Chapter 23
SEVEN YEARS LEFT
For the first few weeks, we floated around the house, avoiding each other. I worried if we got too close, I would feel his need and he would feel mine, and the power of it would pull us both under.
The only thing that kept me going was the hope that the music would return once my body was clean and ready to receive it again. I woke up every morning and craned my ear toward the heavens, listening for the golden sound.
But it never came.
Tate got himself some religion to get through it.
A preacher drove the devil from his body and introduced him to the healing power of Jesus’s love.
I was happy for him, but I didn’t have the stomach for church after the way I’d been treated as a child.
I was truly afraid that God had forsaken me for my sins—why else would he take my music away?
And I didn’t think going to church every Sunday would fix it.
I needed to heal my soul.
So I threw myself into the study of music. I had to relearn it from the beginning now that I no longer had a direct line to its source. I took lessons in piano to understand composition, and in drums to understand the beat. I read books about music history and theory.
I listened to the symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, Renaissance church choirs, and the rock operas of Queen.
Ethiopian jazz, tango, and Tibetan chants.
This was grand, lifting music that captured and transcended existence, that connected with the divine.
I’d always relied so heavily on the sounds in my own head, that I hadn’t truly explored the music that lived outside of it.
As my world opened up, I became obsessed with creating a large, all-encompassing sound.
After I sobered up, I also apologized to my friends for the way I’d treated them. It was easier with Phoebe and Tima because we hadn’t toured together.
But Martha had seen the worst.
Sometimes I would get a flash of one of our arguments from her last days on tour, and my own words would turn my stomach.
I couldn’t believe some of the things I’d said to push her away.
I’d disrespected her and put her career in jeopardy.
I’d taken her hard-won trust, and I’d thrown it in the trash.
Even after she forgave me, there was still a distance between us.
I tried to reach her through music, which had always brought us together, but when I went to a bar or a venue, all I wanted was a drink. The music scene in Nashville was not a dry environment.
Undeterred, Tate organized these sober music nights at my house.
It was amazing how much the sound in Nashville had changed; now everyone wanted to be an outlaw.
I watched this skinny young thing play in our living room one night, and I could tell she was shaking a bit.
It reminded me of when I was starting out, and I’d wanted it so badly.
I’d been filled with this light of music that I’d squandered.
But I tried not to wallow in self-pity. Instead, I talked to the girl afterward and offered advice. I made new friends.
Drugs have a way of turning you in on yourself, of flattening your emotions and your interactions with other people. You become gray and solitary, despite the colors that surge inside when it hits. An illusion of vibrance.
Now, I was finding new colors. I was returning to people.
But if I’m being honest—and that’s what I want to do, be honest here—some days the music and people just weren’t enough.
I only had seven years left. Did I really want to live my last years denying myself pleasure?
Or relief? I understood it for Tate, who could live for fifty more years if he wanted.
But for me, I was starting to question the point of it.
Sobriety and goodness hadn’t returned my music or God’s light to my life.
One night I walked in toe-numbing cold to our usual diner.
I sat in the booth eating pie and ice cream and staring hard at the table’s glitter-flecked linoleum.
The pie was flavorless, and I was empty.
Not even Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” playing on the jukebox could provoke a feeling.
It was music, goddammit, the one thing that had always fed me. And I felt nothing.
I wondered if I’d ever feel good again, or if this was as good as sober got.
I thought about the plans I’d been making. The tricky part would be hiding it from my people. I imagined a double life, where I could have everything I wanted, and no one would get hurt.
I felt the table tilt, and I looked up to see Martha sitting across from me with a stony expression. I glanced around the diner to see if anyone else had noticed her; I thought I was hallucinating.
“Tate called. He woke up and you were gone.” She lit a cigarette. “Thought I might find you here.”
I was afraid to open my mouth. I didn’t know what would come tumbling out.
“I know that look.” She paused, exhaled. “When I stopped drinking, the hardest part was the time after I got sober and put my life back together, maybe weeks or months later, when I thought I’d get back to where I was before. But all I felt was nothing.”
She looked up at me to see if it was registering. “That right there”—she tapped a finger on the table—“that nothing was the greatest danger.”
I didn’t know she’d had a problem. I’d thought the not drinking was part of her stoic musician persona.
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do.” She signaled to the waitress for a cup of coffee. “I’m gonna make a phone call, during which you are gonna stay in that seat and not move.” She eyed me like don’t fuck with me, girl. “Then we’re gonna sit here and drink our coffee until the sun comes up.”
Later, as we drove away from town, purple light spread across the horizon. I was right on the edge, living moment to moment. One more minute gone. Then another. Just make it to that stop sign. Just make it to that tree. Just make it to wherever Martha was taking us.
We pulled up on a small airstrip in a field miles away from civilization. There were a few baby planes lined up next to a large barn. A man in his forties or so greeted us in the morning chill, and he pulled Martha in for a long hug before he turned to me.
“Good morning, Ms. Powers, I’m Rick.” He was handsome in a quiet, weather-beaten way. “I hear you need a little help.”
I should have been angrier than a hornet—a stranger? Now? But I was grateful for the distraction, and there was something comforting about how much life had worn this man in.
He led me over to a tiny two-seater plane and opened the door. I looked back at Martha, who leaned against her truck, watching us from a distance. She urged me on with her silence.
I climbed in. It smelled like oil and old wool, and I was surprised by the simplicity of the interface.
Rick gave me a headset and fiddled with the controls while he explained each action.
The engine started, and the propellers whirred.
He steered us toward the small runway, the vibration shaking my teeth.
Then he floored it, and we shot down the asphalt, gaining speed, until we lifted up, my stomach twisting, gravity clinging to my body.
As we rose through the air, rising above the sun, the heavy pull evaporated.
I floated, weightless.
When we hit sky, he showed me how to steer the plane, and he let me take over the controls.
I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. I knew when I would die.
The country looked small beneath us as I carved our path toward the horizon. It was safe up there, like nothing could touch you—not the devil, or man, or any of their laws. It was a new kind of nature—one with true open spaces.
A flock of birds came up next to us, and as we flew together, something like a song filled my head—not exactly music, but a feeling so high and colored that it felt like a melody. I spotted a cloud up ahead, outlined in flaring pink gold, and it looked like Heaven must be behind it.
After a while, Rick took over and returned us to the land of the living and the dead. The weight returned, but it was lighter and easier to bear.
Neither of us felt the need to speak as Martha drove us back toward town.
I had felt something up there, and I wanted more of it. Maybe that was the addict talking, but I didn’t care.
I wanted to fly.