Chapter Forty
White surrounded her on all sides. The sky above was washed pale and overcast, a canvas stretched too tight.
Under her feet, a sea of woven blankets sprawled like clothes on a teenager’s bedroom floor, looking for the right outfit—colors clashing in psychedelic swirls and frantic dots, paisley puddles tangled with sun-faded stripes.
It was chaos. Pure, undiluted, joyful chaos.
And it made her toes itch.
Eleanor kicked off her sandals, letting her bare feet sink into the fabric.
The soft fibers pricked against her soles, grounding her in something she couldn’t name.
Her toenails, usually painted a bright crimson or electric blue, were bare.
Just pale crescents now, forgotten. She crouched slowly, knees cracking, and touched one toe with a calloused finger as if it might tell her something. Why hadn’t she painted her toes?
Her gaze caught on the brown music symbol painted across the back of her hand. When had that gotten there?
She pressed her thumb to the ink, surprised it didn’t smudge. The henna had stained into skin. When she curled her fingers, the note danced. How strange. How beautiful.
“We’re up, Mama.”
The voice jolted her like a flashbulb. She looked up, startled. A young woman with long, beaded braids and a yellow woven halter top stood before her, hands on her hips, a tambourine dangling from one wrist like a forgotten accessory.
Eleanor’s mouth parted. “Am I your mother?”
The girl stared at her, caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. Then she let out a quick laugh, too loud for the softness that had settled between them. “You’re a funny one. No wonder Shep likes you.”
Eleanor’s body jolted like a radio catching signal at the mention of Shep’s name.
Her brain did a little two-step—slow, glitchy, like a record trying to find the groove.
She may as well have been asleep for a hundred years, and her synapses beginning to stir, whispered, You’re here. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.
This wasn’t just any patchwork of blankets beneath her bare feet—these were their blankets.
The ones Shep’s band had spread across festival fields for weeks, collecting crumbs, stories, and sleep.
This wasn’t just any stage. This was their tent.
And she hadn’t painted her toenails because they’d been on the road.
Gas station to gas station, bar to bar, festival to festival.
And the girl in front of her, of course, her name was Megan. Kind, scattered Megan, with her tambourine and bangles and ever-mismatched socks.
“Sorry about that.” Eleanor laughed, masking her passing lapse like a pro. “You know how it is…preshow jitters.”
Megan smiled but didn’t press. Instead, she gently tugged the bag holding Roxy off Eleanor’s shoulder and handed her the guitar in its place.
“Knock ’em dead, Grandma. Roxy and I will cheer from the side.”
Grandma. Mama. Everyone had a name for her, and none of them were her name. Not really. They were masks. Titles that came with expectations, not essence.
And then—
“Ellie! Come on!”
Finally. A name she recognized.
Eleanor turned toward the sound. Shep stood at the edge of the stage, one arm extended like a lifeline, grinning in that maddeningly charming way he had—half rascal, half Romeo.
Eleanor took his hand, and he hoisted her up.
Her foot skidded slightly, and she stumbled off-balance, off-kilter.
Odd. She’d never had balance issues before.
She blamed it on the stage surface which was slick with sweat and who knew what else, and the fact that her body was running on minimal sleep, maximum adrenaline, and maybe a little too much black coffee.
Still, as the lights hit her face and the crowd murmured like a wave just about to break, she steadied herself.
The crowd erupted. They weren’t shouting her name, though. They were shouting the myth.
“Mama Lightning!”
“The Dame of Rock and Roll!”
And just like that, she was annoyed again.
Like they’d turned her into a roadside attraction. A relic. A gimmick.
But she didn’t have time to stew. The sheer size of the audience hit her like a wall of sound.
This was by far the largest crowd they’d sung for.
An ocean of bodies stretching so far and wide that she couldn’t even find the end.
Like the earth had cracked open and spilled humanity onto this one muddy hillside.
Arms waved like seaweed in the current, and the roar was constant and deafening, matching the thrum of blood in her ears, the race of her heart.
She and the band launched into their usual opener, the one that got feet stomping and hands clapping, and Eleanor hit every chord from muscle memory. She was a machine. A vessel. A woman in the eye of the storm.
And then someone from the crowd shouted the request she hadn’t known she was wishing for until the words rang out. “Play the one you wrote for your daughter!”
The words cut through the noise like a clear bell, and the band turned to her for the cue. She gave a slow nod, fingers finding the strings, the first soft strum rising like a secret in the wind.
And that’s when she saw her.
Right near the front of the crowd, impossibly close, stood Leanne.
But not the Leanne she remembered. Not the pressed-pleated, pearl-buttoned version who lived in the suburbs of Ossining with a calendar full of PTA meetings and roast dinners.
This Leanne was different. Her jeans were cutoffs, threads fraying at the edges over the bare skin of her thighs.
Her top was loose, bohemian, swaying in the breeze.
Her hair was down, her skin flushed, kissed by a summer of wandering.
And her eyes were wide and wet, her cheeks streaked with tears. Not grief. Not fear. Joy. Pure, radiant, unfiltered joy.
Eleanor’s throat tightened. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that look. That permission. That recognition. That love.
She strummed the next few chords like they were breathing for her daughter. When the chorus swelled, she pointed directly at Leanne—let the crowd see her, let Leanne feel her mother’s love.
Standing beside Leanne, Nora was impossible to miss.
Eleanor’s heart gave a heavy thud against her ribs as if the strings of her guitar had found a way to pluck her from the inside out.
She opened her mouth, sang the next line—those familiar, aching lyrics—and something sharp tugged against her thumb. She glanced down. Her finger was tangled in the guitar cord. Odd. How had that happened?
Her gaze traveled to the microphone, hovering just in front of her mouth like a floating question. She blinked. The lights felt too bright. The stage felt too high. Her own voice was too loud in her ears.
“Leanne,” she said aloud, barely a whisper into the microphone.
She stared down at the woman in the crowd who looked so much like her daughter—and yet not like her at all.
The Leanne she remembered had a stiff posture, lips pressed thin.
This Leanne was barefoot in the grass. Hair wild.
Eyes bright. Wearing joy like a badge of rebellion.
The music didn’t stop. The crowd kept singing. They knew the words, had memorized the rhythm, and had absorbed the song into their bones over the summer.
Another jolt rolled through Eleanor’s body, like her mind catching up to her mouth, and suddenly, it clicked back into place. You’re onstage, Ellie. This is your song. These are your people.
She laughed, full-throated, into the mic, and sang again—this time louder, with a wink in her voice. “Guess I’ve got a fan in the front row today.”
The crowd roared.
No one looked at her strangely. No one leaned in with worry. No one whispered, “Is she all right?”
Only cheers. Only support. Only love.
And then, just as the bridge began to build, she watched Leanne be lifted into the air. Palms pressing her upward. The crowd passing her like a note in class, delicate, full of secrets, handled with care.
Eleanor’s instinct flared—Be careful with her; that’s my baby—but it passed quickly. Nora was laughing, cheering, hands raised. The two of them aglow like living sunshine.
And then she was there. Leanne. On the edge of the stage. Forty-five years old, eyes shimmering like they had when she was four and Eleanor used to sing this very song to lull her to sleep.
Except this time, Leanne wasn’t drifting off.
She was awake.
And Eleanor, guitar steady in her hands, strummed a chord so true it made her knees go weak.
This—this—was the moment she’d been singing toward her whole life.