Chapter Forty-One
When she was a child, Leanne had believed her mother was immortal.
Not in the comic book sense, but in the steady, unshakable way parents seemed to exist. Always there.
Always reachable. An ever-present feminine spirit who knew how to fold sheets just right and who sang lullabies even when she was tired.
Even as an adult, Leanne had taken it for granted that Eleanor would arrive if she called and asked her mother to come over for Sunday dinner.
If she wanted to walk the promenade at Orchard Beach, her mother would lace up her shoes and go.
But now, watching Eleanor onstage—losing the lyrics, blinking like she wasn’t sure where she was—Leanne had felt a cold realization tighten in her gut.
One day, her mother wouldn’t be there. That familiar face, those eyes that had seen her through every version of herself, might someday look right at her and not recognize a thing.
Before she could dwell on the ache forming behind her ribs, hands lifted her into the air.
Leanne gasped—not in fear but in wonder.
A few weeks ago, the thought of crowd-surfing would have terrified her.
And admittedly, there was a slight tingle of fear they might drop her now.
But she’d spent a summer watching people move like waves, and now the hands beneath her were steady, guiding her forward with care.
And suddenly, she was there.
On the stage.
Beside her mother.
Eleanor’s guitar was slung low, her shoulders hunched slightly, bracing for the next chord. Leanne could see it up close now, how her hand trembled on the strings, how her eyes flicked across the crowd like she was still orienting herself.
Leanne wanted nothing more than to pull her mother into a hug, bury her face in her neck like she was still a little girl, and whisper, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
But to do that would stop the music. Would shatter the spell.
So instead, Leanne stepped beside Eleanor, placed her hand lightly over her mother’s where it gripped the microphone and began to sing.
The lyrics came like breath. Like memory. Like home.
Her mother’s hand was warm. Fragile in a way it had never felt before. Leanne squeezed gently, her voice finding the harmony, their words weaving together in the air like ribbon.
Together, they sang.
The song unfurled across the sky, and at last, Leanne saw what her mother had seen all these weeks—the sea of people, the energy, the joy. The eyes shining back.
Terrifying.
Beautiful.
Standing under the heat of the stage lights, with the crowd rippling in front of her like an ever-changing sea, Leanne understood how this became addictive.
The attention. The electricity. The sound of hundreds—no, thousands, hundreds of thousands—of voices echoing back lyrics that had once belonged only to a mother and her daughter. It was intoxicating. A moment that would imprint on a person’s soul.
Her eyes scanned the crowd until they found Nora.
There she was, tangled in the music and in Joe. Arms swaying in the air, her head tilted back in laughter, until Joe’s arm slipped around her shoulders like it belonged there. And maybe it did.
Leanne’s heart squeezed.
That night when Nora had finally crept into the motel room long after midnight, hair windblown and cheeks flushed, Leanne had recognized the blissful disarray of young love.
Only after several minutes did she realize the couple on the picnic bench, locked in a kiss under the stars, had been Joe and Nora.
She wanted to ask what had happened. Wanted to pull her daughter into the warm circle of motherly knowing and ask all the questions. But she didn’t. Nora would tell her when she was ready.
And for now, it was enough to see her daughter smiling like that. Light spilling from her face like it was her own personal sunrise. After all the drama of high school, the heartaches, the self-doubt—this was the kind of joy every mother prayed their child would find.
Behind her, the drummer went wild, pounding the beat into the sky like thunder.
Cymbals clashed in a gleeful frenzy. The guitarist let loose a solo that curled around the audience like the hug she desperately wanted to give.
Someone passed Leanne a tambourine, and she took it without hesitation, slapping it against her thigh in rhythm.
A laugh burst from her chest, loud and bright and so thoroughly free it startled even her.
Leanne wasn’t a musician. Not like her mother. Not like the rest of the band. But she didn’t need to be. Because what she felt wasn’t performance it was harmony.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the chrome microphone stands.
Hair loose. Face bare. Freckles bright against flushed skin.
A lacy top. Cutoff jean shorts. The Leanne she’d left back in New York—polished, restrained, invisible behind layers of responsibility—felt a million miles away.
And good riddance.
