Chapter Twenty-Eight - One-Night Permission
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
One-Night Permission
At the start of our ninth week apart, Eli asked through Priya. The route of the request mattered first. It came as a written request from his lawyer to mine, not by text or a call during one of the silences I had asked him to respect. Priya forwarded it with one sentence above the attachment.
This is a request, not a legal emergency. You can say no. I was at the library piano when it arrived. The porch-light song finally had a chorus. It was imperfect, but real.
I had played it three times before opening the email because I wanted the new song to exist for five uninterrupted minutes before the old one asked something else from me. The request was one page.
The Songwriters Relief Benefit had been scheduled at the Ashford Theater for the following Saturday. Eli had agreed to appear without fee. The organizers wanted him to perform “The Light That Waited” as part of a segment about songwriting attribution and emergency assistance for working musicians.
I stopped reading. The Ashford Theater.
Same stage. Same song. My body remembered the first night before my thoughts did.
Gold light. Sadie in white. My own voice hidden beneath the bridge.
Muse. Applause striking hard enough to feel physical. I closed the attachment.
Then reopened it. The proposed performance would use the original 2009 arrangement, not the duet. No altered bridge. No sample from my home demo. No Sadie. And Eli was asking for my written permission before agreeing to sing it. I called Priya.
“You read it.”
“I did.”
“You do not have to answer today.”
“Why does he need my permission if the theater already has music licenses?”
There was a short pause.
“I am delighted you asked that before assuming the paperwork is magic.”
“Please enjoy the moment quietly.”
“The venue’s ordinary public-performance licensing is a separate issue.
This request is narrower. Under the settlement, Eli agreed that certain uses of the composition connected to this dispute and its promotional framing would require your written approval.
He also appears to be asking because he does not want to rely on whatever he could arguably do without asking you. ”
“So this is partly contract and partly him asking.”
“Both.”
“Could he perform the song somewhere under normal licensed circumstances without emailing me every time?”
“Depending on the circumstances and the applicable licenses, yes. We did not write an absurd settlement.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I worked very hard not to.”
I turned on the piano bench.
“What exactly are they asking me to approve?”
“One live performance at the benefit. The television broadcast of that performance. Associated promotional clips limited to the event. Accurate songwriter credit.”
“Clips.”
“We can narrow them.”
“I want them narrowed.”
“Then narrow them.”
“No documentary.”
“Already excluded.”
“No behind-the-scenes package about our marriage.”
“Not requested.”
“No rehearsal footage with sad piano music under it.”
Priya was silent.
“What?”
“I am deciding whether ‘sad piano music’ belongs in a contract.”
“It should.”
“It will not.” A smile caught me off guard.
Then I looked again at the venue name.
“Why there?”
“The benefit was booked before this dispute. Ashford is one of the partner venues.”
“So he didn’t choose it.”
“He didn’t.” Knowing he had not engineered the venue eased something. Then it didn’t.
“Does he know what that stage means?”
“He does.”
“How?”
“His lawyer’s email says he understands the venue mirrors the original public harm and will not proceed unless you are comfortable with that.”
My eyes dropped to the black-and-white keys. The first public wound had happened because everybody assumed I would absorb the meaning privately. Now they were waiting for my answer before putting the song on the same stage again.
“What does Eli want to say?”
“He attached proposed remarks.”
“Read them.”
“I would prefer you read them.”
“Why?”
“Because if I read them, my tone becomes part of the evidence in your head.”
Annoying woman. I opened the second attachment.
Eight sentences. No speechwriter polish. At least none I could detect.
The first line: Before I sing this song, the credit needs to be spoken correctly. Then:
“The Light That Waited” was written by June Bennett Mercer. The words are hers. The melody is hers. I recorded it, and for years I accepted public credit that belonged to her.
I kept reading. He named no villain. He did not mention Nolan. He did not describe himself as deceived. He did not call our marriage broken or healed.
The final line was: I am performing it tonight because June gave written permission for this performance. Permission is not forgiveness, and I will not ask her for anything from this stage. I stopped. Priya waited.
“He wrote that?”
“I cannot authenticate authorship of prose over the phone.”
“You are impossible.”
“Frequently.” I reread the final line. Permission is not forgiveness.
“Do you want to approve the remarks?” Priya asked.
“Not yet.”
“Then hold it.”
“I want conditions.”
“That is why I am here.”
I took my notebook and turned to a blank page.
“First: my name first.”
“In the spoken introduction?”
“Everywhere. Program. Broadcast lower-third. Online clip title where they control it. Event caption. Songwriter credit.”
“Reasonable. Some platforms may reformat metadata outside their control.”
“Then say where reasonably controllable.”
“That works.” I added it to my notes.
“Second: no proposal.” Priya did not laugh.
“Marriage proposal?”
“Any proposal. No ring. No invitation to come home. No ‘June, if you’re watching.’ No turning the audience into pressure.”
“I can draft that.”
“Third: no camera cut to me.”
“You are not attending.”
“Exactly.”
“The producers asked whether you might.”
