Chapter Thirty-Two
After nearly three weeks and nearly two thousand miles of two-lane highways, back-seat naps, diner meals, astronaut landings on the moon, and Nora’s fake, sultry voice as she read The Love Machine, making both women giggle like schoolgirls, Leanne finally saw the WELCOME TO WASHINGTON sign flash past the windshield.
They’d taken this drive easy knowing the festival was just shy of three weeks away.
Instead, they’d followed the trail of sightings for the Dame of Rock and Roll and Shep Moon, reported in the papers, on the radio, and even an episode of Johnny Carson where Eleanor had smiled widely into the camera, seeming perfectly sound of mind.
And yet, they were always a step or two behind.
Partially because they were following news a day late but also because Leanne wanted her mom to have these moments in the spotlight that she’d so clearly craved.
Moments to live to the full extent of her dreams before life so cruelly ushered the memories from her mind.
Before her fingers forgot how to strum the notes.
Before her voice faltered and shuttered.
And all the time, the barriers between Leanne and Nora dropped, one piece at a time. From the way they smiled and teased, no one would guess that a month ago tempers had simmered and walking around each other had been asking for an eggshell to poke in the bottom of their feet.
And Dean. There’d finally been a few rushed telephone calls that only made her question their future more and more.
Seattle was just a few hours off now. One last stretch. One last push. Then—hopefully—clean motel sheets, a working ice machine, and a bathroom that didn’t smell like mildew and broken dreams as several of the gas station restroom stops had.
Nora was curled up in the passenger seat, cheek smushed against the window like a kid’s after summer swim lessons.
Her dark lashes fanned over her cheeks, her mouth parted slightly, and her fingers still curled around the edge of The Stud by Jackie Collins, which had just been published and which they’d found at a bookstore somewhere in Missouri.
She’d fallen asleep mid-passage, like she used to do with fairy tales.
Leanne’s chest gave a tight little squeeze. How was it possible for someone to look like a child and an adult all at once?
“Bad Moon Rising” fizzled in and out through the radio static, sounding a bit like the universe was trying to hum along, off-key.
And just like that, Leanne’s mind drifted.
Not gently either. It crashed backward through time—through school drop-offs, PTA meetings, meat loaf Mondays, and beach weekends with Dean, where the sand was always too gritty and the vacation was always too short.
“Just in case the office calls,” he’d say, propping up his briefcase like it was the third member of their marriage.
Every hotel concierge had been instructed to get him immediately should the firm interrupt.
They’d built a beautiful life, hadn’t they?
The house with the white shutters. The country club membership. The Japanese maple in the backyard that Leanne still wasn’t entirely sure how to prune.
She had a closet full of pastel dresses and a kitchen stocked with Tupperware she’d bought from Marjorie down the street, but she’d forgotten how to hear herself think somewhere along the way.
What good was any of it—any of the things—if the person living inside the picture-perfect life didn’t even know what they wanted?
This road trip, this cross-country detour through music festivals and mystery, had cracked something open inside Leanne.
An untempered, aching desire to be more alive.
She’d danced barefoot in the rain in Atlanta.
She’d worn bell-bottoms that weren’t even hers.
She’d drunk cold beer and eaten fried chicken with her daughter in a dive bar in Tennessee and felt more like herself than she had in two decades.
She glanced at Nora again, her chest rising and falling softly.
There were more times on this trip when she saw her daughter not just as a child but as a curious, passionate, powerful young woman who was just beginning to shape the life she wanted.
Something she hadn’t seen or felt before they’d climbed into the Lincoln to find Eleanor.
Leanne wasn’t sure what scared her more—that Nora would end up just like her or that she wouldn’t.
Because if Nora carved her own path, what excuse would Leanne have for never carving her own?
She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel, fingers flexing against the smooth plastic. The road ahead was long and winding, and for once…that seemed like a good thing.
The entirety of Leanne’s adult life had been one long inhale—waiting for permission to exhale. And now, perched in her mid-forties with a stretch of highway unspooling before her and her daughter asleep beside her, Leanne realized she’d been holding her breath for twenty years.
Nora’s generation—God love them—wasn’t doing that. They were loud and fearless and curious, marching with daisies in their hair and defiance in their throats. They were rewriting the rules in real time, tearing down what no longer served and building something entirely new.
Leanne admired them. Maybe even envied them. A kind of terrified admiration that thudded against her ribs like John Bonham’s drumsticks on a Led Zeppelin snare. That thought made her laugh. She’d never even known Led Zeppelin existed until this summer. So much had changed on this trip.
But pushing back? Speaking up? Choosing herself?
That was terrifying.
She wasn’t ready to admit it aloud. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she was prepared to admit it in her head, but she was afraid. Afraid of being afraid. Afraid of what it would mean to finally name what she wanted, only to find that no one in her life had room for her wants.
Afraid of being alone.
Because Dean wasn’t a man who embraced change.
He’d worn the same pair of brown wingtips since Dewey was governor, and when those finally wore out, he’d bought another identical pair.
He still read the morning papers in the same order with his coffee, still insisted on his handkerchiefs being ironed.
If she shook the foundation of their marriage even a little, there was a good chance it would crack wide open.
And in September, Nora would go off to Yale, off to find herself and change the world and fall in love with a young man who quoted Camus and played his guitar in the quad.
She and Dean were supposed to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary that same month. And if Leanne decided to speak up, there was a chance that celebration wouldn’t happen. A chance that her seemingly picture-perfect life would simply dissolve. The truth finally revealed.