All around her, people danced. Colorful clothes swirling, fringe swaying, sweat glistening on open, joyful faces. Didn’t matter who you were or where you came from.
No one was thinking about war. Or dinner. Or making sure the laundry was folded just right.
There were only a million hands in the air.
Swaying.
Beating like a single heart from one soul.
Peace and music, she thought. This is what it means to be alive.
Being up onstage was the cherry on top of this wild, messy, magical search for her mother.
The final brick in the foundation Leanne was building to finally honor herself.
As the song’s last note drifted into the sky, Leanne turned and wrapped her arms around her mother. The hug was tight, warm, unshakable.
“I love you, Mom,” she whispered into Eleanor’s ear, and her mother squeezed back, her frame smaller now than Leanne remembered but still pulsing with that electric kind of strength.
“What’s your name?” the lead singer, Shep Moon, asked, breathless into the mic.
Leanne stepped toward the microphone without hesitation. “Leanne.” Her voice came out clear and proud.
“Your mom’s one hell of a lady.” Shep’s grin was genuine and proud, and it made Leanne wonder just how deep her mother had become entrenched in this world and how much she would miss it when they left.
Leanne turned, pride rising in her chest like a tide. Eleanor gave a sheepish shrug, a smile tugging at her lips.
“That she is,” Leanne said softly.
Before she could say anything else, Shep’s band kicked into a new jam, the guitar riff roaring through the crowd. Another woman appeared from the wings, gripping Leanne’s hand with the urgency of someone who’d done this dozens of times.
“I’m Megan. Come on, let’s get you a band T-shirt,” Megan shouted over the music.
Leanne hesitated, glanced back at her mom, then let herself be pulled gently to the side of the stage.
But she wasn’t going anywhere—not really.
She wasn’t about to fade into the crowd, away from her mother, not after coming this far and finally finding her.
Not when they were finally in the same place, at the same time, singing the same damn song.
She stood just offstage, watching Eleanor lean into Shep, her voice folding into his, as natural as breathing. The two of them radiated joy, rhythm, something unnameable and transcendent.
Megan riffled through a box and held up a T-shirt. Stretched across the front in a psychedelic font, it read “I Heard the Moon. Summer of ’69.”
Leanne took the shirt, her fingers smoothing over the cotton.
The summer Leanne’s mother ran away.
The summer Leanne’s mother ran toward herself.
The summer Leanne finally stopped being afraid to do the same.
Leanne smiled. “Do you happen to have an extra one for my daughter, Nora? She’s somewhere out in the crowd.”
“Mama Lightning must be so thrilled to have her family here,” said the young woman beside her, riffling through the box again to pull out another T-shirt. “Watching her perform like that…” She trailed off, gaze drifting wistfully toward the stage.
“We’re just happy she followed her dream.” Leanne hugged the T-shirts.
“We’re happy too. This summer wouldn’t have been the same without her.” Megan’s voice held something unspoken in it, a fondness. And the way she watched Shep sing made Leanne wonder if the girl had more than admiration tucked behind those eyes.
“Do you play?” Leanne asked.
Megan snapped her attention back to Leanne. “Me?” She laughed. “No, no—I’m just the manager.”
Leanne raised an eyebrow. “Just the manager?”
Megan shrugged, cheeks pink. “Well, yeah. I don’t play an instrument or anything.”
“Honey,” Leanne said, a smirk curling at the corner of her mouth, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s that the person who manages things is never just anything.”
That earned a genuine smile from Megan. “They wouldn’t have made it without me.”
“Exactly.”
Just like Dean wouldn’t have made it without her. Without the perfectly timed breakfasts. The ironed shirts. The polite, composed dinner parties where she played hostess with a practiced smile and a glass of white wine she never finished. Without the life she’d shaped around his needs like clay.
Except now? She was done managing.
Let someone else keep the trains running on time.
Leanne was ready to miss a train or two. Maybe hop a different one entirely.
She tucked the shirts under her arm and turned her gaze back to the stage, where her mother, her wild, impossible, fearless mother, sang her heart out beneath the Woodstock sun.
And for once, Leanne didn’t feel like the grown-up in the room.
She felt like someone just beginning.
She was ready to live.