“I’m not.”
“So no remote feed, prerecorded reaction, surprise connection, or camera waiting outside Switchback?”
The fact that she could list those possibilities made me tired.
“All of that.”
“Done.”
“Fourth: nobody says this performance means I forgave him.”
“Already close to his proposed line.”
“I want it contractual, not just a line he can forget under lights.”
“All right.” I studied the page. There was one more condition I had not known I wanted.
“He sings it exactly as written.”
Priya’s voice softened.
“The original composition?”
“Yes. No new bridge. No lyric changes to make the moment fit.”
“I’ll include it.”
“No duet.”
“Not requested.”
“Still include it.”
“Fine.”
“And no use of my home-demo recording.”
“Also not requested.”
“Priya.”
“I’m writing.” The list settled me because it controlled the use, not Eli. For years, the song had moved through rooms as though once I let go of it, everybody else became entitled to decide what it meant. This time the permission had edges.
“What happens if I say no?” I asked.
“Then he does not perform it at the benefit under this proposed arrangement.”
“And the event?”
“Continues without the song.”
“No breach?”
“Not from you saying no to a request they conditioned on your consent.”
No catastrophe. No crew losing jobs. No tour collapsing. No national emergency because June Bennett had used the word no. For once, no was allowed to stay the size of itself.
“Send the conditions.”
“You are not granting permission yet?”
“Not until he accepts them.”
“Then send them.”
The response came four hours later. Accepted without revision.
All of them. Priya sent me the marked agreement.
My name first. No proposal or reconciliation request. No direct or indirect audience pressure.
No camera shot, remote feed, prerecorded reaction, or location filming involving me.
No representation that the performance purchased, proved, or implied forgiveness.
Exact original lyrics and melody. No home-demo sample.
One performance. One live broadcast. Limited event clips. No documentary or unrelated promotional reuse. One clause made me stop.
CREDIT: JUNE BENNETT MERCER.
My full name—not June Mercer, Mrs. Eli Mercer, or “Eli Mercer’s wife and longtime collaborator.”
I called Priya again.
“Do I have to use Mercer?”
“No. Tell me what you want the credit to be.”
I looked at the words. At Switchback I had crossed Mercer out once because I needed to see Bennett standing by itself. Later I had put the whole name on the performance list because marriage had not made the name counterfeit. Both choices had been mine.
“Leave it.”
“June Bennett Mercer?”
“Leave it.”
“You’re sure?”
“No one gets to interpret the surname.”
“That is not enforceable.”
“You understand the point.”
“I do.” Renaming myself merely to make the public understand that I was independent would have been another performance. Bennett was mine. Mercer was mine too until I chose otherwise. The credit could tell the truth without performing a separation I had not decided on.
Priya added another limitation while we were talking: the benefit could identify me as songwriter, but could not use my photograph, biography, marital status, or excerpts from the dispute to market the broadcast without separate approval.
“They can say who wrote the song,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“They cannot sell me as the wife who finally let him sing it.”
“Correct.”
“Put that in language even a television producer can fear.”
“I’ll do my best.”
At the bottom was Eli’s signature. Mine was not there yet.
I left his signature on the screen for a long time.
The last time he stood on the Ashford stage, nobody had shown me the final bridge.
The dedication had been kept from me too.
Nobody had asked whether my voice could be used.
The surprise had been part of the product.
Now surprise had been removed from the room. There was nothing romantic about that. I found it deeply romantic anyway. That annoyed me.
At six, I went to Switchback. Ada was writing the dinner special on the chalkboard.
“Question,” I said.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“If somebody asks permission for something, agrees to every condition, and you still feel afraid to say yes, what does that mean?”
She kept writing.
“Could mean no.”
“What else?”
“Could mean yes matters.”
I waited. She turned.
“You want the longer version?”
“I’m already regretting the short one.”
Ada set down the chalk.
“Then don’t answer from the chalkboard. Go home, sleep on it, and see whether yes still feels like yours in the morning.”
I looked at her over the counter.
“That was suspiciously insightful.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“Eli said that about eggs.”
“Then he stole it.”
I laughed. The fear remained. But it had changed shape. Saying yes to the performance would not mean I had lost the right to say no to him. That was the entire point of the agreement.
Different questions. Different answers. I went home before dark. At the kitchen table, I opened the authorization again. The signature box waited.
JUNE BENNETT MERCER.
I thought about watching the first performance from the theater’s front row while my name sat taped to the chair as somebody else’s possession. I would not be in that chair this time. I would be home. Maybe Ada would watch with me. Maybe I would turn it off halfway through.
Maybe hearing the original song on that stage would hurt more than I expected. The permission did not obligate me to witness it. That helped too.
I signed. A copy returned immediately with both signatures. For one strange second, I expected Eli to text. He did not.
No thank-you. No heart. No question about whether this meant I was ready to talk. I closed the laptop and went to the porch. The light over the door came on automatically as dusk settled over Alder Ridge.
On the kitchen table behind me, both signatures sat beneath the one-night license.