And without Dean, without Nora, and soon without her mother…
She would be alone.
Utterly, painfully, irrevocably alone.
But she didn’t want to be sixty-nine like Eleanor, wake up one day, and realize that the next day she may not know who she was. Or that she hadn’t fulfilled a dream she’d put on hold. Even if she didn’t quite know what that dream was. She’d never given herself a chance to figure that out.
That feeling of fear that must have been against her mother’s chest… Leanne suddenly found it hard to breathe. She gripped the steering wheel tight, feeling the blood drain from her face. Her breaths came rapid, her heart pounding, and she started to gasp. Fear itself choking her.
With a sharp turn of the wheel, Leanne sent the Lincoln skidding onto the shoulder, gravel crunching beneath the tires.
The car lurched to a stop. She wrenched out the keys and flung the door open, the humid night air slapping her face as she stumbled out and bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air that refused to come.
“Mom?” Nora’s voice was thick with sleep, but her hand was firm and warm on Leanne’s spine, rubbing gentle circles the way Leanne had once done for her after nightmares.
Leanne closed her eyes. She’d heard that same tone nearly every day since they set out on this road trip. But this time, it landed differently—because this time, it was earned.
“I…I can’t breathe,” Leanne managed, clawing at her neck, trying to force the air in with her own hands.
Nora didn’t flinch. She didn’t panic. She just stayed. Grounded. Present. Her palm moved steadily along Leanne’s back like the metronome of a lullaby.
And slowly, inch by inch, Leanne’s heartbeat began to settle. Her lungs stopped acting like they were trying to climb out of her chest.
“Are you sick?” Nora’s voice cracked.
Leanne shook her head, the tears beginning to sting behind her eyes. “No,” she whispered, her throat hoarse. She stood upright slowly, like a building reassembling itself after an earthquake. “I let my mind get the better of me.”
Nora narrowed her eyes. Didn’t move. She crossed her arms, blocking the path back to the car like a bouncer outside a speakeasy.
Her jaw was set in that familiar way that was all Dean—sturdy, unmoving.
But her eyes—those wide, waiting, seeing eyes—were pure Eleanor. Not pushing, not accusing. Just…ready.
Leanne could feel the tears start to slip.
“I was thinking,” she admitted, “about everything. Your grandmother. Your dad. You. Me.” She gave a wet, humorless laugh.
“And I’m terrified. Of waking up at nearly seventy, looking around my perfectly arranged life, and realizing I never lived a single minute of it for myself.
That I was so busy trying to hold the seams together, I never stopped to ask if the dress even fit me. ”
A breeze rustled the tall pines lining the edge of the highway. Somewhere in the distance, a truck rumbled past.
“You still have time,” Nora said softly. “Grandma’s living proof of that.”
Leanne let out a long, shaky exhale. “I know.”
Leanne glanced at her daughter, seeing a child mirror of her younger self, but braver. “And I’m terrified that I’ve tried to shape you into myself. And I feel like I’ve lost my chance to do something more, to…”
“Well, don’t be.” Nora gave a crooked smile. “I mean, the jury’s still out on whether I have a complex about baking chicken casseroles and setting the table perfectly, but I’ll survive. I’m good. I’m excited for Yale. I’m excited to spread my wings.”
“I’m glad. And I’m sorry,” Leanne said. “If I ever made you feel like you had to live the way I did. Safe. Small. I want more for you.”
“You’ve shown me more,” Nora said. “This trip? You’ve changed. And so have I.”
Leanne tugged her daughter into a hug, burying her face in Nora’s hair.
She smelled like rain, wild air, and youth—like summertime before curfews, like independence in a bottle.
Leanne was transported back to their living room years ago, Nora’s petite frame sitting cross-legged on the carpet while she brushed out her hair in long, patient strokes.
They used to make up stories then. Magical ones.
About queens and explorers and women who defied the world.
But she didn’t tell her daughter what was really eating her alive.
She didn’t say that she was afraid her marriage was dissolving in slow, quiet increments—that she’d sacrificed her voice on the altar to keep the peace.
That Dean had dictated their life so completely, she’d nearly forgotten she had agency at all.
That even the timing of their intimacy had never really been her own.
“How did you get so wise?” she whispered into Nora’s hair.
“I’m not wise. I’m just willing to leap.”
“Like your grandmother.”
“Like all the women in our line,” Nora whispered. “Like all women should.”
They climbed back into the Lincoln. Nora wiped her cheeks and flicked the radio dial just as a warbling Elvis tune slipped through the speakers like a memory dusted off and dressed for company.
“Oh my God!” Nora squealed, twisting the volume knob. “I love this one.”
Leanne chuckled. “Elvis was all the rage when you were little. The King of Rock and Roll. The man who changed sock hops.”
“Why’d they call those dances sock hops anyway?” Nora asked, toeing off her shoes with a stretch.
Leanne smirked, tapping the steering wheel.
“They came a few years after high school for me, but according to my cousin, who was a sock hop queen, it was because once you got to the gym, off came the saddle shoes. Nobody dared scuff the waxed floor. Not unless you wanted Sister Margaret breathing fire.”
“Wait, the same Sister Margaret who was forced to retire last year?”
“The one and only. I think she was ninety-three.”
Nora cackled, tilting her head out the window like she was drinking in the night sky. The Lincoln rumbled forward again, its headlights slicing through the dark, winding highway. The road stretched out ahead—uncertain, winding, open.
Just like the future.