Page 103 of Night Songs

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I… I thought I was respecting her privacy.” He looked away, ashamed. “I wasn’t around when she was using drugs. But it reminded me of people I’d known in the past. I can’t say for sure, but I wondered…” He drifted off, uncertain of whether he should continue.

That same theory again. I wondered if he and Hess had spoken or merely arrived at the same conclusion separately.

“Did she tell you anything about a curse?”

He frowned. “Acurse? What do you mean?”

“Like a family curse.”

His frown deepened. “No.”

“What about theCursed Womanalbum?”

He gave me a perplexed look. “I didn’t work on that one.”

“She never spoke about the inspiration behind it?”

“No, we didn’t talk about her old work. Not even the albums we’d made together in the past. She was always focused on what was next.”

“Okay.” I paused. “Can I listen to the rest of the tape?” I asked furtively.

He eyed me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please. I need to hear it.”

He clicked his tongue and exhaled. “All right.”

The next few tracks were just like the first one—unsettling, spine-tingling music set to lyrics that imagined different ways she might die. I gritted my teeth against the visions, attempting to stay focused on the words themselves and what I could learn from them.

Around the fourth or fifth track, instead of music or singing coming through the speakers, I heard only my mother’s voice, telling a story:

I was surprised to find England wasn’t so different from where I’d grown up. The Brits had a real sense of humor that was dry and self-deprecating. Life was pretty simple and gray there, but they got a laugh out of it.

Martha and I played small clubs out in the countryside, and then afterward Tate and I got pissed on pints with the locals. There wasn’t much to do but drink.

Tate knew a band who’d rented a house nearby, and he, Martha, and I went to visit them…

“What is this?” I asked him.

“Oh, right. I forgot about that one. She asked me to cut that out and send it to her on a separate tape, but I never got around to it. She said she was recording stories for you so you could have them when you got older.”

Holy shit.

I continued to listen as my mother told me a story about doing heroin with my father for the first time at an English manor rented out by a rock band. It sounded more elegant than tawdry, a young person experimenting with ecstasy. I could see why she had done it, and also how it might have taken over her life. It didn’t seem as simple as Hess had made it—my father had been part of the introduction, but my mother had tried it on her own, of her own free will. Was it fair to blame him?

“Are there more stories on here?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, that’s the only one. I think it came to her while she was in the booth, and she wanted to get it down before she forgot.”

My heart sank. “Do you know where the other recordings are?”

He shook his head again. “No, I don’t.”

If only I could find those tapes.

His eyes watered, and I saw that he was exhausted. “If you need to rest, please go ahead. But would it be okay if I stayed here and kept listening?”