Page 20 of Night Songs

Upstairs, I found a series of themed guest bedrooms connected by a hallway lined with gold-framed pictures and small placards. The first showed a young Belle in a poofy vintage wedding dress and daisy-studded wig standing next to a middle-aged man in a tuxedo and lustrous tan.I studied the date on the placard, 1967, and did the math. She was my age—eighteen.

The placard identified the man as her first husband, country star Clayton Redd. It said in ’67, he was visiting a friend at a rival label’s studio and heard Belle sing for the first time. He scooped her up from the competition, brought her out on tour, and, in essence, launched her career. Belle’s first four albums were recorded with him, and then later, he produced her crossover albums that made her the big star she is remembered as today. While their romance didn’t last, he would always be known as one of her most important collaborators.

Hess came up behind me and studied the picture over my shoulder. “She hated that dress. But Clayton insisted.”

“Howoldwas he?”

Hess pursed her lips. “I think he was mid-thirties… maybe thirty-four, thirty-five?”

“That’s disgusting.” She looked like a child bride sold off to this bronzed creep.

Hess laughed. “I know this sounds like a cop-out, but things were different back then.” It seemed like she wanted to say more, but she stayed quiet.

“I didn’t know she was married before my dad.”

Hess smiled absently and nodded, but again, she didn’t say more.

We moved on to Belle’s master bedroom, which had a more restrained butterfly theme. Next to her bed, I saw the first photograph in the house that wasn’t a splashy portrait or a posed photo with another celebrity.

I craned my neck to get a better look, but the rope partition kept me at the edge of the room. Hess scooted it aside and gestured forward. “Go ahead.”

I crept gingerly over to the photo and picked up the frame. In it were two women about my age in matching dresses and holding guitars—one glossy, freckled brunette that was undoubtedly a young Hess. The other I didn’t quite recognize—she was bone thin with frizzy copper hair like myown fanned around her head and a feral intensity in the face. I asked Hess who she was.

“That’s Lou.”

I stared back at the photo, embarrassed I hadn’t placed her. But she looked so different from the images I’d seen, as to be an entirely separate person. Even the light inside her burned a different color.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. When your mama took off her wig and makeup, no one recognized her. Even when she was real famous, we could go out to eat in the middle of Nashville and no one would have a clue who she was.”

I stared even harder at the photo, trying to force some recognition beyond my own hair color, perhaps some connection to the warm chest I sometimes dreamt of. But nothing came.

Instead, I noticed what looked like dark branching lines showing through the chiffon neck of the dress.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing at them.

Hess squinted at the image and shook her head. “No idea. Must be a shadow from the camera.” She took the frame from me and set it back on the table. “Let’s see the next room.”

Out in the hallway, the other women joined us as we approached the last door with a sign that saidNO TRESPASSINGin cheery pink cursive. Hess took a key from her pocket, opened it, and let me walk through first.

The child-sized four-poster bed looked like a castle with turrets built around each post. In the far-right corner, there was a wooden jungle gym with a slide leading down to a ball pit. On the other side, there was a tiny white baby grand, a miniature guitar, and a shelf lined with books and beautiful, pristine dolls.

On a small vanity arched with real glass bulbs, a few framed photos stood next to a set of silver hairbrushes. The first photo showed a younger, more effortless Phoebe at the beach with a girl of about two or three in a Tarzan-like bathing suit, flexing her tiny guns like a miniature bodybuilder.

A dark-purple mark slashed across her collarbone.

That little girl was me.

“You used to run around bellowing like a wild woman, so I made you a wild woman’s bikini.” Phoebe laughed from behind me.

I had never seen myself at such a young age; the few childhood pictures I had were from eight or later, and always showed me sitting at the periphery of my aunt’s family, pale and sullen.

Phoebe opened the door next to the vanity, revealing a walk-in closet filled with frilly dresses and tiny patent-leather shoes and a wall affixed with hundreds of different-colored hair bows. She pulled a puff of pink tulle from a rack and held it up to me.

“You remember this? We designed this one together. We called it the cotton-candy dress.”

I brushed my fingers against the tulle as if to test its veracity. I couldn’t fathom such an enchanted childhood, much less one that had belonged to me.

I continued to browse the room and study the various pictures of me as a sunny, uninhibited child. Except for the one with Phoebe, all of them showed me alone.