Most people said she looked just like Eleanor. The same nose, the same eyes. Now, this stranger was telling her she didn’t even resemble her own mother?
She straightened her spine, fisted her hands to keep them from trembling with frustration, and said evenly, “I take after my father.” Then, ignoring their snickers, she added, “Look, I’ve driven all over this country looking for my mother.
I’ve put more miles on my car than it had to start with, and I’m sopping wet out here.
I’ve been to California, Denver, and now Atlanta, following rumors about an elderly woman who I have confirmed is most definitely my mother, who abandoned her life to go on tour with a band.
The least you can do is let me walk into this tent and see my mother and her jazzy dog. ”
“Sorry, no can do,” said the guard, barely glancing back, scratching the stubble along his jaw. “Band’s about to go on. They’d kill us if we interrupted. You got one thing right, though—Roxy is jazzy.”
Leanne’s ears perked up. Her mother was about to walk onstage?
Without another word, Leanne spun on her heel, her borrowed bell-bottoms clinging to her rain-lashed legs as she sprinted back into the crowd. The grass squished beneath her feet, and muddy water splashed up her calves, but she didn’t care. Not even a little.
She spotted Nora and Joe near a cluster of overturned trash cans and teenagers passing around a soggy joint. They were shouting her name like she’d been missing for days, not minutes.
“Mom!” Nora cried, her brows knit in worry and a fair dose of righteous teenage sass. “You can’t just disappear like that. I thought you turned into Grandma and floated off into the rain.”
“I’m sorry,” Leanne said, breathless. She meant it. Really, truly meant it. “I—I just… I saw her.”
Nora narrowed her eyes, but the storm was already melting off her face. She’d clearly been scared. Leanne could see it in the way she clenched her jaw.
For a second, Leanne was thrown backward to when she’d walked into her mother’s empty house weeks ago, the silence curling around her like a ghost. The disarray as if she’d only just missed her. That telltale scent of her mother’s rosewater perfume had faded into the stale air.
She remembered the way her heart had clenched. The fear that maybe, this time, she really had lost her for good.
Even when they fought, even when they misunderstood each other on a cellular level, Eleanor had always been there. Playing guitar on the porch. Making breakfast while humming old jazz tunes. Saying something outrageous just to get a reaction.
But one day…that house would be sold. That chair would sit empty. That phone would ring and ring and ring—and there’d be no answer on the other end.
Leanne pressed a hand to her mouth, the weight of it all crashing over her with the same ferocity as the Georgia rain. Tears mixed with the drops streaked down her cheeks, indistinguishable but real.
And then—
She heard it.
A single strum.
The warm, warbling opening to that lullaby.
The one Eleanor used to play when Leanne was small, her knees scraped from climbing trees she wasn’t supposed to, her eyes heavy with sleep and stubbornness.
The melody drifted from the stage like smoke, curling around her bones, softening everything sharp inside.
She didn’t need to see her to know it was her mother.
Leanne whirled toward the stage, her breath catching. She shoved through the swaying, rain-slickened crowd, elbows brushing against drenched denim and fringe jackets. Mud squelched beneath her steps. Nora followed close behind, her fingers gripping the back of Leanne’s blouse to stay close.
And then—there she was. Eleanor Bell Strickland.
Her mother stood at center stage. The spotlight washed over her silver-streaked hair, held away from her face with a yellow bandanna, casting a soft halo around her head.
She wore a pair of purple bell-bottoms, a matching purple top, and bright yellow boots.
Her fingers, long, veined, a little trembly now with age, plucked the chords of her guitar.
Her eyes were closed. Head tilted slightly.
And her face—oh, her face—was a painting of every emotion Leanne had ever tried to bury.
The song wasn’t flashy. Wasn’t trying to impress. It just was. A quiet, aching melody about growing older. About time slipping through your fingers. About waking up and not recognizing the world or the person in the mirror.
Soft and low, the song had been a nighttime ritual, always with the same words, as though Eleanor had been predicting the future. Until one day…it had stopped. And here they were.
Leanne’s knees wobbled. Her throat tightened. Tears—hot and quiet—ran down her cheeks, lost in the rivulets of rain.
Nora slipped her fingers into hers. And Leanne squeezed her daughter’s hand like it was a lifeline.
“She used to play this for me,” Leanne whispered. Her voice cracked in her throat, barely audible over the hum of the audience.
But Nora heard her. Somehow, she always did.
“Me too,” Nora whispered back. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
The two of them—mother and daughter—stood rooted in the middle of a field, dripping in rain, surrounded by strangers, and yet they were utterly, intimately alone in the best way.
The chorus came around again, and this time, the crowd joined in. One by one, voices rose around them, not loud or drunken but elated. As if they’d all grown up with that song too. As if Eleanor Bell had tucked all of them in at night.
Nora sang softly, and so did Leanne. Their voices shaking. Their shoulders pressing together. The lyrics clinging to their lips the way Leanne prayed her mother’s memories would stick to the recesses of her mind.
When the last note fell, Eleanor opened her eyes and smiled at Shep Moon like he’d just handed her the world on a platter. He turned to her, eyes crinkling, and lifted her hand toward the Georgia sky.
“The Dame of Rock and Roll, friends,” he shouted into the mic, his voice bursting with pride. “Ain’t nobody better.”
The crowd roared.
Then he turned back to Eleanor and launched into a bluesy, toe-tapping riff.
Eleanor grinned, the curl of her lips taking years off her face.
She jumped into the rhythm with a strum of her guitar, their bodies moving in unison like they’d been doing it for years, not just a few weeks.
As though Leanne’s mother had never hidden her guitar in the closet at all.
“This has been the talk of every festival,” Joe shouted over the music, his voice electric with awe. “This song’s not even on a record yet!”
The crowd surged like a wave, their voices rising in harmony with the chorus. Strangers clung to one another, arms thrown around shoulders, hips swaying in soggy denim and dripping fringe. Everyone knew the lyrics already as if the song had been living in their bones long before they ever heard it.
Eleanor and Shep danced around each other onstage, trading verses like secrets, their guitars slung low and gleaming under the stage lights.
They leaned in close, eyes locked, strumming with a chemistry that didn’t need words.
Behind them, the drummer lost himself in a wild, ecstatic rhythm while the bassist plucked like he was conjuring thunder.
The entire band was alive, each musician a wire in a single current.
Leanne stood frozen, rain cascading off her cheeks, unsure if the wetness on her face was from the storm or something breaking open inside her.
Because this wasn’t just music. It was destiny on display.
And boy, did it hurt.
Not because the music was loud. Not because Leanne didn’t understand the lyrics.
But because all of it combined was so right.
This stage, this storm, this strange winding road—Eleanor Bell had belonged here all along.
Someone had locked the door on her decades ago, only to open it now and watch her run headlong forward.
Leanne felt a quiet quake beneath her ribs. Her hand fluttered to her chest, trying to still a guilt that had just found its voice.
Was it me? she wondered. Was it Dad?
Had Eleanor traded a microphone for a mop? A tour bus for carpool? Had she hung up her guitar to play house because someone had told her that was what a good woman did?
Leanne blinked through the rain at her own daughter. Her brilliant, brave, curious daughter, who stood wide-eyed and openhearted, fully lit from within by joy.
And Leanne knew, right then, that she had to tell Nora.
Tell Nora never to shrink. Never to fold herself into someone else’s dream. Never to ignore the fire in her gut, no matter how loud the world got.
And maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t too late for Leanne to take her own advice.
Maybe there was still time.
Not to rewrite the past.
But to start living the future.